“But it will be much more natural if we receive them here, sir,” Mrs Frant said coldly. “They will not want us to make a fuss over them, not for a morning call from neighbours. They will feel more easy if they find us here, engaged in our ordinary occupations. Besides, it will take an age for the drawing room to warm up.”
Carswall looked sharply at her but then nodded. “I daresay you know what you’re about. Very well.”
A moment later Sir George and Captain Ruispidge were announced. First they established that the ankle, the ostensible reason for their call, was as well as could be expected; thanks to Mrs Johnson, the news of the boy’s mishap had already spread to Clearland-court. Lady Ruispidge, it appeared, had interested herself in the case, and inquired most particularly after Edgar.
“She recommends the joint be fomented with vinegar, or camphorated spirits of wine,” Sir George informed Mrs Frant. “If excessively painful, a few drops of laudanum may be added. The treatment should be frequently renewed. And of course the injured part should be kept in a state of rest.”
“How very kind of her,” Mrs Frant said. “Pray thank her for the advice.”
Captain Jack fell to praising the park – he praised the house – he praised its appointments – he compared Clearland-court unfavourably to it – at least, with a glance at his brother, in some respects. Then, somehow, he was sitting beside Mrs Frant and engaging her in conversation. I was too far away to hear what was said but once or twice I noticed her grave face breaking into a smile.
Meanwhile, Sir George and Mr Carswall began to discuss agricultural topics. Owing to Mr Carswall’s ignorance of these, they passed rapidly from the price of corn to politics. When Miss Carswall returned, however, having dressed her hair and changed her gown, Sir George’s attention turned from her father to her. The couple’s conversation had the stately inevitability of an old-fashioned country dance. He inquired whether she preferred the country to the town, to which she replied that they both had much to recommend them. He discovered that she played a little and painted a little. He wondered whether it would interest her to look through some of his mother’s music. Later, after her delighted response to this proposal had run its course, he suggested that when the weather was warmer, it might amuse her to sketch the ruins of Flaxern Abbey down by the river. He could undertake to show her a number of particularly fine viewpoints.
Then he turned to the world of literature. I knew already that Miss Carswall enjoyed sighing over novels and the more sentimental varieties of modern poetry, and that, unlike most of her sex, she read the newspapers assiduously. It soon became apparent, though, that Sir George’s tastes were altogether more serious. Fortunately he did not inquire too closely about her reading but instead described his own. Like many gentlemen, he was convinced of the importance of his own opinions and the manifold advantages that would accrue to those who heard them. He recommended several religious works of an evangelical persuasion and expatiated on the moral beauties of Cowper’s poetry. Miss Carswall played her part gamely but I do not think it came easily to her.
The boys and I said little. There were no rôles for us to play in the billing and cooing between the Carswalls and the Ruispidges. I sat forgotten in my corner. Charlie and Edgar were called over to meet Captain Jack, but their conversation did not last long. Soon it became apparent that the boys were bored.
Edgar took matters into his own hands. He was a headstrong boy, unlike the pliant Charlie, and persuaded Mrs Frant to allow the three of us to withdraw on the grounds that moderate exercise would complete the cure of his ankle. Once outside, Edgar refused to take my arm but accepted a stick. We walked as far as the kitchen gardens and back. On the way, I learned that the boys had not given up their intention of searching for the monks’ treasure.
“They would not hide it in the grange,” Edgar said. “Any more than in the abbey itself. They would be the first places where King Henry’s men would look.”
“They might bury it somewhere near,” Charlie suggested.
“Or find a cave. But I think it very likely they would have hidden it up at Monkshill rather than down by the Abbey. It would be far safer.”
As we were returning to the house, we heard the sound of the curricle receding down the drive. We found the rest of the party still in the small sitting room. Mr Carswall was standing by the window and rubbing his hands with pleasure.
“They are engaged to dine with us when Mr Noak will be here,” he told me, for he needed to tell someone whom he had not told before. He turned back to Miss Carswall. “We must have game, Flora. Nothing but the best. If only Lady Ruispidge will be able to accept as well.”
He ran on in a similar vein for much of the day. There came a moment when Miss Carswall and Mrs Frant were out of the room; I was waiting for the boys to bring down their books; and Mr Carswall was enlarging upon his plans for the dinner party to Mrs Lee. Mrs Lee was his ideal interlocutor for she rarely said anything of significance but knew to perfection when to insert into the flow of someone else’s words those little phrases of assent and interest that are so agreeable and encouraging to the other party.
“I have half a mind to invite Mrs Johnson, too,” Carswall said in his harsh, carrying voice. “After all, it was she who was kind to Edgar. It would be a very proper attention, too: she is a cousin of the Ruispidges, as well as a neighbour. And it would look most odd if we did not ask her, particularly if she is still staying at Clearland.”
Mrs Lee cleared her throat loudly, an action so unusually emphatic that he stared at her in surprise. “I do not know whether you are aware of a certain unhappy circumstance in Mrs Johnson’s early life, sir,” she said in a low tone. “It might be prudent to consider the wisdom of such an invitation very carefully.”
“What? Speak plainly, madam. I cannot understand you if you talk in riddles.”
Mrs Lee drew back in her chair, and the features of her face trembled. But her voice was perfectly steady, though even quieter than before, so quiet I had to strain to hear it: “You must be the best judge, sir. It was merely that I wondered whether you were aware that, before Mrs Johnson’s marriage, there was – or rather it was believed that there was – what they call an understanding between her and Mr Henry Frant.”
Mr Noak was due to arrive on Monday, the 3rd January. The Ruispidges had been invited to dinner the following day. The weather continued very cold – as I have mentioned, it was an exceptionally cold winter that year.
I cannot say that we were a cheerful household. By his very nature, Mr Carswall engendered a domestic strain that affected us all, even the boys, even the servants. Now, after the exchange I had overheard in the library, I knew of another, more specific source of discord. I watched and said nothing. I noted that Mrs Frant avoided an open breach with Mr Carswall but rarely spoke to him or allowed herself to be alone with him. Once I glimpsed an expression of despair on her face when I came across her walking in the garden and believing herself unobserved. One evening I heard the sound of sobbing as I passed her door.
The boys and I were happiest outside. Sometimes we went down to the lake and skated on the ice. I had grown up in the Fens, where the combination of cold winters and an inexhaustible supply of water made skating an acquirement one picked up almost as soon as the ability to walk. The boys lacked this early training, and gave me undeserved credit for my skill on the ice.
One afternoon I saw Miss Carswall and Mrs Frant watching us from the bank. At the time I was skating slowly on the far side of the lake, with a boy attached to either hand. I released Edgar, in order to raise my hat to the ladies. His arms flailed, his body twisted to and fro, but he kept his balance. Vanity prompted me to abandon my charges, and to skate across the lake at speed, and with many graceful pirouettes, on the spurious errand of discovering whether there was anything we might do for our visitors.
“How