It is of no concern to the reader why, since that day, I have kept and shall always keep the 13th of January as a private anniversary. No lips shall breathe the secret of what happened that afternoon in the cramped, whitewashed garret of the house in Westgate-street. Even the cracks in the windowpanes, the splashes of ink and the swirling brown damp stains on the ceiling shared in its perfection. It resolved nothing: it was merely perfect, merely itself.
Later that day, the rest of the party dined with the Ruispidge brothers in a private room at the Bell. They returned late, by which time I had retired, and the following morning Mr Carswall pronounced the roads safe enough for travel.
We left Gloucester under convoy of the Ruispidges in their chaise; the brothers had obligingly delayed their departure until we were ready to leave. We drove together along the toll road as far as the turning to Monkshill-park, a circumstance that greatly contributed to Mr Carswall’s peace of mind.
The Ruispidges left us a mile or two from Monkshill. Mr Carswall’s coach crawled up the long, curving lane running along the northern boundary of the park to Flaxern Parva. As we passed Grange Cottage, I noticed that the shutters were open, and that smoke was emerging from two of the chimneys.
“Mrs Johnson must be coming home soon,” Miss Carswall said. “She may be back already.”
Sophie glanced at me. “She has made a swift recovery.”
“Yes – Lady Ruispidge will be so relieved, I’m sure. And Sir George, of course.”
At last the coach entered the drive of Monkshill-park. Carswall drew out his watch and studied the dial, whistling tunelessly and noiselessly as he did so. He announced with grim satisfaction that our speed from Gloucester had been, on average, four and three-quarter miles per hour, a commendable achievement given the inclement weather.
We drew up outside the house. The boys ran to greet us. I saw with a pang of jealousy how Sophie – as I now allowed myself to think of her – seized upon Charlie as if she were starving and he a loaf of newly baked bread. Mrs Kerridge and Harmwell came out, and Sophie at once inquired after Mr Noak.
“He is much improved, ma’am, thank you,” Salutation Harmwell said in his sonorous voice.
“What are these boys doing?” cried Carswall. “Have they run mad in our absence?”
“Oh, Papa,” said Miss Carswall. “It is only that they are pleased to see us. Look, the dogs are acting in just the same way.”
“I cannot abide children under my feet. Besides, it is clear they want instruction in manners as well as their schoolbook. Take them away, Shield, and make them learn something. And if they will not apply themselves, use the strap.”
I said nothing. I was still in my greatcoat, and I was hungry and thirsty and cold.
“Get along, man,” roared Carswall. “I do not pay you to stand there gawping at your boots.”
For a moment there was the sort of silence that precedes a scream, as if everyone in the hall were holding his breath. Carswall had never before spoken so rudely to me: and this was in public, in front of the boys, the servants and the ladies. In Gloucester he had spent most of his waking hours on his best behaviour, and now at last, I suppose, he could be comfortable after his own fashion: he was like a man who, when the company has gone, spits in the fireplace and breaks wind in the drawing room.
I would like to say that I made some grand romantic gesture: that I dashed my glove across the old tyrant’s face and demanded satisfaction, or at the very least stormed out of his house, vowing I would never darken his doors again. Instead, mindful of Sophie, mindful of my precarious place in Mr Carswall’s scheme of things and at Mr Bransby’s school, I kept silent. I walked up the stairs. I heard the boys pounding after me.
“Come, come,” Carswall said below me. “Why are we standing here? Pratt! Is there a fire in the library?”
I do not know whether the boys sensed my shame or my anger, but they were remarkably obliging for the rest of the afternoon. They did not whisper to each other; they construed and translated as though their lives depended on it. While they were working, I could not help thinking of Sophie, and at times I looked at Charlie and tried to trace her dear features in his face.
A little before five o’clock, I tired of this unnatural diligence, not least because I disliked the knowledge that I was the object of the boys’ fear or their pity, or possibly both. I asked them what they had been doing while we had been away and the flow of their conversation soon swept away the barriers of reserve between us.
“It was like a holiday, sir,” Edgar said. “Mr Noak kept to his bed the whole time, and there were only the servants.”
“So you ran wild?”
“Oh, no, sir,” cried Charlie. “Well, not very often. Kerridge would not let us.”
“So she kept an eye on you?”
“She and Mr Harmwell. Did you know, he has an immense fund of stories. Ghost stories that chill the blood.”
The boys looked anything but chilled. They needed little encouragement to launch into one of Mr Harmwell’s stories, a garbled tale about a pirate’s treasure situated on an island off South Carolina and involving a one-legged ghost armed to the teeth with cutlass and pistols. When a ship foundered nearby, and a poor boy was cast away on the island, this amiable ghost encouraged him to find instructions written in cipher to the treasure’s location. Clearly an enterprising youth, the intrepid hero deciphered the code and found the treasure, which necessitated excavating a pile of skulls and digging until he discovered first the headless skeletons of a number of pirates and then the iron-bound chest containing the treasure itself.
“Guineas, doubloons, louis d’ors,” said Charlie.
“Chalices and crucifixes and watches,” said Edgar.
“And what did the boy do with all this?” I inquired.
“Why, sir,” Charlie said, “Harmwell told us that he bought a great estate and married a wife and had many children and lived happily ever after.”
“He only said it to please Mrs Kerridge,” Edgar explained.
“So she was there too?”
“She was nearly always there when Mr Harmwell was.” Charlie paused before adding in a matter-of-fact voice, as though it was so obvious it hardly needed saying, “I believe they are courting.”
Edgar said, “You can always tell when people are spoony upon each other.”
“Yes,” Charlie agreed. “You can.”
I glanced at the boys and wondered if there was more to this remark than there seemed.
“Oh,” Charlie went on. “How I wish I was rich like the boy in the story.”
I wished I were rich, too. As the evening continued, I wished it more and more. I went down to dinner and found that Mr Noak was still not well enough to leave his room, which was perhaps the reason I had been summoned to dine with the family. The meal was a quiet, sad affair, with the five of us occupied with our thoughts. Afterwards, in the drawing room, I tried very hard to get Sophie to talk to me. But she slipped away from me and a moment later announced to everyone that she had a headache and would retire early.
Perhaps the sight of Charlie had reminded her what was important, and what was not. In any event, I thought I read in her silent, unsmiling face the blunt and unwanted truth that she now regretted what had occurred, and disliked me for the part I had played.