Richard and Judy Bookclub - 3 Bestsellers in 1: The American Boy, The Savage Garden, The Righteous Men
must get him to the cottage and summon help.”
I cleared my throat. “I suggest Charlie runs back across the park.”
“Oh yes,” he cried. “I’ll go like the wind.”
“That is very kind of you, ma’am,” Mrs Frant said. “But we cannot possibly put you to so much trouble.”
“It is no trouble whatsoever,” Mrs Johnson replied. “It is no more than common sense.”
“Then thank you.” There was colour in Mrs Frant’s cheeks, and I knew she was angry, but not why. “Charlie, will you give Cousin Flora my compliments, explain that Edgar has hurt his ankle and that Mrs Johnson has invited us into her cottage, and desire her to send the chaise with Kerridge.”
Mrs Johnson’s large, brown, slightly protuberant eyes ran down me from head to foot. Without a word, she turned back to Mrs Frant. “Could not this – this gentleman go? Surely he would reach the house sooner than your son?”
“I think it would not answer. We shall need Mr Shield to carry Edgar.”
Mrs Johnson glanced back at her own house. “I could send to the village for –”
“Pray do not trouble yourself, ma’am. If Mr Shield will be so obliging, we shall manage very well as we are. I would not want us to put you to more trouble than we need. By the by, I do not think you have met my son’s tutor. Give me leave to introduce Mr Shield. Mr Shield, Mrs Johnson, our neighbour.”
We bowed to each other.
A moment later, Charlie ran off to fetch help. I lifted Edgar on to my back and plodded down the valley to the palings, where a gate led directly into Mrs Johnson’s untidy garden. She led us to the front of the house. It was not a large establishment – indeed, it barely qualified as a gentleman’s residence – and it was evident at a glance that it was in a poor state of repair.
“Welcome to Grange Cottage,” Mrs Johnson said with a hard, ironical inflection in her voice. “This way, Mr Shield.”
She flung open the front door and led us into a low, dark hall. A portmanteau and a corded trunk stood at the foot of the stairs.
“Ruth! Ruth! I want you!”
Without waiting for a reply Mrs Johnson ushered us into a small parlour lit by a bow-window. A tiny fire burned in the grate.
“Pray put the boy down on the sofa. You will find a footstool by the bureau. Perhaps you would be so kind as to put more coals on the fire. If we wait for my maid to do it, we shall wait an age.”
Wincing and murmuring thanks, Edgar sat on the sofa. He was very pale now, the skin almost transparent. Mrs Frant knelt beside him, helped him out of his coat and chafed his hands. The servant came almost at once, despite her mistress’s poor opinion of her, and Mrs Johnson ordered blankets, pillows and sal volatile drops.
“Perhaps we should send for the surgeon,” I suggested.
“The nearest is two or three miles beyond Flaxern Parva,” Mrs Johnson said. “The best plan will be to wait until you are back at Monkshill, and then have them send a groom over.”
“I am sorry we are the cause of so much inconvenience to you,” Mrs Frant said.
Mrs Johnson did not reply. The silence extended for longer than good manners allowed. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, and a floorboard creaked beneath me. The sound seemed to act as a trigger.
“Not at all, Mrs Frant,” said Mrs Johnson smoothly. “It is a pleasure to be of service to a neighbour. It is fortunate that you find me still here, in fact – Lady Ruispidge has asked me to stay for a week or so; her carriage will be calling for me this afternoon.”
There was another, shorter silence.
“And – and how was Lieutenant Johnson when you last had news of him?” Mrs Frant said.
“Not in the best of spirits,” Mrs Johnson said harshly. “He does not like the West Indian station, and since the Peace there is little hope of either promotion or prize-money.”
“I understand many naval officers are now on half-pay, but he is not. So surely the Admiralty must place a high value on his services?”
“He would like to think so.” Mrs Johnson sat down. “Any employment, he says, is better than none. But the ship is old, and is likely to be sold out of the Service or broken up. So he will have to find another captain in need of a first lieutenant.”
“I am sure his merits must win him many friends.”
“I fear your optimism may be misplaced. It is influence, not merit, that counts. Still, we should not grumble. After all, it is a harsh world, is it not, Mrs Frant?”
Mrs Frant’s colour rose in her cheeks. “There are many who are less fortunate than us, no doubt.”
“You have given up your house in town, I collect?”
“Yes.”
“It was in Russell-square, was it not? It is not a part of London I am familiar with.”
I looked sharply at Mrs Johnson. She was staring with a curious fixity of expression at Mrs Frant, almost as though daring her to disagree.
“It is very pleasant,” Mrs Frant said. “It is quieter than in the West End, of course, and less populous.”
The ladies’ words were scrupulously polite but their silences and expressions told a different story, one with darker undercurrents. Though it may sound absurd to say such a thing of them, they acted like a pair of dogs looking for an opportunity to fly at each other’s throats. As so often in my acquaintance with the Carswalls and the Frants, I had the sensation that everyone else knew more than I did, a sensation that familiarity had not made any less disagreeable.
Nor was this the only mystery that concerned Mrs Johnson. As she and Mrs Frant were exchanging their barbed platitudes, I recalled Miss Carswall’s remarks outside the church on Christmas Day about seeing her in Pall Mall, and Mrs Johnson vehemently denying she had been in town during the autumn. She protested too much, just as Fanny had done.
Just as Fanny –
The thought of the girl I had once loved, and whom I was now relieved not to have won, brought another memory to mind. I recalled the dark-haired lady I had seen climbing into a hackney in Southampton-row in October when I called at Russell-square to take Charlie Frant to school. She, too, had reminded me of Fanny, as Mrs Johnson did; and the more I considered the matter, the more I thought it at least possible that the lady had in fact been Mrs Johnson herself. Southampton-row led into Russell-square. But Mrs Johnson had gone out of her way to deny all knowledge of the neighbourhood.
“Ruth is taking an age,” Mrs Johnson said after another pause in the conversation. “How very convenient it must be to have a large number of well-trained servants at one’s beck and call.”
“I am sure we are giving her a great deal of extra work.” Mrs Frant cleared her throat. “It was very pleasant to meet Captain Jack Ruispidge yesterday. He spoke so kindly of my father.”
“Yes, my cousin Jack is nothing if not amiable.” Mrs Johnson hesitated in the way a fencer hesitates, timing his thrust to perfection. “If he has a fault, it is that he likes to be liked, especially by the ladies.”
At that moment, the maidservant appeared with the blankets, the pillows and the smelling salts. To allow her room to approach the sofa, I stood up and retreated into the recess formed by the little bow-window. I glanced outside. A small, overgrown shrubbery had crept close to this wall of the cottage, and the dark green leaves of the laurels crowded against this side of the window.
An involuntary exclamation burst from my lips. For an instant, peering out of that tangled foliage, I glimpsed a face with staring eyes.
“Why, what is it, Mr Shield?” Mrs Frant asked.