stared wide-eyed at Mr Noak.
I said, “We choose passages which display his genius but do not dwell on his less agreeable qualities.”
“Then again, one must ask oneself what is the utility of studying the languages of antiquity? We live in a world where commerce is king.”
“Permit me to remind you, sir, that Latin is the language of natural science. Moreover, the study of the language and the literature of great civilisations cannot be wasted effort. If nothing else it must school the mind.”
“Pagan civilisations, sir,” Noak said. “Civilisations that passed their peak two thousand years ago or more. We have come on a little since then, I fancy.”
“That we have been able to build so high is surely a tribute to the strength of the foundations.”
Mr Noak stared at me but said nothing. In my present position I could hardly afford to anger anybody. Yet he had talked such obvious nonsense that I felt it my duty to advance some counter arguments, if only for Charlie’s sake. At this moment the door opened and Henry Frant came in. The almost foppish elegance of his dress was in stark contrast to Mr Noak’s sober attire. Charlie caught his breath. I had the curious impression that he would have liked to shrink into himself.
“My dear sir,” Frant cried. “How glad I am to see you.”
As he advanced to shake hands, I gathered up our possessions and prepared to leave.
“You have been renewing your acquaintance with Charles, I see, and with Mr Shield.”
Noak nodded. “I am afraid I have disturbed them at their studies.”
“Not at all, sir,” I said.
Mr Noak continued as if I had not spoken. “Mr Shield and I have been having a most interesting conversation concerning the place of the classical languages in the modern world.”
Frant shot me a quick glance but swerved away from this subject. “I have kept you waiting – I am so sorry. It was kind of you to meet me here.”
“How does Mr Wavenhoe do?”
Frant spread out his hands. “As well as can be expected. I fear he may not be with us long.”
“Perhaps you would prefer it –” Noak began.
“I would not on any account postpone our dinner,” Frant said quickly. “Mr Wavenhoe is sleeping now, and I understand from his medical attendants that an immediate crisis is not to be expected. Nor is he expected to wake for some hours. They tell me the carriage is at the door.”
Noak lingered by the fire. “I had wondered whether I might see Mr Carswall here,” he remarked. “He is Mr Wavenhoe’s cousin, is he not?”
“He has indeed been here today, and may look in again,” Frant said smoothly. “But I believe he is not in the way at present.”
“I had the pleasure of meeting him and his daughter briefly the other evening. Though of course I knew him by reputation already.”
At the door, Noak paused, turned and said goodbye to Charlie and myself. At last the door closed and we were alone again. Charlie sat down in his chair and picked up his pen. All the colour and excitement of the afternoon had drained away from his face. He looked pinched and miserable. I told myself that a father must inspire awe in his children as well as affection. But Mr Frant always made it easier for Charlie to fear him than to love him.
“We shall shut up our books for the day,” I said. “Is that a backgammon board on the table there? If you like, I will give you a game.”
We sat opposite each other at the table by the fire and laid out the pieces. The familiar click of the counters and the rattle of the dice had a soothing effect. Charlie became engrossed in the game, which he won with ease. I waited for him to set out the counters again so I might have my revenge, but instead he toyed with them, moving them at random about the board.
“Sir?” Charlie said. “Sir, what is a by-blow?”
“It is a child whose parents are not married to each other.”
“A bastard?”
“Just so. Sometimes people will use words like that when they have no basis in fact, simply with the intention of wounding. It is best to disregard them.”
Charlie shook his head. “It was not like that, sir. It was Mrs Kerridge. I overheard her talking to Loomis –”
“One should not eavesdrop on servants’ tittle-tattle,” I put in automatically.
“No, sir, but I could hardly help overhearing, as they spoke loud and the door was open and I was in the kitchen with Cook. Kerridge said, ‘the poor mite, being a by-blow’, and afterwards when I asked her what it meant, she told me not to bother my head about it. They were talking about Uncle Wavenhoe dying.”
“And she said you were a by-blow?”
“Oh no, sir – not me. Cousin Flora.”
Henry Frant had miscalculated. While he was dining that evening at his club with Mr Noak, George Wavenhoe rallied. For a short time, the old man was lucid, though very weak. He demanded that his family be brought to him.
By then, the Carswalls had returned to the house and were dining with Mrs Frant. Charlie was in bed, and I was reading by the fire in a small sitting room at the back of the house. Mrs Kerridge asked me to wake Charlie and bring him down when he was dressed; she could not go herself because she was needed in the sickroom. A few minutes later, Charlie and I descended to the second floor, where we found Mrs Frant in whispered conversation with a doctor on the landing. She broke off when she saw Charlie.
“My love, your uncle desires to see you. I – he wishes to say farewell.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“You understand my meaning, Charlie?”
The boy nodded.
“It is not at all frightening,” she said firmly. “He is very ill, however. One must remember that soon he will go to Heaven, where he will be made well again.”
“Yes, Mama.”
She looked at me. Her face was very lovely in the soft light. “Mr Shield, would you be kind enough to wait here? I do not think my uncle will detain Charlie for long.”
I bowed.
She and Charlie went into the old man’s room. The doctor followed them. I was left alone with a footman. The man was in his evening livery, his wig a great crest of stiff white powder, his calves like twin tree-trunks encased in silk. He examined his reflection surreptitiously in a pier glass. I paced up and down the passage, pretending to look at the pictures which hung there, though I could not have told you their subjects a moment afterwards. Somewhere in the house I heard the rumble of Stephen Carswall’s voice, fluctuating yet constant, like the sound of the sea on a quiet summer night. The door of the room opened and the physician beckoned me towards him.
“Pray come in for a moment,” he murmured, waving me towards him.
He put his finger to his lips, lifted himself on to tiptoe and led me into the room. It was large and richly furnished in a style which must have been the rage thirty or forty years ago. The walls above the dado rail were covered with silk hangings of deep red. There was a huge chimney glass above the fire which made the room look even larger than it was. Candles on ornate stands burned at intervals around the walls. A large fire blazed in the burnished steel grate, filling the room with a flickering orange glow. What compelled attention, however, was the bedstead itself, a great four-poster with a massive carved wood cornice, hung with curtains of floral-patterned silk.
Amid all this outmoded magnificence, this