Richard and Judy Bookclub - 3 Bestsellers in 1: The American Boy, The Savage Garden, The Righteous Men

The ball at the Bell Inn was on Wednesday, the 12th January. It formed the principal topic of conversation at Monkshill-park in the week before – where our party would lodge, what they should wear, whom they would encounter and whom they would like to encounter. The boys and I were to stay at Monkshill.

On Monday, two days before the ball, I came into the small sitting room to look for my pupils and found Miss Carswall with her nose in a book on the sofa by the fire. I explained my errand.

“Why not let them run wild this afternoon?” She yawned, exposing very white, very sharp teeth. “There is nothing so fatiguing as a printed page, I find.”

“What is it you are reading?”

She held out a cloth-bound duodecimo volume. “Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book,” she said. “It is a treasure house of valuable information. Here it tells you how to make a mutton-ham, which sounds a monstrous contradiction, and probably tastes like one too. And here are two and a half pages devoted solely to the laundry maid and her duties. It is so lowering. I had not realised there was so much useful knowledge in the world. It seems quite boundless, like the Pacific Ocean.”

I said something civil in reply, along the lines of being sure that a student of her ability would soon acquire all the knowledge she needed.

“The study of books does not come easily to me, Mr Shield. You must not think me a blue, far from it. But Papa believes that every woman should know domestic economy.” Her eyelids fluttered. “He bids me model myself in that respect on Lady Ruispidge.” Her hand flew to her left eye. “Oh!”

“What is it, Miss Carswall?”

“I believe I have something in my eye.” Miss Carswall rose unsteadily to her feet, pouting with vexation, and examined her face in the mirror above the fireplace. “I cannot see anything in it but the light is so bad over here. It is such an irritation.”

“Shall I ring the bell?”

“They will take an age to come, and then they will have to find my maid. No, Mr Shield, would you be very kind and come with me over to the window and see if you can see it? Whatever it might be. It is unlikely to be a fly at this time of year. Perhaps a speck of soot or a hair. Even an errant eyelash can have such a profound and disproportionate effect on human happiness.”

I followed her to the window where she turned and held her face up to me. I came close to her and peered into her left eye. When you are near a woman, you smell her scent, not just the perfume she is wearing but the entire olfactory nature of her – a compound of perfume, the odour of her clothes, and the natural animal smell underlying all.

“Pray turn your head a little to the left,” I said. “There – that is better.”

“Can you see anything? In the corner.”

“Which corner?”

She giggled. “I am not thinking clearly. The inner corner.”

I brought my face a little closer so that I could see more clearly and, simultaneously, she raised herself on tiptoe and turned her face an inch or so to the right. Her lips brushed mine.

I gave a startled yelp and jumped back.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Shield,” she said with complete composure.

“I – I beg your pardon,” I muttered wildly, my heart beating like a drum.

“Not at all. At first I thought the hair had been dislodged but I think it is still there. I wonder if I might trouble you to have another look.”

She raised her face up to me again and smiled. I brought my mouth down on hers and felt her lips move and for an instant part against mine. Then her hands caught mine and she took a step back.

“Come away from the window,” she murmured, and like figures in a dance we moved a few paces together, as one creature, and then began to kiss again. She rested her hands on my shoulders and I ran my palms over her hips. Her warmth enveloped me like a flame.

Thirty seconds? A minute at most. There was a clatter on the other side of the door. We sprang apart. In an instant, I was contemplating the view across the terrace to the river far below, while Miss Carswall was seated on the sofa, turning the pages of Domestic Cookery with an expression of rapt concentration on her face. A plump maid with a damp red face carried a scuttle of coals into the room. She made up the fire and tidied the grate. While she was still rattling the fire irons, the boys rushed in.

“Mr Harmwell is going to show us how to trap rabbits,” Charlie said proudly. “Ain’t it famous? If we was shipwrecked, you know, like Robinson Crusoe, we could dine like kings on rabbits.”

“How very kind of Mr Harmwell,” Miss Carswall said.

“He is a very kind man,” Charlie said simply. “Edgar says he is quite different from the niggers they have at home.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Most of the ones we have in Richmond are slaves, sir,” the American boy said. “But Mr Harmwell is as free as you or I.”

The maid curtsied and left the room. The boys followed, banging the door behind them.

“And how free is that?” I said.

Miss Carswall giggled. “Free enough in all conscience. I approve of freedom. I am a natural radical.” She rose and came to stand beside me. She glanced out of the window, and the excitement left her face. “Look. Sophie’s coming.”

We moved apart and re-arranged our limbs and our feelings. Mrs Frant passed the window as she made her way along the terrace towards the side door.

I coughed. “Do I understand from Harmwell’s continued presence that Mr Noak stays for a while longer?”

“Yes, had you not heard? At least until after the ball.” Miss Carswall laughed; she appeared wholly self-possessed. “I had the reason from Sophie who had it from Mrs Kerridge, who had it from Harmwell himself. You recall that Kerridge and Harmwell are sweet on one another? It is touching, is it not, and especially at their time of life? Anyway, according to Harmwell, Mr Noak is contemplating the purchase of some property from my father. A warehouse in Liverpool, or some such thing. And there is talk of other investments – you know what gentlemen are like when they begin to talk of their investments. They become like girls talking of their beaux – there is the same blend of fantasy with obsession, the desire for secrecy, the lust for acquisition.”

She had moved away from me now, and sat down again on the sofa. I felt half relieved, half cheated. A moment later, Mrs Frant came into the room and held out her hands to the fire.

“Mrs Johnson is still at Clearland-court, I collect?” she said to Miss Carswall.

“I believe so. I had understood from Sir George that she was staying with them until after the ball. Why?”

“I was walking near the ruins and I saw a man in the garden of Grange Cottage.”

“Her gardener?”

“But she has no gardener now. Only the one maid of all work, Ruth, and she is not there at present. I was too far away to see him clearly but he seemed to catch sight of me, and moved away at once. Do you think we should inform Mrs Johnson?”

“It would be the neighbourly thing to do,” Miss Carswall said. “Could you describe him?”

“Tall and well built. He wore a long brown coat and a broad-brimmed hat. I can tell you nothing about his face. He was so far away, and the collar was turned up, and the brim of the hat was –”

“I will write a note to Mrs Johnson,” Miss Carswall cut in. “If she thinks there is something suspicious, she will consult with Sir George about what to do. I would not for the world want to worry her, but one cannot be too careful in such matters. Perhaps we should send someone to investigate before we raise the alarm.”

“If you like,” I said, “I could walk there now.”

To tell the truth, I welcomed the chance of escaping from that snug parlour. I always found it unsettling to see Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall together, and rarely more than I did on that occasion. I was not proud of my feelings yet I could not pretend that I did not desire them both: though not entirely for the same reasons, and not in the same way.

I found my hat and stick and set out. I was surprised how soon I reached Grange Cottage. Perturbation of the mind and discomfort of the body encourage rapidity of movement. In a sense, perhaps, I was attempting to hurry away from the unholy confusion of my own feelings.

Nothing had changed since my previous visit. The building had the desolate appearance of an untenanted house – somehow reduced in importance by the absence of its owner as is a body by the absence of its animating spirit.

The shutters were still up. I tried the doors: all were locked. As I had done before, I walked round to the kitchen yard at the back. I inspected the muddy patch beside the pump, and found only a confusion of ridges and furrows, brittle with frost, where before there had been an outline of a man’s footprint.

By and by, I returned through the park, walking more slowly than before. I scarcely knew the reason for my unease – whether it was what I might have left behind at Grange Cottage or what I might be walking towards at Monkshill. I skirted the lake by the longer, western route and took the opportunity to investigate both the approach to the ice-house and the shell grotto. I found nothing out of the way, and nor had I expected to do so. I was not following a rational purpose: I wanted to postpone my return, I suppose, and that part of the mind that is mysterious even to its owner was obliging enough to suggest plausible excuses for delay.