Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

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 Brobdingnagian grandeur, was a tiny old man, with no hair and no teeth, with skin the colour of an unlit wax candle, whose hands picked at the embroidery of the coverlet. My eyes were drawn to him, as though the bed were a stage and he the only player on it. This was strange, because in many ways he was the least significant person in the room. Besides the doctor and Mrs Kerridge, who kept back in the shadows, there were four people clustered round the dying man. Near the head of the bed sat Mr Carswall, his body spilling untidily out of a little carved wooden gilt bedroom chair. Standing at his shoulder was Miss Carswall, who looked up as I entered and gave me a swift smile. Facing them across the bed was Mrs Frant, seated in another chair, with Charlie resting on one of the chair's arms and leaning against her.

"Ah, Mr Shield." Carswall waved me forward. "My cousin wishes to add a codicil to his will. He would be obliged if you would witness his signature, along with the good doctor here."

As I stepped forward into the light, I saw on the bed a sheet of paper covered in writing. A writing box lay open on the dressing table nearby.

"The lawyer has been sent for," said Mrs Frant. "Should we not wait until he arrives?"

"That would take time, madam," Carswall pointed out. "And time is the one thing we may not have. There can surely be no doubt about our cousin's intentions. When Fishlake comes, we shall have him draw up another codicil if necessary. But in the meantime, let us make sure that this one is duly signed and witnessed. I am persuaded that Mr Wavenhoe would wish it, and that Mr Frant would see the wisdom of such a course."

"Very well, sir. We must do as my uncle desires. And thank you. You are very good."

While this conversation was going on, the old man lay propped against a great mountain of embroidered pillows. He breathed slowly and noisily through his mouth, sounding like an old pump in need of grease. The eyes were almost closed.

Carswall picked up the sheet of paper from the coverlet. "Flora, the pen."

She brought the pen and the inkpot to her father. He dipped the nib in the ink, lifted Wavenhoe's right hand and inserted the pen between the fingers.

"Come, George," he growled, "here is the codicil: all that is required to make things right is that you sign your name here."

Carswall lifted the paper in his other hand. Wavenhoe's eyelids fluttered. His breathing lost its regularity. Two drops of ink fell on the embroidered coverlet. Carswall guided Wavenhoe's hand to the space below the writing. With a slowness that was painful to watch, Wavenhoe traced his name. Afterwards the pen dropped from his fingers and he let himself fall back against his pillows. The breathing resumed its regularity. The pen rolled down the paper, leaving a splatter of ink-spots, and came to rest on the coverlet.

"And now, Mr Shield," Carswall said. "Pray oblige us by doing your part. Flora, hand him the pen. Sign there, sir, beside the writing box. No, stay, before you sign, write these words: 'Mr Wavenhoe's signature witnessed by me' – then write your name, sir, your full name – 'on the 9th day of November, 1819.'"

While he gave his instructions, he folded down the top of the sheet so I could not see the codicil itself, only Mr Wavenhoe's signature. He handed the paper to Flora, who stood beside me, holding the candle so I could see what I was doing. I wrote what Mr Carswall required, and signed my name. Flora was standing very close to me, though without touching; but I fancied I sensed the warmth of her body.

"When you are done, be so good as to pass the paper to the doctor," Carswall said.

I crossed the room and handed the codicil to him. Wavenhoe's eyes were fully open now. He looked at me and frowned.

"Who-?" he whispered.

"Mr Shield is Charlie's tutor, sir," Flora said.

Wavenhoe's eyes drifted away from me and he turned his head so he could see the Frants on the other side of the bed. He looked at Mrs Frant.

"Anne?" he said in a firmer voice. "I thought you were dead."

She leant towards him and took his hand. "No, Uncle, I am not Anne, I am her daughter Sophie. Mama has been dead these many years, but they say I am very like her."

He responded to the touch, if not the words. "Anne," he said, and smiled. "I am rejoiced to see you."

His eyelids twitched and he slipped into a doze. The doctor scratched his signature and gave the paper to Carswall, who flapped it in the air until the ink was dry and then folded it away in his pocket-book. No one told me I should leave. I think the little group around the bed had forgotten my existence. I withdrew and stood in the shadows by the wall with Mrs Kerridge and the doctor. Flora sat in the chair beside her father. Mrs Frant picked up a Prayer Book from the side table beside her and looked inquiringly at Carswall who nodded. She opened it and began to read from Psalm 51:

But lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly. Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

As I listened, I thought that we were all imprisoned in a place between light and darkness, life and death, and that the only sounds that mattered in the world were the slow rasp of Wavenhoe's breathing, the creak and sputter of coals in the grate and the rise and fall of Sophia Frant's voice.