Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

"I am vexed Papa did not consult you," Miss Carswall said quietly. "You may take my place, if you wish."

"Not for the world."

At that moment, Sir George came to hover over her with a fine proprietary air, ready to lead her to the card table. Mr Noak took up a book. I put a newspaper on my knee to give myself the appearance of occupation and wondered whether I should withdraw. A few minutes later, the room was almost entirely silent, apart from the crackle of the logs on the fire and the chink of china. I brooded on Captain Ruispidge's advice and wondered which lady's reputation was at risk from my undue familiarity.

By and by, Mr Noak looked up from his page, his finger marking his place, and stared into the fire. The room was well lit and it seemed to me that his eyes gleamed unusually brightly in the candlelight. I offered to help him to some more coffee. At first he did not hear me. Then he started and turned towards me.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I was a thousand miles away. No – further than that."

"May I fetch you another cup of coffee, sir?"

He thanked me and gave me his cup. He watched me as I refilled it.

"You must forgive me if I am a little melancholy this evening," he said, when I handed him his coffee. "Today was my son's birthday." He studied my face. "You have a look of him, if I may say so. I remarked the resemblance as soon as I saw you."

He fell silent, and to fill the emptiness I ventured to suggest that it must be a consolation to know his son had died a soldier's death.

"Not even that, Mr Shield, not even that." He shook his head slowly from side to side, as though trying to shake the pain out of it. "I regret to say that we had been estranged for many years. He adopted the principles of his mother's family, in politics and in all else. Frank was a fine boy, but he had a sad tendency towards obstinacy." He shrugged thin shoulders, too small for the coat. "I do not know why I bore you with my affairs. Pray excuse me."

"There is nothing to excuse, sir." I thought it probable that the wine Mr Noak had taken at dinner had depressed his spirits while lessening his habitual reserve.

"I could have borne a soldier's death, even in the service of King George," Mr Noak went on, his voice scarcely louder than a whisper. "Or even if disease had snatched him away in the prime of his life. But not this: face-down in a Kingston gutter: they said he drowned when he was drunk." He turned his head sharply and looked at me with eyes glistening with tears. "That was hard to bear, Mr Shield, that was hard. To know that the world thought my son a drunken sot who died needlessly because of his intoxication. Bad enough, you would think. Aye, but there was worse to come, much worse." He seemed suddenly to recollect himself and broke off. "But I must not weary you with the recital of my son's woes."

He gave me a stiff smile and returned to his book. The tips of his ears were rosy-pink. I sipped the rest of my coffee. I had no doubt that Mr Noak's grief was genuine but I was not convinced that his frankness was as artless as it seemed.

The card players were wrapped in the wordless communion of their kind. Captain Ruispidge put down a card and drew the trick he had won towards him. He stared across the table at Mrs Frant, his partner. She looked up and smiled her acknowledgement. Despair moved within me. How intimate a connection is a partnership at cards, how private the solitude it creates. I drank my coffee to the bitter, gritty dregs and forced my mind to consider a less painful matter.

What, I wondered, had Noak meant? What could be worse for a father than the knowledge that his son had died estranged from his parent and as a result of a drunken accident of his own making? The discovery that his son had been culpably involved in a criminal undertaking?

Frank was a fine boy, but he had a sad tendency towards obstinacy.

As an epitaph it suggested Lieutenant Saunders had inherited at least one quality from his father. But it did not suggest there had been anything criminal or sinful about him. So in that case, what was worse than your son – a fine boy – dying as a result of a self-induced drunken accident?

Why, it could only mean that he had died for some other reason. Not disease, it appeared. So he must have been killed. But if killed lawfully, he would not have been reported as having died in an accident. So had Mr Noak's son therefore been killed unlawfully?

In other words, had Lieutenant Frank Saunders been murdered?

Sir George most obligingly rode over on Thursday morning with the news that a suite of apartments in a house in Westgate had become available for the night of the assembly. Lord Vauden and his party had taken them for several nights but the sudden illness of a near relation from whom he had expectations had compelled him to withdraw. Sir George had taken the liberty of bespeaking the apartments in Mr Carswall's name, though of course this conferred no obligation upon Mr Carswall, and it would be the work of a moment to cancel the arrangement if it did not suit because Captain Ruispidge was engaged to dine in Gloucester that very evening.

This was just the encouragement Mr Carswall needed. Not only was he flattered by Sir George's kind attention but the suggestion removed the chief practical obstacle to the scheme. Sir George added that his mother was greatly looking forward to renewing her acquaintance with Miss Carswall and Mrs Frant. When we were sitting in the drawing room after dinner, Mr Carswall returned to this condescension on the part of Lady Ruispidge.

"But Papa," Miss Carswall said, "you know Sophie cannot come to the ball."

"Of course not. But there is no reason why she should not come to Gloucester with us, is there?" He turned to Mrs Frant who was seated at the tea table. "You will enjoy the shops, I daresay, eh? We have been very cooped up here at Monkshill, and it will do us good to have a change."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Groaning with the effort, he leaned on the table and patted her hand with his great paw. "You cannot mope for ever, my dear. You shall buy something pretty for yourself. And something for the boy, perhaps, too."

Mrs Frant pulled her hand away and began to gather together the tea things.

"Sir George brought me a note from Mrs Johnson today," Miss Carswall said brightly. "She enclosed a receipt for eel soup from Lady Ruispidge. So obliging. I wonder how many of us will go to Gloucester, and how many beds are spoken for us. One would not like to be cramped or thrown together with people one does not care for."

"No," said Mrs Frant. "I can think of nothing worse."

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."