The American Boy (13 page)

The conversation left a sour taste in my mouth. She had made me feel like a servant, I told myself, which to all intents and purposes I was. I packed my few belongings, said goodbye to Charlie and was driven back to Stoke Newington.

As the days slipped past, I tried to absorb myself in the life of the school. But I found it hard not to think about the Frants, the Carswalls and Mr Wavenhoe. Mrs Frant and Miss Carswall filled my thoughts far more than was entirely proper. And there was much that puzzled me: what had Salutation Harmwell and Mr Noak to do with all this? Was it true that Miss Carswall was her father's natural daughter?

Nor could I ignore Mr Carswall's behaviour. Though Mr Wavenhoe had certainly signed the codicil which I had witnessed, and Mrs Frant and the physician had seemed perfectly satisfied as to the correctness of Mr Carswall's conduct, had the old man known what he was signing? I was not easy in my mind. There was nothing one could call suspicious, exactly, but there was much to arouse curiosity, to raise doubts.

To make matters worse, a trickle of intelligence from the newspapers and certain of Mr Bransby's correspondents revealed that Mr Rowsell's forebodings had been amply justified. Something was very wrong at Wavenhoe's Bank. There were reports that it might close its doors and refuse payments. Mr Wavenhoe's death had caused a crisis in confidence. I did not appreciate how swiftly events were moving until some ten days after I returned from Albemarle-street. By this time Mr Wavenhoe was buried, and Charlie had returned to school, wearing mourning but in other respects apparently untouched by the experience.

After morning school, I strolled into the village, as was my habit if the weather was dry. A green and gold carriage, drawn by a pair of chestnuts, pulled up beside me in the High-street. The glass slid down, and Miss Carswall looked out.

“Mr Shield – this is a pleasure I had not anticipated.”

I raised my hat and bowed. “Miss Carswall – nor had I. Are you come to see your cousin?”

“Yes, indeed – Mr Frant wrote to Mr Bransby; he is to have a night in town. But I am somewhat early. I would not wish to arrive before my time. Schoolboys are such creatures of habit, are they not? I wonder if I might prevail upon you to show me a little of the village and the surrounding country? I am sure it will be better to keep the horses moving.”

I disclaimed any topographical information of value but said I would be glad to show her what I could. The footman let down the steps and I climbed into the carriage. Flora Carswall slid along the seat into the corner to give me room.

“How very obliging of you, Mr Shield,” she said, toying with an auburn curl. “And how fortunate that I should encounter you.”

“Fortunate?” I said softly.

She coloured most becomingly. “Charlie mentioned that you often take the air after morning school.”

“Fortunate for me, at least,” I said with a smile. “As it was the other day, when we met in Piccadilly.”

Miss Carswall smiled back, and I knew my guess had hit the mark: she had followed me from Albemarle-street that afternoon. “I suppose that sometimes one must give fortune a nudge,” she said. “Don't you agree? And I own that I am glad to have the opportunity for a private conference with you. Would you – would you tell John coachman to drive out of the village for a mile or two?”

I obeyed.

She cleared her throat and went on, “I am afraid the bank is in a bad way.”

“I have seen something of that in the newspapers.”

“It is even worse than is generally supposed. Pray do not mention this to a living soul but my father is quite shocked. He had not realised – that is to say, there is serious cause for alarm. It seems that a number of bills were due at about this time, some for very large sums of money, and in the normal course of affairs, they would have been extended. But no: the creditors wish to be paid immediately. And then, to make matters worse, we had assumed – indeed the whole world had assumed – that Mr Wavenhoe was a very wealthy man. But it appears that this was no longer the case at the time of his death.”

“I'm sorry to hear this. May I ask why –?”

“Why I am telling you? Because I – I was concerned about what happened on the evening Mr Wavenhoe died. My father often appears high-handed, I regret to say. He is a man who is used to his own way. Those of us who know him make allowances, but to a stranger it can seem – it can seem other than it really is.”

“I witnessed a signature, Miss Carswall. That is all.”

“You saw Mr Wavenhoe sign, did you not? And you yourself signed immediately afterwards? And you could testify that there was no coercion involved, and that Mr Wavenhoe was in his right mind and knew what he was doing?”

Until now her hands had been inside her muff. As she spoke, in her agitation, she took out her right hand and laid it on my sleeve. Almost immediately she realised what she had done and with a gasp she withdrew it.

“I can certainly testify to that, Miss Carswall. But surely others can do the same? The doctor's word would naturally carry more weight than mine, and Mrs Frant's, too.”

“It is possible that Mr Frant may dispute the codicil,” she said, colouring again, and more deeply. “You know how it is with families, I daresay: a disputed inheritance can wreak the most fearful havoc.”

I said gently, “This codicil, Miss Carswall: why should Mr Frant wish to dispute it?”

“I will be frank with you, Mr Shield. It concerns the disposition of a property in Gloucester which had belonged, I believe, to Mr Wavenhoe's grandmother, that is to say to the grandmother whom he shared with my father. Mr Wavenhoe was sentimentally attached to it on that account, for he had childhood memories of the place. I understand from my father that it is in fact the only one of his properties that is not encumbered with a mortgage. And the codicil now bequeaths it to me.”

“May I ask who would have received it if Mr Wavenhoe had not signed the codicil?”

“I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps my cousin Mrs Frant would have held it in trust for her son. There are a number of small bequests, but apart from those, she and Charlie are the co-heirs, and Mr Frant is appointed the executor. My father and Mr Wavenhoe had quarrelled over a matter of business, you see, so he was not mentioned in the will. Yet, in my uncle's last hours, when Papa represented to Mr Wavenhoe that he had no quarrel with me, my uncle was much struck by the force of the argument and desired the codicil to be drawn up there and then.”

“And Mr Frant?”

“Mr Frant was not there. Sophie was in and out of the room but her thoughts were otherwise occupied.” Miss Carswall hesitated and then added in a voice not much above a whisper, “In fact, she put quite the wrong construction upon it. She thought that she was the beneficiary of the codicil.”

I remembered her words to Mr Carswall before Mr Wavenhoe had signed the codicil:
We must do what my uncle wishes. And thank you. You are very good.

Miss Carswall edged a little closer to me and lowered her voice. “I understand that Mr Frant does not believe my uncle was in a fit state to make a decision of this nature, that indeed he had no idea what he was putting his name to.”

I nodded without committing myself. Was it possible that Mrs Frant had been tricked, and that I had been an unwitting agent in a scheme to defraud her of an inheritance? Did that explain her altered behaviour to me on the morning after Mr Wavenhoe's death?

“It would not matter so much,” Miss Carswall burst out, “if my uncle's affairs were not so embarrassed. My father believes that once his debts are paid there will be scarcely enough to settle the household bills. As for the bank – there is such a run on it at present that my father says there is sure to be a suspension of payments and perhaps even a commission of bankruptcy. It will go very hard on Sophie, I fear.”

“And on Mr Frant.”

“If the bank has run into difficulties, then he must be held at least partly responsible,” Miss Carswall said tartly. “Since my father withdrew from the partnership, Mr Frant has been largely responsible for the conduct of business.”

The carriage had left the village, and was now proceeding down a country lane at a walk.

Miss Carswall looked up at me. “I must go to the school.” Her voice had softened, had become almost pleading. “I – I scarcely know how to say –”

“To say what?”

“It is so absurd,” she replied, speaking in a rush. “And in any case it may be quite untrue. But Mr Frant is said to nurse a grudge against you.”

“But why should he do that?”

“It is said that he feels you should not have witnessed my uncle's signature.”

“It is said? By whom?”

“Hush, Mr Shield. I – I heard him talking with my father and the lawyer on the morning after my uncle died. That is to say, I was in the next room, and they did not trouble to lower their voices.”

“But why should Mr Frant object to my witnessing the signature? If I had not done it, someone else would have. Does he hold a grudge against the physician as well?”

Miss Carswall did not reply. She covered her face with her hands.

“Besides, your father was so pressing that I could hardly refuse him,” I said, my mind filling with the memory of Mrs Frant's cold, pale face in the breakfast room at Albemarle-street. “Nor was there any reason why I should do so.”

“I know,” she murmured, peeping at me through her gloved fingers. “I know. But men are not always rational creatures, are they?”

On Tuesday the 23rd November, Wavenhoe's Bank closed its doors for ever. On the same day, two of its customers committed suicide rather than face ruin.

When a bank fails, the consequences spread like a contagion through society: fathers rot in the Marshalsea or blow out their brains, mothers take in sewing or walk the pavements, children are withdrawn from school and beg for pennies, servants lose their places and tradesmen's bills go unpaid; and so the plague spreads, ever outwards, to people who never heard of Wavenhoe's or Russell-square.

“Frant burned his fingers badly when the tobacco market collapsed,” Dansey told me as we smoked our evening pipes in the garden. “I have it on good authority that he had to turn to the Israelites to keep his head above water. Oh, and the servants have left. Always a sure sign of a sinking ship.”

On Wednesday there were more suicides and we heard that the bailiffs had gone into that opulent house in Russell-square. Dansey and I stood at a window and watched Charlie Frant, arm in arm with Edgar Allan, marching round the playground and blowing plumes of warm breath into the freezing air.

“I pity the boy, of course. But take my advice: have nothing more to do with the Frants, if you can help it. They will only bring you grief.”

It was sound advice but I was not able to take it, for the very next day, Thursday, the sad history of the Frants and Wavenhoes reached what many believed to be its catastrophe. The first intelligence we had of the terrible events of the night came at breakfast time. The man who brought the milk communicated it to the maids, and the news set the servants whispering and swaying like a cornfield in a breeze.

“Something's afoot,” Dansey said as we sat with our weak, bitter coffee. “One doesn't often see them so lively at this hour of the morning.”

Afterwards, Morley sidled up to us, with Quird hovering as usual at his elbow. “Please, sir,” he said to Dansey, shifting from one foot to the other, his face glowing with excitement. “Something horrible has happened.”

“Then I advise you not to tell me what it is,” Dansey said. “It may distress you further.”

“No, sir,” Quird broke in. “Truly, sir, you don't understand.”

Dansey scowled at the boy.

“I beg your pardon,” Quird said quickly. “I did not mean to –”

“Someone's been murdered in the night,” Morley broke in, his voice rising in his excitement.

“They say his head was smashed into jelly,” Quird whispered. “Torn limb from limb.”

“It might have been any of us,” Morley said. “The thief could have broken in and –”

“So a thief has turned to murder?” Dansey said. “Perhaps Stoke Newington is not such a humdrum place after all. Where is this interesting event said to have occurred?”

“Not exactly in the village, sir,” Morley answered. “Somewhere towards town. Not a stone's throw from us, not really.”

“Ah. I might have known. So Stoke Newington remains as humdrum as ever. When there is news I shall be interested to hear it. In the meantime, I do not propose to waste my few remaining moments of leisure listening to second-hand servants' gossip. Good morning.”

Morley and Quird retreated. We watched them leaving the room.

“What tiresomely underbred creatures they are, to be sure,” Dansey said.

“I wonder if there is some truth in what they heard.”

Dansey shrugged. “Very possibly. No doubt we shall be talking about it for weeks on end. I can imagine nothing more tedious.”

This was not affectation on his part. Dansey could be reticent to a fault but he rarely troubled to lie. Indeed, he rarely troubled much with anything; I sometimes wonder what might have become of him if he had.

I did not have to wait long to learn more. Part way through morning school Mr Bransby's servant came to fetch me. I found my employer in the parlour with a small man in grey, mud-stained clothes. Bransby was pacing up and down, his face redder than usual.

“Allow me to present Mr Shield, one of my ushers,” he said, pausing to help himself to a large pinch of snuff. “Mr Shield, this is Mr Grout, the attorney who acts as clerk to the magistrates. I regret to say that a most shocking circumstance has come to light, one that may cast a shadow over the school.”

Mr Grout had a face that was an appendage of his nose, like a mole's. “A man has been murdered, Mr Shield. His body was found early this morning by a watchman at a building plot not more than a mile and a half away. There is a possibility that you may be able to identify the unfortunate victim.”