56
Sophie was by herself in the drawing room, her face golden in the light of the candles. I looked away, wishing I were a little less elevated.
'Will you take tea?' she said. 'And shall I set a cup for Mr Carswall?'
'I do not think he will be joining us.' My voice emerged more loudly than I had anticipated, and I enunciated my next words with particular care. 'Have Mrs Lee and Miss Carswall retired?'
'They are in the library. Mrs Lee recollected seeing a volume containing views of Clearland-court. They have been longer at it than I expected.'
I said that it was not to be wondered at that Miss Carswall wished to dwell upon the scenes of her future felicity. I took my cup of tea and sat on the sofa to drink it. The room was huge and chilly, built for show not comfort. The brief excitement of the wine receded, leaving me still in low spirits, yet still a long way from sobriety. Sophie's silence unnerved me. There were no forms, no rules of conduct, to guide us in our present position. Dear God, how I would have liked to kneel by her and lay my aching head on her lap. The cup and saucer rattled as I set them down.
'Sophie.'
She stared at me, her face stern, even shocked, as if what had happened yesterday meant nothing, or was merely a figment of my imagination.
'I have to know,' I said. 'What happened means everything to me.'
'You are not yourself, sir.'
'I wish to marry you.'
She shook her head and said in a voice so low I had to strain to hear: 'It is not possible, Mr Shield. I have to think of Charlie. What is past is past. I regret it immensely, but I am afraid I must ask you never to raise this subject again.'
Miss Carswall's voice was audible in the hall, addressing Mrs Lee. 'The west wing is altogether too mean for a house like Clearland. It will have to be rebuilt. I shall talk to Sir George, by and by.'
So, as the ladies drank tea and chattered about Clearland-court, I knew I was justly repaid for both my presumption and my mendacity. First the presumption: it was one thing for a lady like Sophia Frant to forget herself for an hour or two on a winter afternoon, and quite another for her to marry an apothecary's son who eked out a living at a private school. Nor was this the end of my bitter reflections on this head. Sophie's richly deserved refusal of my offer had re-awoken my jealousy of Captain Ruispidge, and granted it a double force.
Then the mendacity: I had not been honest with her about so many things, not least my suspicion that Mr Henry Frant might still be in the land of the living; that he was a murderer as well as an embezzler; and that for all we knew to the contrary he was within a few miles of us. So great was my desire for her that I had urged the innocent Sophie unwittingly to run the risk of committing bigamy, a crime in the eyes of both God and man.
Oh yes, I was justly served. Even I realised that.
The following day was Sunday, and we drove to Flaxern Parva for divine service. Mr Noak and Mr Carswall did not feel equal to the journey and kept each other company by the library fire. The Ruispidge brothers were in church, but not the ladies. Though we sat in separate pews, afterwards I had ample opportunity to watch Miss Carswall and Sir George, Sophie and the Captain, billing and cooing again.
In the coach on the way back, Miss Carswall said, 'Poor Mrs Johnson!'
'She is unwell, I collect?' Sophie said.
'Sir George says she has quinsy. Her throat is so swollen she can hardly speak. She had hoped to be well enough to call upon us within a day or two, Sir George said, but must beg to be excused until she is better. The servant has orders to admit no one.'
The coach rumbled on, the horses slipping and the machine swaying dangerously as we bounced in and out of the ice-caked ruts of the road. Miss Carswall said, 'Thank heavens Papa is not with us. Can you imagine?' No one replied, and no one spoke for the remainder of the journey.
All that day, Sophie avoided my company. When circumstances threw us together, she would not meet my eyes. I snapped at the boys and was surly with the servants. It is all very well to say one should bear misfortune with philosophy, but in my experience when misfortune comes in by one door, philosophy leaves by the other.
57
The weather was still fine on Monday morning. After lessons, the boys begged me to take them down to the lake with their skates. On our way, we met Mr Harmwell and Mrs Kerridge returning to the house.
'Skating?' Mrs Kerridge said. 'Enjoy it while you can.'
'Why?' Charlie asked. 'Is there to be a thaw?'
'It's not that. The men are cleaning out the ice-house. Once they start filling it, there'll be no more skating for a while.'
'To my mind,' Harmwell said, 'it is a most insanitary arrangement.'
Mrs Kerridge turned to him. 'Why ever so, sir?'
'The problem here derives from the fact that the lake serves many purposes – it is not only ornamental, but a source of fish, and used for skating in winter and boating and swimming in summer. I understand from the head gardener that it is nigh on eighteen feet deep near the centre. This makes the ice hard to extract, and indeed dangerous for those charged with the task. And the quality of the ice is inevitably poor, bearing in mind the culinary uses it is intended for. It often contains rotting vegetation, for example, and the corpses of small animals. No, I believe the Dutch method-'
'Lord, Mr Harmwell,' Mrs Kerridge broke in. 'You talk just like a book.'
'What about the ice?' I asked. 'Will they start cutting it today?'
'I believe not,' he said. 'So I cannot see that there will be any objection to your skating. While you can.' He raised his stick and pointed towards the south-western quarter of the sky, where clouds were massing. 'There may be snow on the way.'
We parted. The boys raced ahead. When I reached the lake, they were not in sight. I took the path round the bank to the defile leading to the ice-house. Edgar and Charlie were perched on the trunk of a fallen tree. Half a dozen men were engaged in emptying and cleaning the building. For a few moments we watched them carrying buckets of ice and muddy straw down the path to a hollow where they discharged their noisome burdens.
The foreman touched his hat and asked if we would like to see the scene of their operations. I followed him down the passage, with the boys behind me. The chamber was illuminated by half a dozen lanterns strung round the dome. Two men were working in the pit itself, shovelling the slush into buckets. As we watched, one neatly decapitated a rat with the blade of the shovel.
'It stinks worse than usual, sir,' the foreman said. 'The drain was blocked.'
I looked over the edge. 'It looks clear now.'
'We rodded it, and it's draining slowly. But not like it should. If we can't clear it properly from this side, we may have to wait till spring.'
'How so?'
He jerked his thumb outside. 'The water runs into a sump and then flows through a drain to the lake. But it blocks easy on account of the grids that keep the rats out. There's a shaft down to the drain so you can clear it. Big drain, look, you can crawl right up to the sump chamber. But we had a terrible storm in the autumn, and them trees came down, and half the bank besides. We'll need to dig out the head of the shaft all over again.'
'The ground's too hard at present?'
'Aye. Like iron.' He spat, narrowly missing one of his men, and squinted up at me. 'We should have dug it out earlier.'
I returned outside and filled my lungs with fresh air. The boys were talking with another of the workmen and
