were at table with us. Their presence added salt to the wound. In all events, I regret to say that Mrs Rowsell misinterpreted what I said – quite understandably; the fault was entirely mine – and drew an erroneous conclusion, one which might not have been out of place in one of her novels. It was inexpressibly painful. There were tears – there were accusations – I had betrayed her in her own home – I was taking the bread out of our children's mouths – my character was quite beneath contempt. Mrs Rowsell is a woman of great tenacity, and once she has an idea in her mind, it can be very difficult to shift it.'
Mr Rowsell ran out of words. My first reaction was relief: despite his many virtues, I was glad he had not suddenly become my father. Now I knew the reason for his kindness in the past, I honoured him for it. My mother's heart had chosen wisely though her head had set its veto against it. As for Mrs Rowsell, no wonder my appearance on her doorstep had thrown her into such a passion. I felt sorry for them both: if Mrs Rowsell believed me to be her husband's illegitimate son, brought like a cuckoo into their home, then the bosom of the family could not have been a happy place for either of them since that unlucky Christmas dinner.
'It was cursed ill luck that I was forced to keep to my bed on that day you came to my house. I heard the hullabaloo at the door, though I did not know its cause. The rest you know. I wish it had not taken us such an unconscionable time to track you down. I might have found you sooner had I employed an agent. But once I had heard those absurd accusations from Mr Bransby, I thought it wiser not to involve a third party.'
'May I speak frankly, sir? Two men asked after me at Gaunt-court on Tuesday. The second was Atkins, but the first-'
'You fear that Mr Carswall has set a man to track you down?'
'I do not know what to fear. The first man questioned the children about me. My landlady sent him about his business, though not before he had discovered that I was lodging there. She thought it likely that he was some sort of inquiry agent, perhaps a former Bow-street runner who works for a lawyer.'
'You have done nothing wrong, dear boy: it may be best simply to stay where you are and let events take their course. On the other hand, if Mr Carswall intends to bring an action against you, he must have evidence to support his case.' Mr Rowsell leaned forward, his features suddenly grim: he had become the man of business again, and all trace of the kindly host had vanished. 'There's more to this than meets the eye, I fancy. I saw the reports in the newspapers about a lady who died by an accidental fall in the ice-house at Monkshill-park in January. And of course Miss Carswall is to marry Sir George Ruispidge, no doubt with a very handsome dowry. But I am at a loss to see how all this could affect you, or what possible reason Mr Carswall could have for pursuing you.'
I bent down and hooked a finger between my right shoe and my stocking. I fished out a small bundle, wrapped in a square of linen, which I laid between us on the table. I pulled back the folds of cloth one by one. There, winking up at us, was Amelia Parker's mourning ring.
70
'Oh please, sir,' cried Lizzie as she opened the door to me on my return to Gaunt-court, 'we was watching you coming up to the door. Are you
Lottie punched her arm. 'That ain't polite, Lizzie. Say 'disguised' instead.'
'Don't be foolish,' I said, and advanced into the hall, stumbling slightly when my legs somehow became entangled with my stick. 'Neither term is apt.'
'I tell you, he's been at the blue tape,' Lizzie continued. 'Just like Pa. Ain't you, sir?'
'Blue tape is a low expression,' Lottie snarled.
I turned and looked sternly down at them. 'I have not had a drop of gin, children. Nor am I intoxicated. I may seem a little elevated in my spirits, but I am as sober as a judge.'
'Oooh,' squealed Lizzie. 'Ain't it lovely? Talks just like a book, don't he?'
Feet shuffled on the basement stairs, and Mrs Jem appeared. She ran her eyes over me. I suspect I was perhaps a little dishevelled, owing to a tumble in the gutter on my way down Fleet-street. When I beamed at her, she gave a shake of her head and said, 'You get along upstairs. Leave your clothes outside your door. I'll send someone up for them.'
There is no arguing with an autocrat. The girls vanished into the back regions of the house. I made my way slowly upwards, flight by swaying flight.
'Mind what you do with your candle,' Mrs Jem called up after me. 'I don't want you burning us all in our beds.'
As I mounted the stairs, my head seemed to clear as the altitude increased. I had drunk a quantity of claret during and after dinner but I had not followed Mr Rowsell's example and rammed home the claret with brandy. The truth was, it was not merely wine that intoxicated me: it was also relief.
Unlike Dansey, Mr Rowsell had been both immediate and unequivocal in his offers of support. At least one person unhesitatingly accepted my word before Mr Carswall's. Of course, I had not told him everything. Only a scrub would have revealed what had passed between Sophie and myself; and I could not be entirely frank about my relations with Miss Carswall.
Nor had I mentioned my suspicions concerning Mrs Johnson's death. Had I done so, it would have led inevitably to even wilder and more dangerous speculations about the identity of the murdered man at Wellington-terrace. Mr Rowsell must have thought me mad if I had blurted out my suspicion that Henry Frant had been not only an embezzler, but also a murderer, and that now he had killed his former accomplice, Mrs Johnson.
No, it would have been wildly indiscreet to confide my worst fears to him. However, Mr Rowsell had lifted a weight from my mind. There was no doubt, he thought, that the ring should be returned to Mr Carswall. Until its ownership should be definitively established, if it ever were, Mr Carswall had the best title to it. My possession of the ring made me immediately vulnerable, and Mr Rowsell was shocked I had retained it for so long.
'Leave it with me,' he had said. 'I will see that Mr Carswall receives it.'
'But your hand must not appear in the matter, sir.'
At that stage, Rowsell still had most of his wits about him. 'It is perfectly simple. If you give me his direction, I will have the ring sent in such a way that the sender cannot be traced. There will be no covering note. The address will be written in capital letters. Stay, we shall muddy the waters still further: I am sending Atkins up to Manchester next week: I shall give him the ring and desire him to post it from there. So you need not trouble yourself in the slightest. Forget you ever saw it.'
Once I reached the haven of my room, I sat on the little bed, which was rocking like a hammock aboard ship, and stripped off my coat, neckcloth, waistcoat and boots. I became aware that pushing through my relief like a green shoot in a flower bed was another emotion: a desire to write to Sophie. It struck me that the return of the ring might even be construed in some quarters as confirmation of my guilt, and it seemed a matter of urgency to make clear, at least to her, that I neither acted like a guilty party nor considered myself to be one.
I realise now – considering the matter coolly and soberly in another time and place – that this argument was barely rational, the flimsiest justification imaginable: I wished to write to Sophie, that was the long and the short of it, and I wished to do so directly. Without pausing for thought, I found pen, ink and paper and sat down at the wash-stand, which also served as my writing desk.
I was still sitting there when Mr Jem himself toiled up the stairs, tapped on my door and asked me how I did, when church bells struck first the half-hour and then the hour. At last I gave up the struggle to find words which would convey everything I wished to say, both explicitly and implicitly. I wrote simply this:
I neither dated nor signed the letter. I folded the paper and sealed it with a wafer. I wrote Sophie's name on the front in a disguised scrawl, but not her direction because I was uncertain whether she had come to town with Mr Carswall. Finally, I raised the letter to my lips and kissed it.
A moment later, I dropped my clothes outside the door, climbed into bed and fell asleep with the candle still burning.
