Chapter Four
If Carswell had hoped for a gentle introduction to Northminster Society, he was going to be disappointed. As they climbed the stairs to his sister’s drawing room, in the Treasurer’s House, Giles could see that it was already thickly populated. The bad weather had not kept the gentry at home. This was a chance to save on fires and candles, to let the Canon and his wife bear the expense of such things. Frugal though she was in many matters, Sally did not stint in her hospitality. It was one of the tenets they had been brought up with, a point of Vernon honour, which Giles heartily supported.
Carswell stood on the top step, ineffectually smoothing his thick, raven’s-wing hair and pulling nervously at his cravat. Giles observed that his coat was not distinguished in its cut, and although it was not quite rusty with age, it was well worn. Clearly his pride did not let Lord Rothborough introduce him to a good tailor, and Giles had to admire him for it. There were plenty of young men who would have exploited such a situation for all it was worth. That Carswell chose to be threadbare and obscure spoke volumes for his character.
“Shall we go and get the Bishop over with?” he said to him. “And then you will have to turn pages for the young ladies, I’m afraid.”
Fortunately there was much more than tea to drink, and there was a table loaded with cakes and preserves, with a magnificent pineapple for a centrepiece. Once Giles had presented Carswell to Sally, she was soon insisting he ate a syllabub, or at the very least a curd tart.
“They are made to our family recipe,” she told him. “Far better than those objects which pass for curd tarts in the confectionary shops here.”
The young man had his hands full and crumbs on his chin when the Bishop, attended by Canon Fforde, came lumbering across from the fireside. He reminded Giles of a giant turtle he had once seen on the shores of Madagascar. His crossing the room caused something of a sensation. It was expected he would have kept his place of honour next to the fire. The room even quietened a little as the Bishop began to interrogate Carswell.
“So you are Mr Carswell?” the Bishop said in his wheezy, sing-song manner. “My Lord Rothborough spoke to me of you this morning, spoke of you with quite uncommon warmth – and now I am able to satisfy my curiosity.” He screwed his eyeglass in and peered hard at him.
“You know,” murmured Sally to Giles, drawing him a little to one side. “He really does look very like him, doesn’t he?”
“It’s most unfortunate.”
“And for Lord Rothborough to go and boast about him to the Bishop. How strange!”
“I think we should rescue him. I think the Bishop is putting him through his catechism,” Giles said.
He was not far wrong.
“You are a communicant Episcopalian, I understand, young man?” Giles heard the Bishop say to Carswell.
“Yes, my Lord.”
“There is a troubling Romish tendency in the Scottish church, I feel. I hope you have not allowed such parties to influence you unduly.”
“I hope not, my Lord. My father certainly has no time for –”
“Your father, ah, yes –”
“Yes, my father, the Reverend James Carswell, the Rector of Aberlochy,” Carswell said, very firmly and rather loudly, as if the Bishop was both deaf and stupid. Giles could not help smiling at it. He hoped most of the room had heard what was said.
“Now, my Lord,” Sally said, cutting in gently, “do come and sit down by me. The Dean’s young ladies have promised us airs from Handel and I know how fond you are of Handel.”
She led him away with great efficiency to the far end of the room where the pianoforte was.
“Airs from Handel?” said Carswell, incredulously. “Do people here still sing Handel?”
“Miss Pritchard and Miss Sophie have very fine voices,” said Giles, “and they are pretty enough to make you lose any distaste for ancient music.”
“I had better go and disabuse myself of my prejudices, then,” said Carswell and walked down the room to get a better view of the girls.
“Major Vernon, might we borrow you for a minute, I wonder?”
Giles turned at the sound of a timid female voice and found standing directly behind him, almost in his shadow, a tiny lady swathed in many flounces of lavender grey silk and trembling white muslin.
“Miss Benbow, of course. How may I be of service?”
Miss Benbow was the Archdeacon’s sister and kept house for him.
“There is a matter which we would like to discuss with you, if we might. We should very much value your opinion.”
“I shall do what I can to oblige.”
“Shall we go through?” Miss Benbow said, indicating the doorway to the little adjoining sitting room, which was Sally’s morning room. On these occasions it became a retiring room for the older ladies, almost cloister-like in its exclusion of men. The ladies would spend the greater part of the evening in there, with their work on their laps, gossiping comfortably and extensively.
Giles followed Miss Benbow and found himself the only vacant chair, a hard, spindly one which he was obliged to set down in the centre of an appraising circle.
“Ladies, how may I help?” he said, when he had perched himself there.
It was Miss Katherine Benbow who spoke.
“What we should like to know is this: are we all to be murdered in our beds?”
For a moment Giles was speechless. He wondered how the news of the body had got about the city so quickly.
“Hush, Katherine,” said Miss Benbow. “That is not what we wanted to know.”
“Of course it is,” said Miss Katherine. “Well, are we?” she added with more eagerness than fear. “We are very concerned by all the talk of agitators, of revolution, these charterist people.”
“Chartists,” said Miss Benbow. “I think they are called chartists, dear.”
“Whatever they are, what is to be done about them? It seems to me, from what one reads, that these men aim to strike at the root of everything that is good and decent, that they have terrible, violent plans and that none of us shall be spared. We shall all be murdered in our beds. That is what they are planning!” said Miss Katherine. “They will come to a place like the Minster Precincts and go from house to house and –”
“Oh, Miss Katherine, please do not let your imagination run away with you. The chartists may be very determined men but they are not mindless incarnations of evil. Surely, sir, they are not?”
Giles turned, unfamiliar with the voice of the woman who had just spoken. His attention had been caught by the calm manner of her address. He had not noticed her when he came in, for she was sitting obliquely, in a knot of other women. But now he saw she was younger than the rest of them, not much above thirty, and she did not wear a cap. He always hated caps on young women and had once scandalized Laura by refusing to let her wear one. If a woman still had beautiful hair, why cover it? This woman, although not an obvious beauty, certainly had hair of which to be proud. It was dark and carefully arranged in tight braids, set back without a fussy tangle of ringlets. It gave her an austere elegance that was much to his taste.
“No, ma’am, they are not,” Giles said. “But as you say, they are determined. However, I have been giving special attention to the matter of political agitation and to how these disturbances have come about with a view to preventing any repetition of recent events here in Northminster. I will not permit anything of that kind to flourish here. You have my word on that. Furthermore, the reports in the newspapers are highly coloured and often not entirely true. You must read them with caution.”
“That is what I suspected,” said the woman with the braids. “I’m glad to hear you say so, Major Vernon. In my work it’s a great reassurance to know that these issues of public safety are in the hands of prudent men.”
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, ma’am?” Giles said.
“This is Miss Hilliard,” said Miss Benbow. Giles got up and went to shake her hand. She rose to meet him. It
was true that she was not a great beauty, but there was something very fine about her. “Miss Hilliard is superintendent of the House of Mercy at Brinklow,” Miss Benbow explained.
“You are that Miss Hilliard?” Giles could not quite conceal his surprise. “I know you by reputation, of course.”
“And I you,” she said with a smile, which seemed to imply: I am not what you expected, am I? This was perfectly true. He had imagined a woman who ran a reformatory for prostitutes to be a very different sort of creature.
“Miss Hilliard works so hard with those unfortunates – so I have made her come for a little holiday with us,” Miss Benbow went on.
“Only for two nights. I hate to leave my girls for long. They need me,” she said. “Or perhaps I need them,” Miss Hilliard added, with a slight shrug and a smile. “I miss them desperately if I stay away too long.”
“Yes, we should love to keep her much longer, but she will not stay,” said Miss Benbow. “Now, I must thank you, Major, for putting our minds at rest.”
“I think you may all sleep comfortably. Remember, you have your own excellent watchmen here to guard the Precincts and of course, in the City my men are always on call and at your service.”
He took his leave, but on the threshold he was met by Mrs Lepaige. He had observed she had been listening at the doorway.
“You know, Major Vernon,” she said quietly to him, “it is not just the newspapers who are speaking so disturbingly of the chartists. Mr Stephen Rhodes was preaching pretty hot on the subject, I believe. You might want to speak to him about it.”
“Mr Rhodes?” said Giles. “I don’t think I know him.”
“He is the Bishop’s librarian,” Mrs Lepaige said. “He’s not been here very long – no more than six months, but I believe he has preached quite often about the agitators – and very intemperately. He has quite a following, I understand. He has drawn crowds. But I am not so sure it is a good thing. I believe Miss Katherine heard him preach. He is a scaremonger, I think.”
“I will certainly speak to him, Mrs Lepaige.”
“Thank you. Now, are my girls in there?” she went on looking into the room. “They start to hide from me as the evening wears on because they hate to go home. Your sister is too liberal a hostess for them, Major. They will live off the pleasure of this party for weeks and they will do anything not to bring it to a close. We are asked out so little, which is just as well given our circumstances – well, perhaps you know how it is.” She coughed and then smiled away her embarrassment but her shabby brown gown said a great deal.
He knew she was the mother of many children, married to a clergyman who had never managed to advance beyond a meagre curacy in one of the city churches. Giles recalled something Sally had told him a month or so ago: that Mr Lepaige’s luck had finally turned and that he had got one of the fattest livings in the town, St Gabriel’s Without, and that it was all a settled thing.
His brother-in-law, Canon Fforde, was nearby and alone, so he asked him, “Lambert, did Lepaige get St Gabriel’s? Sal said something about it, I think.”
Lambert shook his head.
“No, no, unfortunately not. The patron changed his mind – it was Sir Oswald Camperleigh. Bad business. Of course Lepaige took it on the chin, but I believe she’s very cut up about it. They’d been counting on it so that the boy could go to Oxford. Terrible shame. That lad of theirs, Harry, is a very smart chap. Much smarter than our young Tom, though of course, half his trouble is he’s bone idle, as his mother and I keep telling him. I’d like you to have a word with him, actually, Giles. He might listen to you.”
“I doubt it,” said Giles. “Who got the living?”
“That young chap, the librarian, Rhodes,” said Lambert. “You don’t know him, do you?”
“He’s not here tonight?” said Giles.
“No. Sally won’t have him in the house after she heard what happened. Mrs Lepaige convinced her that he’d been underhand in approaching Sir Oswald. But really I think she doesn’t like him. Sally, I mean.”
“And what do you think of him?”
Lambert considered for a moment.
“He’s a good scholar and energetic. But there is something not to my taste about him. He’s a little glossy – is that what I mean? Certainly, I would have liked Lepaige to get the living. He is a decent man – and he deserves better.”
Chapter Five
“Would you like to come and see my terrarium, Mr Carswell?” said Celia Fforde. “Our kittens are in the schoolroom too. You do like kittens?”
Major Vernon’s niece was a forthright child of about eleven, and Felix hesitated to cross her. Besides, he was glad to have an excuse to get out the heat of the drawing room. People were being polite but he felt he was being examined a little closely. He had been introduced to many young ladies, all of whom were very pretty and delightful, but he was not comfortable with pretty and delightful young ladies.
However, this small skinny girl with her shock of pale, thin hair, disarmed him completely by inquiring calmly: “Are you my Uncle Giles’ new surgeon?” and then asked him to come and look at her terrarium. She had probably asked quite a few people this and had got no takers. Felix decided that sneaking downstairs with the child to admire some kittens was infinitely more appealing than staying at the party.
“A terrarium – that’s a Wardian case, is it not?” he said, as they went downstairs.
“Yes,” said Miss Fforde. “I keep my fern collection in it. I have twelve varieties now. Botany is my favourite subject. I go to Mrs Lepaige for lessons,” she went on, opening the door to the schoolroom. “Can you get a candle from the table please, sir?”
“I was always terrible at it,” Felix said, picking up a candlestick and following her into the room. “Botany, I mean. I preferred zoology.”
“I think that sounds horrid. You have to chop up dead animals, don’t you? At least my brother Tom says so.”
“It’s called dissection.”
“It’s still horrid,” she said.
“You soon get used to it. Actually it’s very beautiful, when you know what you are looking for.”
“But what are you looking for?” Celia said.
“That depends,” Felix said, putting the candlestick down on the table. “The way the bones fit together with the muscles, for example. It’s like a puzzle. When you see it you want to find out how it all works.” He knotted his fingers together to demonstrate.
He remembered his own curiosity, when he was not much older than this girl, and how he had caught frogs and then spent hours dissecting them according to a textbook his father had found for him. Somewhere he still had the notebooks he had filled with clumsy drawings and observations. It had all seemed a great deal more compelling that the endless drill of Latin grammar.
The candle glow filled the room and made glittering reflections on the crystal walls of Miss Fforde’s Wardian case. It was quite a substantial item, thickly planted with ferns.
“Which is your favourite?” he said.
“This one,” she said. “It’s quite rare. Davallia canariensis,” she added with a triumphant smile. “I like its common name better – rabbit’s foot.”
“Impressive. And what’s this one?”
“Don’t you know?” Felix shook his head. “That’s maidenhair – that’s common as anything. Adiantum raddianum.”
“And this wee thing at the bottom?”
“Helxine soleirolii. Baby’s tears. That’s silly, isn’t it?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I don’t know about this one,” she said, touching a long, notched tendril. “Mrs Lepaige gave it to me because I said I liked it, but she forgot to tell me what it is, which isn’t like her at all. I shall ask her the next time I see her. I will do her a drawing of it, so there isn’t any chance of getting confused. Now, do you want to see the kits?”
Celia Fforde was just dropping another scrap of wriggling fur into Felix’s lap when Mrs Ffor
de came in. Felix struggled to his feet with his hands full of kittens.
“Celia, you were supposed to go to bed,” she said. “And poor Mr Carswell!”
“I like cats,” he said. “Really, Mrs Fforde, I do,” he said, attempting to detach a tiny set of claws from his lapel.
Mrs Fforde took two of the kittens from him and put them back in the basket. She tried to take the other but it clung fast to Felix.
“He likes you!” exclaimed Celia.
“She, I think,” said Felix, having finally managed to detach and examine the kitten.
“Mamma, do you think we could give her to Mr Carswell?” said Celia.
“I don’t think Mr Carswell wants a cat.”
“But if he is living in that funny old place, it must be full of mice. And I know we can’t keep them all. I thought perhaps – well, you did tell me to think of homes for them.”
“A cat would be company,” said Felix, holding up the kitten by the scruff of her neck and admiring her. “But do you think Snow would mind, Miss Celia?”
“No, I’m sure she would not. She is the most gentle dog I know.”
“I shall have to ask permission of your uncle,” Felix said.
“Oh, he will say yes, I’m sure. Mamma?”
“If Mr Carswell really would like her, then I suppose when they are weaned...”
Celia rushed over to her mother and kissed her. “And don’t forget to ask Mr Carswell to dinner,” she said.
“Celia, that’s quite enough – now run up to bed.”
Celia blew him a kiss at the door and ran away.
“I’m very sorry, Mr Carswell, none of my children are pattern,” said Mrs Fforde as they came out into the hall.
“I couldn’t say I was myself,” said Felix, “so I don’t mind.”
“She’s right, of course – you must come and eat mutton with us, when we are en famille. I’m sure you would prefer that to a formal dinner?”
“Very much so – it’s very kind of you.”
“One must always make a stranger welcome. And besides, you will need to have some holidays with which to defend yourself against my brother. He is quite a taskmaster, I warn you.”
The Butchered Man Page 4
