constructed of rustic stone marked the highest point of the park and also the place where six paths intersected. We followed the widest of them, which led north-west and gently downwards to a small lake formed by damming a stream that drained down to the river. To the north and west, beyond the stretch of frozen water, lay dense woods.
Charlie pointed to the trees. “Mr Carswall has ordered the gamekeepers in the covers to shoot strangers on sight. There are poachers at work, he says, and some of them may be housebreakers too.”
Edgar stared at him. “Surely they would not dare come here?”
“What is to stop them? We can hardly send for a constable if we see them.”
The ways of great estates were foreign to me. But before I had been twenty-four hours at Monkshill-park, I had begun to suspect that something was wrong. The domestic economy of a large establishment should run as smoothly as Mr Carswall’s watch. A well-tended park should show everywhere the presiding hand of its owner. Monkshill was a splendid house, in a splendid park. There was no shortage of money. Yet it seemed to me that neither of the ladies had been entrusted with the direction of the indoor servants, and that the master did not care to interest himself in the estate.
Instead, Mr Carswall had hired people to do these things. This would not have mattered if he had ensured that those he had hired were doing their jobs. But everywhere one saw small signs of neglect: from the spots of grease on the footmen’s liveries to the gate with a broken hinge in the park palings. It was possible, I thought, that Mr Carswall was not habituated to the responsibilities of such an establishment. But I knew too much of his capabilities to believe that he could not have remedied the shortcomings, had he desired to do so.
It puzzled me at first. An older man would have seen the reason directly. Mr Carswall was old; he knew that his powers were declining; and he was husbanding his energies for a purpose I did not then understand.
The Christmas Eves of my youth had left me with many happy memories. My father was a cool, grave, remote man who took no part in the festivities of the season. But my mother would take me to the house of an aunt. She had married a whitesmith and, though comfortable, the family was not in such prosperous circumstances as we believed our own to be. But on a single Christmas Eve in their house, there was more laughter than in ours the whole year round.
In my aunt’s kitchen, there was always a great sprig of mistletoe, and we boys had the privilege of kissing the girls beneath it; and for each kiss, a berry was plucked from the bush. This circumstance led to much frenzied arithmetic, for when all the berries had been plucked, the privilege ceased.
I spent my last Christmas Eve in Rosington at my aunt’s house. This was after my parents had died, when I was teaching at the grammar school. Fanny, the daughter of the school’s new master, had paid a visit. That day I kissed her for the first time, and it was underneath my aunt’s mistletoe bush. Usually the memory of her made me feel melancholy. Not this year, however – instead, the thought crossed my mind that if I had not kissed Fanny under the mistletoe five years before, I should not be at Monkshill-park today.
Not that Mr Carswall encouraged any sign that it was Christmas Eve in his house. Rustic festivities would have been out of place in this great stone block, this temple to modern taste. None of the chaste marble fireplaces was large enough to hold a Yule log, even if such a thing had been available.
That evening I was invited to dine again with the Carswalls, Mrs Lee and Mrs Frant. Mr Carswall brought the conversation round to the subject of church.
“I had a note from the Rector,” he said. “Sir George is bringing a party over from Clearland-court.”
Miss Carswall cast her eyes up to the ceiling. “How fortunate I purchased that new pelisse before we left town.” She glanced across the table at me, and I thought I saw amusement in her face, and an invitation to share it. “And will Captain Jack make one of the party? And their mama?”
“I do not know,” Carswall said. “I should think it likely.” His eyes slid from Miss Carswall to Mrs Frant, and then he turned to me. “You and Mrs Lee will join us. We have two pews. I think it proper that you should sit behind us with the boys.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Ruispidge distinguished himself in the Peninsula,” Mr Carswall said. “Should he condescend to address you, you may wish to bear that in mind.”
“Yes, sir,” I repeated. If anything was designed to prejudice me against a man, it was the intelligence that he had distinguished himself on a field of battle.
“Sir George is patron of the living, is he not?” Mrs Frant asked.
Carswall grunted. “He must have four or five in his gift. By rights the owner of Monkshill should have the right of presentation at Flaxern Parva. But my predecessor Mr Cranmere sold it to Sir George’s father.”
The conversation lagged until at last the rich, tepid meal was over. The ladies withdrew; the cloth was removed and the wine set out with the nuts. Mr Carswall turned his chair to face the fire and waved at me, indicating that I should do the same.
“So what do you think of Monkshill, eh?” he demanded, and did not wait for an answer. “It is a fine house, is it not? Do you know the architect? Sir John Soane himself, the very man who designed the Bank of England. Mind you, Soane don’t come cheap, and didn’t come cheap even then, thirty-odd years ago. And no expense was spared in the building. Not that I had to pay for that, sir, not a brass farthing. Reap what others sow: it is a fine motto in life, young man, mark it well: and remember that the man with ready money is king. No, Mr Cranmere spent so much in tearing down the old house and building this that he could not afford to live in it. He struggled on until 1815 but in the end he had to sell in a hurry. For a fraction of its worth: it was either that or the bailiffs. The folly of mankind never ceases to amaze me.” Carswall poured himself another glass of wine and stared into the fire. “Yes, though I say it myself, it is an establishment to be proud of, worthy of any gentleman in the county; any gentleman in the land, come to that.”
He rumbled on in this vein for twenty minutes. There I sat, an audience of one, chained to my seat. Gradually his enunciation became slurred, and the pauses between sentences grew longer, then the pauses between phrases and words. He had his feet on the fender and his shoes had fallen into the hearth. His breeches were unbuttoned and spotted with stains of wine and gravy. The last thing he said before he dropped into a doze lodged in my memory, simply because it was so out of tune with what had gone before.
“When my grandfather came to Monkshill, he touched his hat to the proprietor. Now I am the proprietor.” He glared at me with eyes half concealed behind straggling eyebrows, like a beast in a thicket, as though I had dared to contradict him. “So who is master now, hey? Tell me that. Who is master now?”
On Christmas morning, there was some debate at breakfast on the subject of how our party should travel to church. There were three equipages at Monkshill: a big coach, which at a pinch would hold six; the chaise that had brought Edgar and me from Gloucester, and which would hold three at most; and finally a low pony-phaeton for the ladies, which was judged quite unsuitable for the gravity of the occasion. Mr Carswall had been of the opinion that the chaise
