Season of Light (23 page)

‘Forgive me,’ said Asa. ‘You must find it as hard as I do to be alone.’

The skin on Susan’s throat was so white and fine that the veins were clearly visible. She made a huffing noise in her throat.

‘I expect you’d rather I found another path. We all need solitude,’ Asa added.

‘You might think that. Solitude is what happens to me, not what I choose.’

‘I’m sorry. That was cruel of me, then, given that you are perhaps missing your husband very much.’

There followed another silence during which a tear seeped from the outer corner of Susan’s eye and trickled down her cheek.

‘Tell me about your husband. What was he like?’ Asa said.

‘I suppose you ask because you’re bent on marrying the brother.’

‘I have no intention of marrying Harry Shackleford.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t love him. He and I can’t agree on anything.’

Susan’s bottom lip, which flaked as a result of all the gnawing it had to endure, quivered. ‘I wish you would marry him.’

‘Why is that, Susan?’

‘He’s much better than the other one. And if you and he were to stay at Compton Wyatt, things would be better.’

‘Is life at Compton Wyatt so terrible for you, Susan?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you are very unhappy.’

‘Do you know how many times I have stood by the edge of that wretched lake and thought, I’ll just walk into the water one day. I’ll keep walking until I’m gone. Would anyone miss me? I don’t think so.’

‘Susan.’

‘Don’t pity me. When my husband died I put my face in my pillow and tried to be sad. I wanted to love him. I thought it was my duty even though he’d never liked me, I could tell. And there was no child.’ She marched away, but when Asa followed, she turned suddenly. ‘I made it my business to find out what happened. Imagine. A ship becalmed on a tropical sea. A few too many slaves on board because my father-in-law, that pillar of society, couldn’t resist bending the rules a little. Not enough water for all those extra bodies. One after another, corpses were tossed overboard. But in the end they were all struck with fever, even the ones who had plenty to drink. Or so the story goes. Of those who set out on that voyage fewer than half survived. But I wonder. Had I been a sailor on that ship, I know what I’d have done with two unwanted, thirsty, selfish passengers.’ Her small eyes were animated for once and she was so unused to speaking that her voice cracked. Once again the spectre of marriage to Shackleford hovered before Asa; thousands of days spent in the company of this sad woman.

Voices were calling their names, Georgina’s the loudest, and there she was, churning along the path in her pink and white muslin. It was time to go. Shackleford did not offer Asa a lift in the phaeton. That honour went instead to Madame de Rusigneux.

Madame held hours of dancing lessons in preparation for the ball. At first Asa flinched from contact; the French woman’s frail bones seemed sprung with danger. What would she say next? But Madame’s eyes were full of softness and encouragement as she urged Asa to take smaller steps and glance into her partner’s eyes. ‘It will be Mr Shackleford, first. You know him. At least let him see your face.’

Susan Shackleford crept into the room and, after watching with folded arms, selected a page from a stack of music and placed it on the harpsichord. ‘Thank you so much,’ called Madame. The gavotte was played with a light, infectious touch and Madame laughed as she squeezed Asa’s hand – they were friends again.

The day of the ball dawned the most beautiful of all, with the image in the lake of tree and temple unshaken by breeze or cloud. In the gardens beneath Asa’s window flowers were being cut to fill dozens of vases. Next morning the Ardleigh party would return home. At breakfast Asa found, beside her plate, a plump letter in Caroline Lambert’s cultivated hand, such a tonic amid the overabundance of the Compton Wyatt table that she took it to a far part of the garden before breaking the seal.

The letter, however, contained the worst possible news.

I will tell you at once, Thomasina, I will write down the words: my father is dead. There has been an inevitability in the course of events that fills me with horror. Of course, he would not cancel the abolition meeting. Half a dozen attended in our parlour. If you had been at home in Ardleigh, you would have been here too. I wish that you had been there. We were betrayed. Two men hammered on the door and said that the meeting must stop. They kicked over furniture and scrabbled up fistfuls of Father’s papers. They said that his sermons and essays would be used as evidence against him and that he must go to Chichester for questioning before the magistrate. We pleaded with them. It was late in the afternoon. Father was hungry and tired. The sun was too hot and their old wagon had no shade. They wouldn’t let me go with them so I had to run to Mr Shepherd at the farm and beg him to harness up his trap so that we could follow. It was half an hour before we left Littlehampton but we’d gone less than a mile before we caught up with Father lying in nettles at the side of the road, his guards standing about scratching their heads, not knowing how to proceed, as they put it, because he’d simply leaned to one side and died
.

I don’t remember what I did. We must have laid him in the trap, covered him up and brought him home. The cottage was full of torn paper, but my friends helped to make everything tidy. They would rather not have left me alone but I wanted to spend one last night with him. Given the heat, we can’t delay the funeral, Thomasina, even for your return. By the time you receive this, he’ll be buried. But, my dear girl, you can perhaps imagine how much I need you
.

Typically, in a postscript, Caroline remembered to mention the tailor’s wife.

You will wish to know that she will be tried next Thursday, in Chichester. It is widely anticipated that she will hang
.

Asa ran back to the house and upstairs to where Georgina was closeted with Warren in her bedchamber, amid heaps of clothes. The atmosphere was stormy; when Asa asked to speak to her sister alone Warren bowed insolently and left.

‘Georgina, I have to leave now. Mr Lambert is dead. I must go to Caroline.’

Georgina, in a grubby pink robe, stared. ‘What are you talking about? Of course we can’t go now. The ball has been arranged for us. It would be unforgivable to leave today when the Shacklefords have been so kind.’

‘I must go. Mr Shackleford will understand.’

‘What about his mother? It’s our duty to stay. Mrs Shackleford’s guests are expecting to meet you. We can’t possibly disappear. And if he’s dead, what’s the rush? For heaven’s sake, Asa, the Lamberts are not even family. Caroline has dozens of friends, I’m sure, who will look after her for one more day.’

‘I’m not arguing about it. Stay if you want to but Madame and I will leave now.’

Georgina leaned against the door to prevent her. ‘We can’t go yet. Shackleford is bound to propose during the ball. Everyone knows he will.’

‘He proposed on Brandon Hill and I refused him. I made my feelings absolutely clear so that he wouldn’t pursue the issue any more. You must have noticed that since Monday he has scarcely been in the house. So there is no point in staying any longer, ball or no ball. I shall order the carriage and if you and Warren are not ready by midday, you’ll have to make your own way home.’

Georgina was crying so much that her face was red. ‘I can’t believe it. You can’t mean you turned him down. You must speak to him again and tell him it’s a mistake.’

‘I won’t change my mind.’

‘Oh God, you don’t understand … You
have
to marry Shackleford because he’s agreed to pay for a lawyer to defend Warren. He was most unkind and very unfair about it, and I’m sure he’s only doing it because of you.’

‘He will keep his promise, whether I marry him or not. And this has nothing to do with Mr Lambert.’

‘But it’s more complicated than you think. We assumed that Mr Shackleford would know all about the practice of sailing under French colours to avoid the Dolben restrictions. Everyone was doing it before the war. But Shackleford seemed to find it surprising that Warren had been involved and was completely unsympathetic, which is a bit rich given the amount of money his family has made over the years doing far worse things, I don’t doubt. There are all kinds of vindictive people after us, customs people and magistrates and horrible men who say we owe them money. Shackleford says he will pay our debts but we must start afresh, build a new life. He even suggested we go to some colony called Sierra Leone, but I told him I couldn’t bear to be so far from you and Phil. At any rate, for the time being we’ve got to disappear or we’ll be arrested, so tomorrow we are to travel with you in the carriage as far as Bath, and then separate from you in secret so nobody notices we’ve disappeared. It’s all arranged, but if you leave now the plan won’t work.’

‘Why would Shackleford make all these cloak-and-dagger arrangements for you? I think even less of him for that. Why shouldn’t Warren pay for what he’s done?’

‘Oh, Warren didn’t mean any harm by it. He didn’t even realise it was illegal, it was just a way round Dolben. Mr Shackleford admits that we’re family. And after all, he’s in the same trade as Warren.’

Georgina’s tear-stained face showed such a mix of despair, triumph and defiance that it took every ounce of self-control not to shout at her. ‘You are evading the law and Shackleford is helping you. If I agree to help I will be embroiled as well.’

‘Don’t be so prim, Asa, it doesn’t suit you. This way nobody except Shackleford will be any the worse off and he can afford it. All I’m asking is that we leave tomorrow, not today. Please, Asa, I don’t know what Warren will do if I have to tell him the plans have changed. You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll be furious, he’ll blame me.’

‘What is he like, Georgina? Tell me.’

‘Nothing. He’s not like anything. Don’t take everything I say so seriously. We both just love a ball.’ Georgina dabbed powder on her face, twisted a curl and swooped about the room to show off her dance steps. ‘You know how I’ve been looking forward to it, and you can’t let all Madame de Rusigny’s wonderful teaching go to waste.’ She gave her old cow-eyed look, and a nod towards the spotted confection arranged on the bed – her gown for the evening. ‘It’s bound to be my last dance for a very long time. Surely you won’t deprive me of it?’

At dinner before the ball they were twenty. Mrs Shackleford surrounded herself with handsome men with whom she alternately flirted and became sorrowful as she talked about her lost son. Asa was seated between a Mr Blanning and a Mr Shatton, who said they were old acquaintances of the late Mr Shackleford from the Society of Merchant Venturers. She obeyed Madame’s rules to the letter, dividing her attention equally and making monosyllabic replies to their remarks about how much she must enjoy staying at Compton Wyatt. Shackleford, at the far end of the table, wore a coat of bronze silk, his head alternately inclined to one lady or another, but his thoughts, Asa knew, were always with her. Whenever she happened to glance his way she caught his eye and felt a pang of regret that she was not next to him for this last meal so that she could talk about Mr Lambert, or at least argue with him about what he’d done for Warren.

Afterwards they were ushered to the gallery, where the five sets of glass doors had been thrown wide open so that guests might stroll on the terrace. More and more carriages arrived; thirty families had been invited and, a ball at Compton Wyatt being such a rarity these days, almost all had accepted.

Madame de Rusigneux and Georgina kept a close watch on Asa, who could scarcely avoid keeping an eye on herself, reflected as she was in countless mirrors; a young woman in pearly pink voile with a dark grey sash (Georgina’s only concession to Mr Lambert’s death). Her partners, she reflected grimly, would be anti-abolitionists to a man. Meanwhile Shackleford stood beside his mother and set young ladies aquiver with one glance from his amber eyes. Or, thought Asa sourly, perhaps it was his money which enchanted them.

Georgina flung herself into the ball with the desperation of someone for whom this was the end of everything. She laughed too loud and long and glanced anxiously at Warren, who had been drinking steadily since sitting down to dinner. Madame stuck to Asa’s side with Mrs Foster-like assiduity but contrived to show by the aloof smile on her lips that this was all something of a game. Her light gown (Georgina’s cast-off) was partly obscured by a black shawl, which made her sumptuous hair and gleaming eyes seem more exotic than ever. Time and again she refused to dance: ‘I am merely Miss Ardleigh’s companion,’ she murmured, lowering her eyelids, so that men hovered hopefully and ladies stared at her curiously or whispered behind their fans.

Susan Shackleford hung about in her black dress or stared at the lake. Once or twice Asa caught her eye and they exchanged a smile. The musicians struck up a minuet as Shackleford bowed over Asa’s hand. Fuelled by three glasses of wine, she determined to show these slavers that the daughter of a country squire could dance better than they, so she swept on to the floor with a grandeur worthy of Madame de Rusigneux’s sternest tuition, deadened the expression in her eyes and set her chin at a haughty angle.

According to Madame’s instructions a lady should make three comments during a dance, unless specifically invited to say more. Asa therefore complimented Shackleford on the number of guests. ‘They have all come to look at you,’ he said, ‘and who can blame them?’

The room was very warm and the breeze from the garden agitated a hundred candle flames. Asa had not danced in company for years except for a midsummer assembly in Littlehampton, and discovered that thanks to the wine and Madame’s excellent instruction, she was in danger of enjoying herself. For a few moments she forgot Mr Lambert’s death, her aversion to Compton Wyatt and that she’d intended to scold Shackleford for helping Warren evade the law. When he put out his hands to escort her down the set she couldn’t help smiling up at him. But as soon as the dance was over she curtsied and moved abruptly away. Dear God, the look in his eyes had been enough to make a woman check her reflection and put her hands to her hot cheeks. No wonder the ladies clustered about him and young girls peeked at him yearningly from behind their fans.