The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

Mrs Kinsey’s companion continued on her way; she herself entered the front door of a house on the corner with Margaret Street.

      I lingered outside it with a pounding heart: surely I had tracked Sarah down. Yet my exhilaration was tempered by curiosity. This was a fine street of handsome new buildings. If the Kinseys lived here they had dramatically risen in the world. Might they have inherited money? It was perhaps as well that, dressed as I was, I could make no further approach at this time: I needed to present myself to better advantage.

      Next morning I came to the house in gentlemanly guise. To the maid who answered my knock I said that an old acquaintance of Mrs Kinsey, Richard Fenwick, newly returned to London, had called to pay his respects. I was left on the doorstep for some little time before a carefully rehearsed reply was brought to me. Mrs Kinsey sent her compliments. She would be very pleased to see Mr Fenwick, but particular circumstances prevented her from doing so that morning. She hoped that I might be able to call at the same time on the following day.

      So it came about that I was duly ushered into her presence twenty-four hours later. Even before we spoke I had observed that the interior of the house, its curtains and furnishings, confirmed the impression conveyed by its exterior: it seemed that Mrs Kinsey had prospered extraordinarily since I had last spoken to her.

      She had always been an affable lady. Our exchanges were warm but brief, speedily resolving into the very situation for which I had scarcely dared to hope. Mrs Kinsey informed me that she was unexpectedly called away, but was sure that I would be pleased to meet her niece once more. After bows and courtesies the lady departed, and Sarah came in.

      I felt an instant sense of shock. Here was the Sarah I had known, but changed in every way for the better. She was more expensively and elegantly dressed, she moved more gracefully. What seemed to be a slight thinning of the cheeks and an enhanced brightness of the eyes elevated her face from its former prettiness into positive beauty. Above all there was a confidence in her manner that lent her a striking animation. In the past she had been subject to an instinctive diffidence, although capable of sudden directness and rebellious wit. Now these underlying traits were in the ascendancy. As we exchanged greetings and sat down she looked me in the eye and seemed to be suppressing a smile.

      I had some airy opening remarks prepared: ‘… regretted loss of contact … my own fault … warm memories … would hope to renew …’

      Her reply was concise: ‘I am pleased to see you again, Mr Fenwick. I was here yesterday when you called, but the circumstances were a little awkward. So I arranged to visit again this morning when I knew you would be here.’

      ‘To visit?’

      ‘Why yes. This is my aunt’s house.’

      ‘Then you—?’

      ‘I live in Margaret Street. I am married, Mr Fenwick.’

      ‘Married?’ I was trapped in the interrogative mode.

      ‘I was married last September to Mr Walter Ogden.’

      She was easy and terse, in full command. It was necessary to rally a little: ‘I have known you well enough to forego formalities. How did this come about?’

      ‘I met Mr Ogden last July, through the merest chance.’

      I tried, with indifferent success, to sound quizzical rather than sour: ‘A swift courtship. Mr Ogden must be a man of considerable charm.’

      ‘Determination was the decisive quality. Mr Ogden is a man of strong will.’

      ‘Would I like him?’

      ‘I hardly think so. Two men could hardly be more different.’

      ‘In what respect?’

      ‘In most respects. He is a particularly serious man.’

      ‘A solemn one?’ I ventured.

      She considered the suggestion serenely, and then smiled.

      ‘Perhaps a little.’

      ‘Are you laughing at him?’

      ‘I do laugh at him sometimes – but only behind his back. I do not care to vex him.’

      ‘You make him sound formidable.’

      ‘And so he is.’ She paused, before adding lightly: ‘He deals in diamonds. For that reason he was untroubled by my own lack of means.’

      ‘Indeed.’ I sought a new direction: ‘Did you ever mention me to him?’

      ‘I mentioned that I had been visited at one time by a genteel young man of uncertain prospects.’

      ‘Did that disclosure disturb him?’

      ‘Not the least in the world.’

      Disappointed and obscurely resentful in several ways at once I could find nothing further to say. It was left to Sarah to resume the conversation: ‘Since we are being so unfashionably plain with one another, may I ask about your own situation. I take it that your Grand Tour is at an end?’

      ‘It is. I returned last month. Thanks to the generosity of my godfather I am now a licensed man about town – at least for a year or two.’

      ‘Then it would seem that we are both provided for.’

      Was there a hint of bitterness in her voice – the faintest of hints?

      It was my turn to look her in the eyes. ‘This has become a particularly candid conversation.’

      She held my gaze. ‘Each of us now knows how the other is placed.’

      ‘You have been able to marry into prosperity. Perhaps it was as well that our correspondence had lapsed.’

      ‘It must be in some such way that most friendships fade.’

      I stood up. ‘I must congratulate you on your good fortune – and leave you.’

      She rose in her turn, with a slight flush, and spoke in an altered voice: ‘I should not like us to part in this vein.’

      ‘In what vein, Mrs Ogden?’

      ‘Cold, bright, false. I would not wish to seem unfeeling. We have been close, you and I …’ Her voice quickened: ‘But we were both left ill-provided for, and so have had to make our way in the world as best we can.’

      On the way home, and indeed for several days following, I found myself discomposed. Who could have foreseen that Sarah would already have a husband, and a rich one, and that marriage would have given her such assurance. My feelings were oddly diverse. It had been disconcerting to be thrown on to the defence by a woman I had once patronized. I was stung by the instant dissolution of what had become a gratifying fantasy compounding tender feeling and ruthless seduction. And I felt that I had undervalued this handsome, cool young lady. Mr Ogden had shown himself a shrewd judge, and captured a wife who would do him credit, even if, as I was determined must be the case, she had married him merely to secure her future. Common sense told me that Sarah must be happier as the wife of a wealthy man than as the lover of an adventurer with uncertain prospects, but I was unwilling to be persuaded. The best bargain I could make with myself was to see this lost chance as a source of half-pleasing melancholy. I made shift with this notion since I had much else to occupy me, but it was clouded with resentment and unease: I had lost a point of moral anchorage.

      Since April showers were frequent I was often indoors, where I did a good deal of writing. In addition to drafting of letters I was keeping a new journal as a quarry of possible epistolary material. Sometimes I would sing, and sometimes write facetious verses – a diversion I had enjoyed during my travels. I remained on friendly but formal terms with my landlady. Only gradually had I learned that her husband had been Mr Gilbert’s tailor, and had died of a fever when she was expecting their first child, her daughter, Charlotte. Through the agency of Mr Ward my godfather had intervened on her behalf, securing the