LITMIR.BIZ

      N.B. The names underlined are of those members of the family who were alive in September 1819

       CHAPTER ONE

      WE OWE RESPECT to the living, Voltaire tells us in his Première Lettre sur Oedipe, but to the dead we owe only truth. The truth is that there are days when the world changes, and a man does not notice because his mind is on his own affairs.

      I first saw Sophia Frant shortly before midday on Wednesday the 8th of September, 1819. She was leaving the house in Stoke Newington, and for a moment she was framed in the doorway as though in a picture. Something in the shadows of the hall behind her had made her pause, a word spoken, perhaps, or an unexpected movement.

      What struck me first were the eyes, which were large and blue. Then other details lodged in my memory like burrs on a coat. She was neither tall nor short, with well-shaped, regular features and a pale complexion. She wore an elaborate cottage bonnet, decorated with flowers. Her dress had a white skirt, puffed sleeves and a pale blue bodice, the latter matching the leather slipper peeping beneath the hem of her skirt. In her left hand she carried a pair of white gloves and a small reticule.

      I heard the clatter of the footman leaping down from the box of the carriage, and the rattle as he let down the steps. A stout middle-aged man in black joined the lady on the doorstep and gave her his arm as they strolled towards the carriage. They did not look at me. On either side of the path from the house to the road were miniature shrubberies enclosed by railings. I felt faint, and I held on to one of the uprights of the railings at the front.

      ‘Indeed, madam,’ the man said, as though continuing a conversation begun in the house, ‘our situation is quite rural and the air is notably healthy.’

      The lady glanced at me and smiled. This so surprised me that I failed to bow. The footman opened the door of the carriage. The stout man handed her in.

      ‘Thank you, sir,’ she murmured. ‘You have been very patient.’

      He bowed over her hand. ‘Not at all, madam. Pray give my compliments to Mr Frant.’

      I stood there like a booby. The footman closed the door, put up the steps and climbed up to his seat. The lacquered woodwork of the carriage was painted blue and the gilt wheels were so clean they hurt your eyes.

      The coachman unwound the reins from the whipstock. He cracked his whip, and the pair of matching bays, as glossy as the coachman’s top hat, jingled down the road towards the High-street. The stout man held up his hand in not so much a wave as a blessing. When he turned back to the house, his gaze flicked towards me.

      I let go of the railing and whipped off my hat. ‘Mr Bransby? That is, have I the honour –?’

      ‘Yes, you have.’ He stared at me with pale blue eyes partly masked by pink, puffy lids. ‘What do you want with me?’

      ‘My name is Shield, sir. Thomas Shield. My aunt, Mrs Reynolds, wrote to you, and you were kind enough to say –’

      ‘Yes, yes.’ The Reverend Mr Bransby held out a finger for me to shake. He stared me over, running his eyes from head to toe. ‘You’re not at all like her.’

      He led me up the path and through the open door into the panelled hall beyond. From somewhere in the building came the sound of chanting voices. He opened a door on the right and went into a room fitted out as a library, with a Turkey carpet and two windows overlooking the road. He sat down heavily in the chair behind

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