The Silent Boy Read online

  By degrees, Charles glides into sleep, his mind wandering this way and that, seemingly under the direction of someone other than himself. His sleep is light and fitful at first; then, as he warms up, he plunges down and down into the darkness.

  Charles does not know how long this continues. Suddenly, though, he is no longer asleep. He wakes abruptly, without passing through the usual transition that is neither one thing nor the other.

  The bed-curtains are so thin that the material does not keep out light. The room should be completely dark, filled with a soft blackness without boundaries. But it is not. There is murky yellow radiance beyond the curtains.

  He does not move. His own breathing is deafening so he holds his breath. It is then that he hears, or thinks he hears, that someone else is breathing: so faintly and slowly that it lies on the very edge of sound.

  Minutes pass, perhaps hours. He cannot pace out the length and breadth of time. In a few places, the radiance shifts. It grows less dense, its power no longer absolute. Charles listens and listens, imagining his ears are on slender, supple stalks that probe like green suckers into the loamy darkness.

  The house is not quiet, nor is the night. He hears, far away, a sort of creaking sigh deep in the bowels of the building, like a dog settling to sleep.

  The tree scratches on the window, still trying to get in. He wishes it would give up and go away.

  Then, much nearer, in the room with him: a footstep. Another. A third. A breath of air touches Charles’s cheek as the curtains sway.

  Then: a click. The metallic click of the latch. The sigh of a hinge. A floorboard groans. Another click. Another current of air touches his cheek, this one a cold caress.

  Then it is gone, whatever it was. Charles is left with the creaking house, the scratching tree and the thudding of his own blood. There is a sour tang of sweat and brandy in the air.

  This has happened before, more than once.

  Charles trembles. His teeth chatter. He is so very cold.

  Worse than cold.

  He discovers that he has wet the bed again.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Savill woke, slowly and painfully, he forced himself out of bed to use the chamber pot. Movement made him dizzy and slightly nauseous; but that was scarcely to be wondered at.

  He rang the bell and slumped into the chair by the dead fire. He pulled a blanket over his knees. The chair still had the straps attached to the arms. There was a spot of dried blood on the floor. He probed the crater in his mouth with the tip of his tongue. The hole was the size of a small country.

  There was a knock and Joseph entered the room with a jug of hot water.

  ‘Tea,’ Savill croaked.

  Joseph hesitated. ‘Doctor said you should stay in bed.’

  ‘Tea.’

  ‘He wants to bleed you before—’

  ‘Tea, damn you,’ Savill said. ‘But stay – has the postboy collected the letters?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He scowled at Joseph, who took this as a signal to leave the room.

  The time had come, Savill thought while he waited, to put an end to this catalogue of disasters, irritations and difficulties that had afflicted him since leaving Bath. He would insist on an interview with the Count this very day and retrieve the necessary papers from him. If the livery stable failed to send another chaise by Monday, he would use to the full the powers that Mr Rampton had given him. He would require the Vicar, as the nearest Justice of the Peace to assist him, and he would commandeer whatever horses and conveyance the village had to offer. If necessary, he would settle even for Mr Roach’s cart.

  Savill took up his waistcoat, neatly folded with the rest of his clothes, and found the key to the portmanteau. He fetched the case, stumbling across the room like a drunkard to the cupboard where he had told Joseph to put it.

  As he turned the key in the lock, something niggled in the back of his mind, demanding attention. He opened the bag and took out the folder. It was then he remembered that he was in the habit of leaving the key in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat; but he had found it in the pocket on the left.

  The niggle pushed its way to the front of his mind: from the depths of his clouded memories of yesterday evening came the light that had slopped to and fro like water in a bucket and the rustle of leaves.

  But there was no tree in his chamber and the only water was in the carafe on the dressing table.

  Someone in this house had been looking through his private papers.

  His mind groped towards the implications, one by one. If Fournier and the Count knew about the warrant, they knew that Savill had the legal power to force them to give up Charles.

  More than that, they must know that he was suspiciously well prepared. The question was, would they also realize the significance of a warrant signed by one of Westminster’s stipendiary police magistrates?

  ‘In case of emergency,’ Rampton had said, ‘he appoints you under the Police Act as his agent or deputy, which gives you temporary powers of inquiry, arrest and detention.’

  If they had seen that, they would know that Savill could be no ordinary private citizen. They must infer that behind him was someone infinitely more powerful.

  Alarm spread through him. What a fool he had been to trust his hosts. Had the Count ordered Gohlis to drug him? Had the tooth even needed extraction?

  Joseph returned with the tea. By this time, Savill was back in the chair, with the portmanteau on the floor beside him and the portfolio of papers on his lap.

  ‘Is His Lordship downstairs yet?’ he demanded. ‘And Monsieur Fournier?’

  ‘His Lordship doesn’t come down before twelve, sir.’ Joseph sounded scandalized by the possibility that Savill might have thought otherwise. ‘And Mr Fournier’s walking over to Norbury Park. He said he might dine there.’

  ‘Send Master Charles to me then.’

  ‘He’s not here either, sir. Vicar’s praying over him this morning.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, you blockhead,’ Savill said. ‘Give me the tea.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘What are you doing in there?’ Mrs Cox cries, her voice shrill with anger and perhaps fear. There is a terrible knocking. ‘Open the door at once.’

  Charles wakes in a damp bed. The door is banging against a box that stands in its way.

  The housekeeper continues to rattle the door handle as he pads across the floor and pulls aside the box. He dragged it from the end of the bed to the door last night. It was Louis’s idea, not his, to keep him safe from whoever might come in the night.

  Whoever or whatever might come back.

  Mrs Cox pushes open the door and slaps him.

  ‘Don’t do that again, you wicked boy. Do you hear?’

  She gives him a clean shirt and stockings, and a freshly pressed stock. ‘Put these on,’ she tells him. ‘But not until you’ve had your breakfast. And I need to sponge your coat and breeches.’ She catches sight of his shoes. ‘You can’t go out in those.’

  He realizes that she is not, for once, angry with him. If she’s angry with anyone, it is with her masters, the Count and Monsieur Fournier, for failing to tell her that Charles would be appearing in public today. It is one thing for him to look no better than a beggar’s boy in the privacy of Charnwood but quite another for him to venture into the village like that. It would reflect badly, in some obscure but powerful way, on Mrs Cox herself.

  She gives him an old coat and a pair of slippers to wear while he has his breakfast. The coat hangs from his shoulders like a cloak, and the cuffs reach his knuckles. While he eats bread and milk in the housekeeper’s room, Martha, one of the maids, does what she can to improve the appearance of his coat and shoes. After he has eaten, Mrs Cox herself brushes his hair so hard it brings tears to his eyes. She trims it with a pair of scissors and ties it with a black ribbon.

  She sends him away to dress himself in the clean clothes. On his return, she makes him stand before her. She examines him front
and back. She clicks her teeth as she straightens his stock. Finally she gives him his newly brushed hat.

  ‘You’ll do,’ she says. ‘You look almost fit for decent company.’

  There is a note of pride in her voice, the pride of a creator. For a moment she looks at him with a slight smile, as if she does not really hate him after all.

  Mrs Cox takes him through to the gentlemen, who are still at breakfast in the dining room. Fournier and Dr Gohlis are there. Fournier stares and the crooked eyebrows rise.

  ‘Well, well. I congratulate you, Mrs Cox.’

  ‘I could have done better with more warning, sir, and really he needs another suit of clothes. He’s grown out of these, you can see for yourself, sir, and there’s a hole in—’

  ‘You have done admirably,’ Fournier interrupts. ‘You may leave him here now. We will send him to the Vicarage, by and by.’

  ‘Will his lordship be down today, sir?’

  ‘I believe so. But it seems that Mr Savill is unwell, and he may not be able to leave his room. He is having trouble with his teeth. You may leave us now.’

  When the housekeeper has withdrawn, Fournier tells Charles to sit. He gives him a roll to eat and pours him a cup of coffee mixed with cream and sugar.

  ‘This is quite like old times,’ Fournier says. ‘We must enjoy it while we can.’

  Old times: Charles knows that he means the apartment in the Rue de Grenelle. Fournier would often drop in, sometimes alone and sometimes with another gentleman, and he would sit at table with Charles and Maman. They would fuss over Charles, play with him and drop morsels of food in his mouth as if he was a pet bird. And Maman would laugh and look so pretty and happy.

  His eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Eat your roll,’ Fournier says gently. ‘You must leave in a moment.’

  The gardener takes him to the Vicarage. He is a burly, middle-aged man called Jevons with skin like the shell of an old walnut engrained with dirt. They go on foot, walking in silence side by side down the drive, with Charles breaking into a trot every few yards to match the man’s longer strides.

  The red-headed boy is sweeping leaves. He makes a face at Charles as they pass. You can still see the mark on his cheek, the faded red weal, the last trace of the whipping that the Count gave him.

  ‘Enough of your nonsense, George,’ Jevons roars. ‘You’re paid to work, not make a fool of yourself.’

  Charles has not seen the village since the day that he arrived at Charnwood. As they pass through the outskirts, they attract the attention of a few boys, younger than Charles. Jevons snarls like a dog at them but, jeering and sniggering, the boys follow them up the lane to the church and as far as Mr Horton’s gates.

  At the Vicarage, they go to a side door, not the front. A manservant answers Jevons’s knock. He stares with both curiosity and apprehension at Charles, as if he were an odd and potentially dangerous monstrosity.

  ‘Is he safe?’ he asks Jevons. ‘In the village they say he has fits. Is it true he bites people?’

  ‘Only if you let him see you’re scared of him,’ Jevons says.

  The servant’s colour rises. He says in a haughty voice that Jevons is to wait in the kitchen until he is summoned.

  A spaniel with a curly liver-and-white coat appears, her nose cocked in curiosity, her paws pattering on the gravel. She ignores the servant and Jevons but sniffs Charles’s hands and allows him to scratch her head. He feels a rush of uncomplicated affection towards this animal. He would like to kneel and throw his arms around her neck.

  ‘Go away, Bessie,’ the servant says. ‘Drat the dog. Always in the way, always trying to get into the house.’ He looks at Jevons. ‘Go on round to the kitchen. She’ll follow you.’

  The servant takes Charles by the shoulder, gingerly as if he fears Charles might explode if handled incautiously, and draws him inside. He pushes the door shut with his foot.

  The hall is clean and airy. It smells of lemon and beeswax. Charles hears the sound of a woman’s voice. A door opens, and a young woman appears with a book in her hand.

  ‘Thomas – is this Charles?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She looks at the boy and smiles. ‘Come in here and wait with us. The Vicar was obliged to go out but he will be back directly.’ She glances at the servant. ‘Ask cook for a jug of lemonade and some biscuits.’

  Thomas bows, a token nod, and withdraws.

  ‘I’m Miss Horton,’ the woman says to Charles. ‘Come along.’

  He follows her into a drawing room. A square-faced, vigorous old woman is sitting by the fire.

  ‘This is Charles,’ Miss Horton says. ‘The boy from Charnwood. Charles, allow me to present Mrs West of Norbury Park.’

  Habit does its work: he bows as his mother would have wished, as if the King himself were passing by at Versailles.

  Mrs West claps her hands. ‘How pretty!’ Her voice is harsh and carrying. ‘Come here, child. Let me look at you.’

  He stands by her chair and she examines him. ‘How do you like England?’ When Charles does not reply, she repeats the question in French.

  Charles stares at her.

  ‘You know he does not speak, ma’am,’ Miss Horton says.

  ‘I like to examine these things for myself, my dear. He needs a new suit of clothes. I shall talk to Monsieur Fournier about it.’ She nods at Charles. ‘Sit down, child. There on the fender where I can see you.’ She smiles at Miss Horton. ‘Intriguing, is it not? It reminds me of those wild boys the French and Germans find in their woods. Noble savages. Except they rarely seem to be noble, do they? They show Monsieur Rousseau to be quite wrong, on that head at least. It seems to me that, without the society of human kind, they can be scarcely human.’

  ‘This does not apply in Charles’s case, ma’am,’ Miss Horton says. ‘One can see at a glance that he is entirely civilized.’

  There is a tap at the door and the manservant enters with a tray. He is not alone – Bessie pushes between his legs, nearly oversetting him, and hurls herself into the room. The stump of her tail wags vigorously, waving a ghostly plume.

  ‘Bessie, you wicked girl,’ Miss Horton says.

  The dog makes a rapid circuit of the room and comes to Charles. She sits on his foot and gazes into his face.

  ‘My father dotes on the wretched animal,’ Harriet says to Mrs West. She leans across and gently tugs one of the dog’s ears. ‘I truly believe he cares more for Bessie than he does for me.’

  Bessie ignores her. She licks Charles’s cheek.

  ‘Take her away, Thomas, and shut her in the stables.’

  The servant seizes Bessie and backs out of the room. Bessie whines and, Charles thinks, looks straight at him, imploring help.

  ‘She likes you, Charles,’ Miss Horton says. ‘You’re honoured indeed. She is most particular about where she bestows her favours.’

  ‘I can’t abide a dog that comes into the house,’ Mrs West says. ‘Nasty dirty creatures. But go on about the other day, my dear. Was it a terrible smash?’

  Charles sips lemonade and listens to Miss Horton telling the story of Mr Savill’s unlucky arrival in Norbury.

  ‘But what is he like?’ Mrs West says.

  ‘He has a scar on his face and a most sarcastic turn of phrase. On the other hand, he was provoked. He was as wet as a sponge and covered in mud. I dare say he was bruised all over as well.’

  ‘Men never like to look ridiculous. Poor Mr West couldn’t bear it when I laughed at him.’

  Miss Horton cocks her head. ‘There’s a horse on the lane.’

  Mrs West looks at Charles. ‘Perhaps Miss Horton would bring you to see me at my house,’ she said. ‘You might take a boat out on the lake.’

  ‘What a charming idea,’ Miss Horton says. ‘I should like it above all things.’

  The horse is on the drive now.

  ‘Is the Vicar really going to …?’

  ‘Pray with Charles?’ Miss Horton says. ‘Yes, ma’am, he is.’


  ‘How very odd,’ Mrs West says. She smiles, perhaps sensing that she has not been polite. ‘But I’m sure dear Mr Horton knows his business better than I do.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Vicar is a stout, red-faced gentleman. He peers through thick spectacles at Charles and wrinkles his nose as if there was a bad smell in the air. ‘Take him to the Justice Room,’ he tells the servant. ‘That will do very well. I will join him there in a moment.’

  ‘Pray be gentle with him, sir,’ says Miss Horton.

  Mr Horton snorts, bows to Mrs West and marches away to the back of the house with the heavy tread and silent determination of a man in need of his privy.

  Miss Horton smiles at Charles, and Thomas the manservant leads him along a passage. He hears the two ladies talking, the volume diminishing, and wishes he was with them.

  The servant shows Charles into an apartment at the side of the house. It is plainly furnished with a scratched mahogany table, four hard chairs and a high clerk’s desk. The walls are lined with shelves and cupboards. There are few books on the shelves – only bundles of paper, tied with ribbons, and japanned metal boxes with labels attached to their handles. The room is gloomy, even in the morning, because the dripping leaves of a bush press up against the window.

  Left alone, Charles does not dare to sit. He tries to read the labels on the boxes but finds they say only names, dates and incomprehensible combinations of letters. His head feels as though someone is squeezing it in a vice. He makes a survey of the room. It is slightly more than eight paces long by six paces wide.

  This knowledge makes him feel somewhat better. He commits the measurements to memory, where they jostle with all the other measurements that lie there. In a perfect world, he would like a memorandum book in which to record all the figures. It would be agreeable to look at those columns of numbers, those neatly arranged and incontrovertible facts.