The Silent Boy Read online

  The key fitted Savill’s portmanteau, at the bottom of which was the portfolio that held his warrant and other papers, together with the heavy canvas roll that still contained almost fifty guineas in gold.

  If Savill was right about the key having been moved, then his possessions had been searched even before he took to his bed. Moreover, he had been lying here for days in a condition that could scarcely have been more vulnerable. He had been entirely in the power of his hosts and at their mercy. The Count in particular had no reason to love him. They could have searched his belongings a hundred times without his knowing anything about it.

  He called for pen and ink and wrote a letter addressed to Frederick Brown, to await collection at the White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly. He wrote that illness had kept him in the country but he hoped to be well enough to leave in a day or two.

  Yet, Savill thought as he sealed the letter, he had survived the infection. If their motives were sinister, surely Gohlis could have ensured that the infection became fatal, as so many did? It followed that either his hosts were to be trusted, despite appearances, despite the fact that the Count was determined to keep Charles; or they had discovered the powers Savill held from the Westminster magistrate and had inferred from these that he was a man of greater significance than in fact he was.

  The spy for a police magistrate? The secret agent of the Black Letter Office?

  His head swam. When it cleared again, he realized his logic was not impeccable. Perhaps his hosts had merely wanted to immobilize him for a while for a purpose he did not understand. His attempts to guess what this might be made his head swim again, and in a moment he fell into a fitful sleep.

  By Monday, the pain had subsided. Savill was still weak; but he was well enough for Joseph to shave and dress him, and for him to spend much of the day in the armchair.

  In the afternoon, Fournier came to see him, bringing the news that he and Charles were to pass a few hours at Norbury Park on Wednesday, and that Mrs West had promised to send her carriage for them.

  ‘Mrs West has a desire to improve her acquaintance with him. He is become quite a lion in this village of ours. I understand that Miss Horton will be there as well, so he will not be dull. And she writes that, if you were well enough, it would give her much pleasure if you were to join us. Her carriage is most comfortable, and when you were there you might have a sofa to yourself. Dr Gohlis says the excursion would raise your spirits. I have promised that we shall not allow you to overexert yourself.’

  ‘But I would take another’s place in the carriage, surely?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. Monsieur de Quillon and Dr Gohlis are detained by their work. Only Charles and I will be going.’

  As Fournier was leaving, Savill asked to see Charles. Twenty minutes later, Joseph brought the boy up to Savill’s bedchamber. He sidled into the room and made his bow. Savill told him to sit opposite him.

  There was a forlorn quality about him. He sat very still. Only his eyes were restless: his gaze darted over the room, out of the window, towards Savill, though he did not look up at Savill’s face.

  Someone, probably Mrs Cox, had supervised his toilette. His black clothes were threadbare but perfectly clean, as were his face and hands. His hair had been brushed back and tied with a ribbon. But his wrists poked from the cuffs of his coat and shirt, and his hair needed cutting.

  ‘I hear Miss Horton has been reading to you,’ Savill said. ‘That must be pleasant.’

  Charles showed no sign of having heard him.

  ‘Your sister Lizzie is fond of reading too. Perhaps she will read to you as well, if you wish it.’ The lack of response had an oddly wearying effect but Savill persevered. ‘I shall tell you about where we shall live when I take you away from here.’

  At last there was a flicker in the eyes, a sudden intake of breath.

  ‘I shall take you back to London. Your sister is your nearest relation, and so you will live with us, at least for a while. My own sister, who is a widow, keeps house for us. Your mother’s uncle will want to see you too, but he lives elsewhere.’

  Charles’s eyes flicked towards Savill’s face for an instant.

  ‘I live in Nightingale Lane, which is on the northern edge of London, near some grand houses they have built in a place called Bedford Square. Nightingale Lane sounds rustic, does it not? Perhaps it was once, but the town has grown up around it. There are four small houses in the lane and they all have gardens and old trees, where birds nest.’ Savill paused, suddenly homesick. ‘Sometimes it isn’t like living in the town at all. I have a walnut tree so at this time of year we eat a vast deal of walnuts.’

  Charles stared at him.

  ‘I have heard a nightingale singing in the garden,’ Savill said. ‘So the name is still apt. I was with Lizzie, your sister, and she was transported by it. Myself, I think the nightingale’s song is overrated. Lizzie says I am too plain and prosaic.’ He smiled at Charles and listened to himself babbling on like a lunatic. ‘There is an alehouse in the little road beyond the lane, and their garden backs on to mine. The establishment is called the Royal Oak, which sounds rural as well. Sometimes we hear the coachmen and hackney drivers singing there, and to my mind their songs are more agreeable than the nightingale’s, at least at the start of the evening. Besides, their songs are much better than the noises of the builders and the passing traffic that we hear in the day.’

  Savill ran out of things to say. The boy’s silence was like a wall. Savill’s words bounced off it and fell to the ground.

  ‘Pray pass me that little case on the table by the bed,’ he said.

  At first, Charles gave no sign that he had heard. Then he turned and looked towards the bed. Like a sleepwalker he moved across the chamber, picked up the miniature and brought it to Savill. He dropped it on the outstretched palm of Savill’s hand, taking great care that their two hands should not touch.

  Savill opened the case. ‘This is your sister,’ he said, angling the portrait towards Charles. ‘The likeness was taken when she was younger than you are now. You may hold it if you wish, and look at her more closely.’

  Charles stared at the miniature. Slowly he backed away, inch by inch, foot by foot. He swallowed. His eyes were very bright. As Savill watched, still holding out the picture of Lizzie to him, the boy’s mouth trembled and he bit his lower lip.

  ‘Yes,’ Savill said. ‘There is a similarity, is there not? I believe your mama must have looked much the same when she was a girl.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The following day, Tuesday, it is raining. Miss Horton comes in the morning.

  ‘I’m rejoiced that Mr Savill is so much better,’ she says to Charles as she removes her bonnet. ‘But saddened too – I suppose it must mean that you will soon be leaving?’

  He watches her nimble fingers. She has bitten one of the nails to the quick.

  ‘I shall miss our times together,’ she goes on. ‘Shall we read some more?’

  Robinson Crusoe is progressing most satisfactorily. With the help of the items he has salvaged from the ship, he does his best to construct a life for himself on the island. First, to protect himself from possible savages, he makes a fortress where he stores his goods.

  Charles cannot help thinking of his own castle in the woods. He and Crusoe are similar, for each of them has been imprisoned by solitude, Crusoe by being shipwrecked on a desert island and Charles by the loss of his voice. God has locked them into themselves and thrown away the keys.

  Crusoe finds wild goats, which he kills and eats, which is just what Charles would like to do, though he is uncertain about how one would kill, cut up and cook a goat in the middle of a wood where it is nearly always raining.

  The likeness between the two of them increases when Crusoe erects a wooden cross, into which he cuts a notch to mark every passing day of his captivity. Charles imagines the castaway staring at the notches and counting them, first from left to right and then top to bottom, and later in reverse, to make sure the t
otal is the same in both directions. In that way, he contrives to count time itself, despite the fact this is an invisible thing.

  The excitement becomes unbearable when Mr Crusoe discovers the imprint of a naked foot in the sand. It implies, of course, that he is not alone, locked in his solitude. Another human being is on the island.

  At this very moment, when the thoughts are bubbling through Charles’s mind at a furious rate, Miss Horton closes the book. She looks at Charles.

  ‘We shall read some more later,’ she says.

  How can she be so sure, Charles wonders? So many things might prevent her from continuing.

  For once Charles wishes desperately that he could speak, that he could express his enthusiasm to hear more of the story. Instead he looks at Miss Horton and hopes that his face will say it all.

  If it does, she appears not to notice. She is absorbed in arranging her shawl around her shoulders, standing on tiptoe to see part of her reflection in the mirror that hangs above Mrs Cox’s table.

  ‘Will you walk with me? It is a shame to frowst indoors.’

  Charles, still sitting at the table, touches the book’s cover.

  Miss Horton glances down at him. ‘Not now, Charles. Another day. You will need your hat. Where did Mrs Cox put it?’

  His hat is hanging on the back of the door. He glances in its direction. She’s still looking at him expectantly. He lifts his hand from the book and points at the hat.

  ‘Don’t point, my dear,’ Miss Horton says. ‘It’s rude.’

  He obeys. Miss Horton bids farewell to Mrs Cox and then the two of them walk into the garden.

  It is only then that Charles realizes what has happened. The knowledge brings with it a lurching sense of fear that makes his stomach feel as if it has lost its moorings and is sinking rapidly like Mr Crusoe’s wreck.

  He has had the nearest approach to a conversation that he has had since that hot August night in Paris when blood rained from the ceiling and the world came to an end.

  They stroll to the Garden of Neptune. Charles tries to count the length of the paths but it is difficult with Miss Horton beside him.

  The years drop away from her in the garden. She steps on to the parapet around the pool and walks around it with exaggerated care, as if she were on a tightrope high above a crowd.

  She returns to where Charles is standing, having walked entirely around Neptune. She extends her hand to him.

  ‘Come,’ she says. ‘We shall do this together.’

  He will not take her hand but he steps on to the low parapet. She sets off again, not looking behind her. This time she executes a series of bows and curtseys to Neptune. Charles follows, as does his blurred and shifting reflection in the water.

  Miss Horton begins to sing, clapping time to the tune of a jig.

  Round and round they go. It is the strangest dance in the world, Charles thinks, glad there is no one to see it but himself. But a dance is a dance and a tune is a tune.

  His body responds without asking permission. He steps in time with Miss Horton, and his limbs sway from side to side, and a bubble of laughter threatens to erupt from him if he does not exercise the greatest caution.

  Charles glances up at Neptune. For an instant, it seems as if the god is smiling down at them.

  When the dance is over, they walk to the gate at the far end of the garden. Both of them are breathless.

  Miss Horton presses her hand to her side. ‘Oh, I have a stitch. I must rest a moment.’

  She stops at the gate. She smiles at Charles, showing her very white teeth. The smile vanishes almost at once.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she says. ‘Over there, talking to George White.’

  Charles follows the direction of her gaze. The grass beyond the gate is strewn with dead leaves. The path leads his eyes up to the stile into the woods. The red-headed boy is standing there, talking to a man on the other side of the stile. The man wears a blue coat and a dark, broad-brimmed hat. He is standing among the trees. His face is in shadow.

  ‘George!’ calls Miss Horton.

  The gardener’s boy looks up. Even at this distance he looks guilty.

  ‘Come here. Who are you talking to?’

  But there is no longer anyone there.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  As they entered the village, the temperature dropped and Charles shivered. The day was fine but the single street was set too low in the valley to catch much sun for most of the year.

  Fournier rapped on the roof of the carriage with the head of his stick. The coachman pulled up.

  ‘No, my dear sir,’ Fournier said to Savill. ‘I insist – you must not move. I shall enquire for you.’

  The footman let down the steps. Fournier clambered awkwardly out and limped towards the alehouse, picking his way among the puddles.

  No one was in sight. A dog sidled out of an alley, its belly close to the ground. Snarling, it circled Fournier, barking furiously, and then scurried forward to nip at his ankles. Fournier brought down his stick on the animal’s back. There was a dull crack like a snapping twig on a wet day. The dog collapsed, half in and half out of a puddle.

  The door opened, and Mr Roach rushed into the yard. His coat was off and his face was lathered for the barber.

  The dog lay twitching and whimpering. Charles stared at the animal, shifting along the seat so that he had a better view of it. Savill watched Fournier talking to the landlord without being able to hear what was said. A group of boys gathered, their attention ranging from the carriage to the dog, from Fournier to Roach. Mrs West’s footman surveyed the scene with an absence of curiosity that was almost insulting.

  At length, Fournier returned, seating himself beside Charles. The carriage moved on.

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘It appears that your original chaise has gone. A man came down from Bath and managed to contrive a repair, enough to take it away. And there’s worse – the man told Roach that his master was outraged about the wasted journey last week and declines to serve you any further. He will recover his costs from your deposit, his man said, and you will have to apply to him for any balance due to you. What can one do with such people?’

  They drove in silence through the village. At the forge, a man was waiting for his horse to be shoed. He spat on the ground and turned his back on them.

  Fournier turned to Savill. ‘You see? They have no love for us here.’

  ‘Even the dogs.’

  ‘I cannot abide curs.’ Fournier paused, smiling, perhaps aware that he had spoken with unusual warmth. ‘Whether they come on two legs or four. But I should not take much credit for dealing with this one. A lead-weighted stick will do a good deal of damage wherever it falls.’

  ‘You came prepared.’

  ‘I always come prepared.’

  They stared out of their windows for a few moments as the carriage jolted along the rutted street. Then Fournier turned back to Savill.

  ‘Did you hear about the stranger?’ he said.

  ‘No. Where?’

  ‘In the woods beyond the Garden of Neptune. Yesterday afternoon. Miss Horton and Charles saw him in the distance, talking to the gardener’s boy, Mrs White’s grandson. She questioned the boy afterwards, and so did Jevons. It appears that it was a traveller who had lost his way. He asked what the village was, and where the principal houses of the place were. A gentleman, the boy says, though I doubt he’s a fine judge of the matter.’

  ‘What was he doing here?’ Savill asked.

  ‘I don’t know. It was curious, though – the man must have seen Miss Horton and Charles, but he went away at once. Perhaps he was reluctant to approach a young lady without an introduction. But such niceties are not usual in such a retired and rustic spot as this.’

  ‘I dare say there is a perfectly innocent explanation. Perhaps it was the obvious one: that a stranger had lost his way, and the gardener’s boy put him right.’

  Fournier lowered his voice, though there was no one to hear except Charles
. ‘I would have thought it most unusual for a stranger to stumble on Charnwood. I don’t suppose you are expecting a visitor?’

  ‘No,’ Savill said. ‘Are you?’

  Once they were clear of the village, the coachman turned into a lane to the left of the road to Bath. The lane was part of the Norbury Park estate, and its surface was almost as good as a post road’s. They picked up speed and were soon whirling along, with the trees and hedges flickering past on either side.

  Fournier leaned forward. ‘If you look to your right, over the hedge, you will see the field where your chaise had such a smash.’

  ‘I had not realized it was so close,’ Savill said.

  ‘Everything seems nearer when one knows the way. Don’t you find that?’

  The horses slowed as the lane began to run uphill along a park paling. Within a hundred yards they came to a lodge gate and turned into a drive lined with saplings.

  ‘The lime avenue will be a fine sight in fifty years when we are all dead and gone,’ Fournier said. ‘I find it hard to understand the English mania for planting trees. There is no present benefit, only a deal of expense.’

  ‘It is something for future generations to enjoy.’

  ‘But in this case there are none. Mrs West has not been blessed with children. I believe the estate will pass on her death to a nephew of her late husband, a man she has never even met.’

  The drive wound its way through open parkland, newly laid out in the modern style. Here and there, an old tree had been permitted to remain. The drive crossed a small lake by a handsome stone bridge. At the end of the water was a grotto of rustic stone with a plantation of young trees behind it.

  ‘It will be charming,’ Fournier predicted. ‘Modest, I grant you, but everything as it should be in your natural English style. Mrs West has considerable taste in these matters.’

  The house itself came into sight, a gentleman’s residence built of stone and flanked by small pavilions.