The Silent Boy Read online

  ‘In which case …’ Rampton’s voice trembled. He cleared his throat. ‘In which case …’

  ‘In which case,’ Savill said, ‘it becomes more likely that Charles’s own life is in danger.’

  In which case, he thought, it becomes more likely that Charles is already dead.

  There was a knock on the door and Malbourne came into the room, bearing a letter.

  ‘Can’t you see I’m engaged?’ Rampton snapped.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ Malbourne seemed unruffled by the rudeness. ‘But I believe you will wish to see this at once. It concerns the Charnwood party.’

  Rampton took the letter, which was already open. He put his glasses on his nose and read it. When he had finished, he very carefully folded the letter.

  ‘Have it resealed and sent on at once,’ he said to Malbourne, pushing it across the desk. He looked at Savill. ‘Mrs West has written to the people of the house in Green Street where she lodges when she comes to London. She orders her apartments to be prepared for her arrival, probably late this evening. She is bringing a young lady with her as her companion.’ He tugged at his fingers. ‘And she instructs them to bespeak lodgings in the same neighbourhood for three gentlemen who will be accompanying her.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  On Sunday night, Charles sleeps among the dead.

  He is too exhausted to care where he is or who are his neighbours. He has spent the evening searching in vain for Bedford Square and Nightingale Lane and a tavern called the Royal Oak. Fear of retribution prevented him from showing his paper with the pencilled names.

  Tip-tap.

  So Charles has roamed the streets for hours, reading the signs on the buildings and the bills on the walls, and hoping for a miracle. The later the hour, the more the city is crowded with drunken people and flaring lights. The noise of the traffic is interminable and deafening.

  He has no idea where he has gone and where he is going. But always his legs bring him back to the churchyard with the broken graves and the crumbling tower.

  At last he has no more strength. There is a gap where the paling around the tower joins the wall of the church. It is just wide enough for him to wriggle through.

  A shallow porch projects from the west wall of the tower, leading to a door that is black with age and bound with iron. Stone benches face each other across the porch. He huddles on one of these.

  It is quieter here. By now it is too dark to see very much. He searches his breeches pockets with his fingers, delving deep into the seams, and is rewarded with two crumbs of hard, fluff-wrapped cheese. Rainwater has collected in a puddle on the ground. He goes down on hands and knees and laps it like a dog.

  Charles draws his coat around him, curls himself up in a corner of the bench and sleeps. This sort of sleep is really another form of wakefulness crossed with bad dreams. However small he makes himself, hunger and cold find their way in. They gnaw at his body like a pair of foxes.

  While he lies there, clocks chime, the watch calls the hour and people pass up and down the street, talking, shouting and singing. There are people nearer by: in the churchyard itself, grunting and groaning, though whether they are alive or dead Charles neither knows nor cares.

  The two-legged and four-legged animals patter and squeak and cry out. In this half-world between sleeping and waking, even the tower is awake. It creaks and groans like a ship at sea when the wind rises. At one point a stone crashes to the ground a few feet away from where Charles lies. He feels the impact as well as hears it.

  There comes a time when the noises drop away and he can no longer move. It is dark. He wonders idly if this is death and why it has taken so long to come.

  A grating sound fills Charles’s head. He feels a draught on his face. He tries to move but his limbs won’t obey him.

  ‘Have you been here all night? Oh dear, dear. This will never do. We must get you away from here at once. It is most unsafe.’

  Charles opens his eyes. A grey light fills the world. An old man is looking down at him. He has a great, curving nose and white, bushy eyebrows like a creature from a fairy tale.

  ‘Can you walk?’ He tries to draw Charles to his feet, but Charles’s limbs do not cooperate. ‘Quite blue with cold. Can you feel anything? I shall have to lift you.’

  Despite his age, the man is surprisingly strong. He carries Charles into the tower, where the air is if anything colder than outside, and hurries through an archway to the nave, which is crammed with box pews like rows of enormous coffins. He walks the length of the nave to a pew that is larger than the rest and shrouded with curtains. The door to it stands open. Inside is a cushioned bench, on which he lays Charles.

  ‘Stay there,’ he commands, not that Charles would be able to move even if he should want to.

  He returns with an armful of old curtains and cloaks that he drapes over Charles, who drifts into a doze while this is happening.

  When Charles wakes again, his feet and hands are burning and pricking and terribly painful. The light is brighter.

  ‘I have brought you a drink,’ the old man says. ‘I will help you to sit up. Oh dear, dear, dear.’

  The contents of the earthenware cup smell so richly of meat that Charles gags. The man holds the cup to his mouth, and makes him sip the thin liquid. It glides into Charles’s stomach, warming and nourishing in a way that is oddly painful.

  Afterwards there is stale bread, dipped in the drink. When he has eaten, Charles falls asleep, but this time he is almost warm, almost content.

  The man is still there when he wakes. ‘What is your name, my boy?’ he says. ‘Where are you from?’

  Charles’s eyes fill with tears. He would like to oblige his benefactor.

  ‘I am Mr Herrick. I am the sexton of the place, though to tell the truth my son does most of the work of it now. Will you tell me your name? I promise I will not harm you.’

  A great three-decker pulpit towers above the curtained pew. Charles lets it take his eyes up and up to the sounding board, on top of which stands an angel silently blowing a trumpet.

  ‘Are you lost?’ The old man touches Charles’s shirt, rubbing the material between finger and thumb. ‘I do not think you come from a poor family. Or from an institution. But perhaps these clothes were given to you by your master when his son outgrew them?’

  Charles lifts his hand to his face and makes a cross with his forefingers over his mouth.

  ‘Ah – you are dumb, then?’ The old man takes silence for assent. ‘Poor boy. Have they abandoned you? Is that why you are here?’

  The fingers remain.

  ‘And what’s this?’ The sexton holds up the scrap of paper with the words of Mr Savill’s address written in pencil on it. ‘Forgive me, I searched your pockets when you lay in a swoon. Is this place where you come from, or perhaps where you are going?’

  Charles lowers his hands. He smiles at the old man. Surely a smile is just a smile? It will not bring the wrath of God with it or the sound of cracking walnuts.

  A smile means yes.

  The cart passes slowly northwards. The sexton’s son is a large young man with a mouth hanging permanently ajar. His name is Jeremiah. In the back of the cart, a canvas sheet covers a slab of marble.

  The sexton says the marble is to go to the mason’s in Well’s Yard off Bainbridge Street, where it will be cut, polished and engraved. It will not take long for Jeremiah to drive on afterwards and drop the boy in the neighbourhood of Bedford Square.

  No one gives them a second glance as they crawl through the streets. It’s a grey day and it’s still raining. At the mason’s yard, the men assume he is like any other boy. They order him to take the canvas off and look sharp about it. Jeremiah tells him to fold up the sheet and put it under the seat.

  It is easier to do as they say than to do nothing. Under the seat is a basket containing a letter. Before they left, the sexton reminded Jeremiah to be sure to give it to the foreman of the yard for it contains not only the dimensions the sl
ab is to be, but also the inscription that is to go on it.

  ‘You must not forget this time,’ Mr Herrick told his son. ‘You must remember. Tie a knot in your handkerchief.’

  Charles jumps down and hands the letter to Jeremiah, who gives a start of surprise and runs after the foreman. When he returns, he holds up his handkerchief and tugs at the knot. He smiles very slowly at Charles, and it is like the sun coming out.

  They leave the yard and nudge their way into the stream of vehicles in Bainbridge Street. The rain stops and a watery sun forces its way through the smog that hangs over the city.

  The further they go, the less traffic there is. They turn into a great thoroughfare called Tottenham Court Road. The houses are built of pale, yellowish-brown brick.

  Jeremiah pulls over and points across the road with the whip. ‘See? Bedford Street there. And the Square beyond.’ He touches Charles’s shoulder, half push, half caress. ‘All right, then?’

  Charles knows he must go, though at this moment he would like to stay with Jeremiah and his father the sexton for ever. He jumps from the cart, stumbles and almost topples into the gutter.

  ‘Steady, young ’un,’ says Jeremiah. ‘Steady does it.’ He smiles again and raises his whip in farewell.

  Charles smiles back.

  A smile is only a smile.

  The great houses of Bedford Square look down on him. Most are of brick but in the middle of each side is a larger house faced with stone and topped with a pediment. Everything is on the grand scale, from the width of the pavements to the size of the oval grass plat, enclosed by a heavy iron railing, in the centre of the square.

  Children are playing on the grass, watched over by servants. Three are throwing a ball. One child hops solemnly to and fro on a hobbyhorse. Another bowls a hoop that keeps falling over.

  Charles pauses to watch. The children are much younger than him.

  A blow between his shoulder blades drives him against the railings. Two servants out of livery are standing over him. He knows they are footmen by the traces of powder and paste in their hair and on the shoulders of their coats.

  ‘Be off, you son of a whore.’

  One of them kicks him, and he cries out and falls back against the railings.

  ‘Oh, Mr Peters,’ cries a pretty young servant on the other side of the railings, who is exercising a toddler on leading strings. ‘Pray do not hurt the poor beggar boy.’

  ‘It’s to protect you, miss. He’d rob you blind as soon as look at you. We don’t want his sort here.’

  Charles is already darting away. Despite the pain in his leg, he skims across the square to a road on the other side, followed by the laughter of the servants. A carriage is passing and nearly runs him down. The coachman shouts at him.

  He runs up the road lined with houses, some still unfinished. He ducks round a dray and plunges into a side road, and then into another that is narrower.

  To his horror he sees that it ends in a high wall.

  He catches sight of a sign swinging from a building beside a warehouse. Crudely painted on it is an oak tree. Perched among its branches is a monkey-like man wearing a crown.

  With a leap of apprehension, he knows it must be the alehouse that Mr Savill mentioned, the one that backs on to his garden where the walnut tree is.

  Beside the Royal Oak, a footpath runs between two walls of faded red brick. Charles takes the path. It swings to the right and then to the left. It is much quieter here because the walls block out much of the noise of the surrounding streets.

  A bird sings. He glances up. A thrush sits on the overhanging branches of a tree on the other side of the wall to the right. Above the bird is a small green fruit.

  Not a fruit. A walnut. It is the only one he can see on the tree, for the others have long since been shaken or picked from the tree. Beyond the tree is a door in the wall. He lifts the latch. The door will not open.

  But he has found Mr Savill’s garden. He follows the path to the point when it turns into a short lane, or close, with a pair of houses on either side. Their roofs are mossy with age, and their frontages are framed with great timbers. The largest house, which has the walnut tree in the garden behind it, must be Mr Savill’s. The windows are shuttered, though it is the middle of the day. No smoke rises from the chimneys.

  Tears fill his eyes. If the house is empty, where can he go now?

  A door opens in one of the other houses. Charles draws back to the safety of the footpath. He waits a moment. Footsteps are coming towards him. He retreats further, past the door in the wall, as far as the nearest corner.

  The footsteps come closer, and then stop. There is a faint, metallic rattle, followed by the scrape and clack of the latch.

  He walks back to the door in the wall. His first thought is that Mr Savill has returned or, if not, someone of his household, someone who may know who Charles is.

  Very slowly, he raises the latch on the door. He pushes it a few inches open.

  In front of him is a yard. An old woman dressed in black is crouching by a pump. She has not heard him. He watches her lifting a stone and taking out a key. She rises with some difficulty to her full height and inserts the key in a door into the house. She opens the door and goes inside, leaving the door ajar behind her.

  Charles has learned fear in the last two months and with it has come caution. Mr Savill mentioned a sister, but he cannot be sure if she is this woman. She is dressed like a servant.

  He enters the yard and closes the door to the alley. He slips through an archway to the right, which leads into a garden. He runs past vegetable beds and bushes to an orchard at the end. Here is the walnut tree.

  In one corner is a place where compost is heaped in an untidy pile. He crouches beside it, wrapping his arms around his knees, and feels the faint warmth it gives off. An old apple tree stands between him and the entrance into the orchard. He does not feel safe – he never feels safe – but no one will see him unless they come to this side of the orchard.

  The smell of rotting vegetation fills his nostrils, not unpleasantly. He watches the chimneys of the house. There is still no sign of smoke from any of them.

  He listens. The sounds of the city rise and fall. Sometimes it is so quiet that he might almost be in the country. Clocks chime at intervals. One hour passes. Then half an hour.

  Charles stands up and stretches. He urinates against the compost heap. He moves warily towards the house.

  At the archway he stops a moment. The back door is closed. He glances at the door in the wall. He can see from here that the lock is engaged.

  Keeping to the shelter of the wall, he moves round the yard to the pump. The area around it is paved with stones, roughly squared. All the cracks around them are lined with moss and weeds. But one stone is clear. Resting on it is a rusty nail.

  Charles inserts the nail under the edge of the stone and uses it as a lever. The stone rises and there, lying in a jar beneath, is the key to the back door of Mr Savill’s house.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Savill watched the two women, the mistress and the maid, approaching the round table in the middle of Mr Bell’s Library. Here were displayed the latest arrivals to anyone who cared to pay a guinea a year and abide by Mr Bell’s regulations.

  Mrs Ogden turned over the new books for a moment. Then she broke away from her maid and approached the counter where the middle-aged clerk sat behind his desk.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Fisk,’ she said, turning the sagging, left-hand side of her face away from him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Ogden. I declare I could set my watch by you. Every afternoon, four o’clock, shine or rain, and here you are.’

  She ignored the pleasantry. ‘Do you have Mr Mackenzie’s A Man of Feeling on the shelves, Mr Fisk? I dreamed about it last night, and I have a desire to look over it again.’

  The clerk took up his ledger and turned the pages. ‘Novels,’ he murmured, ‘Man, yes, here we are, Man of Feeling. Number four-six-three-two. An old favourit
e, ma’am – very popular with the ladies.’ He looked up and ducked his head in a sort of bow. ‘One moment if you please. Permit me to enquire whether it is available.’

  He jotted the number on a scrap of paper and beckoned one of the youths behind the counter. Mrs Ogden turned away and looked at a wall of calf-bound spines. Everything about her was entirely respectable – her dress, her manner, her maid. There was nothing to recall the distraught, dishevelled woman that Savill had seen earlier in the day. Nothing but the ruined face.

  The subjects of each shelf was announced by a card label attached to them. Mrs Ogden stared at SERMONS for a moment, and then transferred her gaze if not her attention to VOYAGES & TRAVELS. The maid sidled away and eyed a footman who had just come in, attending a lady with a dog that scurried, yapping, about her feet.

  Savill drew nearer. ‘Have I the honour of addressing Mrs Ogden?’

  She turned, her hand flying to her throat as if he had caught her in a shameful situation. He watched her eyes widen as she recognized him from this morning.

  ‘Pray don’t be agitated. It will draw attention.’

  The servant had discreetly turned away and was talking in whispers to another lady’s maid.

  ‘I did not think you would come – it was a such a desperate stratagem this morning. I am ashamed that I should be obliged to resort to it. I must apologize.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, ma’am.’ He drew her aside to a corner where magazines were displayed on a table. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘I am so anxious for news of my son, sir. Dick quarrelled with his father, you see, and I have not seen him these two years or more.’

  ‘And the telescope was a present from your husband to your son?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her hands waved the question aside. ‘Mr Ogden says you called in connection with a crime that he had committed. It cannot be true, sir. Dick is impulsive, I know, and perhaps a trifle wild on occasion. But he’s good at heart, sir.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’ Savill handed her to a chair. ‘And, as far as I know, he is accused of nothing. I am employed on an enquiry for the Westminster Magistrates’ Office, and it is true that a crime may have been committed, though we cannot be sure even of that. The more I know about him, the more likely it is I shall be able to set your mind at rest.’