The Silent Boy (21 page)

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.

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.

Fournier gestured towards it. ‘After that dreadful village – not to mention dreary Charnwood and the domain of mud and weeds that surrounds it: why, this looks like paradise, does it not? Not a large paradise, perhaps, or a very grand one, but paradise nonetheless.’

Savill glanced at him, catching what for once might have been a hint of sincerity in the Frenchman’s voice. ‘These things are relative, I suppose, sir. Even paradise.’

The moment dissolved. ‘How delightful,’ Fournier said, laughing. ‘Added to your other virtues, sir, you have a turn for philosophy.’

The carriage drew up outside the house. The footman jumped down and lowered the steps. The three passengers descended from the carriage and looked about them, Charles standing apart from the others.

The front door opened, and there was Miss Horton smiling at them.

‘Look!’ cried Fournier, bowing to her. ‘We were talking of paradise. And here is an angel!’

‘You are talking nonsense again, sir. You are making fun of me, and I will not allow it.’

‘My dear Miss Harriet, nothing could be further from the truth. Our discourse had turned to theology, and suddenly you appeared most opportunely, as if heaven-sent to exemplify a point I was making. But pray put a shawl around your shoulders – this autumn weather often causes chills.’

‘If you come inside, sir,’ she said, ‘I shall close the door directly and retain my health a little longer.’ She touched Charles’s shoulder and smiled at him before turning to Savill. ‘How do you do, sir, and are you quite recovered?’

The four of them mounted the shallow flight of steps and entered the house. Another footman moved across the hall to take their coats.

‘Mrs West and I are in the morning room. She saw you from the window and sent me to bring you in at once. I have been wearying her with my conversation all morning and she is in great need of diversion.’

Mrs West welcomed them with enthusiasm, especially, Savill thought, Monsieur Fournier. The footman brought wine and biscuits. Miss Horton beckoned Charles to sit beside her on the sofa, where he sat upright, staring into space.

‘Now you are better, sir,’ Mrs West said to Savill, ‘no doubt you will soon be leaving us.’

‘That may be easier said than done,’ he replied.

‘The hired chaise is the difficulty, madam,’ Fournier said. ‘Its owner has lost patience and declines to serve Mr Savill any further.’

‘Charles and I must reach Bath by some means or other,’ Savill said. ‘If necessary we shall travel in Mr Roach’s cart.’

‘Dear me,’ Mrs West said. ‘That would never do. Poor Mr West’s phaeton is still in the stables. You shall have that. And the horses to go with it, of course – they are eating their heads off, and the exercise will do them good.’

‘But, madam, I cannot possibly—’

‘It is quite settled, sir. My groom shall drive you, and I shall give him a list of errands as long as my arm.’

Savill smiled at her. ‘You’re very kind, ma’am.’

‘When do you wish to leave?’

‘Perhaps the day after tomorrow, if that would be convenient for you.’

‘It’s all the same to me.’ Her voice hardened. ‘But you must not infer that I approve of your taking the boy away.’

‘Pardon me, ma’am,’ Miss Horton said, ‘but I think Mr Savill is in the right of it. Charles should be with his English family.’ She turned to Fournier. ‘Of course, my opinion is immaterial.’

He bowed. ‘On the contrary. You must know him as well as any of us does by now.’

Beside her, Charles stared at nothing.

Later, Mrs West suggested that Miss Horton should show Savill and Charles the pictures in the dining room. ‘Particularly Mr Zoffany’s portrait of Mr West with his mother, my dear. It is generally reckoned to be very like. The detail is exceptionally fine. It repays careful inspection.’

It was a transparent excuse for Mrs West to have a tête-à-tête with Monsieur Fournier. Miss Horton led Savill and Charles into the dining room, where they examined a portrait showing a very old lady with a curious resemblance to the present Mrs West, attended by an anxious-looking middle-aged man with a receding chin.

‘Poor Mr West,’ Miss Horton said.

‘Were you acquainted with him?’ Savill asked.

‘Oh yes. He would often seek refuge at the Vicarage when he desired masculine company.’ She swallowed. ‘He was very kind to us when John died. My brother John.’

‘I’m sorry. Is the loss a recent one?’

‘Three years ago. John was in the Navy, you see, and his ship was ordered to the West India station. Yellow Fever. My father has never been quite the same.’

Miss Horton fell silent. She was looking at Charles, who was standing at the far end of the room with his back to them, apparently rapt in contemplation of a portrait of Mrs West attired as Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.

After a moment, Savill said, ‘It was kind of you to say what you did to Mrs West.’

‘About taking Charles to London?’ She glanced at him. ‘To Nightingale Lane.’

He remembered her touch of poetic mockery the other day. Perhaps she had intended a form of apology by mentioning the name. He smiled at her. ‘What was it? Something about “a green and grassy shrine, With myrtle bower’d?”’

‘“And jessamine”, sir.’ She gave him an answering smile. ‘We must not forget that. But to return to Charles, if I were being selfish, I would keep him in Norbury. We are so dull here. And I like to be useful. I think he is beginning to show signs of improvement. I am reading
Robinson Crusoe
to him and he is sometimes on the edge of his seat with excitement. Quite literally. If I may be so bold to advise you, sir, you must keep talking to him, trying to draw him into books or games. Otherwise he will retreat into his silence.’