The American Boy

by Andrew Taylor

  “Ayez peur,” said the parrot.

  “Damn that bird,” said Mr Iversen. “There is a piece of sacking on the chair behind you, my dear sir. Be so good as to drape it over the cage.”

  Turning, I caught the impression of movement in the corner of my eye. Had someone been peering at us through the window? The glass was grimy and contained impurities which made objects on the other side of it ripple as though under water. It was not impossible, I told myself, that my imagination had transformed such a ripple into a spy. I covered the cage and turned back to the shopkeeper.

  “If you believe that Mr Poe may return,” I said, “does not that suggest that his bags are still in his room?”

  Mr Iversen smirked.

  I said: “I have a fancy to see my friend’s room. Perhaps it contains some indication of where he has gone.”

  “I make it another rule that only lodgers are allowed in my rooms. Present lodgers and, of course, prospective lodgers, who may quite reasonably express a wish to inspect the outlook, the dimensions, et cetera.”

  “So there would be no objection to my seeing the room if I were a prospective lodger? If I had arranged, perhaps, to take the room for a day when it should become vacant.”

  “None in the world.” Mr Iversen beamed at me. “Five shillings a night for sole use of the room and the flock mattress. Shared pump in the yard. Extra charges should you wish the girl to bring you water or clean sheets and so forth.”

  “Five shillings?”

  “Including a shilling for sundries.”

  I drew out my purse and paid his extortionate rate for a room I would never sleep in.

  “Thank you,” he said, tucking the money away in his clothing. “And now I shall require your assistance.”

  He swept the blanket from his legs. I saw that he wore not a coat, as I had thought, but a long, black robe, like a monk’s habit, upon which were embroidered alchemical or astrological symbols, though age and dirt had so obscured them that they were barely visible in the dim light of the shop. On his feet was a pair of enormous leather slippers. The removal of the blanket also revealed the chair on which he sat. A set of wheels had been fixed to the legs; a shelf on which Mr Iversen could rest his feet projected from the front; and a handrail had been attached to the top of the chair-back.

  He unhooked a bunch of keys from the belt that encircled the robe. “I would be obliged if you would be so good as to push me through that door. Fortunately Mr Poe’s chamber is on the ground floor. The stairs are a sore trial to me.” He snuffled. “My dear father’s apartment is on the floor above us, and it grieves me deeply that I cannot run up and down to satisfy his little wants.”

  Iversen was a heavy man, and it was no easy matter to push him through the doorway. Here we entered another world from the dusty little shop, one that was almost as heavily populated as Fountain-court had been. There were people visible in the kitchen at the back, and people on the stairs. Washing had been draped across the hall, so we had to struggle through grey curtains of dripping linen. Men were singing and stamping their feet on the floor above, and the sound of hammering rose from below.

  “We have a shoe manufactory in the cellar,” my host told me. “They make the finest riding boots in London. Would you care to bespeak a pair? I’m sure they would give you, as a fellow tenant, a very special price indeed.”

  “I would not have a use for them at present, thank you.”

  As we passed the foot of the stairs, Iversen called up: “Pray do not agitate yourself, Papa. I shall be with you in a moment.”

  There was no reply.

  We stopped outside a door near the kitchen. He leaned forward and unlocked it. The room was a dark little cell, no more than a closet, with just space for a small bed and a chair. The glass in the tiny window was broken, the hole plugged with rags and scraps of paper. A full chamber-pot stood beneath a chair, with an empty bottle on its side next to it. The bed was unmade.

  Iversen pointed under the bed. “His valise is still there.”

  “May I look inside?” I asked. “It may contain some clue as to my friend’s whereabouts, and it would be in his own interest if I could find him.”

  He gave a laugh which turned into a cough. “I regret it infinitely, but it will be another shilling if you wish to open it.”

  I said nothing but gave him the money. The valise was not locked. I rummaged through its contents – among them a pair of shoes that needed re-soling, a patched shirt, a crayon drawing of the head and shoulders of a lady with large eyes and ringlets, her hair dressed in the fashion of twenty or thirty years before. There was also a volume containing some of Shakespeare’s plays: the book had lost its back cover and had the name of David Poe on the flyleaf.

  “Do you know where he found employment?” I asked.

  Iversen shook his head. “If a man pays his rent and makes no trouble, I’ve no cause to poke my nose into his business.”

  “Where are his other belongings?”

  “How should I know? Perhaps this is all he has. As a friend of his, you are no doubt better informed about his circumstances than I am.”

  “Is there anyone here who might know where he has gone?”

  “There’s the girl who brings the water and takes the slops. You could ask her, if you wish. It’ll cost you another shilling, though.”

  “Have I not paid enough already?”

  He spread his hands. “Times are hard, my dear young friend.”

  I gave him the shilling. He bade me push him into the kitchen, where babies wailed and two women quarrelled obscenely over a heap of rags, then through a low-ceilinged back kitchen where three men played at dice while a woman boiled bones, and finally into the small yard beyond. The foetor rising from the overflowing cesspool made me reach for my handkerchief.

  “There,” my guide said, pointing to a wooden shed the size of a commodious kennel, which leant against the back wall of the yard. “That’s where Mary Ann lives. You may have to wake her. She’s had a busy night.”

  I picked my way through the rubbish-strewn yard and knocked on the low door of the shed. There was no answer. I knocked again and waited.

  “I told you,” the shopkeeper called. “She may be asleep. Try the door.”

  The rotting wood of the door scraped on the cobbles of the yard. There was no window, but the light from the doorway showed a small woman huddled under a pile of rags and newspapers in the corner.

  “No need for alarm, Mary Ann. I am a friend of Mr Poe’s, and I wish to ask you one or two questions.”

  Slowly she raised her head and looked at me. She gave a high, wordless sound, like the cry of a bird.

  “I mean you no harm,” I said. “Do you remember Mr Poe – who lodges in the room by the kitchen?”

  She sat up, pointed her finger at her mouth and again emitted that wordless cry.

  “I’m trying to discover where he has gone.”

  At this, Mary Ann sprang to her feet, backed into the corner of her wretched dwelling and, still pointing at her mouth, made the same sound again. At last I understood what she was telling me. The poor girl was dumb. I bent down, so my eyes were level with hers. She was not wearing a cap, and her thin, ginger hair was alive with grey lice.

  “Do you remember Mr Poe?” I persisted. “Can you hear me? Nod your head if you do and if you remember him.”

  She waited a moment and then slowly nodded.

  “And he left here three days ago?”

  Another nod.

  “Do you know where he went?”

  This time she shook her head.

  “Or where his place of work was?”

  She shook her head with even more vigour than before.

  “Did he take a bag with him when he left?”

  She shrugged. The light from the door was full on her face, and her eyes flickered to and fro. I thrust my hand in my pocket and pulled out a handful of coppers which I placed in a column on the floor beside her. To my intense embarrassment, she seized
my hand in both of hers and covered it with kisses, all the while emitting her bird-like squeals.

  “You must not agitate yourself,” I said awkwardly, tugging my hand free and standing up. “Pray excuse me from disturbing your sleep.”

  She made a gesture, requesting me to wait, and burrowed into the layers of clothing that armoured her frail body against the world. She squeaked and squealed continually, though now the sounds were gentler, reminding me of the murmuring of wood doves. At last, her face glowing, she handed me a crumpled sheet of paper which looked as if it had been torn from a memorandum book. On it was a pencil drawing of a boy’s head and shoulders, that much was obvious, though not a boy who could have existed in real life. It was the sort of drawing a man does with his hand while his mind is occupied elsewhere.

  I smiled as though the sight of it pleased me and tried to hand it back to Mary Ann. She squealed and cooed and made it clear with her hands that she wished me to keep it. I slipped the paper inside my coat and said goodbye. She smiled shyly at me, gave me the slightest of waves and dived back beneath her bedclothes.

  Iversen was still waiting in his chair at the back door. “You’ve made a conquest, my dear sir, I can tell that. We rarely have the pleasure of hearing Mary Ann so loquacious.”

  I ignored this attempt at wit. “Thank you. If there’s nothing more you can tell me, I shall take my leave.”

  “Now you’re in the yard, it will be more convenient for you if you go down the entry.” Iversen indicated the narrow passage beside the privy, a noisome tunnel leading through the depth of the house to the street on the other side. “Unless you want your fortune told, that is, or a charm to make the lady burn with passion for you.”

  I shook my head and walked into the passage. I hurried along the entry towards the foggy bustle of the street beyond. The air smelled particularly dank and rotten. A great grey rat ran over my foot. I took a swipe at it with my stick but missed and hit the wall instead. My mind was full of pity for the girl and anger towards Iversen, who I suspected was her procurer.

  The attack took me completely by surprise.

  I was two-thirds of the way down when a man propelled himself out of nowhere into my right shoulder. I fell back against the opposite wall and tried to raise my stick. But the narrowness of the passage and the man’s body itself impeded me. I had an instant in which to realise that a side door from the house opened into the passage. The door was recessed, with enough room for a man to lurk on the step.

  Not just one man but two: the second flung himself at me. Both wore dark clothes. I twisted in the grasp of the first. Metal chinked on the brickwork. I smelled hot, stale breath. A voice swore. I heard footsteps running through the muck from the street.

  “God damn you,” a man howled.

  A great blow hit my head. Pain fogged my vision. The last thing I heard was another man yelling: “Mother of Christ! Get the God-damned blackbird!”

  27

  I retain little memory of what happened next. I lost all awareness of my surroundings for several seconds, perhaps longer. Nor, when I regained it, was I much the better for the achievement. It was only with an immense effort of the intellect that I was able to determine that the fog was as heavy as ever, and that for some reason someone was half carrying, half dragging me through a crowd of jostling people.

  I gasped for air. A man shouted something very near to my ear, and a moment later I found myself being bundled into a hackney. I collapsed on to the seat.

  “Brewer-street,” said a man beside me.

  “He’s foxed,” said a second voice.

  “No. He’s fainted. Nothing more.”

  “If he flashes the hash in there –”

  I heard the chink of coin, and the voices fell silent. A moment later the hackney began to move. Our progress was slow. I huddled in the corner with my head in my hands. The swaying of the carriage made me feel nauseous, and for a while I thought the coachman’s fears would be justified. Time ceased to mean anything. The light hurt my eyes. My companion did not attempt to speak to me. I doubt if I could have answered him if he had.

  The hackney pursued a zigzag course and in time its swaying became familiar, almost a source of comfort rather than of unease. I opened my eyes and squinted outside. There, looming out of the fog, was the unmistakable shape of St Ann’s Church with its slatted belfry and swollen spire. The recognition gave my mind a jolt which seemed to free some internal mechanism: the cerebral processes began to flow smoothly once more.

  What the devil was I doing in a hackney? Had I been kidnapped? Try as I might, I could remember nothing between being thrust into the carriage and, at some undefined point earlier, Iversen the shopkeeper watching me as I went through the contents of Mr Poe’s valise. Slowly I turned my head, and the movement made the ache worse.

  “Ah,” Salutation Harmwell said. “The colour has returned to your face, Mr Shield. That is a good sign.”

  “Mr – Mr Harmwell. I don’t understand.”

  “You remember nothing?”

  “No – there seems a gap in my memory.” Even as I was speaking, that mysterious void disgorged a fragment of information. “The blackbird.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I remember someone – damned if I know who, or when, or why – an Irish voice, I think – someone saying something about a blackbird. And in St Giles, as I recall, the word is commonly used –”

  “To describe a man of colour?”

  “Precisely. Pray, Mr Harmwell, can you enlighten me as to how I come to be here?”

  “I chanced to be walking down Queen-street when I heard the sound of an affray. I looked into the passage of the shop I was passing and saw you engaged in a struggle with two desperate ruffians. Not that I recognised you at this point – all I knew was that some poor innocent was in the process of being beaten and robbed. So I knocked one of them down. The other ran off and I judged it prudent that we should withdraw as soon as possible.”

  I glanced down at his hand and saw that his knuckles were badly grazed. “I am much obliged to you, sir.” I rubbed the side of my head where a bruise was already forming. “I – I do not know what I would have done if you had not happened to be passing.”

  “You have lost your hat, I am afraid. Indeed, I think it must have taken the full force of the blow, and you would have been in a much worse state if it had not been there. I believe you had a stick, too, but that has gone as well.”

  I nodded. I had not noticed the absence of either. I bit back the observation that it was surely a remarkable coincidence that Harmwell should have happened to be passing. The fact that the coincidence had been of great service to me was neither here nor there.

  “Do you still have your purse?”

  I felt in my pocket. “Yes.”

  “That is something.”

  I knew only that I must be cautious, not why. I said slowly, “Perhaps I was passing along the street, and they dragged me into the passage in order to rob me.”

  “That is unlikely,” Harmwell replied. “I think I should have seen you, despite the fog. It is more probable that you entered the passage from the other side, or possibly from a side door of one of the houses it serves.”

  The hackney moved steadily westwards, wriggling through the bustling streets into the heart of Soho. At last we reached Brewer-street. Harmwell directed the coachman to a house on the north side, near the corner with Great Pultney-street. He waved aside my attempt to pay the fare.

  The dizziness returned when I stood up. Harmwell helped me down and lent me the support of his arm as we went into the house. A servant with a blank face and shabby livery conducted us upstairs. It appeared that Mr Noak had taken the whole of the first floor. There was a sitting room at the front, and Harmwell settled me on a sofa beside the fire and told the servant to bring me a glass of brandy. He went in search of his master. By the time he returned with Mr Noak, I had swallowed half the brandy and regained a few more of my wits. But I still could not rem
ember what had happened in the interval of time between my being in Mr Poe’s room in Queen-street and Harmwell bustling me into the hackney.

  God-damned blackbird?

  As I heard that coarse voice in my mind, an image from those lost moments of my life slipped into the forefront of my memory: that of a small, childlike creature seizing my hand and kissing it. The memory was so clear that I saw the grey lice moving in her sparse ginger hair.

  I rose to my feet as Mr Noak entered and found I could stand without support. He gave me his hand and asked me how I did. I stumbled out my thanks to Harmwell for saving my life, and to Mr Noak himself for his hospitality.

  “Harmwell did no more than his plain duty as a Christian,” Noak said in his hard New England voice. “It was providential he should have been passing.”

  “Indeed,” I said.

  “Pray be seated.” Noak settled himself in an armchair on the other side of the fire. “The last time we met, Mr Shield, we disputed about the value of reading Ovid. I do not know London well but I understand from my clerk that he came across you in a part of town which is not the usual haunt of schoolmasters.”

  “Mr Carswall sent me there upon an errand.”

  “Mr Carswall? Yes, I had the pleasure of seeing him recently, though on a melancholy occasion.” He looked sharply at me. “Forgive my curiosity, but I thought you were employed at a school outside London.”

  “I am, sir, but at the present I am staying with Mr Carswall in Margaret-street so that I may give lessons to Charles Frant.”

  Noak’s mouth tightened. “We must applaud Mr Carswall’s charity in providing a home for Mrs Frant and her fatherless boy.”

  He paused, seeming plunged in gloomy reflection. Time passed. My own thoughts were scarcely happy either. Mrs Frant might not have needed Mr Carswall’s charity if I had not witnessed George Wavenhoe’s signature on his deathbed.

  At length he continued: “Are you able to remember who attacked you? No doubt you will wish to lay information against them in Bow-street.”