The American Boy

by Andrew Taylor

  In 1819, Christmas Day was a Saturday. Mr Bransby decreed that term should officially end on the previous Tuesday. On the afternoon of that day, I travelled down to London with Edgar Allan. We put up for the night with his foster parents in Southampton-row. Mrs Allan, an anxious, vapourish woman with a hypochondriacal tendency, alternately caressed and ignored Edgar. In the late afternoon, Mr Allan returned from his place of business. He was a grim-faced man, much preoccupied. In their presence Edgar seemed to glow with vitality and intelligence; he was as different from them as chalk from cheese.

  “If you go to Cheltenham,” Mrs Allan said over dinner in her high, wavering voice, “you must stay at the Stiles Hotel. Do you remember, my love?” she said to her husband. “The people there were most attentive.”

  “But they’re not going to Cheltenham,” Mr Allan said.

  An uneasy silence settled over the dinner table, broken only by the clatter of cutlery and the footsteps of the servant. I had assumed until now that it was Charlie who needed Edgar’s company. Now I recalled Edgar’s enthusiasm for the proposal, and wondered if it might not be the other way round.

  After dinner, Mr Allan retired to his private room on the plea of needing to cast up his accounts. Mrs Allan sat in the drawing room and played cards with Edgar. While she played, she talked incessantly of her friends and family, her homesickness for Richmond, Virginia, her fear of seasickness, and the number and nature of her ailments, which were, it seemed, matters of constant surprise and interest to her medical attendants.

  After we had drunk tea, I made my excuses and went out. Like a sentimental fool, I walked up to Russell-square and stood for a moment on the pavement outside the house where the Frants had lived. There was a lantern above the door, and lights showed in the cracks between the shutters. A sense of my own folly overwhelmed me. I walked rapidly away, as though the faster I walked, the sooner I would leave my folly behind.

  At length I found myself outside a tavern in Lambs Conduit-street. I spent forty minutes in the taproom, smoking and drinking brandy. All the while, I could not rid myself of the single thought that ran round my head like a rat in a trap: tomorrow I shall see her.

  I walked back to the Allans’ house, where I fell into a restless sleep. The human mind is a perverse creature. When I awoke, I realised the face I had seen most often in the magic-lantern show of my dreams was that of Flora Carswall.

  35

  In the morning, I had time to call at Mr Rowsell’s chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. It seemed churlish to be so close to him and not to pay him a visit; and I wished to say farewell and send my apologies to Mrs Rowsell. He welcomed me with his customary good humour and sent out Atkins, his clerk, for coffee.

  His face lengthened, however, when I told him where I was going.

  “I cannot pretend I like this plan, Tom,” he said, “though of course it is no concern of mine. But the children will miss you sorely on Saturday. Is Mr Bransby happy to see you go?”

  “He is disposed to consider that on the whole the advantages outweigh the drawbacks.”

  Rowsell nodded. “There are financial considerations, no doubt, and he would be fully alive to their importance. How long do you stay?”

  As I was answering him, there was a knock at the door and Atkins ushered in the boy with the tray. The clerk glanced at me with tiny eyes like specks of mud and averted his round, pale face. Rowsell sat in silence until we were alone. I knew him well enough to apprehend that he was not easy in his mind. I thought his solicitude as misplaced as Dansey’s.

  He poured the coffee and handed me a cup. “You remember we were discussing Mr Carswall and Mr Frant’s conduct in the late war with America?”

  “Why, yes, sir.”

  “I was in the City the other day and I heard another story about Wavenhoe’s that I did not altogether like. In fairness, it may be no more than a story. But it came from more than one source, so I suspect there may be some truth in it.” He tasted his coffee and screwed up his face. “It concerns what precipitated this entire ugly affair – the collapse of the bank, that is, the discovery of Mr Frant’s criminal dealings and his eventual murder. It appears that the bank was liable for certain bills, amounting together to a considerable sum, that became due at the end of October. Most of them concerned building speculations in which the bank had invested.”

  I nodded, for Miss Carswall had told me something of this when she waylaid me in Stoke Newington. “There was no money to pay them?”

  “That was not in itself the difficulty. In the normal run of things, Frant could quite reasonably expect to negotiate extensions to the terms of the bills. However, it appears that a few weeks before the debts became due, a number of the bills changed hands. They were purchased by a commercial house which often acts as a go-between in transactions where the principal does not wish to have his name known. At the end of the month, these bills were presented for payment, and Frant found he could not negotiate extensions to any of them.”

  “So you believe that an enemy of Mr Frant’s may have contrived his ruin?”

  “Not contrived, not exactly – that’s putting it too strong. Frant’s corrupt dealings made the bank’s eventual downfall inevitable. No, if true, what this circumstance suggests to me is that the collapse of the bank may have been brought forward, perhaps by several weeks, or even months.”

  Rowsell paused to pour us more coffee.

  “What would be the advantage in that?” I asked.

  “At this point we cannot tell. But in order to put into effect such a scheme, a man would need to have the command of considerable wealth, and also to regard Mr Frant with inveterate malignancy. Why else would one buy control of the debts of a failing concern? On the face of it, the scheme’s success would involve its perpetrator in considerable financial loss. Since Wavenhoe’s closed its doors, those bills are hardly worth the paper they are written on.”

  “Aye,” I said. “I see what you are driving at, sir.”

  “Not what,” Mr Rowsell said, spreading out his arms so vigorously that a few drops of coffee flew out of his cup and splattered in an arc of black spots on the floor. “Who.”

  “Oh. You – you cannot mean Mr Carswall?”

  Demure as a maiden, he looked at me over the brim of the tiny cup. His big pink face was empty of guile, empty of all emotions except a generalised benevolence and a mild curiosity.

  36

  In the freezing, fog-bound evening, Edgar and I boarded the Gloucester Mail. I was grateful that Mr Allan had indulged us in the luxury of inside seats. As we inched our way down Piccadilly, I stared at the throngs of people on the pavement, their faces lit by the unhealthy glare of the street lights. Edgar sat very still, his eyes huge in his face, watching and listening, yet deaf to my attempts at conversation; he was like one under an enchantment.

  Slowly we picked up speed. By and by the motion and the monotony set the boy’s head nodding to and fro on his shoulders, bouncing between me and a grocer’s wife, between sleep and wakefulness. One by one, our fellow passengers followed his example. I wished I might do the same. A journey is full of excitement when one leaves or arrives, but the intervening period is commonly characterised by discomfort and boredom.

  The coach whirled through the darkness. A dwarfish clergyman snored on the seat opposite mine. The windows were tightly closed, at the request of the grocer’s wife, who slumbered steadily, rousing herself when she heard the screech of the horn at turnpike gates and recruiting her strength from a bottle in her reticule. The interior of the coach filled with the fumes of Jamaica rum and water. The clergyman had a nightmare; his limbs twitched helplessly; and his tiny feet pushed their way out of the blanket that covered him and kicked my shins.

  The only moments of interest came as we clattered through the silent country towns along the road. I raised the blind, rubbed the glass and looked out at empty streets. Here and there a light would burn in an upper window. There is something mysterious about a sleeping town; like a ship aba
ndoned by its crew, it becomes an entirely different entity when bereft of human purpose and human animation.

  Then the coach would swing under an archway into the inn yard, and suddenly all would be light and bustle, the shouting of ostlers and tap-boys, the changing of horses, passengers climbing down and climbing up, voices rising and falling with jokes, curses, advice and farewells. So perverse is the human mind that within seconds of entering an inn yard I would begin to hunger for the darkness and the solitude of the countryside.

  Once the horses were changed, we were on our way, mile after mile. All the inside passengers were going to Gloucester or further still to Hereford or Carmarthen. At some point in the dark hours before dawn I fell into a deep slumber, from which I was rudely awakened, along with the other passengers, when the coachman misjudged the turn into an inn yard and jarred the nearside rear wheel against the jamb of the arch.

  After that I did not go back to sleep. The night slowly gave way to the long grey twilight of a winter dawn. One by one, my travelling companions woke to face the day. All the excitement of the previous evening had gone. We were unwashed, unshaven, unfed and unrested. Our bodies ached from the hardness of the seats.

  We reached Gloucester before midday and were set down with our luggage at the Bell Inn in Southgate-street. Mr Carswall’s carriage had already arrived. The horses were baiting and the groom was anxious to leave. We snatched a late breakfast in the coffee room. Afterwards I risked the groom’s displeasure and found a barber to shave me. Curiosity moved me as much as vanity; barbers know everything.

  “By the way,” I said as the man was stropping his razor, “I believe the late Mr Wavenhoe owned property in this city.”

  “Wavenhoe? Oh yes, sir. Though the old gentleman lived in London mostly. He died last month.”

  I jingled the coins in my pocket. “What was the property?”

  “Oxbody-lane, sir – a pretty little inn, and also some of the neighbouring freeholds. It’s all let, of course.” Head on one side like a robin, he darted a glance at me. “If you’re interested, I could give you the direction of an attorney who would be able to tell you more.”

  “No,” I said abruptly. “There is no need.”

  Mr Carswall’s seat, Monkshill-park, lay some ten or twelve miles south and west of Gloucester in the direction of Lydmouth. We made good time when we left the city because the first part of our journey lay along turnpike roads. The last few miles lay on smaller roads and lanes. Time dragged. Edgar fidgeted. My body ached with the undeserved weariness of the sedentary traveller.

  By the time we swung off the road, the afternoon was turning to twilight. A grim-faced lodge-keeper opened the gates. We followed a winding, gradually ascending drive through parkland. Trees swayed like maenads against a gloomy sky. The wind threw drops of rain against the carriage windows.

  The house burst into view, a great rectangular block with three storeys and five bays, faced with stone that gleamed coldly against the darkening landscape. We were clearly awaited, for as we drew up at the door, two footmen ran out with umbrellas and ushered us through the driving rain and up the steps into the hall. I recognised one of them as Pratt, the thin-faced sycophant whom Mr Carswall must have brought down with him from town. Charlie Frant flew to greet his friend, followed at a more sober pace by the two ladies, arm in arm.

  “Edgar!” Charlie cried. “Let me show you our room. Oh, we shall have such larks.” His mother touched his shoulder and reminded him of my presence. Blushing, he turned to me. “Mr Shield, sir, how good of you to come.”

  Mrs Frant shook my hand and gave me her gentle smile.

  “My father is closeted with his agent on estate business,” Miss Carswall told me. “But you will meet him at dinner.” She glanced at the hovering footmen. “Pratt will show you to your room. I daresay you will want to rest after the fatigue of your journey. But not for long, I am afraid – we dine at half-past five o’clock. We keep country hours at Monkshill.”

  I mounted the stairs in the wake of the footman. Far above me was an oval skylight which seemed less a means of admitting light than a way of emphasising the height of the house and the breadth of the stairwell. Monkshill was on the grand scale, a residence fit for giants. I was sensible of a stillness beneath me, as if the women in the hall below were holding their breath.

  My room was large, a little shabby and very cold. I washed and changed as quickly as I could. Somewhere in the house a clock was striking five when I went in search of the drawing room. Lamps and candles lighted the landings and the stairs. But they failed to expel the darkness from the immense spaces of the mansion.

  In the hall, I hesitated, wondering where the drawing room was. A figure detached itself from the shadows to my right.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  Startled, I swung round. “Why, Mrs Kerridge! I trust I find you well?”

  “As well as can be expected.” She nodded towards the door on my right. “If you want the boys, they’re in the drawing room.”

  She left as suddenly as she had arrived, the abruptness of her manner reminding me of my ambiguous status, neither gentleman nor servant. I knocked lightly on the door and went in. The drawing room was filled with the shifting, faded yellow light of a dozen candles. Mrs Frant was sitting almost in the grate, with a book in her hand. The boys were huddled on the sofa, engaged in a whispered conversation.

  “I – I beg your pardon, ma’am,” I said. “Am I early?”

  “Not at all, Mr Shield,” Mrs Frant said. “Pray sit down. And, on the way, I wonder if you would be so kind as to ring the bell. We need more coals for the fire.”

  I did as she asked and then sat opposite her. It is curious the effect that widow’s weeds have on those that wear them. Some women drown in their dark folds; they become their mourning. Mrs Frant, however, belonged to the second category: the very simplicity of her plain black gown set off her beauty.

  “My cousins will be here in a moment,” she said. “You are not cold, I hope?”

  “Not at all,” I lied.

  “This is a cold house, I’m afraid,” she said with a faint smile. “We have not been here long enough to warm it.”

  The door opened and Miss Carswall came into the room. Her face broke into a smile.

  I may have been mistaken, but I thought I heard Sophia Frant add in a whisper: “And an unlucky house, too.”

  37

  Five of us sat down to dinner – Mr Carswall, Miss Carswall, Mrs Frant, an elderly lady named Mrs Lee, and myself. Mrs Lee was the aunt of a local clergyman, and I understood she was paying a long visit to Monkshill-park. There was little conversation apart from that which emanated from Mr Carswall himself. He ate sparingly, but drank deeply, working his way through glass after glass of claret.

  “I took it upon myself to investigate the state of Charlie’s Latinity,” he announced. “The Rector called the other morning, and I asked him to interrogate the boy on his knowledge of the Eton Latin Grammar. He was shocked – shocked, Mr Shield – when he plumbed the depths of the lad’s ignorance. Why, he could not even distinguish between a gerund and a gerundive. What does Mr Bransby teach them?”

  “He has not had much opportunity of teaching Charlie anything, sir. Nor has any of us. Charlie attended the school for less than a term, and for much of it he was absent.”

  Mrs Frant turned her face away.

  “It has not been an easy time for him,” put in Miss Carswall.

  Carswall shot his daughter a glance. “True enough, my dear,” he rumbled. “Still, that don’t alter the case. The boy wants instruction, and I daresay Edgar Allan does too. You had better stay for the rest of their holidays, Shield, and read with them in the mornings.”

  I bowed.

  “If the arrangement is quite convenient for Mr Shield?” Mrs Frant said, looking at me.

  “Of course it is,” Carswall said. “Mr Bransby raised no objection when I put it to him, so why should he? Neither of them will be the loser.”

/>   “And I’m sure Mr Shield will make himself useful in other ways,” Miss Carswall said. “He will be quite an addition to our little society. You like a game of chess in the evening, do you not, Papa, and I’m sure he can make a fourth at whist. If the weather is bad, one hardly ever sees anyone in the country, especially in winter.”

  “People did not mind the weather when I was a boy,” Carswall grumbled. “We were more sociable then.”

  “Why, Papa, we are sociable still. Or we try to be. Did not the Rector ride over the other day? And in the rain!”

  The meal continued to its weary end. There was some hesitation about which lady should give the signal to withdraw. In the end, Miss Carswall was the first to rise. I held open the door for them. Mrs Lee and Mrs Frant hurried past, their faces averted, but Miss Carswall smiled up at me. The cloth was removed. Carswall beckoned me back to my seat and pushed the decanter towards me.

  “You will not dine with us every night,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mind you, Flora may have a point. Do you play chess or piquet? Whist?”

  “Indifferently, I’m afraid.”

  “No matter. You play – that is the main thing.” Carswall stared into his glass. “We exchange few visits in this part of the country.”

  We drank in silence. A clock ticked. Whereas Mr Rowsell drank wine because he enjoyed it and its effects, Mr Carswall drank it as if it were his bounden duty.

  “I did not wish to alarm the ladies at dinner,” he said after a while, “but this afternoon I received intelligence that there is a band of housebreakers in the vicinity. We must be on our guard. So it is no bad thing to have another man in the house, particularly a former soldier.”

  The old man gnawed his lower lip for a moment and then bade me ring the bell. When the butler came, Mr Carswall ordered him to lock up with particular care. Then, to my relief, he gave me permission to go. I left him to his wine and his fire and went to the drawing room in search of tea. Only Miss Carswall and Mrs Lee were there, one on either side of the fire. Mrs Lee was asleep. Miss Carswall’s face was uncharacteristically sad, though she looked up with a smile when I entered and patted the sofa beside her.