The American Boy

by Andrew Taylor

  “I hope you do not find us too dull,” Mrs Frant said. “You must be used to a deal of noise and bustle, I daresay. Charlie tells me that you lived in London before you entered Mr Bransby’s school, and that before that you were a soldier.”

  “All the more reason why I should relish the calm of the countryside.”

  “Perhaps.” She darted a glance at me. “My father served in the army too. Colonel Francis Marpool – I do not suppose you knew him?”

  “No. I enlisted in the army only in 1815. As a private soldier.”

  “You fought at Waterloo?”

  “I was wounded there, ma’am.”

  She gave me a look of admiration that filled me with shame.

  I said, “I did not fire a single shot, however. I was wounded at an early stage of the battle, and then had a horse fall beside me, which prevented me from moving. I was a most inglorious soldier.”

  “I honour your frankness, Mr Shield,” she said. “Had I been a man, and on the field of battle, I’m sure I should have been terrified.”

  “To be blunt, I was terrified.”

  She laughed as though I had said something wonderfully witty. “That merely confirms me in my opinion that you are a man of sense. You did not run away: that is glory enough, surely?”

  “I could not run away. A dead horse on top of oneself is a powerful argument against motion of any sort.”

  “Then we must be thankful that Providence afforded you its protection. Even in the form of a dead horse.” She pointed to the crest of a low hill we were ascending. “When we reach the top, we shall see the ruins below.”

  The boys appeared on the skyline as they reached the brow of the declivity. Whooping like a pair of savages, they ran down the far side.

  Mrs Frant and I reached the summit. The ground sloped down to a little valley, on the floor of which were the remains of several stone walls. Some way beyond these scanty signs of habitation was a line of palings, which marked part of the demesne’s northern boundary. The grey roofs of a substantial cottage were visible on the other side of the fencing.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Mrs Frant, pressing her hand into her side. “They might kill themselves!”

  She ran down the hill. The boys were swarming like monkeys up the tallest of the few remaining walls of the ruin, which at its highest point was no more than eight feet above the ground.

  “Charlie!” she cried. “Be careful!”

  Charlie ignored her. Edgar, less accustomed to Mrs Frant’s nervous disposition, paused in his climb and looked over his shoulder.

  Her foot caught on a tuft of grass and she stumbled.

  “Mrs Frant!” I cried.

  She regained her balance, and ran on.

  From the ruins came the sound of a shout. I tore my eyes away from her. Charlie was sitting astride the wall at its topmost point, bellowing with the full strength of his lungs. His words were inaudible, but his agitation was unmistakable. An instant later, I saw Edgar, a crumpled figure on the ground below.

  I thundered like a cavalry charge down the slope to the ruins, passing Mrs Frant on the way. In a moment I was bending over Edgar. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing heavily. A procession of potential calamities flocked through my mind, ranging from the loss of my position to the boy’s death.

  Charlie landed beside me with a thud. “Is he breathing, sir? Will he live?”

  “Of course he will live,” I snapped, fear bringing anger in its train.

  I took Edgar’s wrist. “There is a pulse. A strong one.”

  “Thank God,” murmured Mrs Frant, so close to me that I felt her breath brush my cheek.

  Edgar opened his eyes and stared up at our faces poised above him. “What – what –?”

  “You fell,” I said. “You’re quite safe.”

  He struggled up to a sitting position, but at once gave a cry and fell back.

  “What is it?” said Mrs Frant. “Where does it hurt?”

  “My ankle, ma’am.”

  I probed the injured limb with my fingers, and moved it gently this way and that. “I cannot feel a break. You may have twisted it as you fell, or sprained it.”

  I stood up and helped Mrs Frant to her feet. She drew me a yard or two away from the boys.

  “Are you sure the ankle is not broken, Mr Shield?”

  “I believe not, though I cannot be certain. But I learned something of these matters while helping my father with his patients; he acted the surgeon as well as the apothecary upon occasion. Besides, if the ankle were broken, I think the boy would feel more pain.”

  “So foolish of me. If I had not called out, he –”

  “You must not think that. He might have fallen in any case.”

  “Thank you.” Her fingers squeezed my arm and then released it. “We must get him back to the house.”

  “He should be carried.” I calculated the distance in my mind, and knew I could not comfortably bear Edgar’s weight for the whole of it. “It would be better to fetch help. He should not trust his weight to the ankle until the extent of the injury has been determined. Besides, he would be more comfortable on a hurdle.”

  “Look,” Charlie said. “Someone’s coming.”

  I followed his pointing finger. Beyond the ruins, near the palings, was a woman, her dark cloak flapping about her as she strode towards us. Mrs Frant turned her head to look. She expelled her breath in a sound expressing either pain or perhaps irritation.

  “I believe it is Mrs Johnson,” she said in a quiet, toneless voice.

  We watched in silence as she drew closer. Mrs Johnson was undeniably a fine-looking woman but there was something hawk-like in her countenance that made me wonder whether her husband was less accustomed to leading than to being led.

  “Well!” said she. “The boy took a nasty tumble, Mrs Frant. Is he able to walk if supported? We must get him to the cottage and summon help.”

  I cleared my throat. “I suggest Charlie runs back across the park.”

  “Oh yes,” he cried. “I’ll go like the wind.”

  “That is very kind of you, ma’am,” Mrs Frant said. “But we cannot possibly put you to so much trouble.”

  “It is no trouble whatsoever,” Mrs Johnson replied. “It is no more than common sense.”

  “Then thank you.” There was colour in Mrs Frant’s cheeks, and I knew she was angry, but not why. “Charlie, will you give Cousin Flora my compliments, explain that Edgar has hurt his ankle and that Mrs Johnson has invited us into her cottage, and desire her to send the chaise with Kerridge.”

  Mrs Johnson’s large, brown, slightly protuberant eyes ran down me from head to foot. Without a word, she turned back to Mrs Frant. “Could not this – this gentleman go? Surely he would reach the house sooner than your son?”

  “I think it would not answer. We shall need Mr Shield to carry Edgar.”

  Mrs Johnson glanced back at her own house. “I could send to the village for –”

  “Pray do not trouble yourself, ma’am. If Mr Shield will be so obliging, we shall manage very well as we are. I would not want us to put you to more trouble than we need. By the by, I do not think you have met my son’s tutor. Give me leave to introduce Mr Shield. Mr Shield, Mrs Johnson, our neighbour.”

  We bowed to each other.

  A moment later, Charlie ran off to fetch help. I lifted Edgar on to my back and plodded down the valley to the palings, where a gate led directly into Mrs Johnson’s untidy garden. She led us to the front of the house. It was not a large establishment – indeed, it barely qualified as a gentleman’s residence – and it was evident at a glance that it was in a poor state of repair.

  “Welcome to Grange Cottage,” Mrs Johnson said with a hard, ironical inflection in her voice. “This way, Mr Shield.”

  She flung open the front door and led us into a low, dark hall. A portmanteau and a corded trunk stood at the foot of the stairs.

  “Ruth! Ruth! I want you!”

  Without waiting for a reply Mrs Johnson
ushered us into a small parlour lit by a bow-window. A tiny fire burned in the grate.

  “Pray put the boy down on the sofa. You will find a footstool by the bureau. Perhaps you would be so kind as to put more coals on the fire. If we wait for my maid to do it, we shall wait an age.”

  Wincing and murmuring thanks, Edgar sat on the sofa. He was very pale now, the skin almost transparent. Mrs Frant knelt beside him, helped him out of his coat and chafed his hands. The servant came almost at once, despite her mistress’s poor opinion of her, and Mrs Johnson ordered blankets, pillows and sal volatile drops.

  “Perhaps we should send for the surgeon,” I suggested.

  “The nearest is two or three miles beyond Flaxern Parva,” Mrs Johnson said. “The best plan will be to wait until you are back at Monkshill, and then have them send a groom over.”

  “I am sorry we are the cause of so much inconvenience to you,” Mrs Frant said.

  Mrs Johnson did not reply. The silence extended for longer than good manners allowed. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, and a floorboard creaked beneath me. The sound seemed to act as a trigger.

  “Not at all, Mrs Frant,” said Mrs Johnson smoothly. “It is a pleasure to be of service to a neighbour. It is fortunate that you find me still here, in fact – Lady Ruispidge has asked me to stay for a week or so; her carriage will be calling for me this afternoon.”

  There was another, shorter silence.

  “And – and how was Lieutenant Johnson when you last had news of him?” Mrs Frant said.

  “Not in the best of spirits,” Mrs Johnson said harshly. “He does not like the West Indian station, and since the Peace there is little hope of either promotion or prize-money.”

  “I understand many naval officers are now on half-pay, but he is not. So surely the Admiralty must place a high value on his services?”

  “He would like to think so.” Mrs Johnson sat down. “Any employment, he says, is better than none. But the ship is old, and is likely to be sold out of the Service or broken up. So he will have to find another captain in need of a first lieutenant.”

  “I am sure his merits must win him many friends.”

  “I fear your optimism may be misplaced. It is influence, not merit, that counts. Still, we should not grumble. After all, it is a harsh world, is it not, Mrs Frant?”

  Mrs Frant’s colour rose in her cheeks. “There are many who are less fortunate than us, no doubt.”

  “You have given up your house in town, I collect?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was in Russell-square, was it not? It is not a part of London I am familiar with.”

  I looked sharply at Mrs Johnson. She was staring with a curious fixity of expression at Mrs Frant, almost as though daring her to disagree.

  “It is very pleasant,” Mrs Frant said. “It is quieter than in the West End, of course, and less populous.”

  The ladies’ words were scrupulously polite but their silences and expressions told a different story, one with darker undercurrents. Though it may sound absurd to say such a thing of them, they acted like a pair of dogs looking for an opportunity to fly at each other’s throats. As so often in my acquaintance with the Carswalls and the Frants, I had the sensation that everyone else knew more than I did, a sensation that familiarity had not made any less disagreeable.

  Nor was this the only mystery that concerned Mrs Johnson. As she and Mrs Frant were exchanging their barbed platitudes, I recalled Miss Carswall’s remarks outside the church on Christmas Day about seeing her in Pall Mall, and Mrs Johnson vehemently denying she had been in town during the autumn. She protested too much, just as Fanny had done.

  Just as Fanny –

  The thought of the girl I had once loved, and whom I was now relieved not to have won, brought another memory to mind. I recalled the dark-haired lady I had seen climbing into a hackney in Southampton-row in October when I called at Russell-square to take Charlie Frant to school. She, too, had reminded me of Fanny, as Mrs Johnson did; and the more I considered the matter, the more I thought it at least possible that the lady had in fact been Mrs Johnson herself. Southampton-row led into Russell-square. But Mrs Johnson had gone out of her way to deny all knowledge of the neighbourhood.

  “Ruth is taking an age,” Mrs Johnson said after another pause in the conversation. “How very convenient it must be to have a large number of well-trained servants at one’s beck and call.”

  “I am sure we are giving her a great deal of extra work.” Mrs Frant cleared her throat. “It was very pleasant to meet Captain Jack Ruispidge yesterday. He spoke so kindly of my father.”

  “Yes, my cousin Jack is nothing if not amiable.” Mrs Johnson hesitated in the way a fencer hesitates, timing his thrust to perfection. “If he has a fault, it is that he likes to be liked, especially by the ladies.”

  At that moment, the maidservant appeared with the blankets, the pillows and the smelling salts. To allow her room to approach the sofa, I stood up and retreated into the recess formed by the little bow-window. I glanced outside. A small, overgrown shrubbery had crept close to this wall of the cottage, and the dark green leaves of the laurels crowded against this side of the window.

  An involuntary exclamation burst from my lips. For an instant, peering out of that tangled foliage, I glimpsed a face with staring eyes.

  “Why, what is it, Mr Shield?” Mrs Frant asked.

  44

  How could I have known that Mrs Johnson, for all her poverty and her retired situation, was a person of great importance in the drama unfolding around me? True, she was one of those creatures who find it difficult to dissemble their emotions. I suspected already that she disliked Mr Carswall. After the visit to Grange Cottage with Edgar, I was convinced that she also disliked Mrs Frant to the point of hatred. But at that stage I had no idea of the reason. Indeed, I blundered through this entire affair in a state of ignorance almost from start to finish.

  As soon as Mrs Kerridge and Charlie arrived in the chaise, we bade our hostess farewell with almost indecent haste. Even with the seat in the middle pulled out, the chaise could take no more than three, so Charlie and I walked home through the park. As we went, I glanced back at the cottage in its ill-kempt garden.

  “What are you looking for, sir?” Charlie asked.

  “I thought I saw a man in the garden while we were in the cottage,” I said, knowing I must answer frankly because Edgar would tell him what had happened. “But Mrs Johnson was sure I was mistaken, and said there had not been a man about the place since she discharged the gardener in October. I saw only part of a face, and only for an instant. It might even have been a woman.”

  “A housebreaker?” Charlie suggested. “Wouldn’t that be a lark, sir?”

  “It’s unlikely to be a housebreaker in broad daylight, and with company in the house.” I smiled down at him. “More likely a beggar.”

  When we reached the mansion, we found Edgar in the ladies’ sitting room. He was arranged on the sofa with Mrs Lee and Mrs Frant fussing over him, while Miss Carswall sat by the fire, glancing through a newspaper. The surgeon had been sent for but Mrs Lee shared my belief that the injury to the ankle was no more than a sprain; she brought out a host of anecdotes concerning the misfortunes of her sons, brothers, nephews and cousins to support the diagnosis. Certainly the boy looked better – his colour had returned and the face he turned towards Charlie and me was almost as lively as ever.

  “I wish they wouldn’t fuss so,” he murmured to Charlie. “My ankle hardly hurts at all now if I do not put any weight on it. And we had not even begun to look for the treasure.”

  All day I was restless. I could not forget the face I had seen at the window of Grange Cottage. I tried to persuade myself that it had been no more than a trick of the leaves and the light. I reminded myself that I had had no more than the briefest glimpse, and that Mrs Johnson was a rational woman who had no reason to lie.

  I turned over in my mind whether I should mention my suspicions, insubstantial thoug
h they were, to Mr Carswall. In London he and I had established the possibility that Henry Frant was still alive, though the corpse at Wellington-terrace had been identified as his at the inquest and was now rotting under his name in the burying ground of St George the Martyr. Even if he had survived, however, he could not afford to run risks – he was a bankrupt, an embezzler, and very possibly a murderer too. But there was not a sliver of proof that he was still alive.

  No proof: merely shadows glimpsed moving out of the corner of an eye, half-heard hints, a yellowing finger in a satchel left on a tooth-puller’s door. But there remained the possibility that the man at the window had been Henry Frant. I found myself pacing up and down the hall.

  The library door opened a few inches. I heard the harsh tones of Mr Carswall’s voice, speaking so low I could not make out the words, and a reply in a higher, lighter voice that I recognised with a thrill of interest as Mrs Frant’s. I did not intend to eavesdrop and I was in the act of withdrawing, when suddenly they began to speak more loudly.

  “Take your hand from me, sir,” cried Mrs Frant, and her words were followed by the sound of a sharp impact, perhaps a slap. “I would not entertain it for a moment.”

  “Then you’re a damned fool, madam,” said Carswall. “Think who bought you that dress, who puts food in your belly, who pays for your son to grow up a gentleman.”

  I drew back into the recess of a doorway. I no longer had any desire to confide my suspicions to Mr Carswall. Sophia Frant emerged from the library, her face blazing with colour. She ran lightly across the hall to the stairs. At the foot of them, she paused and glanced back. She saw me standing there. I wanted to say: I was not listening on purpose, I did not mean to pry. Also, I wished I might help her, for I had overheard enough to understand the nature of the conversation.