Carver's Quest (3 page)

‘The gentleman I represent is looking for men of stout heart,’ Mr Perry had said, ‘men who are unafraid of hard physical labour in the blazing summer sun of distant lands. Not
pasty-faced hobbledehoys who spend their days behind a draper’s counter in Holborn.’

In Quint, Mr Perry thought he had found the ideal candidate. He was taken on. The rest of the supplicants were sent packing. The agent was not the first to make the mistaken assumption that
Quint’s air of surly obstreperousness was only a mask hiding sterling qualities beneath it. And so fate decreed that, within a few weeks, together with Professor Fields and Adam Carver, Quint
was one of those who shook the dust of England from their feet. Black Ben and the other irritations of London life were left behind as they sailed for Salonika.

Equally surely, Quint had thought, it was fate that dictated that he was on hand to rescue Adam in an alleyway in Salonika when the young man was confronted by four unfriendly Turks demanding
any piastres he had about his person. Adam, who had boxed for his college only a few months earlier, succeeded in knocking two of his assailants to the ground, but weight of numbers began to tell.
He was facing a beating from the other two when Quint providentially turned the corner into the muddy backstreet. The Turks were significantly heavier than the Englishmen, but Quint had earlier
decided, soon after the party had reached Salonika, never to walk anywhere in the city without a billy stick to hand. The billy stick, especially when wielded with enthusiasm, changed the odds in
the fight in favour of the visitors. The Turks were swiftly rendered unconscious. Adam’s piastres remained in his pocket. He and Quint, who had hitherto taken little notice of one another,
now formed an alliance. Months later, in the mountains south of the city, Adam had been able to return the compliment. Quint had tumbled from his mule and into a fast-flowing river. He would have
been swept halfway to the Thermaic Gulf had Adam not hauled him from the waters. The unlikely partnership between the two men was strengthened. Quint came to be seen by others in the party as
Adam’s man.

When the expedition returned to London, Adam had suggested that he had a vacancy for a manservant and that Quint might be just the person to fill it. Quint, behaving as if he would be bestowing
a favour on Adam if he accepted the post, had agreed. Adam duly availed himself of the money that John Murray had advanced for the privilege of publishing
Travels in Ancient Macedon
, and
man and master had moved into the rooms in Doughty Street. They had been there for nearly two years and the arrangement seemed to suit them both.

None of this past history crossed Quint’s mind as he smoked his pipefuls of noxious tobacco. At such times as this, he had a capacity for tranquil existence in the present moment that
would have been the envy of an oriental sage. For nearly an hour, he was troubled by nothing more than the need to tamp down or refill his pipe at regular intervals. As midday arrived, however, and
he listened to the sound of the mantle clock striking the hours, he became aware that something was wanting to complete his happiness. A smoke, he thought, was nothing without a drink. It was time
to make his way towards the Lion and Lamb. Quint walked from the sitting room to the small side room which was exclusively his domain. He picked up the blue serge jacket that was lying on the bed
and put it on. Thrusting his dowsed pipe into one of the pockets, he left the room and headed for the stairs that led from the first-floor flat to the ground floor.

As he began to descend those stairs to the hallway, he saw that someone was standing in the ill-lit passage. To his dismay, he realised that it was Mrs Gaffery. Mrs Gaffery, courtesy of her late
husband’s will, was the owner of 65 Doughty Street. Unfortunately, ownership of the property was all that Mr Gaffery, a solicitor with a small practice in Chancery Lane, had been able to
leave his wife. Unwise investment in an Australian gold mine which, on closer inspection, had proved to contain very little gold, had eaten up all his other worldly goods. After his death, his
relict had no means of support at all. She had been obliged to let the upstairs rooms of her property to paying tenants while she continued to live on the ground floor. She had been forced to
become a landlady. It was not a situation that either Mrs Gaffery or many of her tenants enjoyed.

Mrs Gaffery’s loss had occurred many years earlier yet her already formidable appearance continued to be made even more tremendous by the mourning clothes of black crape and bombazine
which she still wore. Unkind rumours suggested that, during his lifetime, Mr Gaffery had been a severe disappointment to his wife. His last will and testament had certainly been so. However, now
that he had long been a member of the great majority, his faults had been forgotten. It seemed that Mrs Gaffery, like the queen, was determined to advertise her status as a widow until she followed
him to the grave herself. Now, black and unmistakeably threatening, she stood in Quint’s path.

‘Women,’ she said. ‘I won’t have them.’

Quint’s method of dealing with Mrs Gaffery was the same one he employed to deal with any social superior likely to trouble him. He feigned idiocy. If he had been able to feign cheery
idiocy, he would have done so on the grounds that it was more likely to produce the results he wanted. However, Quint being Quint, he was obliged to feign surly idiocy. Over the years he had found
that even surly idiocy was remarkably effective in persuading people in any kind of authority that he wasn’t worth questioning or bothering any further. Faced with an apparently furious
landlady, wagging her forefinger in his direction, he simply grunted and stared fixedly at the wainscoting. The storm, he knew, would eventually pass over his head.

‘Not in my house. Not under my roof. Flibbertigibbets flaunting their shamelessness. They have fewer morals than a pack of Pawnee Indians, the lot of them.’

Quint continued to gaze floorwards. He had been puzzled by Mrs Gaffery’s opening remark but he had now worked out that it was the visit of the mysterious young lady that had disturbed her
sense of propriety. He could think of nothing useful to say so he remained silent. Mrs Gaffery’s outrage continued to erupt around his ears. Quint waited for it to pass and eventually sensed
that it was reaching its conclusion.

‘… and you can tell your master that from me. Tell him there shall be no more women coming calling upon him at all hours of the day. Or he shall hear more from me. Much more. You
tell him that, Quint. Do you understand me, man?’

Quint grunted again. Taking the grunt as an indication that her words had hit home, Mrs Gaffery turned and retired to her lair. Quint, grateful that his ordeal had been a short one, continued on
his interrupted journey towards a pint of India Pale Ale.

* * * * *

Standing under the portico of the British Museum, Adam looked towards Great Russell Street and the traffic passing down it. It was a few minutes after ten on a Wednesday morning
and, behind him, the doors of the museum, which welcomed members of the public only on alternate weekdays, had just opened. He was waiting for Professor Fields, who had despatched a letter to say
that he was coming up to town from Cambridge that morning. ‘There is an Attic vase from the bequest of Sir Charles Tankerville that has been newly put on display,’ the professor had
written, ‘and I am particularly eager to see it. You would also find it of interest and I propose that you should meet me at the entrance to the museum prompt at ten.’

The letter was, Adam thought, typical of Fields’s somewhat peremptory style of correspondence. There was no suggestion that the young man might have other plans which might conflict with
the professor’s. He had been summoned to appear and appear he must. The fact that Fields himself was not in evidence prompt at ten was not unexpected. The professor was also given to issuing
strict instructions for behaviour and comportment which he then failed to follow himself.

Adam pulled out his watch on its silver Albert chain from his waistcoat pocket. It was nearly ten past ten. He glanced idly at the small stream of visitors climbing the steps to the entrance of
the museum and then looked towards Great Russell Street once more. He felt a small surge of affection as he picked out the sturdy figure of the professor turning into the grounds of the museum and
heading in his direction. Fields could be difficult and argumentative and irritating, it was true, but he had become an important person in Adam’s life. Thomas Burton Fields had been a senior
master at Shrewsbury School, and was already a legendary figure when Adam had arrived as a timid thirteen-year-old boy from his prep school. Fields had seen something in him, had encouraged his
burgeoning love for Greek and Latin and for the long-vanished civilisations of the Mediterranean. When Fields had left Shrewsbury to accept a professorship at Cambridge, Adam had been lost but he
had followed his mentor to the university only a year later. The death of his father and the consequent change in his financial fortunes had ruined his hopes of a life in academe, but Fields had
been on hand to rescue him. Although Adam had found it necessary to go down from Cambridge without taking his degree, the professor had arranged for him to join him on his expedition to European
Turkey. In many ways, Thomas Burton Fields had been a second father to him.

‘We must make our way to the Tankerville Vase immediately,’ the professor said, as he strode up the steps. He made no attempt at a formal greeting and spoke as if it was Adam’s
fault that they had not been able to enter the museum the moment it opened. ‘Doubtless there will be hordes of gawking visitors in front of it already.’

Adam thought it unlikely that an Attic vase would draw the crowds Fields was anticipating.

‘Should we not first take a side turning into the Elgin Gallery?’ he asked teasingly, knowing what the answer would be.

‘Those marble statues are much overrated,’ the professor said dismissively. ‘I would exchange all of them for the finest examples of Athenian red-figure wares.’

‘Or the Phigalian Saloon? The bas-reliefs from the Temple of Apollo are much admired.’

‘They are even worse than the works Elgin prised off the Parthenon. No – we are here to see the Tankerville Vase.’

As Adam had anticipated, there was nobody in front of the case that held the vase. Both men bent double to peer more closely at the decoration.

‘It is unmistakeably a depiction of the Centauromachy,’ the professor said. ‘The same subject that appears on some of the sculptures you mentioned earlier but a purer, more
authentic rendition of it. I had read that this was so but I wished to see for myself.’

They continued to examine the tiny figures on the pottery.

‘This must be Peirithoos, the king of the Lapiths. Yes, the lettering makes it clear.’

‘And these are the drunken centaurs,’ Adam remarked, pointing to the half-men and half-horses reeling across the vase’s bulging middle.

‘An illustration of the dangers of inebriation.’

‘Never allow a centaur more drink than it can hold,’ the young man said.

‘A lesson that Peirithoos learned to his cost.’ Fields straightened and stood up. ‘I am pleased to have seen this but I cannot linger over it as long as I would like. I have
another appointment.’

Adam, directed so autocratically to meet his mentor, could not help feeling exasperated that the professor was hastening away so swiftly.

‘I had hoped to have longer to speak with you, sir.’

‘Of course you did, my boy. But it was not to be. You have seen the Tankerville Vase and that must suffice.’

‘You will not be able to dine with me tonight?’

Fields waved a hand, as if to suggest that the very idea of dinner was ludicrous. ‘I must return to college.’

The two men made their way back through the museum towards the entrance.

‘I believe that I
shall
make a diversion here and see the Phigalian Marbles,’ Adam said, as they reached a door to another gallery. ‘So we must go our separate
ways.’

He held out his hand and Fields took it. ‘We will see one another again soon, Adam. Of that I am certain.’

Several inches shorter than his one-time pupil, the professor looked up at Adam’s face as if scanning it for signs of continued irritation. He let go of his hand and smoothed the thinning
hair on the top of his head. Then he turned abruptly and marched briskly in the direction of the door to the outside world. Adam watched him go, his annoyance slowly fading, and then turned to
enter the gallery on his right. He would see how the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths appeared in marble.

O
n the evening of the Speke dinner, held to commemorate the achievements of the late African explorer and member of the Marco Polo, Adam asked the
cabman to drop him at one end of Pall Mall. It was a fine night and he wanted, however briefly, to take the air. As he strolled up the street towards the entrance to the club, he was in a cheerful
mood. The world in general, and London in particular, seemed to be filled with the promise of pleasure and enjoyment. Entering the door to the Marco Polo, with its mosaic portrait of the Venetian
traveller above the portico, Adam was immediately aware of the hurly-burly of what had become, in a few brief years, one of the busiest events in the club’s social calendar.

As he paused just inside the threshold of the main room and looked around, he caught sight of himself in a large, extravagantly framed mirror that hung on a wall to his right. His spirits still
high, he liked what he saw. Tall and well built, he filled out the evening dress he was wearing. His black hair shone with the macassar oil he had applied earlier. He looked, he decided, exactly as
a fashionable young man in the greatest metropolis on earth should look. He turned to face a room of men all dressed like himself. Of all ages, from fresh-faced youth to bewhiskered maturity, the
members of the Marco Polo seemed to Adam, in his elevated mood, a happy band of brothers. He was inspired by a feeling of collegiate attachment to them all. Here, he thought, were some of the most
enterprising men of the day. The kind of men whose spirit made the country great. Here were men who had ventured into the furthest corners of the known and unknown world. Here were men whose
travels around the globe made his own journeys in Turkey in Europe seem small beer in comparison.