The American Boy (20 page)

He studied the drawing of the schoolboy for a moment and then turned it over and examined the address on the back. “Lambert-place? Where's that?”

“I am not sure, sir. But there is more: as I was walking through the passage that led from the yard at the back of the house to the street, I was attacked by two ruffians.”

“In league with the landlord?”

“Not necessarily. They could have come from the street. Fortunately my cries attracted the attention of Mr Harmwell, who came to my rescue.”

“Ah, the nigger. So we come to him again. What was he doing there?”

“He and Mr Noak would have me believe it was coincidence.”

“The alternatives are that he was in league with the landlord, or that he followed you.”

“At one point as I walked from Fountain-court to Seven Dials, I thought someone might be behind me. But the fog was so thick I could not be sure. And when I was in Mr Iversen's shop, I wondered whether someone was spying on us through the window to the street.”

Carswall tugged his lower lip and gave a great sigh. “How did they treat you, he and Mr Noak?”

“Nothing could have been kinder. Mr Harmwell bore me off in the hackney to Mr Noak's lodgings in Brewer-street, and they gave me a glass of brandy. They did not press me for information. Then Mr Noak told Mr Harmwell to bring me back here. They would not even allow me to pay the fare.”

“In the morning, find Lambert-place and discover whether the people of number nine know anything of a visitor from Queen-street.”

“Should I be looking for Mr Frant, sir, or for Mr Poe?”

Carswall glared at me. “How the devil should I know?”

“I thought perhaps the handwriting –”

“A couple of words? What use is that?”

“The drawing appears to be of a schoolboy.”

“Charlie, you mean? Or the American? Well, that gets us no further, does it? Nor is there anything to show that the hand that wrote the address is the hand that made the drawing. But perhaps Mrs Frant might know whether Frant amused himself with a pencil – yes, ring the bell there.”

I obeyed. A moment later the footman returned and Carswall inquired how Mrs Frant did. Pratt replied that she had come down to the drawing room for a few minutes, with Miss Carswall to keep her company. It was, I knew, the first time she had left her bedchamber for several days, apart from attending the funeral. Charlie was with her, too. With uncharacteristic consideration, Carswall told the man to inquire whether it would be convenient for him to wait upon her.

While he was waiting for an answer, Carswall hauled himself to his feet. Swaying, he supported himself on the mantelpiece.

“We shall go down to the country in a few days' time,” he said. “Mrs Frant and her son will of course go with us.”

“He is not to return to Mr Bransby's?”

Carswall shook his heavy head. “I cannot see the justification for the extra expense, particularly as Mrs Frant will no longer maintain a London residence. I have discussed the matter with her, and she agrees with me: it will be kinder to the boy to remove him promptly from the school. The circumstances of his father's ruin and disappearance must weigh heavily against him there.”

The intelligence came as a blow to me, though I had half expected it. I stood in miserable silence while Carswall whistled tunelessly. Mrs Frant must know that Mr Carswall had cheated her out of her Uncle Wavenhoe's last bequest. Yet she was so reduced in her circumstances that she had no choice but to follow the advice of the man who had made her son a beggar.

At last the footman returned with a message from Mrs Frant. She begged to be excused: she did not yet feel equal to the exertion.

Mr Carswall muttered to himself, “Still, it don't signify. She shall talk to me soon enough. They all like to tease.”

He stood there for a moment, scratching himself like an old pig in a sty. Then he appeared to recollect he was not alone. He sat down heavily in his elbow chair, looked up at me and smiled, disconcerting me again with that glimpse of Miss Carswall in his ugly face.

“I'm much obliged to you, sir, much obliged for all you have done. You have not had an easy time of it, I am afraid. And it is good of you to undertake to be my eyes and legs.” He felt in his waistcoat pocket for his watch. “If only there were more time,” he said, staring at the dial. “Still, I must not detain you any longer – you have your pupil to attend to. I shall see you on your return tomorrow.”

Thus dismissed, I made my way slowly upstairs. I was sadly out of humour. My spirits were depressed by the prospect of returning to the school which had so recently been a haven to me. As I reached the first-floor landing, however, the drawing-room door opened. A black dress fluttered and my nostrils caught the scent of Parma violets.

“Mrs Frant! I – I hope I find you better.”

“Yes, thank you, sir,” she said, closing the door behind her. “I have been very ill, but I am now somewhat improved.”

Her face was white and hollow-cheeked, and her eyes blazed as though she was still in the grip of a fever. She glanced hurriedly along the landing and up the stairs.

I began to speak, hardly aware of what I was saying: “I cannot say how much I regret –”

“Mrs Kerridge tells me you were hurt,” she interrupted in a low, urgent voice, and it was as well for me that she did not allow me to finish my sentence. “That you were attacked by ruffians.”

My hand flew to the bruise on my head. “It is of no significance, madam. Pray do not be concerned about it.”

“Oh, but I am. Come here, by the mirror – let me see it.”

A candelabrum stood on a marble-topped pier table, with its candle flames reflected in the tall mirror on the wall above it. I stood with my head bowed. Mrs Frant raised herself on tiptoe and peered at the spot on the right side of my temple where the blow had landed.

“A little closer,” she commanded. “There, I see – there is swelling and a bruise. Fortunately the skin is grazed rather than broken.”

“My hat took the force of the blow.”

“Thank God!”

I felt the tips of her fingers brush against my forehead. A thrill ran through me, and I steadied myself on the table to conceal the tremor of excitement.

“Ah! It is still painful. Does your head ache?”

“Yes, madam.”

“You were on an errand for Mr Carswall, I collect?”

“Yes. Fortunately I lost nothing but my hat and my stick. Mr Noak's clerk was passing and came to my rescue.”

She drew away and I saw that her colour was rising, the blood vivid in her pale face. “You must rest this evening. Charlie will stay with me for the present. I will have them send you up a cold compress and something to eat. Nothing too heavy, though. A little broth, perhaps, and a glass of sherry.” She looked at the drawing-room door, through which came the sound of voices. “I trust you will be fully restored by the morning.”

“Thank you. Madam – Mr Carswall informs me that Charlie will not be coming back to school.”

She turned her face away from me. “That is correct, Mr Shield. Charlie and I are in Mr Carswall's hands now, and he has decided that it will be better for Charlie and me to go down to the country for a time, after so great a change in our circumstances.” She hesitated and then rushed on. “I am naturally desirous of sparing Mr Carswall any unnecessary expense.” She looked away and added with an unmistakable note of irony in her voice: “He has done so much for us already.”

I bowed, sensible of the compliment she had paid me in speaking so frankly. “We shall miss him at school.”

Her lips trembled. “And he will miss you all. I am very much obliged to you.” She took a step away from me, turned and took a deep breath. “You – you will not mind if I ask a question – one that may seem a little indelicate? But I hope a widow may be excused.”

“Pray ask me whatever you wish, ma'am, and I will answer to the best of my ability.”

“Am I correct in thinking that you were one of the first to see my late husband? After – after his body was found?”

I nodded.

“I believe that when he left the house that day, he had in his pocket a small box – made of mahogany, inlaid with tulip wood, with a shell pattern on the lid.”

I remembered what Miss Carswall had confided in me on the evening of Mr Frant's funeral. “A jewel box, perhaps?”

“Yes – though the box itself is dearer to me than the contents. It was no longer in his pocket, but I thought it might have fallen on the ground.”

“I wish I had seen it, ma'am – but I did not.”

Mrs Frant gave me a wan smile. “It doesn't signify, truly. It is merely that I had a foolish fondness for it, and for the memories attached to it. But I must not detain you – you must rest.”

We wished each other goodnight. Once again she moved away, and once again she paused and turned back.

“Pray – pray be careful, Mr Shield,” she murmured. “Especially in your dealings with Mr Carswall.”

A moment later, I was alone on the landing with my headache and the smell of her scent. I had no reason to be happy, but I was.

London may be the greatest city the world has ever known, but it is also a cluster of villages – flung together by the currents of history and geography, but each retaining its individual character. Even in newly built neighbourhoods, the pattern reasserts itself: mankind is drawn to the village and fears the metropolis.

I learned from the street directory that Lambert-place was in the network of streets west of the Tottenham Court-road, at no great distance from either Margaret-street or the Rookeries of St Giles. I walked there through the fog. A low, blood-red sun struggled in vain to dispel the murk but its feeble rays succeeded only in producing wild and singular effects of light. I was not perfectly recovered from the events of yesterday, and at times it seemed to me that I was wandering through a phantasmagoria rather than a city of bricks and mortar. My spirits had not yet emerged from the shadow of the attack in Queen-street, and I was painfully alert to the slightest circumstance that might betoken danger.

As I drew nearer my destination, the nature of the neighbourhood, of this accidental village, became apparent to me. Gentlemen lived in and around Margaret-street, and necessarily gave the vicinity its character. In the Rookeries were the worst examples of vice and poverty the capital could offer, and these left an indelible stamp upon the parish of St Giles. But the little district around Lambert-place was different again – quiet and respectable, given over to small tradesmen and artisans.

The street itself was a cul-de-sac containing twelve small houses and the entrance to a mews serving two larger streets running parallel to it. I knocked at the door of number 9. It was opened by a tired little woman with two children clinging to her skirts and a third in her arms. I inquired for my friend Mr Poe. The woman shook her head, and the baby began to cry. I described my friend as a well-set-up man perhaps with his face muffled against the toothache.

“Why didn't you say so before?” she demanded. “It's Mr Longstaff you want.” She turned her head and called over her shoulder: “Matilda!”

She stood back to allow me to enter. As I did so, a door opened at the back of the hall and an old woman emerged.

“There's a gent here for Mr Longstaff.” The younger woman towed her children towards the stairs. “And I'll be obliged if you would remind him about the last week's rent, Matilda. I can't pay the butcher with hot air and promises for ever.”

“I'll speak to him.” The old woman looked up at me and her cracked voice rose to a polite whimper. “You're fortunate, sir – it happens that Mr Longstaff is quite at leisure at present. Pray step this way.”

I followed her into a small room overlooking the yard at the back of the house. In front of the window was a high-backed elbow chair in which was sitting a man who seemed even smaller than the woman who had ushered me in. The chair was fixed to the floor with iron brackets.

Its occupant sprang to his feet as I entered, and I saw he was very much younger than the woman. He was short and broad-shouldered, with a crooked back and one leg shorter than the other. He gave a lopsided impression, like a man walking across a steep slope.

“Well, sir, whatever you desire for your teeth, you'll find it here,” he said in a rush. “The cauterising of nerves, fillings, simple extractions performed with such skill and rapidity they are almost painless. Transplanting, though, is my speciality, sir – a practice endorsed by Mr Hunter, under whom I studied as a young man. I use only teeth from living sources, sir, those from corpses never take, though lesser practitioners will attempt to fob you off with them. Should you wish it, I can manufacture for you a complete set of false teeth that may be worn for years together, and are an ornament to the mouth, and greatly assist clarity of speech. I have made them from mother-of-pearl, silver and even enamelled copper in my time, sir. But I recommend walrus or human teeth, they discolour less than the others.”

As the torrent of words was tumbling out, Mr Longstaff approached very close to me. With a trembling hand, he put on a pair of spectacles with lenses as thick as penny pieces and looked fixedly at my lips.

“Pray open your mouth, sir.”

“I do not at present require treatment,” I said. “I am come to ask after a friend of mine whom I believe you may have treated the other day.”

“The gentleman with the extraction,” the old woman said loudly, and so immediately that I suspected they had had no other patients within the last few days. “You remember.”

“He did not give you a name, I suppose?” I asked. “I am not fully persuaded that it was my friend.”

“Not that I recall.”

“Then what did he look like, sir – you will have seen his face.”

“I look in their mouths, sir, not at their faces; but his was not a pretty sight.”