The Silent Boy

by Taylor, Andrew

  The freckles on George’s face glowed, given unnatural prominence by the pallor of the surrounding skin. One by one he removed the items in his pocket. A half-eaten apple. A penknife with a wooden handle and a broken blade. A length of twine. A twist of tobacco. A short-stemmed clay pipe. When he had finished, he stood motionless, hands by his side, looking at the floor.

  ‘Ha!’ the Vicar said. ‘Shoes.’

  The gardener’s boy looked up. Savill saw the muscles twitching below his eyes and around his mouth. He slipped off his shoes. Horton gestured, silently ordering him to shake them out.

  One shoe disgorged a length of brass wire, with loops tied in both ends. The other a scrap of folded paper that fell with a clunk on the table.

  ‘A snare, eh? Poaching in the Park covers, no doubt. An offence against God and man.’

  The boy stared at him. How old was the lad, Savill wondered? Ten or twelve? Charles’s age, give or take a year, but much heavier in build. His skull tapered from a broad chin to a small forehead, almost invisible beneath the ragged fringe of ginger hair.

  ‘Unfold the paper. On the table, where I can see you.’

  George’s hands were shaking. The paper had been torn from a newspaper. It contained two shilling-pieces.

  ‘Where did you get that money?’

  ‘My granny gave it me, your honour, I swear it.’

  ‘Don’t add perjury to your crimes, you wretched youth.’ Horton leaned across the table. ‘Where?’

  ‘Gentleman gave it me, sir. He was lost. I told Miss Horton, sir, I told her.’

  ‘What was he like, this gentleman of yours?’

  ‘Face like a gypsy’s, sir, for all he was a gentleman. A big black hat. He rode over by the back way, from the common. He was looking for the way to Bath.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. That was all. Then Miss Horton came, and he went.’

  The Vicar sighed and shook his head. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, George.’ He pointed at the snare and money. ‘I’ll have to commit you. Perhaps it’ll be the Assizes for you, perhaps not. But you’ll lose your position in any case.’

  George’s eyes darted from Mr Horton to Savill and then back again.

  ‘I wonder what Mrs White will have to say. She’s not getting any younger, is she? Mrs West might have to put her out of the lodge cottage if she’s by herself. I suppose she’ll have to go on the parish. You know what that means. The workhouse.’

  ‘Please, your honour.’ George shifted his weight from one leg to the other. ‘He wanted to know if I’d seen the French boy who can’t speak. I said yes, he was here at Charnwood. The man asked if he ever came into the woods.’ He hesitated. ‘And I said he did, but he wasn’t meant to leave the gardens so sometimes it was early, before breakfast.’

  ‘Was that the only time you saw him?’

  ‘No, your honour.’ The boy wiped his nose with his sleeve. ‘He was there yesterday too. Missed seeing the Frenchy by a whisker – he was in the woods early that day – I saw him coming through the gardens on the way to the house.’

  ‘Did you tell the man we were leaving for London today?’ Savill snapped. ‘Did you?’

  George looked away. ‘Yes, sir.’ He was trembling now, waiting for a blow or a kick. ‘I’m sorry. I ask your pardon, sirs, I didn’t know.’

  Savill glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Listen to me. Where did Charles go in the woods?’

  ‘He has a little place, sir.’ The boy looked at Savill. ‘Keeps things there. Food and stuff.’

  ‘I know. There’s nothing there now.’

  ‘He must have taken them.’

  ‘Or you did,’ Savill said, and watched the terror return to George’s face.

  Horton chipped away at the story, testing it, trying without success to extract more details. At last he gave up.

  ‘Wait in the kitchen yard.’

  ‘By your leave, sir,’ Savill said. ‘One more question. George, you say the man rode over. Did you see his horse?’

  ‘Yes, your honour. Not at first – but I followed him and I saw him riding up the lane. Piebald pony, sir. Too small for him.’

  ‘So he couldn’t have come far on it?’

  ‘No, sir. But he wouldn’t have, would he?’

  ‘Don’t be impudent, you scoundrel,’ Horton roared. ‘Or it will go even worse with you.’

  Savill said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was Mr Fenner’s pony, sir. So he must have come from there.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  In the end they went together in single file, the Vicar on his grey gelding and Savill on the worn-out mare from Charnwood. They took the sunken road, hardly more than a path, that climbed up the valley and wound over the hills.

  ‘Can’t we go faster?’ Savill said.

  Mr Horton turned in his saddle. ‘You can’t go fast here. Not unless you want a broken neck. The going’s easier when the lane levels out. Another half-mile and we’ll be there.’

  At last they emerged on to a windswept heath with long views to a blue horizon to the south-west. They rode side by side now and urged the horses to a trot. Twenty minutes later they came to a made-up road in poor repair. They followed it to an inn. A sign swung from a post at the front but the paint was so decayed it was impossible to make out what was on it. The building was L-shaped, with stables and coach houses enclosing a rectangular yard at the rear. Behind it lay orchards and a paddock with a brown horse grazing at one end and a piebald pony at the other.

  ‘So he was telling the truth,’ Savill said.

  The Vicar grunted. ‘Unusual, with George White. But it does happen.’

  They rode under the archway. The yard was cobbled and strewn with the remains of the summer’s weeds. No one was in sight, but smoke trickled from two of the chimneys.

  ‘It’s not the place it was,’ Horton said. ‘Not since they cut the new road lower down.’

  The doors of the large, empty coach house were standing open. An elderly ostler hurried out to take their horses.

  ‘Where’s Mr Fenner?’ Horton asked.

  ‘He don’t come downstairs much now, your honour. It’s Mrs Fenner you’ll want to see.’

  A maid showed them to a private parlour at the front of the inn. The room was cold and the hearth was choked with ashes. The maid asked if the gentlemen would take something while they waited, but Horton refused.

  They sat at a table in the bay window. Mrs Fenner kept them waiting for several minutes. When she appeared, her perfume came before her.

  She paused for a moment in the doorway and surveyed her guests. She was a tall, stout woman, slow-moving in everything apart from her blue-green eyes, which roved rapidly to and fro. Her features were small and regular. When she was young, Savill thought, she had probably been accounted a beauty; but now, as she approached the further shores of middle age, the surrounding face had expanded, marooning her nose, eyes and mouth in a sea of doughy flesh.

  ‘Mr Horton, sir, what a pleasure. Your servant, sir.’ She advanced into the room and curtseyed, or rather lowered her entire body a couple of inches in a manner suggesting she had contrived briefly to shorten her legs by means of an invisible mechanism. ‘My husband will be distressed to miss you. But poor Fenner hardly stirs from his bed nowadays, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am. Now—’

  ‘It’s sorrow that’s brought him low, sir. Look at what this place has become since the turnpike company stole our trade.’

  ‘Madam, I am grieved by your situation, but I have not come to discuss that now.’

  Anger sparked in her eyes but was instantly suppressed. ‘Of course not, sir. You’ll be wanting refreshment, no doubt. There’s a couple of chickens ready for the oven. And while you wait, perhaps something to keep out the cold?’

  ‘We are not here to dine, ma’am. I am come in my capacity as magistrate.’

  Mrs Fenner drew herself up and seemed to swell with emotion. ‘You’ll f
ind nothing wrong here, sir.’

  ‘There is no need to distress yourself.’ Horton’s words were conciliatory but his tone was not. ‘I merely wish to make some enquiries. But first, give me leave to introduce Mr Savill. A gentleman who has been staying in Norbury.’

  She curtseyed again in her special way and ran her finger down her cheek, unconsciously mimicking the line of the scar on Savill’s face. ‘Your servant, sir.’

  Savill bowed. There was more than one way to deal with an interrogation. So, turning to Horton, he said, ‘Perhaps, sir, I might trouble Mrs Fenner for a biscuit and a glass of sherry before you begin? I breakfasted early and I’m famished.’

  ‘Of course.’ The Vicar began to frown but changed his mind. ‘Yes, perhaps you’re in the right of it, sir. We would be wise to recruit ourselves before the ride back.’ He hesitated and then added, ‘Will a biscuit be sufficient, do you think?’

  ‘What about a mutton chop or two, sir?’ Mrs Fenner suggested, her head on one side. ‘There’s a good fire in the kitchen. It wouldn’t take much above five minutes. Ten at the outside.’

  ‘An excellent plan, Mrs Fenner, thank you,’ Savill said. ‘With a touch of caper sauce, if you have it? And perhaps you will take a glass with us, ma’am, while we discuss our business beforehand?’

  ‘With pleasure, sir.’

  ‘But our business will not brook delay, Mrs Fenner,’ Horton put in.

  ‘Indeed, sir. If I might just ring the bell and tell them what you need and to make haste, we shall deal with it directly.’

  ‘A stranger has been seen in Norbury, ma’am,’ Horton said, when the refreshments had been ordered. ‘I desire to question him on a matter of importance. We have intelligence that he was riding that pony of yours. The piebald.’

  Mrs Fenner sipped her wine in a markedly genteel manner. Her doughy cheeks acquired a slight rosy glow. ‘Ah.’ She glanced from Horton to Savill. ‘You mean Mr Irwin. The artistical gentleman.’

  ‘Does he wear a blue travelling coat?’

  ‘Yes, sir. A very quiet gentleman. Out of the ordinary way, perhaps, but a lady in my position learns to be broad-minded. So long as a gentleman pays his way and gives no trouble.’

  ‘Is he in the house?’

  ‘Oh no – he paid his bill and left several hours ago. Or rather, his servant did, on his behalf.’

  Savill leaned forward. ‘But did Mr Irwin lodge with you?’

  ‘Of course. Where else would he stay?’

  ‘But why on earth did he want to put up here?’ Horton said.

  Mrs Fenner bridled. ‘Why shouldn’t he? I’ve had the Duke of Marlborough himself under my roof. Well, my father-in-law did, which comes to the same thing.’

  ‘I’m sure you made His Grace very comfortable, ma’am,’ Savill said. ‘I think the Vicar meant to ask whether Mr Irwin had a particular reason to come to this locality.’

  ‘His servant said his master thought the country around here was particularly fine. “A place of inspiration,” he said. It’s all very well, I’m sure, but it’s only fields and woods when all’s said and done, and far too much mud. And there’s no society at all. “If I wanted inspiration,” I told Mr Fenner, “I’d be off to Bath or Bristol in a flash. Whoever heard of a painting of a tree or a bit of mud or a cloud in the sky? He won’t find much else around here.” Anyway, Mr Irwin was out at all hours, making his sketches. To tell the truth, I think the poor man’s wits were mazed. Indeed, his servant as good as told me so. He said artists are often peculiar folk.’

  ‘Irwin?’ Horton sniffed. ‘I cannot recall an artist of that name.’

  ‘There are artists and artists,’ Savill said. ‘Some hide their light under a bushel and perhaps they are wise to do so. But tell me, ma’am, was this Mr Irwin a young man?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. He must have been thirty or more, if he was a day. Not that I saw much of him, after that first day – he had a private parlour next to his bedchamber and stayed up there when he wasn’t outside. His man waited on him.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Well enough. Nearer the Vicar’s height than yours. Lovely black hair, though, so fine and glossy, like a girl’s.’

  Gradually, with glass after glass of sherry, Mrs Fenner disgorged what she knew about Mr Irwin, and much else besides, including a wealth of speculation about a range of subjects from the state of His Majesty’s health to the probable antecedents of Mr Fenner’s late mother. The artistical gentleman had arrived over a week earlier, on the evening of 11 October. He had not written ahead, but simply arrived in his own chaise, driven by his servant, who was named Plimming. The horses had been hired from the post-house on the new road.

  ‘Where did they come from?’ Savill asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I did ask, but Mr Plimming said they were travelling all over the country because his master was on a sketching tour. Mr Irwin was a very open-handed gentleman – nothing but the best. He liked his glass – he didn’t stint himself in that direction, I can tell you – but when he left he paid up very handsome, as a gentleman should, not quibbling about trifles or any such nonsense.’

  ‘How did he seem when he left? In a hurry?’

  ‘I told you, sir, I didn’t see him then – it was Mr Plimming paid the reckoning.’ She shivered with obvious pleasure. ‘Highwaymen, were they?’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Or worse? We could have been murdered in our beds.’

  ‘Nothing like that, ma’am,’ Mr Horton said. ‘You have no reason to concern yourself.’

  The investigation came to a natural pause when the maid brought the chops. They ordered more sherry to wash it down. Savill, whose mouth was still sore, was obliged to cut the meat up into very small pieces, which he tried to swallow without chewing. Mrs Fenner stayed with them while they ate and played the hostess.

  ‘The first thing Mr Irwin did was hire the pony,’ she told them. ‘He was out on him at all hours. Off he went, at the crack of dawn sometimes, rain or shine.’

  The Vicar examined a piece of fat and popped it into his mouth. A smile spread over his face.

  ‘What about this morning?’ Savill asked. ‘Did you know he was leaving today?’

  ‘Yes, sir – he ordered the bill to be made up last night. But he went out on the pony again this morning as usual. Not that I saw him. He used to rise so early he’d saddle the pony himself.’

  ‘What about your ostler? He must have seen him when he brought the pony back.’

  ‘Not today, sir. Mr Plimming brought it back. Mr Irwin waited in the chaise.’

  Mr Horton swallowed the remains of the fat and belched. ‘I don’t understand, ma’am.’

  It transpired that Plimming had taken an early breakfast and ordered the horses to be harnessed to the chaise. He had settled the bill and driven over the heath to meet his master. On the way down to the turnpike road that had stolen Mrs Fenner’s trade, he had left the pony with the ostler.

  ‘So no one has seen Mr Irwin today?’ Savill said.

  ‘No, sir. I did see the chaise though, when Mr Plimming brought the pony. I was in Mr Fenner’s chamber and I just happened to glance out of the window. But there wasn’t anything to see, really. The blinds were down. Then Mr Plimming led the pony into the yard. A moment later he came back and they drove away.’

  ‘Which direction is the turnpike road?’

  She turned to the window and pointed to the left. ‘That way, sir. A matter of five or six miles. And not a bad road, excepting in winter, though—’ She broke off. Her eyes widened and she stared out of the bay window. ‘Now there’s something you don’t often see. A gentleman on a donkey.’

  Dr Gohlis was not a happy man. It was fair to say that the donkey was not a happy donkey, either. Between them, they had done their best to mar each other’s day with a considerable degree of success on both sides.

  In an attempt to keep the donkey moving, the doctor had lashed it mercilessly, drawing blood even from its thick, scarred hide. For its part, the donkey had
contrived to stumble on its way up the pack road, choosing to do so at a point where the road doubled as the bed of a stream. Having stumbled, it had rolled over as if to sleep with Gohlis partly underneath its body. It had tried this trick on several occasions, only to be whipped and tugged back to its feet again.

  Gohlis was bruised and soaked. His neat black suit of clothes was covered on one side by a layer of mud. He had lost his hat. He was also hungry and cold. His outraged feelings had festered on the ride, creating animosity directed equally towards the donkey and the Count de Quillon.

  ‘The Count insisted I ride after you,’ he said when Savill and Horton met him in the passage. ‘And that beast of burden was the only mount available. He simply would not listen to reason.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Horton said. ‘But what’s happened? Has Bessie tracked the boy down?’

  Mutton-flavoured bile rose in Savill’s throat. ‘Is he …?’ Dead. He found he could not say the word. ‘Is he safe now?’

  ‘Alas no. But a man came forward, a cowman or some such, he works for Mr Bradshaw. He was walking to the farm earlier this morning, and he saw a man riding over the hills—’

  ‘You should go in the kitchen, sir,’ Mrs Fenner cried, joining them in the passageway. ‘Stand by the fire and have a glass of something warm.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, madam,’ said Horton. ‘A rider, sir. Coming or going?’

  ‘Going this way, sir. But the point is—’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Mrs Fenner said in an awful whisper. ‘My ears must have deceived me.’

  ‘Indeed, madam,’ Horton said. ‘Well, Doctor?’

  ‘Never in all my life have I—’

  ‘He had a boy up in front of him,’ Gohlis said, enunciating his words with precision. ‘A man in a blue coat, on a piebald pony. There can be no doubt about it.’

  ‘No doubt!’ cried Mrs Fenner. ‘I should say so! I heard it with my own ears. A man of the cloth, too.’

  Savill wheeled round to her. ‘Mrs Fenner, we most humbly beg your pardon.’

  She blinked. ‘That’s all very well, sir—’

  ‘Mr Horton and I are dealing with a matter of the utmost gravity and urgency. But we should not have forgotten our manners. May I present Dr Gohlis, the personal physician and confidential adviser of the Count de Quillon? The kitchen fire, you say? What an admirable idea, ma’am, and thank heaven you proposed it. Let us go there at once, before the doctor catches a chill.’