The Silent Boy

by Taylor, Andrew

  ‘I blame myself.’ Her voice fell into a monotonous rut, as though she were following a train of thought that she had followed many times before. ‘If only I’d taken his side more firmly when he said he wanted to be an architect or even a painter. But my husband, Mr Ogden, is not a man who changes his mind once he has made it up. And he determined that after Dick left school, he should go up to the University and then follow him into the law. Dick was at fault, I own it, for a son owes a duty to his father, does he not, and he should not set his will in defiance to his elders and betters. He did not apply himself to his studies, and his tutor said he had fallen into bad company. The foolish boy ran up debts he could not pay, and his friends were idle and expensive young men, who led him into vicious ways.’

  ‘He did not have a friend named Irwin, I suppose?’

  She stared at him. ‘No, sir. Not that I know of – and I would have remembered that, you know. Irwin was my mother’s name. Mind you, when he went to Oxford, there were many of his acquaintance I did not know, and I dare say I would not care to know, either.’

  It was a familiar story. The young man had indulged himself at the University, and he and his parents had paid the price at home. Sent down from Oxford, he was articled as a clerk to an attorney of his father’s acquaintance; but he was idle and was sometimes drunk even at the office; at length he was discharged, and after a final quarrel with his father he was expelled from his home.

  ‘I am forbidden to mention him,’ Mrs Ogden said. ‘Mr Ogden has scratched out his name in our Bible. I might have been able to mend things between them had I not been so ill at the time.’ Her hand touched her left cheek, and Savill wondered whether the final quarrel between father and son had brought on her apoplectic seizure. ‘He went to live in Turner’s Grove – our cottage near Chiswick, you know; it was my father’s once – and he tried to make his living with his pencil. But when Mr Ogden learned of it, he threw him out, and had the house shut up.’

  ‘So he did not know his son was there?’

  ‘No. It was standing empty – we haven’t been there for years. We used to go every summer when Dick was young. We’d idle away our time on the river, and Dick would draw, and at the end of the week my husband would fish and forget the cares of his employment.’

  ‘How old is your son now, ma’am?’ Savill said.

  ‘Twenty-eight last birthday.’ She smiled at him with half of her face. ‘July the fifth. He was a summer baby.’

  ‘Tell me what he looks like.’

  ‘He’s a good-looking boy.’ She looked up at him. ‘I know what you are thinking, sir. That any mother would say that about her son. I own I’m partial, but he has fine, noble features and the most lustrous black hair. And anyone will tell you he has the address of a gentleman. If only he would not drink so much and fly into a passion with his father, he might have done anything he wanted.’

  Black hair, Savill thought. A taste for drawing. A cottage near Chiswick. He said, ‘Tell me where to find the house, ma’am. If he’s there, shall I give him a message from you?’

  Mrs Ogden looked directly at him. ‘Give him my best love,’ she said. ‘Tell him to come home. Tell him his father misses him, whatever he says, and so do I. And tell him that, with God’s help, there is nothing that cannot be mended.’

  After Savill had dined, he walked up to Oxford Street to call on his daughter at Mrs Pycroft’s. Mrs Pycroft was the proprietor and principal instructress of the Beaufort Academy for Young Ladies, an establishment that occupied the ground floor of a house in Little Castle Street, east of Oxford Market. Mrs Pycroft and several youthful Pycrofts shared the upper floors with Mrs Pycroft’s mother, who kept to her bed and was never seen.

  Lizzie had spent two years at the school. According to the prospectus, she learned French and Italian from visiting masters, as well as dancing and drawing and a host of other skills deemed essential for young ladies destined to move in good society, or at least in what passed for it in the circles they adorned.

  All these things cost extra, and Savill sometimes wondered what Mrs Pycroft’s fees actually covered, apart from the occasional ramble among the foothills of arithmetic and the learning by rote of the kings and queens of England, together with the dates of their reigns. But the money had been well spent nonetheless, for Lizzie had mixed with girls of her own age and Mary Pycroft had become her best friend.

  When Savill reached the house, most of the ground floor was in darkness. He knocked on the door and was admitted by the solitary manservant, a wall-eyed middle-aged man who lived in the basement behind the kitchen and who had been chosen partly because his ugliness could be relied upon not to lead the young ladies astray.

  ‘Madam’s at home, sir,’ the servant said, pocketing the sixpence that Savill slipped into his hand. ‘Or she will be to you. Thank you kindly.’

  ‘Is all well, Troughton?’ They were old friends, for there had been many sixpences in the past.

  ‘Well enough, sir. But you wouldn’t believe the fuss there’s been, what with the mistress and Miss Mary and your young miss, buzzing about like a parcel of bees. You’d think no one had ever got wed before.’

  Savill found Lizzie in the drawing room on the first floor, which the Pycrofts used as the family sitting room. Mrs Pycroft, Mary and Lizzie were there, sitting in a line on the sofa with their heads bent over a pattern book. Lizzie leapt up when she saw him and, careless of the company they were in, flung her arms around his neck.

  ‘I did not know you were back – you don’t look well, Papa, indeed you don’t – I must come home directly and look after you. Is my aunt returned?’

  He kissed her. ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘And what about—’

  ‘Hush. All in good time.’

  Savill bowed to Mrs Pycroft and her daughter. ‘Forgive me for arriving without warning, ma’am. To make matters worse, I see I have interrupted you.’

  Mrs Pycroft was disposed to be gracious about this. Not only had Savill been a model parent, paying his daughter’s fees on time and not asking unreasonable questions about the extent of her formal education, but there were rumours that he was, despite his modest lifestyle, richer than he seemed; added to this, he had the knack of making himself agreeable in any company; and she considered that he could look quite presentable, too, notwithstanding that unsightly scar, should a lady take the time and trouble to make him so; finally, there was the point that Mrs Pycroft believed him to be a widower, and she was not entirely averse to the idea of a second experiment in matrimony, if the right gentleman were to offer her his heart and hand.

  He was aware of all this, at least in outline, for Lizzie had given him several hints, which derived in turn from hints she herself had received from Mary.

  Mrs Pycroft rang the bell for tea. After they had talked in wearisome detail about Mary’s forthcoming wedding, Savill drew Lizzie aside.

  ‘Is he at home now?’ she murmured, colouring as she spoke. ‘My brother Charles? What is he like? When can I meet him?’

  ‘I’m afraid he isn’t at home. There’s been a difficulty, my love. It will sound quite ludicrous, but at the moment he cannot be found. It is like something out of a bad farce, is it not?’

  ‘But what do you mean? That cannot be so.’

  ‘On the morning we were to leave Somersetshire he could not be found …’ Savill hesitated only a moment. Better to know than to suspect even worse. ‘There is a possibility that he has been abducted.’

  Her face froze with surprise. He watched her grappling with the notion, trying to bring kidnapping out of the world of the novel and the theatre and into the everyday world of Mary Pycroft’s wedding and Aunt Ferguson’s tiresome notions of what was suitable for a young lady and what was not.

  ‘You must tell no one, my dear, even Mary,’ he said softly. ‘Only that Charles’s coming to London has been delayed.’

  ‘But who would be so wicked?’

  ‘I will tell you more later. You must promise me that you
will tell no one. Promise me, Lizzie.’

  ‘But have you been to Bow Street? We must hire a Runner. Is that not the correct thing to do in these situations?’

  Her assumption of worldly wisdom made him want to hug her. So did her willingness to assume that this was her business as well as his. He said, ‘Not in this case. It is not as simple as it might seem – there are other considerations. But your uncle Rampton has concerned himself in the matter. He will see to it that everything is done that can be. He will use his influence, and he has it in his power to do more than any Runner can.’

  ‘May I not come home with you? We should be together at a time like this.’

  ‘No. You must stay here and help Mrs Pycroft and Mary.’

  ‘But, Papa, you—’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Anyway I am not at Nightingale Lane at present. The house is empty.’

  In his distress he spoke more loudly than was prudent. He heard a pause in the conversation behind him, where Mrs Pycroft and Mary were dealing with the vexed question of the lace on the veil.

  ‘Tell no one,’ he repeated, aware that in his despair he was going round in circles and making matters worse between them. ‘Even Mary. You must promise me that.’

  Lizzie stared at him. She made a sound that was a sort of smothered cry and rushed from the room.

  After a moment, Mrs Pycroft said in her warm, comfortable voice, ‘Oh dear, I dare say Lizzie is overtired, sir. And the relief of seeing you has brought it all to the surface. You must not concern yourself. It is often the way with girls, as I know to my cost. Mary will go up to her in a moment and make it all right again. Now won’t you come sit by me and take your tea with us?’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Savill had agreed to pass the night in Crown Street again, in the house opposite the Black Letter Office. Mr Rampton had been insistent, saying that it was important that Savill should be on hand in case there were intelligence of Charles; besides, he had gathered that there was no one to look after Savill at Nightingale Lane.

  There were no messages during the night. He slept badly. If his mind did not run on his stupidity in allowing Charles to be stolen from under his nose, it turned to the clumsy way he had handled Lizzie, the person he loved most in the world. He seemed capable only of hurting those he had a duty to care for.

  The next morning Savill rose early and slipped out of the house. Only the maid and the boy who cleaned the boots and carried the coals were about. He left word that he had to go out on an errand, and that he would return later in the day.

  He had taken the precaution of hiring a horse for the day the previous evening when he returned from Mrs Pycroft’s. He had supped at the Sun in Splendour in Rose Street, which had a connection with a neighbouring livery stable, and arranged the matter there.

  After breakfast at the tavern, he rode westward out of town. Two uncomfortable thoughts occupied his mind, taking turns to prey on him. He had not been able to make his peace with Lizzie last night, which made him unhappy as he knew it would her. Second, Charles had now been gone for three whole days and nights. He had not been seen since he left Charnwood. The longer the absence, the more likely that, if he were found at all, he would not be found alive.

  The road was busy at this hour but most of the traffic was coming towards London. He made good speed, passing through the pretty village of Chiswick before ten o’clock. The house he was seeking, Turner’s Grove, lay several miles beyond the village on a lane that ran parallel to the high road along the river.

  The houses were now few and far between. Though one or two labourers’ dwellings remained, many of the residences along this stretch were villas and large cottages owned by Londoners who took occasional refuge in them from the noise and polluted air of the city.

  Turner’s Grove stood in isolation, an L-shaped house consisting of a modest cottage of some antiquity with a modern wing of more substantial dimensions. The long garden stretched down to the river, and on either side of it were meadows. The windows were shuttered and the woodwork needed repainting. The ground at the front of the house was thick with weeds running to seed. Rose bushes had sprouted into monstrous shapes covered with deadheads.

  Savill dismounted and tethered his horse at the wicket. Mrs Ogden had said that no one lived there now. The farmer who leased the meadows from Mr Ogden kept an eye on the house and made sure all was secure.

  ‘Not that Mr Ogden cares for the place,’ she had told Savill. ‘I believe he would not care a straw if it burned to the ground and vanished from the earth.’

  An ash sapling had grown up just inside the gate. Savill took out his pocket knife and cut a stick from it, which he used to beat down the nettles and brambles on his progress around the house. He tried the doors and the shutters but none of them showed any evidence of having been recently opened. There was no smoke from any of the chimneys.

  At the back of the house, however, he discovered signs that someone had been here. Apart from a yard and stable behind the older part, the land between the house and the river had been laid out as a pleasure ground in the formal manner popular a generation earlier. Neglect had allowed the shrubs to grow until the design was obscured and the paths almost impassable. But judging by broken branches and crushed vegetation, several of the alleys between the beds had been used in the recent past.

  Savill forced his way up one of them and found it took him to an iron gate in the brick wall between the pleasure ground and the neighbouring meadow. The gate was locked but the wall itself was in a ruinous condition and in several places nearby had fallen down. From here, another path had been cleared in the direction of the river. It led Savill to a two-storey building of brick and timber standing on the bank.

  A door in the side stood ajar. He kicked it open and found himself looking at the interior of a small boathouse or covered jetty, open to the river on one side. In the half-light, the dark green water was almost black. Nothing was moored there. Two ancient chairs of canvas and wood were leaning against the wall, with a wicker basket, green with mould, beside them. He raised the lid. The basket contained nothing but a broken glass and an empty bottle.

  Savill went back into the open air, glad to be out of that dank place. At the rear of the boathouse, a staircase rose up to a door, with a window beside it. He climbed the steps with care, for the rain had made the wood slippery and he was not convinced they would take his weight.

  The door at the top was locked or jammed. He glanced over his shoulder. No one was about. He raised the latch and put his shoulder to the door. At his third attempt it opened, throwing him forward into the room beyond.

  It was empty, but there were signs of recent occupation. Savill glanced around it, taking in the blankets, the table and chairs, the remains of a meal, the bottles, the rusting stove and a further door in the far wall. There was an oblong book on the table, with a pencil and a broken crayon beside it. He opened the book at random. He found himself looking at a sketch of a stile shaded by a tree; the lines were hurried and smudged; and the paper was hard and wrinkled as if someone had spilled liquid on it and then the page had dried.

  He moved across the room to the other door. It was locked. But it hung askew in the frame because the wood was warped. When he tugged the handle, the door flew open.

  A cesspit stink rushed out to greet him. The odour was mingled with an acrid underlay that caught the back of Savill’s throat and brought with it a host of unwanted memories.

  Beyond the door was a floor-to-ceiling cupboard, lined with dusty shelves. The shelves were empty, though there was a chamber pot under the lowest one on the left.

  The body of a man in a blue coat lay on the floor beside the chamber pot. He was on his back, his arms standing stiffly away from his body. His head was near the far end of the cupboard. It rested in a pool of dried blood mingled with fragments of bone and the grey matter of the brain. The eyes were open.

  Savill swallowed his nausea and looked at the shelves beside the door. One of them, ab
out four feet above the floor, was not quite empty. A rusty two-inch nail lay there. He touched it with his finger. It moved a fraction, revealing a single word scratched in sprawling, irregular letters underneath, the freshly scarred wood still pale yellow.

  Charles.

  Savill knelt by the body. There was a bullet hole under the jaw, and the skin was blackened with a powder burn. The man had been shot at close range. The bullet must have ploughed its way up through the brain and punched a ragged hole in the back of the skull.

  The face itself was undamaged. The features were delicate. Savill touched the disordered hair.

  Fine, black hair.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Charles wanders through the house in Nightingale Lane, pausing to listen every few seconds. The only sounds are far away – the rumble of wheels on the paved roads, the blows of builders’ hammers from the new houses.

  The air is cold and damp, flavoured with the smell of dead fires. The ground-floor apartments are dark because the shutters are across the windows. At the back and upstairs, many of the windows have bars rather than shutters, and some of the smaller ones have neither.

  At first he feels like a burglar. In one of the rooms downstairs is a pile of opened letters addressed to Savill. That removes the niggling fear that he has found his way into someone else’s house.

  In the larder a ham hangs in a sack suspended from the ceiling and several cheeses are enclosed behind fine wire grills. He brings a knife from the kitchen and hacks into one of the cheeses. In the pantry beside the larder are bins containing walnuts and covered racks with apples and pears.

  Walnuts. Say nothing, he reminds himself. Not a word to anyone. Whatever you see. Whatever you hear. Do you understand? Say nothing. Ever.