‘At your service, your honours,’ he cried. ‘The finest dramatic entertainment you’ll see outside Drury Lane.’
Townley bared his teeth. ‘If you don’t get out of our way, I’ll have you thrown in the Provost for obstructing the King’s highway.’
The man cackled as if Townley had made a joke. But he and his companion flattened themselves against the hedge at the side of the road. As we passed, I glimpsed the white, sweating face of the second man, framed by the rectangle of the theatre he carried on his shoulders. He stared open-mouthed at us with melancholy brown eyes as if we were the spectacle and he the audience.
We reached the racetrack shortly after ten o’clock. Townley guided us towards a refreshment tent with a striped awning. His servant took our horses. We found a table and sat down to quench our thirst.
The conversation was almost exclusively about the relative merits of the horses that would be racing that day. I did not play much part in this, for I was not a gambling man and had little knowledge of the sport. But there was plenty to occupy my attention in the holiday crowd that ebbed and flowed about our tent.
It so happened that the showmen we had encountered on the road settled themselves within sight of us. The man inside the tent set it down on the ground and mopped his brow. His broad face glistened like a harvest moon. He was no taller than his colleague but almost twice as broad. As well as the travelling booth, he had carried a large box attached to his shoulder, which he now set carefully on the ground. He tied up the top flap at the front. Soon the complete puppet theatre was revealed. He opened the box and, one by one, laid out the marionettes on the grass.
An audience gathered in front of them. But the one-legged man made sure to keep a clear avenue between the miniature stage and the refreshment tent where we sat.
All the while, he beat his drum and blew his trumpet. ‘The tragic history of Punch and Joan,’ he shouted when he tired of the trumpet. ‘Complete with the Devil and the Executioner!’
Townley glanced irritably in their direction. ‘Why do they make such a damned racket?’ He summoned the waiter and indicated the puppet theatre. ‘Move them away, would you. I can’t hear myself think.’
The waiter began to demur but the manager of the establishment, who knew Townley’s identity, hurried over and soon arranged matters to his patron’s satisfaction. The puppeteers moved away.
We did not have long to wait. The races began at eleven o’clock. There were four that day, all of which consisted of gentlemen riding their own horses. I am no judge of horseflesh but I put ten shillings to win on a horse in the third race. I chose a bay with a blaze on his nose for no better reason than that my father had had a horse with similar markings when I was a boy.
It was not the favourite – the odds quoted to me were seven to one. There were twelve horses in the race, with a purse of thirty guineas and an elegant saddle worth another twenty for the winner. Fool’s luck was with me and the horse romped home by a length and a half. I was the only one of our party to win anything.
We dined at the racetrack and then rode back to Brooklyn. Near the ferry stood a big tavern built of stone, which was an uncommon material in this locality. The establishment’s fish suppers were famous and Townley’s servant had commanded a table for us.
It was the middle of the evening by the time we had finished. The ferry back to the city was not due to leave for another three-quarters of an hour. It had grown intolerably stuffy in the parlour. I left my companions drinking toasts and went out to take the air.
The village was packed with holiday-makers returning from the heath. Many were drunk, some to the point of insensibility, and the merriment had grown wilder and in some cases more vicious in character.
Among the throng was the booth of the puppet theatre. The marionettes were engaged in a frenzy of activity. The one-legged man was encouraging his audience to give generously and promising them a rare jest in return. A tall, thin man was lying on the ground immediately below the booth. He was snoring loudly. I wandered closer.
‘Trouble with Mrs Joan,’ the one-legged man was saying in a hoarse, confidential tone, ‘is that she needs to piss at the most inconvenient moments.’ His voice rose to a squeak that was intended to pass as ladylike. ‘It’s not very genteel, is it? Mr Punch ain’t pleased.’
On the tiny stage, Punch was belabouring Joan with his stick and saying, in his peculiar voice, that he hoped the devil would take her away to the place where she belonged for her shameful impudence. Joan pleaded necessity and at last turned her back on the audience, bent over and lifted her skirts. I glimpsed part of a small leather pipe. A thin stream of water spurted out with surprising force, some of it spattering the leg of the sleeping man. The closest spectators jumped back to avoid being splashed, some holding their noses. A howl of mirth arose. The drunk stirred for a moment and then lay still.
The one-legged man hopped up and down in excitement.
‘I do hope that Mrs Joan can control her bowels!’ cried the concealed performer, still in his confidential character. ‘Otherwise I may be obliged to faint!’
At that moment the crowd shifted in front of me and, for the first time, I had a clear view of the victim’s face. He had lost his hat and wig. He had a week’s growth of beard. It was the colour of rust with a few streaks of grey.
The snoring stopped. The man opened his eyes. He stared up at the booth towering over him and at the ring of faces staring down at him.
In that instant, I recognized him.
‘Stop,’ I shouted. I stepped forward and laid my hand on the shoulder of the one-legged man. ‘That’s enough. Move away.’
He stared up at me, baring his teeth. ‘Why should I?’
The spectators hissed and one of them pushed me. The drunk wriggled away from the booth and into a sitting position.
‘Because if you do I shall make it more than worth your while,’ I said. ‘And if you don’t I shall summon my friend Mr Townley, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, and have you committed to the Provost. I’ve just been supping with him in the tavern. You know Mr Townley. He’s already had cause to send you about your business today.’
The hissing was quieter now. The drunk tried to stand but fell back with a groan and rubbed his right arm.
The one-legged man’s eyes moved to and fro. ‘Worth our while?’ he said.
I lowered my voice so he alone could hear. ‘Five shillings. Or the police and the Provost. Which is it to be?’
‘Let’s see your money, sir.’
I took out a handful of silver. He made as if to take it. I closed my fingers over the coins.
‘Well?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Well enough.’
The crowd was dissolving. I dropped the coins into the showman’s hand. He looked up at me and shrugged, his scorn no less obvious for being mute. His companion was already laying the puppets in their box.
I turned back to the man on the ground. He and I were alone now. Frowning, he stared at me.
‘Get up, Corporal Grantford,’ I said.
Grantford was waiting for me when I arrived at my office the following morning.
He was a very different man from the one I had encountered yesterday evening in Brooklyn. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes – faded and shiny with age, but neat and clean. He wore a scruffy wig, a little too small for him. He was freshly shaved, and the smooth skin of his cheeks showed the angry burn of the razor. He stood just inside the door of the anteroom, upright as a post and not much fatter. His right arm was in a sling.
I unlocked the door of the private room and beckoned him to follow me inside. I sat down at the table and looked up at him. Despite his debauches yesterday he appeared perfectly sober. His countenance did not betray the marks of a habitual drinker.
‘I wasn’t sure you would come,’ I said.
He did not speak. Yesterday evening I had given him a few shillings and told him to come to my office in the morning. But I thought it possible that he
would drink the money away.
‘The last time you were in this room, you were a corporal in the Twenty-third,’ I said. ‘Now it seems you are not. What happened?’
‘Invalided out, your honour.’ He touched his right arm. ‘Honourable discharge.’
‘A wound, I apprehend?’
‘Musket ball in the arm, sir. Not long after I saw you here.’
‘Why were you discharged?’ I asked. ‘Hasn’t it healed?’
‘Yes, sir, but it’s not right. The arm don’t have the movement any more.’ He demonstrated his inability to raise the arm above his shoulder or to flex it rapidly or to swivel from side to side. ‘I can fire a musket as straight as the next man but I can’t do the arms drill. Can’t salute an officer.’
The story emerged in fits and starts, with much prodding from me, for Grantford was a Northerner and did not talk easily to strangers, even to well-disposed ones. In March he had been on patrol in the Debatable Ground and had been hit by rebel snipers as they were withdrawing towards King’s Bridge.
When the nature of Grantford’s wound became apparent, his colonel had discharged him from the service and given him a testimonial. Grantford had also received a gratuity, he told me, but he had drunk half of it away and then tried to repair his fortunes at the races yesterday. This plan had ended in disaster so he had comforted himself with rum. He had been robbed of the money was left to him while he lay insensible in Brooklyn. The thief had also taken the other contents of his pockets, including his pocket knife and his testimonial.
‘What will you do now?’ I said.
Grantford said nothing, though his shoulders moved in the merest suspicion of a shrug. I knew as well as he that New York was full of penniless men without futures – refugees without resources, tradesmen without trades, apprentices without masters and soldiers whose wounds had cost them their livelihoods; immediately beneath this unfortunate class lay a waiting quagmire of rogues, vagabonds and beggars.
‘I am in want of a porter,’ I said. ‘A trustworthy man to mind the door and run messages. Do you wish to apply for the situation?’
Chapter Forty-Three
By the middle of June, Captain Wintour had recovered from his wound. Indeed, in some ways he was in better health than he had been before the attack on him. His convalescence forced him into something approaching sobriety, a condition that allowed the natural vigour of the man to flourish.
Once he was able to leave his bed, he took regular exercise. He and I would often walk together.
‘Do you ride much in England?’ he asked one day as we strolled beside the East River.
‘A great deal when I was younger.’
‘Then let us do it tomorrow. It is excellent for the health.’
So we hired hacks, former cavalry mounts a little too good to be slaughtered for their hide and hoofs, and rode north from the city. The Captain showed me the rural neighbourhoods of Manhattan. The war had left its scars on the landscape: much of the timber had been cut down for fuel; the better houses were commandeered for military use; and the countryside had been disfigured with fortifications thrown up by the army’s engineers.
Nevertheless, there was much to enjoy – the pretty farms and lanes, the elegant demesnes of the gentry, the orchards, the great tidal rivers and the clean, fresh air. For the first time I understood why its inhabitants were attached to this country, despite its remoteness from civilization and the savages on its borders, despite the primitive conditions and the extremes of temperature in summer and winter: so attached that they would fight for it.
I enjoyed the exercise and I found that the better I knew my companion, the more I liked him. When I first made Jack Wintour’s acquaintance, his wounds had made him peevish; and excessive drinking had coarsened his sensibilities and even brought out a streak of viciousness. Now I glimpsed the man as nature intended him – no scholar, certainly, but manly and affectionate. He was honest, too – he had not forgotten the seventy guineas he owed me after our disastrous encounter at backgammon. At the time I had privately mocked his willingness to think himself as safe as the Bank of England. I did not mock him now. I might not get my money in the end but it would not be the fault of his intentions if that were the case.
One day, as we were riding down Bowery Lane back to the city, Wintour asked if I remembered when he had a fever. I said yes, I did.
‘Do you recall what I talked about?’
‘You said a great deal about Mount George, I remember.’
‘Yes – I thought I had. I had such strange dreams about the place.’ He fell silent for twenty yards or so. Then he burst out: ‘I shall go there, you know. I have talked to Governor Franklin again. He has networks of informers in the Debatable Ground and knows everything that happens.’
‘Will it not be dangerous?’
He glanced at me. ‘I shall take precautions. But pray don’t mention this to my father yet. I don’t wish to agitate him before it is necessary.’
We rode on in silence. I foresaw difficulties ahead if Wintour allied his interests too closely to those of William Franklin. Franklin, the Governor of New Jersey, had suffered much for his loyalty. He and his father, the notorious Benjamin, were now bitter enemies. The son had become the de facto leader of the refugees in New York. Suffering had made him implacable in his hatreds. Mr Rampton thought him a dangerous man because he would never compromise with the rebels.
But Wintour would take no guidance from me. A shock to the body sometimes brings a shock to the mind in its train, jolting it from one habit of thought to another. Or perhaps the long hours in bed had given him time for reflection. Whatever the reason, he was now a man who knew what he wanted to do.
In all our walks and rides, in all our conversations, Wintour did not once mention either the slave Juvenal or the box of curiosities.
At the beginning of July, Major Marryot called my office. This was unusual – in the general way of things I visited him at Headquarters. Grantford announced him with what in a more demonstrative man would have amounted to a flourish.
Marryot sat down in the chair I offered and fanned himself with his hat. He did not speak.
‘It’s always a pleasure to see you, sir,’ I said. ‘But is there a particular reason for your honouring me with a visit?’
He jerked his thumb towards the outer office. ‘Isn’t that the corporal in the Twenty-third? The one I sent to see you?’
‘Yes. He was discharged in March – honourably, with a wound – and I took him on as my porter.’
‘How long’s he been here?’
‘Nearly two months.’ I explained something of the circumstances that had led to his employment.
‘And he gives satisfaction?’
‘Entirely. He has become a sort of clerk as well as my porter.’
This was no more than the truth. Grantford had some education – he had attended the grammar school in Wakefield for a year or two. He wrote letters for me on occasion and reckoned up figures.
He also guarded the door – by day and night, for he slept in the outer office. Some of the refugees who visited me became angry and even violent when their hopes were frustrated. Once when he came to my rescue, he was obliged to fell my attacker to the ground. The corporal kept a weighted stick beside his chair by day. By night it lay on the floor beside his mattress.
Marryot grunted. He sounded censorious. But I had the measure of the man now and I sensed that he approved of what I had done.
‘Wintour,’ he said abruptly. ‘Our Captain Jack. That’s why I came to see you.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s applying for a pass to go to Mount George. I thought you’d care to know if you didn’t already.’
‘I’m obliged, sir. Does he go alone?’
‘Not sure. He’s a fool if he does. But he may get an attachment to one of Franklin’s militia patrols. He’s saying he needs to assess the damage done to his estate. But he also claims that his tenants will give him useful intell
igence so he can assess the loyalty of the neighbourhood.’
‘Will the pass be granted?’ I asked.
‘Probably. No reason not.’ Marryot hesitated. ‘There’s a feeling abroad that Judge Wintour has been a little hard done by, and that granting the son’s request would be an easy way of making some slight recompense.’
‘Denying the request would be a kinder one, perhaps.’
‘We shall see.’ He hesitated again. ‘I thought you should know. I – I assume that Mrs Arabella is in her husband’s confidence.’
He and I exchanged a glance that assumed quite the contrary. I understood that he believed Mrs Arabella should know and, if she didn’t, that he wanted me to give her the hint.
Chapter Forty-Four
The following Monday, three days after my visit from Marryot, I looked in at Warren Street after dinner and found Mrs Arabella and Mrs Wintour in the drawing room. Mrs Wintour was fast asleep in her usual chair near the fireplace.
Mrs Arabella glanced up from her sewing at the table in the window. ‘My husband is out,’ she said quietly. ‘And so is the Judge.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s so warm and close, isn’t it? My only desire at present is for some tea.’
She desired me to ring the bell and, a moment later, told Miriam to bring the tea things. I stood by the open window, hoping for a current of cooling air.
Mrs Arabella still looked pale and weary – she had not fully recovered from the events of March and April – from the strain of the Captain’s wound, old Mrs Wintour’s illness and the smallpox inoculations. I had told her that her husband had applied for a pass to go into the Debatable Ground, and I wondered whether this too was preying on her mind.
As I stood there, waiting for her to speak, an intense tenderness swept over me. Mrs Arabella was so desolate, so vulnerable, that I wanted above all things to protect her. I wanted to protect my little Lizzie too, but that was not the same: all men who are not monsters have a natural desire to keep the young from harm even if they come from a different species from their own; and a father has a special care for his own child. What I felt for Mrs Arabella was a darker emotion altogether. To call it pity is misleading. In the alchemy of the soul, pity may be closely allied with other passions and they take sustenance from one another.
The Scent of Death Page 20