The Silent Boy (11 page)

‘I dare say, Doctor.’ Monsieur de Quillon takes up a paper from the table beside him. ‘But I don’t want to hear your lecture on the subject. Get on with it, man, will you?’

Charles glimpses a flicker of anger in the doctor’s face as the Count bends his great head over the paper. He is surprised to find himself entertaining the notion that grown-ups can like or dislike other grown-ups.

Gohlis brings his head down to Charles’s. ‘No one likes pain, do they, my boy? It is abhorrent to any rational being. And you, being human, are capable of reason,
capax rationis
. You will have enough Latinity for that. In other words, to put it as plainly as I can, this means that, if you have any choice in the matter, you will strive to avoid pain.’

Charles stares at the globe, which is no longer turning. He hears the rustle of paper and Monsieur de Quillon’s laboured breathing.

‘I intend to beat you for fouling your bed like a baby,’ Dr Gohlis says. ‘Unless – and listen carefully now – unless you say to Monsieur de Quillon, “I ask your pardon, monseigneur.”’

The words float into the air. There are black, buzzing insects, swirling, darting, following their own secret paths.

‘That is the rational thing to do, Charles. Your intellect knows that pain is not agreeable, and that it should be avoided if at all possible. You may do this very easily, simply by saying five words.’

Charles has not wronged Monsieur de Quillon. Or Dr Gohlis. He has wronged no one except perhaps the maid who changed his bed, the old woman who will wash his sheet, and the red-headed gardener’s boy who leads the donkey and the laundry cart up and down the back drive. But they would do all these things in any case; they are paid to do these tasks, so he cannot be said to have wronged even them.

‘You must understand what I am saying. I have already demonstrated to you that there is no reason, no physiological reason, for your silence.’

Surely you cannot apologize for something that does not deserve an apology to someone whom you have not harmed? It is not a rational thing to do. Why does the doctor not see that? Perhaps it is the doctor who is not a rational being.

‘Remember, my boy – you are
capax rationis
.’

Charles knows what the phrase means because the Abbé Viré, the priest who used to give him lessons, explained it to him long ago before he lost his wits. Man is a reasoning being, the old man told him, and that is why Charles is obliged to love God. Reason offers no other choice.

‘Will you speak?’ Dr Gohlis asks. ‘Will you?’

Charles says nothing.

There are footsteps in the hall. Monsieur Fournier enters the library. The doctor clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth and goes to stand by the window to look at the rain. Charles shrinks away from him, knocking against the globe.

Fournier’s eyebrows rise at the sight of the boy. His eyebrows are unusual because they have a kink in them in the outer edges. This makes him look elegantly surprised all the time. Charles thinks this may be misleading. Nothing really seems to surprise Fournier at all.

‘Still silent?’ he says.

‘It’s quite ridiculous,’ says the Count.

Fournier smiles and the crooked eyebrows ride even higher. ‘Mum’s the word,’ he says in English, though they have been talking in French until now. ‘That’s what the English say. Is it not droll?’

‘I confess the humour escapes me at present.’

Monsieur Fournier cocks his head. ‘It may have to escape you for longer. You remember the gardener’s boy?’

‘No,’ the Count said. ‘Why the devil should I?’

‘The one you thrashed the other day.’

‘Oh yes – what of him?’

‘His grandmother has been to see the Vicar, who is also the magistrate here. There is talk of an action for assault.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake – he’s only a peasant, and our own servant too. What is the difficulty?’

‘This is England,’ Fournier says.

‘Do they not beat their servants here?’

‘Yes, of course. But not as we do. You know the English – they do things differently. When it suits them.’

‘More fool them.’

‘Besides, in theory he’s in the employ of Mrs West. I think a few shillings should resolve it, as far as the boy and his grandmother are concerned. But it will be inconvenient if we upset Mr Horton any more than we already have.’

‘A village curé?’ the Count says. ‘What a country this is! What an absurd country.’

‘Yes, indeed. But Mr Horton is a gentleman, and a man of much influence in his own parish.’ Fournier smiled. ‘We would do well to make him obliged to us. And, fortunately, there is a solution to hand: Charles.’

‘Dear God, you speak in riddles this afternoon.’

‘It’s quite simple. Mr Horton believes in the power of prayer.’

‘Superstitious nonsense,’ Gohlis muttered.

‘That’s neither here nor there,’ Fournier says. ‘I shall write to Mr Horton before dinner. And you would do well—’ He breaks off and cocks his head. ‘What’s that?’

‘Someone coming up the drive, sir,’ Gohlis said. ‘We have a visitor. In a cart, of all things.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

Fournier glances at the Count. For a moment the men do not move or speak. Everyone is listening. Rain patters on the long windows at the end of the room. Dr Gohlis laughs, a high, nervous giggle. Monsieur de Quillon scowls at him.

‘Charles,’ the Count says, ‘go upstairs. Go to your room and stay there until you are summoned.’

Fournier says nothing. He watches them with his bright eyes.

Someone knocks on the front door.

‘Use the main stairs,’ Monsieur de Quillon says to Charles. ‘Go. Go now.’

Fournier accompanies Charles into the hall. Joseph the footman is moving towards the front door.

‘Just a minute,’ Fournier says to the servant in English. ‘Who is it? Do you know?’

The footman changes course. He goes to a small window that commands a view of the forecourt in front of the house.

Charles climbs the stairs. He turns at the half-landing and continues up the next flight.

‘It’s Mr Roach’s cart, sir,’ he hears Joseph say. ‘And there’s a man sitting beside him. Don’t know him from Adam.’

‘You may open the door now,’ Monsieur Fournier says.

Charles hears the click of the library door closing. He glances down the stairs but he can see little of the hall below. What he can see, however, is the great mirror that hangs at the turn of the stairs so that the ladies and gentlemen may look at themselves as they go to dinner. The mirror is set in a gilt frame that is no longer golden but a dirty yellow brown. The glass is spotted with damp. The silvering near the bottom has quite worn away. Charles has hardly noticed the mirror’s existence before because usually he uses the back stairs.

In the foggy world of the reflection, a boy wavers in the depths of the mirror. Ignoring the voices in the hall below, Charles steps up to it and stretches out his right hand towards the boy he sees there. In the mirror the reflected boy mimics his action.

Charles’s right hand almost touches the boy’s left hand. The mirror glass is all that divides them, that and the layer of candle grease and dust that has settled along the bottom rail of the frame and spread slowly higher over the years.

‘Gentleman’s had a mishap on his way here,’ he hears a man say below in the rolling, comfortable voice that the peasants use in this place. ‘His chaise turned over in Parker’s field.’

Charles wonders whether he has lost his reflection as well as his voice. He does not recognize the boy’s face, his ragged clothes or his untidy hair – he is a stranger. Yet it is he, Charles. But he looks like someone else, not the boy who used to examine himself in Maman’s looking glass.

‘My name is Savill,’ says another voice, a man’s. ‘The Count de Quillon is expecting me.’

Charles turns and runs up the stairs.

Two manservants, a French valet smelling of scent and an English footman smelling of sweat, converged on Savill. At a nod from Monsieur de Quillon, the valet peeled away his outer garments.

‘My dear sir, you are soaked,’ the Count said in French. He glanced at his valet. ‘Make sure they’ve lit the fire in Mr Savill’s room.’

‘You are most kind, sir, but I cannot possibly—’

‘Nonsense, sir. You will stay with us.’

Fournier smiled at Savill. ‘Monsieur de Quillon is right,’ he said in English. ‘You will be doing us a kindness, sir – indeed, we have been counting the hours since your attorney’s letter arrived. We see very little company. Besides, the inn is quite intolerable.’

The two Frenchmen were both richly dressed but it was their manner rather than their clothes that proclaimed their station. Monsieur de Quillon was the elder of the two. His features were too irregular, and his face too marked by good living, for him to be accounted handsome. His German physician, Dr Gohlis, had been introduced but kept himself in the background.

‘Do you have a man with you?’ Fournier asked.

‘No,’ Savill said. ‘My chaise was hired in Bath and the groom will return there.’

‘No matter. We will find someone to look after you.’

‘Were you injured in the accident? I cannot help noticing …’

His voice tailed away, but his fingers fluttered, indicating the streaks of mud and cow-pat on the left side of Savill’s greatcoat and breeches.

‘It is nothing, sir. No more than mud and a few bruises.’

The footman brought in Savill’s portmanteau and set it down near the stairs.

Fournier glanced at it. ‘I see you are an old campaigner, and do not encumber yourself with baggage. Joseph will show you to your room.’

‘Yes, yes,’ the Count said. ‘So we shall meet again at dinner.’

He and Fournier retreated without further ceremony, and Gohlis trailed after them with the air of a dog uncertain of his welcome. Joseph the footman conducted Savill to a bedchamber on the first floor. According to the clock on the landing, it was nearly half-past five.

‘His Lordship and Mr Fournier dine at six, sir,’ Joseph said, as he laid the portmanteau on the bed. ‘I’ll fetch a jug of hot water for you after I’ve unpacked.’

Savill unlocked the portmanteau. The émigrés dined at a fashionably late hour which, in view of his late arrival, was fortunate. Joseph laid out a pair of darned stockings, a clean shirt and a black-silk stock. Apart from a pair of light shoes and the clothes he stood up in, Savill had nothing else to wear.

Joseph brushed and aired Savill’s breeches and then helped him to wash and dress. By the time they had finished, it still wanted ten minutes to dinner. Savill told the man to bring him the leather portfolio from his bag.

The footman obeyed and then left the room with the cloak and greatcoat over his arm and the muddy boots in his hand.

Savill sat by the fire and opened the portfolio. Here were the papers that Mr Rampton had provided him with.

Only now, as he glanced through them again, did it strike him as strange that no one at Charnwood had yet mentioned Charles. The boy was Savill’s reason for coming here. The two Frenchmen and the German doctor must have known that as well as he did. But none of them had said a word about Charles. Nor had the servants.

Nor, for that matter, had he. It was as if the boy did not exist.

During dinner, which was long and elaborate in the French fashion, Savill’s toothache returned. The pain caught him unawares on several occasions, and once he could not avoid making a sound of discomfort. He noticed Fournier glancing at him, though there was no break in his conversation.

Afterwards, when the servants had left them, Savill introduced his reason for being here, since no one else was in any hurry to do so.

‘Pray, my lord,’ he said to the Count, ‘when may I expect to see Charles? After dinner, perhaps?’

‘He will be in bed by then,’ Fournier said. ‘We keep country hours at Charnwood. He’ll soon be sleeping the sleep of the just. Isn’t that what you English say? The sleep of the just?’

‘Quite so, sir. But is he in good health?’

The Count reared up in his chair. ‘Perfectly. He is my own son, after all, and I would not see him go lacking for anything.’

Savill bowed. ‘Naturally.’ The Count’s remark had not been tactful, since it served to remind Savill that he had been cuckolded. ‘But after the loss of his mother and the trials he has gone through …’

‘There is one thing you should know, sir,’ Fournier put in. ‘Since the death of his mother, Charles has lost his voice.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. An infection of the throat?’

‘No, not exactly. Dr Gohlis will explain. He has been treating him for over a month now.’

The doctor glanced up the table at Monsieur de Quillon, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘It is a very unusual case, sir,’ he said, speaking in fluent but accented English. ‘There is no sign of infection. There is nothing wrong with him physiologically. Everything we know about him indicates that until recently he was fully capable of speech, and indeed showed a lively intelligence. But now he will say nothing at all. Moreover, his behaviour has become furtive. And at night he sometimes loses control of his bladder.’

‘What is your diagnosis, Doctor?’

‘I have constructed a hypothesis that the symptoms he displays are an extreme manifestation of a form of hysteria. This was obviously caused by the shock he received when his mother was murdered in such terrible circumstances. It follows that—’

‘He witnessed what happened that night?’ Savill said, his voice rising. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

Gohlis nodded. ‘We cannot know for certain, sir, but it is a reasonable assumption. We believe he was in the house at the time.’

‘It is borne out by the fact that there were bloodstains on his clothes when he came to us,’ Fournier put in. ‘The old woman who brought him had tried to wash them out, but they were unmistakable.’

‘The poor boy.’

‘Indeed, sir. The heart weeps for him.’

‘Ah!’ Savill said.

‘What is it, sir?’ Fournier asked.

‘I beg your pardon, sir. A touch of toothache.’

The Count waved at the doctor. ‘Have Gohlis make you up a dose before you go to bed.’