The Silent Boy (37 page)

‘Would it not be better if you or Mr Malbourne saw them?’

‘No. If I were to call, or even send Malbourne in my place, it would put quite a different complexion on the visit. It would add an official tincture to it.’ Rampton flexed his fingers. ‘Furthermore, sir, if you are right, and if Charles killed Ogden—’

‘No court in the country would condemn him for that.’

‘Perhaps not. But consider the notoriety. Consider the ordeal it would be for the poor boy, this on top of everything else. No, until we know more, it is yet another reason for us to exercise the utmost discretion.’

They walked in silence for a moment. Savill sensed that Rampton wanted him to speak, if only to give Rampton himself the opportunity to say what he wanted to say next. But Savill had learned the value of silence.

‘There is another difficulty,’ said Rampton at last. ‘It’s possible that the Count has nothing to do with the kidnapping. We don’t know why Charles was kidnapped. Was it because somebody wants him? Or was it because of something he knows, whatever that might be?’ He paused and then added, ‘Charles was in Paris with his mother. He was there when she was murdered.’

‘Well?’ Savill said.

‘The French thought she was a British spy,’ Rampton said slowly, as if thinking aloud.

‘You said she was not.’

‘As far as I know. But I don’t know everything.’ Rampton walked on, this time following the northern side of the canal. ‘Let us say she was a spy for us or for the royalists, or indeed for anyone. If she had been arrested, the authorities would have squeezed a confession from her. Then a carefully managed trial blazed abroad to all the world. Perhaps someone killed her to prevent that.’

‘Sir, why would one of our own do such a thing? We are not at war with France yet. Our Embassy could have issued her with a passport, and she could simply have left the country.’

Rampton coughed and blew his nose. He said very carefully, ‘It might not have been as straightforward as that. Augusta was not welcome at the Embassy. And, leaving aside the possibility that she was passing intelligence, it is not difficult to imagine circumstances which would have made her the cause of considerable embarrassment – to the British Government, for example, or even to individuals connected with it.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘She was an attractive woman.’ Rampton said nothing more until they reached the Parade Ground end of the canal. He glanced up at Savill. ‘And she had few scruples where her comfort was concerned, as you must remember all too well. What if she had taken another lover, perhaps in connection with the passing of intelligence, and then tried to blackmail him?’

Savill had an hour or two to fill before going to Green Street. He might as well pass the time by walking over to the Strand as by doing anything else.

What else was there for him to do? There was nothing for him in Nightingale Lane and not much more in Lower Castle Street – Lizzie would not make him welcome at present, not unless he brought news of Charles or announced he was reopening the house before her aunt’s return. She was acting like a silly chit of a girl, he told himself with great sternness, though in another part of his mind he feared he had failed to guide her judgement as a father should; besides, how could he justly reprove a daughter whose only fault was a desire to care for his comfort and that of her brother?

Savill’s real motive lay like an iceberg in his mind, with most of it concealed beneath the surface currents of his thoughts. He felt guilty. Absurdly so, yes. Irrationally. Quite inexplicably. Nevertheless, there it was: he was guilty because he had failed to inform Mrs Ogden that her son was lying dead in a boathouse beside the Thames. That was what drew him towards the Strand.

He tried telling himself that it would be a kindness to allow the poor lady to remain in uncertainty about the fate of her son, for the hope of being reunited with him would be preferable to the knowledge that he was dead. But another part of himself pointed out that not to tell her of his death was the act of a coward and a churl, whereas to reveal it was at worst the act of a fool, for it would save her grief in the long run, however much distress it brought her at the time.

The crowds were thick around Charing Cross. Still arguing with himself, Savill pushed himself through the press and entered the Strand. Passers-by glanced at his face and made way for him, as if recognizing the urgency that possessed him. It was at this point in his deliberations that he realized that his lips were moving and that he was having an animated conversation with himself aloud.

He turned into Mr Bell’s Library and, as he had done on the first occasion, bought a day ticket that enabled him to browse among the volumes and magazines but not to borrow them. According to the clock in the entrance hall, it wanted ten minutes to four o’clock. He went through to the principal gallery, picked up the latest copy of the
Bystander
and took a chair that commanded a view of the door to the hall.

Perhaps, he thought, she will not come today.

The minute hand of the clock above the clerks’ desk reached the hour and began to descend on the other side. Five past, ten past, a quarter past.

With each lost minute, Savill’s hopes began to rise. Mrs Ogden had said she came to the library on most days, he reminded himself. But not every day, and perhaps not always at four o’clock. Perhaps she had already called.

He threw down the
Bystander
and took Ogden’s sketchbook from his pocket. He had glanced through it once before, searching for memoranda scattered among the drawings. This time he examined it more carefully, turning the pages from the back of the book towards the front.

Most of the sketches were of buildings, or details of them, but there were one or two of people, drawn with rapid, economical fluidity and yet extraordinarily lifelike. Among them was a rear elevation of a large woman stooping over a jug on a table; almost certainly it was Mrs Fenner, Ogden’s landlady in Somersetshire. Another showed a child curled up asleep on a bench or perhaps an inside seat of a coach. The child was surrounded by shadows. Charles?

It was now twenty past the hour. He would give until half past, Savill decided, and then leave. His conscience could hardly object: for he could not call at the house or even write to her there without running the risk that Mr Ogden would discover that his wife had been communicating with Savill behind his back.

He turned over another page to reveal a charming scene showing the corner of a house with a tree beyond and birds fluttering in the sky. Again, there was little detail or precision: but instead a sense of motion, of swift and even joyous execution. It was a pity that Dick Ogden had not, for whatever reason, succeeded in pursuing a career with his pencil.

As he turned another page, a movement distracted his eye and he looked up: Mrs Ogden came through from the hall, with her maid following her and carrying a parcel of books. She was limping. The left side of her face seemed to droop lower, as if it had yielded further ground in its unequal struggle with gravity.

At the moment that Savill raised his head, she glanced across the room in his direction. Their eyes met, and she changed course towards him. The maid began to follow. Mrs Ogden waved her away, pointing at the clerks’ desk, where books were returned as well as provided.

Savill slipped the sketchbook in his pocket, rose and bowed.

‘You have news, sir?’ Her hand touched her throat. ‘Have you found Dick?’

‘Madam—’

He could not bring himself to tell her. He knew then that he was indeed a coward and a churl.

She caught at his arm and stared up at his face, willing him to say the words she wanted to hear.

‘Madam, I have not.’

‘You will, sir, I am convinced of it.’ The grip on his arm did not relax. ‘I have a premonition that you will be a friend to my poor boy. That is all he needs, I am sure, a friend who will guide him wisely.’

He could not look away from her bisected face – one side living and feeling, the other fallen and decayed. ‘I—’ He stopped and cleared his throat. ‘I will do anything in my power to help him.’

An expression of sweetness filled the living half. ‘You are kindness itself, sir. Dick has always been easily led, you see, but that may be for good, as well as for ill. I often wonder what would have happened if he had fallen into other company at Oxford. He was so dreadfully unlucky there – he fell in with such a wild young fellow. They shared a set of rooms. His grandfather was a lord, and I fear he taught Dick to think himself above his station in life – aye, and to spend his father’s money accordingly.’

‘Madam, forgive me, I’m pressed for time,’ Savill said. ‘I must not linger—’

But Mrs Ogden was lost in a maze of memory. ‘He taught Dick to follow his own wicked ways. Mr Ogden was so ashamed of him – of Dick, I mean – he himself is a man of the highest principles. He simply cannot comprehend how such folly could be possible in one on whom he had devoted the most tender paternal care. He went to Oxford himself, you know, that last time, to plead with Dick to mend his ways and shut his door to Mr Malbourne for ever. But no, my poor son was so caught up in his toils—’

‘What was that?’ Savill said, loudly enough for them to attract curious glances from other subscribers.

Mrs Ogden stared at him. ‘Sir?’

‘I beg your pardon. I believe you mentioned the name of your son’s friend at Oxford.’

‘I cannot call him a friend, sir,’ she said, drawing herself up. There was no sweetness in her expression now. ‘His evil genius would be more apt. I do believe the devil himself could not have done a better job.’

‘But his name, madam?’

‘Malbourne,’ she said. ‘Mr Horace Malbourne.’

The day drags its way towards the evening.

Charles dares not run the risk of going outside. He reads
Robinson Crusoe
but even that diversion soon palls. He prowls through the house on his stockinged feet, peering cautiously from the windows and through the cracks between the shutters. He pecks at food – a mouthful of ham here, a spoonful of quince jelly there.

His head is full to bursting with the meeting with the young lady who is his sister. She will bring Mr Savill to him, and all will be well.

Except it won’t be well, he reminds himself, for nothing can be well again.

Nevertheless Charles clings to the memory of Lizzie: she brings a wisp of hope into his life, a sense that, even if nothing can be well, at least something may be slightly less bad than it otherwise would be. She said she would write to Mr Savill. How long will the letter take to reach him? If he is still in the country, it may be days before he receives it, and a week before he reaches Nightingale Lane.

The house itself is silent. The building is holding its breath, waiting for what happens next. When Charles moves from room to room, from floor to floor, the silence is disturbed by the clack of a raised latch or the creak of a stair: and these sounds are almost blasphemous, like a drunkard’s oath in the middle of Mass.

If Charles listens at the window of the servant’s chamber at the top of the stairs, he hears quite distinctly the sounds of the builders’ hammers and saws, the incessant rumble of wagons and coaches, and the clatter of hooves. Perhaps some of those sounds come from Bedford Square itself, from the carriages gliding round the oval of grass where the children of the rich play in safety, guarded by railings and servants.

This window has a view of part of the garden behind the Royal Oak. In the early afternoon, workmen pace in and out of sight, with pipes in their mouths and tankards in their hands. In Mr Savill’s orchard, the birds squabble among the branches and peck at rotten fruit on the ground.

Most of all, however, he looks down on Nightingale Lane from a barred first-floor window. This is partly because he reasons that anyone coming to Mr Savill’s house will probably come by this way. But it is also because it offers the most interesting prospect at his disposal, far more diverting than the antics of birds in the garden, and far more productive of facts.

There are three houses in front of Mr Savill’s house – one on the left, with a shop selling wicker baskets and the like on the ground floor, and two cottages on the right. The lane is little wider than a wagon between the houses but it opens up in front of Mr Savill’s house and then narrows into the footpath along the side of the house and garden towards the Royal Oak.

Charles studies these houses and assembles facts about their occupants. The house on the left has seven windows overlooking the street and two of them have broken panes with the holes stuffed with rags. The shop attracts scarcely any custom. Sometimes an old man emerges from it into the lane. He wears a long apron over his waistcoat and sweeps the front of his shop with slow, dreamlike movements. At three o’clock a boy appears in the lane. He is carrying a tray with a jug and a covered plate on it, so Charles decides that he must be bringing the old man his dinner.

Opposite the house with the shop, the two cottages lean against one another. The ridges of their roofs dip and their tiles are thick with moss. Their windows are tiny. In the one further away from Mr Savill’s house lives a young woman with five very small children. She sits in her doorway, hunched over her sewing, with her children playing and squabbling about her. Every now and then she clamps her baby to her breast, and sometimes she suckles the next youngest as well, who tugs incessantly at her skirt, clamouring for his mother’s milk.

Mrs Forster, the woman who looks after Mr Savill’s house, lives in the nearer cottage with a young woman who must be her daughter. Even when she is inside, Charles sometimes hears Mrs Forster’s voice grinding away like a knife on a whetstone. The daughter is very tall and very thin. Her shoulders hunch forward. She kneels to scrub the doorstep and Charles sees the back of her calves and holes in her stockings. She goes out to fetch water from the pump at the end of the lane, and she takes the slops to the cesspit the houses share. When she accompanies her mother to the shops, she carries the baskets and walks two steps behind.