The American Boy (7 page)

He glanced from side to side, then spoke in a low voice to match hers. “Can't have been more than two or three words. I could only read one of them. Carswall.”

“
Mr
Carswall?”

Frederick shrugged. “Who else?” He gave a snort of amusement. “Unless it was Miss Flora.”

“Don't be pert,” Mrs Kerridge said. “Well, well. You'd better fetch that hackney.”

As the footman was leaving, I shifted my weight from one foot to another. My boot creaked. Mrs Kerridge looked quickly in my direction, and then away. I kept my face bland. Perhaps she wondered whether I had marked the oddity of it. If Mr Frant had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Mr Noak, why had not Mr Noak simply sent in his card? And why had the name of Carswall acted as his Open Sesame?

The page came clumping down the stairs with indecorous speed.

“Don't run, Juvenal,” snapped Mrs Kerridge. “It ain't genteel.”

“The mistress told Mr Loomis to have the carriage brought round,” the boy gasped. “Mr Wavenhoe's, that is, she come in that. She's a-going back to Albemarle-street.”

Frederick grinned. “I wouldn't want to linger here if it was my uncle a-dying, and him as rich as half a dozen nabobs.”

“That's more than enough from you,” Mrs Kerridge said. “It's not your place to go prattling about your betters. If you want to keep your situation, you'd better mind that tongue of yours.” She turned to me, no doubt to alert the others to my presence. “Mr Shield, sir, I'm sorry to keep you waiting down here. Ah, here's Master Charles.”

The lad came out of the kitchen holding a basket covered with a cloth. Frederick called out that our chaise was at the door. A moment later, the boy and I were driving back to Stoke Newington. I unstrapped the hamper and Charlie Frant wept quietly into the napkin that had been wrapped round the warm rolls.

“In a year's time,” I said, “you will smile at this.”

“I won't, sir,” he retorted, his voice thick with grief. “I shall never forget this day.”

I told him all things passed, even memories, and I ate cold chicken. And as I ate, I wondered if I had spoken the truth: for how could a man ever forget the face of Mrs Frant?

The next incident of this history would have turned out very differently if there had not been the physical resemblance between young Allan and Charlie Frant. The similarity between them was sufficiently striking for Mr Bransby on occasion to mistake one for the other.

On the day after my return from London, I gave Morley and Quird another flogging after morning school. I made them yelp, and for once I derived a melancholy satisfaction from the infliction of pain. Charlie Frant was pale but composed. I believed they had let him alone during the night. Morley and Quird were uncertain how far they could try me.

After dinner, I took a turn about the garden. It was a fine afternoon, and I strolled down the gravel walk to the trees at the end. On my left was a high hedge dividing the lawn from the part of the garden used as the boys' playground. The high, indistinct chatter of their voices formed a background to my meditations. Then a shriller voice, suddenly much louder than the rest as if its owner were becoming heated, penetrated my thoughts.

“He's your brother, isn't he? Must be. So is he a little bastard like you?”

Another voice spoke; I could not make out the words.

“You're brothers, I know you are.” The first voice was Quird's, made even shriller by the fact that it would occasionally dive deep down the register. “A pair of little bastards – with the same mother, I should think, but different fathers.”

“Damn you,” cried a voice I recognised as Allan's, anger making his American twang more pronounced than usual. “Do not insult my mother.”

“I shall, you little traitor bastard. Your mother's a – a nymph of the pavey. A – a fellow who knows her saw her in the Haymarket. She's nothing but a moll.”

“My mother is dead,” Allan said in a low voice.

“Liar. Morley saw her, didn't you, Morley? So you're a bastard and a liar.”

“I'm not a liar. My mother and father are dead. Mr and Mrs Allan adopted me.”

Quird made a noise like breaking wind. “Oh yes, and I'm the Emperor of China, didn't you know, you Yankee bastard?”

“I'll fight you.”

“You? You little scrub. Fight me?”

“One cannot always fight with the sons of gentlemen,” said the American boy. “Much as one would prefer it.”

There was a moment's silence, then the sound of a slap.

“I
am
a gentleman!” cried Quird with what sounded like genuine anguish. “My papa keeps his carriage.”

“Steady on,” Morley intervened, croaking like a raven. “If there's to be a fight, you must have it in the regular manner.” Morley was older than his friend, a hulking youth of fourteen or fifteen. “After school, and you must find yourself a bottle-holder, Allan. I shall act for Quird.”

“He'll have the other little bastard,” Quird said, “the one we put out of the window. That was famous sport, but this will be even better.”

I could not intervene. From time immemorial, fighting had been commonplace in schools. The little boys aped the bigger ones. An establishment such as Mr Bransby's aped the great public schools. The public schools aped the noble art of pugilism on the one hand and the mores of the duel on the other. It was one thing for me to intervene in an episode of nocturnal bullying, but quite a different one for me to seek to prevent a fight conducted with the tacit approval of Mr Bransby. I own that I was surprised by the tenderness of my own feelings. I was perfectly accustomed to the knowledge that boys are rough little animals and maul each other like puppies.

There was a good deal of whispering during afternoon school. The older boys, I guessed, had seized with enthusiasm the opportunity to organise the fight. I consulted with my colleague Dansey, who told me, as I knew he would, that I must leave well alone.

“They will not thank you, Shield. Boys are morally fastidious creatures. They would consider you had interfered in an affair of honour.”

By the time supper came, nothing had happened. That was plain from the unmarked countenances of Quird and Allan, and from the buzz of excited whispering that spread up and down the long tables.

“It will be after supper, I fancy,” Dansey observed. “There will still be enough light, and Mr Bransby will be safe in his own quarters. They should have well over an hour to beat each other into pulp before bedtime.”

I did not know the result of the fight until the following morning. It did not come as a surprise. There are cases when Jack kills the Giant to universal approbation, but they are few and far between. Quird was at least a head taller than Allan and a couple of stone heavier. Arm in arm with Morley, Quird swaggered into morning school. Edgar Allan, on the other hand, sported two black eyes, a grazed cheekbone and swollen lips.

I looked for, and found, reasons for me to give impositions to Morley and Quird which would keep them occupied after prayers every evening for a week. Sometimes it is easier to punish the wicked than to defend the innocent.

Gradually I discovered that the defeat was widely recognised as having been an honourable one. Dansey told me that he had overheard two older boys talking about the fight at breakfast: one had said that the little Yankee was a well plucked 'un, to which the other had replied that he had fought like the very devil and that Quird should be ashamed of himself for picking on such a youngster.

“So you see there's no harm in it,” Dansey said. “None in the world.”

Over the next few days I did not pay much attention to Charlie Frant and the American boy. I saw them, of course, and noted that they showed no further marks of mistreatment, or rather no more than one would expect to find on small boys in their situation. I was aware, however, that they often sat together and played together. Once I overheard two older boys pretending to mistake one for the other, but in a jocular way that suggested that the resemblance between them had become a source of friendly amusement rather than mockery.

The next event of importance to this history occurred on Monday the 11th October. The boys were more or less at leisure during the period between the end of morning school at eleven o'clock and their dinner two hours later. They might play, write letters, or do their preparation. They were also allowed to request permission to make excursions to the village.

Their movements outside the school, however, were strictly regulated, at least in theory. Mr Bransby had decreed, for example, among other things, that boys should patronise certain establishments and not others. Only the older boys were permitted to purchase liquor, for which they required special permission from Mr Bransby. The older boys ignored the condition, usually with impunity, and were frequently drunk at weekends and on holidays; and some of the younger ones were not slow to follow their example. But I own I was surprised when I saw Charlie Frant ineffectually attempting to conceal a pint bottle beneath his coat.

I had walked into the village in order to buy a pipe of tobacco. On my way back to the school, I happened to pass the yard entrance of the inn which hired out hacks. There was really no avoiding the meeting. Looking as furtive as a pair of housebreakers, Frant and Allan edged out of the yard immediately in front of me. I was on their left, but their attention was to their right, towards the school, in other words, the direction from which they expected trouble. Frant actually knocked into me. I watched the shock spreading over his features.

“What have you got there?” I asked sternly.

“Nothing, sir,” replied Charlie Frant.

“Don't be a fool. It looks remarkably like a bottle. Give it me.”

He passed it to me. I pulled out the cork and sniffed. The contents smelled of citrus and spirits.

“Rum-shrub, eh?”

The boys stared up at me with wide, terrified eyes. Rum-shrub was something of a favourite among the older boys at the Manor House School, for the combination of rum with sugar and orange or lemon juice offered them a cheap, sweet and rapid route to inebriation. But it was not a customary beverage for ten-year-olds.

“Who told you to purchase this?” I inquired.

“No one, sir,” said Frant, staring at his boots and blushing.

“Well, Allan, is your memory any better?”

“No, sir.”

“In that case, I shall be obliged if you would both wait on me after supper.” I slipped the bottle into my coat pocket. “Good day.”

I walked on, swinging my stick and wondering which of the older boys had sent them out. I would have to beat Allan and Frant, if only for the look of the thing. Allan and Frant followed me round the corner. I glanced back, in time to see a man coming up behind them. He was a tall figure, clad in a blue coat with metal buttons.

“Boy,” the man said, taking Charlie by the arm with a large hand and bending down to peer into his face. “Come here – let me look at you.”

His face was turned away from me, but it was the voice that was somehow familiar – deep, husky and audible though the man spoke little above a whisper. He must have seen me ahead but cannot have realised my connection with the boys.

“Let go,” Charlie said, trying to tug himself away.

“You'll do as I ask, my boy, because –”

“Let him go, sir,” snapped Allan in his high voice. He took hold of Charlie's other arm and tried to pull him away.

Charlie saw me. “Sir! Mr Shield!”

The man raised his stick. I was not sure which boy he intended to hit. I did not wait to find out but shouted and broke into a run.

“That is enough, sir. Leave the boys alone.”

He released his grip on Charlie and swung towards me. “And who the devil are you?”

“Their master.”

He screwed up his forehead. His eyes were hidden by dark glasses. I could not tell whether he recognised me or not.

“Damn you,” he said.

“Be off with you. Or I shall call the constable.”

The man's face changed: it was as though the features were dissolving into a puddle of discoloured flesh. “I meant no harm, sir, I take my oath on it. Won't you pity an old soldier? All I hoped was that these two young gents might be able to oblige me with the price of a little refreshment.”

I suppressed the temptation to give him the bottle of rum-shrub. Instead I raised my stick. He muttered a few words I could not catch and walked rapidly away, his shoulders rounded.

Charlie Frant looked up at me with his mother's eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

“I suggest you return to school before you fall into more mischief,” I said.

They scuttled down the lane. I wondered if I should accost the man but he was already out of sight. So I followed the boys, walking slowly and cudgelling my brains to find an explanation while wondering whether an explanation was in fact required. Here was an old reprobate, I told myself, a drunkard lurking in the environs of an inn in the hope of cadging a drink. No doubt he had seen the two little boys with their bottle of rum-shrub leaving the tap and he had followed them as a hunter follows his prey.

It was the most natural thing in the world, a man would think, nothing strange about it. But to me there was something strange. I could not be sure but I believed I might have seen the fellow before. Was it he who had accosted me the previous week outside Mr Allan's house in Southampton-row? The coat and hat were different, and so was the accent; but the voice itself was similar, and so were the blue spectacles and the beard like an untidy bird's nest.

I took the coward's way out and did not pursue the matter. After supper I flogged the little boys as lightly as I could while preserving the decencies. Both of them thanked me afterwards, as custom dictated. Allan was pale but apart from grunting when the blows fell gave no sign of pain; Frant wept silently, but I turned my eyes away so that he would not know that I had seen his moment of weakness. He was the gentler of the two, who followed where Edgar Allan led.