The Scent of Death (27 page)

When I set out I did not have a particular destination in view. I merely wanted an opportunity to think. Even as a boy, I found that the gentle monotony of walking not only calmed my mind but also lent at least the illusion of clarity to my thoughts.

It was another uncomfortably warm day. I had no very clear idea where I was going, apart from the fact that I did not want to breathe the fetid air of the city for any longer than necessary. New York’s situation should have been pleasant enough. Perhaps it had been so before the war. Now, however, it was a place of noisome smells. Some arose from the mud and silt exposed at low water in the docks and slips. Others came from sewage, human and animal, that besmirched so many streets and public spaces. Cesspits and rubbish dumps overflowed. Even by the waterside, where the air was better, one never escaped the scurrying crowds and the spectacles of human misery played out in public.

I toyed with the idea of catching the ferry to Brooklyn. But this would have taken too long. Instead I walked north-west up the Bowery Lane and through the unlovely suburbs of the city, a dreary progression of low alehouses, squalid manufactories and the crowded cabins of the poor. The road was familiar to me from my rides with Captain Wintour. After a while, beyond Bunker Hill, I struck off to my right and walked down to the salt meadows sloping to the Sound north of Corlear’s Hook. I had hoped that I should find a breeze from the East River here. But the meadows were full of flies and stinging insects. Two unkempt dogs chased me out of one enclosure, necessitating an undignified scramble through a drainage cut and over a paling.

I turned my footsteps inland and rambled for some miles across farmland – a prosperous and pleasing landscape, though scarred with military fortifications, old and new. I stopped to eat and drink but did not rest for long. I rarely encountered anyone, though on two occasions I was accosted by militia patrols and obliged to show my papers.

By this time my thoughts had settled and I addressed my mind to the problems before it. Should I or should I not offer to accompany Captain Wintour to Mount George?

The arguments against were powerful. It would be dangerous. Did I not owe it to Augusta and Lizzie to stay in the safety of New York? The journey would be uncomfortable and arduous. I would have to share the expenses of the expedition. Wintour could be unpredictable, and his gentlemanly notions could lead us into all sorts of unnecessary scrapes. I would also be obliged to shut up the office for at least a fortnight. What would Mr Rampton say about that?

On the other hand, I was desperate to escape the city and breathe the purer air of the country. I was jaded and needed a change. The flow of refugees up the stairs to my office had slackened of late. I had more than enough leave due to me and ample funds. Mr Rampton had often urged on me the importance of gathering first-hand intelligence, and here was a perfect way to do it. There was no reason why I should not draw on the budget of the American Department to defray at least some of the expenses. I was confident that Wintour and I would rub along well enough for a week or two. As for the dangers, I would find ways to lessen the risks. I would also demonstrate to myself that fear had not prevented me from going.

I owed something to the Wintours, I told myself, for they had made me very welcome in New York. It would be pleasant to be able to resolve the little difficulty between the Judge and his son. I even allowed myself to think that it would be pleasant to earn Mrs Arabella’s gratitude. I remembered how she had touched my arm the day before. With it came the memory of the intoxicating pity I had felt for her – the pity that was so strangely like desire.

The next moment, my mind swung the other way again. The danger, I told myself, the folly of it – the proposal was absurd.

The sun was beginning to sink into the west. It was slightly cooler now. The waters of the Hudson glittered before me. I had swung north in a great loop that had taken me across the island.

With some reluctance I set off towards the city. The quickest way would have been to strike down to the Greenwich road along the shore. But I remained inland.

By and by I came to the outskirts of the city again, but by a different route from the way I had left it. This part of the town was unfamiliar to me and appeared to be inhabited by the poorer classes.

I followed a rutted lane bounded on one side by a fence in poor repair and on the other by a row of hovels. The fence ended in a gateway. Gathered in front of it, about fifty yards away from me, was a crowd of negro children. They were looking at something on the ground that was giving them a great deal of merriment.

I came closer and saw what was attracting their attention: a man had slipped and fallen into a heap of horse droppings just inside the gateway. As I watched, he scrambled to his feet and tried to frighten off his jeering tormentors, who had taken to kicking his hat about. He was a squat fellow, sallow skinned and meanly dressed, and I felt almost sorry for him. He seized the boy who had his hat and gave him a tremendous blow on the head that sent him reeling against the gatepost.

The crowd fell back. The man saw me approaching. Hat in hand, he stared open-mouthed. He had a smear of excrement on his cheek. For an instant, something passed between us, a spark of recognition. I knew I had seen him before, though I could not for the life of me think where. I could have sworn the recognition was mutual.

It was over in a flash. The man turned and ran, scattering the children.

I stared after him. The negro children sauntered away, whistling and calling. I walked up to the gateway. It led into a burying ground. On a whim, I went inside and looked about me.

The graves huddled together for company. The majority of the markers were of wood in various stages of decay. I realized from the inscriptions that most, if not all, of the occupants of the graves were negros. A few of the graves were dignified with headstones, usually provided by the slaves’ owners. I wondered whether death liberated a slave at last or, even in death, he remained his master’s property, just as a cow or a pig did. On the whole, I thought that flesh must remain a possession whether living or dead. Judge Wintour would know.

An elderly negro was raking the gravelled walk that bisected the cemetery. I beckoned him over. He came at once, his face anxious as if he feared a blow from my stick. He swept off his hat and, head bowed, stood before me.

‘You saw that man?’ I said. ‘The one who fell over by the gate?’

He knuckled his forehead and nodded.

‘He came in here?’

The old negro nodded again.

‘What was he doing?’

‘Come to see a grave, master.’

‘Which one?’

He pointed to a spot near the fence along the lane. ‘New one hard by that tree.’

I walked over to it. I knew at once that a child lay here. The small mound of dusty earth was barely a yard long. Someone had laid a fresh nosegay on top of it. The wooden marker was newer than its immediate neighbours but it was already beginning to weather. It bore a crude inscription burned in black, wavering characters, probably with a nail or the tip of a knife heated in the fire:

Henrietta Maria Barville

There were neither dates nor an indication of ownership. Merely the name and the nosegay.

A child’s grave is not a happy place, for it implies something that runs contrary to the laws of God and the hopes of man. A child should not die before its parent: it is as if time itself has run backward.

The old negro was in his hut by the gateway. He had been watching me all the time but he pretended to be engaged in sharpening his shears on a grindstone. For the sake of politeness, I rapped on the side of the shed to attract his attention.

‘That grave for Henrietta Barville. Who put the flowers on it?’

He looked at me, and I saw fear in his eyes. ‘Don’t know, master.’

‘Was it that man? The one who fell over?’

‘Maybe so.’

‘Did he ask you where the grave was? By name?’

He looked from side to side, as if for rescue. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who was this Barville girl?’

He shrugged.

‘You must have a record of who lies here. Show it to me.’

He shuffled over to a shelf at the back of the hut and took up a foolscap-sized volume that lay there. He brought it over to me. The covers were dusty and stained; the spine was broken.

‘Show me the entry,’ I said.

He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

I understood he could not read. I took the register from him and opened it, flicking through the pages until I reached the later entries. Each entry was numbered. It contained the name of the deceased, the name of the clergyman who had read the funeral service and the name of the next of kin. Sometimes there was a note to indicate the owner of the dead slave or the address where they had died; but there was no method about this, and it was not always clear who had been a slave and who had been free. All the entries were signed by a man I presumed to be a clerk or sexton who overlooked the work of the burial ground.

In recent months there had been many deaths among the negros, for hot weather breeds disease. I found Henrietta Barville at last. She had been interred on 30 March with one of the usual clergymen in attendance.

It was the name of next of kin that caught my attention: Miriam Barville.

But the child’s Christian name also set off an echo in my memory. Henrietta. That had been the name of Captain Wintour’s long-dead sister, the girl who had died on her first birthday and who was still so keenly mourned by her mother.

Henrietta. Hetty-Petty.

When I returned to Warren Street in the evening of the following day, Josiah told me that his master begged me to join him and the other gentlemen in the library if I was at leisure.

I found the Judge sitting at the table with Townley beside him. The Captain stood on the hearthrug with his back to an imaginary fire. Noak stood, hands clasped in front of him, near the door. He bowed slightly as I entered and closed the door for me.

‘The very man,’ Mr Wintour said, flexing his fingers as if the joints were aching. ‘Pray sit down, sir, and give us the benefit of your advice.’

‘Ah yes,’ cried Townley, smiling at me. ‘We may depend on you, Mr Savill, for sound sense. I’m sure Captain Wintour values your opinion too.’

The Captain said nothing but he bowed to me.

‘My son is determined to go to Mount George,’ the Judge went on. ‘I confess I am not entirely happy about it in my own mind. But Mr Townley has come up with a most excellent notion, that Mr Noak should accompany him. Is it not a good plan, sir? Looking at it in the round, I cannot see a single flaw to it.’

‘I can’t deprive Mr Townley of Noak’s services, sir,’ the Captain said, grim-faced. ‘Besides the journey may be uncomfortable, perhaps even hazardous at times.’

‘Exactly so! That’s why Mr Noak should accompany you.’ Mr Wintour beamed at the clerk. ‘I know Mr Noak will prove equal to everything.’

I coughed. ‘This is a remarkable coincidence,’ I said to the room at large.

The four of them looked at me.

‘How so?’ Townley said.

‘Because I had made up my mind to talk to Captain Wintour about this myself. About his projected journey.’

The Captain said to no one in particular, ‘I am capable of managing my own affairs, I think.’ He stopped. For a moment I thought he would fly into a passion. But then he added, quite calmly, ‘I’m going. There’s nothing more to be said about the matter.’

‘All I wanted, sir, was to ask whether you would permit me to accompany you for at least some of the way.’

‘You?’ said the Judge, the Captain and Townley in a ragged chorus. Only Noak was silent.

Townley took a step towards me. ‘Surely your position as a civilian, sir, as an official of His Majesty’s Government—?’

‘Permit me to explain.’ I turned to the Judge. ‘I’ve a great deal of leave accrued to me. I find the summer heat of the city uncomfortable, sir, and I’m persuaded that going to the country for a week or two would do me the world of good. It would
be a tonic. And there’s the additional advantage that it would
enable me to mix business with pleasure.’

‘Business, sir?’ Townley interrupted. ‘What business?’

I said nothing for a moment, time enough for him to realize that both his question and his manner were impertinent.

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he went on. ‘I spoke out of turn.’

‘There’s no particular secret about it,’ I said, addressing Mr Wintour. ‘My instructions from London are that I use all available means to acquire intelligence regarding the Debatable Ground.’

‘But we have plenty of that from any number of people,’ Townley said.

‘Mr Rampton desires my observations to be founded where possible on direct observation.’ I tried to assume a grave expression, as befitting a man privy to the most profound secrets of the American Department. ‘And there are other reasons. But I am afraid I’m not permitted to be more explicit.’

The Judge wrinkled his forehead. ‘My dear sir, you must realize that you would put your life in peril.’

‘Yes, sir, but I believe I may be able to lessen the risks if I take precautions.’

Mr Wintour’s frown vanished. ‘A military escort, perhaps?’

‘I don’t know the details yet.’ I glanced at the Captain. ‘I thought it best to ask your opinion of the idea first. Captain Wintour may not find my company quite convenient – pray tell me if that’s the case.’

He stared at me for a moment. Then: ‘I think it would answer very well.’ A smile broke across his face. ‘Indeed, I should like it, sir. Though you may not get much pleasure from it, I’m afraid.’

Townley shook his head. ‘I cannot advise it. It would double the danger and—’

‘You may let me decide that, sir,’ the Captain said. He crossed the room to his father and laid his hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘You’ll give us your blessing, sir, I hope?’