The Silent Boy (44 page)

Swallows? Those confounded swallows.

The shock was so great that Savill staggered and almost fell. He steadied himself against the wall of the cottage. This was a sketch of Mr Rampton’s new wing at Vardells, together with the defecating swallows that Rampton hated with such strange ardour. The long windows of the new library opened on to the terrace.

But what had Dick Ogden to do with Rampton? And why had he been at Vardells?

Savill flicked the pages until he came back to the sketch. The urn was not standing on a column, as he had first thought, but on the wall that Mr Rampton intended to mark the end of the terrace. The builders had been at work on the wall when Savill had last been to Vardells, midway in September.

Therefore, Savill thought, fighting to dispel the mist in his mind, Dick Ogden had been at Vardells afterwards, when the work had been finished. Since the wall was complete, and since the mortar was apparently firmly enough set to sustain the weight of an urn, the sketch must have been made at least a week or so after Savill’s last visit.

The conclusion was inescapable: Ogden had called at Vardells after Savill had gone down to Charnwood.

Perhaps it was the distraction of another puzzle, of another line of thought. Or perhaps it was that the shock of this new discovery jolted another, quite separate train of thought into motion again, and changed its direction.

Whatever the reason, Savill suddenly had a possible interpretation of the sounds that Malbourne had made, of the five broken words he had tried so hard to say.

‘
He – came – to – Paris – too
.’

But who came? Ogden?

Charles knows at once that dawn has come. The light is different, grey and steady. The air is colder, too. Finally – as if to put the question beyond doubt – a cock crows in the distance.

Strange to say, he has slept deeply. His last memory is of the terrible sound –
Tip-tap
– and what happened next. He remembers how he shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He remembers the air on his face as the curtain was moved aside and the glare of the candle flame beyond his lashes.

But then nothing.

He listens but hears nothing except the crowing cock and a slight rustling that is probably the rain. When the pressure to relieve himself grows intolerable, he sits up in bed. He is still wearing the clothes he wore in Nightingale Lane, apart from his coat and shoes. His fingers poke the line where the curtains meet. He pulls them apart.

The light is still uncertain. It has no more sheen to it than dulled pewter. It shows the outlines of a small room with a sloping roof. There is a dormer window, which has a bowed upper edge. His eyes, drawn to the light, go to the window, so he notices at once the three vertical bars that divide it.

Charles wriggles away from the bedclothes and, shivering, climbs down from the bed. His shoes are waiting side by side for him. He slips them on and feels under the bed for the pot.

Afterwards he tiptoes to the window and looks out over a valley of slates between two pitched roofs, joined by a broad gutter lined with lead. The slates are wet with rain. Everything is grey, including the sky and a wisp of smoke that ascends towards it from a chimneystack to the left.

It is not a big window. The bars are set too close together for even a small and very skinny boy to slip between them.

Charles puts on his coat, drawing it close to him for warmth. His wrists poke out of the sleeves and the coat feels tight around his chest and armpits.

He makes a survey of the rest of the room. It is bare of furniture apart from the bed and a washstand. It measures ten and a half paces by seven and a quarter. There is no fireplace.

He turns the door knob. The door rattles in its frame but it doesn’t open.

All these are facts, and may be relied upon.

Is he still in London? The question is almost meaningless. Where everything is strange, one place becomes much the same as another.

Nightingale Lane, though: that is a real place. The memories are coming back now. Someone betrayed him and sent the man-mountain to find him there.

Only Lizzie knew he was in Nightingale Lane. His sister.

Did she betray him? Is she even really his sister? There is no way of knowing. But if she told Mr Savill, then he knew that Charles was there too, and probably it was he who sent the man-mountain, not the girl who might or might not be Lizzie.

Charles squeezes his eyes closed until he sees only sparks of false light in the darkness. The man-mountain is an enemy. That is fact.

He is very hungry. That is another fact. If one knew enough facts, then—

A key is turning in the lock of the door.

All the facts in the world evaporate.

Charles back away until his shoulder bumps against the wall. He pushes himself into the corner by the bedhead.

The door swings slowly into the room.

On the threshold stands an old man, hunched over a stick. He is dressed in a morning gown and slippers, and on his head is a nightcap. He carries a lighted candle. His eyes slide into the room and come to rest on Charles.

He raises the candlestick and pinches out the flame. His face is a place of hollows and shadows.

‘Good morning, Charles,’ he says in English. He pauses and wrinkles his nose, as if to satisfy an itch. He tugs with his right hand at the fingers of his left. ‘I see you’re awake already. I hope you slept well?’

He tugs again. The finger joints pop.

Tip-tap.

The man stares at Charles. Charles stares at him.

‘Breakfast,’ the man says. ‘Are you hungry?’

Say nothing. Not a word to anyone. Whatever you see. Whatever you hear. Do you understand? Say nothing. Ever.

The man frowns. He is still pulling at his fingers.

Tip-tap.
Like cracking a walnut.

The man stretches out his hand and wraps chilly fingers around Charles’s wrist.

‘You’re shivering,’ he says. ‘We must warm you, mustn’t we?’

He draws Charles from the room and leads him along the landing to another door. They enter a room which also has a sloping ceiling. But this apartment is larger than the bedchamber and has two of the windows with bowed tops and vertical bars. A coal fire burns briskly in the fireplace.

‘Sit at the table,’ the man says, closing the door behind them. He has no teeth and his voice lacks hard edges. His eyes glisten with moisture.

Charles can smell the rolls but not see them. They are covered with a cloth. A jug of milk stands beside them on the table, together with a piece of cheese. His mouth waters so much he has to swallow. For the moment, his hunger is almost as great as his fear.

‘Sit,’ the man says again. ‘Eat. Will that do? I did not know what to tell her to bring.’

Charles sits. The man whips the cloth away. Charles takes a roll, breaks off a piece and stuffs it into his mouth. The rolls are still warm.

The man pours milk into a cup and pushes it across the table. ‘Perhaps coffee? Should you have liked coffee? That would have been more difficult, but I’m sure it could be managed …’

His voice diminishes into silence. His hands clasped together and still holding the cloth, he stands in front of Charles and watches him eat and drink.

‘Remarkable,’ he murmurs, ‘quite remarkable.’ He pauses. When he continues, it is as if he is answering a question that Charles has asked him: ‘Yes, the coffee – you see the house is closed up at present. I’ve sent the indoor servants away, apart from Tabitha, or taken them to my other house. Tabitha’s deaf now. Even if I ring for her, she won’t hear me. One has to go down to the kitchen and talk very loudly in her ear. But perhaps later …?’

The voice trailed away. The man pulls out another chair and sits. He does this very carefully, as old people do, holding on to the edge of the table and then lowering himself inch by inch to the seat of the chair.

‘This damp weather,’ he murmurs. ‘It makes my joints ache so.’

Charles finishes the rolls. He has drunk all of the milk and eaten two-thirds of the cheese.

The old man nods. ‘Good. You look refreshed.’ He sits back in the chair and he too looks refreshed. When he speaks his voice is firmer and less slurred. ‘Now listen carefully, Charles. For the time being you will live up here, in these two rooms. You will see me sometimes, and Tabitha as well, so you will not be lonely. We shall get to know each other. You will have a suit of new clothes: you must dress in a manner fitting to your station. Besides, you cannot wear those stinking rags a moment longer than is necessary. And then, by and by, you will meet other people and go out, and see more of the world.’

Charles stares at him and wonders how old he is. Older than Monsieur de Quillon, probably, but younger than Father Viré.

‘You will put the past behind you, and all the sad things that have happened. There are bad people in this world but I shall make sure they cannot harm you. We shall live together and be very happy.’

Probably everyone is younger than Father Viré. Charles decides with reluctance that, while this last belief is almost certainly true, it cannot be classed as a fact. It cannot be included among those things that can be relied upon.

‘So is it true what they say then? You don’t speak?’

Charles does not speak. He does not move.

The man shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter, not now.’ He fumbles inside his gown and takes out a watch. He angles the face towards the window, to catch the light, which has been growing rapidly while Charles ate his breakfast. ‘I must leave you for a while. I have business to transact. But come – I wish to show you something first.’

The old man stands up. Charles does too because Maman made it clear that one should never remain seated when one’s elders rise. They go on to the landing. The man grips Charles’s shoulder.

‘You will be my support as we go downstairs. That is your duty now, Charles. To be my support.’

Side by side, they march slowly down a flight of stairs to a long high landing with many doors opening off it. The next flight of stairs is L-shaped; the stairs are broad and shallow; the two of them descend to a square hall where statues of ancient heroes stand in arched alcoves, one on either side of the front door. There are tables muffled with brown Holland covers. The air is very cold and Charles cannot prevent himself from shivering.

‘Come to the library,’ the old man says. ‘There’s a fire there.’

He opens a door and leads Charles across an apartment where the shrouded shapes of furniture stand against the walls. Their footsteps clatter across the wooden floor, for the carpet has been rolled up.

They pass through another door. The library is still gloomy despite the candles. A dying fire smoulders in the grate. The old man opens the shutters on the three long windows, and daylight pours into the room.

‘Perhaps a book would amuse you?’ he says, while he is snuffing the pale flames of the candles. ‘It would help pass the time. You might study something, perhaps, and turn this period of leisure to profit. Yes, I shall consult a bookseller on the subject of what would be suitable for a young gentleman of your age. Mark what I say: one cannot have too much useful knowledge. One day, perhaps, I shall send you to the University and you will become a perfect paragon of learning.’

He smiles at his own wit. He puts down the snuffer and runs a forefinger along one of the shelves. He hums quietly. Charles looks out of the nearest window. There is a terrace outside, with an urn on a wall and a sweep of grass beyond.

‘
De Bello Gallico
, perhaps? No, Caesar should wait, I think, though the Latin could hardly be more straightforward. I may engage a tutor for you, by and by, when everything has settled down. Ah – I have it:
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
.’ He pulls out a volume and lays it on the table beside the snuffer. ‘We must start there. Nothing is more important than a firm grounding in religion. I fear your head has been stuffed with Papist nonsense in Paris, but we shall soon root it out, my boy, and plant something more wholesome in its place.’

Charles edges towards the door.

But the old man moves in front of him. He is filled with sudden vigour. ‘Before I take you back upstairs, I shall show you something.’

The claw grips Charles’s shoulder again and draws him towards a mirror that hangs over a pier table between two of the tall windows. The pair of them stand side by side in front of their reflections, with the man’s hand still on Charles’s shoulder. Their faces are grey and weary in the light of the early morning.

‘Look. Is there not a likeness? I hoped there would be, and indeed there is. The set of the eyes, of course, and their colour. The nose and mouth are similar, even now, and when you are grown the similarities will be quite unmistakable. You will be the very image of myself as a young man.’

Charles looks at their reflections, at the smiling man and the boy he no longer recognizes. He remembers the stranger he saw shimmering in the mirror on the stairs at Charnwood on the evening that Mr Savill arrived, and how he and the stranger stretched their hands towards each other. But the glass with its patina of candle grease kept them for ever apart.

Everyone has another side to them. A side they cannot quite touch. That is a fact.

‘This library. This house. The gardens, the farms. Everything.’ The old man releases Charles’s shoulder and smiles down at him with his toothless mouth stretched wide. ‘One day, Charles, when I’m gone, it will be yours. As is right and fitting.’

His fingers grapple with each other, squeezing and pulling. The toothless smile grows wider and wider, a pink wound. His face splits apart.

‘From father to son,’ he says, and pulls at his fingers.

Tip-tap.

Charles runs.

Through the door, through the apartment with the ghostly furniture and into the cold, cold heart of the house.

Malbourne was breathing heavily through his mouth. Savill tried speaking to him again but had no response. He would have liked to drag him into the partial shelter of the cottage doorway but did not dare, in case there was internal damage.