The American Boy Read online

  “Master Frant should suit us very well. His father is one of the partners of Wavenhoe’s Bank. A very sound concern indeed.”

  “How old is the boy, sir?”

  “Ten or eleven. As it happens, this school was commended to Mr Frant by Allan’s father. He is an American of Scottish descent, but resident in London. I understand that he and Mr Frant have conducted business together. Mark this well, Shield: first, a satisfied parent will share his satisfaction with other parents; second, Mr Frant is a gentleman-like man who not only moves in good society but meets wealthy men in the course of his business. Wealthy men have sons who require an education. I would wish you to make a particularly good impression, therefore, on Mr and Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs Frant.”

  “I shall endeavour to do so, sir.”

  Bransby leant forward across the desk so that he could study me more closely. “I am confident that your manner will be everything that is appropriate. But I must confess – and pray do not take this amiss – that some alteration to your dress might be desirable. I advanced you a small sum for clothing, did I not, but perhaps not enough?”

  I began to speak: “It is unfortunate, sir, that –”

  “And, indeed,” Bransby rushed on, his colour darkening, “you have now been with us for nearly a month and your work has, on the whole, been satisfactory. That being so, from next quarterday I propose to pay you a salary of twelve pounds a year, as well as your board and lodging. It is on the understanding, naturally, that your dress will be appropriate to an usher at this establishment and that your conduct continues to give satisfaction in all respects. In the circumstances, I am minded to advance you perhaps half of your first quarter’s salary so that you may make the necessary purchases.”

  Three days later, on Tuesday, 5th October, I travelled up to London. Young Allan sat as far away as possible from me in the coach and replied in monosyllables to the questions I put to him. I delivered the boy into the care of a servant at his parents’ house. I had taken but a few steps along the pavement when I felt a hand on my sleeve. I stopped and turned.

  “Your pardon, sir.”

  A tall man in a shabby green coat inclined his trunk forward from the waist. He wore a greasy wig, thick blue spectacles and a spreading beard like the nest of an untidy bird.

  “I am looking – looking for the residence of an acquaintance.” He had a low, booming voice, the sort that makes glasses vibrate. “An American gentleman – a Mr Allan. I wonder whether that might be his house.”

  “It is indeed.”

  “Ah – you are most obliging, sir – so the boy you were with must be his son?” He swayed as he spoke. “A handsome boy.”

  I bowed. The man’s face was turned away from me but his breath smelt faintly of spirits and strongly of rotting teeth or an infection of the gums. He was not intoxicated, though, or rather not so it affected his actions. I thought he was perhaps the sort of man who is at his most sober when a little elevated.

  “Mr Shield, sir!”

  I turned back to the Allans’ house. The servant had opened the door.

  “There was a message from Mrs Allan, sir. She wishes to keep Master Edgar until tomorrow. Mr Allan’s clerk will bring him back to Stoke Newington in the morning.”

  “Very good,” I said. “I will inform Mr Bransby.”

  Without a word of farewell, the man in the green coat walked rapidly in the direction of Holborn. I followed, for my next destination was beyond it, at Lincoln’s Inn. The man glanced over his shoulder, saw me strolling behind him and began to walk more quickly. He knocked against a woman selling baskets and she shrieked abuse at him, which he ignored. He turned into Vernon-row. By the time I reached the corner, there was no sign of him.

  I thought perhaps the man in the green coat had mistaken me, or someone behind me, for a creditor. Or he had accelerated his pace for quite a different reason, unconnected with his looking back. I dismissed him from my mind and continued to walk southwards. But the incident lodged itself in my memory, and later I was to be thankful that it had.

  At Mr Rowsell’s chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, his clerk had the papers ready for me to sign. But as I was about to take my leave, the lawyer himself came out of his private room and shook me by the hand with unexpected cordiality.

  “I give you joy of your inheritance. You are somewhat changed, Mr Shield, if I may say so without impertinence. And for the better.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “A new coat, I fancy? You have begun to spend your new wealth?”

  I smiled at Mr Rowsell, responding to the good humour in his face rather than the words. “I have not touched my aunt’s money yet.”

  “What will you do with it?”

  “I shall place it in a bank for a few months. I do not wish to rush into a venture I might later regret.” I hesitated, then added upon impulse: “My employer Mr Bransby happened to mention that Wavenhoe’s is a sound concern.”

  “Wavenhoe’s, eh?” Rowsell shrugged. “They have a good name, it is true, but lately there have been rumours – not that that means anything; the City is a perfect rumour mill, you understand, turning ceaselessly, grinding yesterday’s idle speculations into tomorrow’s facts. Mr Wavenhoe himself is an old man, and they say he delegates much of the day-to-day business of the bank to his partners.”

  “And that is a cause of unease?”

  “Not exactly. But the City does not like change, it may be no more than that. And if Mr Wavenhoe retires, or even dies, his absence may have an effect on confidence in the bank. That is no reflection on the bank itself necessarily, merely on human nature. If you wish, I shall make some inquiries on your behalf.”

  I dined at an ordinary among plump lawyers and skinny clerks. My business had taken longer than I had anticipated, and I resolved to postpone my visit to Mrs Jem in Gaunt-court. After dinner, comfortable with beef and beer, I made my way up Southampton-row, passing the Allans’ house. It was a fine autumn afternoon. With my new coat, my new position and my new fortune, I felt I had become a different Tom Shield altogether from the one I had been less than a month before.

  As I walked, I observed the passers-by – chiefly the women. My eyes clung to a face beneath a bonnet, a pretty foot peeping beneath the hem of a dress, the curve of a forearm, the swell of a breast, a pair of bright eyes. I heard their laughter, their whispers. I smelt their perfume. Dear God, I was like a boy with his face pressed against the pastry-cook’s window.

  One struck me in particular, a tall woman with black hair, a high colour, and a fine full figure; as she climbed into a hackney I thought for an instant that she was Fanny, the girl I had once known, not as she had been then but as she might have become; and for a moment or two a cloud covered my happiness.

  7

  The Frants’ house was on the south side of Russell-square. I rang the bell and waited. The brass plate sparkled. The paint was new. If a surface could be polished, it had been polished. If it could be scrubbed, it had been scrubbed.

  A manservant answered the door, a tall fellow with a fleshy, hook-nosed face. I told him my name and business, and he left me to kick my heels in a big dining room overlooking the square. I walked over to the window and stared down at the square garden. The curtains were striped silk, cream and green, and the green seemed to have been chosen to match exactly the grass outside.

  The door opened, and I turned to see Mr Henry Frant. As I did so, I looked for the first time at the wall beside the door, which was opposite the window. A portrait hung there, Mrs Frant to the life, sitting in a park with a tiny boy leaning against her knee and a spaniel stretched on the ground at her feet. In the distance was a prospect of a large stone-built mansion-house.

  “You’re Mr Bransby’s usher, I collect?” Frant walked quickly towards me, his left hand in his pocket, bringing with him a scent of lavender water. He was the man I had seen at the carriage window in Ermine-street. “The boy will be down in a moment.”

  There was no sign of recognitio
n on his face. I was too insignificant for him to have remembered me, of course, but it was also possible to believe that my own appearance had changed in the last month. Frant made no move to shake hands; nor was there an offer of refreshment or even a chair. There was an air of excitement about him, of absorption in his own affairs.

  “The boy has milksop tendencies, fostered by his mother,” he announced. “I particularly desire that these traits be eradicated.”

  I bowed. In the portrait, Mrs Frant’s small white hand toyed with a brown ringlet that had escaped the confines of her bonnet.

  “He is not to be indulged, do you hear? He has had enough of that already. But now he is grown too old for the softness of women. It is time for him to learn to be a man. Behaving like a blushing maiden will be no good to him when he goes to Westminster. That is one reason why I have determined to send him to Mr Bransby’s.”

  “So he has never been to school before, sir?”

  “He has had tutors at home.” Frant waved his right hand as though pushing them away, and the great signet ring on his forefinger gleamed as it caught the light from the window. “He does well enough at his books. Now it is time for him to learn something equally useful: how to deal with his fellows. But I will not detain you any longer. Pray give my compliments to Mr Bransby.”

  Before I could manage even another bow, Frant was out of the room, the door snapping shut behind him. I envied him: here was a man who had everything the gods could bestow including an air of breeding and consequence that sat naturally upon him, as though he were its rightful possessor. Even now, God help me, part of me envies him as he was then.

  I waited another moment, studying the portrait. My interest, I told myself, was both pure and objective. I admired the painting as I might a beautiful statue or a line of poetry that spoke with both elegance and force to the heart. The brushwork was particularly fine, and the skin was exquisitely lifelike. Such beauty was refreshing, too, like a drink to a thirsty traveller. There was, therefore, no reason why I should not study it as much as I wished.

  Ah, you will say, you were falling in love with Sophia Frant. But that is romantic nonsense. If you want plain speaking, I will give it you as I gave it to myself on that fateful day: leaving artistic considerations aside, I disliked her because she had so much I lacked in the way of wealth and the world’s esteem; and I also disliked her because I desired her, as I did almost any pretty woman I saw, and knew she could never be mine.

  I heard footsteps outside the door and a high voice speaking indistinctly but loudly. I moved away and feigned an intense interest in the ormolu clock upon the mantel-shelf. The door opened and a boy rushed into the room, followed by a small, plain woman, dressed in black and with a wart on the side of her chin. What struck me immediately was that there was a remarkable resemblance between young Frant and Edgar Allan, the American boy. With their lofty brows, their bright eyes and their delicate features, they might almost have been brothers. Then I noticed the boy’s attire.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “I am Charles Augustus Frant.”

  I shook the offered hand. “And I am Mr Shield.”

  “And this is Mrs Kerridge, my – one of the servants,” the boy rushed on. “There was no need for her to come down with me, but she insisted.”

  I nodded to her and she inclined her head. “I wished to ask if Master Charles’s box had arrived at the school yet, sir.”

  “I’m afraid I do not know. But I’m sure its absence would have been marked.”

  “And my mistress desired me to say that Master Charles feels the cold. When the weather begins to turn, perhaps a flannel undershirt next to the skin might be advisable.”

  The boy snorted. I nodded gravely. My mind was on the lad’s clothes, though not in a way that Mrs Kerridge or indeed Mrs Frant would have liked. Whether at his own request or at his mother’s whim, Master Charles was wearing a beautifully cut olive greatcoat with black frogs. He carried under his arm a hat from which depended a long and handsome tassel; he clutched a cane in his left hand.

  “They’re bringing the carriage round, sir,” Mrs Kerridge said, “and Master Charles’s valise is in the hall. Would you like anything before you go?”

  The boy hopped from one leg to another.

  “Thank you, no,” I said.

  “There’s the carriage.” He ran over to the window. “Yes, it is ours.”

  Mrs Kerridge looked up at me, squeezing her face to a frown. “Poor lamb,” she murmured in a tone too low for him to hear. “Never been away from home before.”

  I nodded, and smiled in a way I hoped the woman would find reassuring. When we opened the door, a footman was waiting by the front door and a black pageboy, not much older than Charles himself, hovered over the valise. Charles Frant, smiling graciously at his father’s servants, marched down the steps with a dignity befitting the Horse Guards, a dignity only slightly marred by the way he skipped up into the carriage. Mrs Kerridge and I followed more slowly, walking behind like a pair of acolytes.

  “He is very young for his age, sir,” Mrs Kerridge muttered.

  I smiled down at her. “He’s a handsome boy.”

  “Takes after his mother.”

  “Is she not here to say goodbye to him?”

  “She’s away nursing her uncle.” Mrs Kerridge grimaced. “The poor gentleman’s dying, and he ain’t going easy. Otherwise Madam would be here. Will he be all right, sir? Boys can be cruel little varmints. He don’t realise. He don’t know many boys.”

  “It may not be easy at first. But most boys find there is much to enjoy at school as well. Once they are used to it.”

  “His mama frets about him.”

  “It often happens that an event is more distressing in anticipation than it is in actuality. You must endeavour to –”

  I broke off, realising that Mrs Kerridge was no longer looking at me. She had been distracted by the sight of a carriage whirling into the square from Montague-street. It was an elegant light chariot, painted green and gold, and drawn by a pair of chestnuts. The coachman slipped between two carts and brought the equipage to a standstill behind our own, the wheels neatly aligned within a couple of inches of the kerb. He sat back on the box with the air of a man well pleased with himself.

  “Oh Lord,” muttered Mrs Kerridge, but she was smiling.

  The glass slid down. I glimpsed a pale face and a mass of auburn curls partly concealed by a large hat adorned with grogram.

  “Kerridge!” the girl called. “Kerridge, dearest. Am I in time? Where’s Charlie?”

  Charles jumped out of the Frants’ carriage and ran along the pavement. “Do you like this rig, Cousin Flora? Mighty fine, ain’t it?”

  “You look very handsome,” she said. “Quite the military man.”

  He held his face up for her to kiss him. She leaned down and I had a better view of her. She was older than I had thought – a young woman; not a girl. Mrs Kerridge came forward to be kissed in her turn. Then the young woman’s eyes turned to me.

  “And who is this? Will you introduce us, Charlie?”

  He coloured. “I beg your pardon. Cousin Flora, allow me to name Mr Shield, an usher at Mr Bransby’s – my school, you know.” He swallowed, and then gabbled, “Mr Shield, my cousin Miss Carswall.”

  I bowed. With great condescension, Miss Carswall held out her hand. It was a little hand that seemed to vanish within my own. She wore lilac-coloured gloves, I recall, which matched the pelisse she wore over her white muslin dress.

  “You were about to convey my cousin to school, no doubt? I shall not detain you long, sir. I merely wished to say farewell to him, and to give him this.”

  She undid the drawstring of her reticule and took out a small purse which she handed to him. “Put it somewhere safe, Charlie. You may wish to treat your friends.” She bent down, kissed the top of his head, and gave him a little push away from her. “Your mama sends her best love, by the by. I saw her for a moment at Uncle George’s.”

&
nbsp; For an instant the boy’s face became perfectly blank, drained of the fun and excitement.

  Miss Carswall patted his shoulder. “She cannot leave him, not at this moment.” She looked over the boy to Mrs Kerridge and myself. “I must not delay you any longer. Kerridge, dearest, may I drink tea with you before I go? It would be like old times.”

  “Mr Frant is within, miss.”

  “Oh.” The young lady gave a little laugh, and a look of understanding passed between her and Mrs Kerridge. “Good God, I had almost forgot. I am promised to Emma Trenton. Another time, perhaps, and we shall have a good old prose together.”

  Miss Carswall’s departure was the signal for ours. I followed Charlie into the Frants’ carriage. A moment later we turned into Southampton-row. The boy huddled into the corner and turned his head to stare out of the far window. The tassel on that ridiculous hat swayed and bounced behind him.

  Flora Carswall could never have been called beautiful, unlike Mrs Frant. But she had a quality of ripeness about her, like fruit waiting to be plucked, demanding to be eaten.

  8

  I found it difficult to sleep that night. My mind was possessed with a strange excitement that would not let me rest. I felt that during the day I had crossed from one part of my life into another, as though its events formed a river between two countries. I lay in my narrow bed, my body twitching and turning and sighing. I measured the passage of time by the striking of clocks. At last, a little after half-past one, my restlessness drove me from the warmth of my bed to smoke a pipe.

  Mr Bransby held that snuff was the only form of tobacco acceptable to a gentleman so Dansey and I found it necessary to smoke outside. But I knew where the key to the side door was kept. A moment later I walked down the lawn, my footsteps making no noise on the wet grass. There were a few clouds but the stars were bright enough for me to see my way. To the south was a faint lessening of the darkness, a yellow haze, the false dawn of London by night, the city which never went to sleep. Beneath the trees it was completely dark. I smoked in the shelter of a copper beech, leaning against the trunk. Leaves stirred above my head. Tiny crackles and rustles near my feet hinted at the passage of small, secretive animals.