The Silent Boy. Andrew Taylor
mirror the reflected boy mimics his action.
Charles’s right hand almost touches the boy’s left hand. The mirror glass is all that divides them, that and the layer of candle grease and dust that has settled along the bottom rail of the frame and spread slowly higher over the years.
‘Gentleman’s had a mishap on his way here,’ he hears a man say below in the rolling, comfortable voice that the peasants use in this place. ‘His chaise turned over in Parker’s field.’
Charles wonders whether he has lost his reflection as well as his voice. He does not recognize the boy’s face, his ragged clothes or his untidy hair – he is a stranger. Yet it is he, Charles. But he looks like someone else, not the boy who used to examine himself in Maman’s looking glass.
‘My name is Savill,’ says another voice, a man’s. ‘The Count de Quillon is expecting me.’
Charles turns and runs up the stairs.
Two manservants, a French valet smelling of scent and an English footman smelling of sweat, converged on Savill. At a nod from Monsieur de Quillon, the valet peeled away his outer garments.
‘My dear sir, you are soaked,’ the Count said in French. He glanced at his valet. ‘Make sure they’ve lit the fire in Mr Savill’s room.’
‘You are most kind, sir, but I cannot possibly—’
‘Nonsense, sir. You will stay with us.’
Fournier smiled at Savill. ‘Monsieur de Quillon is right,’ he said in English. ‘You will be doing us a kindness, sir – indeed, we have been counting the hours since your attorney’s letter arrived. We see very little company. Besides, the inn is quite intolerable.’
The two Frenchmen were both richly dressed but it was their manner rather than their clothes that proclaimed their station. Monsieur de Quillon was the elder of the two. His features were too irregular, and his face too marked by good living, for him to be accounted handsome. His German physician, Dr Gohlis, had been introduced but kept himself in the background.
‘Do you have a man with you?’ Fournier asked.
‘No,’ Savill said. ‘My chaise was hired in Bath and the groom will return there.’
‘No matter. We will find someone to look after you.’
‘Were you injured in the accident? I cannot help noticing …’
His voice tailed away, but his fingers fluttered, indicating the streaks of mud and cow-pat on the left side of Savill’s greatcoat and breeches.
‘It is nothing, sir. No more than mud and a few bruises.’
The footman brought in Savill’s portmanteau and set it down near the stairs.
Fournier glanced at it. ‘I see you are an old campaigner, and do not encumber yourself with baggage. Joseph will show you to your room.’
‘Yes, yes,’ the Count said. ‘So we shall meet again at dinner.’
He and Fournier retreated without further ceremony, and Gohlis trailed after them with the air of a dog uncertain of his welcome. Joseph the footman conducted Savill to a bedchamber on the first floor. According to the clock on the landing, it was nearly half-past five.
‘His Lordship and Mr Fournier dine at six, sir,’ Joseph said, as he laid the portmanteau on the bed. ‘I’ll fetch a jug of hot water for you after I’ve unpacked.’
Savill unlocked the portmanteau. The émigrés dined at a fashionably late hour which, in view of his late arrival, was fortunate. Joseph laid out a pair of darned stockings, a clean shirt and a black-silk stock. Apart from a pair of light shoes and the clothes he stood up in, Savill had nothing else to wear.
Joseph brushed and aired Savill’s breeches and then helped him to wash and dress. By the time they had finished, it still wanted ten minutes to dinner. Savill told the man to bring him the leather portfolio from his bag.
The footman obeyed and then left the room with the cloak and greatcoat over his arm and the muddy boots in his hand.
Savill sat by the fire and opened the portfolio. Here were the papers that Mr Rampton had provided him with.
Only now, as he glanced through them again, did it strike him as strange that no one at Charnwood had yet mentioned Charles. The boy was Savill’s reason for coming here. The two Frenchmen and the German doctor must have known that as well as he did. But none of them had said a word about Charles. Nor had the servants.
Nor, for that matter, had he. It was as if the boy did not exist.
During dinner, which was long and elaborate in the French fashion, Savill’s toothache returned. The pain caught him unawares on several occasions, and once he could not avoid making a sound of discomfort. He noticed Fournier glancing at him, though there was no break in his conversation.
Afterwards, when the servants had left them, Savill introduced his reason for being here, since no one else was in any hurry to do so.
‘Pray, my lord,’ he said to the Count, ‘when may I expect to see Charles? After dinner, perhaps?’
‘He will be in bed by then,’ Fournier said. ‘We keep country hours at Charnwood. He’ll soon be sleeping the sleep of the just. Isn’t that what you English say? The sleep of the just?’
‘Quite so, sir. But is he in good health?’
The Count reared up in his chair. ‘Perfectly. He is my own son, after all, and I would not see him go lacking for anything.’
Savill bowed. ‘Naturally.’ The Count’s remark had not been tactful, since it served to remind Savill that he had been cuckolded. ‘But after the loss of his mother and the trials he has gone through …’
‘There is one thing you should know, sir,’ Fournier put in. ‘Since the death of his mother, Charles has lost his voice.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. An infection of the throat?’
‘No, not exactly. Dr Gohlis will explain. He has been treating him for over a month now.’
The doctor glanced up the table at Monsieur de Quillon, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘It is a very unusual case, sir,’ he said, speaking in fluent but accented English. ‘There is no sign of infection. There is nothing wrong with him physiologically. Everything we know about him indicates that until recently he was fully capable of speech, and indeed showed a lively intelligence. But now he will say nothing at all. Moreover, his behaviour has become furtive. And at night he sometimes loses control of his bladder.’
‘What is your diagnosis, Doctor?’
‘I have constructed a hypothesis that the symptoms he displays are an extreme manifestation of a form of hysteria. This was obviously caused by the shock he received when his mother was murdered in such terrible circumstances. It follows that—’
‘He witnessed what happened that night?’ Savill said, his voice rising. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
Gohlis nodded. ‘We cannot know for certain, sir, but it is a reasonable assumption. We believe he was in the house at the time.’
‘It is borne out by the fact that there were bloodstains on his clothes when he came to us,’ Fournier put in. ‘The old woman who brought him had tried to wash them out, but they were unmistakable.’
‘The poor boy.’
‘Indeed, sir. The heart weeps for him.’
‘Ah!’ Savill said.
‘What is it, sir?’ Fournier asked.
‘I beg