Читать книгу The Silent Boy - Andrew Taylor, Andrew Taylor - Страница 17

It took Savill over twelve hours to travel by the mail coach from London to Bath. Most of that time it rained.

He spent the night in Bath at the Three Tuns inn. It was still raining in the morning, when he hired a gig to take him to Norbury, with a groom to drive him. The owner of the livery stable told him that the village’s situation was remote, far from the nearest post road.

The chaise was open to the elements. Savill sat behind the driver. Despite his great coat, a travelling cloak, top boots and a broad-brimmed hat, the rain found ways to reach his skin.

Their road was narrow and winding; the rain filled the ruts with puddles and turned the higher parts to mud. The country was generously provided with hills, which no doubt would have afforded a variety of fine prospects if the rain and the mist had permitted Savill to see them.

As the day passed, they laboured on, mile after mile. The driver muttered under his breath. The horse was a tired, broken-down creature that seemed incapable of going much beyond a foot-pace. They stopped twice, ostensibly to rest the unhappy animal but really for the groom to dose himself against rheumatic fever with gin and hot water.

There was said to be an inn at Norbury. Savill had intended to put up there, order his dinner and then call at Charnwood Court to make the necessary arrangements to take the boy away in the morning. But he realized that he had been too optimistic before they had covered half their distance. They would be lucky to reach the village before evening.

The light was already beginning to fade when they came to a small but swollen river that surged between high green banks, its surface mottled with muddy froth. The lane passed over the river by a wooden bridge resting on stone piers that were coated on their upstream side with green slime.

The two men climbed down. The groom led the horse and chaise across the bridge, with Savill behind. The wood was slippery with moisture and in places had rotted away.

‘How far is it now?’

‘A mile, sir. Maybe.’

After another mile, by Savill’s reckoning, they were still no nearer the village. The lane narrowed again and began to twist and climb. They came to a sharp bend with a partly open field-gate on its outer edge. As they rounded the bend, they found themselves face to face with a bull.

It was a large brown animal that to Savill’s eyes seemed the size of a small cottage. The horse came to an abrupt halt, straining against the harness of the chaise. The bull had its back to them. For a moment no one moved. Then the great beast slowly turned round. It examined them with sad, incurious eyes. Its legs were coated with pale mud, which gave it the appearance of wearing stockings.

The groom stared open-mouthed at the bull. There was no room to turn in the narrow lane even if there had been time to do it. But the horse did not wait to be told what to do. It twitched violently and bolted to the right toward the field-gate. It blundered through the opening. The chaise followed. For an instant the right wheel caught on the gatepost. The horse strained forward. Suddenly they were through.

Just inside the gate, however, sheltering beneath the branches of an ash tree, were half a dozen cows, the bull’s harem. These came as a second, equally unwelcome surprise to the horse, which veered to the left, pulling the chaise after it.

It was unfortunate that at this point the field sloped steeply towards a hedgerow running from the lane. The chaise bumped down the incline, its wheels swaying and skidding. The horse stumbled as a hoof sank into the ground. Its momentum carried it forward but sharply sideways, dragging the chaise after it. The hoof came free.

The vehicle fell on its side, tipping out the two men. Wood splintered. The groom shouted an oath. The horse whinnied. Savill felt a stab of pain in his jaw. The impact had set off his toothache, which had been grumbling steadily since his departure from London.

When the pain subsided, he found he was lying on his side in the sloping field. He stared at the sky. Rain fell on his upturned face. The grass beneath him was soggy. Moisture seeped into his clothes. He heard the groom’s voice, swearing, a steady stream of obscenities.

Savill sat up and then rose unsteadily to his feet. The groom was on his back a few yards away. The horse was on its feet, though entangled with its traces, which still attached it to the chaise.

Savill looked up the field. The cows hadn’t moved. They were staring at the visitors with mild curiosity. The bull, however, was taking a more active interest. He had come through the gateway and advanced a few yards into the field. His head swayed from side to side.

‘Get up, you fool,’ Savill roared at the groom.

‘It’ll kill us, sir, I know it—’

‘Be quiet.’ Savill eyed the bull. ‘Free the horse.’

The groom stood up. ‘If that poor beast has to be shot, sir, the master will—’

‘Stop talking. Free the horse. Then we’ll find help.’

‘Help?’ the groom said. ‘Where?’

It was a reasonable question. They were in the middle of a field. Apart from the bull and the cows, there were no signs of life, nor any trace of human habitation. The hedge at the bottom of the field was a dense green wall.

‘The village can’t be far,’ Savill said.

The groom jerked his thumb towards the gateway. ‘I’m not going near that thing.’

Suddenly, the hedge spoke up. ‘Good afternoon,’ it said in a crisp, ladylike voice. ‘Are you in need of assistance?’

The young lady had a sunburned face and was dressed for walking. Her cloak was spattered with mud. She wore heavy winter pattens that squelched across the field as she approached. The town-bred groom stared at her, as well he might, to see a lady walking alone.

‘You’ve met with an accident, sir.’

‘You are quite right, madam,’ Savill said. ‘I am obliged to you for pointing it out.’

‘And I don’t much like the look of that bull.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Is there a stile there, ma’am, or a gate?’ the groom burst out.

‘Of course there is. I didn’t get here by magic.’ She was still looking at Savill. ‘Just beyond that chestnut tree. Can’t you see it? There is a path along the field boundary.’

‘I think that animal’s coming,’ the groom said.

‘Unharness the horse,’ the lady told him. ‘What are you waiting for? Quick! Cut the traces if necessary.’

Her brisk tone freed the groom from his trance-like state. He unharnessed the horse with remarkable speed and led it limping down the field. It was fortunate that it hadn’t broken a leg.

Savill picked up his portmanteau and offered the lady his arm. The bull watched the proceedings.

‘It’s Farmer Bradshaw’s bull,’ the lady told him. ‘We shall send a message to Mr Bradshaw and have the animal safely confined. No doubt he will have your chaise brought up to the village.’

‘What’s left of it,’ Savill said. The chaise had a broken wheel and the end of the axle had splintered.

As they passed through the gate, he glanced back at the field. The bull had lost interest in them and was grazing beside his harem.

Savill felt ridiculous, even cheated. A crisis was one thing but an anticlimax was quite another, particularly one which must lead to so much inconvenience.

He walked with the lady along a narrow path, strewn with rocks, that ran between hedges. The groom followed, muttering under his breath, with the horse plodding after him.

‘It was most obliging of you to come to our assistance,’ Savill said, breaking the silence long after it had become awkward.

‘I don’t think I’ve provided much of that, sir.’

‘At least you had the kindness to come and share our fate.’

‘Don’t be too sure of that, sir.’ She smiled up at him, revealing very white teeth. She was older than he had thought, perhaps in her thirties. ‘I should have run off directly the bull began his charge.’

‘I hope we are not taking you out of your way.’

‘Not at all. Where are you going, sir?’

‘Charnwood Court.’ Savill flicked water away from his face. ‘Is it far?’

‘The other side of the village. I thought you might be going there.’

‘And why is that?’

‘You weren’t coming from the village or you couldn’t have got the chaise into the field, not with the gate at that angle. I suppose you might have been going somewhere in the village, but I can’t think where. I know you’re not expected at Norbury Park or the Vicarage. So that only leaves Charnwood, really. There’s nowhere else, you see. You can’t get any sort of vehicle much beyond Charnwood.’

There was a silence. The rain continued to fall steadily from a soft grey sky. Savill glanced at the lady. She had dark curls between the top of her collar and the brim of her hat.

He cleared his throat. ‘My name is Savill, ma’am. I have business with Count de Quillon at Charnwood. Perhaps you know the gentleman?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is to say, I have been introduced to him. Have you come far, sir?’

‘London, ma’am.’

‘It won’t help,’ the lady said.

Savill stared at her. ‘I beg your pardon. What won’t help?’

She glanced up at his face. ‘Brooding on your troubles, sir. It never answers.’

Norbury lay at the bottom of a dark, steep-sided coomb. Dilapidated cottages faced each other across the single street. The church was set back above the road among a huddle of gravestones. Chickens pecked the dirt and squabbled with one another.

At the upper end of the village was the inn where Savill had intended to dine and spend the night. The lady introduced him to the landlord, Mr Roach, a brisk, efficient man with bright eyes.

‘Mr Savill, sir, is it? Good day to you – we’ve been expecting you.’

‘Really? You surprise me.’

‘Yes, sir – they sent down from Charnwood two or three days ago to say you’d be coming. I’m to send you up to the house directly.’

‘I was intending to put up here.’

‘No, sir. Mr Fournier was most insistent, you are to go up to the house. But what’s happened?’

‘There has been an accident, Roach,’ the lady said. ‘We must send a message to Mr Bradshaw that his bull is loose. This poor gentleman’s chaise had a smash in Parker’s field because of it.’

It was arranged that the remains of the chaise would be brought to Mr Roach’s barn. The groom would stay the night at the alehouse and return with the horse to Bath the following morning to consult with the proprietor of the livery stables about what should be done and about the thorny question of obtaining compensation from Farmer Bradshaw. Savill, having left a sum of money to defray the immediate cost of this, would travel to Charnwood in a vehicle that Mr Roach had in his stable.

‘An admirable plan,’ the lady said. ‘Now my father will be wanting his tea, and you must excuse me.’

None of the men spoke as she walked away, lifting her feet high above the mud of the village street. She crossed the road and took a narrow path that ran between two stone walls. It led to the churchyard, higher up the slope of the valley. Beyond the church were the roofs of a house that looked more substantial than the cottages in the village.

‘Ah well,’ said Mr Roach. He squinted up at the sky. ‘We better get you up to Charnwood, sir, before it starts raining again.’

Twenty minutes later, a boy led out a small, sad pony attached to a two-wheeled vehicle that was the next best thing to a cart. Savill scrambled up to the seat beside Mr Roach. In the interim, they had become the focus of attention for a small but growing crowd that watched their every move with great interest. Some of the younger ones followed the chaise. Their comments floated up to him like a chorus of Somersetshire voices commenting on the action of a Greek tragedy.

‘Looks a cross one, don’t he? … Wish I’d seen him rolling in the mud … That bull wouldn’t hurt a fly. Reckon he’s scared of cows.’

As the road left the village, it turned and climbed. One by one, the followers dropped away.

‘Who is the lady, by the by?’ Savill said. ‘I didn’t catch her name.’

‘Vicar’s daughter, sir; Miss Horton.’ Mr Roach pointed to the right with his whip. ‘See that, sir? That’s Norbury Park. She’ll have been on her way home from there.’

In the distance, partly concealed in a fold of the hills, was a plain stone house of some size. Savill dredged a name from his memory. ‘Mrs West’s house?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Hardly the weather for a lady to walk out in.’

‘Lord bless you, sir, Miss Harriet don’t mind a bit of rain, no more than a duck does.’

They pulled up in front of a pair of gates set in a wall with a small cottage beside them. Mr Roach leaned out of the cart, rattled his whip on the bars of the gates, and shouted: ‘Hey, there!’ in a voice that was possibly audible in the village.

‘Deaf,’ he explained to Savill, lowering his voice to a normal volume. ‘I don’t know why Mrs West lets her stay there. The lady’s too soft-hearted, and that’s a fact.’

An old woman shuffled out of the cottage.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs White,’ Mr Roach shouted. ‘How’s your boy doing in the Dragoons? Keeping well, I hope?’

She appeared not to hear him.

‘Leave the gates open, will you? I shan’t be long.’ Mr Roach dropped a copper into Mrs White’s outstretched hand before passing into the drive. She nodded to him. She paid no attention whatsoever to Savill.

‘Poor woman,’ Mr Roach said to Savill as they rattled slowly up the drive. ‘Lost her husband last winter, one son went off to be a soldier and the other one fell under a wagon when he was drunk. Grandson works in the gardens here but he’s always in mischief. Maybe the good Lord knows what He’s about, but damned if I do.’

The light was already fading from the sky. Dead leaves on the ground muffled the sound of their wheels. The drive sloped steadily downwards.

‘Gloomy old place, eh, sir?’ Mr Roach said. ‘Wouldn’t want to live here myself. Dreadful damp. That’s why Mr West built the new house higher up on the other side of the valley.’ He grinned. ‘Still – better than living in France or heathen parts like that.’

Savill’s discomfort was steadily increasing. His clothes were soaked through. He had missed his dinner and he was ravenously hungry. Worst of all was the damage to his pride: he was aware how forlorn he must look. His arrival in this wretched chaise would hardly improve matters.

‘Sorry about the bumps, sir,’ Mr Roach said. ‘The back drive is even worse. That’s the one I generally use. But I reckon having you here turns this into a gentleman’s chaise.’

He burst out laughing. Savill bared his teeth in what he hoped might resemble an answering smile. The drive followed a bend and suddenly reached its destination. Now they were clear of the protection of the overhanging trees, Savill became aware of how hard the rain was falling.

‘Well, this is it, sir,’ Mr Roach said, raising his whip in a sort of salute. ‘Charnwood. Not to everyone’s taste, perhaps, but you know what the sailors say: any port in a storm.’