Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

"In a year's time," I said, "you will smile at this."

"I won't, sir," he retorted, his voice thick with grief. "I shall never forget this day."

I told him all things passed, even memories, and I ate cold chicken. And as I ate, I wondered if I had spoken the truth: for how could a man ever forget the face of Mrs Frant?

The next incident of this history would have turned out very differently if there had not been the physical resemblance between young Allan and Charlie Frant. The similarity between them was sufficiently striking for Mr Bransby on occasion to mistake one for the other.

On the day after my return from London, I gave Morley and Quird another flogging after morning school. I made them yelp, and for once I derived a melancholy satisfaction from the infliction of pain. Charlie Frant was pale but composed. I believed they had let him alone during the night. Morley and Quird were uncertain how far they could try me.

After dinner, I took a turn about the garden. It was a fine afternoon, and I strolled down the gravel walk to the trees at the end. On my left was a high hedge dividing the lawn from the part of the garden used as the boys' playground. The high, indistinct chatter of their voices formed a background to my meditations. Then a shriller voice, suddenly much louder than the rest as if its owner were becoming heated, penetrated my thoughts.

"He's your brother, isn't he? Must be. So is he a little bastard like you?"

Another voice spoke; I could not make out the words.

"You're brothers, I know you are." The first voice was Quird's, made even shriller by the fact that it would occasionally dive deep down the register. "A pair of little bastards – with the same mother, I should think, but different fathers."

"Damn you," cried a voice I recognised as Allan's, anger making his American twang more pronounced than usual. "Do not insult my mother."

"I shall, you little traitor bastard. Your mother's a – a nymph of the pavey. A – a fellow who knows her saw her in the Haymarket. She's nothing but a moll."

"My mother is dead," Allan said in a low voice.

"Liar. Morley saw her, didn't you, Morley? So you're a bastard and a liar."

"I'm not a liar. My mother and father are dead. Mr and Mrs Allan adopted me."

Quird made a noise like breaking wind. "Oh yes, and I'm the Emperor of China, didn't you know, you Yankee bastard?"

"I'll fight you."

"You? You little scrub. Fight me?"

"One cannot always fight with the sons of gentlemen," said the American boy. "Much as one would prefer it."

There was a moment's silence, then the sound of a slap.

"I am a gentleman!" cried Quird with what sounded like genuine anguish. "My papa keeps his carriage."

"Steady on," Morley intervened, croaking like a raven. "If there's to be a fight, you must have it in the regular manner." Morley was older than his friend, a hulking youth of fourteen or fifteen. "After school, and you must find yourself a bottle-holder, Allan. I shall act for Quird."

"He'll have the other little bastard," Quird said, "the one we put out of the window. That was famous sport, but this will be even better."

I could not intervene. From time immemorial, fighting had been commonplace in schools. The little boys aped the bigger ones. An establishment such as Mr Bransby's aped the great public schools. The public schools aped the noble art of pugilism on the one hand and the mores of the duel on the other. It was one thing for me to intervene in an episode of nocturnal bullying, but quite a different one for me to seek to prevent a fight conducted with the tacit approval of Mr Bransby. I own that I was surprised by the tenderness of my own feelings. I was perfectly accustomed to the knowledge that boys are rough little animals and maul each other like puppies.

There was a good deal of whispering during afternoon school. The older boys, I guessed, had seized with enthusiasm the opportunity to organise the fight. I consulted with my colleague Dansey, who told me, as I knew he would, that I must leave well alone.

"They will not thank you, Shield. Boys are morally fastidious creatures. They would consider you had interfered in an affair of honour."

By the time supper came, nothing had happened. That was plain from the unmarked countenances of Quird and Allan, and from the buzz of excited whispering that spread up and down the long tables.

"It will be after supper, I fancy," Dansey observed. "There will still be enough light, and Mr Bransby will be safe in his own quarters. They should have well over an hour to beat each other into pulp before bedtime."

I did not know the result of the fight until the following morning. It did not come as a surprise. There are cases when Jack kills the Giant to universal approbation, but they are few and far between. Quird was at least a head taller than Allan and a couple of stone heavier. Arm in arm with Morley, Quird swaggered into morning school. Edgar Allan, on the other hand, sported two black eyes, a grazed cheekbone and swollen lips.

I looked for, and found, reasons for me to give impositions to Morley and Quird which would keep them occupied after prayers every evening for a week. Sometimes it is easier to punish the wicked than to defend the innocent.

Gradually I discovered that the defeat was widely recognised as having been an honourable one. Dansey told me that he had overheard two older boys talking about the fight at breakfast: one had said that the little Yankee was a well plucked 'un, to which the other had replied that he had fought like the very devil and that Quird should be ashamed of himself for picking on such a youngster.

"So you see there's no harm in it," Dansey said. "None in the world."

Over the next few days I did not pay much attention to Charlie Frant and the American boy. I saw them, of course, and noted that they showed no further marks of mistreatment, or rather no more than one would expect to find on small boys in their situation. I was aware, however, that they often sat together and played together. Once I overheard two older boys pretending to mistake one for the other, but in a jocular way that suggested that the resemblance between them had become a source of friendly amusement rather than mockery.

The next event of importance to this history occurred on Monday the 11th October. The boys were more or less at leisure during the period between the end of morning school at eleven o'clock and their dinner two hours later. They might play, write letters, or do their preparation. They were also allowed to request permission to make excursions to the village.

Their movements outside the school, however, were strictly regulated, at least in theory. Mr Bransby had decreed, for example, among other things, that boys should patronise certain establishments and not others. Only the older boys were permitted to purchase liquor, for which they required special permission from Mr Bransby. The older boys ignored the condition, usually with impunity, and were frequently drunk at weekends and on holidays; and some of the younger ones were not slow to follow their example. But I own I was surprised when I saw Charlie Frant ineffectually attempting to conceal a pint bottle beneath his coat.

I had walked into the village in order to buy a pipe of tobacco. On my way back to the school, I happened to pass the yard entrance of the inn which hired out hacks. There was really no avoiding the meeting. Looking as furtive as a pair of housebreakers, Frant and Allan edged out of the yard immediately in front of me. I was on their left, but their attention was to their right, towards the school, in other words, the direction from which they expected trouble. Frant actually knocked into me. I watched the shock spreading over his features.