Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

I glanced down at his hand and saw that his knuckles were badly grazed. "I am much obliged to you, sir." I rubbed the side of my head where a bruise was already forming. "I – I do not know what I would have done if you had not happened to be passing."

"You have lost your hat, I am afraid. Indeed, I think it must have taken the full force of the blow, and you would have been in a much worse state if it had not been there. I believe you had a stick, too, but that has gone as well."

I nodded. I had not noticed the absence of either. I bit back the observation that it was surely a remarkable coincidence that Harmwell should have happened to be passing. The fact that the coincidence had been of great service to me was neither here nor there.

"Do you still have your purse?"

I felt in my pocket. "Yes."

"That is something."

I knew only that I must be cautious, not why. I said slowly, "Perhaps I was passing along the street, and they dragged me into the passage in order to rob me."

"That is unlikely," Harmwell replied. "I think I should have seen you, despite the fog. It is more probable that you entered the passage from the other side, or possibly from a side door of one of the houses it serves."

The hackney moved steadily westwards, wriggling through the bustling streets into the heart of Soho. At last we reached Brewer-street. Harmwell directed the coachman to a house on the north side, near the corner with Great Pultney-street. He waved aside my attempt to pay the fare.

The dizziness returned when I stood up. Harmwell helped me down and lent me the support of his arm as we went into the house. A servant with a blank face and shabby livery conducted us upstairs. It appeared that Mr Noak had taken the whole of the first floor. There was a sitting room at the front, and Harmwell settled me on a sofa beside the fire and told the servant to bring me a glass of brandy. He went in search of his master. By the time he returned with Mr Noak, I had swallowed half the brandy and regained a few more of my wits. But I still could not remember what had happened in the interval of time between my being in Mr Poe's room in Queen-street and Harmwell bustling me into the hackney.

God-damned blackbird?

As I heard that coarse voice in my mind, an image from those lost moments of my life slipped into the forefront of my memory: that of a small, childlike creature seizing my hand and kissing it. The memory was so clear that I saw the grey lice moving in her sparse ginger hair.

I rose to my feet as Mr Noak entered and found I could stand without support. He gave me his hand and asked me how I did. I stumbled out my thanks to Harmwell for saving my life, and to Mr Noak himself for his hospitality.

"Harmwell did no more than his plain duty as a Christian," Noak said in his hard New England voice. "It was providential he should have been passing."

"Indeed," I said.

"Pray be seated." Noak settled himself in an armchair on the other side of the fire. "The last time we met, Mr Shield, we disputed about the value of reading Ovid. I do not know London well but I understand from my clerk that he came across you in a part of town which is not the usual haunt of schoolmasters."

"Mr Carswall sent me there upon an errand."

"Mr Carswall? Yes, I had the pleasure of seeing him recently, though on a melancholy occasion." He looked sharply at me. "Forgive my curiosity, but I thought you were employed at a school outside London."

"I am, sir, but at the present I am staying with Mr Carswall in Margaret-street so that I may give lessons to Charles Frant."

Noak's mouth tightened. "We must applaud Mr Carswall's charity in providing a home for Mrs Frant and her fatherless boy."

He paused, seeming plunged in gloomy reflection. Time passed. My own thoughts were scarcely happy either. Mrs Frant might not have needed Mr Carswall's charity if I had not witnessed George Wavenhoe's signature on his deathbed.

At length he continued: "Are you able to remember who attacked you? No doubt you will wish to lay information against them in Bow-street."

"I regret that I cannot remember the circumstances of the attack, nor of Mr Harmwell's rescue."

"How very unfortunate. Still, you know where it happened, and Harmwell saw your assailants."

Harmwell coughed. "The passage was gloomy, sir. I did not have a clear view of them."

"And St Giles is a lawless place," I pointed out. "The men who attacked me will no longer be there."

Noak glanced from Harmwell to myself. "What about the people of the house? Were they concerned in the attack?"

Harmwell shrugged.

I said, "I recall nothing beforehand to show that they must have been."

"But they might, eh?"

"It is impossible to say." I winced from the pain in my head. "I – I cannot remember. I shall consult Mr Carswall on my return, sir, but I believe it is likely that he would advise me to let sleeping dogs lie."

"I see," said Mr Noak, and I had the uncomfortable suspicion that he saw more than I liked.

"I must not trespass any further on your good nature," I said. "Mrs Frant and Mr Carswall will be becoming anxious."

"Harmwell will take you back."

"But I could not possibly trouble you or him any longer."

"It is no trouble," Noak said abruptly, rising to his feet. "Or not to me. Even if it were, you have had a bad blow on the head and it is my duty as a Christian to ensure your safe return, just as it was Harmwell's duty to come to your assistance."

He nodded farewell to me and left the room. Harmwell rang the bell for the servant. Within ten minutes we were in another hackney, moving so slowly through the fog that it would have been faster to walk. Neither of us spoke. After a while, the silence became oppressive and I blundered into speech.

"What are your impressions of London, Mr Harmwell?"

"Why, it is so vast and so varied that one scarcely has time to form an impression before another comes along and overturns it. There is so much wealth here, the mind can hardly comprehend it."

"But you Americans have great wealth in the United States, too, I am sure."

"I am not American, sir. I am from Canada. My father was from Virginia but he moved north with his master after the Revolution."

"They were Loyalists? Did your father sustain severe losses by the move?"

"No, sir, he gained everything." Harmwell turned and gave me a level stare. "He gained his freedom. Mr Saunders was granted an estate in Upper Canada and my father continued to work for him. So did I until I enlisted in the army in the late war with the United States." A harsh note entered his voice. "If the family had not died out in the meantime, I should have returned to their employ on my discharge from the army."

"I am sorry – yet you found another position?"

"Mr Noak was kind enough to offer me a clerkship."

My curiosity had already led me considerably further than good manners allowed so I turned the conversation to more general subjects. We talked mainly about New York and Boston. Harmwell did not volunteer information easily but he showed himself a man of sense in his replies.

It was after three o'clock by the time we had crossed the restless river of humanity that filled Oxford-street. When we reached Margaret-street, I begged him to descend and take some refreshment. Harmwell hesitated, and then said that if there were no objection, he would pay a call on Mrs Kerridge, if she were at liberty, as she had promised to write out a receipt for him to send to his mother in Canada. He spoke so solemnly, his face a picture of filial piety, that I almost burst out laughing when I recalled the way his hand had brushed her breast that afternoon in Piccadilly, and how she tapped him on the cheek as a punishment.

Once we were in the warmth of the house, a servant took Harmwell down to see Mrs Kerridge. Mr Carswall was at home but I wished to wash my face and change my coat before I saw him. I went upstairs to my room and lit a candle because it was already so dark I could barely see the hand in front of my face. There was still an inch or two of cold water in the jug on my washstand. I poured it into the bowl. As I peeled off my coat, a scrap of paper fluttered to the floor. I bent down and picked it up.