Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

"It is no matter. Tell me, were you able to give my letter to your mother?"

He looked up at me, his eyes apparently guileless, and as so often with children, I wondered how much he noticed, how much he understood. "Oh yes, sir. Mama sent her compliments, and said there would be no answer."

I nodded, hoping that my expression somehow implied that this was entirely what I had expected.

" Ayez peur," squawked the wretched bird.

"What did that-?" I began, and choked back the rest of the question.

Edgar clapped his hands. "There! I knew he would. Is it not quite splendid, sir?"

"Yes, indeed."

"And does he not sound exactly like a person?"

"Oh, identical."

"Can you make out what he says?" Charlie said.

"Ayez peur," repeated the bird, and pecked at his seed.

"I believe I can," I said, "though he has not perfectly mastered the consonants. Does he not say 'I hate beer'?"

"Ayez peur," said the bird for the third time and defecated on the floor of the cage.

"Yes, that is undoubtedly it," I went on. "Does he abstain from all liquor, or is it only beer that arouses his disgust?"

My feeble attempt at wit struck the boys as exquisitely funny. We talked for a few minutes more until Edgar touched his companion's arm.

"We must walk on, Charlie," he said. "Mr Allan will not be happy if his clerk is kept waiting."

Charlie bent over the cage and carefully restored the blue cover.

Edgar said, his voice so low that only I could hear: "Mrs Frant goes to the burying ground this afternoon, I believe. I heard her telling Mrs Kerridge. Mr Frant's headstone has now been set up."

"There," said Charlie. "It is night again. I daresay Jackson does not mind the swaying of the cage as we carry him, for quite probably it reminds him of the swaying of the trees in his native jungle."

"Thank you," I said to Edgar, and then again, more loudly, "Thank you so much for showing me Jackson Tamerlane. I am sure you will soon succeed in teaching him entire poems."

We shook hands and parted. I stood for a moment watching their little procession hurrying along the pavement towards Southampton-row. And then I too began to move slowly in an eastward direction, though bearing towards the north, so that I would not follow in their footsteps.

I blundered along, a man in a trance, sometimes brushing against walls and other pedestrians, sometimes stumbling. Passers-by avoided me, gave me disapproving looks. I felt dazed, as though I had woken from a heavy sleep and found myself in a time and place that were entirely strange to me.

In my head I heard over and over again the sound of Jackson Tamerlane squawking out the only words it knew: Ayez peur, ayez peur.

From the burying ground of St George's, Bloomsbury, I heard the cries of children at play, shrill and incomprehensible as the language of birds. Directly to the south lay the stately buildings of the Foundling Hospital, flanked by the gardens of the Mecklenburgh and Brunswick-squares.

Sophie was not here. Perhaps she had already left. Perhaps Edgar had been mistaken about the time or even the place. I tried to summon up her face and for once even that comfort was denied me.

I sought solace in activity. The cemetery looked newly polished in the late afternoon sunshine of a spring day. An attendant loitered by the gate. I gave him sixpence to show me the grave I sought. The headstone was small and plain, raw and unweathered. Here were no weeping cherubs or fulsome inscriptions. Incised in the stone were these words and nothing else:

17th July 1775 – 25th November 1819

aet. suae 44

With his lean figure, Henry Frant had looked younger. The date of his birth stirred a memory: I recalled that according to the tablet in the church at Flaxern Parva his mother Emily had departed this life in the same year: perhaps she had died in childbirth, or from complications arising from it. I had a sudden vision, at once unexpected, intense and unwelcome, of a small boy alone among the servants in that great house at Monkshill; growing up without a mother, and with a father dedicated to dissolute pursuits that took him far away from his child; and, when Monkshill had to be sold, of a boy removed from the comfort of the familiar and sent to live among strangers in Ireland. Henry Frant was, or had been, a gentleman: but perhaps there had been little to envy in his situation.

I turned aside and paced up and down the gravel walks, the refrain of that unlovely fowl never far from my mind. A funeral procession passed me and automatically I uncovered and stood aside. Oh, the awful panoply of death! The last of the mourners went by. And there, hurrying away along a path at right angles to the procession, was the unmistakable figure of Sophie Frant. She was quite alone.

I walked rapidly in pursuit. Widow's weeds often mask their wearers with a layer of anonymity: even when the face is unveiled, one sees the widow, not the woman. There was no mistaking Sophie, though. I recognised every line of her body; I had traced in fact and in fancy the curve of her neck; I knew her posture and I knew the way she walked, with her eyes turning from side to side; for her mind was always alert, always watchful, always interested.

She heard my footsteps on the gravel behind her and stood aside to let me pass, pretending to study an inscription. I drew level and stopped. Slowly her head turned towards me.

I bowed. Neither of us spoke. There we were, four or five feet apart. I was aware of the cortege winding its way to an open grave within a stone's throw of the place dedicated to the mortal remains of Henry Frant. It was a fine afternoon, and there were others visiting the dead. Here, among the graves, a tide of living humanity ebbed and flowed around us.

She pushed the veil away from her face. It was always her eyes that drew me. I took a step nearer, then stopped as though chained to my situation like a dog in a yard. At Monkshill, seeing her every day, dining at the same table, walking in the same grounds – all this had bred a false intimacy between us, in the sense that it had seemed entirely natural for a woman in her position to treat me almost as her equal. But these last three months apart had dispelled this rosy mist of illusion: now, seeing her again, I could not help but be aware of the great chasm that lay between us: of the contrast between my shabby second-hand clothes and the dark elegance of hers. I did not recognise her cloak, or the pelisse or gown I glimpsed beneath.

"Tom," she said, "I – I must not see you."

"Then why did you not write me an answer to my note? Why leave me in suspense?"

She winced as if I had hit her. "That was not what I intended. I thought a clean, immediate break was best."

"For whom?"

She looked directly at me. "For me. And perhaps for you. Besides, further intercourse between us would not be kind to my cousin."

"To Miss Carswall? But what has she to do with it?"

"You should know that better than I, sir."

I felt myself grow warm. "Sophie – my dear, please: if you mean that last evening in Monkshill, Miss Carswall came to the schoolroom merely to wish me goodbye and to lend me some money for my journey. It was an act of kindness, nothing more."

She turned her head away, and her hat and veil obscured her face. "Even if that is true, there is another reason why I must not see you or write to you."

"Is this because of the accusation Mr Carswall has fabricated against me?"

She shook her head. "I knew that was nonsense. So did Flora."

"He had someone sew the ring into my greatcoat. I suspect it was Pratt. By great good fortune, I found it there when I reached London. I have made arrangements for it to be returned anonymously."