Andrew Taylor - The Silent Boy

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 your pardon, sir. A touch of toothache.’

The Count waved at the doctor. ‘Have Gohlis make you up a dose before you go to bed.’

‘Of course, my lord,’ Gohlis said, and swiftly lowered his eyes. A moment later he begged permission to withdraw, so that he might make up the medicine.

When the three of them were alone, Savill said, ‘Forgive me for raising the subject, my lord, but we have business to discuss.’

‘Of course we do.’ Both the words and the tone were obliging but somehow the Count contrived to suggest that Savill had committed a breach of good manners, for which of course he was forgiven. ‘But it’s growing late,’ he went on, ‘and we’re all tired. You especially, sir, no doubt after your terrible journey. We shall leave it until the morning when we are fresh.’

He spoke pleasantly enough but he left no room for manoeuvre.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Joseph entered with a letter on a salver, which he handed to Fournier with a murmur of apology.

The latter broke the seal and skimmed its contents. With a snicker of laughter he tossed the letter on the table.

‘Something amusing?’ the Count asked. ‘Can it be shared? Or is it a private pleasure?’

‘The letter is from the Vicar – Mr Horton.’

‘He will not call on us,’ the Count said to Savill. ‘I fear he disapproves of us.’

Fournier smiled. ‘But this is different. It is by way of a professional matter.’

During the evening, the wind freshened, bringing draughts throughout the old house with its warped doors and creaking floorboards, and sending flurries of rain to beat against the windows.

They met again for supper. Afterwards the Count retired early to write letters. Savill sat with Fournier and Gohlis in a small parlour with a smoking fire.

The doctor had given Savill a dose of medicine – four drops in a glass of warmed water flavoured with brandy. Within half an hour, he felt better than he had for weeks. The toothache subsided and a sense of well-being spread throughout his mind and body. The medicine’s benevolent glow allowed him to ignore the faint – and surely unjustified – fear that he might have been unwise to trust himself to the ministrations of the Count’s personal physician.

‘The man who understands pharmacology,’ Gohlis said when Savill thanked him, ‘understands human happiness.’

‘Then it’s regrettable that pharmacology does not provide a drug to cure the dumb,’ Fournier said.

‘Not yet, sir,’ the doctor said eagerly. ‘But we make great strides every day. We have come a long way since poor Dr Ammam, who ministered to the dumb in the last century. He believed that to be mute was to be spiritually null, since man needs to be able to speak, for otherwise he does not resemble God the creator and God the son.’

‘It’s curious that the Ancients touch so rarely on the subject,’ Fournier said. ‘The affliction of being dumb, that is. The blind often have a heroic stature ascribed to them – consider Oedipus, for example. Or they have a peculiar wisdom, as Tiresias does. Even Samson, one might argue, does not attain his full moral stature until he has been blinded.’

‘Perhaps the Ancients sensed a truth that Science is now confirming,’ Gohlis said. ‘Mutes are often brutish creatures, less than human. Buffon mentions a case in his Histoire Naturelle of a young man born mute who learned to speak suddenly when he was twenty-four years of age. Despite having been trained in the outward observances of religion, he was found to have no conception of the soul or of salvation.’

Fournier smiled. ‘Is having no conception of the soul necessarily a sign of being less than human? One might even say it is a sign of a superior type of humanity. A type that transcends a need for a personal god.’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Gohlis was growing heated. ‘But in this case, it seems, the young man’s external piety concealed the mental faculties of a mere animal. And this is but one case among many. Herder records the story of a dumb boy who watched a butcher killing a pig and then promptly killed his brother, in the same way, for the simple pleasure of imitation. He felt no remorse whatsoever.’

‘But surely Charles has not always been dumb?’ Savill said. ‘Only for a few weeks.’

‘True, sir. But how long will the condition last, that is the question, and what will be its effects? Speech, it seems, is the wellspring of civilization, of our moral and intellectual life. Why, when I was last in Königsberg, I heard Professor Kant remark that the dumb can never attain the faculty of Reason itself, but at best a mere analogy of it.’

‘Then what treatment do you recommend, sir?’ Savill asked.

‘The continuation of what we have been following: a strict regimen, together with the occasional short, sharp shock to the system.’