Andrew Taylor 2-Book Collection: The American Boy, The Scent of Death

“Where did it come from?”

“The magistrate gave it to me for you,” she said. “The one who was kind, who had served in the Peninsula. He said it was yours, that you had earned it.”

“I threw it away.”

She shook her head. “You threw it at Captain Stanhope.”

“Does not that amount to the same thing?”

“No.” She added, almost pleading, “You could be proud of it, Tom. You fought with honour for your King and your country.”

“There was no damned honour in it,” I muttered. But I took the medal to please her, and slipped it in my pocket. Then I said – and the one thing led to the other – “I must find employment. I cannot be a burden to you any longer.”

At that time jobs of any kind were not easy to find, particularly if one was a discharged lunatic who had left his last teaching post without a reference, who lacked qualifications or influence. But my aunt Reynolds had once kept house for Mr Bransby’s family, and he had a kindness for her. Upon threads of this nature, those chance connections of memory, habit and affection that bind us with fragile and invisible bonds, the happiness of many depends, even their lives.

All this explains why I was ready to take up my position as an under-usher at the Manor House School in the village of Stoke Newington on Monday the 13th of September. On the evening before I left my aunt’s house for the last time, I walked east into the City and on to London Bridge. I stopped there for a while and watched the grey, sluggish water moving between the piers and the craft plying up and down the river. Then, at last, I felt in my trouser pocket and took out the medal. I threw it into the water. I was on the upstream side of the bridge and the little disc twisted and twinkled as it fell, catching the evening sunshine. It slipped neatly into the river, like one going home. It might never have existed.

“Why did I not do that before?” I said aloud, and two shopgirls, passing arm in arm, laughed at me.

I laughed back, and they giggled, picked up their skirts and hastened away. They were pretty girls, too, and I felt desire stir within me. One of them was tall and dark, and she reminded me a little of Fanny, my first love. The girls skittered like leaves in the wind and I watched how their bodies swayed beneath thin dresses. As my aunt grows worse, I thought, I grow better, as though I feed upon her distress.

3

Once again, I walked to save money. My box had gone ahead by carrier. I followed the old Roman road to Cambridge, Ermine-street, stretching north from Shoreditch, the bricks and mortar of the city creeping blindly after it like ants following a line of honey.

About a mile south of Stoke Newington, the vehicles on the road came to a noisy standstill. Walking steadily, I passed the uneasy, twitching snake of curricles and gigs, chaises and carts, stagecoaches and wagons, until I drew level with the cause of the obstruction. A shabby little one-horse carriage travelling south had collided with a brewer’s dray returning from London. One of the chaise’s shafts had snapped, and the unfortunate hack which had drawn it was squirming on the ground, still entangled in her harness. The driver was waving his blood-soaked wig at the draymen and bellowing, while around them gathered a steadily expanding crowd of angry travellers and curious bystanders.

Some forty yards away, standing in the queue of vehicles travelling towards London, was a carriage drawn by a pair of matching bays. When I saw it, I felt a pang, curiously like hunger. I had seen the equipage before – outside the Manor House School. The same coachman was on the box, staring at the scene of the accident with a bored expression on his face. The glass was down and a man’s hand rested on the sill.

I stopped and turned back, pretending an interest in the accident, and examined the carriage more closely. As far as I could see, it had only the one occupant, a man whose eyes met mine, then looked away, back to something on his lap. He had a long pale face, with a hint of green in its pallor and fine regular features. His starched collar rose almost to his ears and his neck cloth tumbled in a snowy waterfall from his throat. The fingers on the windowsill moved rhythmically, as though marking time to an inaudible tune. On the forefinger was a great gold signet ring.

A footman came hurrying along the road from the accident, pushing his way through the crowd. He went up to the carriage window. The occupant raised his head.

“There’s a horse down, sir, the chaise is a wreck and the dray has lost its offside front wheel. They say there’s nothing to do but wait.”

“Ask that fellow what he’s staring at.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, and my voice sounded thin and reedy in my ears. “I stared at no one, but I admired your conveyance. A fine example of the coach-builder’s craft.”

The footman was already looming over me, leaning close. He smelt of onions and porter. “Be off with you, then.” He nudged me with his shoulder and went on in a lower voice, “You’ve admired enough, so cheese it.”

I did not move.

The coachman lifted his whip.

Meanwhile, the man in the carriage stared straight at me. He showed neither anger nor interest. There was an impersonal menace in the air, as pungent as gas, even in broad daylight and on a crowded road. Like an itch, I was a minor irritant. The gentleman in the coach had decided to scratch me.

I sketched a bow and strolled away. I did not know the encounter for what it was, an omen.

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