The Scent of Death (26 page)

‘What will you do now?’ I said.

Grantford said nothing, though his shoulders moved in the merest suspicion of a shrug. I knew as well as he that New York was full of penniless men without futures – refugees without resources, tradesmen without trades, apprentices without masters and soldiers whose wounds had cost them their livelihoods; immediately beneath this unfortunate class lay a waiting quagmire of rogues, vagabonds and beggars.

‘I am in want of a porter,’ I said. ‘A trustworthy man to mind the door and run messages. Do you wish to apply for the situation?’

By the middle of June, Captain Wintour had recovered from his wound. Indeed, in some ways he was in better health than he had been before the attack on him. His convalescence forced him into something approaching sobriety, a condition that allowed the natural vigour of the man to flourish.

Once he was able to leave his bed, he took regular exercise. He and I would often walk together.

‘Do you ride much in England?’ he asked one day as we strolled beside the East River.

‘A great deal when I was younger.’

‘Then let us do it tomorrow. It is excellent for the health.’

So we hired hacks, former cavalry mounts a little too good to be slaughtered for their hide and hoofs, and rode north from the city. The Captain showed me the rural neighbourhoods of Manhattan. The war had left its scars on the landscape: much of the timber had been cut down for fuel; the better houses were commandeered for military use; and the countryside had been disfigured with fortifications thrown up by the army’s engineers.

Nevertheless, there was much to enjoy – the pretty farms and lanes, the elegant demesnes of the gentry, the orchards, the great tidal rivers and the clean, fresh air. For the first time I understood why its inhabitants were attached to this country, despite its remoteness from civilization and the savages on its borders, despite the primitive conditions and the extremes of temperature in summer and winter: so attached that they would fight for it.

I enjoyed the exercise and I found that the better I knew my companion, the more I liked him. When I first made Jack Wintour’s acquaintance, his wounds had made him peevish; and excessive drinking had coarsened his sensibilities and even brought out a streak of viciousness. Now I glimpsed the man as nature intended him – no scholar, certainly, but manly and affectionate. He was honest, too – he had not forgotten the seventy guineas he owed me after our disastrous encounter at backgammon. At the time I had privately mocked his willingness to think himself as safe as the Bank of England. I did not mock him now. I might not get my money in the end but it would not be the fault of his intentions if that were the case.

One day, as we were riding down Bowery Lane back to the city, Wintour asked if I remembered when he had a fever. I said yes, I did.

‘Do you recall what I talked about?’

‘You said a great deal about Mount George, I remember.’

‘Yes – I thought I had. I had such strange dreams about the place.’ He fell silent for twenty yards or so. Then he burst out: ‘I shall go there, you know. I have talked to Governor Franklin again. He has networks of informers in the Debatable Ground and knows everything that happens.’

‘Will it not be dangerous?’

He glanced at me. ‘I shall take precautions. But pray don’t mention this to my father yet. I don’t wish to agitate him before it is necessary.’

We rode on in silence. I foresaw difficulties ahead if Wintour allied his interests too closely to those of William Franklin. Franklin, the Governor of New Jersey, had suffered much for his loyalty. He and his father, the notorious Benjamin, were now bitter enemies. The son had become the
de facto
leader of the refugees in New York. Suffering had made him implacable in his hatreds. Mr Rampton thought him a dangerous man because he would never compromise with the rebels.

But Wintour would take no guidance from me. A shock to the body sometimes brings a shock to the mind in its train, jolting it from one habit of thought to another. Or perhaps the long hours in bed had given him time for reflection. Whatever the reason, he was now a man who knew what he wanted to do.

In all our walks and rides, in all our conversations, Wintour did not once mention either the slave Juvenal or the box of curiosities.

At the beginning of July, Major Marryot called my office. This was unusual – in the general way of things I visited him at Headquarters. Grantford announced him with what in a more demonstrative man would have amounted to a flourish.

Marryot sat down in the chair I offered and fanned himself with his hat. He did not speak.

‘It’s always a pleasure to see you, sir,’ I said. ‘But is there a particular reason for your honouring me with a visit?’

He jerked his thumb towards the outer office. ‘Isn’t that the corporal in the Twenty-third? The one I sent to see you?’

‘Yes. He was discharged in March – honourably, with a wound – and I took him on as my porter.’

‘How long’s he been here?’

‘Nearly two months.’ I explained something of the circumstances that had led to his employment.

‘And he gives satisfaction?’

‘Entirely. He has become a sort of clerk as well as my porter.’

This was no more than the truth. Grantford had some education – he had attended the grammar school in Wakefield for a year or two. He wrote letters for me on occasion and reckoned up figures.

He also guarded the door – by day and night, for he slept in the outer office. Some of the refugees who visited me became angry and even violent when their hopes were frustrated. Once when he came to my rescue, he was obliged to fell my attacker to the ground. The corporal kept a weighted stick beside his chair by day. By night it lay on the floor beside his mattress.

Marryot grunted. He sounded censorious. But I had the measure of the man now and I sensed that he approved of what I had done.

‘Wintour,’ he said abruptly. ‘Our Captain Jack. That’s why I came to see you.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s applying for a pass to go to Mount George. I thought you’d care to know if you didn’t already.’

‘I’m obliged, sir. Does he go alone?’

‘Not sure. He’s a fool if he does. But he may get an attachment to one of Franklin’s militia patrols. He’s saying he needs to assess the damage done to his estate. But he also claims that his tenants will give him useful intelligence so he can assess the loyalty of the neighbourhood.’

‘Will the pass be granted?’ I asked.

‘Probably. No reason not.’ Marryot hesitated. ‘There’s a feeling abroad that Judge Wintour has been a little hard done by, and that granting the son’s request would be an easy way of making some slight recompense.’

‘Denying the request would be a kinder one, perhaps.’

‘We shall see.’ He hesitated again. ‘I thought you should know. I – I assume that Mrs Arabella is in her husband’s confidence.’

He and I exchanged a glance that assumed quite the contrary. I understood that he believed Mrs Arabella should know and, if she didn’t, that he wanted me to give her the hint.

The following Monday, three days after my visit from Marryot, I looked in at Warren Street after dinner and found Mrs Arabella and Mrs Wintour in the drawing room. Mrs Wintour was fast asleep in her usual chair near the fireplace.

Mrs Arabella glanced up from her sewing at the table in the window. ‘My husband is out,’ she said quietly. ‘And so is the Judge.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s so warm and close, isn’t it? My only desire at present is for some tea.’

She desired me to ring the bell and, a moment later, told Miriam to bring the tea things. I stood by the open window, hoping for a current of cooling air.

Mrs Arabella still looked pale and weary – she had not fully recovered from the events of March and April – from the strain of the Captain’s wound, old Mrs Wintour’s illness and the smallpox inoculations. I had told her that her husband had applied for a pass to go into the Debatable Ground, and I wondered whether this too was preying on her mind.

As I stood there, waiting for her to speak, an intense tenderness swept over me. Mrs Arabella was so desolate, so vulnerable, that I wanted above all things to protect her. I wanted to protect my little Lizzie too, but that was not the same: all men who are not monsters have a natural desire to keep the young from harm even if they come from a different species from their own; and a father has a special care for his own child. What I felt for Mrs Arabella was a darker emotion altogether. To call it pity is misleading. In the alchemy of the soul, pity may be closely allied with other passions and they take sustenance from one another.

‘I apprehend that Mr Townley and Mr Noak will call on Wednesday evening,’ she said quietly. ‘To discuss this projected expedition to Mount George.’

For the life of me I could not understand what Townley could have to do with Captain Wintour’s plan, let alone Noak.

‘I’m sure they have no secrets from you, sir,’ she went on. ‘And I believe my husband will not object if I have a word with you on the subject beforehand. If you are agreeable, that is?’

‘Of course, madam.’

She glanced at Mrs Wintour and made a motion with her head that told me that the word was to be a private one. I stood facing her with my back to the room. She laid down her sewing.

‘I’m afraid I have no right to draw you into this,’ she said. ‘It’s a family matter. If it weren’t so urgent I wouldn’t trouble you about it.’

‘I hope you believe me when I say I have your best interests at heart.’

She looked at her hands on her lap.

‘The best interests of you all,’ I said hurriedly, realizing she might have read more than I intended into my words. Or, rather, more than I intended her to understand by them.

She raised her head. ‘My husband is set on going to Mount George.’

‘I know.’

‘But his father believes it is too dangerous and wants him to stay.’

‘Now he is recovered, Captain Wintour is growing restless. I believe he craves activity.’

‘Do you think he would go against his father’s wishes?’ Mrs Arabella said. ‘And indeed against his mother’s, if she were well enough to be told what is in the wind?’

‘He is very taken with the scheme.’

She would not let me escape so easily. ‘What does that mean exactly, sir? Has he intimated to you that he definitely intends to go whatever the Judge says?’

I did not reply.

‘So I infer that he has, sir,’ she said after a pause. ‘Though whether he would be able to go or not is quite another matter. The truth of it is that my husband may go to Mount George without his father’s consent but he cannot go without his father’s money.’

This was plain speaking indeed. I knew Wintour’s expedition into the Debatable Ground would lead to considerable expense. Nothing was free in New York. Everything cost money or its equivalent in kind or services – provisions, horses and of course bribes; and because of the war all prices were inflated beyond reason or need. Governor Franklin might help Captain Wintour obtain the passes and with information. But that was the limit of what he would do.

‘I must be frank, I’m afraid,’ Mrs Arabella said. ‘My husband’s own resources are quite exhausted at present. He is dependent on his father’s generosity. But the matter is finely balanced because this is my house, and therefore my husband’s, and also because the Judge loves his son and does not want to create discord between them.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘That would wound Mrs Wintour more than anything.’

‘The difficulty seems insoluble.’

‘I understand that Mr Townley has proposed a compromise. That is what he is coming to discuss.’

Mrs Arabella paused. The light was behind her. I could not read her expression. For all the emotion in her voice, she might have been describing the weather or a book she had been reading.

‘He has volunteered the services of his clerk,’ she said abruptly.

‘Noak? But what can he do to help?’

‘He can travel to Mount George with my husband.’

‘Noak?’ I repeated like an idiot. ‘You mean Noak is to go with him?’

‘Hush.’

On the other side of the room, the rhythm of Mrs Wintour’s breathing altered. In a moment it settled again.

‘Yes,’ Mrs Arabella said. ‘Mr Townley has pointed out that Mr Noak is a prudent man – he knows something of the country for he was there as a young man; it seems his mother came from Bedford. He is a man of business, too – Mr Townley believes he would be invaluable as a secretary – he could record any intelligence they pick up on the way and also what my husband finds at Mount George. Thanks to his work with Mr Townley, he is perfectly accustomed to questioning people and weighing up what they say. And of course he would be a companion, too.’

‘And a nursemaid?’ I said with a touch of asperity in my voice, for I felt sorry for Captain Wintour. ‘A keeper?’

Mrs Arabella gazed at me. Then she gave a most unladylike snort. An instant later I understood that she was laughing at me.

‘I do not think it will answer.’ I was mortified. ‘I’m surprised Mr Townley ever suggested it. For a start, the arrangement would surely inconvenience him.’

‘Yes, it’s strange, I agree.’ She hesitated again. ‘But he has been a good friend to us lately and, besides, the plan has its merits.’

‘How so?’

‘It would soothe at least some of the Judge’s fears. And my husband might indeed benefit from a companion.’

‘If that’s true, ma’am, I think he will choose his own.’

‘Exactly so, sir. How well you know him.’ She leaned forward and actually touched my arm with her hand. ‘Which is why it is you who should go with him if anyone does. Would you do it, sir? For my sake if not for his?’

The next day, Tuesday, I went for a walk. I left the office shortly after the firing of the noon gun at the Battery. I told Grantford I would be back the following day at my usual time. I took a small pack with me and equipped myself with biscuits, a piece of cheese and a flask of water.