The Scent of Death (37 page)

‘Madam, you must be mistaken, I—’

‘No, sir, I am not.’ She was speaking very quietly now, and I had to bring my head closer to hers to catch what she was saying. ‘When you questioned me about the death of Mr Pickett – a little roughly, I thought, sir, by the by – you tossed in a question at the end: you asked if he’d said anything to me about a box of curiosities.’

‘Did I?’ My reply sounded lame even to me, and I tried to carry it off with a high hand. ‘That was quite another matter, ma’am, and it concerned government business that I really cannot discuss with a private individual.’

‘Nonsense. I am not a child – you cannot bamboozle me with that sort of foolishness. I thought better of you, Mr Savill.’

‘It’s not nonsense. I have only your best interests in mind.’

She leaned forward, bringing her face close to mine. ‘I don’t believe in such coincidences, sir, and nor do you. You’re not doing this as a kindness – you have some other end in view.’

I smelled the otto of roses she wore. She was so very beautiful in a passion. I watched helplessly as she gathered up the ore and the unopened pouch. She placed them in the canvas bag. Without another word, she left the room, holding the canvas bag to her breast as though it were a baby.

I had no opportunity for private conversation with Mrs Arabella during the next few days, partly because I had pressing business to transact on behalf of the American Department – but perhaps more because when I was at Warren Street she took care not to provide me with an opportunity to talk to her alone. She was perfectly civil when we met at meals or passed each other in the hall. But it was as if there were a sheet of glass between us.

Her unflattering opinion of my motives distressed me. Did she think I was a Government spy? Or merely a greedy individual whose scruples had been overturned by his lust for gold? The simple truth was that I pitied the situation in which she found herself and I valued her good opinion more than was sometimes convenient for my peace of mind.

I considered writing to her, but I had long ago learned the folly of rushing to commit confidential matters to paper where anyone might read them.

Better to wait, I thought, better to hope.

Later that week I had occasion to call on Mr Townley at his house. It was the anniversary of Their Majesties’ coronation, I remember, and as I walked over to Hanover Square, I was for a moment startled out of my wits by the sound of a royal salute from the Battery, followed by an answering volley from the ships of war in the harbour. If any rebel heard that start-ling display of military power, I thought, he would tremble in his shoes.

My visit was by appointment but the porter told me that his master was still engaged with General Clinton’s aide-de-camp; Mr Townley had left a message regretting the inconvenience and begging me to wait a few minutes in the dining parlour on the other side of the hall.

I had barely sat down at the table when a door in the panelling opened with such force that it smacked against a sideboard that stood by the wall beside it. A small child shot backwards into the room, tripped over the edge of the carpet and fell heavily, cracking his head on the leg of the table. He let out a howl of mingled pain and rage.

He was followed immediately by an older, taller child, a girl of seven or eight, who was wielding a broom with unmistakably hostile intent. She saw me sitting at the table and stopped sharply in the doorway.

Her behaviour alerted the boy, who scrambled to his feet and stared at me with huge eyes. For a moment none of us spoke or moved.

Then I laughed.

The children continued to stare at me. I believe my laughter came as a greater shock to them than seeing me here in the first place. They could not have looked more surprised if the table had showed signs of mirth.

I heard rapid footsteps in the room beyond the open door. Two women appeared – a lady, who seized the girl by the shoulders and shook her vigorously, and a black servant.

I rose to my feet. The lady saw me and gave a shriek.

I bowed. ‘Forgive me, madam – I did not mean to surprise you.’

The lady blushed like a girl, and the change of colour was cruelly obvious because her complexion was very pale, almost translucent; the skin was smudged with freckles and pitted with the scars of smallpox. Strands of ginger-coloured hair trailed from beneath the cap on her head.

The servant’s reactions were quicker. She seized the girl. The boy clutched at her skirts and she patted his head.

‘No, sir, it’s of no consequence,’ the lady said wildly. ‘That’s to say, I’m distressed beyond measure – mortified – oh, sir, I’m so sorry, those naughty children will never do what they’re told.’

‘Pray do not give it another thought, ma’am. I have a young daughter of my own.’

The lady waved her hand at the servant, a wordless command for her to take away the children. She took an uncertain step into her own dining parlour. She was small and plump and wore a dress that to my uneducated eye had seen better days.

‘No doubt you have called to see my – to see Mr Townley?’

‘Yes, ma’am. The servant showed me in here to wait for a moment or two. My name is Savill. Have I the pleasure of addressing Mrs Townley?’

‘Yes, indeed – Mr Savill, sir? Of the American Department? You lodge in poor Judge Wintour’s house, I collect?’

I bowed again and Mrs Townley curtseyed in return. She was not quite sure what to do with herself next. Her duty as a hostess, however unintentional, urged her to stay while her retiring nature encouraged her to go. I felt for her predicament and tried to make it easier by enquiring about her children. Jack Wintour had told me that Townley was ashamed of his wife, whom he had married for her money. It was true that the lady was not the most elegant of creatures; but she was civil enough and seemed quite as genteel as her husband.

We did pretty well on the subject of children, so much so that Mrs Townley grew sufficiently emboldened to ask how I liked New York and how it compared to London. When we had settled these matters she returned to the Wintours and told me that she had often seen old Mrs Wintour at Trinity Church before the war, and that the Judge’s wife had been very gracious to her.

‘The poor lady,’ Mrs Townley went on. ‘Mr Noak tells me that she never leaves her own apartments now. Is it true that she does not even know that her son is dead?’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I beg your pardon, sir – my tongue does run on – the subject must distress you.’

‘It’s no consequence now, ma’am. But I’m afraid Mr Noak is quite correct.’ It occurred to me that fate, in the person of Mrs Townley, had presented me with an opportunity. ‘Did you know that Mr Noak used to read the Bible to her before she was confined to her chamber? And of course even now he helps the Judge a good deal with his papers. He is the kindest of men.’

She looked startled at this but nodded and smiled.

‘As I myself have cause to know,’ I went on. ‘He and I made the passage from England on the same ship and he was benevolence itself when I was ill.’

‘Seasickness? I feel for you, sir – how I suffer from it myself.’

I bowed to acknowledge both her suffering and her sympathy. ‘And it was a happy chance that your husband mentioned that he was in want of a clerk.’

‘Was he?’ she said, a frown appearing between her eyebrows. ‘I don’t recall that.’

‘I remember his telling me soon after I arrived that his clerk had just died. Of fever, I think it was. So I proposed Mr Noak for the place.’

‘But Mr Ingham is quite well, I believe. He manages the warehouse by the distillery on Long Island so we don’t see as much of him as we used to.’

‘Mr Ingham was Mr Townley’s clerk? In this house?’

‘Yes. And he was my father’s before that. When Mr Noak came, my husband gave Mr Ingham his new position. I believe he is very competent.’ Mrs Townley gave me an uncertain smile. ‘But of course Mr Townley would not employ him if he were not.’

‘I’m sure Mr Townley is a fine judge of men,’ I said. ‘Which is just as well, since he has so many responsibilities to discharge. Indeed, you must hardly see him for days on end.’

I smiled to indicate that this should be taken as a pleasantry. Mrs Townley had struck me as being so sensitive to possible hidden meanings that she might take fright at the most innocuous remarks.

‘Indeed, he is very busy and—’

She was interrupted by the sound of a door opening and voices in the hall. For a moment she was quite still, her eyes wide and her lips parted. She took a step towards the door in the panelling.

‘Forgive me, sir, I forgot – I really must withdraw – and I should not have— I forgot to offer you any refreshments. What will you think of me?’

‘Only what is good, ma’am,’ I said softly, in case our voices might carry to the hall. ‘Thank you for a most agreeable conversation. I was in no need of refreshments. Perhaps you would prefer me not to mention that I distracted you from your duties? It was most unkind of me.’

Mrs Townley nodded violently and mouthed the words, ‘Thank you.’ She slipped from the room so quietly that I did not even hear the click of the lock.

The voices in the hall grew louder. Then came the bang of the hall door as the porter closed it. The parlour door rattled and Mr Townley swept into the parlour in a flurry of smiles and bows.

‘Forgive me, sir – you remember my little
entrepôt
at Norman’s Slip? I needed to ensure that a shipment to our gallant men at Paulus Hook would go out this evening. The military mind seems quite incapable of understanding that the movements of the tide are simply not within my control.’

He took me into his private room and offered me wine.
I had call
ed on him partly for the monthly returns of arrests he compiled, which I would forward, with my comments, to Mr Rampton, and partly to discuss the billeting of certain refugees who had influential friends in Westminster.

We dispatched our business within twenty minutes and chatted for a while over our wine. I did not mention my encounter with Mrs Townley and his children. But I did raise the subject of the winter programme at the Theatre Royal. I told him I intended to take a box when the season began in December.

‘The Wintours will not be able to come because they’re in mourning of course. But I hope you will join me, sir.’

‘With pleasure,’ Townley said.

‘And Mrs Townley, as well, if it would amuse her?’

‘I thank you on her behalf, sir, but no,’ he said quickly. ‘She rarely goes out of an evening and, besides, she does not find the theatre agreeable.’

I left the house soon afterwards. As he rose to show me out, Townley’s eyes fell upon a paper lying on his desk. He took it up and waved it at me.

‘I had almost forgot. A refugee was asking for you.’

‘Nothing surprising in that,’ I said. ‘I’ll soon have another claimant waiting on the stairs at Broad Street.’

‘The officer who registered her arrival made a note. It appears that she said she knew you and that you would vouch for her.’

‘She?’

Townley tapped his great nose and affected to look roguish. ‘I wondered at first if you’d engaged in an affair of the heart. At last. But not in this case, I fancy – she’s no more than a girl, it seems, and a shabby little thing at that.’ He peered at the paper, for he was a vain man who would not succumb to spectacles. ‘Mirabel something? No – Mehitabel. Mehitabel Tippet.’

They were holding Mehitabel Tippet at the Provost, a bleak building on the north-west side of Bowling Green that was used mainly as a prison. I went directly there from Mr Townley’s house.

Part of the establishment had been commandeered as temporary accommodation for refugees who arrived in the city without means of support or friends to vouch for them. These unhappy people eked out a miserable existence. They were detained in two long rooms, men in one and women in the other, and allowed to exercise in the yard between them.

The rooms were partly below ground level, which at least kept them cool in summer. Overcrowding was a problem for the city received far more refugees than it could handle and those without resources of their own put an intolerable strain on the government.

They knew my face at the Provost for I was frequently obliged to go there by way of business. A clerk conducted me down the stone stairs to the room where an official served as a sort of turnkey controlling the comings and goings of the refugees. He was a red-faced Virginian who had grown plump on the pickings from his position.

He had no bribe from me. But he was all bows and compliments and attempts at discreet self-advertisement for he had an inflated notion of my influence at Headquarters and of the perquisites within my gift.

‘A girl was brought in either yesterday or earlier today,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Mehitabel Tippet, and she’s from Westchester County.’

‘I know, sir. Nearly bit my hand off when we admitted her.’

Dear God, I thought, she makes a habit of it: she bit poor Grantford too.

‘Bring her to me now.’

‘Yes, sir, of course. Will you talk to her in here?’

‘You misunderstand me. She is to be released into my care.’

His eyes narrowed. I wondered what construction he put on my order. There was a rumour that he was not above extorting sexual favours from the women in his custody; and the worse a man is himself, the more likely he is to impute the worst motives to others.

But he knew better than to try to find out. Puffing with exertion, he hurried away, calling to the matron who oversaw the women’s wing. Ten minutes later the two of them returned, with the girl between them like a filbert poised between a pair of enormous nutcrackers.

I should not have known her if we had passed in the street, though it was not two months since we had met. She had been thin, I remembered, with a mass of dark hair. But a child still. Her gown had been patched and faded but it had been clean.

She wore the same gown, now stained and torn as well as patched and faded. She was as thin as ever; her hair was even more tangled than it had been when we caught her poaching fish by the lake at Mount George. Her face was no longer clean, though someone had made a rough-and-ready attempt to wash it, leaving smudges of moisture on her dress.