The Silent Boy

‘Stop talking. Free the horse. Then we’ll find help.’

‘Help?’ the groom said. ‘Where?’

It was a reasonable question. They were in the middle of a field. Apart from the bull and the cows, there were no signs of life, nor any trace of human habitation. The hedge at the bottom of the field was a dense green wall.

‘The village can’t be far,’ Savill said.

The groom jerked his thumb towards the gateway. ‘I’m not going near that thing.’

Suddenly, the hedge spoke up. ‘Good afternoon,’ it said in a crisp, ladylike voice. ‘Are you in need of assistance?’

The young lady had a sunburned face and was dressed for walking. Her cloak was spattered with mud. She wore heavy winter pattens that squelched across the field as she approached. The town-bred groom stared at her, as well he might, to see a lady walking alone.

‘You’ve met with an accident, sir.’

‘You are quite right, madam,’ Savill said. ‘I am obliged to you for pointing it out.’

‘And I don’t much like the look of that bull.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Is there a stile there, ma’am, or a gate?’ the groom burst out.

‘Of course there is. I didn’t get here by magic.’ She was still looking at Savill. ‘Just beyond that chestnut tree. Can’t you see it? There is a path along the field boundary.’

‘I think that animal’s coming,’ the groom said.

‘Unharness the horse,’ the lady told him. ‘What are you waiting for? Quick! Cut the traces if necessary.’

Her brisk tone freed the groom from his trance-like state. He unharnessed the horse with remarkable speed and led it limping down the field. It was fortunate that it hadn’t broken a leg.

Savill picked up his portmanteau and offered the lady his arm. The bull watched the proceedings.

‘It’s Farmer Bradshaw’s bull,’ the lady told him. ‘We shall send a message to Mr Bradshaw and have the animal safely confined. No doubt he will have your chaise brought up to the village.’

‘What’s left of it,’ Savill said. The chaise had a broken wheel and the end of the axle had splintered.

As they passed through the gate, he glanced back at the field. The bull had lost interest in them and was grazing beside his harem.

Savill felt ridiculous, even cheated. A crisis was one thing but an anticlimax was quite another, particularly one which must lead to so much inconvenience.

He walked with the lady along a narrow path, strewn with rocks, that ran between hedges. The groom followed, muttering under his breath, with the horse plodding after him.

‘It was most obliging of you to come to our assistance,’ Savill said, breaking the silence long after it had become awkward.

‘I don’t think I’ve provided much of that, sir.’

‘At least you had the kindness to come and share our fate.’

‘Don’t be too sure of that, sir.’ She smiled up at him, revealing very white teeth. She was older than he had thought, perhaps in her thirties. ‘I should have run off directly the bull began his charge.’

‘I hope we are not taking you out of your way.’

‘Not at all. Where are you going, sir?’

‘Charnwood Court.’ Savill flicked water away from his face. ‘Is it far?’

‘The other side of the village. I thought you might be going there.’

‘And why is that?’

‘You weren’t coming from the village or you couldn’t have got the chaise into the field, not with the gate at that angle. I suppose you might have been going somewhere in the village, but I can’t think where. I know you’re not expected at Norbury Park or the Vicarage. So that only leaves Charnwood, really. There’s nowhere else, you see. You can’t get any sort of vehicle much beyond Charnwood.’

There was a silence. The rain continued to fall steadily from a soft grey sky. Savill glanced at the lady. She had dark curls between the top of her collar and the brim of her hat.

He cleared his throat. ‘My name is Savill, ma’am. I have business with Count de Quillon at Charnwood. Perhaps you know the gentleman?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is to say, I have been introduced to him. Have you come far, sir?’

‘London, ma’am.’

‘It won’t help,’ the lady said.

Savill stared at her. ‘I beg your pardon. What won’t help?’

She glanced up at his face. ‘Brooding on your troubles, sir. It never answers.’

Norbury lay at the bottom of a dark, steep-sided coomb. Dilapidated cottages faced each other across the single street. The church was set back above the road among a huddle of gravestones. Chickens pecked the dirt and squabbled with one another.

At the upper end of the village was the inn where Savill had intended to dine and spend the night. The lady introduced him to the landlord, Mr Roach, a brisk, efficient man with bright eyes.

‘Mr Savill, sir, is it? Good day to you – we’ve been expecting you.’

‘Really? You surprise me.’

‘Yes, sir – they sent down from Charnwood two or three days ago to say you’d be coming. I’m to send you up to the house directly.’

‘I was intending to put up here.’

‘No, sir. Mr Fournier was most insistent, you are to go up to the house. But what’s happened?’

‘There has been an accident, Roach,’ the lady said. ‘We must send a message to Mr Bradshaw that his bull is loose. This poor gentleman’s chaise had a smash in Parker’s field because of it.’

It was arranged that the remains of the chaise would be brought to Mr Roach’s barn. The groom would stay the night at the alehouse and return with the horse to Bath the following morning to consult with the proprietor of the livery stables about what should be done and about the thorny question of obtaining compensation from Farmer Bradshaw. Savill, having left a sum of money to defray the immediate cost of this, would travel to Charnwood in a vehicle that Mr Roach had in his stable.

‘An admirable plan,’ the lady said. ‘Now my father will be wanting his tea, and you must excuse me.’

None of the men spoke as she walked away, lifting her feet high above the mud of the village street. She crossed the road and took a narrow path that ran between two stone walls. It led to the churchyard, higher up the slope of the valley. Beyond the church were the roofs of a house that looked more substantial than the cottages in the village.