“Not that they’re worth more than a few shillings,” she said with a martyred smile; she was a mountainous woman with handsome little features buried in her broad face. “More patches and darns than anything else. Still, you won’t want them, will you, so it’s doing you a favour. I’ve only thirty shillings. Will you wait while I fetch the rest of the money?”
“No.” I could not bear to stay here any longer, for I wanted to contemplate both my loss and my good fortune in peace and quiet. “I will take the thirty shillings and collect the balance later.”
“As you wish,” she said. “Three Gaunt-court. It’s not a stone’s throw away.”
“A long throw.”
She gave me a hard stare. “Don’t worry, I’ll have the money waiting for you. Six shillings, no more no less. I pay my debts, Mr Shield, and I expect others to pay theirs.”
I could not resist a schoolboy pun. “Mrs Jem,” I said solemnly, “you are indeed a pearl of great price.”
“That’s enough of your impudence,” she replied. “If you’re going, you’d better go.”
The balloon of mirth subsided as I walked away from the house where my aunt had lived. So this was all that a life amounted to – a mound of freshly turned earth in a churchyard, a few pieces of furniture scattered among other people’s rooms, and a handful of clothes that nobody but the poor would want to buy.
There was also the small matter of the money which would come to me. For the first time in my life, I was about to be a man of substance, the absolute master of £103 and a few shillings and pence. The knowledge changed me. Wealth may not bring happiness, but at least it has the power to avert certain causes of sorrow. And it makes a man feel he has a place in the world.
Wealth. That brings me to Wavenhoe’s Bank. It was Mr Bransby who first mentioned its name to me. I never went there, never met old Mr Wavenhoe himself until he was on his deathbed, but Wavenhoe’s was the chain that bound us all together, the British and the Americans, the Frants and the Carswalls, Charlie and Edgar. Money plays its own tune, and in our different ways we all found ourselves dancing to it.
Early in October, I applied to Bransby for leave to go up to Town. It was on that occasion that he mentioned Wavenhoe’s. I needed to visit London because Mr Rowsell had papers for me to sign, and I wished to collect the few shillings that Mrs Jem owed me. He made no difficulty about my request.
“Upon one condition, however,” he went on. “I should like you to go on Tuesday. Then you may undertake two errands for me while you are there. Not that you will find them onerous – quite the reverse, I fancy. When you travel up to Town, you will take the boy Allan with you and leave him at his parents’ house in Southampton-row. Number thirty-nine. His father writes that his mother desires to have him measured for a suit of clothes against the winter.”
“Will I collect him on my way back, sir?”
“No. I understand he is to return later in the evening, and that Mr Allan will make the arrangements. Once you have left him at his father’s house, you may discharge your own business. But afterwards I wish you to call at a house in Russell-square so that you may convey a new pupil to the school. Or rather, he will convey you. The boy’s father tells me he will order the carriage.” Bransby leant back in his chair, his body pressing against his waistcoat buttons. “His name is Frant.”
I nodded. I remembered the lady who had smiled at me at the gate of the school, and also the man who had nearly set his servants on to me as I walked up Ermine-street. I felt my pulse beating somewhere among the fingers of my clasped hands.
“Master Frant should suit us very well. His father is one of the partners of Wavenhoe’s Bank. A very sound concern indeed.”
“How old is the boy, sir?”
“Ten or eleven. As it happens, this school was commended to Mr Frant by Allan’s father. He is an American of Scottish descent, but resident in London. I understand that he and Mr Frant have conducted business together. Mark this well, Shield: first, a satisfied parent will share his satisfaction with other parents; second, Mr Frant is a gentleman-like man who not only moves in good society but meets wealthy men in the course of his business. Wealthy men have sons who require an education. I would wish you to make a particularly good impression, therefore, on Mr and Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs Frant.”
“I shall endeavour to do so, sir.”
Bransby leant forward across the desk so that he could study me more closely. “I am confident that your manner will be everything that is appropriate. But I must confess – and pray do not take this amiss – that some alteration to your dress might be desirable. I advanced you a small sum for clothing, did I not, but perhaps not enough?”
I began to speak: “It is unfortunate, sir, that –”
“And, indeed,” Bransby rushed on, his colour darkening, “you have now been with us for nearly a month and your work has, on the whole, been satisfactory. That being so, from next quarterday I propose to pay you a salary of twelve pounds a year, as well as your board and lodging. It is on the understanding, naturally, that your dress will be appropriate to an usher at this establishment and that your conduct continues to give satisfaction in all respects. In the circumstances, I am minded to advance you perhaps half of your first quarter’s salary so that you may make the necessary purchases.”
Three days later, on Tuesday, 5th October, I travelled up to London. Young Allan sat as far away as possible from me in the coach and replied in monosyllables to the questions I put to him. I delivered the boy into the care of a servant at his parents’ house. I had taken but a few steps along the pavement when I felt a hand on my sleeve. I stopped and turned.
“Your pardon, sir.”
A tall man in a shabby green coat inclined his trunk forward from the waist. He wore a greasy wig, thick blue spectacles and a spreading beard like the nest of an untidy bird.
“I am looking – looking for the residence of an acquaintance.” He had a low, booming voice, the sort that makes glasses vibrate. “An American gentleman – a Mr Allan. I wonder whether that might be his house.”
“It is indeed.”
“Ah – you are most obliging, sir – so the boy you were with must be his son?” He swayed as he spoke. “A handsome boy.”
I bowed. The man’s face was turned away from me but his breath smelt faintly of spirits and strongly of rotting teeth or an infection of the gums. He was not intoxicated, though, or rather not so it affected his actions. I thought he was perhaps the sort of man who is at his most sober when a little elevated.
“Mr Shield, sir!”
I turned back to the Allans’ house. The servant had opened the door.
“There was a message from Mrs Allan, sir. She wishes to keep Master Edgar until tomorrow. Mr Allan’s clerk will bring him back to Stoke Newington in the morning.”
“Very good,” I said. “I will inform Mr Bransby.”
Without a word of farewell, the man in the green coat walked rapidly in the direction of Holborn. I followed, for my next destination was beyond it, at Lincoln’s Inn. The man glanced over his shoulder, saw me strolling behind him and began to walk more quickly. He knocked against a woman selling baskets and she shrieked abuse at him, which he ignored. He turned into Vernon-row. By the time I reached the corner, there was no sign of him.
I thought perhaps the man in the green