The Brothers Boswell (26 page)

Just as I pass the Exchange, a small bareheaded man drifts out from the open arches of the Jamaica walk. It becomes clear after a second or two that his slanting path will bring him directly to my side, if not actually stumbling into me, and I stop suddenly to force him to cross the street first.

Rather than do so, he stops suddenly as well, five or six feet off to my right, and cocks his head at me. He wears no shoes, and the feet are milk-white beneath his breeches.

And I find that I recognize him. It is the mudlark, the one I sent swimming after James and Johnson this morning. The one whose vulgarity would have cost him an eye, had Gil Higgs half the ferocity to which he pretends.

The pattering rain has thoroughly matted down the brown hair, but he is smiling as he stands there. Of course he is a man who spends more time swimming than walking, and so the wet wouldn’t disturb him. And yet there is something uncanny in the smile.

“Out walking in this rain, are we?” he asks suddenly. The smile gives way to a look of exaggerated curiosity, as though the question is also somehow a joke at my expense. There is no salutation, no bow of the head, no s
ir
to render the question any less provoking.

There is also no overt threat in his posture. He is a smallish man, but I remember the muscles in his arms and back. And a knife or a razor can always do what muscle cannot. Far too much effort has gone into this evening to allow it to be sidetracked, however, even a bit.

Watching his face, I put a hand inside my coat pocket, and find the dag there.

He takes in the movement, but shows no real fear. Only the same mock-surprise. He goes on then: “Might wager Old Greenwich was a bit of a disappointment, day like today. Didn’t get in all the sights you’d planned, have to imagine.”

“That’s none of your affair,” I say quietly.

He considers that, then throws back more nonsense: “’Tisn’t my affair? Well, isn’t
that
a shame, then? Hoardin’ it all up for yourself, this affair here?”

The challenging smile breaks over his face again, and suddenly it dawns on me: this young man, maybe two or three years older than myself, is himself well down the road of insanity. Now that I’ve placed it, I recognize the behavior from Plymouth and remember it well, for nothing could be more striking. The complete and utter disregard for rank and custom, the sly winks that say everything is a plot and everyone a plotter.

And I feel myself relax a bit. Here is no cutpurse, no threat. Here is a relatively well-functioning lunatic, a man whose mind fastens on the banal, the meaningless, and forces it to signify. I have dealt with his sort before.

“’Twasn’t what you were hoping, Greenwich?” he repeats.

“Actually, if you must know, it was not.”

“Shame, shame. Still, more than one way to skin a cat,” he adds, then takes another step toward me.

“You are out of luck, my friend,” I say, “for we are blocks away from the water, and I haven’t any further errands suited to a mudlark, at least not this evening.”

He stares at me for a moment. For the first time the smile wavers, and something else shows through, something far less sunny. He squints an eye. “There’s some along the river who don’t take well to bein’ called
mud
larks, y’understand. If you take my meaning—
sir.
”

I could swear that there is offense in his tone, as though he were the gentleman and I the shoeless and hatless wretch who has stumbled up out of the rain, speaking in riddles.

“And what do those who take offense prefer to be called?”

“River lark’s got a sweeter sound to it. Much sweeter, most people think.”

I tip my hat. “I shall remember it. And now you will do me the favor of getting on about your business.” Both he and I continue to ignore my odd posture, right arm held across my chest, hand still thrust into the inner coat pocket there, dag still curled against the palm of my hand.

He looks at me and then takes a step or two closer. Again, the mark of the truly mad: an instinct for survival so faint that they will cut off their own toes to see if it is possible to walk without them. He certainly must know from my red coat that I can defend myself.

Yet finally his gaze does come to rest on the hand I have thrust in my pocket. And he stops with still a foot or two between us. Then he shakes his head, almost chuckling to himself, even muttering a word or two under his breath. Finally, in a bid for sarcasm, he answers me as properly as he is able, which suggests more than a bit of schooling at some point in his drifting: “Well,
perhaps
you will do me the very
grand
favor of telling me, sir, just what exactly
is
my business this night,
sir?
”

He is looking at me with such intensity, head cocked again to one side, that finally I can do nothing but laugh myself. The earnestness, mingled with the absurdity of his milk-white feet jutting from his flannel breeches, it is all too much. This is the effect of the Thames running in and out a man’s ears for the better part of a lifetime.

“You try a man’s patience,” the lark continues, and he seems utterly serious.

Which is about all I can stomach of his insolence. “Off with you,” I tell him. Suddenly I stomp my boot on the cobbles, and he flinches, actually bringing a hand up to shield himself, taking a quick step back.

And then, as the mad are wont to do, he becomes suddenly
solicitous, as though the heavens were about to come crashing down upon him, and only my advice could save him. He is all but wringing his hands now.

“I should go about my business, then?” he asks plaintively. “Find my place and stick to it?”

“Always good advice,” I answer, resuming my unhurried movement back up Cornhill, “for a young man who would avoid the gallows.”

T
HE WEATHER HAS
turned genuinely vicious by the time I finish the deliberate stroll up the Strand. The wind and the rain now have real bite; although it is late July, one can feel winter teething. Every fourth merchant seems to have shirked his duty to light the street; every fourth cobblestone seems to sink under my shoe, driving up needles of muddy water. But the wet stockings and shoes are nothing, less than nothing.

Within the half hour, I will know precisely what James and Johnson have to say
to
me, and what they have to say to one another
of
me.

And these are the only things that matter.

St. Mary’s is entirely dark, not a lamp to be seen inside the looming mass. From the iron fence surrounding the churchyard, one would think it was Somerset House across the way that claimed to be the holy place, the sanctuary for seekers: light pours from the central arch and forms a brilliant semicircular pool there in the street. You could almost dip it with your cupped hands.

And I suppose the Turk’s Head Coffee-House—last in the row of dull brick buildings adjoining the Somerset arch—could be a tiny, subsidiary refuge, for it too sheds light and the voices of men audibly pleased with their situations. The house’s white window frames glow as though newly painted, and from where I stand I can see nearly all of the common room through them, certainly all of the space that could conceal my brother and his now more-or-less tame bear.

To be expected: they are lounging by now in their private room on the second floor, oblivious to all else.

Still, a thick knot of men stands before the fireplace, and I watch them through the window for just a moment to make sure they are all who and what they seem to be, mere idlers and hogs of the fire. Finally, as the woman of the house pushes her bulk through them to tend the coffee pot, they break up and turn and show me their faces and then re-form, never ceasing their empty conversations. They are none of them worth my consideration.

And so when I enter, I look at no one and I speak with no one. A few patrons perk up when the bell atop the door sounds, but seeing only a vague young man of twenty or so, unattractively soaked through, they quickly go back to their coffee and tea and port. I pause only to brush the water from my sleeves and to strip off my hat, and then I walk directly though the place, heels knocking on the planks, as though I have an errand to complete. And of course I do.

Before an instant has passed, I am walking down the dim hallway to the Turk’s Head kitchen, and I would bet a hundred pounds that not one man in the common room could bring my face to mind tomorrow, should he be asked. I have always been less noticeable than my father and brother, but since leaving Plymouth I find I am all but invisible. Light passes through every part of me but the red coat.

Invisible to everyone, that is, but the lady of the house. She is setting down a congealed platter of Welsh rarebits when she catches sight of me, and she all but drops the silver in her haste to come to my side. A boy of eight or nine sweeping beans from the floor looks up at me standing in the doorway, curiously, but the woman pushes his head down to his task as she passes.

She comes up to me, wiping meaty hands on a soiled apron, eyebrows raised knowingly, and a smile playing about her lips. This woman—whose dark glossy hair and sad green eyes were no doubt
fetching when she was a slip of twelve—is another of Johnson’s charity cases, of course. He frequents her house and brings all of his acquaintance here because she is a good, civil woman, in his estimation, and needs the custom. He is determined to lift her house single-handedly into profitability.

And for that—because Johnson has offered her his very public attention and concern—I wanted very much to dislike the widow, Mrs. Parry. I was certain she took his aid for granted. But having come twice in the last week to discuss the details of tonight’s festivities with her, I have seen that no creature could be more fawningly grateful, more utterly in awe of the great man. There is more than a little of the pleading spaniel about her, a fat, mooning, greedy spaniel.

And that has allowed me not merely to dislike her, but to go most of the remaining distance to hating her.

“They are here, sir,” she stage-whispers, “settled in above, just as you wished. They called for their favorite room almost to the second when you said they would.” Her eyes are actually crinkling with pleasure, which is understandable. As coffeehouses go, this one is well aired, but yet it is a dull life of boiling grounds and scavenging coppers. Not tonight, though.

Because tonight I have offered her the chance to plan a surprise birthday party.

It isn’t the sort of party she might plan herself, and there are a few aspects of it that she would have otherwise, but in the main she is delighted to be my co-conspirator.

I show my own teeth and raise my own eyebrows. “That is most excellent news, Mrs. Parry. One hates to have a party spoilt. And you’ve reserved the other two rooms, as we discussed?”

She is nodding before I’ve finished my sentence, so eager is she to demonstrate compliance. “Everything up the stairs is your own, sir, all the three rooms together. I’ve never understood why the gentlemen prefer the room to the back rather than the room
over the street, which has a lovely lookout over the Strand. But I suppose it’s the carriage wheels and the dust. I’ve placed the roast hen and the other things in the empty room, as you wished, and I’ll be taking the gentlemen their meal directly.

“And I’ve just ten minutes ago taken them the bottle of port. Their first bottle was standing just half empty on the table, just as you wished, sir. They were surprised to see the second, for they hadn’t rung, but says I, it comes from an
admirer
of Mr. Johnson’s, and he did look so very pleased. Most evenings the gentleman drink just the one bottle of port, and then maybe a pint more if they’ve a mind to set to it. Mr. Johnson looked as if he might send it away,” the mooning green eyes widened, as though Johnson’s displeasure were the worst of all possible worlds, “but when he knew it was a
gift
, from a man who admires all his books and wonderful writings, well, sir. You could see he looked so very pleased.”

A thought occurs to me looking down at her, the plump face shining with sweat. “Have you read Mr. Johnson’s work, Mrs. Parry? Any of his wonderful writings?”

She actually drops her head. “No, sir. I haven’t, to speak truth. Oh, I am terrible, sir.” Her thoughts move slowly enough from one side of her mind to the other, before reaching her lips, that one can almost track their shambling progress beneath the brunette coils. “I can read, though, as could my husband, and I will read the Good Book of a morning. And my husband would read his Bunyan, whilst he lived.”

“Do you not know, then, for what particular book it is that Johnson is renowned above all others?”

A pause. “No, sir.”

“Truly? You’ve never once heard it mentioned?”

The eyes are wide now. But she shakes her head.

I cannot keep the disbelief out of my voice. “It is the
Dictionary
, Mrs. Parry.”

She gasps, but says not a word, and I cannot help but laugh in
disbelief. “Mrs. Parry, it is the dictionary of your
language.
He is the first man to accurately draw a map of the English language entire. No explorer of China or the African coast has ever or will ever do more. That you and I may understand one another so perfectly is in no small part a tribute to the work of the man sipping port in that little chamber upstairs.”

I can tell that my words will elicit a long, stumbling apology— for her careless reading, for her faulty education, for who and what she is—and it is something I can certainly do without. And so I move things along. “But let us talk literature another day. You will remember, madam, that we will have guests this evening, a goodly number, though I cannot say at the moment precisely how many.” A significant pause then, my eye directly on hers. “And as I indicated when last we spoke, some of those guests will be women, and some of those may be women with whom Mr. Johnson would not wish publicly to be associated. We understand one another, madam.”