The Brothers Boswell (30 page)

Johnson can only stare at it, confused perhaps by the dull sheen of gold.

And as he does so, I cock the piece audibly with my thumb. I swivel the muzzle so that it faces directly into the white hole produced by the missing button on Johnson’s waistcoat. It feels good to point the weapon directly at him, directly at his large body. And it has a remarkable effect on the volume of the conversation, as well.

“John,” James manages, testing rather than breaking the silence.

I say nothing, and Johnson—drawn up stiffly against the wall bench, fists balled, face a gathering thunderhead—remains mute as well.

Only then does the depth of James’s enchantment become clear: rather than address me, and the gun in my hand, and the present threat to his own safety, he can think only of clearing his name with Johnson. “Sir, my brother is not well, has not been well. It has been a difficult few months. I should have told you before now. John has been hospitalized. His history of—”

I shift my gaze, but not the piece in my hand. “It is
our
history, James. We are a half-mad race, we Boswells. Do not deny it. I’m sure Mr. Johnson would prefer the truth of the matter, rather than fairy tales.”

Johnson speaks then, nearly sputtering with rage. Still, the voice is low, and respectful of the weapon finally. “You have no idea
what
I would prefer, sir. You have no idea how civilized men
behave.
I will thank you never to speak in my name.”

I look at him, and let my own voice come up. “And I will thank you to remember which of us can snuff out the other like a candle flame, sir.” I pause a moment to let the threat settle in the warm
air. There are only two reasons to draw a weapon—one is to kill outright, and the other is to manage behavior. In the second case, it is best to clarify the sort of behavior you seek as quickly as possible, better for all concerned.

“I’ve come to have a conversation with you both, a conversation I have found difficult to start in any other way. And I intend to manage this conversation very carefully, and believe me when I say that I will sooner see one or both of you dead than see it go unfinished. Honest answers are all that I ask, and such answers are the only door out of this room for the two of you. I’m afraid you must take me at my word. But I am yet a man of my word: if you deal honestly, no harm will come to either you.”

James has always been on the heavy side, prone to sweating through his vests under the best of circumstances. Now his face all but shines in the light. This moment is precisely what he’s feared since I came up to London in January—that I will shame him, harm him, blast his prospects. He has felt all of this and more, no doubt, but kept his fears to himself. But the three of us shall keep our secrets no more.

“I begin with Mr. Johnson. Do you know the particular word for the object I hold now in my hand, Mr. Johnson?”

Johnson’s lips remain tight. He will not play, apparently.

“It is a word that appears in your own dictionary, sir. Come now.”

James very slowly begins to lean forward, as though to speak with me, and for the first time I move the piece in his direction. “Do not interrupt, James. Surely Mr. Johnson can answer a simple question about the book for which he is so widely acclaimed. Can you not recall the word, sir?”

“It is a
pistol
,” Johnson says finally. He cannot tell whether to humor me, and hope to talk the gun from my hand, or to thunder at me and demand it. And so his answers to my questions are at once careful, withering, and quiet.

“A brilliant response, Mr. Johnson. Your famed perspicacity is on
full display. Yes, it is a pistol. Cocked and loaded, at that. But come, sir, what
sort
of pistol? Any man will call it a pistol, but only a writer of dictionaries would know its more specific name. Perform your function for us, if you will. If you can.”

“John! You cannot talk to Mr. Johnson in that way,” James hisses softly, unable to stop himself.

But Johnson answers in any event. “I am no expert on firearms.”

“Indeed, and yet your dictionary contains all of the various terminology. Where came all of this recorded knowledge if you did not originally possess it yourself? I do seem to recall a story that your clerks—the men who actually wrote the book out in longhand—were Scots, were they not? Perhaps it is they who should be given credit for the work. Perhaps the authorship was more joint than is commonly understood. I hope you take note of this development, James.”

Johnson does not take the bait, drawing short, shallow breaths. “I do not
know
, I tell you. Make of that ignorance what you will.”

“It is a
dag
, sir. A word that appears prominently in your dictionary. Do you know the derivation at least?”

Johnson’s face expresses happiness and joy only with great difficulty; it is designed for outrage, and anger. It is a troll’s face. Now it is doing what it does best: the eyebrows slant down like two great dark slashes, the jaw juts out, and the wild networks of capillaries in his cheeks are aflame with color. His passion begins to get the better of his reason, clearly.

He begins, in a word, to become comfortable with the situation, comfortable enough to begin to assert his anger, and that must be quickly stamped out.

Suddenly, I lift the pistol into the air, my arm tightly outstretched, bringing the muzzle as close to his heart as I am able.

Not close enough to be swatted by one of the man’s big hands, but close enough so that he may actually peer down into the open mouth of the thing and see a world lacking its Samuel Johnson.

Johnson speaks, but very softly and carefully. “You will not
fire. There are twenty men below stairs who will take you the instant you do.”

I continue to sight down the length of my arm, and out over the snub nose of the dag, and my own voice is comparably careful. “This is a very quiet piece, actually. And Mrs. Parry has been told to expect the tumult of a birthday party. With crackers and everything festive. She has assured me that our celebration will remain quite private.”

James cannot restrain himself. “John! For the love of
God.
If that piece misfires, you may kill him before you know it. You may
kill
him.”

“Be silent
, James. One of us has spent a great deal of time learning to use firearms, and that one of us is not you. This pistol will fire precisely where and when I wish it to fire.” I close an eye, slowly. And I allow myself to imagine what it might feel like to fire the piece. I allow my finger to test the very slight play in the trigger.

I realize that I could do this. I could pull the trigger, in fact. A part of me wants to do it, even now, before the man has finished his trial.

And the moment I know that fact about myself, the two men opposite know it about me. The effect is magical, instantaneous: Johnson shrinks back down into himself visibly, bows his head, brings his temper immediately back under cover. There is a story told in London of Johnson threatening to thrash a little mimic who planned to mock him from the stage, one Samuel Foote. Johnson apparently showed up with a cudgel and sat in the front row, glaring throughout the performance. And he frightened the man out of his bit of comedy.

But Johnson has no cudgel now, and it is he who faces the threat. And he is predictably malleable. Something glistens in the very corners of his bloodshot eyes, tears of frustration perhaps.

“Do you know the derivation, then?”

“Derivation? Of what?”

“Derivation of the term
dag.
You know it, or you do not.”

“It is a corruption of the word
dagger.
”

“Country of origin?”

He clears his throat, eyes on mine. The tone, finally, is deadly dry. “I believe it is from the French.”

I lower the pistol and rest the hand holding it again on the table. “Just so. A corruption of the French word. And your definition runs thusly, ‘
A handgun or pistol, so called from serving the purposes of a dagger, being carried secretly and doing mischief suddenly.
’ It is one of your better entries, I must say. Evocative, yet crisp and admirably to the point.”

“Thank you,” Johnson says after a pause, and then allows himself a small, ironic smile. And I find myself smiling back.

It is the first bit of decent acting he has managed. He would take me off my guard, perhaps move the conversation onto lighter topics, our shared love of words, possibly allow James to soothe me with some talk of our parents or our childhood.

But, despite the smile, Johnson’s eyes remain watchful and livid behind it all.

James too has picked up on Johnson’s attempt to lighten the mood, and he makes his own timid gambit. “John, please listen. Mr. Johnson does not know you as I do, and he has no way of knowing your sense of humor. But I think he begins to see, as do I, that you cannot be serious. You cannot be, John. You are paying me back for not welcoming you properly to London.” He reaches for the bottle I had Mrs. Parry bring them. “Let us do so now. And we will continue your conversation wherever it leads. You have my word as a gentleman. But you must put up your weapon, John. You must.”

“I must do nothing of the kind. It is all very much by the book, by definition: I have carried this dag here secretly, and I will do mischief suddenly if my questions are not answered. You say we have never met, Mr. Johnson.”

Johnson meets my eye, remains silent.

“I say we have. I say we have met often in the last handful of weeks. Do you still deny it? Will you put me to the task of telling my brother how and where we have met?”

Now Johnson’s expression falters, much as James’s did earlier, guilt and disbelief chasing by turns across his face. He seems horrified, hunted. He can no longer tell himself that our secret will remain so. He knows now that I will have it out in the light, no matter what may come of it, no matter whom it may injure.

“You are genuinely mad,” he whispers, sneaking a glance at James, only to find that James is anxiously watching him now, rather than me.

James clearly senses something beyond his grasp, and his head is cocked slightly, in bafflement.

“We met on London Bridge, Mr. Johnson. Some six weeks ago. You remember it as well as I. And you came to my room that evening, and you remember that as well. And James at least will know it all, if not the rest of the world.”

Johnson is shaking, physically, with rage or fear it is impossible to tell. But his hand comes down on the table hard. “You lie—I have no idea why, but this is a desperate, unaccountable lie.”

“It is you who lie, sir, and you will admit it. It may be that I can produce witnesses, but there is no need for that this evening. You will admit it, or you will die right there as you sit, atop your plush little bench, square in the middle of your own favorite back room in this benighted, godforsaken little coffeehouse. This is where the much-celebrated life of Samuel Johnson will end. Here and now.”

There is humming silence again. That is when it becomes clear that Johnson would rather risk death than own me to my brother. For he turns slowly to James, and says in a low voice, though more than loud enough for us all to hear, “He has but one shot, Boswell. There are two of us, after all.”

And I see James begin to work those dearer calculations in his own mind.

Only then do I draw out the second dag.

And the sight of it is more than James can bear. Actual tears start in his eyes, and he breaks suddenly into something like confession.

His voice is thick, but anguished, honestly so. “Johnny, I am so
very
sorry for what I have done to you. God knows that I am. I have regretted a thousand times the argument we had this past winter, because you were
right
, I was intent on hiding my life, my friends, my new acquaintances from you. I was unutterably selfish. London was new to me, and I feared that any false move might cause it to be snatched away from me. But that is no excuse. It was unlike a brother. And I am sorry for it, deeply, deeply sorry for it, and you must believe me.”

My brother at least will spill his secrets, confess his sins to his god—half of what I want from this evening. And that is something. So I usher James along in his revelations, and in his self-condemnation, bit by bitter little bit.

“And so you kept me in the back rooms, and the bakeries, and the unfashionable chophouses. And you never once hinted that you were leaving me to wait upon the great and the mighty, did you?”

“It was wrong. I have admitted it. I have asked your forgiveness.”

“And when you were laid up with the case of clap you had courted so long, you told me you were being denied to all visitors, including me. When the truth is that Garrick visited you, and Eglinton, and all the fashionable world. You made it an absolute standing policy to lie to me.”

“I did, Johnny. I am not proud of it, as I told you in March.” He turns to Johnson, unable to meet the man’s gaze. “John found my journal, and saw that I had told him, told him a series of untruths in order to—”

“Told him
lies
, James, in order to keep your routs and masquerades and actors and countesses all to yourself, like a greedy evil little boy with a strawberry tart who must sicken himself rather than break off a piece for another who is starving.”

James now has tears wetting his face. His hair, which he had so
cleverly dressed this morning, has gotten the better of its ties and hangs wildly about his face. He is broken, clearly. The pretensions of social poise and maturity are all in tatters.