Charles Palliser (103 page)

“But do you not think, Mr Porteous, that I am safest if my enemies believe me dead, as presumably they will if I simply disappear?”

“It does not matter what
I
think,” he replied rather distantly. “Mr Gildersleeve believes that the situation is as I have had the honour to state it.”

“But how could they find me now? No-one knows I am here.”

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“Are you sure of that?” he said. “My daughter tells me that the captain of the gang you found in that half-completed dwelling in the Neat-houses was the man who broke into your mother’s house many years ago. Can you be sure that that was merely a coincidence? And it it was not, does it not suggest that the man may be an agent of your opposites? And in that case, you cannot be sure that he will not find you again.”

I had to admit the force of this and concede that it might be safer to expose myself before the Court. But then I thought of an insurmountable obstacle:

“But will it not cost a great deal of money?”

“I will pay Mr Gildersleeve’s fee,” Mr Porteous said. “You have no need to concern yourself about that.”

At this I felt my eyes begin to water. As if discomfited by this, Mr Porteous moved his chair a little further back and coughed into his handkerchief.

“You are kind to me,” I stammered out. “You are like a family to me.”

As if to relieve his feelings, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sovereign which he handed to me with considerable solemnity.

“We
are
your family now, Johnnie,” Emma said, pulling her chair forward and clasping my hand. She turned to her father: “May I tell him now, father?”

Mr Porteous nodded and she went on: “If you agree, Mr Gildersleeve will ask the judge to make you a ward of court, giving custody of you to my father and mother. They will adopt you, Johnnie, and then you will really be my brother. And you will be safe.”

“If
I agree!” I exclaimed.

Emma kissed me and Mr Porteous took my hand and awkwardly shook it with a rather uncomfortable expression as if embarrassed by the emotion he felt.

Mr Gildersleeve was to come the next day, they told me, in order to explain what would be required of me. When they had gone I lay unable to sleep for excitement, feeling how very strange it was suddenly to acquire a complete family. I was very fond of Emma already, I was sure that Nicholas and I would become friends, and Mrs Porteous seemed a thoroughly good-natured and motherly being. Yet I felt a vague disquiet all the same. I decided that it was because I found Mr Porteous cold, despite his generosity, and I could not readily accept the prospect of his having authority over me in that mysterious capacity of “father”.

The next morning I was allowed to get out of bed and receive Mr Gildersleeve seated in a chair by the fire. He came at about ten, accompanied by Emma and Mr Porteous, and was revealed to be tall and thin with a sharp-featured face. He was near-sighted and had frequent recourse to an eye-glass which he wore upon a black riband that hung down over his pear-shaped form. He would raise it and peer through it at me and then mutter: “Most remarkable!” If he had not been a Chancery solicitor, I would have believed that he was distinctly slow-witted.

“So you are the Huffam heir,” he said and held out his hand. “I have followed the suit, as have all those in my branch of the legal profession, with considerable interest for many years.”

My visiters seated themselves around me and Mr Gildersleeve began: “The Master of the Rolls will be the presiding judge. First he will need to satisfy himself that you are indeed who you claim to be, and to this end we have sub-Poenaed a witness of unimpeachable respectability to support your affidavit.”

“May I ask who is it, sir?”

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THE CLOTHIERS

He referred to his papers: “Mrs Fortisquince, the widow of a respected attorney.”

“And you have already sub-poenaed her?” I asked in astonishment.

“Yes, several days ago,” Mr Gildersleeve replied.

I glanced at Emma who said: “You see, Johnnie, my father was so anxious to set this in train that he went ahead as soon as he had heard enough of your story from me to know what needed to be done.”

I said nothing, and Mr Gildersleevc continued: “Now, you must be very careful to utter not a word to the Master about being in danger from anyone.”

“But surely that is the whole reason why I am to be made a ward of court, is it not?”

Mr Gildersleeve and the other two exchanged glances.

“Yes, so I understand,” the solicitor said. “But the law does not recognise the same criteria of relevance that we do. We cannot make allegations against another party without positive proof. Otherwise we will simply confuse matters, and we don’t wish to do that, do we?”

Somewhat puzzled, I nodded my head in agreement.

“Very well,” said Mr Gildersleeve. “Now when we’ve established your mother’s death

— a mere matter of form, I assure you, once you’ve proved it upon oath and witnesses have testified to the same effect — then we will ask …”

“Excuse me, please, Mr Gildersleeve,” I interrupted. He paused and stared at me as if in amazement that I should dare to halt him in the middle of his disquisition. “I don’t understand why this has to come up. I would really prefer it not to.”

“You would prefer it not to,” he repeated monotonously. “Master Clothier, I think you fail to understand that we are dealing here with the law. Your likes and dislikes have no place in a court. Your status as an orphan has to be proven. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” I said meekly while Emma made a sympathetic face at me.

“Now, with your permission,” said Mr Gildersleeve, “I will continue. Once we have established this, then we will ask the court to make you a ward, granting custody to Mr Porteous. Now what is important is to make it clear to the Master how happy you are here. You are, are you not, happy here?”

“Yes, indeed. Happier than for a very long time.”

“Excellent. Then I suggest you refer to Mr and Mrs Porteous as your uncle and aunt, in order to show the court how much you consider yourself to be one of the family. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do and I will.”

“Then that is really all I have to say to you now, young gentleman. I will see you in court soon.”

We shook hands and, to my relief, Mr Gildersleeve left with Mr Porteous.

“Well, Johnnie,” cried Emma clapping her hands, “in a few days you will be my brother!”

I smiled back at her but when I was left alone a little late; I could not prevent a certain feeling of foreboding from overshadowing my mind. Events seemed to be moving very rapidly and with a logic that I felt was eluding my grasp.

And so not long afterwards the day came that had been appointed for my appearance.

Since it had been decided — and I fully concurred — that Emma alone should accompany me, a man-servant was assigned to attend us in order THE VEIL

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to carry me, if I should need help. I was helped into warm outdoor clothes and, with the assistance of Frank, whom I had not seen before, boarded a hackney-coach with Emma.

We drove through streets which seemed alarmingly crowded and noisy after my period of seclusion, and passed districts that brought back painful memories: Holborn, Charing-cross, and then Westminster. We pulled up before a dingy little door in St.

Margaret-street and by this undistinguished means entered an outlying building of the Palace of Westminster. Following Mr Gildersleeve’s directions, Emma made herself known to an usher and we were led by him through a series of dark passages and gloomy little courtyards with dripping walls covered in green slime. All around us were the sounds of demolition and construction, for at that time Sir John Soane’s handsome new edifice was building on the site of the warren of ancient galleries that had for so long accommodated the Court of Common Pleas and the Courts of the Exchequer.

Eventually we gained a draughty lobby where we were met by Mr Gildersleeve who was unblushingly clad in the most extraordinary costume that ever a sane man wore outside a masquerade. It was a billowing black gown with gold and purple stripes, the most inconvenient sleeves imaginable — for they hung almost to the ground — and a flowing white cravat. On his head was a grey powdered wig, and on his legs and feet knee-breeches and shoes with huge gold buckles.

We waited while Mr Gildersleeve held mysterious conversations with gentlemen similarly attired, which involved a great deal of head-shaking and narrowing of the eyes accompanied by the minutest possible of nods. After a few minutes an individual wearing an even more preposterous costume and carrying a kind of golden rolling-pin appeared and led us along a further and more bewildering sequence of ill-lit corridors, as if bent upon confusing us completely as to our whereabouts. At last, however, he ushered us into a small and must-smelling ante-room, and, while Emma and I waited here, Mr Gildersleeve went into what I took to be the further chamber.

Some half an hour later, we were summoned by another usher and led through the same door as the solicitor. To my astonishment, I found myself in a huge building, with a hammer-beam roof high above us, like an enormous barn, so large that I could not see its opposite end in the gloom of a wintry afternoon. Emma whispered that this was Westminster-hall and I felt a thrill of excitement at the realization that I was to find Justice in this revered building where Charles himself had stood trial.

In the corner nearest us were a number of benches and chairs facing a raised platform.

Upon this a gentleman whom I understood to be the Master of the Rolls was seated on a high black wooden chair which looked most uncomfortable, and the individual with the golden rolling-pin now placed himself at a little desk before him and laid this object on its surface. The Master was wearing a costume in which it was so impossible to believe that he had knowingly attired himself, that it seemed that it was only by a polite conspiracy among his observers that no-one drew his attention to it. Its principal features were a capacious scarlet gown covered in embroidery executed in gold thread, and a huge wig enveloping his neck and shoulders that constantly threatened to obscure his features if he turned his head too quickly. His gravity clearly derived from the difficulty of keeping all of these garments in their proper place and it amazed me that he had any attention left to bestow upon the legal issues before him.

Emma and I were directed to the front row of the ranks of heavy old chairs 474 THE

CLOTHIERS

facing the Master. There were a number of individuals clad in a variety of strange costumes seated around us who were whispering or rummaging through papers or reading enormous tomes or taking notes or arriving or going out, and among them I saw a figure that was familiar to me: Mr Barbellion. Noticing me looking at him, he directed towards me a tiny bow of his head and I responded in as close an imitation as I could manage.

As I gathered self-possession enough to look around me at the ancient pannelled walls and the high carved wooden chimney-piece in whose grate a vast coal-fire slumbered, I became aware that in the opposite corner at this end of the vast hall there was another and similar court-session taking place. (In fact, it was the Court of the King’s-Bench.) I saw the candles and could hear the murmur of voices, while people came and went in the gloom. It all reminded me of nothing so much as a huge school-room with different forms being conducted simultaneously.

The Master and I were introduced to each other by Mr Gildersleeve and the old gentleman made much of seeing the Huffam heir at last.

“Do you know,” he asked me, “that the suit began when my father was a very young man? In fact, he could not have been much older than you are now. What age are you?”

I told him and he wrote it down, remarking apologetically: “You must call me ‘m’lud’, you know.” Then he went on: “I am very sorry not to see you in better health. Do you feel well enough to take part in these proceedings?”

“Yes, m’lud. I have been ill, but I am recovered.”

The Master exchanged a grave look with Mr Gildersleeve who made a kind of courteous moue as if to qualify what I had said.

“Now,” the Master said, “you are to be entered upon oath. Do you understand what that means?”

I assured him that I did and the formality was completed.

Then Mr Gildersleeve rose, sweeping his robes about him, and said to me precisely as if we were complete strangers: “Will you tell the court who you believe yourself to be : when and where you believe yourself to have been born and who you believe your parents to have been.”

“I am John Clothier, sir,” I began. I told him the date of my birth and that the place was Melthorpe. Then I went on: “I was brought up there by my mother and we lived under the name of Mellamphy which I thought was our real name, but much later my mother told me it was assumed. Her father, she told me, was Mr John Huffam of Charing-cross, London.”

“And what name appears in the parish-register as that of your father?”

“Peter Clothier, sir.”

“All this, m’lud,” said Mr Gildersleeve, “can be confirmed both from documentary evidence and by a witness who is at hand now.”

“Who is the witness?” the Master asked.

“Mrs Martin Fortisquince, m’lud. The lady is connected with the deponent and his late mother and was introduced to the deponent some three years ago by his mother.”

The Master nodded and looked at Mr Barbellion who said: “M’lud, the party whom I have the honour to represent accepts without dispute that the deponent is Master John Clothier, formerly known as Master John Mellamphy. Indeed, we had ourselves assembled evidence to prove this, and I am grateful to my THE VEIL

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learned friend for doing something which appears to be in the interests of my clients rather than his.”

At this he and Mr Gildersleeve bobbed at each other in what I can only call a kind of barbed bow. What Mr Barbellion had said confirmed my belief that the Mompessons needed me to remain alive, but I was puzzled by his suggestion that it was not in my interests that my identity be proved. Could this be an allusion to the danger I was in? It seemed to me strange that he should raise this issue.