Charles Palliser (106 page)

“Have you been sleeping?”

I nodded.

“Now you must eat,” she said, making as if to hand me the platter.

I shook my head quite involuntarily for I was determined to eat nothing in that house.

What the implications of this were I needed time to think about, for I could only see my way ahead clearly so far as that.

Emma looked at me sharply: “Well, I will leave it here for you,” she said, placing it upon the table beside my bed. “Poor Johnnie,” she went on. “What a shock to discover your wicked family so suddenly.”

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She spoke so naturally and so comically that I smiled. How much I wanted to believe that I could trust her and that all my imaginings were the consequences of my illness!

“Sleep again and try to eat when you awake,” she said solicitously. “I will leave you now.”

When I was alone again I directed my attention to another puzzling aspect of the business: how had I come here? I could not accept the explanation that had been offered, and now that I hunted back through the complex chain of events in which I was entangled, I remembered that it was the boy who had found me at the old house at Charing-cross who had led me here. At the time he had brought something to my remembrance, and as I tried to recall what it was a number of memories came flooding into my consciousness. Among them was the image of a weary walk through the snow from house to house. Where had I heard of this? Another picture swam into my mind: a fat, cheerful woman sitting in a warm kitchen. It was the kitchen of the house in Melthorpe!
The woman was Mrs Digweed! The boy who had led me here was her son Joey!

In attempting to resolve one extraordinary coincidence, I had encountered another.

And beyond this I could not advance for I could net understand why or how Joey Digweed could be connected with my uncle. It was like that other apparently inexplicable coincidence — that Barney was the housebreaker. Suddenly I wondered if there could be a connexion between that coincidence and this one, for I recalled how I had decided that Mrs Digweed’s visit to my mother’s house must have been connected with the earlier burglary. Although I could not disentangle them now, there must be secret connexions between all these events which proved that there was a conspiracy at work against me. Here was the consequence, not of blind chance, but of a hidden design. And so I knew that it was no mere accident that had brought me here, and therefore that Emma and her father were lying to me.

I was reassured by the logic with which I had arrived at this conclusion. I was not mad: there really was an extraordinary plot to entrap me. Whatever the truth of the matter, I knew I had to get away from these people as soon as possible.

I got out of bed and crossed to the window which I found to be secured by a bolt that I could not move. Moreover, since the chamber was on the first floor, I could see no way of getting down to the ground, and even if I could, I would be in a well-like little court from which there appeared to be no way out except through the house itself.

I had to get away soon for I was determined to eat nothing. And yet I could not let my relatives suspect that I feared I was being poisoned, and so I lifted the carpet by the bed and concealed the greater part of the food beneath it, treading it flat to make the lumps disappear. Then I got back into bed and although during the remainder of the evening the door opened and someone came in several times, I feigned sleep, not daring even to half-open my eyes.

All the time as I lay listening to the noises of the house settling down, I reviewed the practicalities. My clothes had been taken from me on my return from the court yesterday, I was still weak from my illness, and I had no money except for the sovereign.

So how far could I hope to get barefoot and clad in only a night-shirt on a cold night in January? Indeed, where could I flee to, for I knew of no-one to whom I could go for help? Yet I had no choice, for to stay there was certain death.

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I resolved to wait until about four o’clock when the house would be most deeply asleep and the dawn only a few hours away — for the cold of the streets would be perilous. And so as I struggled to stay awake, I listened to the clock on the landing counting out the hours: midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock.

At last I heard the clock strike four. I collected and folded some of the blankets in order to drape them around myself, feeling no compunction at the theft. To my relief (and surprise), the door had been left unlocked for once. I stole onto the landing which was in complete darkness, and very slowly and cautiously I crept down the stairs. There was darkness here, too, except for the glow of the pilot-light of the gas-mantle in the hall, and knowing that the servants slept at the top of the house and the family on the first and second floors, I felt relatively safe down here. Since the back-door would lead me merely into the rear court, I had to make my escape through the street-door. I gently drew back first one bolt and then the other and the safety of the street seemed within my grasp.

Then out of the corner of my eye I suddenly became aware that a door had opened beside me and a figure was standing a few feet away.

“Is this how you express your gratitude?” said my uncle. “Has your mind been so poisoned against us?” He reached up and turned on the gas above us. As it flared up the shadows danced on his face. “How fortunate that I was working late and heard a noise.”

“You weren’t!” I cried, suddenly understanding how naif I had been. “You were waiting for me. Why, you had no light in that room or I would have seen it beneath the door. And that’s why you left my door unlocked!”

Knowing that it was in vain, I pulled at the street-door which remained immovable.

“The key is in my pocket,” my uncle said laconically.

Despairingly, I hammered with my fists at the door and shouted: “Help me! Let me out! Call the watch!”

My uncle moved forward with an oath and seized me. The noise I had made had awoken the house, or at least those in it who had been sleeping. As lights appeared upstairs and voices were heard, I kicked at my uncle’s legs and screamed. My only hope now was to enlist the sympathy of one of the servants. Glancing upwards, I saw Emma and my aunt standing on the stairs in their night-attire. Behind them were Ellen — and I wondered that I had ever thought her face genial — and a young maid-servant whom I had only glimpsed before. The man-servant, Frank, came up from the basement fully dressed at this moment and, apparently taking in the situation at a glance, crossed to my uncle and helped him to restrain me.

“Into the back-room!” cried my uncle, and the two men started to drag me towards the rear of the house.

“You odious little monster!” Emma cried. “After all we’ve done for you!”

“Don’t blame him, my dear,” said her father. “Can’t you see that he’s not responsible for his actions?”

“No,” I cried. “That’s not true. I’m not mad.” I addressed myself to the maid-servant who was staring at me in terror. “They’re trying to kill me!

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They tried to poison me! Please! Go to a justice and tell him what you have seen.”

In a moment I was thrust into a chamber that led off the back-passage. In the light of the candle that someone was holding at the door, I had time only to see that it was bare of furniture or carpets, that it had no fireplace, and that there were iron bars on the inside across the single window which must look into the back-court. Then the door was slammed shut and I was left to the cold and darkness.

I realized that by trying to escape I had walked into a trap. The room was extremely cold and since I had dropped my blankets in the course of the scuffle at the door and there were no bed-clothes, I faced an uncomfortable and possibly even dangerous night in nothing but my night-shirt. I lay down on the bare boards, drew up my legs and folded myself into the smallest possible shape against the chafing cold, not daring to let myself sleep. They were trying to kill me. But I would not die.

Faint signs of dawn were manifesting themselves when the door opened and Emma appeared, accompanied by Frank and carrying food and drink. fixing her eyes on me in the strangest way as if divided between fear, disgust, and pity, she set the dishes on the floor.

“I’ll eat nothing unless you eat it, too,” I said. “And drink nothing but water.”

“I must hope you will get well,” Emma said, “and see how absurd and unfair these suspicions are.”

“And I’m very cold,” I went on.

“Father says he dare not let you have either blankets or a fire.”

She went out, leaving Frank to secure the door after her.

An hour or two later — but it became difficult to measure time — she returned with her father. They looked at the untouched food and drink and he said: “You are killing yourself. And all because you have been misled by that stupid and vicious creature, your mother.”

“Don’t speak of her like that!” I cried.

“I think you should know the truth,” he said gravely. “It was your mother who was responsible for all the evil that came upon my wretched brother Peter. She set out to gain power over that innocent, weak-headed creature.”

“Stop it!” I shouted. “I won’t listen to your lies!”

I tried to put my hands over my ears but I could still hear his words: “She had already tried it with me, but I was too many for her. So she captivated Peter instead — heaven knows, he was such an innocent that it was not difficult — and gained complete power over him. What was her motive? I have often wondered, but I suppose she and that father of hers wanted a share of my father’s wealth.”

“Be silent!” I screamed.

“We’re telling you this for your own benefit, John,” Emma said. “The truth may be harsh, but you must learn it.”

As I gazed into that pale face that I could still see was beautiful though now I saw nothing but hatred in it, I could not decide if she really believed what she was saying. It seemed horribly as if she did.

“Your mother and her father,” my uncle continued remorselessly, “believed they could use my brother for their own purposes, but they were too clever. They drove him mad by trying to poison him against his own family. And it was because of that that he turned against your grandfather and murdered him.”

“I don’t believe he was mad!” I cried. “That was a wicked lie. Mr Escreet 488

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told my mother that what my father said about the quarrel being a charade was true.”

“Told your mother,” my uncle repeated with a sneer. “I warn you, you should not believe everything that woman said. For all I know it was she who persuaded Peter to the murder. Heaven alone knows for what motive. But no act of that woman’s could surprise me.” His eyes narrowed and he looked at me spcculatively: “There’s something I think you should know. I don’t imagine you realize that Fortisquince … ” He broke off and, glancing towards his daughter, said: “But that can keep for later.”

“No,” Emma said with a kind of triumphant smile. “Tell him everything.”

And so now it was that he told me something about my mother — or, rather, about my father — that I could not believe and yet could not dismiss from my mind.

Before he had finished, I threw myself at him and he pushed me away so that I fell on the floor. I lay there weeping with rage and despair while Emma and her father, smiling at me, went out.

Could any of these things be true? I felt the ground beneath me dropping away as I thought about them. My mother a deceiver? A liar? Something worse, even? Concealing beneath an appearance of trusting guilelessness a deeply duplicitous nature? It was true that she had kept from me the amount that she had invested in the fatal speculation. And she had bought that piece of embroidery without telling me. And later on she had become more and more suspicious and secretive, but that was surely the effect of her circumstances. As for what Mr Porteous had hinted at … I could not bring myself to think about it.

At some time later that day — I have no means of telling when — Frank suddenly unlocked the door and threw a bundle of blankets into the room at me. I pulled them around myself as he secured the door again. By now my mind was beginning to wander and I was increasingly unsure where I was or what was happening to me. I only knew that I was trapped and it was now that the idea came to me that I should make enough noise to draw the attention of people outside the house. And so it was while I was holding onto the bars of the window and screaming at the dirty panes through which I could see nothing, that the door opened again and Emma’s father entered. He was accompanied by Dr Alabaster and two strange gentlemen, and Frank walked behind them with a tray of dishes.

“Please help me,” I said. “They mean to kill me.”

As I spoke I was aware that my speech was slurred and I had difficulty keeping my gaze on their faces for they seemed to be great pale moons and I could hardly make out the features or distinguish one from the other.

“What makes you say that?” one of the strange gentlemen asked kindly.

“They are trying to starve me with hunger and cold.”

“Are those not blankets you have around you, John?” asked the stranger. He indicated the tray that Frank was placing on the floor: “And food before you?”

I tried to explain that I had only just been given the blankets but I could not muster the words.

“The food is poisoned,” I said. “I dare not eat it.”

“Come, don’t be foolish. Have something to eat, Johnnie,” the man I had believed to be my uncle said in a tone he had never used to me before.

“I won’t unless I see you eat it first,” I said.

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Mr Porteous looked at the others and they nodded gravely.

“Very well then, Johnnie,” he said with a humouring smile; “if it will set your mind at rest, I will show you it is perfectly safe.”

He spooned some of the food into his mouth and then poured himself a tumbler and drank it off.

“Oh, of course these are safe enough now!” I cried. And seizing the food and drink I consumed them with the ravenousness of a hungry dog while the gentlemen watched gravely.