Charles Palliser (138 page)

The old lady put her finger to her lips and then raised her voice: “Come in, my dear.”

The door slowly opened and to my intense relief and delight, disclosed none other than Henrietta.

“You here!” she exclaimed.

The three of us were equally astonished.

“How is it that you know each other?” asked the old lady.

“Dearest Great-aunt,” Henrietta said, smiling, “I was just about to tell you the most extraordinary thing. Do you remember how I have spoken of a little boy I met at Hougham many years ago who stayed in my thoughts?”

The old lady nodded and looked at me, her eyes bright with excitement: “Who claimed the name of Huffam!”

“You remember!” Henrietta cried.

I blushed, for I remembered only too well that it was my divulging of that connexion before Mrs Peppercorn that had led to the Mompessons’ discovery of my mother’s hiding-place with all its evil consequences.

“Well a few weeks ago I believed I recognised that little boy, now grown up, of course, in the hall-boy who brought up the trays to Miss fillery and myself. I decided not to mention it to you until I was sure. And I have come to your room now to tell you that he and I managed to converse this afternoon and that he confirmed that it was indeed he.

And he has a very extraordinary tale to tell. But how is it that I find you friends already?”

“Well, I declare!” Miss Liddy exclaimed. And she described how she had recognised me from my resemblance to my grandfather (rather than to my father), omitting all reference, of course, to having seen me during the burglary.

“John,” said Henrietta, “will you not be missed from your work?”

“Not for a little longer,” I said. “The other servants are less punctilious about their work than usual on high days and holidays.”

The old lady smiled drily: “Then make yourself comfortable and let me tell you some more.”

So I seated myself on the chair by the door and our hostess poured us each a glass of madeira.

“Now first, my dear,” the old lady said to Henrietta, with a conspiratorial A FRIEND ON THE INSIDE

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glance at myself, “we must put this young gentleman on an equal footing with us by explaining how we are connected.”

“That is very simply done,” Henrietta said. “This is my Great-aunt Liddy, who is my only friend in the world.”

She went over to the old lady’s sopha and kissed the faded cheek. “Many and many a time when I was a frightened, lonely little child did I creep up to this room to find comfort.”

“And comfits, my dear,” the old lady said, laughing.

Henrietta seated herself beside the old lady: “Dearest Great-aunt, I believe you alone prevented me from becoming a morose, embittered creature.”

“If only I could have done more for you,” Miss Liddy sighed. “And if only I could do anything to avert the fate that awaits you and you, John, because you are both members of this family.”

Henrietta looked as puzzled at these words as I did.

A thought struck me: “Miss Liddy, are Henrietta and I are related?”

“Yes, but very distantly. You share a great-great-great-grandfather, Henry, who was the father of Jeoffrey Huffam, and that makes you fourth cousins. And so you are both related to me, though neither of you has any Mompesson blood. For you see, I am half Huffam and half Mompesson. I am much more closely related to you, John, than to Henrietta for she and I are only second cousins twice removed. So I think that if it is right for her, then you, too, ought to call me Great-aunt.”

“But not before anyone else,” I said, smiling.

The old lady had not heard.

“Two young people,” she said looking at us keenly but distantly. Henrietta turned towards me and I avoided her eyes. “I was your age once, you know. I remember your grandparents, John. What a handsome bridal couple they were, Eliza and James.” (Of course, she meant my great-grandparents. But hadn’t Mr Escreet said something about this wedding?) “Eliza was the sister … was the sister of someone I meant to marry.” She turned to me and I saw tears glistening in her eyes: “Another John, for your father was named for him. The wedding was to have been on the same day.”

She broke off and after a silence Henrietta asked: “What happened, Great-aunt?”

“He died,” she said softly. “Ah, how many young lives have been blighted by that wicked business! And will be. Now I find the heir to the Huffam inheritance working as a hall-boy.”

“But why in this house?” Henrietta demanded of me.

Miss Lydia looked at me as if to imply that I should not answer. I felt strangely guilty at the idea of confessing to what I had come here for, and even angrier when I reflected that if I had understood Miss Lydia correctly, then the will had vanished and so was no longer in the hiding-place anyway. I found myself almost resenting Henrietta for making me feel these things.

“My dear Henrietta,” Miss Lydia said, “Joseph will be bringing our supper at any moment. He must not find John here.”

“No, of course not,” she said.

And so, relieved at not having to answer, I quickly rose to take my leave.

“Try to come at this time next Sunday,” Miss Lydia said.

“I will do my best,” I replied. “But I may not be able to. If we need to communicate quickly, we can leave each other a note. Put it in your boots 634 THE

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when you leave them outside the door and I will find it and return it, for cleaning boots is one of my duties.”

They laughed and I added : “Only be sure to make your note unclear in case someone else finds it.”

Then I cautiously opened the door and slipped into the passage and down the back-stairs. My long absence had been over-looked in the general hilarity that was still in progress in the servants’-hall. But when I saw how late it was I realized that the nightwatchman would arrive at any moment and the back-door would be locked. It was therefore too late to meet Joey, and I thought somewhat guiltily of the long cold Christmas vigil he must have had in the mews.

I laid myself down on my narrow form that night with mixed feelings. Could it be that the will really no longer existed after all? In that case my undertaking was pointless. Why should I stay on in this demeaning position? On the other hand, suddenly I had found two friends where I had thought I was surrounded by enemies. But could I trust them?

Surely I could. But perhaps even they, like so many others I had encountered, had motives that were far other than they appeared. Everything I had gone through had taught me to trust no-one. I resolved to keep an open mind.

Marriage Designs

We have done our best to reconstruct events as they must have occurred beyond your own experience, and to do so (in my case, under protest) without speculating. I must, however, now be permitted to mention that I have the darkest suspicions about the motives of Mr Mompesson and his mother. For though you may say what you like about Sir Perceval — and he, beyond contest, embodied the vices of Old Corruption — yet for all that he was a gentleman of the fine old English school. His son, however, is a product of a more grasping and less honourable age.

Imagine the scene in the Great Parlour. The baronet is seated on an ottoman with his right leg on a stool. His wife sits opposite and his elder son stands before him with a bold expression — and yet, for all that, looking somewhat shame-faced.

“You have no objection, however, to the girl?” Sir Perceval says.

“None at all,” Mr Mompesson answers. “She’s a decent enough little chit, and fond of me, I believe. Confoundedly so. Though she’s a trifle too long-faced for my taste. Let Tom marry her. That would animate her if nothing else.”

“Certainly not,” the baronet says angrily. “And apart from any other objections, such a course of action would not save the estate anyway. Not with the codicil accepted and now a Receiver appointed.”

His wife and son look at each other and she shakes her head very slightly.

“There are ways of achieving that end by this means, Sir Perceval,” she says.

He glares at her : “I understand your meaning very well, but I will countenance nothing that would be dishonourable.”

“Dishonourable!” she repeats scornfully. “Is it honourable to be publicly bankrupted, to be sold up and see one’s house and possessions fall beneath the hammer for the amusement of one’s friends?”

“There’s no question of that. I insist that both the honour and the security of our family demand that David do as I require.”

“And I insist that he need not.”

“Then, madam, how dare you defy me!”

“Pray calm yourself, Sir Perceval.”

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“I am calm!” he shouts.

“I don’t believe you appreciate the gravity of the situation,” his wife says coldly.

She glances at her son and nods slightly.

“I need rhino, Father,” Mr Mompesson says. “Soon. And a great deal of it. And that is why I must marry Miss Sugarman. She has a clear ten thousand a year.”

“I forbid such a thing!” the baronet cries, his face quite purple. “Our family … one of the oldest … the most honourable … English!”

He falters and breaks off, gasping for breath.

The other two watch him in silence until he regains his normal rate of breathing.

Then his son says coolly. “You don’t understand. I’m in over my eyebrows,

“Your creditors will have to wait,” the baronet says bitterly. “Wait patiently until I die.

That won’t be far away. This thing has almost eaten my vitals away.
You’ll
have to be patient, too.”

“That won’t help me much,” Mr Mompesson says. He and his mother exchange a glance and he says: “To tell you the truth, I’ve compromised my expectations.”

His father stares at him and then asks: “Do you mean post obits?”

“Yes. Everything’s mortgaged.”

“Everything?” Sir Perceval demands. “You told me it was two thousand.”

“That wasn’t quite the whole truth. To be absolutely frank, Father, it’s twenty thousand.”

“So much!” the elderly baronet gasps. He pauses and then continues slowly and indistinctly: “You signed away your inheritance to the Jews while I’ve been struggling to hold it together?”

“I had to have tin, Father. How do you expect a fellow to live without it?”

“Who holds your bills?” his father asks, speaking thickly.

Before answering Mr Mompesson glances at his mother. After a moment she nods.

(And if I may be permitted for the first and last time to venture such a remark, I believe that nod amounted almost to murder.)

“Old Clothier has been buying them up. Deuce take him!”

“What?” The baronet’s visage goes a purplish-blue and he begins to gasp for breath.

Then he turns onto his side, clutching his left arm.

His wife and son exchange a look. Then she rises and moves towards her husband while young Mompesson slowly crosses to the chimney-piece and pulls the bell-rope.

During the next few days I thought constantly about my new friends and longed for the moment when I could meet them again. The opportunity came the following Sunday when I managed to get to Miss Lydia’s room as before. I found her alone and immediately blurted out the question I had been brooding on all that time:

“So the will no longer exists?”

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“Why do you say that?”

“You said it was passed to my grandfather by Martin Fortisquince and so I assume that it was lost.”

Miss Lydia stared at me and said: “You are wrong. Far from being lost, it was restored to my nevy only a few days later. He had a hiding-place in the Great Parlour constructed to keep it safe. It is there now.”

Relief flooded through me. So the hypothesis about the chimney-piece that the Digweeds and I had elaborated was correct. This augured well.

I told Miss Lydia how we had stumbled upon the existence of the hiding-place and how Mr Digweed and I had failed to unlock it.

Then a puzzle occurred to me: “But how was the will restored to Sir Perceval?”

“That has always been a complete mystery to me,” Miss Lydia answered. “Have you any idea?”

“No,” I said, “for this revelation upsets the most probable explanation of that night’s events.”

I explained to her the hypothesis that Mr Nolloth and I had accepted as the most likely : that my grandfather had been murdered and Mr Escreet assaulted by an unknown person who had entered by the street-door which was left unlocked by Peter Clothier as he left the house.

I went on: “Mr Nolloth and I assumed that the murderer was either a chance robber or an agent of the Clothiers who had been watching the house. But neither of these explanations accounts for the will being returned to Sir Perceval : a chance robber would not have taken it or known what to do with it if he had, and an agent of the Clothiers would have taken it to them and it would never have been seen again.”

We reflected in silence for a few moments.

“You don’t think it could have been Mr Fortisquince?” I asked, for I had long had certain suspicions concerning him. There was a kind of appropriateness, it occurred to me, in finding him responsible for this, too. “That in fact,” I went on, “he did know that it was the will that you had given him to pass on? And that he removed it from the package and then gave it back to your nephew?”

“Having murdered your grandfather in the bargain?” Miss Lydia scoffed.

“Well, somebody did,” I said.

Perhaps her jesting words were the truth : Mr Fortisquince gave the package to my grandfather without realizing what it contained. When he saw it opened and realized its significance, he killed him and restored the will to the Mompessons. It would be very neat if he turned out to be the individual who was responsible for all the mysteries that haunted me.

“My dear boy,” she said, “you could not possibly suggest such a thing if you had known Martin. He was gentleness and honesty itself, and quite incapable even of the tiniest act of deceit, let alone anything else. That is why he was so well-suited to my purposes.”

“It is true,” I said, “that he was very kind to my mother afterwards, though …”