Charles Palliser (145 page)

“My dear child, I am a very old woman. I cannot be held responsible for my actions.

And as for living, it’s a bad habit that people of my age often get into, and I intend to break myself of it before it becomes irremediable.”

I thought I began to comprehend and was about to speak when there was a loud knock at the door. We looked at each other in alarm. We had been so engrossed in our conversation that we had heard no approaching tread.

“You must not be found here again, John,” Henrietta whispered.

At this moment the door-handle was turned several times.

“Quickly,” said Miss Lydia taking my arm and pushing me towards the door into her bed-chamber. “In there. And take the money.”

I grasped the bag that she thrust into my hand and hurried into the dark little closet as she closed the door behind me.

After a moment or two I heard a voice I had not heard for many years and that had grown no sweeter with the passage of time :

“Why was the door locked? I suppose you’ve been encouraging this wretched girl to hold out in her resolve. I think the time may have come to forbid this intercourse between you.”

There was a murmur and then the voice came again:

“Leave us, child. Your great-aunt and I have something to discuss in private.”

“Very well, Aunt Isabella.”

I heard the door into the passage open and close and when Lady Mompesson spoke again her voice was cold with barely suppressed fury: “Well, Miss Mompesson, your most recent outrage exceeds all the others. Are you so foolish as to believe that it could fail to come to my notice? At such a critical juncture with a great deal of wild speculation about the solvency of my husband’s estate and my son’s indebtedness, it was the worst step that a member of this family could have taken. But then, I suppose that is why you did it. All your life you have sought to damage the interests of your nearest. You, who were born into it, have passed up no opportunity to harm this family, while I who only married a Mompesson, have devoted my whole being to furthering their interests. I presume you never forgave your parents for that scandal which was entirely the consequence of your infamous conduct and which brought shame and humiliation upon them. I know you are obsessed with the desire for revenge. I don’t know quite what you imagine your parents did, but the truth is that it died. You were told so at the time and it was the truth.”

She paused and I heard a barely audible mumble.

“But to part with it for so little!” Lady Mompesson continued. “Did you not see how that would damage our credit? Instantly all the promissory bills that my son has been so ill-advised as to accept during the last few years, were presented for payment. My husband’s own debts and David’s post-obits will require new MARRIAGE DESIGNS

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mortgages to be taken out, but already the existing mortgagees are threatening to foreclose. What have you to say for yourself ?”

I heard only an indistinct mutter.

“I do not understand you,” the harsh voice resumed. “You become more incoherent every day. I can only suppose that this was an act of foolish senility. What could you want with so much money all at once? You have all an old woman could need, haven’t you? Well, you have made your bed and now you must lie upon it. Henceforth you may expect no charity from anyone in this house.”

There was another pause and then Lady Mompesson resumed: “Either this is a device, or you have really lost your wits. But in either case, you have shewn yourself to be incapable of managing your own affairs and must take the consequences.”

I heard rapid steps and then the door slammed.

I lingered for a moment, speculating on something that Lady Mompesson had said.

An idea came to me. Was this the answer to why the old lady had been so moved by Anna’s story and so evasive about her aunt’s connexion with her own? I felt as if the final piece of the puzzle were now in my hands, but because I could not make out the pattern I did not know where it belonged. And I dared not challenge her.

Cautiously I opened the door into the sitting-room, not knowing quite what I would find.

To my relief, however, the old lady’s bright eyes were sparkling at me from her flushed face: “Wasn’t she angry! I could almost have done it just for that alone!”

“Miss Lydia, what have you done!”

“Brought the whole family upon the parish, I am to believe,” she cried in delight.

“What stuff and nonsense!”

“I cannot take this money,” I insisted, holding it out to her.

“fiddlesticks!” she cried. “I will be all right. And it is the dearest wish of my heart to see Justice done.” She lowered her voice and came forward a few steps to grip my arm:

“And to see Henrietta made safe. You will make her safe?”

“Yes, to the best of my ability.”

She gazed at me earnestly: “I believe you care for her.”

What did she mean? If she meant what I thought, was it true? Under this scrutiny I blushed.

“I thought as much,” she said in glee. “And I know she cares for you. (I have suspected for some time that she is in love with someone, and now I know who it is.) Once that will is before the Court, I believe all will be well. Now take that and go before anyone else comes.”

“I cannot. I have no pockets and the bag is too big to hide. Let me take just a few coins now.”

“No,” she said fiercely. “You must take all of it. I don’t know how much time is left.”

Before I could ask what she meant she had seized my jacket and turned it inside out.

“Look, the lining will serve,” she said, tearing it open.

She poured the coins into this makeshift: “Can you take them straight to a hiding-place?”

“Yes,” I answered, thinking of the coal cellar.

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Very cautiously I opened the door and established that the passage was deserted. I bade farewell to the old lady, but to my surprise and before I knew what she was about, she stretched up and kissed my cheek.

“God speed you,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

I went out, squeezing the door shut behind me. As I was making my way along the landing towards the back-stairs, I noticed a door that was half-open. As I passed, it suddenly swung back and I felt myself being seized from behind.

I tried to struggle but my assailant was too strong.

Mr Vamplew’s voice hissed close to my ear: “What were you doing with the old tabby?”

“Moving furniture for her.”

“For two hours? I saw you go in. And the girl and her ladyship were there, too. What have you to do with them?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me what’s afoot or it’ll go the worse for you.”

As an encouragement to me to speak he tightened his grip and at the same time shook me. To my horror two of the sovereigns were dislodged from the lining and fell. He looked down at them and, still holding me fast, bent and picked them up.

“Did you prig ’em or what?” he asked in surprise.

Calculating my best answer I replied: “She gave them to me.”

He put them in his pocket and said: “I know who you are. I remember you from the crack. Are you in league with the old crone to rob the family? Is that why she wouldn’t let me fire?”

I said nothing and he whispered: “Cut me in on the fakement or I’ll ’peach. Why else do you think I didn’t before?”

When I still didn’t answer he shook me again and I said: “Yes, Mr Vamplew.”

He whispered: “Have you any more?”

To my dismay he began to search the lining with his free hand. But at that moment we both heard someone approaching. He pushed open the door of his apartments behind him and tried to pull me into the chamber, but I struggled and he, realizing that the third party was almost upon us, hissed:

“I’ll be watching you. Don’t try to gammon me.”

He relinquished his hold and I was able to escape. As I hurried through the door to the back-stairs I glanced back and saw Will, carrying a salver towards Miss Lydia’s door, looking at me in surprise.

I made my way back to the nether regions and found Bob still in a drunken slumber in the servants’-hall. He would not miss me for a little longer. So, taking a stub of candle from his greasy little closet and lighting it in the scullery, I picked up a scuttle and went down to the coal-cellar. Here, in the only place in the house where I could be fairly sure of being left undisturbed, I removed the coins and counted them over: there were just two missing. I tore out a large piece of the lining of my coat and wrapped them in it.

Then I lifted the biggest of the great lumps of coal which it was one of my tasks to break up before carrying upstairs, and in the space left beneath it I placed the package.

As I returned to my duties I wondered if Mr Vamplew would dare to reveal what he knew of me now and guessed not, since he hoped to profit from his secret. It seemed that I was right for after a few hours no-one had come for me. Mr Vamplew’s interest in me, however, would make it more difficult to visit Miss Lydia and to carry out my great undertaking.

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When Bessie and I had finished the pots and pans I went back to the dark little closet and spent the next twenty minutes working on an old piece of wash-leather I used for cleaning. I clumsily stitched it into a long pouch which I then threaded onto a piece of string. This would carry the sovereigns, and once I had the will I would put it in this and wear it around my neck for safety.

At nine o’clock I saw my chance to sneak into the mews. I collected the money in the cellar, putting it into the pouch round my neck. The chill assailed me once I left the house in my thin garments. To my relief, Joey was waiting for me at the corner of the mews, stamping his feet and hugging himself for it was extremely cold. He thrust into my hand the “spider” — for picking locks — that I had asked him for so long ago.

“I’ve missed some of the last few Sundays,” I said, “because I couldn’t get away. But I came last week and the time before that and you weren’t here!”

“Been busy,” he said sullenly. “And I seen Barney near our crib last week, so I didn’t come.”

This was worrying, though I had no time to consider it then. Quickly I told him what had happened and, first making sure that in the dark no-one was near enough to see what I was doing, pulled open one of his pockets and emptied the bag of coins into it.

“Do you trust me with all this?” he asked with a sly smile.

“Don’t waste time,” I said angrily. “First, take what you need for yourself and your mother and father.”

“Dad don’t need nothing,” he said bluntly.

“Don’t be proud now that at last I can do something for you,” I said. “Then take decent lodgings for me for a month in a good district. Say you’re taking them on behalf of a young gentleman who is about to return to London from abroad.”

“What name shall I say?”

I reflected for a moment and, remembering from the distant past what I had interpreted as a friendly gesture, I said: “Parminter. And say I will arrive there very early next Monday morning. For if I can work out how to open the hiding-place, I will make the attempt a week today. Now this is very important: buy me some good clothes. You’re about the same figure as I, so buy them as if for yourself. And can you meet me here a few hours before dawn that morning?”

He nodded.

“I must go now. How’s your father?” I asked as I turned away.

“Died two days arter Christmas,” he said flatly. “That first Sunday that you never come.”

I turned back but he was already round the corner. As I returned to the house I wondered how long Joey had hung about in the cold out there that day while his mother grieved alone. His family had more than paid their debt to me. Well, once I had come into my rights I would make it up to him and his mother, but there was no time to think of the Digweeds now.

If I was to succeed, however, I still had one crucial task to perform. And so, when I laid myself down for the night, I forced myself to stay awake. A long weary wait of it I had, for Jakeman had to stay up to let Sir David in. At last the young gentleman hammered at the door and I cautiously followed the old nightwatchman as, grumbling to himself, he put down his jug and went to admit him. Both were so intoxicated that it took some time to engage the two keys, during which they cursed each other from opposite sides of the door,

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the young gentleman more audibly and with a wider vocabulary: “Damn your imper …

imper … your insolence!” he shouted as the muffled oaths of the nightwatchman reached him in the street.

When Sir David had ascended the stairs, Jakeman went into the scullery and, as I had anticipated, stooped near where I had lain down on my first night there, removed a loose brick from the hearth, and slipped the keys behind it. Then he stumbled off to his usual sleeping-quarters.

Now all was ready for me to make the attempt, if only the solution to the quincunx could be found.

All day I had thought about, and now that night I dreamed about, the quincunx. It came at me mockingly out of the darkness, at one time like a flower whose bud was unfolding in coruscating geometrical designs too dazzling for me to catch ; and then like a heart whose centre, as I tried to peer into it, was burning so fiercely that it seemed black, and my aching eyes could not penetrate it.

The next morning — an even colder one than the day before — I overheard Bob telling Will that Mr Thackaberry had given instructions that henceforth Miss Liddy’s bell was not to be answered. Then a little later it became known that all the servants were to be addressed by the butler at noon in the servants’-hall. Bessie and I, of course, were not included in this summons and continued with our work while the rest of the staff crowded into the hall.

When the assembly dispersed it was some time before I could even learn what had happened, for the rest of the servants were too busy in lamenting their fate or expressing their relief at being spared to waste time answering my enquiries. Piece by piece, however, I was able to put it together from brief explanations and overheard fragments.

The house was to be shut up immediately and the family was to remove to Hougham until at least the beginning of the Season. Certain servants were to accompany them there, others would remain in London on board-wages unless they chose to leave, and yet others were warned that they would be paid off at the end of the week. Mr Thackaberry had read out the three lists, and Bob’s name was among those to be dismissed. I ventured into the servants’-hall and found him seated on a form drinking gin and hot water, swearing viciously and complaining loudly to Will and Nellie and some of the others that footmen junior to him were to be kept on.