Charles Palliser (153 page)

Perhaps Henrietta had been right to imply that her great-aunt had confused justice with the desire for revenge, and perhaps I had done so myself.

I dressed and went into the sitting-room, where I found Henry, clad as he had been the night before, sitting at his desk. I gained the impression — I do not know how — that he had not slept.

He greeted me warmly but seemed preoccupied.

“Are you not going to your work today?” I asked.

“Yes, in due course,” he said off-handedly.

“Will not the gentleman whom you appointed to meet us last night wonder why we did not arrive?”

“Oh, I’ll see him and explain.”

“What will you say? Surely not the truth?”

“Heavens, no,” he exclaimed with a mirthless laugh. Then he added confidently: “I’ll gammon him with something. Leave that to me.”

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Lying open before him was the evening-paper,
The Globe.
I looked over his shoulder and read it. At the foot of the second page was an item headed “Unfortunate Accident to City Merchant and His Grandson: Heroic Death of Mr Silas Clothier, of Edington’s-wharf, Blackfriars, and Bell-lane, Spitalfields”. From the story that followed it was clear that Mr Vulliamy had reported to the authorities that the old gentleman had died in attempting to save the life of his grandson who had fallen through a trap-door into the river and presumably drowned, though his body had not yet been found.

The allusion to Bell-lane gave me the explanation of why my mother had been so horrified when Mrs Sackbutt had mentioned the name when we were in Cox’s-square : it had revealed to her how near she was to the house of her enemy.

“He’ll cut up pretty warm,” Henry said meditatively. “Daniel Porteous will be the heir and will be pleased at his old feller’s death since Quintard and Mimpriss have got into trouble and he’s in a pickle over it. But you’d have a very strong claim to a half-share of Clothier’s estate, I believe.”

“Never!” I cried.

I began to explain to him why I wanted nothing to do with the matter, but he listened to me with increasing irritation and before I had finished interrupted me:

“And what are you going to do about the Hougham claim? Don’t tell me you’re not interested in that either. The time-limit when you will be presumed to be deceased runs out in two years, though now that you’ve been reported to be dead (though they won’t find a body, of course) I suppose that might be brought forward. When are you going to declare yourself ?”

“I haven’t decided that I will,” I said lightly.

“But don’t you see how much hangs upon it?” he exclaimed brusquely.

I looked at him in surprise that he should seem to be so concerned on the Mompessons’ behalf: “Then you think I should come forward?”

“Of course not!” he cried. Then he smiled awkwardly and said: “Don’t you see, old fellow, that you have a great deal of pull on ’em, but only by not coming forward?”

I stared at him in bewilderment for I could not follow his reasoning.

“Once you declare yourself they have no further need of you for your life keeps them in possession,” he explained. “So stay out of sight and negotiate with them through a third party.”

So that was it. A kind of blackmail. I saw it all now and I did not need to be told who the third party was to be.

I stood up: “I must go now. Thank you for your assistance.”

He flushed: “Don’t be a muff. After all, you stole the will from them. What I’m suggesting is no worse than that.”

It was quite different. I had regained the will in order to see justice done. What he was suggesting was mere self-interested exploitation of the situation.

I hurried to the door and he called out: “Where will you go?”

“To my friends.”

“How are they called? Where do they live?”

“I know the house but not the name of the street,” I said, reckless of how I might offend him.

“Send word of your address, will you?” he cried as I opened the door.

I looked at him as I stood in the door-way: “Goodbye, Henry.”

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I hoped never to see him again for his suggestion had re-awakened the darkest suspicions in my mind. He faced me, flushed with annoyance but trying to smile his old smile that reminded me of Stephen but that took me in no longer. I slammed the door and hurried down the stairs.

As I made my way out of the inn I glanced back several times to see if he were following me. And then as I hurried East I began to regret my conduct towards him and to ask myself, what kind of suspicious, ungenerous being had I become constantly to suspect that others had designs upon me? What proof had I that Henry’s interest in me was anything but benign? He wanted me to benefit from the position I was in and was prepared to help me. So why should he not be rewarded for that? And yet as I went I took precautions to ensure that no-one could follow me by several times crossing a busy street suddenly in front of oncoming vehicles — cursed and whipped at by the drivers for my pains — and darting up a side-lane on the other side.

When I reached the lane in Wapping in which the Digweeds lived I approached their house with the same circumspection. As far as I could establish, nobody was lurking nearby.

As I entered I found Mrs Digweed and Joey seated before the fire. They greeted me with surprise since Joey was expecting to see me next in the mews at the back of Brook-street at dawn nearly a week hence. They had, of course, not read the reports of my death in the public prints. Examining their faces, I saw nothing but pleasure at the sight of me on Mrs Digweed’s and something of the same but still alloyed with resentment, on her son’s. I wished I could overcome that gnawing suspiciousness that had tainted me.

First I expressed my condolences for the death of the father. Then I answered their questions and when I told them what had happened, they rejoiced at my escape but grieved at the destruction of the will after all that we — they and I — had been through.

Joey told me that he had done what I had asked about engaging lodgings by paying a month’s rent in advance, and he returned to me the balance of Miss Lydia’s monies, insisting on rendering me a full account of what he had spent on my clothes and linen —

a sum which amounted to four pounds. He and his mother adamantly refused to take a shilling for themselves.

Later that day I went with Joey to the lodgings he had taken in Chandos-street with the intention of getting the money back since my intentions had changed now that the will no longer existed. However, the landlady, Mrs Quaintance, absolutely refused to return more than a derisory amount of the rent (two pounds, for it was ten shillings a week) or to countenance my under-letting the rooms. It occurred to me that there would be advantages in living there and so I arranged to move in after all.

When I was alone I sat on the edge of my bed and thought with relief that I was now free of the Clothier connexion. They had no further interest in me nor I in any of them.

My relation to the Mompessons, however, was less clear-cut.

During the days that followed I tried to decide what to do. The idea that Henry had hinted at — of blackmailing the Mompessons — filled me with repugnance. Either I would come forward and save them with no advantage to myself, or I would let them be dispossessed. But how would that affect Henrietta? And what of my own situation? I had the forty-seven pounds left from the gold that Miss Lydia had given me and that was a great deal of money, but I was by no means certain that I had a moral right to it since it had been given me to pay for

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laying the will before the Court in order to rescue Henrietta. (That was why I felt I could not use it to repay Sukey.) But if not to me, then to whom did it belong? In a sense, I held it in trust for Henrietta and I could best serve her interests by using it to establish myself so that I could help her in the future. As for whether to declare myself, I decided not to make a decision yet since I still had nearly two years before the time-limit expired.

I realized after some time that the destruction of the will was actually a blessing, and I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me. Now I could decide what to do with my life with no regard for factors wholly beyond my control, for it came to me now that the whole of my life had been dominated by the past — the early experiences of my mother, the murder of my grandfather, and even the deeds of my great-grandfather and his father before him. Now the future, whatever it might be, was at least my own.

How would I live? What would I do with the rest of my life? The best I could hope for — barely educated and without friends to advance me — was a lowly clerkship at a salary of twenty pounds a year. And I would be fortunate even to gain such a position for I did not write a good hand or cypher well or know how to reckon up accounts. The idea of entering one of the professions that I had long cherished, was out of the question for I would need not only a premium but the means to keep myself for the period of my articles — at least two hundred pounds. So I concluded that my wisest plan was to search for a post as clerk while continuing to educate myself in the hope of improving my prospects.

Old Friends in a New Light

The months that followed were a period of relentless, grinding disappointment. I began by studying the newspapers and writing in response to every advertisement for a post for which I felt myself to be at all qualified. In no case was I even invited to present myself for examination. Meanwhile I laboured at my books and penmanship, trying to acquire those skills that I lacked.

Once the month that I had paid for was up, I moved from my set of rooms into a small garret-chamber under the roof for four shillings a week, frightened of the way my money was running out. After a couple of months more I realized that I had been too optimistic in believing I could rely upon advertisements in the press, and so from now on I spent a part of each day trudging from one establishment to another asking if there were any vacancies. The great disadvantage I had — beyond my lack of experience — was that I could offer no written character, nor provide a respectable person to be referred to, nor even describe my life in full and accurate detail up to that moment. So I was constantly rebuffed — usually off-handedly, often coldly, and occasionally in a friendly enough manner.

In those cases when it was admitted that there was a vacancy it always happened that it had been set aside for the nephew of the managing-clerk’s wife or a lad known to the family of the senior cashier. Gradually it came to me that English mercantile life was a vast system of uncles, nephews, friends and neighbours from which I was excluded.

Even when on one occasion I was offered the position of office-boy with the prospect

— but a distant and dubious one — of working up to a junior clerkship, I decided I could not afford to take it. The salary of about five shillings a week, intended for a boy younger than I and living at home, would barely cover my lodgings. I could not consider a salary of less than twelve shillings.

By the time that six months had expired since my escape from the river, however, I realized that I should have taken that post and eked out the salary with my little capital in hopes of being promoted before it ran out. For the prospect of being reduced once again to pennilessness faced me now. My money had not lasted as well as I had expected, principally because the expenditure

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involved in searching for work was so high. I had to have serviceable boots and I found that I could not avoid the occasional expense of a hot meal from the cook-shop. Over and above my rent, I was living at the rate of about nine shillings a week.

Living some distance now from the Digweeds, I saw them infrequently though the mother, at least, fairly regularly for she was working again as a laundress and insisted on doing my linen. There was little enough of it, but every three weeks she collected it and Joey usually delivered it back to my lodgings a few days later. He had found occasional work as a barrow-boy at Covent-garden and I knew she was anxious that he should not be tempted to return to the criminal pursuits of his early boyhood, especially when he saw his friends who had remained in that course possessing money to spend and plenty of time to enjoy it. I was reassured that they had seen nothing of either Barney or Sally since the occasion when Joey had spotted his uncle shortly before I managed to regain the will. I assumed that I was safe since now that Silas Clothier was dead nobody, as far as I knew, had any interest in my death. Yet I could not altogether put from my mind the clause in the codicil which stipulated that at the failure of the Huffam line the estate passed immediately to the heir of George Maliphant.

After some reflection, I decided to allow Henrietta to believe with everyone else that I was dead, for I saw no advantage to either of us in my taking the risk of disabusing her of this notion — and it even gave me a certain pleasure to know that she believed me to be no more. Yet several times I hung about in the street outside the house in Brook-street (muffled up around the face) and was occasionally rewarded with a glimpse of her coming or going.

One day in the middle of October in the same year, I had a chance encounter that was to have important consequences. As I was hurrying along fleet-street one afternoon I caught sight of someone I thought I knew. Just before I averted my head and began to move away in instinctive recoil from anyone from my past (since I wished it to be believed that I was dead), I saw that she was a peak-faced young girl in a cheap cotton gown.

I was too late, and she hurried up to me and called: “Sir! Please wait!”

I turned and recognised Mrs Purviance’s little servant, Nancy. I had nothing to fear from her and stopped to talk. She told me that Miss Quilliam had returned to London about a year ago and had quarrelled with Mrs Purviance, and she added that she had seen her fairly recently coming out of a night-house in King-street, St. James-square. I thanked her and gave her a penny.