Charles Palliser (162 page)

“Wait,” I said. “This man has committed murder. It is our duty to apprehend him.”

“Damn you!” cried Mompesson.

“Is this your way of seeking revenge?” Lady Mompesson cried.

“Well spoken, young gentleman,” Mr Barbellion said ironically. “But unfortunately Sir David is a desperate man and armed.” He paused. “You are armed, Sir David?”

Mompesson hastily picked up the pistols.

“What can we do?” Mr Barbellion went on. “If the men amongst us were to rush upon him now, one of us might be fatally injured. The law does not require us to endanger our persons.”

“Indeed not!” Mr Pamplin breathed.

“Both pieces have been discharged,” I said.

“You want revenge, don’t you, you low, sneaking fellow!” cried Lady Mompesson.

The words stung me but I could not think how to reply without conceding her charge.

“Let him go,” said Joey, glancing down at Bellringer. “That one wasn’t worth risking our own skins for.”

“I’ve re-loaded this one,” said Mompesson, dropping one of the pistols onto the tiled floor where it clattered and echoed, and pointing the other at me.

“You’re lying,” I said.

I glanced towards Henrietta who was watching the proceedings with a strange intensity.

“Very well,” I said. “Go.”

I stood aside and he passed with a kind of stupid leer of triumph.

“Come, Phumphred,” Lady Mompesson said, turning to the old coachman; “Take Sir David to Boston.”

The old coachman hesitated.

“You don’t have to,” I said. “And if you do you may regret it.”

“Is this loyalty?” exclaimed his mistress, seeing his indecision.

“Was it loyal in you to have me take this young lady to a marriage agin her will?” he replied. “But very well, ma’am, I’ll do as you bid.”

Lady Mompesson turned to her solicitor: “Will you not come with us?”

“No, Lady Mompesson, I will not compromise myself any further. My duty is to find the nearest justice and lay an information against your son.” She opened her eyes wide at this, but he went on: “However, if I have to walk in quest of one in this weather and ignorant of my way, I doubt if I shall even reach him before Sir David is at the next post-town between here and the coast.”

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Lady Mompesson smiled briefly and then turned to Henrietta: “Go to the house hard by and wait for me to return.”

Henrietta did not look at her. “David!” she cried. “Take me with you!”

Mompesson shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment. She was clearly hysterical and confused.

“She
won’t marry you now!” Henrietta cried.
“She
won’t follow you abroad.”

Mompesson moved towards the door with a foolish smile.

“Calm yourself, Henrietta!” Lady Mompesson said sharply.

I moved towards Henrietta to take her arm but she ducked away from me and ran further back into the shadows.

Mompesson and his mother had almost reached the door when Mr Pamplin said:

“Lady Mompesson, let me explain my part in these proceedings lest I lose your good opinion. I was the unwitting dupe of Bellringer. He said he wanted me for a divinity-job and …”

With no more than a glance of irritation in his direction, Lady Mompesson walked out followed by her son with Mr Phumphred behind him. The clergyman turned to us and finished his sentence: “And, in short, I had no conception of his real design.”

“That may be so,” Mr Barbellion said. Then he turned to Bissett: “As for you, woman, what the devil were you playing at?”

“I obeyed your instructions,” she protested.

“What can you mean?”

“Why, Mr Bellringer came to me last night in Huntingdon with a letter from you telling me to do what he bid and promising that I would be amply rewarded. But he tricked me. I didn’t realize it was Mr Tom that Miss Palphramond was intended to marry.”

“A letter from me?” the lawyer repeated.

She fumbled in her pocket and pulled something out. Mr Barbellion seized it.

“You’d do anything for a reward, wouldn’t you?” I said. “It was because Mr Barbellion bought you those many years ago that all the ill consequences followed for my mother and myself.”

“That’s a wicked thing to say!” she retorted. “I only done what I thought best for your mother, for Mr Barbellion meant well.”

“This letter is most convincing,” the lawyer said admiringly. “The young man had much ability.”

Indeed he had, I thought. And not merely as a forger of documents.

“But you must not reproach either your old nurse or myself, young gentleman,” Mr Barbellion went on. “I meant no harm to your mother but merely wanted to purchase the codicil from her. And how much misery might have been avoided if I had succeeded, you are better placed to know than I.”

I reflected that it was not his fault that my mother had mistaken him for an agent of the Clothiers. And if we had not fled that time that Miss Quilliam brought him to Orchard-street, all might have turned out well, so perhaps I had been unfair to him. And he could help me now.

As he moved towards the door I said: “I believe I might be able to find the will!”

He stopped immediately, swung round, and looked at me with interest. “Go on,” he said.

“Suppose I could? Would the property be escheated or would it be mine?”

“You know some law!” he exclaimed. “Indeed, the property of a fugitive 750 THE

MALIPHANTS

felon escheats to the Crown, so that if Sir David is convicted then he loses everything.

However, if the will were found, a claimant under it could argue that it retrospectively altered the devolution of the estate: in brief, that Sir David has no title to lose and that title passed down to the claimant. But I have to inform you that the will is of no use to you. It would benefit only Miss Palphramond, for you have no claim since it cannot be proved that you are the Huffam heir.”

“You are referring to the absence of a record of the marriage of James and Eliza Huffam?” I asked and he nodded.

At that moment Sukey entered, soaking wet: “There’s the chaise out there and the postilion grumbling that he has been waiting a good two hours,” she said to me, looking round in the half-gloom. She started: “So you found Mrs Bissett, Master Johnnie,” she said, staring at her with hostility. “I was going to tell you, that was who I seen here today when I come up to the Hall to look at the lights.”

Bissett nodded curtly at her.

Sukey brought something from under her shawl : “I brung that package you left with me last time.”

In delight I seized it from her and unwrapped it. Mr Advowson’s copy of the entry was in perfect condition, though I noticed that the home-made ink of the contract that Harry had required me to sign had faded away.

Suddenly Sukey gave a cry. She was staring at Mr Barbellion: “Why, that’s the genel’man as frighted us in the burying-ground all them years ago!”

“That’s right,” I said to her. Then I turned back to the lawyer: “I know what you were doing then. You were examining the Huffam vault.”

“That is so,” he said in surprise. “I hoped to find a clew to the venue of that marriage we were speaking of.”

“You were very close,” I said. “If you had been franker and told the clerk, Mr Advowson, that you were interested in the Huffams he might have told you about the chest from the old chapel where we were just now. That is where the wedding of my great-grandparents was solemnized. Though I know you were so discreet because you did not want to give away what you were looking for.”

“So you have found proof of it?” he asked in excitement.

I nodded. “Mr Advowson has it safe.”

“Then if only you could prove your own parentage … ”he began but broke off.

“However, as you might know, the record of your baptism has been stolen from the church.”

“But not before I had it copied,” I said, and handed the piece of parchment to him.

At that moment I heard a cry of horror from Sukey as she caught sight of the body.

Then I saw her cross to Henrietta who was still sitting against the wall. She put her arm around her and although Henrietta at first shook it off, she then allowed herself to be held.

“Then this changes everything,” Mr Barbellion exclaimed after perusing the piece of parchment. “For if the will could only be laid before the court, you would have an unassailable claim. Where do you believe it is?”

He spoke as if casually but I thought I heard a tremor in his voice.

I shook my head with a smile. I could be as circumspect as any Chancery lawyer.

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He reached into his pocket and held out his card: “Come and see me if I can be of any assistance.”

Seeing my hesitation he placed it in my hand with the copy of the entry, and asked me where my lodgings were. Not knowing quite why I did so, I gave him this information and told him the name I had assumed, and he wrote the details down in his pocket-book.

“Now, Miss Palphramond,” Mr Barbellion said; “if you will permit me, I will escort you to the house.”

As if she had not heard him, she made no move.

“Let her be for now,” I said, “and we will take her there later.”

Mr Barbellion shrugged his shoulders and went out, Bissett and Mr Pamplin following him without either of them even glancing in my direction.

I explained to Henrietta who Joey and Sukey were, but she stared dully back at me without looking at them, though Sukey was sitting beside her still holding her. What would become of her? Now that I could prove my claim, there was no advantage to the Mompessons in marrying her to Tom so long as I lived. But until the will was safely before the court, my life was in danger from the Maliphant claimant, and so Henrietta was in peril of another forced marriage.

I walked over to her and Sukey tactfully withdrew to the door where the rain was still lashing down and the lightning flickering at intervals. So Henrietta and I sat alone in the great dark hall with the harsh breathing of the cows around us and the silent third not twenty feet from us.

I took her hand in mine and she did not resist. It was very cold.

“You must try to put the past behind you,” I said.

“I once believed he loved me.”

“You must not reproach yourself, Henrietta.”

“He seduced me,” she said simply.

“He seduced me, too,” I said, and now she looked at me in surprise. “He can be very charming.”

“I don’t think you understand,” she said, shaking her head.

“Then tell me,” I urged.

“I don’t want to.”

“Then if it distresses you to speak, I will tell you,” I said. “For I believe I have been able to deduce all that has happened. Just nod if I’m right.”

She glanced up for a moment, but lowered her head as I began to speak: “There was a ball that night,” I said and she nodded. “Bellringer came to tell your guardians that I was still alive and the will was for sale after all. So Tom was made to sign his consent to the trust that was to strip him of his legal rights. In the early hours you must have been told by Lady Mompesson that you were to go down to Hougham under the protection of Pamplin and accompanied by your aunt’s woman, Pickavance. I imagine that you were not told that Tom and Bellringer would be accompanying the carriage in a post-chaise.

It was only that night when you reached the inn at Hertford that you realized that they were travelling with you. Tom was, of course, hopelessly drunk, for Bellringer had been plying him with brandy on the way. Rooms were engaged for the whole party, though in the event you only stayed a few hours. Am I right so far?”

She looked up and nodded, her eyes wide in amazement.

“And am I right to suspect that later that night Bellringer came to you?” I asked.

Henrietta flushed and cast her eyes down. “I know how convincing he can be,” I went on. “He told you that the Mompessons had regained the will 752 THE

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and so had instituted the plan to force you to marry Tom. Perhaps you would be kept here in the Old Hall until you gave in. He said that he had pretended to go along with it, but now he said he could save you. The only sure way was by marrying you himself. Am I right in saying that he swore that he had loved you since he first met you?” She nodded without looking at me. “Of course, not realizing that he had the will, you did not know what he stood to gain. Indeed, you probably told him that you were penniless and he assured you that he cared nothing for that.”

“He said that David’s engagement showed how little he cared!” Henrietta exclaimed, still keeping her gaze lowered.

“For anything but money, you mean?” I asked, after a moment’s puzzled reflection.

“So he said that David was marrying for money but he was marrying for love? I understand and, Henrietta, nobody could blame you for succumbing as you did. And, of course, you believed that I was dead. Forgive me, dear girl. That was wrong of me, but I meant it for the best. So I imagine that Bellringer explained that he could frustrate your aunt’s design by discarding Tom at the inn and leaving Pickavance behind (since she had her orders from Lady Mompesson). Presumably he reassured you by saying he would furnish you with a respectable woman in Huntingdon who would accompany you. He would do this by making her think she had been hired by Mr Barbellion to help him as she had in the past. He knew this because I had told him how Bissett had betrayed my mother and myself to Mr Barbellion long ago. You see, he took me in, too, so you need not be ashamed. I have guessed it all aright, haven’t I?”

She made no acknowledgement and did not raise her head, but I could see in her face that my words had awakened painful memories and so I did not press her.

“So when you set off very early the next morning Tom was abandoned in a drunken stupor and Pickavance was left behind still fast asleep, and later that day Bissett was picked up in Huntingdon to fill her place. Then you travelled overnight and reached Hougham this morning.”

She nodded and now looked at me.

At that moment Sukey came over from where she had been standing with Joey:

“Shouldn’t we take Mrs Bellringer to her people?” she asked me gently.