Charles Palliser (31 page)

“My dear!” Mrs Popplestone exclaimed, while her son smiled disdainfully; “You can’t have been in Town for simply ages and ages!”

My mother coloured and looked down.

The coach which had flown like a bird along the highway seemed to have become a clumsy monster in these streets, constantly coming up against other vehicles, being shouted at by drivers and narrowly missing foot-passengers who dived in front of it at the crossings. It reminded me of the ducks on the village-pond which swam so gracefully over the water but waddled awkwardly when they came ashore.

Now that the vehicle was going so slowly I had a chance to examine my new fellow-citizens. On this broad street (which my mother whispered to me was called Haymarket) the fashionably-dressed and the poorly-clad mingled promiscuously. Brushing past the ladies and gentlemen, often with a footman walking behind them carrying an ivory-topped cane, were many who looked like beggars: men in fustian and corduroy with their sleeves tied with string, women in ragged gowns, and little girls selling flowers whom I took for beggars. On every side the eye and ear and nose were assaulted : by posters and placards pasted on every wall and paling, by bellmen crying the events of the day — a lost child or ship or motion in the House — by the stalls selling roast chestnuts or baked potatoes or cooked shell-fish.

We now approached a district which was being extensively demolished, for the Royal-mews were being taken down and a great public square opened up. My mother looked around in amazement as if half-recognising the place. With a sudden blast on the guard’s horn the coach came almost to a halt and then lumberingly turned and passed under a high arch and along a narrow alley-way into the yard of an inn whose sign proclaimed it to be the Golden-cross.

SPOILED DESIGNS

141

“We are not to stay here, are we?” I asked my mother as we gathered up our possessions and prepared to get down.

“No,” she whispered. “This is too expensive.”

“And besides,” I replied, “it would be easy for anyone to find us here. Then where shall we go?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

Mrs Popplestone, who was standing beside us with her son, must have overheard this last exchange, for she now said: “My dear, we are going now to a very respectable private-hotel, Bartlett’s, in Wimpole-street. I can recommend it. Will you and your son not share a coach with us since we have no luggage to speak of ?”

My mother thanked her and accepted her offer. But then a problem arose for when the coach-driver saw how many we were and how much luggage my mother and I had, he demurred.

“You know I can’t take that much,” he said to Mrs Popplestone reproachfully.

“Then,” she said to my mother, “it is very simple. You and I will go on ahead with the luggage and the two young gentlemen will’follow on foot. My son knows where the hotel is.”

This seemed a very sensible arrangement and so our luggage was loaded and the two ladies boarded the coach. (But not before I had insisted on unpacking my map and removing the sheets that portrayed the central districts, putting the rest of it back in the box.) Master Popplestone and I followed the coach out of the yard by another alley-way and found ourselves in the Strand directly opposite to the gloomy old front of a great mansion whose façade was surmounted by a stone lion. (When I learned much later that this was Northumberland-house, I understood why my mother was so upset at finding herself so suddenly here of all places.) Soon losing sight of our quarry, my companion and I took to the bye-streets.

As we twisted and turned I quickly lost my bearings, so preoccupied was I in drinking in the sights: the laundresses in clogs carrying bundles on their heads, the pie-men ringing their bells and crying “Rare hot pies!”, the stalls selling oysters and apples and pies and cockles, and at each crossing the sweepers with their long brooms. There was much that daunted me: in the high narrow airless streets, looking at the sky was like peering up from the bottom of a well; and the iron grilles on the houses on all sides reminded me of tombs. London must be a very dangerous place, I thought, for in the main streets all the shops had guard-irons. But those shops! I gazed through the plate-glass windows of the print-shops longing to dawdle there, but Master Popplestone hurried me on.

Suddenly he halted and cried: “Wait here! I must run an errand for my mother!” and disappeared into a nearby milliner’s-shop. I waited outside so distracted by the sights that it was with a sudden shock that I realized that a long time had passed. I went into the place and not seeing my companion, I asked a shop-boy.

When I had described him he said: “You must mean that young genel’man what come in here a bit back. Why, he runned straight out agin through the back-door.”

I could not think what to make of this but I had no leisure to reflect, for I now realized that I was lost and had no idea where the hotel was to which my mother had gone. In mounting alarm I wandered about, and now it seemed to me the street-sellers were directing their cries at me — the orange-sellers

142 THE

MOMPESSONS

crying “Chase some oranges! Chase my nonpareils!” as I hurried past and the long-song sellers barring my way with shouts of “Three yards a penny!” And once I passed a stall where a big bold woman held out a half-skinned live eel on a long fork that squirmed at me hideously as she grinned and said something.

I tried to consult the map but since I had no idea where I was it was of no use. I showed it to a man chosen from among the passers-by at random, but he had never seen one before and had no idea what to make of it.

Luckily, however, I remembered the name of the coaching-inn and at last I managed to find my way back to Charing-cross. I waited at the entrance to the yard for a good hour until a hackney-coach stopped and my mother dismounted.

She was distraught and as soon as she saw me ran to hug me, crying: “Is she not here?”

When she was able to speak coherently this was the story she told me: When the coach had halted outside the hotel, Mrs Popplestone had insisted upon settling the fare and had asked my mother meanwhile to enter the hotel to say that she, Mrs Popplestone, was returned and required assistance with her luggage. My mother had done so leaving everything in the coach, and had found to her surprise that nobody at the hotel knew her companion’s name. When she had gone back into the street she had found, of course, that the coach had driven off. So all our luggage was gone!

“I waited and waited but she did not return,” she kept saying. “And you didn’t come either, Johnnie. But it must be a misunderstanding. Surely she will come back here when she finds I am no longer at the hotel?”

It took me some time to convince her that we had been robbed and then she broke down and wept: “How could she do it? I cannot believe it! She was so kind and so respectable. Oh, Johnnie, we have nothing but the clothes we stand up in! Nothing!”

She kept repeating that we had been unlucky, and this irritated me for I thought we had been foolishly trusting. All the time aware that people were staring at us, I led her into the coffee-room. The waiter asked me what the matter was, and when I told him our story, he said it would be a waste of our time to lay an information before a magistrate, and when he took no more notice of us I saw that what I had taken for sympathy was merely curiosity.

At last, when my mother was more composed, we engaged another coach, instructing the driver to take us to a respectable private hotel of his acquaintance. So a few minutes later Mrs and Master Offland alighted before a house in Clifford-street with a modest sign announcing — or, rather, intimating in a genteel under-tone — that it was “Nevot’s Private Hotel”. There — having explained to an uninterested clerk why we had no luggage — we engaged rooms and ordered a small luncheon to be brought to us.

We assessed the implications of our loss — all the silver, the good china, and the fine clothes whose sale we had been counting upon to support us. How would we keep ourselves now? Cautiously I raised the prospect of selling the codicil to Sir Perceval, but my mother became so upset at the idea and talked so incoherently of her father and how such a betrayal would break her heart, that I vowed never to mention it again. After a time I asked her if she did not think that in view of our situation, we should go to Mrs Fortisquince after all.

SPOILED DESIGNS

143

She sighed and said: “Yes, I suppose so.”

Later that afternoon, therefore, we made our way towards Golden-square where Uncle Martin’s widow lived.

As we approached Regent-street, the number of poor people on the streets increased.

Noticing that many of them were heavily laden with possessions, I asked my mother the reason for this, but she merely shook her head. Here there were many little girls (some much younger than I) selling flowers, and I noticed that they did not stop us but addressed themselves only to gentlemen — perhaps finding them softer-hearted, it occurred to me.

Mrs Fortisquince’s house was on the western side of the shady square which, though so close to the great thoroughfare which had been recently constructed, was quite retired. We found her name etched on a new brass plate and when we rang, the door was opened by a pleasant young maid who, when my mother explained that she was a connexion of Mrs Fortisquince’s who had come to London unexpectedly and gave her name as “Mrs Mellamphy”, showed us into an upstairs parlour and left us. The room, its walls hung with rich flock papers, was most elegantly furnished with tables and chairs of walnut, a marquetry side-table with a matching glass above it, and a satin-covered ottoman. There was a magnificent Turkey-carpet on the floor, and in a corner were a large harp and a pretty pianoforte, on top of which lay some fine needlework and several books. Although the day was quite warm, there was a fire burning in the grate. We waited without sitting down and listened to distant voices and the sound of doors opening and closing in other parts of the house.

At last we heard a step upon the landing, the door opened and a lady came into the room. She was tall, distinctly handsome, and although only a few years older than my mother had the manner of one much her senior. She had a high straight nose between two clear blue eyes, a strong jaw and a thin mouth. She was wearing a half-mourning dress and a cap trimmed with black lace and mourning-ribbons. Her air of gravity was increased by the stately manner in which she entered the room and closed the door behind her. Then she and my mother looked at each other for a moment, neither of them smiling. At last Mrs Fortisquince smiled and my mother timidly did the same.

“Mary, after so many years! Is it truly you?”

She stepped forward and they embraced quickly.

“Dear Mrs Fortisquince,” my mother said.

“ ‘Mrs Fortisquince!’ ” that lady repeated. “You must not be so cold, Mary. Have you forgotten that you used to call me Jemima?”

“No, of course not. Of course not, Jemima.”

“That’s better, my dear Mary. Pray seat yourself.”

My mother did so and Mrs Fortisquince, having made herself comfortable on the ottoman, now turned and gazed at me with a mysterious half-smile for some moments before saying softly:

“And with such a grown-up young man!”

“This is Johnnie,” said my mother.

“Of course it’s Johnnie!” she said. “Why, the resemblance is so obvious. Do 144 THE

MOMPESSONS

you not think so?” She turned to my mother who lowered her eyes. “Well, don’t you?”

“I … I’m not sure.”

“Indeed? You do surprise me. Surely he features your father quite remarkably?”

“My father? Yes, he does,” my mother said readily, now looking up.

To my surprise, Mrs Fortisquince looked directly at her rather than at me and said:

“But I can see nothing of his own father.”

My mother reddened and looked down again: “No, indeed?”

“Positively not a trace. Can you?”

My mother looked at her timidly and with a quick glance at myself, briefly put her hand to her lips.

Mrs Fortisquince turned to me raising her eyebrows: “Sit down, young man.”

I perched on the edge of the only remaining chair which was before the fire, where the heat was intense for there was no screen.

“How long must it be since we last met?” Mrs Fortisquince mused.

“Many years,” my mother murmured.

“Let me consider, when was the last occasion?”

I saw my mother bite her lip.

“Ah, of course,” Mrs Fortisquince suddenly. “How could I have forgotten? It was that night, was it not?”

My mother nodded dumbly.

“My dear, I should not have spoken so thoughtlessly. But such a long time,” Mrs Fortisquince said reflectively. “And so much has happened. I am intrigued to know what brings you to Town. Has there been a change at last in the melancholy circumstances of your poor … ?”

“I know nothing of that,” my mother interrupted and glanced sharply towards me:

“Johnnie, will you go outside and wait on the landing until I come for you?”

“There is no necessity,” said Mrs Fortisquince. “You need tell me nothing.”

My mother flushed.

“But then I wonder what brings you here now. And how mysterious that you did not write to me first!”

“There was no time. I will explain. But, Jemima, I have said nothing to you of … I am so sorry about …”

She paused.

Mrs Fortisquince sighed: “I am, of course, profoundly bereft. But it could at least be no surprise. With a husband so much more advanced in years than oneself it is an event that one must always have foreseen. But enough of my own sorrows. Tell me what brings you to Town.”

“That is very simply told. I have lost everything. Johnnie and I are penniless.”

“I am horrified to learn it,” Mrs Fortisquince said equably. “Pray tell me how such a thing came about.”

So my mother had to rehearse the whole sad story. Mrs Fortisquince, who appeared to accept the news with considerable philosophy, became more and more interested as her tale progressed. She asked a number of questions about the nature of the speculation, the assignment of leases, and the redemption of the mortgages, which were of such a technical nature that we did not know