Charles Palliser (53 page)

Our large, lofty-ceilinged room with its partly-unglazed windows dissipated 242 THE

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all the heat that was so dearly bought. We tried to make a chauldron of coal last two weeks by keeping only a handful of cinders burning during the day and huddling together as we slept at night. All of us suffered from chilblains and cold sores, as well as the colds and coughs that particularly affect those new to London.

The winter, instead of ending in February, actually worsened for now there came a frozen fog — heavy, foul-smelling, and yellow — which for days at a time granted scarcely a glimpse of the sun. On such occasions there was little point in my going out with my tray for I could sell nothing on the streets. Food-prices rose and the value of made things dropped, for there were no buyers.

Needless to say, the two gentlemen (whose means of livelihood were as badly affected as mine) frequently argued about the implications of what was happening. Mr Pentecost believed that the bad times would regulate themselves, and that when wages fell low enough employment would start again. Mr Silverlight, on the other hand, insisted that things would spiral into disaster and said cheerfully that he lived in daily hopes of a popular rising. He rejoiced, he said, to hear of a bread-shop being attacked.

Despite his display of cheerfulness, however, I could see that Mr Silverlight was finding it hard to endure the privations that were now forced upon him. Gradually the furniture disappeared from the Caliph’s tent, then Mr Pentecost’s watch, then articles of clothing. Mr Silverlight remained as well-dressed as always, until one day at the very end of that terrible February, when I came home and met him hurrying down the stairs muttering to himself, clad in a shabby coat I had not seen before and wearing no neckcloth. I had never seen such disarray in his dress, and indeed never saw such a thing again.

The next day Mrs Peachment, two of her children, and Mr Pentecost fell ill of a high fever. When I went into the other room that evening I found the latter lying on the bed with a flushed face and wandering in his thoughts: “Where is Silverlight?” he kept saying. Surprised not to find him present, I asked Mr Peachment. That honest fellow drew me to one side and explained in an undertone that he must have stolen away during the hours of darkness for they had found him and his belongings gone that morning and they had not seen him since.

I was puzzled by this but was to become even more confused the next day.

Miss Quilliam and I did what we could for our neighbours that evening. Then late the following afternoon, as I was returning from an almost profitless trawl of the streets, I heard my mother shouting at someone as I reached our landing: “Begone! I want nothing to do with you!”

There was a man standing at our door accompanied by a large dog which was baring its teeth and growling at my mother, while Justice — for I now recognised the old beggar

— was trying to quieten it and to reassure her.

“I’m only seeking Mr Pentecost,” he said, turning towards me when he heard my voice.

I calmed my mother and coaxed her into our room. Then I explained to the old man that our friend was ill.

“I’m powerful sorry to larn that,” he said. “Mr Pentecost has sarved Wolf here and kept the poor beast alive. Many and many a time he’s brung a piece of polony or a pork-pie when I had nought to give him.”

Since old Justice wanted to see Mr Pentecost I knocked on the door of the SECRET BENEFACTORS

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opposite room and led him into it. I was relieved to see that my old friend had fully recovered his senses, and to my surprise, when he saw who my companion was, he caught my eye and blushed.

“It’s most extraordinary that you have not received anything,” he said when Justice explained why he had come. “For I was so concerned when I knew I was falling ill that I told Silverlight about you — or, rather, that is to say, about Wolf — and asked him to take a shilling to you so that you could purchase something for the dog. I cannot imagine what can have happened.”

I broke it to him gently that his friend had left him but this merely plunged him further into bewilderment.

“Gone?” he kept repeating. “Why, the poor fellow can’t manage without me.

Hopelessly trusting, you know. Quite a child.”

Old Justice had been brooding thoughtfully and now said: “Mr Silverlight? Was that the genel’man that you was with that day I met you and the younker here?”

“That is so.”

The old man shook his head thoughtfully and I believed he was about to speak, but he seemed to think better of it.

“Wolf looks hungry. I still have a shilling left,” Mr Pentecost said, looking in fact at his master.

Justice resisted but at last he was persuaded to take the money for the sake of the wretched beast. However, a few minutes later he returned with some meat-pies which he insisted on sharing with Mr Pentecost and the hound, and I left them making a feast on the straw mattress in the corner of the tent. I was rather puzzled as to what to make of all of this and although on the face of it there seemed grounds for suspecting my old friend of a breach of his strict principles on the subject of charity, I was reluctant to think the less of Mr Pentecost.

I soon had other matters to occupy me, however. For when I got into our room my mother came forward and greeted me anxiously:

“How much have you brought?”

I showed her the few pence I had earned and she seized the coins and began to put on her bonnet.

“Have we no food?” I asked.

She nodded and hurried out.

When she came back only a few minutes later she was much calmer and sank into her chair without removing her bonnet. When she made no move to produce anything to eat I reproached her. She did not answer and I went over to her. To my surprise, I saw no purchases.

“What have you done with the money?” I demanded.

She smiled at me.

Suspicions that I had long nursed came crowding upon me. I lifted her hands that were lying on her lap and found what I had expected. The cork had already been removed.

“How long have you been taking this?” I demanded.

“It does me no harm,” she said, smiling dreamily. “Helen takes it.”

Miss Quilliam came in just at this minute.

“Is this your doing. Miss Quilliam?” I asked, holding up the little dark-green vial.

“I have never encouraged your mother,” she said, colouring slightly. “For I 244 THE

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once became enslaved to it. I only saved myself from its clutches by recording the number of grains I was taking and forcing myself to reduce the amount day by day.” She shuddered. “I would not want any friend of mine to have to endure that.”

“It lets me sleep even when I cough and it gives me such beautiful dreams, Johnnie.”

“Then let me take it,” I cried angrily, removing the cork. “I want some beautiful dreams, too!”

“No,” Miss Quilliam cried, crossing to me and snatching it from me. “In small quantities it brings sleep, in larger amounts strange visions, but in excess it is a deadly poison if you are not habituated to it, Johnnie. That is why they call it the best friend of the poor. It robs you of life but leaves no sign of the means of death to shame your friends.”

I looked at my mother who had fallen into a slumber.

With much to brood upon, I went to bed and slept badly. Before dawn I was awakened by a loud noise from across the landing. When I went out to look I found Mr Pentecost — still pale and thin from his illness — standing between two men whose cocked hats and silver staves of office I knew so well.

He smiled when he saw me: “Well, my young friend, I’m for the fleet again.”

So he had been a fleet prisoner before that!

“On what account?” I asked.

He looked discomfited and said: “I believe I told you that I was being sought by my creditors. The truth is a little more complicated. The fact is that some years ago I backed a bill for a friend.”

Here was a frank confession of his hypocrisy in acting contrary to his principle of self-interest, and I blushed to hear it from him.

“I dare say you’re wondering how we managed to find you arter all these years, Mr Pentecost,” one of the bailiffs began in a friendly tone.

“My good fellow,” Mr Pentecost interrupted quickly, catching my eye, “not for a minute, I assure you.”

There was nothing that could be done and to the dismay of the Peachment family —

and, indeed, of the whole stair — he was given a few minutes to gather his scant possessions before being led away and put in a waiting hackney-coach.

In the weeks that followed I thought often of Mr Pentecost when I had leisure from my own concerns. A few days after the arrest of his patron, the old beggar had come again and was deeply upset to learn of his fate.

“Why,” he said, shaking his head, “Blind Justice knowed it when he heerd his voice. A leper don’t change his spots, ain’t that what they say, sir?”

When I pressed him to explain his meaning — which I feared I partly understood —

he merely shook his head with a sad smile and shuffled down the stairs.

The winter eventually came to an end in the middle of March and trade picked up a little. I was aware that the first monthly payment of interest on the locket was now due, and I knew my mother would be determined to raise the money. And so it happened, for she starved herself to put a little aside and although we had an argument about it, when the time came she went back to the pawn-broker and had her duplicate endorsed for a further month. She managed to do the same in April and May but after that our plight deteriorated so much that it became clear that the locket would have to be forfeited.

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I came to this conclusion because at the end of May Mr Peachment warned us that the Season appeared likely to terminate sooner than usual because of its unpropitious start.

He added that he suspected that the garret-master from whom he sub-contracted work, was on the point of going out of business because of this. Moreover, I knew that he and his wife no longer had Dick’s earnings to help them and that after the departure of Mr Pentecost and Mr Silverlight they had failed to find a tenant to whom to let the other half of their room because trade was so depressed.

During these months I had continued to think about my old friend and several times I went past the begging-grate (which was an iron grille let into the wall in fleet-market) where one of the prisoners always stood to beg, with the words “Pray, remember the poor debtors,” hoping that one day it would be Mr Pentecost’s turn. It never was he, however, and at last I summoned the courage to ask the prisoner I found there if he knew anything about him. He knew his name and told me he was seriously ill and his life despaired of.

Now it began to get hot and an oppressiveness settled on those miserable streets that was as onerous as the fogs of January. By the end of June my mother had not managed to save enough to pay the next month’s interest and although she was very upset about this, I was not sympathetic.

On the evening of the 22nd., we were sitting in the near-darkness (for when we had no work we did not light even a tallow-dip) when there was a knock at the door and Mr Peachment came in with a very long face.

“It’s the end,” he announced. “The slop-master don’t have no more work to give me.

And he says he never will, neither.”

The blow was not the less bitter for having been long expected. My mother gave a cry and Miss Quilliam reached out to take her arm.

“What will become of you and your family?” she asked him.

“We’ll sell everything, and go back to where we come from.”

Miss Quilliam poured something for my mother and herself from the stone jug. “Will you take something with us?” she asked him.

He shuddered slightly: “I will not, I thank you. No disrespeck ’tended, but I seen what it done to my own dad.”

“Why must you go back?” asked my mother.

“Don’t you know that? Why, no Relieving Officer in none o’ the Lunnon paritches will grant an order into the ’House if you don’t have no settlement. They pass you back to your own paritch. So we’ll return to Dunsford where we come from three years back on account of there weren’t no work.”

When he went out a few minutes later we sat for some time in silence in the gloom.

Then my mother’s voice came from the darkness: “What will become of us?”

“I don’t know,” Miss Quilliam replied, pouring out for herself and my mother a generous portion of gin.

“My dear Helen, have you no friends you can turn to?” asked my mother.

“None that I could bring myself to beg help of. But as for you and Johnnie, I recollect you once told me you have a legal settlement in London through your husband.”

I was astonished to hear this and looked at my mother.

“I dare not go there,” she said. “It would be far too dangerous.”

“Why?” I demanded, but she only shook her head.

“My dear, I believe you have no choice,” Miss Quilliam said gently.

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“What would it be like?” she whispered.

“You would be fed and clothed. The food would be that thin gruel they call stir-about, but there would most likely be a little meat on Sundays. And you would wear pauper dress and the parish badge. You would be put to picking oakum which is unpleasant and painful though not crushing work.”

“Would we be separated?” my mother asked.

“You would be in the same house and allowed to speak through a grating for a few minutes a week. But after a time they would probably try to find a master in another parish to bind Johnnie to as apprentice, since then the burden of keeping him if anything happened to him would fall on the rates of that parish.”

As she spoke I recalled the workhouse I had visited on Isbister’s errand, and the rumbling noise I had heard which I had more recently come to understand was the sound of a treadmill.

After a few moments my mother took her hands away from her face and said : “Then I suppose it must be so.” Then she asked: “But what of you, Helen? Do you mean to go upon the parish too?”