Charles Palliser (61 page)

“Witnessed in the presence of:

“Name. [
Illegible.
]

“Name. [
Illegible.
]

“Signed and sealed this Third day of September in the Year of Our Lord 1768 under the hand of Jeoffrey Huffam.”

“Jeoffrey Huffam was your grandfather, wasn’t he?” I asked.

“No, my great-grandfather,” she said unwillingly. “So James was your greatgrandfather, and John, my father, was your grandfather.”

“Can you explain why Jeoffrey added this to his will?”

“He wanted to secure his property to his descendants for he feared that his son would sell it after his death. And so he tried to create an entail upon his heirs.”

“And you and I are his heirs, aren’t we?” She said nothing. “Aren’t we, Mamma?”

She nodded.

“Then what happened to the codicil?”

“Somehow it was stolen when Jeoffrey died and that was why James was able to sell the estate.”

Remembering what the two legal gentlemen had taught me I cried: “But that means that James did not break the entail but merely barred it.”

My mother shuddered: “That is what my papa used to say, though I never understood what it meant.”

“It means that the Mompessons have only the base fee to the estate which gives them nothing but the right to possession — seizance. That was all that James sold them when they bought the estate. You and I have inherited the fee-simple, though it is of no advantage to us. You see, the Mompessons retain the estate only while there is an entailed heir. If the line fails, then the fee-simple passes to the heir who has the right of remainder and he possesses the estate.” I looked at the codicil and said: “That is someone called Silas Clothier. Who is he?”

She looked away.

“It’s he who would inherit if you and I were to die,” I prompted her. “Is he still alive?

He must be very old.” Still she said nothing. I remembered that she had once uttered this name in fear, and so I said : “He is our enemy, isn’t he? It was he who sent Mr Barbellion to try to buy the codicil and who tried to abduct me when that failed and then bribed Bissett to betray us, and it was he who had us followed and attacked yesterday, wasn’t it?”

She would say nothing and, seeing that my questions were frightening her, I gave them up.

Towards the middle of the afternoon while I was still sitting at the table studying the original and my copy, I was startled by a gasp. I looked up and saw that my mother had gone pale and was staring into the street. When I hurried to the window and looked out, I saw Miss Quilliam coming along the street in the company of a strange gentleman. And yet he was not strange tor I seemed to know him: the burly figure, the heavy jowls and staring eyes

278 THE

MOMPESSONS

beneath bushy brows. Just before they approached so near to our house that they passed from my view, I recognised him: it was Mr Barbellion!

“Betrayed!” my mother exclaimed. “We have been betrayed to our enemy!”

“Come!” I said, taking her arm and drawing her towards the door. As I passed the table I seized both the original document and my copy of it.

At the door, however, my mother refused to move any further.

“It is too late,” she cried. “We cannot escape. We will meet them upon the stair.”

“No, we’ll go up,” I cried.

She made no move, so I dragged her through the door and up the stairs to the next landing. As we climbed we heard footsteps on the flight below us, but we just managed to stay out of sight. (Often and often have I reflected on how differently our lives would have turned out if we had been a moment slower!) As we gained the top-most landing we heard a quick knock on our own door and then the sound of Miss Quilliam and Mr Barbellion going in.

“Quickly!” I whispered, “and quietly!”

I pulled her down the stairs, past our own door which the new arrivals had closed behind them, and out into the street. We ran to the end of it and up the next one, and then chose another at hazard and kept on running in this fashion until we were exhausted and knew not where we were.

We had come into a district of the metropolis that was quite strange to us, and, having entered through a wicket-gate, found ourselves in the quiet little yard of a large old church that stood between us and the bustle and clatter of a great thoroughfare. The fine weather of the morning had gone and it was now drizzling desultorily. Gasping for breath, we sat on a low wall.

My mother put her hands over her face: “I cannot understand it,” she sobbed. “I cannot understand how she could do such a thing to us.”

Indeed, I could not understand it either, but in the additional sense that I could not comprehend how Miss Quilliam had known where to find our enemy. For if even
I
had not been able to learn from my mother who these people were, how could
she
have known? Could it be that there were ramifications far beyond what I had imagined, and that her connexion with the Mompesson family had — in all innocence on her part —

somehow led associates of our enemy to her? Or was it simply by chance that she was involved with them? I could not believe, however, that coincidence could stretch so far.

The remaining and most horrible possibility was that she had been involved in the conspiracy from the very beginning. And yet I found it difficult to believe that she had betrayed us, though I could imagine no other explanation for her arrival with Mr Barbellion. I was about to raise this with my mother and try to untangle this web of apparent coincidences, accidents, and significant events, but I saw that she was past all reasoning.

“First Bissett and now Helen!” she cried. “Whom can I trust? To have known us for so long and have shared so many hardships, and then to deliver us into the power of our enemy!”

“We can’t be sure that she did,” I tried to object. “There may be some other explanation.”

She wasn’t listening for suddenly she said: “Where is the codicil?”

“I have it,” I said. “Shall I keep it?”

“No,” she cried. “Give it to me!”

She spoke with fierce, suspicious intensity as if she did not trust even me. I FACES FROM THE PAST

279

pulled it from my pocket and she snatched it from me with a wild look, folded it up in its package, and stuffed it into her own pocket.

Now I had to think of our situation. We were without lodging, hungry, and literally without a penny since we had given what little money we had to Miss Quilliam for any expenses incurred on her errand. It now began to rain more heavily and dusk was not far off. We were poorly dressed to withstand the rain, and, seeing my mother’s fevered condition I feared for the consequences if we did not soon find shelter, food and warmth. I remembered what Mrs Sackbutt had said about places where one could find bare refuge for a penny or two, but I could see that my mother needed more than that.

“Listen,” I said impatiently, for it seemed to me that only one course of action presented itself: “We must go to Mrs Fortisquince.”

My mother shook her head. Her lips moved and, unable to catch the words, I leaned forward: “Mrs Purviance will help us,” she muttered.

“No,” I said. “She has no reason to help us. Mrs Fortisquince has.” She was the widow of my grandfather’s oldest friend and, moreover, was herself a cousin of ours.

“She must do something for us.”

Her lips moved again: “I don’t trust her.”

“We need not trust her,” I said. “But the only alternative is the workhouse.”

She shuddered: “I would be passed back,” she muttered.

“Back where?” I asked quickly.

“To Christchurch,” she said. “It would be too dangerous.”

Christchurch, I thought. So that was the parish where my mother’s settlement lay.

The very parish in which Cox’s-square and Bell-lane were which my mother had seemed to have some knowledge of that time we had gone to Mrs Sackbutt’s house! I would have leisure to reflect on this later.

“Then it must be Mrs Fortisquince, must it not?” I said.

She said nothing.

Suddenly the bell in the tower beside us began to strike the hour. It seemed to me an innocent enough sound, but my mother looked up with an expression of horror and then glanced wildly around.

“St. Sepulchre!” she cried, and started to her feet.

She hurried through the gate at the other end of the narrow yard and in bewilderment I followed her into Giltspur-street. Almost opposite us stood the grim edifice of Newgate but, as if not noticing it, my mother hastened towards Holborn past the church in whose shadow we had rested.

After a few yards she stopped suddenly and I caught up with her. She was staring at an inn-sign hanging above us and depicting the face of a ferocious Moor carrying a cruelly curved scimitar. (It was the famous Saracen’s-head which denoted the inn of that name.)

She turned away muttering to herself and appearing not to see me: “The sword and the crescent moon. And the blood.”

She seemed to me to be remembering one of my stories from the
Arabian Tales.
But before I could remonstrate with her she set off at a run into the maze of stinking lanes and back-ways around Smithfield. I hurried after her and it was long before she slowed and halted.

She looked at me as if in a stupor.

I took her hand and said: “Come. We must go to Mrs Fortisquince.”

Wearily she nodded and we set off.

We walked and walked as the sky grew darker and darker, and after a few 280

THE MOMPESSONS

minutes the rain began pouring down and soaked through our clothes. My mother’s steps grew slower and feebler, and I had to keep urging her on. Neither of us knew this part of the metropolis — we were in Clerkenwell — and yet as it grew dark we became increasingly reluctant to ask the way of strangers, and therefore it happened many times that we missed our way and found that we had laboured the length of a long street only to have to turn back and retrace our steps. Now for the first time I was tempted to beg, but I knew the danger of being taken up by a constable for this offence, especially in the better streets that we were at last approaching. However, I looked in the face the few well-dressed foot-passengers whom we encountered with what I hoped was an expression of proud importunity — forced to this expedient not for myself but on behalf of my mother, — and once I was rewarded when a poorly-dressed woman gave me a penny. I used it to buy a small piece of bread and we shared it between us on one of the frequent stops to rest that my mother’s state of exhaustion necessitated.

The nearer we drew to Mrs Fortisquince’s house the more worried I became about the way she would receive us. If she had been so unfriendly when we were far from absolute penury, how would she behave now that we were penniless and almost in rags? Yet surely she could not refuse to help us?

It was past midnight when we reached the house in Golden-square and no lights were visible. I wondered if it would be better to walk the streets for the night and apply at the house early the following morning, but the sight of my mother, her hair and clothes drenched and her teeth chattering, emboldened me. I rang the bell and as it clanged on the other side of the street-door it seemed a fearful violation of the night’s silence.

In a few moments lights appeared at the upper windows, we heard sounds upon the stair, and then Mrs Fortisquince’s anxious voice came through the door: “Who is it?”

I hesitated and then answered: “John Mellamphy and his mother.”

There was a pause before we heard bolts being slid back, and then the door opened the few inches permitted by its chain. A candle was held towards us and then the chain was released and the door swung back to reveal Mrs Fortisquince and her maid-servant, both in night-attire, staring at us in obvious surprise.

“It really is you,” Mrs Fortisquince exclaimed, and to my relief she smiled in the most welcoming manner. “Come in, come in,” she urged.

We entered and, while the servant secured the door again, Mrs Fortisquince led us into the parlour and bustled about lighting candles.

“My dears, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve thought about both of you so much and wondered why you did not ever return here.”

At these words my mother threw herself into her arms and embraced her.

“My poor Mary,” Mrs Fortisquince said, stroking her shoulder, “I can’t begin to tell you how often I have asked myself where you were and what you were doing. I sent to the Golden-cross to find you but they had no record of your ever having stayed there. So mysterious!”

My mother blushed and glanced at me reproachfully.

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281

“It was so kind of you to bring me a gift at Christmas,” Mrs Fortisquince went on;

“but that foolish girl I had then, Dorcas, did not remember to ask you for your address.

You must tell me everything. Why did you not come back to me?”

“Johnnie would not let me!” my mother cried.

“Indeed? Why ever not?”

“He didn’t trust you,” she said. “He’s so suspicious and mean-minded now that he quite frightens me.”

Mrs Fortisquince stared at me with the strangest expression. “Only fancy,” she said.

Then suddenly it was as if only now she realized how exhausted and how ill-clad we both were. “Why, you’re both soaked to the skin! What am I thinking of ! Checkland will make up beds for you and light fires upstairs, while I warm up some broth. Your story will keep till the morning.”

My mother was almost asleep on her feet but recovered enough to take a small amount of nourishment before we were led upstairs to a room in which a blazing fire had been lighted and the two beds warmed for us. Mrs Fortisquince helped my mother off with her wet dress and noticed that she clutched the package she wore in a pocket under her top petticoat.

“Come, let me take that from you,” she said, holding out her hand for it.

“No,” said my mother abruptly.

“Come, my dear, don’t be silly.”

But my mother moved away with a look of fear on her face.

“Please leave it, Mrs Fortisquince,” I said. “She always sleeps with it.”

“Of course, of course,” she said, and left us a few minutes later.