Charles Palliser (80 page)

A sexton carrying a shovel now appeared and, leaving the clergyman at his devotions in the porch, made his way along a muddy track through the burial-ground followed by the three men who each picked up one or two of the smaller objects from the cart. The sexton halted beside an area of naked freshly-turned earth and began to clear away the soil with his spade, while the other men dropped their burdens to the ground nearby and went back to bring the rest of them from the cart. As the earth was removed from the pit the stench became overpowering, and I quickly understood why when, a few inches down, the sexton’s shovel began to uncover shrouded forms. As the last of the bodies was brought from the cart, the curate abandoned the shelter of the porch and accompanied the men, now holding a handkerchief before his face. He stopped some ten yards from the pit as the three men, with the help of the sexton, began to lift their burdens and drop them the few inches into what was now a trench a couple of feet deep.

Now that I understood, I ran forward and laid my hand on the arm of the sexton.

“No,” I said. “Not in there.”

“What else?” he asked turning to me a face that was cold and uninterested.

“Not like that,” I cried.

“Do not demean this sacred rite,” the curate called out in a startlingly deep voice, removing the handkerchief from his face for a moment in order to do so.

I was powerless to prevent what was happening. Still standing at a distance, the clergyman rapidly intoned the concluding words of the Burial Service, throwing a few pebbles towards the pit at the appropriate moment, and then walked quickly away, followed by the men from the parish. I watched as the sexton sprinkled lime from a bucket and then shovelled a few inches of earth over the fresh contents of the pit which now rose from the surrounding grass like a pustulent sore swelling to bursting — just as the graveyard itself bulged several feet above the level of the street.

The sexton finished his work and departed, I heard the cart move off, and I was left alone. Was that all there was to my mother’s life? It seemed less than meaningless. I tried to pray but all I could remember were Dr Meadowcroft’s bland phrases, and I found that I could not believe in a God who had done this. I thought of the peaceful church-yard at Melthorpe which was the resting-place of our forefathers and spoke aloud my promise: “If ever I am able, I will have you moved from this place.”

The promise failed to comfort me and an insane thought of digging up that precious object and carrying it off occurred to me. Overcome by grief and rage and possessed suddenly by a dark fear, I found that I could not breathe in the INHERITANCES

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foul air. My stomach went into spasms and I would have vomited if there had been enough food inside me. Hardly trusting my legs to bear me, I withdrew from the burying-ground to the edge of the square where the air was less intolerable. For after the betrayal by Lizzie, I suspected everyone and all that Mr Pentecost had said seemed to me to be justified now. To believe in altruism or generosity or any of the other things that Mr Silverlight had defended was absurd. I recalled the feigned solicitude — as it seemed to me — of Mrs Lillystone, and passed in review the faces of the three men from the workhouse and the sexton. I had only too much reason to know what further indignity might await the body of my mother.

And so for the rest of that day I walked round and round the square — so silent though the bustle of fleet-market lay just beyond that row of houses! — as the gloomy afternoon turned to dusk and the shadows lengthened. When night came I huddled into a door-way opposite to the long pit. Still no tears came for they would have been in pity for myself and I felt none: I felt only anger. Anger against everyone: against Mrs Purviance, against Mrs Fortisquince, against the Mompessons, against old Lizzie. Above all, against myself.

Now it was that I vowed that never again would I place myself at the mercy of outward circumstances by allowing myself to love another individual.

With the cold and the rain and the cries of the watch, I slept badly. About three hours after midnight the watch discovered me and shone their lanthorns in my face. They questioned me harshly and ordered me to move on, so I roused myself and began a weary patrole of the square and the surrounding streets for an hour or so. After that I settled down in my old place and was left in peace for what remained of the night. I slept fitfully and awoke to the desire of death — the longing to prolong sleep. Who now cared if I lived or died? Nobody. So why should I care?

When the sluggish dawn came up I laid out a penny on a small loaf and then took up my post again. The next day and the following night passed in the same way, except that having now only four-pence-ha’penny left, I bought no food. But this did not worry me for I could see no reason to live once my present task was fulfilled.

By dawn on the second day I believed that my vigil had been long enough to defeat the purposes of Isbister and his like. The weather was getting colder and it came to me that I should remain out in the streets that day, and then the following night find somewhere to conceal myself — a hidden kennel or over-grown yard — and simply fall asleep there in the expectation that I would never wake again.

How guilty the Mompessons would feel when they heard how my mother had died —

and then of my death, too. They would be alarmed, too, for our deaths would dispossess them. But then it came to me that our mysterious enemy would be delighted, for this would give him the Hougham estate. In that case, I would not give him the satisfaction of having achieved his desire. I must remain alive.

With that thought animating me, I set off for Mitre-court, knowing nowhere else to go.

I had just enough strength to find my way back to that room which I hated having to enter again, and when I gave up my penny at the door I now had only three pence and a ha’penny left. The Irish family had gone, but Lizzie lay before the fire in a drunken stupor, an empty stone jug beside her. I lay down beside her, with no feeling of anger towards her for I only remembered that she

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had shewn a sort of rough kindness to my mother — whatever her motives had been. I slept all that day, then in the evening went out and spent a ha’penny on a loaf of bread, then returned to the room at the expense of another penny — except for the remaining tuppence, the last money I had in the world — and slept again.

When I awoke the next morning the desire to live was strong in me, though I felt in some way that it was a betrayal of my mother to want to survive her. But then I told myself that on the contrary, I owed it to her to stay alive, that it would have grieved her to know that I was to follow her. Something was taking place inside me which I did not understand, for the rage I had felt since her death had been transformed by finding its vehicle. I wanted justice. I wanted to bring it home to those people who had brought about my mother’s death. Much as I hated them, I did not mean those whose actions had merely contributed to it, like Bissett and Mrs Purviance, or who had apparently refused her aid at the end like Sir Perceval and Lady Mompesson and their creature Mr Barbellion.

(And yet I could not understand why my mother had said they had turned her away, for I knew that it was crucial to their interests that a Huffam heir remained alive. Surely she must have been delirious when she had spoken of it?) No, the individuals I wanted to bring to justice were those who had cold-bloodedly contrived my mother’s destruction for purposes of their own: the mysterious “Silas” who must be the “Silas Clothier”

mentioned in the codicil as the heir in remainder, and the creatures who, I suspected, had been part of his conspiracy — Mr Sancious (or, as he had called himself, Mr Steplight) and Mrs Fortisquince.

Now I was hungry and the fact that I had no money forced me to think about my future. I thought of the vastness of London with its teeming millions close-packed in streets and squares, or tiny courts and alleys. In all that huge crowd — each member of it preoccupied with his selfish concerns — I knew nobody to whom I could apply for aid, nobody who cared whether I lived or died, nobody at all — except perhaps Miss Quilliam, and she could do little enough for me. My head spun at the thought of the huge, meaningless, uncaring city around me and at the realization that I had no idea what to do next. Justice! That was the idea to hold onto. Only justice gave the world back a pattern and therefore a meaning, for without it there was nothing but incoherence and confusion. I would go to Miss Quilliam and perhaps she would help me to secure justice against the Mompessons, for they had done her harm; and with this thought I set out for Coleman-street.

As I was hurrying through Soho I noticed on a high narrow house in a dark street a brass door-plate bearing the legend “James Lampard: School of Anatomy”. I remembered that name on Isbister’s lips and now I understood what the point of his dreadful trade must be. I could not shake the thought of it off, and as I walked along I saw all those I encountered as pigs, brutal animals, self-interested, creatures of mere appetite. I did not wish to belong to such a race. Everywhere I saw jowls heavy with self-satisfaction, starched linen framing faces of utter bestiality, bare arms displaying jewelled bracelets.

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Perfumed beasts, animals strutting in stolen finery — that was all my fellow beings seemed to me.

When I had descended the area stairs of the house in Coleman-street I found I was in luck for, having knocked at the kitchen door I discovered that the little maid was alone.

She stood at the door, however, without letting me in.

“I dursen’t,” she said. “The mistress has forbid it. She was very angry with me for letting you speak to Miss Quilliam.”

“But I must see her,” I protested.

“You can’t,” she said with a kind of triumph. “She’s gone away.”

“Where to?” I asked with a stab of foreboding.

“To Paris.”

I remembered that she had mentioned this possibility when I last spoke to her. The girl must have seen my disappointment — indeed, my dismay — for, indicating that I should wait, she closed the door for a moment and re-appeared with a piece of bread and half a saveloy.

“Go quickly,” she said, pushing the food into my hand and shutting the door.

As I walked slowly down the street lingeringly consuming this gift, I reflected that my situation was now truly desperate. I knew that no workhouse — and Heaven knew what kind of fate would await me there! — would admit an able-bodied boy of my years, especially one without any claim to a settlement in any parish in London. I would be reduced to scavenging for scraps around the markets or “mud-larking” on the shores of the river, and wondered how long I could survive that way. And yet I had no alternative, for I knew no-one in the metropolis to whom I could turn unless I made another attempt to locate Mrs Digweed. But that would mean going all the way to the Borough in search of Pulvertaft and after my experiences with Isbister — and all the more in the light of what had just happened — I shrank from the thought of seeking out anyone who had been connected with him. Moreover, I felt that my link with the Digweeds was very tenuous — and growing more so with each passing month.

At that moment I remembered that there was one other individual to whom I could go: Stephen Maliphant’s half-brother, Henry Bellringer. Indeed, since I had promised Stephen that I would carry to him the news of his death, I had not so much a right as a positive duty to go to him. The consideration that I could not hope for much assistance from him since Stephen had told me how very poor he was, made me feel the less reserve about seeking him out in so impoverished a state.

I recalled the address of his chambers — No. 6, fig-tree-court, Barnards-inn and, reflecting that it was strange to live in a tavern if one were very poor, made my way there.

The inn revealed itself to be a building of very shabby appearance and nothing like any other hostelry I had ever seen for there was no stable-yard and I could see no sign of a dining-room or coffee-room. It seemed to be no more than an ordinary court, except that the entrance was through a porter’s lodge.

I knew that I had no chance of being granted admittance dressed as I was, so I 372

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lurked out of sight outside the lodge and then hurried past when the gate-keeper’s attention was engaged by a gentleman leaving the building. I ventured through several inter-connected courts and found that the one I wanted was the dingiest and darkest. To my surprise I saw that there were names painted on boards at the bottom of the stairs for it suggested a degree of permanency on the part of the guests that was unusual in an inn.

However that might be, I was reassured to find that Mr Henry Bellringer did indeed occupy chambers on staircase No. 6.

I climbed up the stairs and reached what I believed was the top floor without finding his name on any of the doors. Then I noticed an additional short and rickety pair of stairs beyond the main one. I took this way up to the garret under the roof where, indeed, I found another door with the name I was seeking inscribed upon it. The outer door stood open but the inner was closed and I knocked upon it.

It opened. A young man stood in the door-way and stared at me, and indeed in my dirty and ragged clothes and with my grimy face, I must have seemed a surprising and somewhat alarming figure. The young man was about three- or four-and-twenty years of age and was dressed as a gentleman, though, I could see, a very poor one.

He addressed me with no more formality than the occasion seemed to warrant :

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“Are you Mr Henry Bellringer?”

He was clearly surprised by my intonation, which must have been very different from what he expected.

“I am,” he said with an expression in which curiosity now predominated over repugnance.

“I am a friend of Stephen Maliphant.”

He gave a start of surprise and scrutinized me for several moments, then he smiled slightly and said: “Then you had better come in.”