Charles Palliser (9 page)

At that moment my mother seized my arm and hissed: “You’re a wicked, wicked boy.”

She led me towards the door and we found ourselves in the queue that was processing past the Rector.

As we came up with him he held out his hand to my mother with a look of surprise: “I wish you well, Mrs Mellamphy. I often see you there at the back while I’m preaching, and reflect that there is more rejoicing in Heaven … you know?”

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My mother coloured and nodded briefly.

As we walked away I commented: “What a silly thing to say. There’s never any rejoicing in that church.”

She was taciturn and still angry with me, though this occasioned me little concern for I had much to think about as we walked home and ate the dinner that Mrs Belflower had ready for us. I was so curious to know the explanation for these discoveries that I resolved to appeal immediately to my mother for an answer, even though we were still several months from Christmas.

Therefore, as we were having tea later that afternoon — safe and snug inside the house while outside the wind began to rise, I asked: “Mamma, what does ‘J. H.’ mean? I found it in some of the books.”

“Oh, Johnnie,” she said, “finish up your bread and butter and stop asking questions.”

“I want some of that lemon cake,” I said, pointing to one of Mrs Belflower’s masterpieces that stood on the table, though the rule was that I had to eat all of my bread-and-butter first. “And I want to know about ‘J. H.’ And what that sentence in Latin means.”

“My father told me it meant ‘the rose is safe within its thorns’. It was the family-motto.

That means, it was what they tried to live by.”

It seemed to me a fine idea to have a motto to live by, but the sentiment — with its suggestion of defensive concealment — struck me as a shameful one.

“And he was ‘J- H.’, wasn’t he?” I asked. She hesitated and I went on: “Mamma, you do remember, don’t you, that you promised to tell me what I wanted to know next Christmas? You might just as well tell me now.”

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“First, what was your papa’s name?”

“That’s something I can’t tell you, Johnnie.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door and Sukey came in: “Shall I take away the tea-things now, ma’am?”

“Yes, Sukey,” my mother said, and then catching my eye she added: “But leave the cake and a plate for Master Johnnie.”

Remembering an earlier occasion when a question in the presence of Mrs Belflower on the same topic had embarrassed my mother, I added: “And I want to know about my own papa.” My mother stared at me in surprise and I saw Sukey turn her head suddenly from where she was working. My mother left the table and went over to sit on the sopha in the window as Sukey, carrying the tray, left the room.

Then she spoke again: “Do you know the box with the picture of a tiger-hunt which stands on my dressing-table?”

I nodded.

“Will you run up and fetch it now?”

I hurried from the room, but out in the hall I had to slow down abruptly for Sukey was standing at the foot of the stairs with the tray precariously balanced in one hand while the other was in the pocket of her apron.

She turned suddenly when she heard me: “Oh, Master Johnnie, you did startle me.”

“You silly creature,” I said. “Whatever are you doing? Stand out of my way.”

I ran up the stairs, fetched down the japanned box and handed it to my mother.

She laid it on the sopha between us and then turned to me: “I’m going to say 36 THE

HUFFAMS

something to you now that is very serious. I had not intended to say it for some time and it may be that you are not old enough to understand it yet, but I fear I may not delay it for very much longer. I have to decide whether or not to do something. If I am to do it, I must do it soon, and once I’ve done it, I cannot undo it ever again. And it concerns you very deeply. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. I noticed that as she spoke she touched with her fingers the slender box that she wore at her waist.

“Now, my dearest,” she went on, “you must help me to choose. If I decide to do this thing, then you and I will go on being poor but the important thing is that nobody will try to harm us or to take you away from me.”

“But why should anyone want to do that?” I asked.

My mother lowered her eyes for a moment before she looked up at me and said: “You remember that I began by saying we had a choice? Well, if I decide not to do this thing that I spoke of, then we may just possibly one day cease being poor.”

“Will we be rich? Rich enough to buy a carriage and horses?”

“No, not as rich as that, but rich enough to start you in a good profession. But in that case we might be in danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

“We have a wicked enemy,” she answered gravely, “who might try to harm us. Do you recall that man who broke into the house?”

“Yes, of course!” I exclaimed, blushing slightly for I remembered how I had allowed Job to fall under suspicion when I might have cleared him.

“Well, I believe he was sent by our enemy. So do you understand how difficult it is for me to decide? You must help me to choose what is best.”

“Is the danger to myself or to you?” I asked.

“A little to me, but mainly to you.”

“Then I’m not afraid of anything happening to me,” I declared. “And I’ll stop anyone hurting you.”

She gazed at me thoughtfully: “Well, I won’t do anything just yet anyway.”

“What about the box?” I asked.

“I believe you ought to know a little more,” she said, and choosing one of the keys from the chain, she undid the lock. Then she lifted the lid and, removing a piece of dark blue velvet that rested on the contents, took out a package tied up in crepe-paper. She unwrapped it to reveal a little heart-shaped locket attached to a golden chain. “See, this is how it opens,” she said and pressed a tiny knob on the side so that the lid opened to reveal a painting in miniature.

“May I look at it?” I asked and she handed it to me.

The painting depicted the head of a young lady and of a young gentleman in each of the halves of the heart. I easily recognised the lady as my mother, looking very young and, I thought, very beautiful. The young gentleman was very handsome, too, with large, soft, brown eyes in a delicate and rather melancholy face.

“Is that my papa?” I asked.

My mother lowered her eyes and said softly: “The likenesses were taken a few days before we were married.”

“And where is he now?”

She shook her head.

“Tell me. You said you would. It’s not fair. Why won’t you?”

“I didn’t say I would tell you everything,” she said tearfully. “I can’t, Johnnie.”

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“Yes you can. You said you would. You’ve broken your promise to tell me.”

Sadly she wrapped the locket up again and replaced it in the box. Just at that moment we heard the sound of running feet and immediately the door was flung open. To our surprise Mrs Belflower burst in, panting and flushed. She stopped when she saw my mother’s face and glanced at me. Then she exclaimed: “Oh ma’am, please come at once.

She’s going at her something wicked.”

“Why, what’s the matter?” cried my mother, starting up.

“She had it in her pocket, but then she has the right, though I will say she has always ate her share and more. But she says she hasn’t no right without she’s gave leave.”

My mother quickly went out followed by Mrs Belflower.

Resenting my mother’s failure to keep her promise, I took out the locket and opened it again. Idly I turned it over and found that engraved on the reverse were two pairs of intertwined initials so elaborately rendered that it was difficult to make them out. One set was the familiar “M. H.” while the other looked like “P. C.” I remembered the puzzling letter “C” that I had seen the day of the burglary and wished that I could recall the rest of the word which would now be meaningful to me. As I was replacing the locket I noticed something peeping out from beneath the velvet and, moving it a little, saw the corner of a piece of paper. My curiosity overcoming my scruples, I lifted the cloth and found beneath it a sheet of paper folded in two and sealed with a great piece of red wax which bore the impression of the four-petalled rose that was so familiar to me.

There was an inscription which, though faded and slightly smudged where dark stains appeared to have been smeared randomly across the paper, was easily legible : “My beloved son — and my heir : John Huffam”.

Hastily I covered the letter again with the piece of velvet. Huffam! How strange that the name that was signified by that ubiquitous letter “H” was one that I had always known, although under a different spelling! A train of possibilities began to appear before me, but my reverie was interrupted by the return of my mother.

“Is anything amiss?” I asked.

“No. There has been a little misunderstanding, but it has all been straightened out now,” she said with a tired smile.

She locked up the box and handed it to me: “Now put this back and then it will be time for Mrs Belflower to see you into bed. Sukey has gone home for tonight.”

“Isn’t she well? And what’s wrong with Bissett?”

“She’s not exactly unwell, but nurse is a little under the weather tonight.”

I knew what that meant, and I was delighted at the exchange.

So it was Mrs Belflower instead of Bissett who came panting up the stairs after me uttering the most bloodcurdling threats as I ran ahead of her screaming and laughing, all fears of the lurking shadows forgotten in the excitement of the chase.

“Now hurry up,” she scolded a few minutes later. “ ’Tis a cold night to be out o’ your bed. And just listen to that wind getting up.”

She held my night-shirt over my head and I struggled into it. As the clean, starch-smelling linen enveloped my head dimming the lights of the candles, I swam in a kind of white mist until eventually I thrust my head through the top and re-emerged into the light to find Mrs Belflower securing the shutters.

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THE HUFFAMS

“Terrible what it’s done to the corn,” she remarked. “They say ’tis the worst harvest for many a year. I don’t like to think what the price of a quartern loaf will be come Christmas-tide. There’ll be people in the village nigh on … ” She broke off. “I hope that gal ain’t abroad still in this.”

“She’ll be home by now,” I said, sitting up in bed, as I watched her bustle about putting my clothes away.

“Unless she’s gone down to see her aunt and uncle. He’s bad again, seemingly.” She shook her head: “Poor gal. Her family is a worrisome burden to her. But they’re from

’Ougham and it’s a bad village, so it’s no more nor you’d expeck.”

At that moment there was a flash of lightning.

“Why is it a bad village?” I asked.

“That I can’t say but bad it is from high to low. For even the Mumpseys, who are estated folk and own nigh everything there — and up here, for the matter of that — are a bad lot. There’s plenty of tales are told of them and their doings.”

“The Mumpseys,” I repeated. I did not recognise the name. The sound of distant thunder rolled across the fields towards us and I felt a shiver of excitement for I loved storms. “What sort of stories?” I asked.

“Mostly stories about how they fust come by that great house and the land. You see, they got it of a fambly that had lived here since, oh, since the very start of time when the Romans built the barrers up on the Downs.”

“And what was their name?” I asked.

“ ’Ougham, like the village, though which come fust I couldn’t take it upon myself to say,”

Huffam! So there had been a family here of that name! The descendants of Geoffroi!

Surely I must be connected with it!

“Will you tell me the story?” I begged.

“ “Tis too long for now.”

“But I won’t sleep with that storm!”

Another flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by a loud clap of thunder.

“Very well,” she said, and lowered her ample person onto the end of my bed. “This is the story of how a terrible curse fell upon the house and land and anyone who ever owned ’em.”

“Oh good!” I exclaimed, for I loved Mrs Belflower’s curses. They nearly always ended in duels or madness.

“Well, the ’Ougham fambly lived in that big house on the edge of the village down there. They dwelt there peaceful enough for hundreds and hundreds of years until they started dying out, as old famblies will. So at last it happened that there wasn’t nought left on ’em but an old man and his three children — two daughters and a boy. And the son was a young rascal called Jemmy. I call him a rascal for he was very spendy and lost all his fortin’ on high play and drink and all manner of wicked mischief in Lunnon Town.”

“What manner of mischief, Mrs Belflower?”

“All manner,” she said firmly. “Well, he married a rich heiress who brung him fifteen thousand pound and he had a son and a daughter by her. The boy was called John.”

John Huffam!

“Like me!” I cried.

“Aye, ’tis a common enough name. And they christened the gal Sophy.

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Well, he spent all of his wife’s fortin’ in a few years and treated her so bad that he broke her heart and she died. And so he carried on until at last no-one wouldn’t lend him no more money. And then he heard tell of a money-lender as lived in the City of Lunnon as everybody said was the devil — or nearest kin to him for they said he weren’t come of no Christen-folk — and he was called Old Nick. So one day Jemmy went to ask Old Nick to lend him thirty thousand pound. And Old Nick said to him: ‘What have you got to pledge?’ And Jemmy said: ‘I shan’t have nought until my father dies.’ And Old Nick said: ‘Here’s the bargain I’ll offer you: take it or leave it. I’ll lend you thirty thousand pound if you’ll fust make away with your father. Then when you’ve come into the estate you must give me your daughter, Sophy, as my wife. You can keep the land for as long as you live, but if you fail to redeem the money then when you die Sophy’s children will have it.’ So Jemmy agreed to this for it was no hardship to him, and Old Nick told him how he was to make his father quiet and he give him the means.”