Tom All-Alone's (3 page)

‘The case is not, of itself, a taxing one. The need for discretion arises purely from Sir Julius' rank and repute. In all other respects it is utterly trivial. But it must, nonetheless, be resolved, and with dispatch. I am afraid, Mr Maddox, that there will always be those who seek to besmirch eminent men for their own nefarious purposes. I have seen it happen many times before, and the more spotless the family credit, the more zealous such villains seem to be to compromise it.'

‘I see,' says Charles, who does not, quite. ‘Perhaps you could—?'

‘Of course. You will want details. It is in the nature of your profession.'

A noise. So low as to be almost inaudible – little more than the slightest creak of the ancient boards, but Charles is suddenly alert. Is it possible that there is someone else in the room? He'd noticed the elaborate oriental screen when he came in, and thought in passing that it sat rather oddly with the austerity of the rest, but he had not suspected its role might be more than decorative.

‘Sir Julius,' continues Mr Tulkinghorn, looking at Charles from under his bent grey brows, ‘has been receiving letters. Very unpleasant letters.'

‘Letters of a threatening nature?'

Tulkinghorn considers. ‘Nothing specific. Merely the expression of a vague but undeniably malevolent intent.'

Charles frowns. ‘But as you said yourself, it cannot be the first time that Sir Julius has been harassed in a similar way. Why should this particular example concern him so much?'

Tulkinghorn places the tips of his fingers together. ‘Sir Julius has always gone to extraordinary lengths to protect his wife
and daughters from the less seemly consequences of his public position, and in this endeavour he has, until very recently, been entirely successful. Unfortunately, the eldest Miss Cremorne is about to be married, and the house has, as a result, been thronged at all hours of the day by dressmakers, provisioners, flower-sellers, and I know not what. In short, there has been an unwarrantable breach on the part of one of the footmen, such that one of these infamous letters was given directly to Lady Cremorne's own hand.'

‘There have been how many, so far?'

‘Three. The earliest some five months ago; the most recent, only last week.'

‘May I see it?'

There is, perhaps, a slight hesitation on the lawyer's part at this request, but he takes out a ring of keys from his
waistcoat-pocket
and unlocks the desk drawer. The letter has been placed on plain brown paper, under a small oblong paperweight carved of some highly polished black substance. From where Charles is standing it looks, improbable as it sounds, like two slender fingers, one slightly longer than the other, the fingernails carefully incised. He's still staring at it when Tulkinghorn leans forward and hands him the paper. One sheet only, soft with frequent handling, with marks here and there in a dark and dirty brown. The handwriting is not educated, that much is both obvious and expected, but there is strength in it, and considerable resolution.

Charles looks up, ‘Was there no cover?'

‘I believe it was mislaid.'

‘But it was posted, not delivered by hand?'

Tulkinghorn nods.

‘And the others? May I see them?'

‘Possibly. If they have not been disposed of. I will enquire.'

‘And Sir Julius has no idea what this latest letter refers to?'

Tulkinghorn spreads his hands. ‘Like the others – anything and nothing. You know what the people who commit these affronts to decency are like. And you can also imagine, I am sure, the effect of such a missive on a lady's mind. The matter must be settled with all possible speed: there must be no recurrence.'

‘So what do you want me to do?'

‘Discover the culprit and tell me his name.'

‘As simple as that. Even though, on the face of it, this letter could have been written by any one of a thousand men.'

Tulkinghorn inclines his head. ‘Even so. It is a complex puzzle, I grant you; if it were
not
so I should not have required assistance to resolve it, and I should not have hired
you
.'

He has him there; Charles is intelligent enough to know he is being flattered, but human enough to pride himself on that intelligence, and crave the credit for it.

Tulkinghorn gets to his feet, as Charles folds the paper and puts it in his breast-pocket. ‘I will expect you to keep me fully informed. If you have expenses, you should apply to Knox. He, likewise, will require you to render a comprehensive account.'

The clerk shows Charles back down the stairs and out on to the square. He has been in the house less than twenty minutes. He walks slowly to the corner and waits to let a carriage go past, then stoops for a moment to refasten his boot. So it is that he does not see that same equipage come to a halt at Tulkinghorn's door, or the man who emerges from it. He is a little below middle size, this man, pale-faced, and about five-and-forty. His
beard is shaven on his chin, but grows a fine rich brown on his cheeks and his upper lip, though his most distinguishing feature is concealed at present by a black leather glove: he bears an unsightly red scar on the back of his hand, the result of an unfortunate wound received some years since while travelling on the Continent. He stops a moment on the top step and looks about him, but by the time Charles straightens up he has disappeared inside, and the groom is closing the carriage door. The panel bears a rather striking black swan on its coat of arms, which Charles glances at idly before turning and walking away. Heraldry was rather a hobby of his, as a boy, and somewhere on his crowded shelves there is still a tattered old scrapbook of the armorial bearings of the English peerage. But these arms, arresting though they are, he does not recognize.

The man, meanwhile, is ascending the stairs of Tulkinghorn's house much as Charles had done. But he, unlike Charles, finds his host waiting to greet him at the door of the room. Tulkinghorn bows solemnly and leads the way to a smaller ante-chamber on the far side. They cross the floor under the opulent if rather faded ceiling, which seems to depict some sort of allegorical figure, reclining among flowers, clouds, and chubby pink-cheeked cherubs, and pointing with a plump arm which – from where we're standing, at least – seems oddly foreshortened. Tulkinghorn's new visitor admires the ceiling, having seen it many times. He considers it rather fine, of its type; Charles thought it obscene.

There are three other gentlemen already seated at the round table in the ante-room, two of them smoking, and a third man with a finely trimmed beard, who has just emerged from the recess behind that extremely useful oriental screen.

‘So?' It is the oldest of the men, upright and self-possessed, with fine white hair and an equally fine white shirt-frill, perfectly starched. ‘Is he our man, or not?'

Mr Tulkinghorn takes his place at the table. ‘I think, Sir Amyas, that young Mr Maddox is ideal for our purposes. Bright, but not dangerously so, and very much in need of gainful employ. He has sufficient astuteness to do what we ask, and judgement enough not to probe any further.'

There is a silence. The last gentleman to arrive shifts in his seat, clearly not yet convinced. ‘I am sure I need not remind you why it is absolutely imperative that my own particular part in this business should remain a matter of the utmost secrecy. You
say
this young man is unlikely to discover the truth, but what if he should—'

Mr Tulkinghorn holds up a hand. ‘He will not. Indeed he cannot. As far as he is concerned, he is investigating a distressing but ultimately inconsequential incident, involving only Sir Julius Cremorne. It is impossible he should discover the full extent of the affair. He knows enough to locate the culprit, nothing more.'

‘That's all very well,' says the bearded man quickly, looking round the table, and shifting rather stiffly on his old-fashioned mahogany-and-horsehair chair. ‘None of
you
face the m-meddling of a vulgar and impertinent upstart—'

‘Hardly that, surely,' murmurs Tulkinghorn.

‘– none of
you
run anything like the risk you expect
me
to assume. We've all had those damnable letters, but I'm the only one menaced with exposure by this plan. I told you before, Tulkinghorn, and I'll tell you again – I d-don't like this. I don't like it at all. And as for that latest abomination—'

‘My dear Sir Julius, we have, as you say, discussed this already, and at some length. In the first place, your letters are among the most recent, and we may hope that their trail has not, therefore, gone completely cold. In the second place, it will be far easier to convince our young man that, for a
gentleman in your position, such letters are little more than an occupational commonplace. No one, after all, has any great love for bankers.'

Sir Julius sits back in his chair, his face very red. ‘To speak frankly, I fail to see why we need this
Maddox
at all. That other f-fellow has always given perfect satisfaction in the past.'

‘The circumstances have changed, Sir Julius, as well you know. What is it that good Mrs Glasse says in her housekeeping compendium? “First catch your hare.” Mr Maddox has the skills we require to complete that particular task, but you have my assurance that I will – as always – make my own arrangements thereafter. And if he proves foolish enough to delve deeper into the affair than the task demands, I will make it my business to ensure that he does not live to profit by it.'

‘You m-mean—'

The lawyer gives a small grim smile. ‘It would not be the first time such a problem has occurred, Sir Julius, and I hope the other gentlemen will do me the justice of acknowledging that whenever such a circumstance has arisen, I have never once scrupled to take whatever steps were necessary to eliminate it. If young Maddox insists on putting himself into the like category, I shall not hesitate to have him dealt with in the like manner, and with the like expediency.'

There is an unsettled silence, broken only by the puttering of the coal fire and the breathing of cigars. The man with the scarred hand glances at Cremorne, but he is half-turned away from the rest and will not meet his eye. He looks to the lawyer.

‘And the lady? What of her?'

Mr Tulkinghorn sits back in his chair. ‘I have, as promised, concluded my enquiries. It appears that the lady in question is indeed in possession of certain facts that, put together, could allow her to discover our secret.'

There is a gasp at this, but once again. Tulkinghorn holds up his hand.

‘The word I used was “could”. I did not say “will”. I very much doubt that my Lady Dedlock has any idea of the significance of what she knows, or how to connect what must appear to her to be little more than a random collection of meaningless scraps.'

‘All the same—'

‘All the same, I am not proposing that we sit idly by. Trusting to luck is, in general, a notoriously unreliable defence, but it seems in this case it has been singularly favourable. It has come to my knowledge – I need not trouble you how – that my Lady has a secret of her own. A dire and shameful secret that threatens to bring stain and ignominy on the proudest of lineages. I have suspected it a long time – fully known it only a little while. And now my Lady knows that I know it.'

‘And you intend to expose her?'

Tulkinghorn shakes his head. ‘Not yet. Perhaps not at all. Once disgraced she would have nothing to lose, and time on her hands to ponder those facts which at present are the very last and least of her concerns. No, gentlemen, better by far that she remains where she is, dragging out her present life at my pleasure, from day to day, from hour to hour, wondering when the blow will fall, and when the dark and lonely path she chose so long ago will at last find its end.'

Sir Julius looks at him narrowly; his agitation has somewhat subsided, and with it his slight but perceptible stammer. ‘I should not like to have you for an enemy, Tulkinghorn. You show neither pity, nor compunction, nor hesitation. I congratulate you.'

Tulkinghorn bows, the faintest possible colour in his grey cheeks. ‘I am obliged to you, sir. Indeed, the circumstances
could hardly be more propitious. I caution, as always, against the slightest complacency on our part, but I am perfectly easy in my own mind. I do not think my Lady will be troubling us again.'

I
have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. Even when I was a very little girl I knew, and I would confess it to my doll when we were alone together, and ask her to be kind and patient with me. And she would sit there in her little chair, with her bright smile, and bright pink cheeks, and I would sit by her and chatter on, telling her all my childish secrets, and knowing she would understand and never blame me. I would run up to my room as soon as I came home from school, and tell her all that I had done, and all that I had said, in that great expanse of hours since I had left her there that morning. Though I rarely had much to tell of what I had said, because I never said very much at all. I was always a very diffident child, very shy, and fearful of putting myself forward, though perhaps I had, in consequence, a rather observant way about me – not a clever way, or a quick way, no indeed! – but a quiet way of noticing things, and events, and people, especially when they are people that I love. Though it is possible that I flatter myself even in that.

The first person I loved so tenderly as this was my mother. My earliest memory is of our tiny up-and-down cottage with a trellis of honeysuckle around the door, and a pretty little garden
where cherry trees would blossom in spring, and snowdrops nestle among the snow in the winter of the year. Though when I think of this little house now, it is always summer, the sky blue and the view of the meadows hazy in the heat, and a sweet warm breeze. I would sit in the sunshine on the tiny veranda, playing with my dear old Dolly, while my mother sat in her own chair at the little tea-table, with its white cloth and its delicate china pot, all wreathed with jasmine and roses.

My mother was, I think, the prettiest lady I ever saw, with her beautiful golden curls and the loveliest eyes in her gentle tender face. People have told me since that I resemble her, and sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass and think I see my mother's face. But even if I am not so pretty as she was, I remember that the gentlemen who visited us in our little house were always quick to praise my looks. When I was still a very little girl, one of these gentleman – tall and severe to my lowly eye – bent down and touched my shoulder, saying, ‘Do you know how pretty you are, child?', smiling all the while at my mother, where she sat at her needlework before the fire, and the little bird sang in its cage above her head.

I had a very happy childhood altogether, surrounded by my mother's love, and the companionship of the girls at the local school. I was the smallest there by a good deal, and they all made such a pet of me, kissing and cosseting me, and calling me their little marmoset. My mother shook her head at these frivolities, saying she was afraid I would be spoiled by so much attention. I think this was why she discouraged me from inviting my friends home; at least I think that must be the explanation, for I cannot remember any parties at the cottage in those days. Or not, at least, for my own friends; aside from the gentlemen who visited my mother, our lives were very retired and tranquil. As I grew older, my mother was careful to instruct me in my
duties and obligations, telling me to be always diligent, submissive, and obedient. “Do good to those around you, child,” she said one day, as I stood at her bedside, “and you will always win their love. That is all that matters. Nothing else. You must always remember that.” The tears come to my eyes when I think of her shining face as she said this, her skin so pale and her eyes so bright! It is my weakness, I know, but I cannot help it. But there! I have composed myself again now, and can go on with my story.

It seems to me now that I had very little time with my mother, after this. I remember strange women in the house I had never seen before, and the sound of cries that seemed to go on through a whole night and the following day. The women looked at each other when they thought I could not see, and one of them took something away wrapped in a coverlet that I never saw again. It was that day, I think, that one of the women clasped me by the hand and led me upstairs to my bedroom under the eaves, bidding me to be as quiet as a little mouse, and give my mother no further cause for distress. I was terrified to think that anything I had done could have brought about such turmoil and wretchedness, and lay awake the whole night pondering all my petty and unconfessed misdemeanours, which now lay as heavy on my soul as mortal sins.

I do not remember how long this went on – ages and ages it seemed to me then. Days of whispering and bewilderment, and the women casting such stern looks upon me that I knew all this misery was indeed my own fault, and I deserved no better.

‘Where is Mother?' I asked at last in my childish way. ‘Why does she not let me see her?'

‘Your mother is in a Better Place,' said one of the women, pronouncing the words in so serious and awful a tone that I was quite overwhelmed. I could not understand why my
mother should have gone on a journey and left me behind, or how anywhere could be better or happier than our own little home that she loved so much. The woman was one of our neighbours and not, I think, unkind, and seeing my eyes fill with tears she drew me on her knee and explained as best she could that my mother had gone before me to Heaven, and if I was good, and dutiful, and said my prayers every day, and went to church every Sunday, I might hope to meet her in the Hereafter. I did not know if this was the Better Place she had spoken of; but I did comprehend – albeit dimly – that I was not to see my mother again, not for many and many a year, and that all that waste of empty time must be filled with good deeds, and good works, and self-sacrifice. I wept alone in my little bed that night, and for many a night after that, gripping my Dolly tight in my arms and wondering what was to become of me. It was a long time indeed before I was able to quiet my sobs by recalling what Mrs Millard had said, and telling myself firmly that this was no way to be going on. ‘Hester,' I would say to myself, ‘this will not do! Duty and diligence are to be your lot, and it is through duty and diligence that you will see your mother again.'

They put me in a black frock and sent me for some days to lodge with our neighbour and her husband, a big, close-lipped religious man who looked grimly upon me, and quoted verses from the Bible as if they applied chiefly and particularly to me. ‘
You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them,'
he would intone in his booming voice. ‘
For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation
.'

My mother had read from the Gospels many times, telling me stories about our Saviour, and talking to me always of God's love for his children, so I hardly knew what to make of the
dour and vengeful Jehovah Mr Millard talked of. All I did know was that I was very sinful, and very wicked, and very much in the way.

One dark and rainy afternoon I came home from school with my books and satchel, hoping, if possible, to slip upstairs before Mr Millard saw me, but his wife had clearly been looking out for my return, and came towards me as soon as I closed the door behind me. She took me by the hand and led me into the best parlour – a room I was never allowed to enter without permission, or by myself – and presented me to a gentleman of a very distinguished appearance, dressed in black and drinking tea, whom I had never, to my knowledge, seen before.

‘This,' said Mrs Millard in a confidential tone, ‘is the child. This is Hester, sir.'

The gentleman sat forward in his chair and beckoned to me. ‘Come here,' he said. Let me look at you.'

Then he asked me if I would be so kind as to take off my bonnet, and when I had done so, he said, ‘Ah!' and afterwards, ‘I see. Yes. Quite.'

And then he leant back in his chair again, and picked up his tea-cup, and Mrs Millard said, ‘That will be all, Hester. Go and play now, there's a good girl.'

So I made him the curtsy my mother taught me, and left the room.

I think it was a few weeks later, and the winter nearly gone, when the gentleman in black reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs Millard, and found him in the same place in the parlour.

‘I have news for you, Hester,' he said. ‘Your Guardian has arranged for you to be placed at an excellent establishment, where you may finish your education, and find a secure home that will offer you every appropriate comfort and amenity.'

I knew not what to say. I had never heard I had a Guardian, and only the vaguest idea what the word might mean.

The man was watching me closely, and seemed concerned to give me what reassurance was within his power.

‘You need not fear, Hester. Mr Jarvis is a kind man, and you will want for nothing, of that I am sure.'

I could not speak, not then, because my heart was overflowing with gratitude for this unknown Guardian and his kindness to me, and I think the gentleman sensed some of this, because he reached over and patted me gently on the shoulder and said,

‘Run along now, child. I have business to talk with good Mrs Millard.'

And so it was that exactly a week later I left the only place that I had ever known, and travelled by stagecoach for London. Mr Millard showed no discernible emotion at my departure aside, perhaps, from relief, but Mrs Millard had a softer heart and wept many sad tears. I do believe she had become quite fond of me, in the short time we had had together. When she gave me one last kiss, and adjured me to tread always in the paths of righteousness, I felt so remorseful and despondent that I threw my arms around her and wept myself, saying it was all my fault, and that Mother would never have left me if I had been good.

‘No, Hester!' she returned with a sad smile. ‘It is just your unhappy lot, my dear. And whatever Mr Millard says on the matter, I believe in my heart that our Heavenly Father does not visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, and will not hold you culpable for the circumstances of your birth, but only for the rectitude of your own conduct.'

I wondered a little at these words, but the coach was already at the gate, so I had no time to ask her what she meant. She turned then and went into the house, and I never saw her
again. I had no friend left now in the world, and no protector, except, perhaps, for my new and as yet unknown Guardian.

I looked back at the house until I could see it no more, and then wiped my eyes and cast my gaze instead at the landscape unrolling before me. It was a very beautiful day, with the new buds on the trees, and the fields pricked with the first green shoots of the year. After a very long and rattling journey, during most of which I was quite alone, the coach finally came to a halt and a lady opened the coach door and said, ‘I am Miss Darby. You must be Hester.'

‘Yes, ma'am.'

‘Come then. Mr Jarvis is waiting for us.'

My boxes were put into a small green pony carriage by a maid in a starched white apron and cap, dressed altogether rather more formally, to my eyes, than the servants I was used to seeing in our country village. But that was only to be expected.

‘We have been looking forward to your arrival, Hester,' said Miss Darby, ‘and I am sure you will find the Solitary House a congenial home.'

‘The Solitary House, ma'am?'

She smiled. ‘It has acquired that name over the years, though I believe it was once known as The Peaks or Three Peaks, or some such. It has, as you will find, a rather secluded situation for a house so close to London and hence, I suppose, the name. Those of us who have lived there a long time hardly think it strange any more.'

Presently we drew up to a little lodge, and waited for the keeper to open the gate, before trotting up a long avenue of trees to a broad sweep before a large porch. It was a tall redbrick house with yellow-framed casements, and squares of blue and green glass in the windowpanes. On one side a bay had been thrown
out one floor up, creating a view over what seemed to me to be a large and very pretty lawn, bordered with flowers, with beyond it an orchard and a vegetable garden. I heard a bell ring as the trap stopped, and I found my heart beating very fast as Miss Darby got down and helped me to descend. The door opened, and a man appeared. It was not the same person I had seen at Mrs Millard's but another gentleman. He had a broad smile and a full beard, and came down the steps briskly and took me by the hand.

‘Welcome to the Solitary House, Hester. I think you will be very happy here.'

I felt the colour flood my face as I tried, without much success, to say some words of thanks, but Mr Jarvis seemed determined not to notice anything was amiss, and drew my hand through his arm as if it was the most natural thing there could be.

‘Come,' he said. ‘Let me show you your new home!'

From that moment I felt quite at my ease with him, and knew in my heart how blessed I was to have found someone I could trust so completely, and in whom I could confide so unreservedly.

He showed me to my little room, and truly I felt myself at that moment the luckiest girl in the world. It was a bright, homely room, with a well-tended fire in the hearth, and a high
metal-framed
bed with smooth white pillows. The window looked down upon the flower-garden, and across the heath to the
faraway
steeples and towers of London, almost ethereal that day under a light silvery cloud. I turned to Mr Jarvis with tears in my eyes, wondering how all this could be, and almost overcome, saying ‘Oh, thank you, thank you!' again and again. But he merely placed his arm about my waist, and made me sit down on the little chair by the fire and take some of the tea that had been thoughtfully placed there in preparation for my arrival.

‘My dear Hester,' he said kindly, a few moments later, ‘how you are a-tremble! Your cup quite clatters against the saucer.'