Charles Palliser (100 page)

He was unchanged except that he was carrying a leathern bag over his shoulder and was without his companion.

He smiled as I came up to him: “I remember you from your voice, Master John.

That’s the great blessing of blindness when you’ve been afflicted as long as I have.”

Remembering something that I had heard from Barney’s people, I asked: “Were you always blind, or were you blinded as a child to make a beggar of you?”

He chuckled: “Is that what they say? No, the truth is I lost my sight in gaol for I had the fever bad with the poor wittles and the darkness. The turn-keys gived me the by-name of ‘Blind Justice’ for they said I was as blind as Justice.”

“Justice is not
blind”
I protested without thinking, for I was disconcerted by what he had told me; “but
blind-folded,
to show that she is impartial.”

“Is that so?” he said with a gentle smile.

Suddenly I recalled that Mr Pentecost had told me that the old beggar had 458 THE

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given his sight for his principles, and was puzzled to make these two explanations match.

“And how do you live now? Where is Wolf ?”

“Why, I’m collecting for him.” He touched the bag. “I does my rounds every day for people knows me and him now, and they gives me scraps for the old dog. He brings out the best in folks.” He paused and I would write that he scrutinised me if it would not sound absurd. Then he went on: “I can tell that you’re a-wondering what I was in quod for. Well, seeing as you’re a friend of Mr Pentecost, I’ll tell ye the tale. When I was a young man — oh, this is going back more than thirty year now to the time when the French wars was jist starting — me and a few other young fellows, ’prentices and young journeymen like myself for the most part, we was in a Radical s’iety. All we ever done was we met and talked about rising up like the French. But there was a government spy among us, a gentleman who pretended to be as Radical as us. More Radical, in fact.

Mayhap he was, but was frightened into what he done. Who knows why a man does the things he does? Not even himself don’t always. Be that as it may, he ’peached on us and we was all took up and stood a-fore the Privy Council. They sent us up for treason.

What he said at the trial was all lies but it was b’lieved. Two on the others was hanged and the rest marinated — that is, transported. I was sent to the Hulks at Gravesend for seven years but respited arter three on account of I’d lost the use of my eyes. But the strangest thing, young master, is that I believed I heard his voice again not long back. In fact, it was that time I met you in the street with Mr Pentecost.”

I was silent for a moment. I understood Mr Pentecost’s words about the old man’s principles now.

Then I said: “I have heard that Mr Pentecost is dead.”

The old man sighed and shook his head: “The kindest individual I ever knowed. “

“Where do you lodge now?”

“Why, to tell you the truth, I don’t have no regular lodging. I sometimes pays my tuppence for a night’s lodging but otherwise I sleeps under the stars. But are you well yourself and prosperous? You and your mam both?”

“Yes,” I said. And as much to divert his enquiries as from any better motive, I said:

“Let me give you this for Wolf. It’s half a polony.”

He hesitated and then said softly: “I cannot lie to you, Master John, for Mr Pentecost’s sake. Old Wolf is dead.”

I continued to hold it out to him. Then, recollecting myself, I said: “Take it anyway.”

He accepted it, we took leave of each other and I continued on my way to Barnards-inn. This time when I tried to sneak past the lodge I was not quick enough, and the porter hurried out and seized me by the collar: “Where do you think you’re going, boy?”

“I’m a friend of Mr Henry Bellringer. I’m going to call on him.”

“Oh, you’re a friend of Mr Henry Bellringer what you’re a-going to call on him,” he repeated, giving me a shake. “You’ll have to conwince me as how he wants to see you fust, young feller. Perhaps you’ll ’ave the goodness to send in your card?”

“Will you tell him that …”

“What, do you think I’m going to carry messages for you? Are you simple?”

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“But who will, then?”

“There ain’t nobody here but me. But it’s Thursday, ain’t it? His laundress comes in later. She’ll take it if she’s a mind to.”

So I took up my station in the cold street while the porter watched me at intervals through the lodge-window as he sat reading the newspaper in front of a cozy fire.

After a couple of hours a hideous old woman arrived carrying an enormous laundry-basket on her head. Wisps of reddish hair peeked out from under her dirty cap and she had a cob-pipe stuck in her mouth.

“That’s who you want,” said the porter, looking out of window.

“Will you take a message to Mr Bellringer?” I asked her.

She peered at me malevolently: “What’s it worth to me?”

“I have nothing,” I said. “But I’m sure Mr Bellringer will be grateful to you.”

“Him?” she said sneeringly. “Grateful’s about all I count on from him.” Then she said: “Well, what is it?”

“Please tell him that Stephen’s friend, John, wishes to see him.”

She nodded curtly and passed in.

I waited and waited while several hours dragged by and it grew even colder. I walked up and down the street opposite the lodge swinging my arms around my body to try to keep warm.

Eventually the old woman came out. “What, are you still here?” she said.

“What did he say?”

She looked at me keenly and then said: “He wasn’t there. He’s gone away sudden.”

“How long for?”

She and the porter, who was grinning through the window, exchanged glances.

“I dunno. Several weeks, I b’lieve.”

She threw these words over her shoulder as she made off down the street with her basket on her head.

The porter slid open his window to say : “There you are, then. And I shouldn’t think it would be worth your time to come back.”

I set off dispiritedly down the street, having no idea where I was going. By this time it was late in the afternoon and snow was beginning to fall. I dared not contemplate another night in the open and without food, and one thought became clear to me, hazy though my mind now was. By barring all other paths, fate had forced upon me the outright defiance of my mother’s explicit injunction : I had to go to my grandfather’s old house and throw myself upon Mr Escreet’s mercy. And after all, I had not in fact given her my word that I would not go there. But the question was, could I find it?

With the last reserves of my strength, I set off for Charing-cross. It was a fine evening for all it was so cold, and as I walked westward, the setting sun dyed the sky before me a bright blue that was faintly purple, as it shone through the thin racks of cloud which were like gauze — but dark at the centre and pale at the edges. And because of this, the buildings near me were reduced by the faint mist to a single shade of grey so that details were effaced.

I came first to Northumberland-court which I found to be a narrow street of small houses squeezed into the gardens of the houses in Northumberland-street on one side, and built up against the wall of the mansion on the other. These were not large enough to match my mother’s description of my grandfather’s 460

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house. Remembering from the map that there were courts on the other side, I passed the great Jacobean building and slipped into a narrow court-mouth between two of the high old houses. I went first into Trinity-place which I found consisted of squalid little dwellings made down into separate tenements. I came out and looked at the court before me. It was surrounded by the backs of the houses in Trinity-place and Charing-cross, except for a big old house that faced me and looked as if it had been there before any of the others were built. There was a paling before it and a skinner’s yard behind that, and from the smells I guessed that the house was now being used as a tallow-boiler’s.

Though otherwise matching what I sought, it had no vestibule. The place was deserted, except that a man in a shiny cap was standing on the corner where the house protruded, and idly smoking a long-stemmed pipe.

Dispiritedly I walked towards him and then passed round the angle of the house.

Suddenly I saw before me on the back of a big building in the next court two hideous faces carved in stone, now pitted and worn. I recalled how my mother had remarked on the stone-carvings at Mitrc-court and confused them with those near her father’s house.

This was surely the place mentioned in her account! I turned to the right and there was a second big old house that had been hidden by the first.
It had a vestibule!

Exhausted as I was, I felt close to tears when I beheld the building in which I believed so much had taken place. It was tall, gaunt and delapidated, and was set back from the court by a rusted railing; the windows were shuttered or had broken panes; the guttering hung down, and fallen slates lay along the foot of the wall.

I went up to the street-door which protruded from the house because of the vestibule, whose tiny windows were barred and obscured by grime. The paint had peeled so much from the ancient door that the naked boards were visible. There was a huge iron-rimmed key-hole into which I could have inserted all my fingers, and at about the level of my eyes was another metal-rimmed cavity which I took to be a judas-hole. On a brass plate, worn so smooth that it was almost unreadable, was the legend “No. 17” — which conveyed nothing to me. Then I saw that the heavy iron knocker was in the form of the familiar quatre-foil rose. So beyond doubt this was the house I sought!

I lifted this and let it fall. As it struck the hammer-plate the noise seemed to fill the court. I waited but nothing happened. I knocked again and with the same result. In growing despair now, I hammered several times, remembering how my mother had had to keep knocking.

At last I heard — or thought I heard — a faint noise. It seemed to me that the judas-hole was being slid aside, but when I tried to peer into it I could see nothing.

I stepped right up to the door and spoke. I did not choose the words but they came as if inevitably:

“My name is John Clothier. I am Mary’s son. My mother is dead. I have nothing.

Please help me.”

There was silence, then it seemed to me that very slowly the cover of the judas-hole was being slid back into place. I waited for the door to open but it remained immobile.

I don’t know how long I stood there and waited — I believe it was a long time —

before I realized that the door was not going to be opened. I was almost delirious and cannot bring to mind exactly what happened after that.

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I remember feeling passionate rage at this casual treatment — for this is what I conceived it to be. After defying the dying wish of my mother I was ready for insult, suspicion, further horrible revelations or danger, but I had not expected to be ignored. I felt that Mr Escreet — for I assumed it was he on the other side of the door — had no right to bar me from entering the house that had belonged to my family for so long.

I recall hammering on the great door until my fist was bruised. I believe I shouted —

though I don’t know what — and then I remember leaning my whole weight against the door and weeping, until exhaustion overcame me and I slid onto the top step and sat with my head against it.

It was now snowing heavily and the flakes were settling on my hair and jacket. The fancy came to me that it was strangely fitting that I should wait for Death at the door of the house where He had come so cruelly to claim my grandfather, and thereby had cast His shadow over the lives of my father and mother and therefore of myself. The Huffam line, I resolved, would end here. The pattern would be complete.

I have no way of knowing whether I had been sitting in that position amidst the swirling whiteness for minutes or hours — beyond cold, beyond exhaustion, and waiting only for a sleep from which I would not awaken — when I became aware that I was being observed. A boy of about my own age was standing before me on the pavement, looking at me with an expression of curiosity and, I thought, sympathy.

“You look done up,” he said.

I was unable even to nod.

“Are you hungry?”

He stepped closer and took out of a pocket a penny roll. I hesitated and he held it out still further so that I caught the sweet smell of freshly-baked bread. My hand reached out for it without my being aware of what I was doing and I crammed it greedily into my mouth, which was so dry and swollen that I could chew and swallow only with difficulty.

“My,” he commented, “aren’t you jist hungry? And you’ve been sleeping out these last few nights, haven’t you?”

I nodded for speech required too much effort.

“Where are you going to shake down tonight?”

I shook my head.

“I ain’t got no tin,” he said, “but I know a place we can go. It’s warm there and we can shake down on real beds and there’s fair wittles, too.”

His words evoked a kind of waking dream out of
The Arabian Sights.
In my confused, almost intoxicated, state of mind I believed I had only to stay there and wait and these things would come to me. They were not to be found by chasing after them in the manner that this boy described. That was a delusion. I felt more knowing and wiser than he. He should sit down and wait with me.

“He don’t arst for no tin there, neither,” my informant continued insistently. “He does it for charity.”

I shook ray head.

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“Oh but he does,” he insisted. “He’s a friend of the poor. I’m going there now. Come with me and you’ll see.”

I had no strength to move.

“Come,” he said again and shook me by the shoulder. I was comfortable where I was for I felt no pain from my hunger now and even the cold seemed less.

“Come on,” he said relentlessly and began to tug my arm.

He seemed angry with my obstinacy as much as concerned for my welfare. He pulled me to my feet and it was easier to give in to him than to resist, easier to stand than to fall in the snow. Still holding me firmly by the arm, he led me back to the street. I walked beside him wondering why he had taken this interest in me, and resenting the fact that he had disturbed me when I was comfortable.