Charles Palliser (11 page)

The road ran up a long slope to a bend about a mile away, and I fixed my eyes upon that point. Suddenly something appeared there. Even before I could construe what I was looking at I heard the clattering of horses’ hooves — more of them and faster than I had ever heard before. Now I could make out the coach and team as they came thundering towards us at full gallop. I saw the blinkered heads of the horses, raised and rearing backwards and pulled to one side as if they were reluctant to advance, and yet at the same time their great fore-legs were always thrusting forward as if to pull the road towards them. I saw the cloaked figure of the driver on the box holding his long whip before him, and then the body of the vehicle itself, gleaming and painted bright red. At that moment Sukey clutched me and pulled me back with sudden violence onto the wide grass verge.

Now it was almost upon us and the thunder of the hooves and the great metal-clad wheels on the hard surface of the road grew and grew until it seemed to be pounding and clattering inside my head. Then the horses were 44 THE

HUFFAMS

passing us, their huge heads and rolling eyes seeming only inches from us, their coats gleaming wet with sweat, and after them the great lurching monster of the coach itself, with the face of the inside passengers briefly glimpsed through the windows, and the driver and the outsides huddling together against the wind on the top.

In an instant it was gone, and from beneath Sukey’s arm I looked at its swaying back as it bounced across the uneven surface of the road.

We were both silent for a moment, and then I said: “Did you see, Sukey? That was the York to London coach. The Arrow.”

“Was it, boy?” Sukey said, her face still flushed with excitement. “How do you know?”

“It had it written on the side in big golden writing,” I told her proudly, for Sukey, of course, did not know her letters. “Though of course,” I added regretfully, “it wasn’t the Royal Mail.”

“What am I thinking of !” she exclaimed suddenly. “We must be gettin’ on.”

So we hurried down the lane with the high wall of the demesne still on our left. It was badly delapidated so that in places we could easily look down into the park as it sloped towards the bottom of the valley where we saw a line of thick bushes and trees marking the course of a hidden stream until it broadened out into an expanse of grey water which was the lake.

We skirted Stoke Mompesson with its broad high street with rows of handsome cottages on either side, and then another half a mile further, a straggling group of rough-cast hovels on our right marked the beginning of the village that was our goal. And a very squalid hamlet it was in comparison to Melthorpe, looking to me like an extended version of Silver-street, made up of mean one-story houses built of furze-branches, mud and mortar, and in many cases with turves for rooves. I expected the big house to be nearby but there was no sign of it.

“The village was moved, see,” Sukey explained. “So now it’s out o’ the paritch as the estate is in.”

And so we had to walk for another ten minutes before Sukey said: “That’s where my aunt lives.” She indicated a small cottage that stood beside a pair of tall stone columns topped with globes. They framed a set of lofty black double gates with elegant filigree iron-work fancifully wrought into flourishes and flowers, which were secured by a large padlock and chain, and whose railings rose to sharp points.

“Now you’ll be all right to wait here for a little and won’t get up to no mischief, will you, Master Johnnie?”

I nodded agreement and she went into the cottage. Overcome by curiosity I approached the gate and peered through the bars, whose black paint was peeling off, revealing the rust underneath. Beyond was a courtyard with a paved surface whose stones were not merely overgrown with moss and grass but had become loosened and dislodged by the passage of long years of neglect.

Some distance away I could see the shape of a house looming up. Although it was sideways on to me, its huge size was apparent, and so, too, was its state of delapidation.

Its windows were either shuttered or the paint was flaking off the bars and frames; no smoke rose from its chimneys, many of which were missing pots; slates had slipped from the part of the roof that was visible to me; and altogether the house appeared to be a deserted and uninhabited ruin.

As I watched, however, a figure, dressed in the clothes of a working man and pushing a hand-barrow, came round the corner of the house. He began A WISE CHILD

45

to gather up the pieces of fallen masonry and shattered slate that lay about on the ground, presumably blown down in the storm the night before.

After a moment two more figures approached from round the corner of the house. I watched them, knowing that I should move away from the gate, but something prevented me. The great empty house of Hougham (or was it Iluffam?) seemed to have touched some chord inside me, and awakened, it seemed to me, an echo in my innermost being whose summons I was powerless to resist.

As the newcomers came close enough for me to be able to make them out, I saw that they were a little girl of about my age and a tall, elderly lady, and that both of them were dressed in black. The lady stopped to talk to the workman, but the little girl must have seen me for she continued to walk slowly up to the gate opposite me. Her face was very pale — so pale that I wondered if she had been ill — so that her dark eyes looked all the darker. She held her hands inside a muff she carried in front of her, and a strange, solemn little figure she made altogether.

“You’re not one of the village boys, are you?” she said.

Under the terms of the promise I had given my mother, I wasn’t allowed to speak to strangers, but, I reasoned to myself, surely this only referred to adults and so a little girl did not count.

“No,” I replied.

“I’m strictly forbidden to have anything to do with the children from the village,” she explained.

“But don’t you live in the village?”

“No. I live here.”

“Do you mean in that big house?” I wondered.

“Yes.”

She spoke as if it were the least interesting fact in the world.

“Is that lady your mother?”

“No,” she replied. “My mother is dead. And so is my father. You see, I’m an orphan.”

An orphan? Here was an interesting word and I felt envious of her right to it. Then I supposed I was at least halfway towards being an orphan too.

“That lady is the housekeeper here,” she explained. “Of course, I should have a governess. I’ve had several, but my guardians said that none of them suited. Mrs Peppercorn is very strict about not allowing me to speak to strangers.”

Behind the little girl I could see the tall figure of the housekeeper still engaged with the workman. They appeared to be having a difference of opinion, for the man tried several times to turn away but she continued to address him until he had to turn back.

“She is very short-sighted and must not be able to see you,” the little girl continued.

“But when she does, she will tell you to go away and I will be punished.”

“Punished?” I asked. “In what way?”

“I will certainly be sent to bed without my tea,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone.

And then added: “And perhaps whipped.”

“Whipped?”

She withdrew one hand from the muff and I saw that the back of it had a series of painful red welts across it.

“Then perhaps,” I said, “I should go away before she sees me.”

45

THE HUFFAMS

“No,” the child replied very definitely; “I should like to talk to you for a little longer.

There is no-one else here to talk to.”

“Have you no brothers or sisters?” I enquired.

“No. There is only Mrs Peppercorn and Betsy, and two other servants whom I am not permitted to speak to.”

“And is there no-one else in that big house?” I asked.

“No-one at all,” she said. “But, you see, most of it is shut up. We only use a few of the rooms. I wish there were other children here. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“No,” I said; “I don’t know any other children either.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“John Mellamphy,” I replied.

“Is that all?” she asked in surprise.

“Yes. What’s yours?” I answered.

“It’s very long. Do you want to hear all of it?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

She took a breath, closed her eyes, and recited: “Henrietta Louisa Amelia Lydia Hougham Palphramond.” She opened her eyes and (still in a single breath) explained:

“My mother was called Louisa, and Henrietta and Lydia are for my great-aunts. I don’t know about the others, though.”

“But Hougham?” I exclaimed. “Is that spelt like the name of this village?”

“Yes,” she said. “H-o-u-g-h-a-m.”

Prompted by the desire to show that I, too, possessed a claim greater than might be implied by the bare two names I had admitted, I exclaimed: “I’ve got that name too! At least, I believe my grandfather’s name was the same as that, only spelt ‘H-u-f-f-a-m’.

That’s the name of the family that used to own this house and this village and all the land around here, you know.”

“Oh I don’t think that can be right,” she said.

“Oh yes it is.” (What an unpleasantly contradictory little girl it was!) “You see the Mumpseys … ”I hesitated. “They got it from the Huffams.”

“The Mumpseys! You mean the Mompessons. Only the village-people pronounce it that way.”

I flushed with shame. Of course I knew that name from the memorials in the church.

Why had I not made the connexion when Mrs Belflower mentioned it?

“You must be mistaken, you see,” Henrietta went on, “because I know that my guardian’s grandfather built this house.”

“But perhaps his name was Huffam?”

“I don’t think so, for my guardian is Sir Perceval Mompesson.”

I burned with humiliation. Then the wretched Mrs Belflower had got it completely wrong and so probably my idea that I was connected with this place was mistaken. It was this girl who belonged here if Sir Perceval Mompesson was her guardian!

Absorbed as we were in our conversation, we had not noticed that the housekeeper had left the workman and approached the gate until she spoke from a few yards away:

“I shall write to Mr Assinder to complain of the insolence of that fellow. He has the effrontery to tell me that that window cannot be repaired without …” She broke off, raised the lorgnette which hung by a chain round her neck, and then exclaimed: “Miss Henrietta! Is that a
boy
?”

“Yes, Mrs Peppercorn,” said Henrietta calmly.

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47

“Can you possibly be talking to a village child in defiance of your guardian’s strictest injunctions?”

“He’s not from the village, Mrs Peppercorn,” said Henrietta coldly.

“Indeed?” The housekeeper stared at me through her lorgnette. “I see he appears to be a gentleman’s son.” Then she said: “What is your father’s name?”

The question threw me into confusion. For one thing, I was deeply conscious of my undertaking to my mother not to speak to strangers, and yet surely I could not be so impolite as to refuse to answer a direct question?

“He is called John Mellamphy,” Henrietta said.

“Mellamphy,” she repeated. “I know of no good family of that name in the vicinity.

However that may be, Miss Henrietta, you have disobeyed Sir Perceval’s instructions.

We will return to the house immediately while I consider your punishment.”

“Although he is a stranger, Mrs Peppercorn,” Henrietta said, “yet he says his grandfather was called Huffam which is one of my names, so perhaps he is not quite a complete stranger.”

“Indeed?” said the housekeeper, turning back towards me quickly. “Where does your father live, Master Mellamphy?”

“I cannot tell you.”

The housekeeper’s mouth tightened into a thin line at what she must have taken for a piece of impertinence, and she was about to speak when Sukey came running up: “Oh Master Johnnie!” she exclaimed. “You bad boy! You know you mustn’t talk to strangers.

What would your mother say?”

She seized my hand and began to pull me away: “Come,” she said. “We’re going to be late. Melthorpe’s a good hour’s walk from here.”

As I turned away, I caught a last glimpse of Henrietta still standing with her pale face pressed against the black iron-work of the gate like a prisoner, while the housekeeper placed a black-gloved hand upon her shoulder.

“Oh, Master Johnnie,” said Sukey as we hurried out of the village; “I hope you haven’t got me into trouble. Please don’t say nought about coming here this arternoon.

Not to your mother, and not to nobody besides.”

“But Sukey, if my mother asks where we’ve been, I can’t tell her a direct lie, can I?”

She halted suddenly and since she was still holding my hand, brought me to a stop too. She turned to face me and said solemnly: “I beg you, Master Johnnie, don’t say nought that might make me lose my place. I know you’re a good-hearted boy at bottom and wouldn’t want to do no harm to my fambly.”

“Will you promise to let me go up to the ’pike when we go our walks together, and stay there as long as I want?” She nodded. “Very well, then. I promise.”

We walked on again, and after a few yards Sukey broke out: “Oh, I wish we hadn’t come to ’Ougham today. I don’t know what ill mayn’t come of it. And my uncle is going fast. And then my poor aunt’ll be turned out.”

I was hardly listening for I was wondering how it could be that Henrietta and I were connected and whether that meant that I was also linked in some way with the Mompesson family.

When we got home my mother, hearing us at the back door, came into the kitchen as we were removing our outer garments: “You’re back very late,” she said. “I was worried about you. Where have you been?”

The question was addressed to both of us. I blushed and looked away, but 48

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instantly Sukey, also bright red, replied: “We went by Over-Leigh way, ma’am. And the lanes was very bad.”

“But you must have gone further than that,” said my mother. “You’re more than an hour later than usual.”