Charles Palliser (2 page)

“What do you mean?”

“That I merely forward letters addressed to me in my client’s name. I know no more of that individual’s affairs than a letter-carrier does of the correspondence he collects and delivers.”

The other gazes at him and says: “I am prepared to accept that that may be so.” The younger gentleman smiles but his expression alters at the next words: “Then tell me the whereabouts of your client.”

“My dear sir, I cannot.”

“Beg your pardon, I’m forgetting to put up my stake,” the elder says and brings out from his pocket something that crackles as he lays it on the table.

Law leans forward slightly to look at it. There is surely an expression of yearning on his face. Then he says: “I assure you, my dear sir, I am quite unable to oblige you.”

“Oh-ho!” the elder gentleman exclaims. “You think to bargain with me, do you? I warn you not to try it or you will find that I am able to apply quite other inducements.”

“No indeed, sir,” the other stammers. “You entirely mistake my meaning. Your generosity quite overwhelms me and I only wish I could deserve it. However, it is wholly impossible for me to assist you.”

“I advise you not to attempt any of your games with me, my good fellow,” the other says in a brutally contemptuous tone. “I have made enquiries enough to know how ill these high-principled scruples become you. I’ve ‘smoked your lay’ — isn’t that how they call it in the jargon of your clients?”

The other gentleman becomes quite pale. He begins to rise from his chair but his eyes fall on the thing on the table and he stays in his seat.

Equity goes on: “Do you wish me to give you the catalogue — or perhaps I should say, calendar — of activities in which I know you to be involved?”

When Law makes no answer Equity continues: “A little brokerage of doubtful bills, rather more squeezing of debtors, and a great deal of tutoring witnesses? Is that not so?”

The other gentleman answers with dignity: “You have misunderstood me, my dear sir.

I merely meant that I do not possess the information you seek. If I had it I would most willingly give it to you.”

“Do you take me for a fool? How do you communicate with your client, then?”

“Through a third-party to whom I forward my client’s letters.”

A WISE CHILD

5

“That’s better,” the other growls. “Who?”

“A gentleman of the highest respectability who has been some years retired from my branch of our profession.”

“Most intriguing. Now be good enough to write down that gentleman’s name and address for I cannot identify him, even though your branch of the profession is hardly replete with gentlemen to whom that description applies.”

The other laughs shortly and joylessly. Then he takes out a pocket-book, writes

“Martin Fortisquince, Esqr., No. 27 Golden-square”, tears out the leaf and hands it to the other gentleman.

Equity takes the paper from him and without looking at it says abruptly: “In the event of my needing to speak to you again we will communicate as before.” He reaches into a dark corner of the room beside his chair and tugs gently at a bell-rope.

Law rises with his eye on the thing on the table. Seeing this Equity carelessly pushes it towards him and he slips it into his pocket. Just as the door opens and the clerk appears again, Law hesitantly reaches out his hand towards his host. He, however, appears not to notice the gesture and Law hastily returns his hand to his pocket. The clerk ushers him to the door, restores to him his hat, great-coat, and gloves, and in a moment he finds himself out in Cursitor-street again. He sets off at a rapid pace occasionally looking anxiously behind him. When he has rounded several corners he draws into a quiet door-way and removes the package from his pocket. He cautiously counts it, counts it again, puts it back, and then sets off again more slowly.

Our house, the garden, the village, and the country for a mile or two thereabouts — this was my world, for it was all I had known, until that last summer when a new one opened before me at Hougham. And now that I seek an image for the undertaking I am embarked upon, I recall a glorious afternoon during that summer when — still unaware that I was to leave so soon — I escaped from the confinement under which I had long chafed and lay, exulting not so much in my freedom as in my having stolen it, on the bank of the stream that ran through Mortsey-wood and on to the forbidden land towards the north.

Forgetful alike of my reasons for escaping and the precious minutes that were slipping by, I gazed, entranced, into the limpid depths. For there I glimpsed strange creatures that flitted away so quickly when I looked at them that I wondered if they were merely shadows — effects of the sunlight through the water upon the weeds and the dappled, pebble-strewn bed that vanished when I moved my head. And then in the attempt to see more, I poked the weed and pebbles with a stick, and only raised a dark cloud that obscured everything. And though it seems to me that the recollection is like that clear runlet, yet I have set myself to search back into my memory. And now that I clutch at my first reminiscences I recall only the sun, the warm breeze, and the garden. I remember no darkness or sunlessness or shade from that earliest time when the outlying cottages of the village marked the furthest limits of my world.

It may be that we are aware only of the warmth and the daylight and the sun at that most fortunate age, and that if there are moments of darkness and cold 6 THE

HUFFAMS

they pass over us like a dreamless slumber, leaving no memory behind them. Or it may be that it is only the first touch of the cold and the dark that wakes us from our earliest sleep.

The first moment that separates itself from what had come before is late on an afternoon of cloudless sunshine when the shadows were beginning to lengthen. Tired after my play, I was swinging on the gate into the lane that ran along the side of the garden. From the topmost lawn at the back of the house where we were now, a series of terraced lawns descended, linked by a gravelled path and steps and surrounded by a high red-brick wall with espaliered apricot-trees against it. On each terrace the walnut and mulberry-trees extended their long thin arms protectively over the encircling flower-beds, in one of which Mr Pimlott was now at work some distance below us. And almost out of sight at the bottom of the garden, was the tangle of stunted trees and thick bushes we called the “Wilderness”

I recall the rough feel of the gate as I clasped its top in my hands to hold myself steady for each swing. The metal spikes were hot in the sunlight and the rust and black paint came flaking off in my fingers. With my feet thrust between the uprights of the gate and my frocks pressed against the frame, I pushed off from the jamb-post bending my body one way and then the other so that the gate swung out to its fullest reach and then fell back under its own weight, gathering speed as the ground sped past until it crashed home with a loud clang. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do this, of course, and my mother had already reproved me as she sat on a garden seat at her work a few paces away.

Backwards and forwards I swung, lulled by the rhythm of the squeaking hinge, with the sun warm on my face, and the soft breeze carrying to me the scent of flowers and the smell of freshly-cut grass. I would close my eyes to listen to the loud buzzing of bees, then open them to gaze upwards at the blue sky and fleecy clouds that circled dizzily over my head as the gate hurtled downwards.

Suddenly a harsh voice that seemed to be right at my ear said: “Stop it at once, you wicked creatur’. You know that ain’t allowed.”

Distracted, I let the gate crash against the jamb harder than I intended and was stunned by the blow. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I was really hurt, but whether I was or not, I knew how to appeal for reassurance.

I was taking a deep breath for that purpose when the voice came again: “Don’t you set to a-bawlin’, now. You’re too old for that.”

“But I’m hurt,” I cried out.

“Then you’ve been justly sarved,” Bissett jeered as she seated herself beside my mother.

“It’s not just,” I cried. “It was your fault for calling out like that.”

“Don’t answer again, dearest,” my mother said.

“I hate you, Bissett, you always spoil things.”

“You wicked child! I can see I s’all have to take my hand to you again.”

“No you shan’t for Mamma has forbidden you,” I jeered.

“Why no such thing, you story-teller!”

Yet I knew it was true for my mother had promised me it was, but before I could say so she laid her hand to her mouth unseen by Bissett and I consented to hold my peace.

Bissett, still grumbling about my wickedness, picked up her work: “I’ll have no more of your malpertness. Now stand there in my eye and don’t make no more mischief.”

A WISE CHILD

7

Though I was indignant at being ordered to stay, at least Bissett didn’t know that there was nowhere else I wanted to be just then, for the great treat of the day was about to take place.

“It’s too bad, ma’am, it really is,” Bissett began. “She’s let her work go for nought these last few days hangin’ around Limbrick’s workmen.”

“Oh, but they’ve just about finished now.”

“And glad I’ll be to see the back of ’em. For I hate to have men in the house. Nasty noisy creatur’s! And a fearful nuisance they’ve been with their buckets and their hods and their ladders. And that young mawkin and Mrs Belflower — who ought to know better — invitin’ ’em into the kitchen five times a day.”

“I understand,” put in my mother timidly, “one of them is a cousin of hers.”

“Cousin,” repeated Bissett darkly. “If you mean that young good-for-nought, Job Greenslade, well, kissing-cousins is what they are, if cousins at all. Out companying at all hours! It may not be my place to say it, but I’m sure there are many well-conducted, natty girls in the village,” Bissett went on, speaking with difficulty through a mouthful of pins, “would sarve a lot better than her, ma’am.”

“But she’s a good-natured, honest girl for all her faults. And Master Johnnie’s fond of her. And then we should help her in her mother’s recent sorrow.”

Bissett sniffed expressively. “Sorrer,” she repeated. “It’s a rotted pea as you’ll get of a rotted pod. You’re too soft on the gal, ma’am.”

At this moment I heard the cattle approaching from the direction of the High-street and an instant later they came crowding past the gate accompanied by a boy who was something of a hero to me for the nonchalant way in which he wielded his stick as he followed the herd. The dismal lowing and the way they competed for passage through the narrow lane were delightfully frightening, and I knew I was safe because of the sturdy gate that stood between us. But today something unprecedented happened.

Suddenly one of them seemed to catch my eye — I can describe it in no other way —

and began to make its way across the flow towards the gate, butting its way through the herd with an awful purposefulness. I knew in an instant that it had some terrible and irresistible mission to accomplish that involved me, and yet I could not stir to save myself. As the animal’s huge head came thrusting towards the gate I saw its bulging blood-stained eyes rolling in their black leathery sockets, its huge teeth parting as if to close again upon my cheeks, and its thick, twisting, pointed horns like strange tree-trunks rising from the matted grass-like brown hair. I knew the gate would splinter and give way in an instant if that mighty head should be borne against it, and yet I continued to stand and stare, unable to move.

Then at last I turned and ran, my heart pounding in my ears while my legs rose and fell without seeming to carry me over the ground. Through my tears two blurred figures were visible a few yards away, rising to their feet and looking towards me in alarm — the one slender and flower-like in a bright gingham dress, the other standing out as a stark white shape against the greenness of the grass.

“That nasty cow!” I wailed. “Don’t let him hurt me!”

In a moment I had buried my face in the starched white apron of my nurse and her arms were about my shoulders as she pressed me tightly to her and soothed me with the chiding, almost jeering, tone that she used on such occasions.

I best remember Bissett at this period as a crisp, slightly astringent aroma of starched apron and gown, a faintly apple-like smell, fresh and a little forbidding.

8 THE

HUFFAMS

When I close my eyes I can remember looking up at a reddish face fringed by the few strands of grey hair that were visible beneath her lace cap. Her eyes were a pale shade of grey and her mouth was thin — and grew thinner on the rare occasions when she pressed her lips together in such a way that they gave the impression, without compromising themselves, of going up a little at the ends.

Now surely a few tears were permitted, but Bissett shook me and said : “Come, you ain’t a baby no more. Why, in no time at all, you’ll be a growed man and have to take care on your mother.”

I looked at her in surprise but at that moment my mother called out: “You’re safe now, my dearest. The cows have gone. Come and kiss me.”

I tried to, but Bissett held my arm tightly: “Don’t mar him, ma’am,” she said. “And see, you’ve your work that he’ll disarrange.”

I broke free of her grip and made for my mother’s lap, sending her needles, thread, and embroidery-frame crashing to the ground. I heard Bissett scolding us both but I didn’t care.

I don’t need to close my eyes to summon up the remembrance of my mother : the cascade of fair curls that flowed over her shoulders and down to her bosom so that when I snuggled up against her now my hands and face were plunged in among the soft scentedness; the sweet face with its gentle mouth; and the wide blue eyes that were bright now with tears for my own grief.

“Don’t you let him bother you, ma’am,” Bissett objected. “Look at your work, now, fallen all in a tumble on the grass.”

“It’s of no account, nurse,” my mother said.

“Why so it is, indeed! Good cloth and thread! Let him go and plague Mr Pimlott.”

“Yes, Johnnie. Why not find Mr Pimlott and ask him what he is doing. He seems to be making a hole. Do you think he can be burying something?”