Charles Palliser (21 page)

My mother shook her head slowly at this as if, to my surprise, she understood the allusion.

“Well, so we borrowed forty pound, and that meant we had to pay back eighty at the end of six months. At the beginning of last year George had about finished work on the house and then we larned some bad news: a man come round from the main-contractor and told all the small masters that on account of some kind of difficulties that I nivver understood, the people what owned the land had the right to seize it back on account of they hadn’t been paid no rent or something. It was nothin’ to do with us, but it seemed we could lose everything without no set-off: all the money we’d paid for the lease and all the work and the bricks and the wood and all what we’d put into the house and paid others to do. It didn’t seem right.”

Here my mother looked at me in dismay.

“This man said to all the small masters as how they should sell out to the main-contractor who, in course, couldn’t offer them nothin’ like a fair price for the work they’d put in on account of the difficulties he was in himself. He would offer them a hundred pound for each house, take it or leave it. And if they left it, they might lose everything. Well they’d done about three hundred pound worth of work on each house.

Some of ’em said they wouldn’t sell at that price and sure enough the freeholder went to law and seized their houses without paying nothin’ at all. And then the contractor dropped his price even lower on account of that. So then the rest on ’em sold and George did too and got no more nor forty pound for the house. But the strange thing is, ma’am, that the main-contractor what now owned nearly all the half-built houses was able to finish and sell ’em, for the freeholder nivver did seize any more on ’em. I nivver understood that and thought there was something wrong there.”

“What was the company called?” I asked.

“It was the West London Building Company.”

My mother and I glanced at each other in relief.

“Since then things have been worse than before on account of the badness of the times. They say the harvest failed in Ireland this summer and sartin it is there’s been many more poor Irishers in Town than ever before to bring down the price of work and raise the rents.”

“So how have you lived since then?” my mother asked.

Mrs Digweed glanced nervously in my direction before replying: “My George 92 THE

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has had to take to the shores, ma’am. And with that and my washing we’ve jist about managed to keep body and soul together. But then last winter he took sick with the damp on his chest — and worse than that! — off the work he was doing. We nigh on starved then, for the pawnbroker what I told you about was taking four shillin’ a week off of us for what we owed. And because we couldn’t pay it back fast enough, we was getting deeper and deeper into debt all the time. Well then in the Spring, this same indiwiddle as I told you of come to see us again. It was a long time since we’d seen him, and to tell the truth, I was none too glad when I set eyes on him. But he seemed to be bringing us some good news this time. He said he’d heard that there was some work to do at the great house up at Hougham.”

“The great house?” my mother repeated. “You must mean Mompesson-park?”

“I believe the name was something like that, ma’am.”

“But the house has been empty for years!” my mother exclaimed.

“Seemingly the fambly’s coming back there, ma’am, if it’s the same house. Well, my George went to see the steward in Town and got took on. So we talked it over and agreed to leave the young ’uns in Town. George was from here as a boy but it was the fust time that I’d ever gone beyond the lamps. Then, like I told you last night, Joey and me had to go on to Stoniton. And that’s where we were until we heerd the tidings from Town. Well, that’s all there is to say. And now we have to get on home.”

She rose from her chair as she spoke.

“Gracious Heavens ! “ cried my mother. “You surely cannot propose to continue your journey today!”

“We have rested and we have ate, and thanks to your goodness we have got warm clothes and good stout shoes that will take us up to Town easy.”

“But not on foot,” my mother persevered, seeing that she was determined. “At the very least, I insist upon giving you the money to pay for your fare by stage-coach. You can pick it up at noon on the turnpike where it passes the turning to the village.”

A troubled expression appeared on the woman’s face: “I don’t like to take money, thank you kindly, ma’am. We’re so deep in debt already, we dare not take on no more.”

“But if you take the coach you can be with your family by early tomorrow instead of three or four days from now. And Joey looks much too tired to go on today by foot. And I don’t mean it as a loan but as a gift.”

The woman’s weary face as she looked at her little boy was a battle-ground of conflicting emotions. At last she spoke: “We’d pay you back, ma’am, Joey’s dad and me.

He would say that as sartin as me if he were here now. We’d not like to be beholden.”

Then she added timidly: “How much would the fare be for the two of us?”

My mother glanced at me: “Two outsides would be about twenty-four shillings,” I said.

Mrs Digweed’s eyes widened in horror. “I don’t know how long it would be a-fore we could pay back that much,” she murmured. “We couldn’t put aside more than that in a quarter even when my husband was working in the honourable trade.”

“Please don’t worry about that,” said my mother.

“Since it’s Christmas-day,” Sukey put in, “the coach that passes the village at noon will be nigh on empty.”

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“Sukey will go with you to show you the way to the cross-roads.”

“Then I will take your money, and thank you ma’am, thank you,” the woman said.

“Bless you, you have a workin’ heart for the poor.”

My mother smiled and said to me: “Johnnie, will you come into the parlour for a moment?” When we were alone she asked: “Do you think this can be the same enterprise? The name of the company was different.”

“It seems to be the same scheme. And there are several companies involved.”

“If so, it seems a strange coincidence. And what that woman said has made me uneasy.

I wish I hadn’t sent that letter last night. Do you think I should write to Mr Sancious to say that I have changed my mind about putting more money into it?”

“Very well, if it will make you easier, though I don’t really see why you should be worried.”

“Then Sukey can take the letter to the post-office on the way to the crossroads.”

“It’s Christmas-day, Mamma, the office will be closed.”

“Well if it is then Mrs Digweed can take it to London.”

“Do you think we should entrust so important a letter to her?”

“Whyever not?” my mother cried as she sat down and began to compose it.

I begged her to allow me to accompany Sukey and the Digweeds to the turnpike and, seeing how disappointed I would be to miss this chance of seeing the coach stop to take up passengers, she agreed. While she wrote the letter I went up to my room to make ready, and also to act surreptitiously on a resolution I had formed as I listened to Mrs Digweed’s story.

The leave-taking and the formalities which accompanied the handing-over of the money and the letter were taking place when I returned to the hall. Mrs Digweed insisted on my mother’s writing down her name and the direction of our house.

Eventually the four of us set off through the quiet village, peaceful under its blanket of snow and the only signs of life the chimneys from which the smoke was ascending straight up into the cloudless sky. The two women walked on ahead, leaving Joey and me to follow.

“Do you think the guard will blow his horn when he stops the coach?” I asked Joey.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’ve travelled on a coach many and many a time.”

“Have you? Where?”

“With my uncle. In Town and thereabouts.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

His answer surprised me: despite his slighter stature (and I myself was small) he was only about six months younger than myself. I was relieved to know that he was not very much younger, as I had believed, since that would have made the fact that he had done and seen so much all the more galling.

The little general shop that served as a post-office was indeed barred and shuttered and so Sukey handed the letter to Mrs Digweed with another tuppence for the postage in London.

“Of course everything’s locked up today, just as I said it would be,” I pointed out.

“Everythin’ save the buryin’-ground,” Joey remarked for we were just passing it as I made this remark.

“Don’t be silly, graveyards are never locked up.”

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He looked at me with a very irritating air of superiority: “They are in Lunnun. ’Less there’s a mort-safe.”

“Oh be quiet about London,” I cried and pushed him, determined not to ask what that word meant.

He pushed me back much harder so I seized him by the arm, but he managed to wriggle free and hit me on the chest. At this moment Sukey and Mrs Digweed pulled us apart and we walked the rest of the way separated by them.

We reached the cross-roads in good time and had some minutes to wait before the coach came in sight along the snow-covered road. I began waving my arms as soon as I saw it, and to my delight the guard did indeed blow a long blast on his horn as it slowed down and drew to a steaming, jangling, stamping halt abreast of us. The guard confirmed that there were places outside, the money was handed over, and the two new passengers helped up as I watched enviously.

Just as they were getting settled and a moment before the guard gave the signal to the driver to set forward again, I broke from Sukey’s hand-hold and ran to the side of the coach calling out to Joey: “Here, catch this!” I threw up the little purse I had fetched from my own room and which contained all the money I had saved, a sum amounting to one pound, four shillings and three-pence, and which included the half-sovereign that I had received from Mr Barbellion in the church-yard. (I had kept it from some superstitious feeling, and was now relieved to see it go.) The coach pulled away before Joey and his mother had time to open the purse, but when it was about fifty yards from us I saw him half-standing to wave back at me, while his mother clutched his legs to prevent him falling over.

For several weeks my mother and I talked frequently of Mrs Digweed and her son, wondering what they had found when they got to London. (I took great pleasure in finding on my map the place where they lived.) And for some time afterwards she seemed thoughtful and melancholy, and it occurred to me that the mention of London had brought back into her mind memories and associations that she hadn’t thought about for a long time. It was strange to reflect that she had had experiences of which I knew nothing at all. She spent more time writing and it didn’t seem to be letters that she was composing in her pocket-book. Bissett had a low opinion of our visiters, insisting that the creature’s story was a string of lies and berating my mother for her innocence in having believed any of it. Eventually Mamma came to accept that the woman might have been exaggerating the wrongs and hardships that her family had endured after her husband’s injury in the explosion at the gas-works. (Once I happened to overhear Bissett say to her, shaking her head as she spoke: “I’m sure I smelt gin on that woman’s breath.”)

Their visit had had its effect on me too and had made me restless. I did not believe that we had been lied to, and neither was I surprised by the apparent connexions between their lives and ours — for at that age we expect everything to concentre upon ourselves and do not see such patterns as coincidences. I was disturbed, however, when I reflected that Joey, at about the same age as myself or a little younger, had already and for several years worked to earn his living. He knew London and had had experiences which I could hardly begin to imagine. I became impatient to grow up and leave the village, and I believe that my mother saw this and that it distressed her.

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The letter entrusted to Mrs Digweed reached its destination but it must have arrived too late to undo the effect of the earlier one, for about a week after Christmas my mother received a reply from Mr Sancious saying that he had already undertaken the transaction on her behalf and that it could not be undone.

The winter passed away and on a wonderful morning in April I came down to breakfast and found my mother studying another letter from her man of business.

“What is the news?” I asked.

“Very good,” she answered, smiling. “It seems that the Company is to raise a great deal more money because its prospects are so excellent.”

“And does that mean we will get our money at last?”

“I’m sure we will.”

“Let me see the letter,” I said and she let me take it. “We beg to advise you,” Mr Sancious wrote, “that at the extraordinary board-meeting of directors of the Consolidated Metropolitan Building Company duly held on the Monday of last week, the Chairman reassured those present as to the continuing soundness of the Company’s prospects.”

“But Mamma,” I said, “this doesn’t look very good at all. Why did they need to be reassured?”

She looked at me in surprise: “But Mr Sancious says I should buy more shares, so he must think things are going well.”

I read on: “The Chairman announced that a further subscription of shares was being offered to those already holding stock in the Company’s equity, the monies to be used to meet its current mortgage liabilities. We therefore, Madam, urge you to purchase another five hundred pounds’ worth of shares in order to protect the investment you have already made.”

I looked up: “But that doesn’t sound good at all. I think he means that if you do not put in more, you will lose everything.”

She gasped: “Don’t say such things, Johnnie.”

I turned back to the letter which ended : “And since you have no money left in ready cash we enclose a promissory note at six months by which date the situation will have resolved itself. You should accept the bill by signing it in the presence of a witness.”