Charles Palliser (58 page)

My eyes burned at these monstrous words. Before I could answer there was a knock and the steward entered.

“Mr Assinder,” Lady Mompesson asked, “have this person’s wages been paid to the quarter?”

“They have, Lady Mompesson,” he replied, looking at me with insolent surprise.

“She leaves the house this very day — in fact, by the end of the forenoon.”

“Very good, my lady,” Mr Assinder answered.

“I owe it to myself,” I exclaimed, “not to accept passively such ill-usage before a third party, but to state unequivocally that I repudiate the allegations made against me.”

From this moment Lady Mompesson neither looked at nor addressed me. She said to the steward: “See that she has no communication with Miss Henrietta before she goes.”

“Oh cruel!” I cried. “May I not explain why I am to part from her so suddenly?”

Still Lady Mompesson ignored me:

“Do not leave her until she is out of the house. Then come to me and tell me she is gone.”

I stood unable to move, so great was my astonishment at being treated in this way, until at last Mr Assinder took me by the arm and led me from the room. As we passed through the hall he sent a footman for the housekeeper, and when she joined us they accompanied me to my rooms and watched as I packed my boxes. The grief that was uppermost in my mind was the idea of leaving Henrietta without saying farewell and explaining something of what had happened, for I dreaded to think that she would hear a version of events

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THE MOMPESSONS

that would cast discredit upon me. Though I hoped to be able to send a message through Fanny, the lady’s maid who attended upon Henrietta and her great-aunt, I was given no opportunity to do so.

A hackney-coach was summoned and I was put into it with my boxes by Mr Assinder and the housekeeper like a chamber-maid caught stealing the linen. All the servants must have assumed I had been convicted of some grave offence, and I hated to imagine how the scene which the steward had witnessed between myself and my erstwhile employers would be embroidered in the telling. Though I had been fighting back tears in the determination that I should not weep before my enemies, now that I was alone in the coach I gave way to my grief. When the driver had put up the steps he peered through the window to ask me where he should go, and now for the first time the full extent of my plight was borne in upon me with the realization that I had nowhere to go and no friend to help me. I directed him to drive to my former lodgings in Coleman-street, even though I knew I could not afford to stay there longer than a night or two.

Since the end of the quarter was only three weeks away, I had little of my last wages left, and when I had paid the fare I possessed in all the world but three pounds and a few shillings.

I stayed at Mrs Malatratt’s house that night and the next while I began my search for cheaper lodgings and some means of earning my living. When I gave my name at two of the three registry-offices for the employment of governesses, the clerk would not even put me on the books. At the third he pretended to, but I saw that this was a courteous fraud. It became clear that Lady Mompesson had kept her word, but even if she had not, I would have found it almost impossible to find suitable employment as I discovered when I resorted to inserting and answering private advertisements in the newspapers.

For the difficulty was that, having no character from a previous employer, I could not account for my time since leaving the school in Portsmouth, and therefore found that no respectable family was prepared to consider me.

I took cheaper lodgings and it was now that I had the altercation — about which you know — with Mrs Malatratt over the boxes that I had left with her the previous year, and whose quite valuable contents I now wanted to sell, for she suddenly demanded that I should pay an extortionate rent for the space they had occupied.

My history since that time is quickly told. I had to keep moving to ever more inexpensive lodgings and as my savings dwindled was forced to take up plain-work to earn my bread. I found too little of that to keep me, and shortly after I came here I fell ill from the low-fever and want of nourishment, and believe I would certainly have died had not Mrs Peachment nursed me.

A few weeks before you found me, I received a visit from one who appeared to regard herself as an old friend, and who must have devoted a considerable effort to tracing me through Mrs Malatratt. This was none other than Mrs Purviance, who came to offer me money and assistance. I declined both of them for I have had leisure to reflect on the events of that fateful night, and I believe that Mrs Purviance played no honourable role in the charade that was practised at my expense.

Faces from the Past

Once again I invite you to accompany me into the private closet of the old counting-house by the derelict wharf, where Mr Clothier, red-faced, is shouting at Mr Sancious:

“Then where the deuce is she?”

“I don’t precisely know, but …”

“Find her! You cheated me. You haven’t been just with me, Sancious. You undertook to deliver her up. You’ve taken my money under false pretences and that’s a thing I shan’t stand for. Everyone thinks they can cheat me. There’s no justice left in England now! I was cheated in the cradle!”

“But pray consider what I have risked for your sake, Mr Clothier. Barbellion knows that I betrayed him because of the abduction attempt. He is a man to be feared amongst us lawyers. He may destroy me. But I will find her, my dear sir, do not fear. And when I do, remember that I have her promissory note.”

“What if Barbellion gets to her first? Do you know how long I have laboured to outwit those accursed Mompessons?”

“
I
’ll get to her first, I promise you. I have an ally who is trusted by her.”

The old gentleman stares at him: “Whom do you mean?” He comes close and peers into the attorney’s face: “Who is he?”

“You must not ask me.”

“Why the devil not?”

“Because I have undertaken to conceal that individual’s identity.”

At that moment there is the sound of the street-door banging and then rapid steps in the outer office.

Mr Vulliamy, without ceremony, bursts into the closet flushed and excited: “I have found her! I have found her!”

He turns and beckons to someone behind him, and there shuffles in after him a short man with a hunched back wearing a greasy benjamin and carrying a fur cap in his hand.

He gazes at the old gentleman in a somewhat sideways manner as if too awed to look at him directly, and pulls at his forelock.

“Come, Acehand,” Mr Vulliamy prompts him. “Tell your story to Mr Clothier.”

The stranger shuffles his feet and says: “Why, it’s like this. Mr Vulliamy 265

266 THE

MOMPESSONS

comes round to see the books jist now and I shows him this and tells him about the young ooman as pledged it. A young ooman with a boy.”

As he speaks he brings something from the depths of his pocket and lays it on his palm. Mr Sancious leans forward to look at it but the old gentleman keeps his glittering eyes on the face of the pledge-taker.

“Well, I looks at it and I thinks, Hello, I reckon I knows that there face. But I couldn’t call it to mind. Anyways, this was, oh, seven or eight months agone and she come in every month since then to pay the interest. Name of Halfmoon. And each time I thinks and I thinks but it ain’t no good. And then suddenly it comes into me head. For I only seen him jist the once, Mr Clothier, sir, when I met you with him many years back. (You wouldn’t call it to mind, sir, but I was walking one Sunday on Bow-common with me old ooman.) He was hardly more nor a lad for that was nigh on twenty year agone. And I knowed that … That’s to say … Well, I said to meself, Mr Clothier will want to know about this. So I told Mr Vulliamy here about it and he brung me straight to you.” With timid resentment he adds: “Runnin’ all the way.”

The old gentleman takes the locket and holds it up to the window. After a moment he turns, suddenly pale now, and says: “Why, you’re quite right. I am most confoundedly glad to see this. When is the interest next due?”

“Why, in about a week.”

“Thank you, Acehand. You will be rewarded for your astuteness. See to it, Vulliamy.”

He adds in an undertone: “Give him a guinea.”

“It’s a honour, sir, to be of help to your fambly,” the pledge-taker says and shuffles out.

The old gentleman stares at the attorney in triumph: “A fiddlestick for your help! And your blessed ally!” he cries (though he doesn’t say “blessed”). Then in an undertone he says to himself: “I think I see my way clear now.”

“My assistance is available whenever you need it,” Mr Sancious says.

“Yes, yes,” the old gentleman mutters rudely.

The attorney bows curtly and takes his leave. As he goes out he passes Mr Vulliamy in the door-way, who comes in and says to his employer: “I gave him his reward and he was very grateful.”

“Good, good,” the old gentleman says.

“And what about
my
reward, sir?”

“Oh very well. What did I say? Twenty guineas?”

“You undertook to cancel one of the bonds. Do you not recall?”

“Did I, by heavens?” He glares at his managing-clerk: “Well, if I said so then I will.

Never let it be said that I do not keep my word.” Then he takes a key from around his neck and unlocks a strong-box in a dark corner of the chamber. He removes a document and hands it to Mr Vulliamy who opens it, nods, and then passes it back. His face twisted with pain, the old gentleman rolls it up again and thrusts it into the flame of the candle and when it has blazed up, throws it into the fireplace.

Watching the delight apparent on Mr Vulliamy’s face as the paper turns to shiny ash, the old gentleman locks the strong-box again, amiably remarking: “Don’t forget, I still have the other.” Then he beckons his clerk nearer and says softly: “Follow Sancious day and night. I want to know everything he does and everybody he sees.”

“Why, Mr Clothier!” the clerk exclaims. “Do you trust nobody?”

FACES FROM THE PAST

267

“Nobody,” the old gentleman answers calmly. “Nobody but you,” he adds, glancing towards the strong-box.

By the time Miss Quilliam had finished her relation, dawn had largely chased away the brief summer night and the candle-flame glowed yellow in the pale light.

“What a terrible story,” my mother sighed. “How you have suffered, Helen.”

I heard the murmur of their voices as they made preparations to retire, and before I drifted into sleep myself, the narrative I had just overheard ran through my mind and I wished I could have asked Miss Quilliam some questions. She had not, for one thing, explained how, arriving in obscurity from a provincial town with no friends in London, she had come to be employed by the Mompessons. And I fell asleep thinking about other things in her account that had puzzled me.

When I awoke an hour or two later the dawn light was coming in through the grimy windows and it was clear that it was going to be another hot sunny day. I found my mother asleep and no sign of Miss Quilliam.

When my mother wakened a few minutes later she explained that our friend had gone out to make some purchases.

“What has she gone for?” I asked rather irritably. “I’ll wager it’s …”

“Don’t be harsh on her, Johnnie. She has had such a hard life, you know. When I was no more than the age she is now I had experienced nothing but kindness and comfort.”

“Perhaps that made it easier for her,” I suggested.

“I don’t believe anything has been easy for her. While you were sleeping she told me her story.”

“Did she tell you everything, Mamma?”

“No,” my mother answered. “I am sure she left some things out and changed others.”

I was intrigued by this and wondered if she had noticed what had alerted me, but then, as she went on, I realized that she had interpreted Miss Quilliam’s motives very differently: “I imagine that she left things out because she wanted to spare my feelings.”

She considered for a moment and then said: “And yet I can hardly imagine how her story could be any harsher than what she recounted.”

At .that moment there was a knock at the door. At my mother’s cry of “Come in!” a well-dressed lady of about fifty entered.

She was tall and handsome, and, resplendently dressed in a grey beaver hat with an ostrich plume, a blue silk dress, and a velvet shawl trimmed with ermine, and carrying a magnificent reticule of linked steel rings, she seemed not in the least discomposed at finding herself in so incongruous a situation. Indeed, self-possession was the distinctive feature of her frank, even bold, countenance, for although she seemed surprised at seeing us, she smiled very graciously:

“Do not let me disturb you, good people. I expected to find a young lady of the name of Miss Quilliam, but I presume that she is no longer living here?”

“Indeed she is!” my mother cried. “She has only gone out for a few minutes.”

The strange lady repressed a start of well-bred astonishment at my mother’s 268

THE MOMPESSONS

manner of speech. She looked at her closely as she smiled: “I am delighted to know it,”

she said, “for I have come to this district especially to visit her.”

As she spoke she glanced round the bare room and surveyed our sparse possessions with an air which, though it clearly read the story of poverty and distress that they told, was oddly inoffensive.

“Pray be seated,” said my mother who had risen and now indicated a chair.

The lady settled herself in the best, though battered chair, not quite managing to conceal her distaste at its appearance.

“I wish I could offer you something,” my mother said, standing by her; “but we have nothing at all. I could send my son to borrow some tea of a neighbour.”

“Do not think of it,” the stranger said. Then, laying her hand on my mother’s arm, she continued: “My dear, I perceive that you were bred to something very different from this, and that you have not borne poverty for very long.”

“That is so,” she answered in a trembling voice. “I have been very unlucky.”