Charles Palliser (76 page)

“Later,” I replied. “I have an idea. We will go to Sir Perceval,” I said, for I had considered this in advance. “Remember that it is in his interest that we remain well.”

This was true since our enemy had obtained the codicil, but I must not let her find that out. I broke off because she was staring at me with a ghastly expression. Now I saw the hectic colour in her cheeks that I had taken for paint.

“Sir Perceval?” she repeated.

“What’s the matter, Mamma?” I asked.

“Sir Perceval? No, we won’t go there,” she said vehemently. “I went there and was turned away.’”

“Very well,” I said, surprised at this piece of news. All my doubts about the Mompessons and the fact that Mr Steplight (or Sancious) had arrived at Mrs Fortisquince’s in their carriage, returned in force. Yet I could make no sense of this for the Mompessons must want us to remain alive. What she had said could not be correct.

“But we must go somewhere.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Where can we go,” I said, “but the workhouse? If they will admit us.”

“No,” she cried, coming to a stop. “Not that. They would separate us.”

“But,” I said, “we have no choice.”

“There is the river,” she said softly.

I had heard of the Arches beneath the Adelphi as a desperate place of last resort.

“Why, Mamma, the workhouse would be better than that. Christchurch is in Spitalfields and so not far from here.”

I remembered that she had admitted that that was her parish of settlement.

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She looked at me in terror.

“No!” she cried. “It would not be safe to go there!”

“Why not?” I demanded, remembering how frightened she had been at the prospect of going to the workhouse when Miss Quilliam had suggested it.

“Don’t ask me that!” she cried and ran ahead of me. Suddenly she stumbled and almost fell.

“Why, you’re ill!” I exclaimed. “All the more reason why we must go for help now.”

“Only,” she said, “if you will tell me your story. For we will be parted once we are there.”

I dared not contradict her. And so, as we walked along, I told her about the school and how I had escaped. Then, to my eternal regret — but I was too exhausted to consider the consequences and was thinking only to remove her belief that Miss Quilliam had gone to our enemy — I began to tell her that I had learned at Melthorpe that Mr Barbellion was Sir Perceval’s lawyer.

“So you see,” I concluded, “she went to Sir Perceval as she promised, and Mr Barbellion was sent to buy the codicil from us.”

My mother’s mind, fired by a feverish excitement, had raced ahead. To my dismay she cried: “That means that Mr Steplight is working for our enemy! That explains why they treated me as they did! Mr Pentecost was right!”

“What do you mean? Who treated you in what way? What did Mr Pentecost tell you?

I thought you never spoke to him?”

But she paid no attention for another horror had come to her and she looked round at me wildly, her eyes glittering unnaturally: “Silas has the codicil! That is what Mr Assinder meant!”

“Tell me about Silas! Who is he? And who is Mr Assinder?” I demanded, though I was sure I had heard that name not long before.

She was not listening: “We are in terrible danger! He will kill us! What my father feared has come to pass! And it was I who put it into his hands!”

“Do you mean Silas Clothier?” I demanded, recalling that this individual was a beneficiary under the codicil.

She paid no heed, however. I was burning to ask her about the name of my father —

Peter Clothier — that I believed I had found on the baptism entry.

“What a fool I’ve been!” she exclaimed. Then she looked up the street we had walked along: “We are being followed!” she cried.

She began to walk faster and, weak though she was, I had difficulty in keeping up with her.

“No-one is following us,” I said.

“Yes, yes. They know I was there, Silas and his agents. Mrs Purviance is one of them.”

“Mamma,” I said, “Mrs Purviance is not an agent of anyone — certainly not of our enemy. Do you not recall how we met her through Miss Quilliam?”

But at this my mother shuddered: “It was she who betrayed us!”

“No, it was not,” I protested. “I have explained that.”

“Yes, yes,” she cried. “I met her again at Mrs Purviance’s house. She was beautifully dressed. The money came from our enemy!”

I saw that it was useless to reason with her in this state of mind. And at the same time I began to wonder if she or I were right: were Miss Quilliam and Mrs Purviance members of what seemed to be a vast conspiracy against us? After all, Bissett, Mr Sancious or Steplight, Mrs Fortisquince and, though entirely

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innocently, even Stephen Maliphant, had all turned out to be implicated in one way or another in some kind of design whose origin and purpose were so far hidden from me.

“We must elude them,” my mother cried and began to run.

Unable to do anything else, I ran beside her and she seized my hand.

As if she knew where she was going, she turned up a dark bye-street. It was unpaved and I found difficulty in running across the wet cobbles.

“We should be careful,” I said. “There are other dangers in these streets.”

She was gripping my hand so hard that it was painful. “Nothing is as dangerous to us as our enemy,” she cried.

We had almost reached the end of the unlit street when, because of her exhaustion or her distraction, she stumbled and fell on the wet cobbles, letting go of my hand.

I helped her to stand and held her close to me. I noticed that now I was almost as tall as she.

“Mamma, we are in no danger except from hunger and tiredness. We must find food and rest for tonight, and shelter from the cold and rain. We must ask the way to the Spitalfields workhouse.”

She stared at me wildly: “You don’t understand. Silas has spies everywhere. If we went there he would find us out.”

Now I believed I understood why she was so frightened of going to the workhouse or even, as Mr Advowson had told me, revealing her legal parish of settlement: this would enable her enemy to find her.

“But we have to go somewhere,” I protested.

“Johnnie, all I care about is making you safe. My life doesn’t matter. I loathe myself now.”

“No, no,” I said. “Don’t speak like that.”

“Quickly,” she cried, “or they will be upon us.”

She set off at a run again and I hurried after her.

I don’t know how long we ran up one street and down another, my mother constantly looking back and hardly even seeming to be aware of whether I was with her or not. I lost all idea of where we were as we ran along unpaved and unlit lanes, into dark courts with their stinking ash-heaps, or through streets blazing with gas-lights where, late as it was, people crowded around market-stalls. Once we found ourselves in a blind alley from which my mother retraced her steps in terror as if expecting to find herself trapped.

At last she fell, this time from sheer exhaustion. Almost with a kind of relief, I pulled her to her feet and found that I had to hold her up. Now I saw that a profound change had taken place in her, and I felt my stomach go cold. How could I have thought she looked well? She only looked younger because she was so much thinner even than when I had last seen her.

The feverish brightness of the last couple of hours had given place to a dull stupor and her eyes no longer seemed to focus properly. In the light of a street-lamp nearby she looked at me strangely, as if unsure who I was.

Then her face cleared and became animated by joy: “Peter?” she said. “Is it you?”

“No, Mamma, it’s Johnnie,” I answered, but she did not seem to hear.

“Oh Peter, you’ve been away so long. You shouldn’t have left me there alone, it was cruel of you. I’ve been so frightened and worried.”

She wiped her sleeve against her mouth and I saw something dark appear on it.

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“You’ve coughed up blood,” I said.

“Blood!” she cried and drew away from me staring at me in horror: “Whose is it?”

“Have you done this before?” I asked angrily.

“Is it,” she began in a horrified whisper, “is it
his
blood?”

The wind and rain had died down and yet I knew that it was as if the weather had stopped merely to draw in its breath for a worse onslaught. I had to find rest and shelter for her soon. I looked up the street and saw that a working-man was coming towards us.

I stopped him and said: “Please tell me where we are?”

“Field-lane.”

I dimly recalled my knowledge of that part of London.

“Are we near Hatton-garden?”

He nodded.

“And Mitre-court?” I asked, for I remembered that Mrs Sackbutt — the friendly woman we had met when we were searching for the Digweeds — had mentioned this place as somewhere that one could find shelter very cheaply.

He looked at me curiously. “Yes, if you wish to go there.”

“I wish we did not have to,” I answered.

“Peter,” my mother suddenly said. “I’ve lost your locket. I couldn’t help it.”

“Never mind about that now,” I said.

“Oh but I do mind. I mind very much. But you see I dared not go back there.”

The strange man said: “She looks done in. Is she your mother?”

I nodded.

He pointed the way he had come: “Go to the end of this street and turn right into Holborn. Walk a short piece and turn into Ely-place and then there’s an alley-way between two of the houses on your left. But what do you want there?”

“A dry place where my mother may lie and rest tonight for just a penny or two. Will we find those?”

“You may do,” he said. “Nobody knows who owns them houses, but someone will take a toll of you, you can be sure of that.”

“I was afraid of your father,” my mother persisted.

The man frowned sympathetically: “Your guv’nor’s a hard ’un, is he? But have you no friends? No tin?”

“No friends, and only a few pence,” I told him.

“I believe a storm is brewing. Your mother looks ill enough to have a chance of being admitted to the sick-ward of a workhouse for a few days if you have a settlement. Won’t you take her there?”

“No, she is afraid.”

“Then Mitre-court is your last hope. But it is an evil place. Trust nobody.” He reached into his pocket: “I am out of collar and have a family, but I can see your case is worse than mine.”

He brought out a penny and looked at it for a moment. Then quickly he found another and, pressing them into my hand, strode quickly off.

My mother had taken in none of this. One hand was restlessly stroking my ragged collar and she was looking at me with disconcerting intensity :

“Why is vour coat torn, Peter? And where is this blood from?”

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There was no blood upon my coat, though it was certainly torn. I gently detached her hand.

“Come,” I said. “We must go this way.”

As we set off she said cajolingly: “You won’t leave me ever again, will you, Peter?”

“No,” I said. “Never again.”

“Will you take me home now? Won’t Father be worried? Your argument with him was only a jest, wasn’t it?”

Thinking it best to humour her I said: “Yes. We’re going home now.”

Following the directions I had been given, we walked on as the wind began to rise again and from Ely-place turned into a narrow and noisome alley-way which was partially obstructed by rotten-looking wooden props leaning against the houses as if for support.

My mother asked timidly: “Are you certain this is the way, Peter? I don’t remember it.”

“Yes, come on,” I said.

The Rookery consisted of three or four delapidated buildings which had once-been part of the palace of the Bishop of Ely, the rest of which — save the ancient chapel abutting on the north — had been demolished to build Ely-place, and the faded blazon of the bishop’s key and mitre was still visible above the arch that led into it at the end of the alley.

Looking up at this my mother smiled and exclaimed: “Oh, this is the court at the side of Northumberland-house, isn’t it?”

I nodded, remembering how she had recognised the streets around Charing-cross where that great mansion stood. Her father’s house must have been near there.

Water poured down the sides of the buildings from the over-flowing gutters, and at the lowest point of the court a lake had formed through which we had to wade. Skirting the mound of filth that almost blocked the way, we entered one of the houses. Passing through an entrance whose door was broken from its hinges, we found ourselves in a dark hall. I tried the first door, and after some moments it was opened by a surly man who glared down at us. Over his shoulder I glimpsed other men sitting around a fire, looking anxiously towards us.

“We are seeking shelter,” I said.

He merely jerked his head to indicate that we should ascend, and slammed the door shut.

I took my mother’s hand and we began to climb. The stairs were so rotten and broken away as to be very dangerous in the darkness. On the next floor I asked at each of the doors and was turned away with curses. At last, on the floor above, a man who was unshaven and stank of raw gin stood behind the half-opened door and said: “There’s a corner you can have. Over by Lushing Lizzie. A penny a night each.”

I gave him the coins and he stood aside for us. My first impression as we passed in was of the stench which was appalling. It was a large chamber but with a low ceiling crossed by heavy beams which were encrusted with elaborate plaister-work, broken off in many places. The plaister was everywhere stained yellow or visibly damp, and in one corner the ceiling had collapsed entirely. The room was lit only by a rushlight burning by the fireplace and by its feeble light I saw that it contained more than a dozen people

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disposed in three or four groups about the floor, so that there was little space left.

Near the fireplace — where only a small blaze was smouldering — was a group of three women and a man and a number of sleeping children. There were a man and a woman lying on some straw in the middle of the room and an old woman in one corner by the windows, one of which was secured by battered shutters and the other stuffed with rags and paper where many of the panes were missing. The deputy who had admitted us joined three other men who were drinking in the opposite corner.