Charles Palliser (91 page)

The old gentleman came in rubbing his hands together and looking at me in the most knowing way and said :
I
hope we are not interrupting.
Mr Daniel Clothier smirked at this and to my distress Papa smiled at me as if he too were in the joke. Young Mr Clothier said:
Well, Father, if it comes to that, you know, Miss Huffam and I were getting
along very well without you.
The old gentleman said to my Father:
Young folks, eh,
Huffam?
To my relief they left soon afterwards, but when they had gone my Papa said:
My dear child, I am glad to see how well you and Mr Daniel Clothier appear to
understand each other.
I could not restrain myself from bursting out that I detested him.

My Papa said:
I am very surprized to learn it. And disapointed, too, I may say. For, my
dear child, have you considered the advantages of an Alliance with that Family?
I could not speak and he said:
Your and my interests in the Suit would then be identical to those of
the Clothier Family: the Codacil would restore my Grandfather’s Title to the Hougham
Propperty to me, as my heir you would inherit it, and your marriage to old Clothier’s son
would mean that the children of that union would be his heirs as well as mine.

Hardly knowing what I was saying, I asked him which son he refered to. He said:
For
my part it makes no odds at all, but I understood Clothier to mean Daniel. I would be
perfectly content to leave the choice to you, and if you have an objection to the elder son,
then by all means take the younger.
My head was in a whirl at this. After a moment Papa asked:
Then shall I tell old Clothier you’re agreeable?
I cried out in alarm and he said angrily:
Do you refuse then?
I protested that I did not mean that either and he asked what in heaven’s name I
did
mean. I could not speak and he said:
Come, my dear, I must say
something to Clothier for he’s very anxious about this.
Then he suddenly cried :
I
have it!

Let me tell him you that do not object to having
THE WEDDING NIGHT

419

one of them?
I nodded and he kissed me and called me his own girl. He sent this message to Mr Clothier and a few days later informed me that the Deed governing the terms of the Loan had been signed.

A few days later all was ready for the purchase of the Codacil. Mr Clothier and his elder son came to the house in the morning and met Mr Escreet who was very nervous.

It was strange to see him so frightened of so little a gentleman! Mr Clothier counted out the money — 4,ooo£ in bank-notes! — and paid it over to Papa who signed a Deed (which was then witnessed by Mr Escreet) and gave it to him. Papa then gave the money to Mr Escreet who left the room.

Nearly an hour ticked away very slowly by the Grandfather clock. My Father walked up and down the room rubbing his nose while the old gentleman sat chewing the end of his cane and his son stared out of window with his arms crossed. At last Mr Escreet returned and handed Papa a small package. He took it with trembling hands and carried it across to the lamp on the desk. He opened it and examined the piece of parchment he drew from it while Mr Clothier and his son watched eagerly. I saw that my Father’s face was flushed and his eyes feverish and then noticed that old Mr Clothier was the same : his black eyes were glittering as he ground his teeth with impatience. His son was gripping his big hands together so hard that the pink flesh was white. At last Papa said :
This document is genuine. I am as certain of that as I can be of anything. You’re a lawyer,
see what you think, Clothier.
Young Mr Clothier crossed the room and almost seized it from him. After examining it for a long time, he confirmed my Father’s judgement. Old Mr Clothier cried:
Read it, for heaven’s sake!
So young Mr Clothier read it and when they had heard it out they discussed its impliccations. Mr Clothier said:
I
have waited
more than forty years to see this document laid before the Court. I am an old man and I
cannot wait much longer. I hope you will set this in train tomorrow.
Papa carefully rolled up the document and placed it in the silver case which you have seen so often and which he had made ready to recieve it. He then secured this to his watch-chain and fob. Then he smiled and said:
Tomorrow is Saturday. I will do it on Monday. And until I hand it to
the Court, I assure you that it will never leave my custardy. And now gentlemen, I beg you
will do my daughter and myself the honour of accepting my invitation to dinner?
To my dismay, they did so. Because he had cause for cellarbration Papa partook freely of the wine though the two Clothiers remained sober and watchful. When the cloth was removed I retired to the drawing-room upstairs, but a few minutes later young Mr Clothier came in. As I made tea, he began to speak of the Codacil and the way it united the interests of our two families. Before I could say or do anything he had made me a flat proposal of marriage. I told him that I could not think of it. He said angrily that in that case our Fathers must have misunderstood each other, for his had very clearly recieved the impression from mine that I would look upon such a proposal favourably. At that moment the two gentlemen entered. I saw that Papa had taken more wine than was his usual custom. When Mr Clothier’s son told him what had passed, the old gentleman said to my Father:
What is the meaning of this, Huffam?
I asked permission of Papa to withdraw, but he said to me:
This is d----d awkward for me, too. I told Clothier what you
said to me. Now what’s changed your mind?
I could not say anything. Old Mr Clothier said:
That’s so, young woman. Your Father told me you had given your consent to
marrying either of my sons.

I managed to say that what I had said was that I had no objection to recieving 420 THE

CLOTHIERS

a proposal from one of his sons. The old gentleman cried :
What is the differance?
I could not speak, but Mr Daniel Clothier said:
Ah, now I percieve. It is “one son” rather
than “either” that the young lady is stippulating for, and evidently I have not the honour
to be the favoured Brother.
Papa cried :
I
believe that is right! I believe it is young Peter
that she has in mind. Very well then, we shall have a wedding after all.
But old Mr Clothier cried:
No we shall not!
My Father said :
Why, what odds does it make whether she
takes one or the other?
Mr Clothier shouted:
Daniel is my heir, not Peter. Why, Peter is

…
He broke off and exchanged a look with his son who said:
We’ve tried to keep it from
you, Miss Huffam, but the truth is that my Brother has always been pecculier. In short, he
is insane.
I cried out that this was a wicked lie and the old gentleman said:
Oh so you
know all about it, do you? Then you’ll know that for the last few weeks we’ve had to confine
him to a safe room with a man-servant watching him night and day to make sure he don’t
injure himself. And as for you, Huffam, you undertook that your daughter should marry
my heir, and now I find that isn’t so.
Papa said:
I
acted in good faith.
Mr Clothier said:
You’ve cheated me, Huffam. I would never have agreed to the Loan if I had not had your
assurance on this point.
So Martin had been right to suspect that my Father had agreed that I must marry as a condition of the Loan! Papa cried:
Did you say “cheated”? How
dare you, a Clothier, accuse a Huffam thus?
Then he seized my arm and gripped it so hard that it hurt. He said:
This is all your fault. Your girlish finicking has brought me into
this embarassment. I won’t be accused of acting dishonourably, do you hear me? You must
stop mooning after Peter and make up your mind to have Daniel.
At this I burst into tears and Papa had to release me. Seizing my oportunity, I ran from the room. On the other side of the door I turned the lock then crossed in the darkness to the other door and turned that also. Now I was safe! I leant with my back against the door still sobbing, my heart near to breaking at the thought of what Peter was undergoing. Then, to my horror, I became aware of someone breathing in the darkness a few feet from me and my heart began to pound. Then a voice spoke:
Is that you, Miss Mary?
It was Mr Escreet. Now that my eyes were accustomed to the darkness I could see that he was sitting in his usual chair before the empty grate. He said:
I
wasn’t missed at the dinner-table, was I?
It was true. No-one had thought to send for him. He said:
Your Father needs me no longer, Miss
Mary. He has the Codacil now and has forgotten all about me, though he wouldn’t have it
if it weren’t for me.
He laughed and I wondered if he too had been drinking. Then he said:
And has he forgotten that the last thing the Clothiers desire is that you should have
an heir, for any legitamate child of yours will stand between the entail and old Clothier?
I hurried out of the room and up to my own appartments.

FIFTH RELATION:

The 5th. of July.

I shall write to them and tell them what has happened. I am certain they will help us once they know the whole Story. After all, they are cousins of ours. And THE WEDDING NIGHT

421

it is in their interests that you and I remain safe. But I’m not telling you about this because I don’t want you to know. I shall go and see them without your knowledge.

The night after I was told about Peter I hardly slept a wink. It was true that I had seen him very dispirited and silent, but I could not believe what his cruel Brother had said.

The next day and the next I kept to my appartments as much as possible and, on the only occasions on which we did meet which were at dinner, Papa kept up an angry silence towards me. Mr Escreet took his meals on a tray in his own chambers, and I would have done the same if my Father had permitted me. The next day at dinner he said:
After you left the room so unceremoniously that night, Mr Clothier and his son told
me some things about young Peter that I think you should know. His Family have long
been aware of his severe predisposition to mellancoly. However, in recent years and
particularly in the last months, he has developed a number of extrordinary delusions that
suggested the onset of a more marked mental derangement, and this is why they have had
to impose a degree of restraint upon him. They fear not only for his own safety, but for that
of others as well. He has begun to make the most extrordinary accusations against his
Father and Brother. And they warned me that we should be on our guard if he succeeds in
comunnicating with either of us, which they assure me is most unlikely. And they tell me
that his condition has worsened recently as a consequence … as a consequence of what has
happened in this house.
I asked him what he meant and he said:
I
am afraid that he
manyfests an obsession about you, my dear. He insists that he loves you and wishes to see
you.
He cleared his throat and said with some embarassment :
The fact is, my dear, they
tell me he speaks of you in terms of quite disrespectful familanty.
I was very affected by this, but not in the way that he intended. He went on to say that he and old Mr Clothier believed that the best course was for the marriage between myself and his elder son to go ahead as soon as possible, for only by seeing me as his Brother’s wife would Peter accept that I was beyond his reach. But then something very extrordinary happened.

At that moment the maid-servant brought in a letter which, she said, had just been brought to the door by a porter. Papa looked at it in surprize and said:
Why, it bears the
Mompesson seal.
I recognised the crest, four crabs in a square with another in the centre, and the motto
Chancerata Periat Rosa.
He broke open the seal and began to read. I saw the colour come into his face and asked if it were bad news. At first he did not understand me and then he said:
Bad news? To the contrairy. The best news I have ever
recieved. The best news concievable.
He refused to answer any more of my questions but went to the Library and remained there until I withdrew for the night. When I went down to breakfast next morning I found him already there and in excellent spirits, except that he looked as if he had been awake all night. When he made no preparations for going to Court I asked him why. He told me he would not be going to his solicitor that morning after all to lay the Codacil before the Court for there need be no haste over it. I was astonished that he should speak in that way of the document which he had persued for so long, and which he had just plunged himself deeply into debt to pay for.

Then he called me
Molly
— which he only said when he was being very affectionate. And he said:
You need not marry Mr Daniel Clothier if you don’t wish it. You can do better
than a Clothier.
I dared not say that I had no wish to do better than a Clothier, so 422 THE

CLOTHIERS

long as I could choose him for myself. Old Mr Clothier came that evening to learn how he had fared in Court. Papa told me afterwards how furious he was to hear that he had done nothing about it. And to learn that Papa no longer supported the idea of my marriage to his elder son.

Melthorpe. The 23rd. of July.

Oh Johnnie, I’m so alarmed! It was the same man! I’m sure it was he. Tall — horibly tall! — and with a lock of black hair. And a pale face. It must be. Then I was right that they have found us. Mr Barbelion must be working for them as I feared. We are undone.

We must flee from here. I don’t know what will become of us. Especially now that Sir Perceval has refused to help us as I believed he would. They were so unkind. To threaten to tell you about your Father like that! So cruel!