Charles Palliser (99 page)

“Now listen, Sal,” Barney said aggrievedly, “don’t carry on like that. I’ve told you why we had to do it.”

Sally buried her face in her hands and when Jack moved towards her she moved away on the sopha.

“Listen, Sal,” he said, “I dared not wait no longer. He would have done it to me if I’d gave him the chance.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the others. Sally was exhorted “not to carry on so” and several comments were passed implying that Jack’s suspicions that her affections might be engaged by Sam were being given credibility by her attitude now.

However, she remained distraught and tearful.

“So what happened to the blunt, Jack?” Barney asked.

“I left it too late,” Jack said ruefully. “Right arter that Pulvertaft and another cove come round the corner. I didn’t have time to re-charge the gun and they was on me in an instant. They beat me about the head and pulled the bag off me and I jist took to my heels.”

This account was greeted with sympathy for Jack’s appearance certainly suggested that he had been badly injured.

The mood of the gathering was now extremely grim, and though they continued to drink, as the realization dawned on them that they had, after all their efforts, been outwitted, they were now trying to numb themselves against their bitter disappointment.

As the resentments that had been suppressed during the period of their common endeavour now surfaced, a number of fierce quarrels broke out and several of them deteriorated into brawls. Most of what was going on I had to deduce from the noises alone, but at one moment I was interested to see Sally, who had been sitting on the sopha, rise to her feet and move away in order to avoid Jack’s attempts to embrace her.

I had wondered for some time how black were the crimes that these people were capable of, and now my worst fears had been far surpassed. >~old-blooded murder for reasons of mere profit and self-interest — murder of a friend and colleague, however disloyal he might have proved himself —

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was a dark enough act to match my suspicions. And what Jack had done had been yet darker. I had to get away from there even at the risk of my life.

After a few hours the noises from below suggested that my former companions had fallen into a drunken slumber. This was the moment I had been waiting for: the street-door was not guarded and I should be able to pass through the hall unseen from the drawing-room under cover of darkness, for the late December dawn was not yet arrived.

I crept down the stairs — which was difficult without a light — and, holding my breath, passed the door of the drawing-room. The snores and drunken mutterings suggested that its inhabitants were now sprawled across the carpets and furniture in promiscuous disarray, as I had often seen them before.

As silently as I could, I began to undo the locks and chains with which the front-door was secured. I had released half of them when suddenly, because of the difficulty of doing it in the darkness, one of the great chains with a padlock attached fell to the floor with a noise that seemed to fill the house, echoing through the uncarpeted and empty hall and rooms. I could do nothing. There were still too many bolts and chains for me to be able to abandon caution and fling the door open and flee as I longed to do.

So I froze and waited for my fate. To my amazement, however, no-one came out of the drawing-room to challenge me. I had just concluded that the sound had seemed louder to me than in fact it was, when I seemed to hear a soft noise that might almost have been nothing more than a rat. I held my breath for as long as I could and when no further sound came, I decided it was safe to continue, and so I released the last of the locks and slid the door open.

A moment later I was out in the cold night air. I pulled the door to behind me in order that my escape should remain undiscovered for as long as possible, and made my way along the rough road, glancing back frequently. As I reached the corner of that ghostly street I took a last look behind me and it seemed to me that the door was open and a small figure was standing on the steps. But it was too dark to be sure that it was not merely a shadow, and I hurried on round the corner.

When I had gone a safe distance I paused to put on the boots. As I looked up I found before me a wooden board bearing the legend : “This ground to be let on Building Leases. Apply to Mr Haldimand, The West London Building Company”. That was the company that had cheated the Digweeds and which I was sure had been involved in the speculation which had ruined my mother! Perhaps the house I had just left was one of those in which she had invested! Here were more coincidences! I had no time to ponder them, however, and hurried on.

Walking north-eastward I soon left behind the empty streets of that half-built waste-land, crossed Vauxhall-bridge-road, hurried up Rochester-row and plunged with a kind of relief into the familiar warren around Pye-street and Orchard-street in Westminster. At first I looked back often and once or twice believed I saw a figure in the shadows that seemed to freeze as I turned, but

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now the streets grew too populous — even at that early hour — for me to be able to do this.

As I passed through St. James’-park, which was at that time a marshy field with a ruined Chinese bridge over the Dutch-canal, I turned often to look behind me — but all I believed I saw were the dark shadows of the park-women — those wretched creatures whose diseased features permitted them to ply their trade only by courtesy of the darkness of the unlit parks.

Except that I knew instinctively that safety lay in the crowded metropolis, I had not considered where I would go. So, passing the deserted bulk of Carlton-house Palace on my left, abandoned for five years and waiting now to be demolished, and then skirting the place where the great new square was being built on the site of the Old-Royal-mews opposite Northumberland-house, I kept steadily heading towards the pink and orange dawn that was rising over the City before me — beautiful but disturbing, too, for I knew it was a warning of even colder weather.

Although profoundly relieved to be free of that house and those people, I knew that my plight was desperate. I was hungry, I had not a penny, and the clothes I was wearing were hardly worth exchanging for any cheaper ones — apart from the great-coat and boots which I needed for protection against the December weather. The Asylum for the Homeless in Playhouse-yard, which only opened when the temperature fell below freezing, must be receiving inmates now, but I needed a ticket to get in.

I hardly knew how it came about but I found myself, as the pale sun rose, in the dank and noisome little square near the fleet whither I had followed my mother a little over a month before. I remembered that date well — the ill-omened 13th. of November — but I was not sure what the date was today. Gazing at the ugly long mound beneath which my mother lay, I wondered how soon it would be before I would join her there. At length, however, I was recalled from these reflections by the memory that I had things to achieve. And so at midday I dragged myself away from there.

All that day I wandered aimlessly about the frozen streets, shivering with the cold and limping painfully for my feet were sore in the ill-fitting boots. I could not bring myself to beg but I went so far as to stare at people whose faces seemed kind. However, nobody stopped to offer money and I realized that, surrounded by importunate and experienced beggars as I was, I would have to make a direct appeal if I was to expect charity, and this I could not yet bring myself to do.

I reviewed the people I could go to for help: Mrs Fortisquince and the Mompessons were clearly out of the question now. They would not assist me, but anyway I would die rather than ask them. Miss Quilliam, who had little power to aid me anyway, was in Paris. After recognising Barney, I could no longer hope for anything good to come from finding Mrs Digweed. That left only Henry Bellringer and, knowing how impecunious he was himself, I could not bring myself to go to him. There was nobody besides, for surely I dared not go to Mr Escreet? Not after the way he had received my mother, and in view of her explicit injunction? And anyway, I did not know which street the house lay in.

That night I tried to sleep in the hall-way and on the stairs of houses in and around Drury-lane, but I was always driven out with oaths and blows. The next day, in desperation and keeping a careful watch for a police-officer 456

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or street-keeper, I began to beg, holding out my hand to passers-by with a few words of supplication. After only a few minutes, however, a cripple came towards me along the pavement, swinging his legs between two crutches and hopping like a sparrow. When he was a few feet away he rested on one crutch and, before I guessed his intention, swung the other towards my head. I moved and it caught me a painful blow on the shoulder.

“Why, I’ve bought this walk,” he cried. “I pay my footing to work these streets. Cut away!”

I had similar experiences when I tried to beg in other places and learned by this means that all the decent streets were owned and sub-let by the police and street-keepers.

“Try down the Garding,” a foot-passenger said, seeing me moved on by a sturdy woman in rags. “That’s where boys like you goes.” When he saw my incomprehension he added: “Common-garding.”

I took his advice and arrived there at dusk. The market was over for the day and, apart from a few old women who were sitting on upturned baskets and shelling peas, the market-people were sweeping up and making ready to leave. Strewn around was the detritus of the day’s trading — straw, shavings, broken boxes, and the like — and I now saw a number of ragged boys foraging for rotten fruit and vegetables amongst this rubbish. When I began to imitate them they told me to clear off, but then one of them, who was a year or two younger than I and had a crippled arm swinging uselessly at his side, said: “Let him be.”

So the others ignored me and I managed to find a couple of apples and a tomato which were partially edible. Suddenly my new companions started and then all ran off.

The boy who had been friendly called out: “Hook it! The beadle!”

I saw the imposing figure of the market-beadle, with his golden epaulettes, his staff, and tri-corn hat, approaching round the corner of a row of stalls and took to my heels after the others.

When I ran up the next avenue I could not see them, but suddenly a head popped out from beneath an abandoned stall and a voice hissed: “In here.”

I dived under it and buried myself among the straw. My rescuer was the boy with the crippled arm and as we lay hidden waiting for the market-beadle to go, he told me his name was Luke.

“How long have you had the key of the street?” he asked.

“Just a few days. What about you?”

“Longer nor I can tell. Ever since I rubbed away from me master. ’Cept when I was quodded for three months (and well-whipped twice in the bargain!) for prigging two buns and eight biscuits of a pastry-cook in Bishopsgate. That was when I was living in a brick-field by Hackney. A-fore that I had unfurnished lodgings under the arches of Waterloo-bridge, but it’s rough there.”

“What about your parents?” I asked as we cautiously emerged and renewed our search for food.

“Don’t rec’lleck nothing about ’em. Fust thing I know, I was a sweep’s boy down in Lambeth. That was all right, though some of the chimbleys was mortal narrer, but me master died and I was passed down to his son along with the connexion. He was a booser and hadn’t no understanding of the trade. He sarved me wery ill. I had to eat the candles at night. He broke me arm once in a beating and it was never set and now it’s useless. So at last I rubbed away.”

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I told him a little of my story in return, not concealing from him that I had not a penny to my name.

“I’ll lay odds I could get something for that,” he said indicating the ring that Henrietta had given me.

Doubting this and warning him that it was only worth a penny or two, I gave it to him in exchange for a piece of bread — resigning it with only a moment’s regret. He left me and, not expecting to see him again, I continued to search for food with little success.

Towards midnight, noticing that many of the costermongers and waggoners who had come in from the country were sleeping beneath their carts — most of them under a pile of blankets and great-coats — I was just beginning to wonder where to spend the night, when I felt my arm being nudged and discovered Luke grinning at me.

“Found you,” he said, and held up two meat pies and a couple of polonies.

“So you sold it?” I said, taking the pie that he proffered me. “To whom?”

He nodded and bit into the pie as a hint that conversation was to be suspended.

When we had eaten — leaving the polonies for breakfast — he suggested that we should find an unattended waggon and retire for the night.

“Won’t it be too cold?” I asked.

“I ain’t never cold,” he said. “I wraps the ’Tiser over meself. Somehow no other paper won’t do as well.” As he spoke he looked through some abandoned newspapers lying on the ground and picked one up: “I knows the ’Tiser by the cat and horse on the front.”

Puzzled by these words I looked to see what he meant and saw the lion and unicorn on the masthead. I followed his advice, but even the
Morning Advertiser
did not prevent me from passing a sleepless night. My thoughts were as bitter as the cold. If I had to live like this, then I did not want to live at all. Yet I must live in order to enforce justice against my enemies. Henry Bellringer, poor though he was himself, was my last hope.

Surely, for his half-brother’s sake, now that I was actually starving, I was justified in appealing to him for help?

By the time the pale misty dawn was breaking over the dark dome of St. Paul’s, I had overcome my scruples and, saying farewell to Luke, I began to make my way towards Henry’s chambers, eating my breakfast as I went.

Just at the corner of Chancery-lane and Cursitor-street, I saw a familiar figure:

“Justice!” I called out, and the old man turned his blind face towards me like an animal sniffing its way.