Charles Palliser (14 page)

We both quickened our pace as far as was possible and the church was looming up ahead of us in the near-darkness when I dared to look round again. The light was no longer where it had been, but then to my horror I saw it — and it was much closer to us than a moment ago.

“It’s following us,” I cried.

“Oh mercy upon us!” Sukey sobbed and somehow we fought our way through the remaining yards of rough ground until we reached the rude path which encircled the church, where we broke into a run.

Then suddenly, as we rounded the corner of the church, a dark shape separated itself from the greyer shadows ahead and loomed up a few feet in front of us, blocking our way. We froze, and Sukey clutched my arm so fiercely that her grip hurt me: “My poor dad’s fetch!” she moaned. “I knowed it!”

A bright light suddenly dazzled us and I heard a sob from Sukey. Then the 58 THE

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light was shut down and I saw that it came from a dark-lanthorn that was being held aloft.

Just as my fear was diminishing, the apparition hailed me with horrible familiarity:

“Master Mellamphy?”

The voice was that of an elderly gentleman, and now I could see a pair of piercing dark eyes beneath jutting brows.

“Yes,” I answered, my voice quavering a little, and I heard Sukey muttering in terror.

“I’ve come all the way from London to see your mother,” the gentleman said. He wore a black broad-brimmed hat that shielded his face from the light, and a black great-coat and carried a black cane. “Now I don’t suppose you know anyone who lives as far away as London, do you?”

“Oh yes I do,” I said, my courage returning.

“Oh indeed?” said the gentleman. “Now whom do you know there?”

“Don’t you speak to him, Master Johnnie,” said Sukey suddenly.

“Don’t be so rude and silly, Sukey,” I said.

The stranger turned towards her and said very softly: “I advise you, young woman, to hold your peace until asked to speak.”

“You can’t be Uncle Marty,” I said, “because he’s ill.”

“No, you’re quite right,” he said. “I’m not Uncle Marty. Try again.”

“Please don’t speak any more, Master Johnnie,” Sukey pleaded, pulling my arm towards her; “or you shall make me lose my place for disobeying your mother’s orders.”

“So perhaps you’re Mr Sancious,” I suggested, shaking Sukey off.

“No,” he said briskly as if pleased by my wrong answer, and he reached into the pocket of his great-coat. “You see,” he went on; “you do not know me even though I know you. But there’s a half-sovereign for your guesses.”

I took it and I gazed in delight at the shiny little coin which felt satisfyingly heavy on my palm. Gold! This was the first such coin I had ever seen, for sovereigns and half-sovereigns had only been introduced a couple of years before.

“Now in recompense,” the gentleman said, “take me to your mother’s house.”

“I don’t know as we should,” said Sukey.

“Now look at this, young woman,” the stranger said, again drawing something from his pocket; “I have a half-sovereign here for you if you are going to be sensible.”

He held it out to her on the palm of his flat hand, and it gleamed in the light from his lanthorn.

“No, I shall not take it,” said Sukey shaking her head. “I’ll not take money from no fetch.”

“Don’t be silly, Sukey. He’s not your father’s fetch. He’s a living gentleman.”

“But mebbe that’s what a fetch is, when you thinks you’ve seed one, even if it ain’t.”

There was no reasoning with her and I felt ashamed to be associated with such stupidity before so imposing a gentleman. “Take no notice of her,” I said to him. “I’ll show you the way.”

He thanked me and we set off. Yet as we left the church-yard and made our way back along the High-street in silence, it was oddly as if the stranger were leading us, although it was we who knew the way.

In honour of our visiter I marched up to the front-door while Sukey went FRIENDS LOST

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round to the back. I hammered at the knocker and Bissett opened the door with an expression of indignation that turned to amazement when she noticed the stranger.

“Good day, my good woman,” the stranger said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

To my surprise Bissett made an awkward curtsey holding her pin-before in front of her, accompanying it by a kind of smirk, while she muttered: “I’m very honoured, sir.”

As she stood aside he entered, removed his hat and handed it and his cane to her and then did the same with his great-coat, revealing that he was wearing a black frock-coat, knee-breeches, and a long waistcoat with a fine cambric kerchief at his neck. Also visible was a gold half-hunter with a guard from whose watch-chain hung a veritable treasury of fobs and seals. He was the first gentleman other than the rector whom I had seen at such close quarters, and his dress and bearing put the clergyman in the shade — though his expression was even less benign for his prominent brows seemed to be permanently bristling and his reddish face looked as if an explosion of anger was always imminent.

“I have business with your mistress,” the gentleman continued, and then with a wave of his hand he indicated Sukey, who by now had come through the house and was helping me to remove my boots : “Your fellow servant apparently entertains the deepest suspicions of me and was most reluctant to direct me here.”

“Be about your work,” Bissett snapped. “How dare you be so impertinent to a gentleman who has to do with your mistress? Go on, get along with you.” Sukey retreated to the back-apartments and Bissett turned back to the stranger: “I’m sorry your honour was troubled by her,” she said. “A foolish village mawkin that don’t know how to conduck herself in dacent company.”

“Well, I see I’m dealing now,” said the stranger, “with someone who has seen something of the world.”

Bissett reddened with pleasure at this and made another curtsey.

“Now will you be good enough to tell your mistress that a gentleman from London wishes to see her. I will announce myself for my name will mean nothing to her.”

“Yes, sir,” Bissett said.

“I’ll go,” I cried and ran towards the sitting-room door. I burst into the chamber crying: “A gentleman from London to see you! He knows Uncle Martin!”

My mother looked up in alarm. I rapidly told her of our encounter but before she had time to speak Bissett knocked quickly and flung open the door with the words: “A gentleman to see you, ma’am.”

As the stranger strode unceremoniously in I saw my mother rise from the sopha in dismay: “Who are you, sir?”

“I am a solicitor and my name is Barbellion. How do you do, Mrs …” He paused and then said very deliberately: “Mrs Mellamphy.”

My mother flushed and said: “What do you want with me?”

He said softly: “I want the codicil.”

She turned pale and her hand went instantly to the long narrow box she wore at her waist. I watched Mr Barbellion’s eyes follow this movement and then saw my mother register his look with a deepened expression of alarm. Then, with a pitiful attempt to recover her composure, she said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must have the wrong person.”

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“Come, let us not waste time. Your son and I have made friends already, and he has told me about Mr Sancious and his Uncle Marty — that is, Mr Martin Fortisquince.”

These successive revelations came as hammer-blows beneath which she sank back onto the sopha with her hands across her face. When after a few moments she took them away, it was to direct towards myself a haggard look of deep reproach: “Johnnie! You shouldn’t have spoken to him. You know you weren’t to speak to strangers.”

“But he made believe he knew you. I only told him …”

“Hush, Johnnie, don’t say any more. Mr Barbellion, I have been expecting something like this for a long time. I guessed that my enemy had found me, but will you tell me how?”

To my horror he directed towards myself what I took to be an expression of secret complicity: the housekeeper at Hougham! I hoped he would say nothing.

“That is of no account. But in speaking of my client as your enemy, you melodramatize. Far from meaning you harm, I have instructions to offer you fifteen hundred pounds for the document.”

“I will never sell it. I know why your client wants it and what ill that would bring to my son and me.”

“You are quite mistaken. My employer has your interests and those of your child at heart. Indeed, I am further instructed to make you this offer: my client is willing to take your son off your hands and undertake his education at his expense.”

“No,” my mother cried, and gripped my arm tightly. “This is what I have always feared. Leave this house immediately.”

His cheeks darkened: “Madam, I am not accustomed to this kind of treatment.”

It seemed to me very wrong to treat such an array of fine linen and such a display of watch-chains and seals with so little respect: “Mamma, you shouldn’t be so impolite.”

“Be silent, Johnnie. You don’t understand.”

Mr Barbellion stood up and strode to the door. He opened it and turned: “I believe you will come to regret your present conduct very bitterly.”

“You see, Johnnie? He is threatening me!”

Mr Barbellion shrugged his shoulders and made a snort of contempt. Bissett, who must have been hovering outside, appeared in the door1 way carrying his hat, cane, and great-coat.

With a curt bow he said: “I wish you good day. Your admirable servant will show me out.”

The door closed behind him and my mother and I stared at each other in dismay.

After a moment’s silence she exclaimed: “So now he knows where I am!”

“Who?”

As if she only now remembered my presence she said : “Hasn’t Mr Barbellion gone yet?” He had obviously not, for we heard voices in the hall. “I won’t feel safe until he has left the house. Safe! We’ll never be safe here again now. If only I’d thought to tell him I’d destroyed it as I once meant to!”

“Mamma,” I said in desperation, “please tell me what all this means.”

“What can he have to say to Bissett? Listen!”

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At that moment we heard the street-door bang shut. I crossed the room and looked out of window.

“He’s going down the steps,” I reported.

“Thank goodness!”

“Tell me. What danger are we in?”

“We’re not in danger, Johnnie,” she insisted, looking at me wildly.

“You told him we were!” She turned away as if in agony, and I felt as if I was pushing a blade into her side, but one that cut me as much as her. “And there’s something funny about our name, isn’t there? What is it?”

She shook her head.

“You must tell me,” I cried.

“I won’t tell you anything. You can’t be trusted.”

“That’s not true!”

“Yes it is. You told him that we knew Uncle Marty. If you hadn’t, I could have denied it.”

The thought that she did not know the full extent of what I had done made me the angrier at this accusation: “That’s not fair!” I cried. “I hate you!”

“You must not speak to me like that!”

“I hate you and I wish you weren’t my mother!” I cried and ran out. I hurried to my own room almost blinded by tears and flung myself on the bed sobbing. My mother’s face was before me as I pounded the pillow with my fist. It was true what I had said, that I hated her. Hated her for being so frightened of Mr Barbellion and for being so unhappy. To show her that I had meant what I said, I wouldn’t go down for my tea!

Feeling better after taking this resolution, I thought over what had happened and tried to fit together everything that I knew into a single design. My mother seemed to think that the burglar all those years ago was sent by our enemy, just as Mr Barbellion was. But could it instead be that Mr Barbellion had found out our hiding-place from my incautious words to Henrietta and her companion a few months ago? And what had he meant to imply about our name? Could it be that “Mellamphy” was not our real name?

But how could it not be? I was John Mellamphy just as much as the house was a house.

How could I have a “real” name that I didn’t know? In that case, was there a real me that went along with it and that I also didn’t know? The very idea was absurd.

It was late by now and she had not come up. I listened to the sounds in the house, waiting for the soft footfall along the passage. I waited for a long time but it did not come. Then I heard it at last. Some demon of perversity, however, made me close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. I heard my mother come into the room, wait for a few moments, and then softly withdraw again. When she had gone I wished that I had spoken to her, but it was too late now.

When I came down to breakfast the next morning I wanted us to make up our quarrel but I was determined not to be the first to yield. However, my mother’s manner as she greeted me was cold and reserved, as if hurt that I had not stayed awake for her coming last night:

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“I really am very angry at your behaviour yesterday, Johnnie,” she said. “You must apologise to me for the cruel things you said.”

I was about to answer indignantly when Sukey came into the room looking very frightened: “The letter-carrier has just brung this, ma’am.”

She held out a letter which I saw was surrounded by a black border.

“Martin!” my mother exclaimed, seizing it from her. She quickly read it while I studied her face. She bit her lower lip and, after a moment, looked up at me sadly and said: “Yes, he is dead. He died two days ago.”

“The fetch!” Sukey exclaimed. “Then mebbe it weren’t my dad’s!”

“Be about your work, Sukey,” my mother said and the girl went out. My mother reached across the table and took my hand. “We have nobody now, Johnnie, but each other.”

“Are you very sorry?”

She shook her head gently: “It was a release for him. But it makes things worse for us.

You see, this is his house.”

“His house!” I exclaimed. I had never doubted that the house belonged to my mother.

“Yes, it has been in his family for many years. His father was land-agent to an estate nearby and so Uncle Martin spent part of his childhood here with his mother. He allowed us to have it at what they call a peppercorn rent but his widow says here she will have to charge us a real rent: forty pounds a year!”