Charles Palliser (142 page)

In this torment of indecision I wondered what truly I did feel about my claim to the property? Was it greed and nothing better that motivated me? Surely not. I had such plans for it. And yet I now began to feel unsure of what I should do.

At this moment Miss Lydia, looking suddenly much older, rose from the sopha, crossed to Henrietta’s chair and knelt at her side. Looking earnestly up into her face she said:

“You must go away from this house. Immediately. This very night.”

“My dear Great-aunt, you are alarming me. There is no necessity for that.”

“You will need money,” she cried. “It always comes back to money, doesn’t it? Just as the boy says.”

Henrietta glanced reproachfully towards me.

Miss Lydia took the girl’s hands in both her own and began playing restlessly with them: “I only wish I could give you some, but you know I have never had any.”

“Dear Great-aunt, I am not going away. Please rise.”

“All I’ve ever had is the annuity on the estate, but I have some good things that I can sell or — what is the right word? — pawn. Things people have given me.” She began looking distractedly around the room. “Look, that piece of china was left me by my poor aunt, Anna. It might be worth a few guineas. And there is that clock on the mantelpiece.

And I have some jewels. Oh, only paste, I’m afraid. I was so plain and so queer when I was a girl that nobody gave me anything much. Only dear John.”

“Don’t distress yourself, Great-aunt,” Henrietta begged, trying to stand up and pull the old lady to her feet.

“It’s all to do with money!” Miss Lydia cried, gripping Henrietta’s gown and gazing passionately up at her. “That was why they wouldn’t let John marry me. My darling girl, I can’t bear to see your life blighted too.”

At that moment there came a knock at the door. It was instantly thrown open and a strange man stood on the threshold. I quickly stood up, but the new arrival must have seen that I had been seated on the sopha. However, his gaze was drawn to the even stranger sight of Miss Lydia still on her knees before Henrietta’s chair.

“I beg your pardon,” he said softly.

The old lady started at this and slowly began to get to her feet with Henrietta’s assistance. Meanwhile I had realized that the newcomer was not an entire stranger to me.

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He withdrew his gaze from the other two and, while Miss Lydia smoothed down the rumpled folds of her gown and rearranged herself on the sopha, kept his eyes on me with a thin smile that was not intended for my benefit.

At last Miss Lydia spoke, panting slightly but with admirable dignity: “This is a very unceremonious introduction, Mr Vamplew. I think you should have waited for my permission before you entered. I was hardly even aware that you were in Town.”

He now withdrew his gaze from me and directed it towards her: “I beg your pardon for surprising you, Miss Mompesson. Mr Tom has returned because of the illness of his father.”

“Oh well, no matter,” she stammered. “We were just getting this boy to move the table so that we could play a hand of whist.”

Mr Vamplew smiled slyly: “It was because I was so preoccupied with the gravity of my news that I entered so abruptly. The tidings have clearly not yet been brought to you.” He paused as if calculating his effect: “I regret to inform you that Sir Perceval was gathered to his ancestors about an hour ago.”

Henrietta gripped her great-aunt’s arm and, involuntarily, looked at me.

Mr Vamplew followed her gaze with interest.

“This is grave news indeed,” Miss Lydia said and I saw her patting Henrietta’s arm reassuringly. “I had feared this event.”

“He was carried away by an apoplexy,” Mr Vamplew added.

As if suddenly remembering my presence Miss Lydia said distantly: “That is all, John.

I mean to say, Dick. You may go now.”

I bowed slightly and made to leave the room. Mr Vamplew stood aside for me, watching me closely as he did so.

Just before I reached the door I heard Miss Lydia say: “I would have asked you, Mr Vamplew, to do me the honour of taking tea with me, but under these sad circumstances

…”

“Oh quite, Miss Mompesson,” Mr Vamplew said smoothly. “I perfectly understand and you are very kind to have thought of saying so.”

By now I was out in the passage and could not resist glancing back. Mr Vamplew was closing Miss Lydia’s door behind him but he turned his head and stared directly at me. I should not have looked back, but probably the harm had already been done for it seemed to me to be almost certain that, his attention having been drawn by the sight of a hall-boy seated like a guest on the sopha, he had recognised me from the night of the burglary. As I descended the back-stairs I speculated, in an anguish of uncertainty, as to whether he had or not. I was almost certain that he had, and so, almost with a kind of impatience, I waited for the consequences. I expected him to alert Mr Thackaberry and for both of them to appear in the scullery, armed and accompanied by two or three of the footmen. Should I therefore flee from the house while I had the chance?

It was, as it happened, the usual time to meet Joey so I went out into the dark mews-lane. As I waited, walking up and down to try to keep warm, I heard the sound of hammering from our house: the hatchments were being erected to mark Sir Perceval’s death.

Dared I go back and risk arrest and trial? If I did not, then what had I to live for? At the end of half an hour, Joey had not come and now I had to make my choice. I decided to risk staying and returned to the house. As I resumed my duties in the hall and scullery, I found my fellow-servants excited and hushed by the news of the death of the master. They went about

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their work in a state of shock, preoccupied with the uncertainty about their future.

However, as the minutes and then the hours passed and nothing happened to me, I began to wonder if I had been wrong and Mr Vamplew had not, after all, recognised me.

And now I had time to think of the implications of Sir Perceval’s death. Above all, what would it mean for Henrietta? That she would be forced into this hideous marriage? And how would it affect my chance of getting the will? Indeed, how would it affect my position in the household? And would the will continue to lie in its hiding-place in the Great Parlour — assuming that it was indeed there? For the succession of David — Sir David as I supposed he must now be referred to — might well bring about so complete an upheaval in the domestic arrangements within the house as to throw all my plans into jeopardy. It became clear to me, therefore, that if I were going to do it, I should undertake my assault on the hiding-place as soon as possible. Yet I still had no idea of how to defeat the lock on the chimney-piece which had baffled Mr Digweed and myself on our earlier attempt. And, of course, I had to think first about Henrietta’s opposition to the undertaking.

The evening unfolded as usual: the watchman arrived for his chat with Mr Thackaberry — which lasted longer than usual as if the open-handedness of the family had to be upheld on such an occasion with particular scrupulousness — and the ritual of locking-up began.

As I accompanied the little party around the house, still half-expecting to be denounced at any moment, it occurred to me that Mr Vamplew might be delaying his exposure of me for some reason connected with the confusion now reigning in the mansion. Although it seemed so important to me, in the midst of these great events it might have struck him as of little significance. Yet I still felt that this explanation did not fit with the peculiarly piercing gaze that he had directed towards me.

I learned something of interest, however, for just as we were about to ascend the stairs after securing the street-door, someone hammered at it. Grumbling, Jakeman took the bunch of keys from Mr Thackaberry, went back to the door and inserted one of them in the lock. There was a pause, then he bellowed instructions through the door, and after a few moments it was opened and Sir (formerly Mr) David staggered in cursing him volubly. (He had obviously been marking the death of his father.) So it was a double-lock and could only be opened if the corresponding key was used on both the inner and the outer wards! That meant that even if I could obtain the keys, I could still not get out of the street-door.

That night when I went to my shake-down in the servants’-hall I found it so cold that I ventured into the scullery (for Jakeman had already taken up residence in the kitchen) and sat before the dying fire. As I stared at the flames that flickered languidly around the smouldering coals, I found myself seeing pictures just as I used to when I was a child in Melthorpe. Henrietta’s disapproving face came to me and I thought of her hostility towards my intention to regain the will. Had she no sense of Justice? Miss Lydia had, and had striven nobly in pursuit of it when she had tried to return the will to my grandfather. Was she right, however, to defend Mr Fortisquince from my suspicions? Or had it indeed been he who betrayed my grandfather over the will ? Perhaps even murdered him? Presumably Miss Lydia defended him because she believed that Peter Clothier was the murderer, and yet I was determined not to believe this 654 THE

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if I could help it. Probably, however, I would never establish the truth of what had happened on the night of my grandfather’s death.

What a dilemma Henrietta had placed me in! The only way I could rescue her was at the cost of earning her contempt. How dared she accuse me of being motivated by nothing more than revenge! And imply that I coveted the estate! It was not vengeance I sought but Justice, and since that entailed the completion of a pattern in such a way that everyone got what they deserved, then if that meant that some suffered so that others could benefit, this was an incidental effect.

As for coveting the estate, why, I had never thought of anything but the weighty responsibilities that the ownership of such a vast property would impose upon me —

and the opportunities to do good. I remembered what Sukey and Mr Advowson had told me about the management — the mismanagement — of the Hougham demesne and the injustices and wastefulness that it involved : the demolitions and evictions, the murderous spring-guns in the preserves, the crumbling walls, and the flooded, ill-drained meadows. And yet it could all be so different: I thought of the charming park with its huge house, the villages of Hougham, Mompesson St. Lucy, Stoke Mompesson and much of Melthorpe, the thousands of acres of rich farm-land, and all the woodlands and streams and commons that encompassed the estate. The Mompessons cared nothing for the land or the people beyond what they could extort from them in the short term. How differently I would manage it! I would dismiss Assinder, the rapacious steward, along with the brutal gamekeepers, and take the management of the estate into my own hands.

As I sat in the cold and darkness in the bowels of the house with the beetles rustling on the floor and the drunken snores of the watchman audible from the kitchen, I drew up schemes for the rebuilding of the cottages, the draining of land, the construction of walls, the fairer management of tenancies, the foundation of schools for the education of the poor, the relief of the aged, and so on. Then the fire finally died and I returned to my hard form in the servants’-hall.

Before I fell asleep I reflected that it was not solely my right to decide what to do. If Henrietta chose to take the risk of being forced into a travesty of a marriage rather than seize the chance to be free to marry whom she chose, then I had to give some weight to that.

All that week the house was in an uproar and it was like a continuous Sunday. The servants were drunk most of the time as if, fearing dismissal, they wanted to enjoy what they could while it lasted. Yet since the mansion was under siege from tradesmen with unpaid bills, only meagre provisions were coming in and the larders and cellar were being emptied. Sir Perceval’s funeral took place that Thursday — though of course I saw nothing of it — and this was another occasion for a Bacchanalia.

I longed for the chance to win over Henrietta to my view for I wondered — as I carried coals, brushed boots in that dark and airless hole, and scoured pots in the scullery — what I was doing these things for if not to oust the Mompessons and, MARRIAGE DESIGNS

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as far as was possible, redeem the sacrifice of my grandfather’s, my mother’s, and Peter Clothier’s lives. Because of the changes in the household’s routine, however, I found it impossible to meet Henrietta and Miss Lydia the following Sunday. I had another disappointment that evening for though I waited in the mews for Joey for two hours, he once again failed to appear. This meant I had not seen him for several weeks and I was somewhat indignant at his remissness now. Or had he even abandoned me?

It was not until the third week after the occasion last described — the first Sunday in February — that I managed to come to Miss Lydia’s room again. (Joey had not come on either of the intervening Sundays.) I found the old lady alone and she explained that Henrietta had been summoned to an interview with her aunt earlier in the afternoon and would come to us afterwards.

“But I am glad that we have this opportunity to talk by ourselves,” she said. “Tell me, what have you decided about the will?”

“I want to go ahead, but I don’t believe I can in the teeth of Henrietta’s opposition.”

“You must!” she exclaimed with so much force that I was quite disconcerted. “I know what they will do to her! She is not strong enough to resist.”

I studied her face and believed I understood her meaning: “Very well,” I said. “As long as she does not positively forbid me.”

I could see that the old lady was disappointed by this condition.

“But you don’t know her!” she cried. “She
will
forbid you. There is something in her that almost craves to be hurt. Remember what I told you of how she used to wound herself. You must go ahead whatever she says and whatever she makes you promise.”

I nodded and was about to speak but at that moment the door opened and Henrietta entered. Miss Lydia and I started guiltily.