Charles Palliser (22 page)

“Why does he say you have no money left?”

She started weeping: “Johnnie, I have something terrible to tell you. After we discussed it all that time ago and agreed to invest just three hundred pounds, I decided to buy more shares than that.”

“What! Why did you do that?”

“I was afraid Mr Sancious would be offended if I didn’t, and besides, it seemed such a good investment.”

“How much?”

“A thousand pounds,” she sobbed.

“How could you be so foolish!”

“Don’t speak to me like that. I did it for your sake. And anyway, if it comes to that, it’s your fault, too, Johnnie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, don’t you recall, just before Christmas when that woman and her little 96 THE

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boy came, I wanted to sacrifice the investment I had made but you agreed that it was right to put in more money.”

I exclaimed: “But I didn’t know that you had invested so much already! That meant you were putting in the last money we had!”

“But the more I stood to lose the more reason there was for trying to save it!”

“No, the more reason for not risking any more! You’re so silly!” I cried. “And how could you do it without asking me? I hate you.”

She hid her face in her hands and wept and I rushed out of the room. I ran up to my own bed-chamber and hurled myself onto the bed sobbing. Why did she do such things? Why was she so rash? And to have hidden her actions from me was so underhand. I vowed that I really would stop loving her from now on. She was weak and foolish and from now on I would be strong and cold towards her.

After several hours I felt better and prepared myself to receive her when she came up to bid me goodnight. I don’t believe I had quite determined to make an apology but I’m sure I had resolved that I was not going to upbraid her again. But I waited and waited and at last realized that for the first time ever she was not going to come. I wondered what she was doing and it occurred to me that she might be feeling very much as I felt now. Perhaps she was finding it just as difficult to forgive me for what I had said as I was to pardon her for what she had done. But what I had said had been true and she had been silly and deceitful.

I slept badly and next morning at breakfast I was cold and silent and didn’t look at her. But then our gaze met accidentally and I could see that she had been crying. I don’t know which of us was first, but we both burst into tears and threw our arms around each other and laughed and cried. But even as I hugged her I felt something cold and hard inside me that didn’t quite melt then.

When we had gone into the sitting-room and seated ourselves my mother said: “What should we do about this business, Johnnie?”

“I suppose we will have to do as Mr Sancious suggests, otherwise we might lose even more.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said and we turned back to the letter:

“In order to raise this sum we have secured an arrangement with a broking-house of the utmost respectability under which you may accept a bill of hand dated at six months.

What this means is that, in return for five hundred pounds now you undertake to repay that amount, with interest, on a date six months from now once the Company has consolidated its position. We have pleasure in enclosing the appropriate document, stamp-duty paid, for you to sign in the presence of a witness.”

“I have so little left,” my mother said, “I don’t know how we will manage for the next six months.”

“We cannot afford to keep Bissett, can we?” I said softly and she shook her head.

“Then let me ask her to come and witness the bill and then you can explain everything.”

“I suppose I must.”

So I summoned Bissett from the kitchen where bread-making was in progress. She went out dusting her floury hands on her apron and I stayed behind to talk to Sukey.

“Have you heard, Master John, the common is to be ’closed?” she said as she kneaded.

“By whom?”

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“Why, the Mumpseys, in course. Mr Assinder has spoke to us all and says we s’all be the better of it, for we’re all to have a piece of land of our own.”

“Well, I hope he may be right.”

Sukey put the dough on top of the oven and covered it with a cloth.

Just then the door opened and my mother entered. “Will you both come to the sitting-room immediately?” she said gravely.

Looking at each other in surprise we followed her out. In the sitting-room we found Bissett sitting with an expression of great solemnity on the sopha. My mother seated herself beside her while Sukey and I stood together facing them.

“Now Johnnie,” my mother began; “I know you always speak the truth. Has Sukey ever taken you to places you ought not to have gone?”

The thought of Hougham flashed into my mind. In the hope of deflecting attention from that episode I said boldly: “Yes, she has taken me to her mother’s cottage several times.”

“Jist as I said, ma’am,” Bissett muttered.

“And did you ever see her give food from here to her family?”

“Well,” I hesitated; “just once, but I’m sure it was only left-overs.”

“That’s still stealing,” put in Bissett. “She’s only allowed what she eats here as part of her wages. But I’ll wager more than left-overs has gone from that larder.”

“What is the truth of this, Susan?” asked my mother.

Sukey began to sob: “I did take things home, ma’am, but I never took nought save what was due to me. I’m ’lowed to keep the old tea-leaves and grouts and coffee-grounds and the ashes.”

“ ’Cordin’ to who?” Bissett asked.

“Mrs Belflower always let me.”

“She ain’t in the question no more.”

“And I ate less myself often and often so as I could take more home.”

“Well, but you should have asked me, you know, Susan. It’s very wrong to take what doesn’t belong to you, under any circumstances.”

“ ’Ougham, ma’am,” Bissett suddenly muttered, to my dismay.

I saw Sukey colour up suddenly.

My mother turned to me: “Now, darling, did Sukey ever take you to any other places you were not supposed to go?”

I hesitated but looking at Bissett’s triumphant and watchful expression I said: “Yes, we went to Hougham once.”

“I told you so, ma’am!” exclaimed Bissett.

“Now Johnnie,” said my mother; “I know it was a long time ago and you were very little, but please try to remember if you spoke to anyone there.”

I saw Sukey watching me fearfully and thought of the fate of her family if she lost her place. After all, it wasn’t her fault that I had spoken to Henrietta. “No, I don’t remember,” I answered. As I spoke I caught Bissett’s eye and the strangest look passed between us: surprise, suspicion, suppressed indignation and I don’t know what. It was as if she was certain that I was lying. But how could she be?

“You don’t remember?” my mother prompted.

“I’m sure I did not,” I answered.

My mother was obviously relieved. “Well, Sukey …” she began.

“Be firm, ma’am,” Bissett said in an undertone.

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“You know, Susan, you have broken my trust and with the bad news about money that I’ve just heard, I’m afraid I’ll have to give you your wages.”

“But they’ve nothing to keep them but what she brings them,” I protested.

“You see, ma’am?” said Bissett. “You’ve been supporting the whole fambly out of that kitchen. No wonder we’ve found it so hard to manage and arst each other many a time where the money was going!”

“You’ve been very good to me, ma’am,” Sukey sobbed. “I wish I hadn’t of done it, and I knowed it was wrong.”

“Go and colleck your things,” said Bissett. “And before you leave this house I’ll look through everythin’ you take.”

“I don’t think you need to do that,” my mother murmured, but Bissett glanced at her sharply and she fell silent.

Sukey flung her pin-before over her face and ran from the room.

“But Bissett,” said my mother, who was clearly upset by this scene, “even without Sukey’s wages, I can’t afford to keep you on now, either.”

“Never you mind about my wages,” she replied. “I’ll stay with you anyway, ma’am.

Even if you can only pay me no more than you paid Sukey.”

I was astonished by Bissett’s response, and in particular by her equation of herself in this way with the despised servant-girl.

My mother seized her round the neck and hugged her: “Oh, Bissett, you’re a true friend!” she exclaimed.

“I know where my duty lies,” Bissett said harshly, standing stiffly and not returning my mother’s hug.

Her eyes met mine over my mother’s shoulder.

“How did you come to know all that about Sukey?” I demanded. “It was years ago that we went to Hougham.”

Her face darkened slightly and after a moment’s hesitation she replied: “I heard it in the village.”

I stared at her angrily and at that moment a number of suspicions fell into place.

When she had left the room to superintend Sukey’s departure, my mother said to me:

“How loyal Bissett is. I do feel guilty now for sometimes thinking that she cared too much for money. It’s clear that she loves us. You know she agreed to accept a cut in her wages that other time when I told her I could not go on paying her so much and we expected her to leave?”

Sukey went home that same evening, and what kind of reception she must have had when she brought the news home, I hated to think. Before she left I might record, since I have to record so many thoughts and actions to my own discredit, that I persuaded her to accept the two shillings and a few pence that I had accumulated from my allowance.

My mother was also crying when she took leave of her under the watchful eye of Bissett, but I saw her manage to slip some coins into the girl’s hand.

Relations

It is the late evening of a dark wet day and the shutters of the counting-house down by the river are drawn and bolted. Inside the inner closet Mr Clothier is sitting with Mr Sancious, both bent over papers which are spread out on his desk. The fire is burning low and before it stand a pair of chairs and a table with two tumblers upon it. These, like the bottle of wine propped against one of the fire-dogs and gently mulling, are waiting for the two gentlemen to conclude their business.

“Well, Mr Clothier,” says the attorney with a smile, “now that the West London Building Company has gone into liquidation without ever paying anything for its lease, the Consolidated Metropolitan Building Company is unable to pay its ground-rents to the freeholder. I therefore see no alternative to a declaration of insolvency and the institution of proceedings of bankruptcy.”

“Exactly so, my dear sir,” the old gentleman responds brightly. “I am lost. Utterly lost.

Every last blessed penny.”

“You take it remarkably well, sir.”

“1 believe I do,” the old gentleman says with a droll expression and shaking his head.

“With true Christian fortitude,” the lawyer adds and the old gentleman looks at him sharply and then smiles.

“I wonder how Quintard and Mimpriss will take it,” the attorney speculates, “when your company defaults on the mortgage and they find the leasehold worth so much less than their advance.”

The old gentleman smiles uneasily.

“They were very rash to accept the mortgage,” Mr Sancious muses. Then he says suddenly: “You must have a friend at court there.”

Mr Clothier looks at him suspiciously and then mutters: “Nonsense, nonsense. It’s still a fair price. But I congratulate you, Mr Sancious. That man of yours was very sharp.

The joiner. He brought plenty of gulls into the game.”

“He has been well paid for it. But you remind me that I have a request to tender on his behalf: would you allow him the use of one the properties?”

“Why, they’re the freeholder’s now!” the old gentleman says with a laugh.

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“Then shall I ask Vulliamy?” Mr Sancious says sweetly.

“Eh, how do you know about that?” Mr Clothier gasps in amazement.

“How else should I know but from himself ?”

“I almost begin to be afraid of you, Mr Sancious,” the old gentleman confesses.

“You’re so wide-awake. Yes, Vulliamy is the nominal freeholder, if you must know.” He stands and moves towards the hearth: “Now, my dear sir, will you do me the honour of taking a glass of wine with me?”

“The honour would be entirely mine, Mr Clothier.”

The two gentlemen seat themselves in front of the fire and the host pours the wine.

Then Mr Sancious leans back comfortably. “You say you are surprised by how much I know, Mr Clothier. Will you bear with me while I tell you a story?”

“Go ahead, my dear sir,” the old gentleman responds, slightly nervously.

“I think you will find an interest in it. Let me emphasize that it is only a story.” The other gentleman nods and he goes on: “Very well, then. Let us suppose that in the course of my professional duties I discovered that a client of mine was very anxious to remain hidden. Let us suppose that I found out from whom it was that my client wished to remain concealed, and that it was revealed to be two parties who were as anxious to find that person as she — for it is a lady — was to remain concealed. And each eager to do so before the other party.”