Charles Palliser (89 page)

Barney struck Bob on the shoulder: “I’ve won! I knowed Peg’d come up trumps.”

At the insistence of my companions, I described how the dead man was led by the officers until he stood over the drop. Then the hangman placed a cap on his forehead which hung down so that it covered his eyes, and then pushed into his hands a white handkerchief.

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“When he drops it,” Barney whispered, “Calcraft draws the bolt.”

Someone — was it the Sheriff? — shouted: “Silence!”

The crowd held its breath for an eternity.

I saw the handkerchief flutter and closed my eyes for a moment as a hideous cry broke from a thousand mouths. When I looked again the body was hanging like a puppet with the knees below the level of the scaffold.

Barney released a long sigh.

“Thank Gawd,” Meg said, “he went quick and clean.”

Then she began to sob.

“They’ll twist the other now and then cut ’em down at nine,” Sam explained.

“Calcraft will strip ’em and then they’ll be took to be dissected. Who’s for going to watch?”

Meg shook her head. My gorge rose at the thought. I climbed down from Sam’s shoulders and made an attempt to slip into the crowd, but I was seized by Barney. He gripped me and held on during the second hanging, which I made no attempt to see.

Then, still with his arms locked around me, he hailed a hackney-coach. Some of the others were staying to watch the dissections, but the rest of us returned to the house. As we rode back, most of the party now drunk and quarrelsome but Jack eyeing me intently all the while, I had only one thought in my mind: how to escape.

Later that day in the afternoon Barney, Sam and Jack suddenly came into the Red Room where most of us were, and clapped their hands for attention.

“It’s tonight!” Barney cried.

Everyone began to talk at once, laughing and smiling as if with unqualified delight —

but it seemed to me that some of them looked frightened, too.

“You all know what to do,” said Sam. “Get ready now.”

And so they began to make their preparations — the women dressing up and painting and powdering themselves, and the men, apart from Will and Bob who were delegated to stay behind and guard the house, similarly arraying themselves. To my dismay I noticed Sam cleaning and loading a small pistol.

In the middle of this bustling scene Barney beckoned me into the hall: “Put on your new togs,” he said. “You’re coming with us.”

“I shan’t,” I declared.

His face darkened and he repeated: “You shan’t? What the devil do you mean by that?”

As he spoke he struck out at me and though I had time to dodge the main force of the blow, his fist glanced off the side of my head.

“Why do you think I took you in?” he shouted. “Why do you think I paid for them togs?”

How I wished I knew!

“Then I’ll give them back,” I said, near to tears with the pain of the blow, “and you can let me go.”

“Stow that,” he growled. “I’ve got other plans for you. Now do as I say.”

“Lay off him, Barney,” said Sally, coming down the stairs in a beautiful yellow silk dress I had not seen before.

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“Shut your noise, gal,” he answered. “We need a boy tonight. You know that.”

“I can get one,” she said calmly.

When Barney looked at her in surprise she beckoned him towards her and they whispered together for a minute or two. Then he nodded and came back to me.

“Next time you do as I bid,” he said, wrenching one arm behind my back to make his point. “Understand?” I nodded, wincing in pain and he released me and bellowed:

“Will!”

When that individual hurried up, Barney gestured towards me: “You and Bob make sure the boy don’t get out while we’re away. Otherwise you’ll answer for it.”

Will nodded, looking at me in a way that made clear that it would be a pleasure to catch me trying to.

When the two hackney-coaches that had been sent for arrived, the party boarded them exactly like an expedition of pleasure setting out from a fine house in Mayfair. Will and Bob secured the street-door behind them and then settled down to play cards and drink in the drawing-room.

After Barney’s words I was more determined to escape than ever before, and yet I could see no way to do so. Stepping adroitly from joist to joist, I wandered about the dark and empty house, holding a lighted candle-end, and tried all the boards across the windows on the ground-floor and the back-door. This merely confirmed that without tools I had no chance of getting out.

I was bitterly disappointed for it seemed to me I could hardly hope for a better opportunity. Then it occurred to me that this was at least a good moment to read my mother’s pocket-book in peace, for if either Will or Bob came up the stairs I would have warning and be able to conceal it again. I retrieved it from its hiding-place (leaving there the map and that tiresome letter of my grandfather’s) and then with the candle beside me, made myself comfortable on my makeshift bed. Then I opened it, my heart pounding as I saw the familiar hand.

The Wedding Night

The 18th. of December, 181
9
.

My dearest Johnnie,

You don’t understand, of course you don’t. How could you? You were unkind but you didn’t know what you were saying. You don’t understand what Mr Barbelion’s coming here means. It means that our Enemy has found us. And you led him to us! But it’s not your fault for you are not old enough to understand. I’m not really angry. I will go upstairs now and make it up with you.

You were asleep. I watched you for fear that you might be pretending, but I believe you were really sleeping.

I want you to understand everything and so I have decided to write an account of my life before you were born. You will not read it until you arc grown up and can understand everything in it. Some of it will be very hard for you to bear and for me to tell you if I am to tell you all of it. I will give this to you on your twenty-first birthday and let you read it. Or perhaps I will let you find it when I am dead.

The 1
9
th. of December.

How strange that just as I start to tell you about the past, I should learn of Uncle Martin’s death! So much of what I have to tell you conserns him.

I was born in my Father’s house at Charing-cross and until the day I married, I lived there with him, for my mother had died when I was very young. I won’t tell you where exactly it was for I don’t want you ever to go there. It was a big old house and our Family had lived there for many many years. I believe it 411

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had once been very grand and from the upper floor there was a view into the Royal Gardens of Northumberland-house, but by the time I remember it the district was no longer fashionable.

It was not a nice place. Soldiers were quartered in the public-houses all around and I was always frightened of them with their greased pig-tails and rough manners. There were often fights amongst them. And when the King held a Drawing-room the life-guards stood all around the Park and if we were going for a walk, my nurse and I weren’t allowed past and had to go home for the Park was the only place I could go — and only in broad daylight, of course, though even that was not always safeguard enough. I was always made to look down while we passed the wall along the Privy-gardens. And the Rummer-tavern was nearby.

It was a queer, gloomy house — indeed, I suppose it still is unless it has been destroyed. My Father said it was built on the site of a medeaval priory — St. Mary Rouncivall — and used to show me the old carvings on the back of the houses in the next court which he said had been part of it. The house was in a quiet court set back from the street and had a small paved yard before it with a vestibble where the street-door was. When it was built the front was the back, but long ago other houses had been built between it and the street, so it was turned around and the vestibble was built on.

You could reach the street by an alley-way directly from the back-door, and that is important as I will try to explain one day. It was a tall and rambling old place with many low dim rooms pannelled in dark wood and a great staircase where there was a big hall in the centre into which all the rooms led. There was a sword with a curving blade hanging crossed with a halbeard on the wall of the side-hall, and Mr Escreet used to frighten me by telling me the sword had been used to kill someone many years ago.

My Papa saw very little company for he had only one interest. We had almost no relatives for either my Papa or his Father before him had quarrelled with most of them. I had two little rooms on the second floor at the back, near my governess’s rooms, where I spent most of my time either with her or most likely by myself, for the governesses never staid long, and so I fear I never learned very much. My Papa passed the better part of every day in his Library reading law-books and writing legal papers, or else consulting with his legal advisers at their Chambers. You see, the one thing he cared about was regaining the Rights to the Hougham Propperty that he believed he had been cheated of.

Mr Escreet was the only other person who lived with us. He was already an extreamely old gentleman when I was a little girl, and had been with my Family since my Great-grandfather’s time for he had been a kind of confidencial Secretary to him when he was a very young man, and now he helped my Papa with his legal work for he had been bread to the law. He was a kindly old gentleman — though he would often become very mellancolic for no reason that anybody could dissern, [
These words were crossed
out:
especially when he had been] — and he was my best playmate when I was very little.

Apart from Mr Escreet, there was only Mr Fortisquince — Uncle Martin as I called him then — and his connexion with our Family was also very antient, for his Father had been the land-agent at Hougham when my Great-grandfather owned the Estate there.

He was of an age with my Papa and they had been brought up almost as Brothers. You see, my Grandfather had died when Papa

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was only a few months old and then his mother died when he was a small child of three or four years. And Uncle Martin’s own mamma had died as well when he was very young. (You remember, the lady who lived once in this little cottage of ours?) And so Uncle Martin’s father took Papa to live with him and his son at Hougham, where Sir Perceval Mompesson’s Father, Sir Hugo, had retained Mr Fortisquince as his land-agent after he had purchased the Estate from my Grandfather. Mr Fortisquince lived in the Old Hall (or, at least, in part of it for there was another wing that was used for something else). And so you see my Papa grew up as a poor orphan on the very Propperty which had until recently belonged to his Family, and I believe it rankled with him that the new owners condessended to him when they noticed him at all. When I say that he was poor, I should explain that all that he had inherited was an annuaty charged upon the Estate that had been established as one of the terms of the sale by his Father. (The sad truth is that his poor Father had been a spend-thrift who had disappated most of his inheritance even before he had come into it, so that the Propperty was heavily encumbered by the time his own Father died, and that is why he had had to sell it on unfavourable terms.) Papa and Uncle Martin attended the University at Cambridge together (for there was just enough money left for that) and when they came down, Mr Escreet invited them to lodge in the old house. I should explain that it had been bequeathed to him (to Mr Escreet, I mean) by my Great-grandfather in recognition of his services and he had been living alone there for many years by that time. (He had once been married but his wife had died long before. My Papa told me that he believed he had had a child who had survived to adulthood but had brought little joy to him, and to the best of my knowledge this subject was never mentioned by anyone in the house.) So the two young men lodged in the house while they studied the law. Mr Escreet became very fond of both of them and my Papa loved him in return, but it grieved Mr Escreet greatly that Uncle Martin never seemed to return his affection. This arrangement lasted until, a few years later, Uncle Martin married and set up his own establishment. (His wife died when I was still a very little child, and left him no children.) Now I should explain why it was that my Papa was convinced that he had a claim to the Title of the Hougham Estate. The reason for this was that when he first came to London when he was no more than a boy of sixteen, he went to see Mr Escreet who confided to him a Secret: that he knew for a fact that my great-grandfather, Jeoffrey Huffam, had added a Codacil to his Will not long before he died and that this had been concieled at his death. But Mr Escreet was convinced that it was still in existance and could be found. The point was that it created an entail laid upon my Grandfather which meant that his sale of the Propperty to Sir Hugo was invalid since he had not broken or barred it. Mr Escreet encouraged Papa to save up the money he would recieve from the annuaty so that he might one day be able to buy the Codacil. Papa became very exsited by this, and plunged into the Chancery Suit. (I should have explained that his Grandfather’s Will was already being disputed.) Uncle Martin, who, as I say, had never liked Mr Escreet, blamed him for encouraging Papa to believe that he had a chance of regaining the Hougham Propperty and wasting his life and his fortune in persuit of this.

As it turned out, Mr Escreet was vindacated and Uncle Martin proved wrong, for one day when I was seventeen, something happened which changed everything.

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SECOND RELATION:

The 12th. of April.

Wait until you find out how clever your Mamma has been. The profit on a thousand Pounds will make such a differance to us. Three hundred would not have been nearly enough to save us. And we were wrong to speak of her as we did. She is loyal. Johnnie, you will regret your words to me about her. Even though I told her that I could not pay her the wages she had asked for (for Mr Sancious advised most strongly against it), she told me that she would stay with us after all.