Charles Palliser (154 page)

I felt that Miss Quilliam was one of the few people I had known in the past whom I might not have tried to avoid now. Yet I remembered how she had been in one respect a baneful influence upon my mother, even though acting for the best motives, and I also recalled what Miss Lydia had said about her and the gossip of the servants at Brook-street. I did not know what to believe, but I knew that she had been kind to my mother and myself with no selfish motive. No, I would not avoid her in the event of my meeting her.

That was improbable, however, since I was rarely abroad at night. Yet it now happened that I found myself occasionally in or near that notorious part of the Town late in the evening, for one of my few consolations and almost my sole luxury at this period of my life was the theatre, for which I now developed a passion. I formed the habit of going late and therefore gaining admission to the gallery at half-price, losing myself for a couple of hours in

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the near-darkness and the glamour of the stage-lights in the only moments of happiness I then experienced.

One evening, as I was walking down Haymarket, I was struck by the face of a young woman turned in my direction and registering utter horror at the sight of me. I could not look away, so compelling were her pale countenance and staring eyes. It was Sally! And she had clearly recognised me and believed that I was dead. Now I turned my head and hurried up a side-street, cursing my ill luck for of all those whom I least wished to know that I was alive, Barney was the chief.

One night a few weeks after this, I had been to the theatre at Covent-garden and having stayed for the after-piece was making my way home along Maiden-lane very late when a woman came past me whom I thought familiar. I followed her as she progressed along the street stopping occasional foot-passengers, and at last went into the Court-end of Town. She seemed to become aware of me for she glanced backwards once or twice and appeared to slow down, and shortly afterwards she turned into a house in King-street. I followed her in, pushing past a porter who stepped towards me in the dimly-lit hall, and entered a large salon hung with chandeliers whose bright lighting showed up its faded elegance.

People in the costume of ladies and gentlemen were standing or sitting in groups around the room and somewhat down-at-heel waiters were serving refreshments, so that it might — waiving a certain unsteadiness of gait or shabbiness of dress — have been an At Home in any of the drawing-rooms a few streets to the north.

Miss Quilliam was already seated upon a chaise-longue and turned to me as I came in.

As I crossed to her I saw that her face was much older, despite the rouged cheeks.

Though she smiled, her blank eyes were gazing at me unsteadily and because her speech was indistinct, her first words were difficult to understand, though their import was clear.

“You have misunderstood,” I said. “I am an old friend of yours.”

It took some time to make her understand who I was. When she remembered me she was manifestly moved. Now she became more collected and her first question was about my mother. At my intelligence she cast her eyes down and bit her lip.

“I have thought of her often,” she said. “And of you too. That time we spent in Orchard-street, it was the last … I cannot say ‘the last period of happiness’ but at least

…”

She broke off and I laid my hand on hers and told her that I understood her meaning.

After a few moments’ silence, she ordered a waiter to bring coffee for both of us. At her prompting I told her briefly some details of my mother’s death and a little of what had happened to me since then: my persecution by the enemies who had pursued my mother, my consignment to and escape from the madhouse, and finally my period of service in the Mompessons’ household for a purpose which I left unspecified and about which she did not enquire.

“Tell me,” she asked eagerly, “do you have any tidings of Henrietta? I have never ceased to worry about the fate of that strange child.”

I replied that I had spoken to Henrietta a number of times and that when I had last seen her some six months ago she was in good health. Then I told her I had a particular reason for wanting to know about the Mompessons and begged her to tell me everything she could about her time in that household.

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“I once told your mother my story but I suppressed much of it,” she said. “If only I had told the whole truth then it might have saved her, but I was ashamed. And I wanted to protect her innocence.”

She laughed without amusement.

I did not tell her that I had overheard her account on that occasion, and she now related it to me again in exactly the same terms except that this time she said much more about the circumstances in which she had come to Town:

“When my grandmother died in my fifteenth year I was sent to the workhouse. It was after my request for assistance from my grandfather had failed that I appealed for help to Sir Thomas.”

“Is that the gentleman who is a friend of David Mompesson?”

“Yes, Sir Thomas Delamater. It was he who gave the living to Mr Charles Pamplin that his uncle had promised to my father.”

“Pamplin!” I cried.

I described to her Henry Bellringer’s friend and she confirmed that it must be the same gentleman.

“He played a part in my story,” she said with a bleak smile, “for he wrote to me at the prompting of Sir Thomas and encouraged me to feel safe in trusting that gentleman. In his letter Mr Pamplin told me he regretted having — entirely unwittingly — been the instrument that precipitated the misfortunes that had fallen upon my family. We maintained a correspondence and a few years later, when my apprenticeship at the sisters’ school was out, he suggested I come to Town in order that he and Sir Thomas might aid me to find a post as governess. In all innocence, I accepted the invitation.

Need I say more? He found me lodgings with Mrs Malatratt who appeared to be an entirely respectable woman. What could be more natural, I thought, than that my benefactor, Sir Thomas, should visit me?” She sighed. “I was scarcely seventeen, ignorant of the ways of the world, and utterly penniless. However, I insisted on regaining my independence after a year, and it was then that Sir Thomas found for me the governess’s post with the Mompessons, who had long been friends of his. He believed that in this way he would retain power over me. I had to leave my trunks containing gifts from him at Mrs Malatratt’s when I went to Hougham, which turned out fortunately for it was thus that I met you and your mother again. My troubles were not ended by my new independence, however, for the reason that Sir Thomas told Mr — I should say, Sir David — Mompesson of my relationship with him, and that is why he was so importunate in his pursuit of me. However, I was happy at Hougham for those months with Henrietta, truly happy for the first and last time in my life.”

So it was from Sir Thomas that she had received the silk dresses that Mrs Purviance’s servant had told me were in the trunks. I believed she was telling the truth now.

She went on with the story she had told my mother. While she described the events of the fateful night on which she had been taken to Vauxhall-gardens by David Mompesson, Mrs Purviance, and “Harry”, something — some dim echo of something in her account — began to stir in my mind, but I could not drag it into the light of day.

“When I left the house in Brook-street and returned to Mrs Malatratt,” she continued,

“she refused to let me remove the trunks whose contents were my only fortune. The reason was that Sir Thomas owed her rent for another wretched OLD FRIENDS IN A NEW LIGHT

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young creature whom he had installed there before me. finally she was paid by Mr Pamplin when he brought to her house yet another victim, for he is, to speak plainly, Sir Thomas’s procurer. And so Mrs Malatratt released them to me shortly before you found me at Orchard-street.”

I asked her about my mother’s telling her, or showing her, the account of her life she had been writing at that time, and whether she therefore knew the full story of my grandfather’s death and my own conception.

“I can’t remember,” she answered.

“Do you mean you can’t remember whether you knew, or you knew the story but have forgotten it?”

She shook her head and I saw I would not receive an answer, but I believed I knew anyway what it would have been.

She told me briefly what had happened to her since my last meeting with her after which Mrs Purviance had sent her to Paris. On her return she had broken with her protectress and, as a consequence, spent some months in the fleet-prison. Now it was that she told me — with what fortunate results you know — of a meeting there with our friends from Orchard-street, whom she had found happily (or unhappily!) reunited and reconciled. After this there was no more to be said, and with a sad heart I took leave of her and hurried home.

As for what became of her, my friends, (to address you directly for a moment) then if you are curious to know about a former acquaintance, you will be interested to learn that I heard a little a couple of years after that last encounter — though since then I have heard nothing. It appears that about a twelvemonth after the meeting just described, her situation improved considerably when she was re-united for a few months with a younger woman who was an acquaintance from earlier and happier days and who had herself fallen into unfortunate circumstances and was consequently encumbered. They shared lodgings in Holborn and I understand that for a while they maintained themselves by their needles. Then the little household suffered the sad loss of one (the youngest) of its number and sank under this blow. Helen was lost from sight and her companion as well — though I have been informed that the latter went to France and was last heard of in Calais.

So matters stood with me late on a cold wet afternoon at the end of the November following the events narrated in the previous Chapter. I had spent the morning at my books and the afternoon in a fruitless search for work, and was now expecting Joey who was due to make his regular visit to return my clean linen.

The rain was falling steadily and lowering clouds were massing in the western sky. As I waited I sat at a little table at the window and occupied myself by grimly reckoning up my accounts as a way of practising that skill and finding out where I stood. After nine months I now had left a little over twenty pounds and reckoned that at my present rate of living I could survive for another six, at which point I would be wholly destitute.

As I reached this gloomy conclusion there was a loud and peremptory knock at the street-door. Since I was now the only lodger and my landlady had few visiters, I assumed that it was Joey. And yet it was much more exigent than the way in which he habitually knocked and reminded me of something — some earlier occasion — that I could not call to mind.

Since my little chamber under the roof was at the back of the house I could 714 THE

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not look out into the street, but a moment later I heard feet upon the stair as if several people were coming up. There was a gentle knock on my door and then Mrs Quaintance opened it beaming broadly:

“A gentleman to see you, Mr Parminter,” she said, and was obviously very gratified to be able to make such an announcement for the first time to her lodger in the garret.

She withdrew and the gentleman entered. It was Henry! And very gentlemanly indeed he now appeared in a white beaver hat and a magnificent great-coat beneath which he was wearing a bottle-green frock-coat of excellent cut and adorned with silver buttons.

“My dear fellow,” he cried, “how very good it is to see you again!”

Although he spoke with his wonted vivacity it seemed to me that he was ill at ease.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

He wagged a gloved finger at me and as he removed his white kid gloves said: “You didn’t send word of your address. I only found you by the most extraordinarily fortunate coincidence. I saw you coming in here one day as I was going past. I was in too much of a hurry to stop then but I noted the number and here I am.”

It was indeed an extraordinary coincidence and I had learned to be suspicious of them.

“What is your business?” I asked.

He seated himself with considerable assurance and said: “The Mompesson suit.”

“Then I will detain you no longer, for I am not interested in it now.”

I thought he flushed.

“You most certainly are interested in it,” he exclaimed, “at least in the legal sense.”

“Hardly. Now that the will no longer exists I can hope for no advantage from any outcome.”

He turned his head away and bit his lip: “Can you dismiss it so lightly?”

“Although I was very upset,” I answered, “when the will was destroyed, I am now relieved not to be concerned in the business any longer. No strangers seek to encompass my death and that, I assure you, is an honour that I am very happy to forego.”

Henry looked at me with a strange kind of triumph: “You believe you are no longer in danger?”

I nodded in surprise.

“Then you do not know what has happened? You see, you should take an interest in the suit. The Maliphant claimant has come forward.”

“Has he!” I exclaimed. “And who is he?”

“His identity has not been revealed. A solicitor acting on his behalf has given formal notice to the Court that such an individual exists, and that since the codicil is now in force, the death of Mr Silas Clothier means that he is now next in succession to the estate and will claim it when the Court declares you dead.”

I felt a cold chill as if I were being clutched and dragged down once again by something that I had thought to have escaped from.

“Then I will let that happen,” I said. “I will let the Court declare me dead and the estate pass to this individual rather than to the Crown. Why should I care?”

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“But you see, it isn’t as simple as that. You are alive and therefore your existence is —

or, rather, would be — of considerable interest to both the Mompessons and the Maliphant claimant.”