Charles Palliser (37 page)

I had time to see an expression of surprise appear, then I was past her. I dared not turn to see if she were following. My ears straining for sounds of pursuit, I continued to the next corner and turned into Regent-street. I waited for what seemed long minutes —

but could only have been seconds — until, to my inexpressible relief, my mother appeared round the corner.

“What is this game, Johnnie?” she asked, smiling anxiously.

“It’s not a game!” I cried. “It’s the bailiffs. We must get away.”

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A hackney-coach was passing and I ran into the street to wave to the driver. He stopped his horses and got down with what seemed to me to be deliberate slowness to lower the steps, and I urged my bewildered mother to get in. “Keep driving!” I shouted, pulling down the blinds, as the coachman raised the steps and mounted again to his box.

As we lumbered along I explained to my mother what had happened, leaving Bissett’s name unmentioned. As I saw her horror, the full enormity of our predicament now dawned upon me.

“But how can they have a warrant?” she asked.

I did not speak.

“Something must have happened to Bissett,” she said. “That is why she has not written. But what can it be?”

This was not the occasion to embark upon such a discussion. Our plight was desperate for we now possessed in the world only what we had with us.

“How much money have you?” I asked.

She took her bulky pocket-book from her reticule.

“We sold the wedding-band for two pounds and two shillings,” she said. “And the brass ring cost three-pence.” She held out her hand with a forced smile and showed me.

“I had my initials worked on it.”

I saw that the letters “MC” were crudely engraved. (What could that “C” stand for?)

“Then Mrs Philliber took her back-rent and ten shillings for the next two weeks, so that leaves only about a guinea.”

“What a pity you paid for two weeks,” I sighed.

“She insisted, Johnnie,” she said timidly.

Apart from this, we had the clothes we were wearing and the locket which Mrs Philliber had told us was worth several pounds.

“I wonder, can Bissett have betrayed us?” my mother said. “I believe she must have, for no-one but she knows our address.” She turned to me in panic: “She must be in league with Mr Barbellion and our enemy!”

“Later, Mamma,” I said. “We cannot think of that now.”

She started muttering to herself, her face white and fearful. I caught a few words:

“Enemy … Silas … destroy us.”

I saw that she was shivering. When I raised one of the blinds and looked out of window, I did not recognise the street.

“We must stop the coach,” I said, “or the fare will take all our money.”

I put my head out of window and cried out to the driver. We got out and paid the fare which was is. 6d. As the driver was folding up the steps I said: “Please, can you tell us where we are?”

He made no answer but got back on the box. I asked him again. He muttered something I did not catch as he shook the reins and moved off.

We were in a long gloomy street of shabby houses, very poorly-lit by a single oil-lamp halfway along it. We stood at the side of the carriageway and looked at each other in dismay: we had never been out so late in a strange neighbourhood.

“Where are we?” my mother asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She began to tremble: “Oh Johnnie, what will become of us?”

“Come,” I said. “We have not done so badly. We have escaped pursuit. No one knows where we are.”

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“Not even we ourselves,” she said and to my alarm she began to laugh, but I became even more alarmed when the laughter turned into sobs.

I put my arm round her shoulders. “It will be better in the morning,” I said. “But now we must find shelter for the night.”

Dusk was approaching and it was getting cold. Although my mother was wearing her out-door clothes, I had run out of the house without my great-coat or hat.

“We have enough money to find a lodging for tonight,” I said. “But we must learn where we are.”

I put this question to a decent looking working-man who was passing.

“This is Smiffle,” he said.

Recognising the name that I had not caught on the hackney-coachman’s lips, I remembered something from my study of my map: “Is that near Coleman-street?”

“It ain’t so far,” he said and gave me directions.

“Did you hear that, Mamma?” I said.

She replied dully: “No.”

“We’re in Smithfield, so the street where Miss Quilliam lives, or at least used to live, is quite near. Let us go there.”

She made no response and realizing that it fell to me to take the initiative, I took her arm in mine and led her in the direction the man had pointed out.

It was late by the time we found the street and rang the bell of No. 26 which was a tall, gloomy-looking building in a street whose houses seemed to be eyeing each other askance in genteel distaste.

On learning from the maid who answered that she did not know Miss Quilliam’s name, my mother gasped and staggered. The girl looked at her sympathetically and asked us to come in while she enquired of her mistress. The lofty hall — filled with the scent of flowers that stood in bowls upon elegant side-tables — was only dimly-lit by bees-wax candles, but I could see how fine the furniture was: the rosewood cabinets, the ancient oak-cased clock, and the shield-backed chairs against the walls. My mother slumped onto one of these and I chafed her hands.

After a few minutes another servant-girl returned with a sharp-featured woman of about fifty who, as she approached, eyed us narrowly. She was very clearly in a superior class to Mrs Philliber or even Mrs Marrables, and I could imagine how unfavourable an impression my lack of a hat and coat and my mother’s exhausted state were making upon her.

“I am Mrs Malatratt,” she said. “My servant tells me you are enquiring for Miss Quilliam?”

“Yes, we are friends of hers,” I took it upon myself to explain.

Mrs Malatratt indicated her surprise at my answering: “Is this lady … unwell?”

“She is very tired,” I said. “That is all.”

She looked at me closely and then turned to examine my mother who glanced up and tried to smile at her but, failing to do so, bit her lip and lowered her head.

“Miss Quilliam is no longer here,” Mrs Malatratt said. “She left this house to take up a position in the household of Sir Perceval and Lady Mompesson almost a year ago.” She rolled the names and titles out with obvious relish.

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“Thank you,” I answered. “But we know that and also that she left that position quite recently.”

“That is so,” Mrs Malatratt said reluctantly, as if unwilling to let go of these illustrious names. “Whom, might I ask, have I the pleasure of addressing?”

“Our name is Mellamphy.”

“If you are friends of Miss Quilliam I confess I am surprised that you do not know where she is.”

“Miss Quilliam did not expect us to come to London so soon,” I said, trying not to exceed the limits of truth. But seeing an expression of polite surprise on the landlady’s face, I added: “It is possible that she has written to the place we have just come from to tell us her new address.”

“I see,” Mrs Malatratt said, looking in the most genteel way as if she believed not a word of my explanation.

If she was not going to trust us, then I felt a sense of freedom from the need to constrain myself to the literal truth: “We have arrived from the country only today after a long journey.” I named the county and said: “From near Hougham where Sir Perceval is a … ” I hesitated and then contented myself with “a neighbour of ours.”

“Indeed?” she said.

“Because of a misunderstanding our boxes have been sent to the wrong address on the other side of the metropolis. We were taking a coach to go there and as it passed along this street I remembered that Miss Quilliam had said she once lived here. Seeing that my mother was so tired, I stopped the coach with the idea of finding shelter here for tonight.”

“Very well,” said Mrs Malatratt and, with a sense of triumph mingled with guilt at the fluency of my lies, I realized that I had not deceived her but rather had provided the kind of explanation that was required. “But I am sorry that I cannot help you to find Miss Quilliam. As you say, she left Mompesson-park last summer — towards the close of July, as I recall — and stayed here for a night or two. When she left she undertook to leave a forwarding-address, but she has not done so.”

“Then you know nothing more of her?”

“Merely that she called in only a fortnight ago to ask me to keep for a little longer one or two trunks she had left here. I was happy to oblige her. She left no direction but I believe I understood her to intimate that she had taken lodgings at the other end of Town.”

The West-end! I glanced at my mother in dismay. She did not look back, but I caught the eye of the maid-servant who was looking at me with an expression I could not make out. She now glanced at her mistress with what I took to be timidity and dislike.

Mrs Malatratt looked at us appraisingly: “If you desire to be accommodated I can let you have a room for tonight only. It will be 3s.”

I knew that we could find somewhere else for a shilling or eighteen-pence, but at that hour we might find difficulty. Looking at my mother who was still holding her face in her arms, I decided to accept.

“Payable in advance,” Mrs Malatratt added.

I reached into my mother’s reticule and beneath the pocket-book with its mysterious bundle of documents, I found our few remaining coins.

“Take them to the Blue Room, Nancy,” Mrs Malatratt said and with a slight nod she retired magnificently.

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I helped my mother to her feet and we followed the maid upstairs to the chamber specified which was beautifully furnished with a large bed and fine damasked hangings.

Nancy drew me to one side and in an undertone asked if we would care for something to eat. Then she whispered: “It ain’t right, what she said.”

“What do you mean?”

“And this ain’t no place for you and your mam. I dursen’t say more.” Then she slipped out of the room. A few minutes later she brought us a little bread and milk, but as if she regretted her earlier indiscretion she avoided my eye and hurried out.

I had difficulty persuading my mother to eat even a little and I could not prevent her from returning to the subject of Bissett’s betrayal: “There was enough value in the furniture to settle all our debts. What could she have done with the money?”

“Tomorrow, Mamma,” I pleaded. “We should sleep now.”

“Why did she do it, Johnnie?” she said suddenly. “I shall never forgive her. Never.

After all I have done for her.”

Eventually she stretched out on the bed and fell into a fitful slumber. For some time I lay in the pale moonlight that entered between the curtains and watched her sleeping with feelings of dark foreboding. What was the connexion between Bissett and Mr Espenshade? And if it was she who betrayed our address — as it surely must have been

— then who paid her to do so? And why? These questions kept me from sleep, but later I was awakened several times when a carriage drew up outside the house and the street-door was slammed.

My mother seemed more cheerful the next morning but I could see that she was making a deliberate attempt to be brave and optimistic and I was irritated by this. I wondered how she would take the revelation of the full extent of Bissett’s treachery.

Nancy brought us our meagre breakfast and as we ate it I explained to my mother exactly what had happened at Mrs Philliber’s, confirming that it was at Bissett’s instigation that the bailiff had been able to find us.

“So I was right about her,” she said calmly.

“Yes, but not only that. The man who was with the bailiffs — Mr Espenshade, they called him — was somebody I have seen before.”

I described how he had followed me one day at Melthorpe, and how I had seen him talking to Bissett.

My mother was horrified and the more so when I recounted my suspicions of our former servant going back over a long period. I now told her of the understanding that I suspected Bissett had entered into with Mr Barbellion on the occasion of his first visit, and of the mysterious errand to the post-office which I had interrupted and which I guessed was for the purposes of communicating with him.

“That is bad news, indeed, Johnnie,” she said, reaching to take my hand. “But now I have something to tell you. I told her we were coming to London.”

“Oh, Mamma!”

“It was the night we left the village. She was so hurt that I wouldn’t tell her where we were going. It was while you were collecting your things.”

“And yet you wouldn’t tell me!” I exclaimed. “And I recall that I wondered why she was so much less irritable when I came back. Oh, Mamma! Then 174 THE

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perhaps she went and told that man — Mr Espenshade — and he followed us to London.”

“Surely not!” my mother cried.

“Well, perhaps not,” I conceded. “For after all, if our enemy and his people knew where we were, I wonder why they chose to wait until you had sent Bissett Mrs Philliber’s address?”

This was a mystery that we could not resolve.

“We can expect no money from Melthorpe now,” I pointed out a few minutes later.

“What shall we do, Johnnie?”

“We must sell the locket,” I said.

“No, I couldn’t bear to part with it!” she cried.

“Don’t be silly!” I said. “It’s only an old piece of metal.”

“You don’t understand,” she said tremulously. “It’s all I have left of … ”

She broke off.

“Of what?” I demanded. She would not answer and I said angrily: “Then I don’t know what will become of us.”

“Johnnie, there is one other thing? Do you remember the document that Sir Perceval and then Mr Barbellion wanted to buy?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “You mean the codicil?”

“Yes. Well, we could offer that to Sir Perceval again.”

“I thought you were not willing to part with it?” I said reproachfully. For I had thought about it often and come to the conclusion that if so many people were so anxious to obtain it, then it would be prudent not to part with it too easily.