Quincunx

  I laid myself down on my narrow form that night with mixed feelings. Could it be that the will really no longer existed after all? In that case my undertaking was pointless. Why should I stay on in this demeaning position? On the other hand, suddenly I had found two friends where I had thought I was surrounded by enemies. But could I trust them? Surely I could. But perhaps even they, like so many others I had encountered, had motives that were far other than they appeared. Everything I had gone through had taught me to trust no-one. I resolved to keep an open mind.

  BOOK V

  Marriage Designs

  CHAPTER 96

  We have done our best to reconstruct events as they must have occurred beyond your own experience, and to do so (in my case, under protest) without speculating. I must, however, now be permitted to mention that I have the darkest suspicions about the motives of Mr Mompesson and his mother. For though you may say what you like about Sir Perceval — and he, beyond contest, embodied the vices of Old Corruption — yet for all that he was a gentleman of the fine old English school. His son, however, is a product of a more grasping and less honourable age.

  Imagine the scene in the Great Parlour. The baronet is seated on an ottoman with his right leg on a stool. His wife sits opposite and his elder son stands before him with a bold expression — and yet, for all that, looking somewhat shame-faced.

  “You have no objection, however, to the girl?” Sir Perceval says.

  “None at all,” Mr Mompesson answers. “She’s a decent enough little chit, and fond of me, I believe. Confoundedly so. Though she’s a trifle too long-faced for my taste. Let Tom marry her. That would animate her if nothing else.”

  “Certainly not,” the baronet says angrily. “And apart from any other objections, such a course of action would not save the estate anyway. Not with the codicil accepted and now a Receiver appointed.”

  His wife and son look at each other and she shakes her head very slightly.

  “There are ways of achieving that end by this means, Sir Perceval,” she says.

  He glares at her: “I understand your meaning very well, but I will countenance nothing that would be dishonourable.”

  “Dishonourable!” she repeats scornfully. “Is it honourable to be publicly bankrupted, to be sold up and see one’s house and possessions fall beneath the hammer for the amusement of one’s friends?”

  “There’s no question of that. I insist that both the honour and the security of our family demand that David do as I require.”

  “And I insist that he need not.”

  “Then, madam, how dare you defy me!”

  “Pray calm yourself, Sir Perceval.”

  “I am calm!” he shouts.

  “I don’t believe you appreciate the gravity of the situation,” his wife says coldly.

  She glances at her son and nods slightly.

  “I need rhino, Father,” Mr Mompesson says. “Soon. And a great deal of it. And that is why I must marry Miss Sugarman. She has a clear ten thousand a year.”

  “I forbid such a thing!” the baronet cries, his face quite purple. “Our family … one of the oldest … the most honourable … English!”

  He falters and breaks off, gasping for breath.

  The other two watch him in silence until he regains his normal rate of breathing.

  Then his son says coolly: “You don’t understand. I’m in over my eyebrows, pa.”

  “Your creditors will have to wait,” the baronet says bitterly. “Wait patiently until I die. That won’t be far away. This thing has almost eaten my vitals away. You’ll have to be patient, too.”

  “That won’t help me much,” Mr Mompesson says. He and his mother exchange a glance and he says: “To tell you the truth, I’ve compromised my expectations.”

  His father stares at him and then asks: “Do you mean post obits?”

  “Yes. Everything’s mortgaged.”

  “Everything?” Sir Perceval demands. “You told me it was two thousand.”

  “That wasn’t quite the whole truth. To be absolutely frank, Father, it’s twenty thousand.”

  “So much!” the elderly baronet gasps. He pauses and then continues slowly and indistinctly: “You signed away your inheritance to the Jews while I’ve been struggling to hold it together?”

  “I had to have tin, Father. How do you expect a fellow to live without it?”

  “Who holds your bills?” his father asks, speaking thickly.

  Before answering Mr Mompesson glances at his mother. After a moment she nods. (And if I may be permitted for the first and last time to venture such a remark, I believe that nod amounted almost to murder.)

  “Old Clothier has been buying them up. Deuce take him!”

  “What?” The baronet’s visage goes a purplish-blue and he begins to gasp for breath. Then he turns onto his side, clutching his left arm.

  His wife and son exchange a look. Then she rises and moves towards her husband while young Mompesson slowly crosses to the chimney-piece and pulls the bell-rope.

  CHAPTER 97

  During the next few days I thought constantly about my new friends and longed for the moment when I could meet them again. The opportunity came the following Sunday when I managed to get to Miss Lydia’s room as before. I found her alone and immediately blurted out the question I had been brooding on all that time:

  “So the will no longer exists?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You said it was passed to my grandfather by Martin Fortisquince and so I assume that it was lost.”

  Miss Lydia stared at me and said: “You are wrong. Far from being lost, it was restored to my nevy only a few days later. He had a hiding-place in the Great Parlour constructed to keep it safe. It is there now.”

  Relief flooded through me. So the hypothesis about the chimney-piece that the Digweeds and I had elaborated was correct. This augured well.

  I told Miss Lydia how we had stumbled upon the existence of the hiding-place and how Mr Digweed and I had failed to unlock it.

  Then a puzzle occurred to me: “But how was the will restored to Sir Perceval?”

  “That has always been a complete mystery to me,” Miss Lydia answered. “Have you any idea?”

  “No,” I said, “for this revelation upsets the most probable explanation of that night’s events.”

  I explained to her the hypothesis that Mr Nolloth and I had accepted as the most likely: that my grandfather had been murdered and Mr Escreet assaulted by an unknown person who had entered by the street-door which was left unlocked by Peter Clothier as he left the house.

  I went on: “Mr Nolloth and I assumed that the murderer was either a chance robber or an agent of the Clothiers who had been watching the house. But neither of these explanations accounts for the will being returned to Sir Perceval: a chance robber would not have taken it or known what to do with it if he had, and an agent of the Clothiers would have taken it to them and it would never have been seen again.”

  We reflected in silence for a few moments.

  “You don’t think it could have been Mr Fortisquince?” I asked, for I had long had certain suspicions concerning him. There was a kind of appropriateness, it occurred to me, in finding him responsible for this, too. “That in fact,” I went on, “he did know that it was the will that you had given him to pass on? And that he removed it from the package and then gave it back to your nephew?”

  “Having murdered your grandfather in the bargain?” Miss Lydia scoffed.

  “Well, somebody did,” I said.

  Perhaps her jesting words were the truth: Mr Fortisquince gave the package to my grandfather without realizing what it contained. When he saw it opened and realized its significance, he killed him and restored the will to the Mompessons. It would be very neat if he turned out to be the individual who was responsible for all the mysteries that haunted me.

  “My dear boy,” she said, “you could not possibly suggest such a thing if you had known Martin. He was gentleness and hon
esty itself, and quite incapable even of the tiniest act of deceit, let alone anything else. That is why he was so well-suited to my purposes.”

  “It is true,” I said, “that he was very kind to my mother afterwards, though …”

  I broke off, for the old lady was staring at me hard and now said:

  “Go no further or you and I may have to quarrel. But for the matter of the will, whoever returned it, I will help you to regain it. But listen, John. Henrietta will be here in a moment, and I want to say something to you. Do not mention any of this to her for she might be upset if she knew what we were planning. She is a strange girl and I fear she would oppose our design against her guardians.”

  “Surely she feels no affection for them.”

  “That is true. She is very unhappy and has had a miserable life. She was left an orphan at an early age and abused by her first guardians. Though my nevy and his wife have treated her generously, they have never shewn her any kindness.” The old lady paused and seemed perplexed. Then she went on hesitantly: “I don’t know if you’ll comprehend me if I say that I think she almost takes pleasure in her own misery. I know how she feels. I was like that once myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, for instance, when she was a child she used to inflict injuries upon herself. Quite severe ones.”

  At these words I remembered the welts I had seen on her arms that time we had met in the great house at Hougham and which she had told me had been inflicted by her cousin, Tom.

  “The only person who has ever gained her affection — apart from myself — was a young governess, a Miss Quilliam.”

  “I knew her,” I said.

  “She did not stay long. I’m afraid she let Henrietta down by trying to take advantage of her position here.”

  I raised my eyebrows and Miss Lydia began: “It’s an unattractive story. She tried to ensnare first David and then that near-ideot, Tom, and had to be dismissed the house. I believe she became David’s mistress before they quarrelled.”

  I was going to answer, but at that moment there was a tap at the door and Henrietta came in.

  When we had re-arranged ourselves on the chairs she asked me bluntly: “I beg you to tell me, John, what are you doing in this house?”

  I glanced at Miss Lydia. “I’m hiding.”

  “Hiding? From whom?”

  “From my enemies, for my life is in danger.”

  “In danger!” she cried. “Why, this is just like a novel! Why?”

  “Because of that document I mentioned to you in the park.”

  “Please explain to me,” asked Henrietta, “what it was.”

  “ ‘Is’, I am afraid,” Miss Lydia corrected her.

  I glanced at her. Perhaps she knew something of its history after leaving my mother’s possession?

  “It’s a codicil,” I explained. “It all centres around the Hougham estate which my great-grandfather, James Huffam, inherited under the will of his father, Jeoffrey, almost exactly sixty years ago. Now there were rumours that there had existed a codicil to that will affecting the inheritance, but it was not found at Jeoffrey’s death.”

  “And so not long afterwards,” Miss Lydia continued, “my father, Sir Hugo Mompesson, bought the estate from James in the honest belief that he had a clear title to it.”

  “But in fact,” I said, “Jeoffrey’s attorney, a man called Paternoster, had misappropriated the codicil.”

  “Is that who it was!” Miss Lydia exclaimed.

  “He confessed on his deathbed to Mr Escreet,” I explained. “He had been bribed by James to do this in order to prevent the entailing of the estate on himself, for that would have interfered with his intention to sell it to your father, Miss Lydia. The Clothiers suspected this and tried to prevent probate. But Paternoster, with a suborned witness, testified that Jeoffrey had revoked the codicil.”

  “But what is the significance of the codicil now?” Henrietta demanded.

  “If it were laid before the court and put in force,” I said, “it would retrospectively entail the property on James even these many years later, substituting a base fee in the estate for the fee simple which Miss Lydia’s father believed he had purchased. The base fee would terminate when the succession from James failed: that is to say, if I died without an heir for I am the sole surviving heir of James. In that event Sir Perceval and his heirs would lose all interest in the estate. In plain terms, they would be ousted without compensation.”

  “Then who would inherit it?” Henrietta asked.

  “That’s the point: it would go to the next remainderman under the entail who is Silas Clothier,” I answered. “He has to be living at that time for if he were dead it could not go to his heir.”

  “And what became of the codicil after Mr Paternoster stole it?” Henrietta asked me.

  “It disappeared for many years and I assume that he sold it to someone in the Maliphant family, for it was they who stood to gain the estate if Silas Clothier were dead when the Huffam succession failed. Perhaps their line failed. Do you know, Miss Lydia?”

  “No, I haven’t the slightest conception.”

  “Strangely enough,” I said, “there was a boy at the school I was sent to whose name was Stephen Maliphant. Though that must have been merely a coincidence. But whatever had happened to the codicil for all those years, someone offered it for sale to my grandfather (in fact, to Mr Escreet) a few months before his death. He purchased it, and it was in order to do so that he formed an alliance with Silas Clothier as part of which my mother was to be forced into marriage with his elder son. However, then things changed,” I said, glancing at Miss Lydia who had sighed at my reference to my mother. I went on, trying to suppress all reference to the part she had played at this juncture: “For one thing, my grandfather realized that once it was before the court it put him and my mother in danger from the Clothiers.”

  “And was your mother forced into that marriage?” Henrietta asked.

  “No. In fact, she married the younger brother.”

  She looked at me with her eyes widening: “So this horrible old man, Silas Clothier, who is endangering your life, is your grandfather?”

  “Let me go on with my story,” I answered, after a moment’s hesitation. “Well, my grandfather — I mean, John Huffam — died shortly after that and the codicil passed into the possession of my mother. She wrote to Sir Perceval a few years later to say that she had it and sent him a copy. And he, realizing that it threatened his possession of the estate, tried to purchase it. However, my mother refused to part with it because she had promised her father to pass it on to her heir. But eventually it fell into the hands of the Clothiers, as I explained in the park. What I don’t know is what has happened to it since then.”

  “I can tell you,” said Miss Lydia. “Silas Clothier laid it before the Court of Chancery.”

  Just what I had guessed!

  “I leave it to you,” the old lady went on, “to imagine how horrified my nevy and his wife were by that. Since then they have been closeted with Mr Barbellion for hours every week.”

  “What was the judgement of the Court?” I asked.

  “It upheld the validity of the codicil and retrospectively entailed the estate on James Huffam, ruling that the heir in succession to James is the nominal holder of title to the estate.”

  I needed to take a deep breath for it was a shock. Title to those vast and rich lands which had been owned for centuries by my ancestors was now vested in me. Even though I knew it meant nothing in actuality, it was profoundly exciting and gave me a foretaste of what real ownership would be like.

  “That confirms what I had assumed,” I said, and explained how Daniel Porteous and Emma had lured me into their trap and then led me before the Court.

  “I believe,” I explained, “that their intention was to establish my identity so that my death would be accepted beyond question.”

  The other two shuddered and Miss Lydia said:

  “You are quite cor
rect. By bringing you before the Court the Clothiers prepared the way for your death to be accepted. It was clear from your appearance that you were very weak, and their counsel stressed this and implied that you had inherited your father’s mental alienation. That is why Mr Barbellion tried to prevent the Clothiers gaining custody of you, but since they are your nearest kin, he was only able to obtain a stay of execution. During that period they had you committed to Dr Alabaster’s madhouse which you were never intended to leave. However, you foiled their intentions by escaping and they therefore had to come before the Court and confess that you had disappeared. They moved a motion to have you declared dead, and brought on witnesses — a justice of the peace and Dr Alabaster himself — to testify to your poor state of health and to your insanity. The burden of their testimony was that, having absconded from the skilled care of the asylum, you could not hope to live very long.”

  I smiled at this.

  “But the situation is grave, John,” she said. “Perceval’s counsel naturally opposed this since it would dispossess him immediately, and the Master of the Rolls compromised by ruling that if you could not be found within a certain period you would be declared dead. Upon the expiry of this period, the property will pass immediately to Silas. The court has appointed a Receiver of Rents and is making an inventory of the estate.”

  As I reflected on this many implications occurred to me.

  “What is the period?” Henrietta asked.

  “It was four years from that date.”

  “A little over two years from now,” I said. “Well, if the Clothiers and their agents could find me, I wonder what my life would be worth, for Silas Clothier is already a very old man.”

  Miss Lydia smiled and said: “More than ten years younger than I.”

  I blushed and faltered.