Quincunx
It seemed only a moment before we were out on the high road. Now we hurtled past everything that we met and nothing delayed us, for even before the turnpike lamps came in sight, the guard blew his horn to warn the ’pikemen and the gates were opened as we reached them. More and more vehicles appeared now as the dawn lightened. We overtook heavy stages that towered over us, neat little gigs that were galloping along as fast as they could go, smart broughams and elegant phaetons and chariots. Only the lightest post-chaises could keep up with us for any distance but even they were forced to halt at the ’pikes.
My mother urged me to try to sleep but there was far too much to see. It was the dawning of a beautiful day — the last of that summer — and as the coach rattled south, the rich flat farmland unrolled past us displaying its bridges, rivers, woods, and neat little villages. There were so many things I had never seen: a lofty aqueduct arching over a steep valley, canals with barges being towed along them by patient horses, a great cathedral squatting amongst the little rooves of a town like a huge beast, and so much more.
At last I must have succumbed to sleep, for I remember coming to partial wakefulness as I was being carried from the carriage into a lighted, bustling room, and I recall moments of sleep and near-wakefulness succeeding each other until once again I was being lulled by the swaying of a carriage and the rhythmic clattering of hooves — though this time the movement was gentler and the clattering was louder.
When I awoke properly, I found myself wedged between my mother and a strange gentleman whose head lay lolled against the back of his seat and who was snoring loudly. Opposite us sat three other travellers in a similar condition.
At intervals we rumbled into the yards of inns in little towns where we made brief stops while the guard stood beside the coach with his timepiece in his hand watching the ostlers change the horses, or longer stoppages for a hasty luncheon or a gobbled dinner. Once as we passed through a city, I poked my head out of window and looked up to see a great castle towering over the street. And once at a cross-roads I saw something hanging that seemed to be a collection of iron and bone and tarred cloth.
“What was that?” I asked.
My mother shuddered and her neighbour said: “They haven’t done that much for ten years, thank heavens.”
In the afternoon I remember looking out, as we made our way along the bottom of a gentle valley, at the water-meadows beside the little river. The countryside was of that richly golden green that it acquires late on a fine day towards the end of a wet summer. As the sun began to sink behind the horizon a pale mist appeared over the low-lying water-meadows — so common in that country of dikes that we were passing through. The mist was swirling around the legs of the cattle unconcernedly grazing at the edge of the water so that they looked almost as if they were wading through deep water and bending their necks in order to crop at the powdery gold that swirled about their feet.
I dozed off again, resting my head against my mother’s shoulder, and half awoke a little later to feel the weight of her own head resting against mine as she slept.
Characters who never appear directly in the narrative are in italics.
PART TWO
THE MOMPESSONS
WESTMINSTER (Scale: 1″=90 yards)
The top of the page is North
Spoiled Designs
CHAPTER 26
A lamp-lighter, working his way along the street of tall, dull houses upon a corner of which we are standing, blows on his cold fingers, picks up his ladder, and goes on to the next lamp. And so all down the length of the street small points of light appear, briefly flaring up before settling down to a steady glow. And now along the pavement trails a little fatherless family in rags, poor unhappy exiles of Erin, our sad sister-island. Wretched, cold, hungry fellow-creatures! So close to the haunts of Idleness and Dissipation. We shall let noble Poverty pass by, for our business is again with Wealth, Arrogance, and Power.
For once more we are outside Mompesson-house. This time it is ablaze with lights for it is one of Lady Mompesson’s “Friday nights”. You know the kind of thing: Weipert’s band is playing quadrilles, the livery-servants are in evening dress, additional servants who have been hired from an agency are pretending to belong to the house and to know where everything is and yet keep bumping into each other and blundering into the wrong chamber. The state-rooms are dazzling and filled with the slightly honeyed fragrance of the best wax-candles. In short, all that the insolence of Opulence can offer when Old Corruption gathers is on show, and.…
But enough, for it appears that elegant writing is not what is required. Very well. Sober truth then, without digression.
It must have been towards ten o’clock that Mr Barbellion (Power) dismounted from nothing grander than a hackney-coach and, to the contempt of the link-boys and footmen guarding the steps, was recognised by the butler and allowed to enter the house. He ascends the stairs and in the grand salon full of gentlemen in court dress and their ladies in silk and jewels, makes his way towards Lady Mompesson (Arrogance) as she looks at him with an expression as close to surprise as good breeding permits.
“This is an unlooked-for pleasure, Mr Barbellion,” she says coldly.
He appears to flush at this and perhaps it would not be too fanciful to suppose that he resents it. But no motives! That is the rule.
However that may be, he says something like: “My lady, I would not have presumed to intrude if it had not been upon a matter of the utmost urgency. My agent has just ridden up post from Melthorpe. Mrs Mellamphy — as she calls herself — has fled.”
“Fled! And gone where?”
“To London, but beyond that I do not know.”
“You do not know, Mr Barbellion?” she repeats frigidly. At that moment a courteous smile appears on her face and she bows towards a gentleman wearing the uniform of an Imperial ambassador on the far side of the room.
Mr Barbellion flinches: “I am afraid my agent lost her, Lady Mompesson.”
“He should not have done. He was being well paid for his pains.”
“Lady Mompesson is doubtless correct,” Mr Barbellion replies with a slight bow.
“How came he to be so remiss?”
“In the very early hours of this morning he was roused at the Rose and Crab inn by a message from his informant to the effect that Mrs Mellamphy had just left for London. He naturally set off in pursuit of the night-coach, but when he overtook it he found that she and her son were not on it. So, assuming that they had travelled post, he himself proceeded to Town, making enquiries at each of the inns that post along that road. He found no trace of them.”
“I see,” Lady Mompesson says, and drums with her fingers on her fan. “Then why do you say she has come here?”
“She confided as much to my informant.”
“Has it not occurred to you that she might have been lying? I take her for a cunning dissembler.”
“I think that unlikely, Lady Mompesson. It is more probable that because my agent was apprised of her departure so soon, he somehow overtook his quarry on the road.”
“Overtook her! How extraordinary. But if she is here, she must be found. As long as she has that codicil …” She breaks off and Mr Barbellion nods. “You did right to report this to me, Mr Barbellion. Sir Perceval has not my appreciation of the delicacy of the affair.”
“Sir Perceval’s directness,” says Mr Barbellion, “is in the fine old tradition of the English gentleman, but in this case something more circumspect is called for.”
“Precisely my view. Tell me, why do you think she decided to flee, Mr Barbellion? Did she realize that your agent was observing her, for he seems to have made a bad business of it.”
“I believe she fled on account of the attempt to abduct the boy that took place on the very day that I visited her. She actually accused me of responsibility for that. How absurd! As if I would ever involve myself in anything that exposed me so dangerously.”
“I believe I can account for her fear of yo
urself, Mr Barbellion. From something she said when she came to Mompesson-park two months ago, she is under the misapprehension that you are acting for the other party.”
“I see!” Mr Barbellion exclaims. “Then that explains much.”
“However, I am very alarmed to hear that the other party found out her whereabouts and attempted to seize the child.”
“Indeed. In fact, I believe that it was through her own attorney that our opposite discovered where she was hiding.”
“Yet you assured Sir Perceval and myself that that man — (What is his name, Sumptious?”
“Sancious,” Mr Barbellion murmurs.
“Quite so.) — That that man could be, if not precisely trusted, then at least relied upon.”
Mr Barbellion flushes. Surely he must have felt … But no, let us speculate no further.
He murmurs: “I fear I was mistaken, Lady Mompesson. He had the audacity by some means to discover Mrs Mellamphy’s hiding-place and, doubtless realizing the value of this intelligence, to sell it to the adverse party.”
At that moment the baronet, who is reclining upon a sopha near the door into the next room, catches sight of his solicitor and beckons to him.
“I am alarmed to learn it,” Lady Mompesson says. “But I see Sir Perceval has noticed you. Just before you go to him, I want to say something. We seem to be singularly unlucky in tutors and governesses.”
“So I have heard from Assinder. Mr David Mompesson is recovered, I trust?”
Lady Mompesson draws her lips together: “Indeed, but I was not referring to that regrettable incident. My allusion was to Tom’s governor who has also left, though under much less reprehensible circumstances. There was some unpleasantness over what Sir Perceval sees as a boyish prank. Be that as it may, we are in need of another governor. Will you look out for one — and this time find a young man with a somewhat robuster disposition?”
“I shall take charge of that, Lady Mompesson. And before I go, I have some grave news from Hougham. Now that the autumn rents are in, Assinder informs me that the rent-roll is down again and I fear the figure is alarmingly low. Much of this is due to the old difficulty: tenants cannot be found who are willing to take on a farm whose poor-rate is at least equal to the rent.”
“I thought Mr Assinder was dealing with the problem of the settled poor?”
“He informs me that he is proceeding as fast as is practicable, Lady Mompesson. But at the same time, I must caution you again that …”
He breaks off and looks at her speculatively.
“I am prepared to acknowledge that you are correct about Mr Assinder,” she says. “But I warn you, Sir Perceval still refuses to hear a word against him.”
Sir Perceval beckons again, this time with an impatient shake of his head, and receiving a cold smile of dismissal, the solicitor leaves Lady Mompesson with a bow and crosses to the baronet.
CHAPTER 27
We changed horses twice during the night, though I have only a very confused memory of being carried half-awake from the darkness of the carriage into the bright lights of the coffee-room. When I awoke I found myself leaning against the shoulder of my mother who was still slumbering. On my other side was an elderly gentleman, also fast asleep, at whose slowly opening and shutting mouth I gazed in fascination. It was a dark and gloomy morning for the good weather of yesterday had departed — or perhaps had stayed behind as we journeyed South. The sky was low and grey and a drizzling rain fell at intervals, so that we seemed to have passed suddenly from the golden end of summer to the grey beginning of autumn. We travelled on all through that long day and the next night, and although it had all seemed so exciting at first, my spirits quickly sank with the boredom and confinement of the swaying carriage.
In the early dawn the coach rumbled beneath the arch of an inn-yard. My mother half woke up, looked out of window and sleepily asked: “What is this town?”
“Hertford,” the elderly gentleman answered, waking with a snort. “The Blue Dragon.”
My mother started and came suddenly awake.
At that moment the guard bellowed at us that we had five minutes, and in great haste we left the coach and hurried to the travellers’-room. (Here, to my amazement, there was a gentleman being shaved in a corner of the room as we ate.)
“We are nearly arrived,” my mother said as we drank our coffee.
“Mamma, whom do you know in London?” I asked.
“I know no-one except Mr Sancious. I will go to him as soon as possible in order to ask his advice about how we can manage with so little money.”
Now I broached a subject I had for some time brooded over in secrecy: “Mamma,” I began, “has it ever struck you that Mr Sancious may not have behaved well by us?”
She admitted that this had occurred to her and now that the question was before us, we frankly discussed whether it was in good faith that he had given us such disastrous advice. When my mother made much of the fact that he could have no motive for having deceived us, I told her that Mrs Digweed’s story about how her husband had lost money in a building speculation suggested that the scheme we had been encouraged to put money into might have been a fraud from the very beginning. And then I pointed out how suspicious was Mr Sancious’ interest in whether we had anything to sell, and asked her if she thought he might have had any way of knowing that we had the codicil and that it was valuable to other people.
At this she fell silent for a long time and then said: “Yes you may be right. Perhaps it was he who betrayed us to our enemy, although I don’t understand how he could have found the way to him. But it’s true that he has always known my real name and that might have aided him.”
Despite my attempts, I could not persuade her to tell me what she called “our real name”, though I guessed it was the one beginning with “C” that I had seen all those years ago before I could properly read.
Finally I asked: “Mamma, what name shall we go under now?”
She looked at me in surprise: “What do you mean?”
“I think we should use another in case anyone is searching for us.”
“Another name! How strange that it should be here …” she began softly and then broke off.
She would not tell me what she meant (and it was long before I found out), but she agreed that we should choose a new name. We thought of the little hamlet near Melthorpe called Offland to which we had often walked, and settled on that. How strange names are, I reflected, repeating to myself “John Offland”.
“So now we have no-one to go to,” I said. “Except for Uncle Martin’s widow?”
“Oh, Johnnie, we can’t do that. I hardly knew her. She was a young woman when I was only a little girl.”
“But wasn’t she your cousin?”
“I suppose so. Our families were connected in some way, but not very closely for my father did not know hers. And about the time she married Uncle Martin my father and he quarrelled and I had very little to do with her afterwards.”
“What was the quarrel about?”
“Oh never mind now. It’s a very long story. You’ll know all about it one day.”
I was about to ask what she meant by these hints that she had dropped before, but at this moment the guard interrupted us with a warning that the coach was about to go forward. The gentleman who had been seated opposite us did not get back in but two new passengers — a genteely-dressed lady with a youth a few years older than I — boarded the coach and we set off again.
The lady — who introduced herself as Mrs Popplestone (travelling with her son, David) and to whom my mother, rather shame-facedly, returned that we were Mrs and Master Offland — struck up a conversation with my mother and they were soon fast friends.
Long before I saw London I smelt it in the bitter smoke of sea-coal that began to prickle my nostrils and the back of my throat, and then I saw the dark cloud on the horizon that grew and grew and that was made up of the smoke of hundreds of thousands of chimneys. After some miles the villages became
more frequent, straggling along the road as if reluctant to leave its protection, and the gaps between them grew shorter. At last they came to be so many and the gaps so few that I exclaimed, “Surely this is London!” But my mother and the nice lady and her son laughed and assured me that we still had some way to go. I went through this exchange several times more, for I could not believe that the streets of shops and fine houses which were now almost continuous were only overgrown villages lying outside the capital.
I could see that my mother was almost as excited as I was. “It seems bigger than ever,” she said softly, her eyes glittering.
At last, however, we passed through the turnpike that was at that date on the New Road, and my fellow travellers admitted that indeed we were in London. And now I was amazed that we travelled on and on through street after street without coming out at the other side of the town. Moreover, I had never seen or imagined streets like them: I was overwhelmed by their width, by the height of the buildings, the volume and the variousness of the traffic — magnificent private carriages that swept past us with a disdainful flourish of their horses’ tails, shabby hackney-coaches, black coal-waggons, huge lumbering drays — and the press of foot-passengers along the pavements like two vast crowds hurrying in opposite directions.
After nearly an hour we entered a particularly wide street which Mrs Popplestone informed me was Regent-street but which I did not recall from my beloved map — and, indeed, it had been constructed since that was printed. Now the coach slowed almost to walking pace for here the carriageway and pavements ran together in one dangerous crowd of men and youths and horses and carriages like a wild, moving market-place. There were sallow-skinned boys in black coats with flat round hats and with ringlets hanging down on their cheeks — “Jews”, my mother whispered — who were running in amongst the carriages offering articles for sale at the windows: oranges, gingerbread, nuts, pen-knives, pocket-books, and pencil-cases. And other men and boys were thrusting papers through the windows of carriages, and when one hurtled through ours I picked it up and saw that it was a play-bill. (At last I would go to a real theatre!) And there were yet others running into the middle of the streets at peril of their lives with shovels and buckets. It was like a waking dream: the noise of the vehicles rumbling and clattering over the paved streets, the cries of street-vendors, and the ringing of the newspaper-sellers’ bells. All of this filled me with a mixture of excitement and fear.