Quincunx

  “Do not think of it,” the stranger said. Then, laying her hand on my mother’s arm, she continued: “My dear, I perceive that you were bred to something very different from this, and that you have not borne poverty for very long.”

  “That is so,” she answered in a trembling voice. “I have been very unlucky.”

  “Won’t you tell me how you came to this?”

  My mother hesitated and the lady glanced towards me: “Is it a story of betrayal?” she asked in a tone of deep compassion.

  “Yes,” my mother answered and I guessed that she was thinking of Bissett.

  “We poor women,” the unknown lady said, shaking her head. “It is our lot to suffer, to trust and to be betrayed. Is this of recent date?”

  “Yes,” my mother said. “Only a year ago the three of us were so happy together, and now …”

  She broke off and the lady looked at her compassionately.

  “My dear, if it would not distress you, I would very much like to hear your story. But what am I thinking of to forget my manners so completely! For you must have no idea of whom you are speaking to. I am an old acquaintance of Miss Quilliam. My name is Mrs Purviance.”

  “Oh yes,” said my mother. “Helen has spoken of you.”

  “Indeed?”

  “She told me only last night how very badly she was treated by her former employers,” said my mother.

  “She was indeed,” Mrs Purviance agreed rather vaguely. “She is not strong enough to earn her bread by the kind of work she has taken upon herself. I have told her that with her gifts she could do something better fitting her station, and I have been trying to persuade her to take shelter under my roof.”

  “That is kind. Very kind. I have been very concerned about her health.”

  “You see, my dear, I am fortunate enough to be a widow of independent means. I have a house in Gough-square — No. 5 — a most respectable address. (The Great Cham himself resided in the square!) And there I receive a great deal of good company. Indeed, only the very best company. You do understand me?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I am always on the qui-vive for well-brought-up young women who have fallen upon misfortune. And they must be possessed of a certain savoir-faire. Now you, my dear, are very charming.” She reached up to touch my mother’s tresses: “You are like a marigold with your fair hair and forget-me-not eyes.”

  My mother smiled with pleasure: “You are kind.”

  “Nothing pleases me more than to find a sister in distress. But Miss Quilliam — Helen — is too proud. I hope you wouldn’t be too proud.” At this my mother shook her head. “For I would be very glad,” Mrs Purviance continued, “to offer hospitality to you at any time.”

  “Would you indeed?”

  “Most assuredly.” She glanced in my direction: “Only I am afraid I could not accept a child.”

  My mother’s disappointment was so manifest that it cut me like a knife. She exclaimed: “Oh, we could not be parted.”

  “But surely some arrangement could be arrived at? He could board at a school perhaps?”

  “We should both hate that! But anyway I could not afford it.”

  “My dear,” exclaimed Mrs Purviance with a patronizing smile, “I haven’t made myself clear. I see we have much to talk about.” She glanced at me. “But I wonder if this young gentleman might find something at a pastry-cook’s to spend a six-pence on?”

  She opened her reticule and was bringing out her pocket-book when the door opened and Miss Quilliam came in.

  When she caught sight of our visiter her face took on an expression I had never seen on it before. Her colour drained away and her eyes seemed to narrow and grow hard: “I am surprised to find you here again, Mrs Purviance.”

  “My dear, how very glad I am to see you looking so much better than on the occasion of my last visit.”

  “What do you want?” Miss Quilliam said coldly.

  “Well, my dear Helen — may I call you that? — I came to learn how you were and to renew my offer, but finding you out I have introduced myself to this delightful young lady.” She hesitated as she turned towards my mother: “Miss … ?”

  “Mrs Mellamphy,” said my mother. Then she gently added: “Johnnie is my son.”

  “Ah, of course. How stupid of me,” Mrs Purviance said, recovering quickly: “You said so, did you not?”

  She now conveyed to us that she was charmed to make our acquaintance and shook hands with both of us.

  “I give you the answer now that I gave you before,” Miss Quilliam said to her. “I do not desire your assistance.”

  “Well, my dear, the time may come,” Mrs Purviance said, rising to her feet and brushing down her gorgeous silk dress as if afraid that it had taken some infection from the chair; “when you will think more kindly of me.” She smiled very sweetly at my mother: “I fear I must go without hearing your story. But if you will come to my house one morning, I will be very glad to listen to it then. Be sure to come before noon.”

  “Thank you Mrs Purviance,” said my mother, “I will do so.”

  “Now will you remember the direction?” she began. “It is …”

  “I assure you, Mrs Purviance,” said Miss Quilliam, “that Mrs Mellamphy has as little use for your kind of assistance as I.”

  My mother looked from one to the other in perplexity.

  “My dear Miss Quilliam,” said Mrs Purviance, “I think you must let this lady decide for herself.” As she walked towards the door she turned and took something from her reticule: “Now I am going to offend you both, I know. But I cannot leave this scene of poverty with a clear conscience when I have so much money in my purse.”

  She took out a coin but made no attempt to give it to Miss Quilliam. Instead she laid it down on the little table at which we worked and ate.

  “I will not have it back,” she said, “so you must do with it what you will. Please use it, if only for the child’s sake.” As she reached the door she said: “I will not trouble you another time, Miss Quilliam. Goodbye.”

  My mother and I returned her greeting but Miss Quilliam inclined her head very slightly and continued to stare at her with a cold and hostile expression which relaxed only when the door closed behind her.

  My mother said timidly: “How much did she leave? Go and see, Johnnie.”

  I went and looked at the bright gold coin without picking it up: “A sovereign.”

  The three of us could live well on such a sum for three weeks, and we now had only a shilling or two and no prospect of earning any more.

  “To take that woman’s money would bring nothing but evil,” Miss Quilliam said.

  “How can that be?” asked my mother.

  “The part she played in the events I told you of was at best equivocal,” Miss Quilliam said. “But since then I have learned things about her which I would tell you if I were not satisfied that she will not show her face here again, and if I had not prevented her from giving you her address.”

  My mother glanced at me guiltily, but refrained from telling her friend that our visiter had earlier given the direction to her house. “Then if we are safe from her,” she said, “surely there can be no harm in using the money?”

  “I will not touch it,” said Miss Quilliam. “Do with it what you will. Only do not ask me to share anything that comes from it.”

  She raised the stone jug and poured a glass of what little remained.

  My mother picked up the coin and whispered to me: “Johnnie, we will buy bread and something from the pastry-cook.”

  “And candles,” I suggested.

  Miss Quilliam must have caught the last word: “Not candles,” she objected, “for I would derive benefit from them and I have a superstitious fear even of that.”

  “Then Johnnie,” said my mother in the tone she used when she said something she knew I would disagree with; “we will use some of the money to pay this month’s interest on the locket. It must be paid by today or I will forfeit it, and I ne
ed only one shilling and six-pence.”

  “What nonsense,” I cried. “We can’t waste money like that.”

  “But Johnnie, it would be an investment for it is worth far more than what we pledged it for.”

  “But you know we will never be able to redeem it!”

  “Don’t say that!” she cried. “We will one day. All will be well again just as it was before. You will see.”

  I looked at her in surprise and she said: “The codicil. We will sell it for a great deal of money.”

  I glanced towards Miss Quilliam who gave no sign of having heard.

  “We must do nothing rash,” I whispered, for what I had learned of the law from the two gentlemen had convinced me that the codicil could be worth much more to us than anyone would give us for it.

  Seeing how upset she was at the prospect of losing the locket, however, I reluctantly consented to her wishes. By the time we had made our purchases at the pastry-cook’s and eaten them (rather guiltily while Miss Quilliam sat at the other end of the room), it was early evening. The pawn-broker stayed open until ten o’clock, so we set off in good time through the warm streets and arrived there about an hour before the office was due to close.

  The taker glanced up as we entered and it seemed to me that he took particular notice of us for he smiled and when my mother presented the duplicate and the money, he said: “I must ask you to wait a minute,” and disappeared into a back-room. He was gone some time and I thought I heard voices talking softly. Then he came back and completed the formalities, endorsing our ticket for a further month.

  When we returned to the street I glanced back and noticed two men — one of them strikingly tall — come out of the shop behind us. This surprised me for I had thought there were no other customers there. My suspicions having been aroused by this, I glanced round occasionally as we made our way home, and each time I thought I saw two figures stop and shrink back into the shadows. Darkness had fallen by now and although I felt safe enough on the crowded, lamp-lit streets, as we turned up Bennet-street I reflected that we were approaching Spread-Eagle-yard and the long, dark and empty alley that led from it into Tothill-street, and I wondered whether to advise my mother that we should take the longer way round. I was reluctant, however, to alarm her with what might be groundless suspicions.

  Halfway along the alley I heard running feet. I turned but before I could even see our assailants I felt myself being seized from behind by strong arms. I began to scream but a hand was clasped over my mouth. I heard a cry from my mother that was choked off, and now I could see that she was being gripped by a second man who was at least six and a half feet tall.

  “You know what we want,” the tall man said. “I’m not going to ask you for it a second time. This is what I mean.”

  I heard the sound of his hand striking her hard against the face.

  Then he said: “Now I’m going to take my hand away so you can tell me where it is. If you scream my friend will twist the boy’s arm off.”

  My mother gasped: “Don’t harm him! I’ll find it.”

  I tried to shout out that she should not, but I was unable even to open my mouth. There was just light enough still for me to be able dimly to make out the figure of my mother’s assailant. As well as being so tall he was cadaverously thin and I had the strangest feeling that I knew him. Suddenly I remembered: he was the man who had jumped into the carriage on the occasion when the young lady had tried to abduct me from Melthorpe! Yet how could that be? How could this man have found us so long after?

  “Hurry up,” the man holding me urged.

  “It will take time,” my mother cried, “for it is in an inner pocket beneath my petticoats.”

  “Just give her a sign that we don’t have all day,” said the tall man, and in obedience to this the one holding me drove my head against the wall. I felt a wave of nausea and seemed to be falling into a deep shaft.

  Then as if from a great distance I heard my mother cry: “Oh please don’t hurt him. I am finding it.”

  “Then hurry,” shouted the tall man.

  At that moment I heard the sounds of voices and laughter and thought at first that it was the effect of the blow on my head. But they were real! For a group of people was making its way towards us along the lane from the direction from which we had come.

  “Damn it, Jack, do you hear that!” the man holding me exclaimed. “I told you we should have put them in a coach and done the job at our leisure.”

  “Never mind that now. Just keep a hold of the boy,” Jack shouted. “And keep your mouth shut as I told you.”

  The men and women, about six or seven of them, were almost upon us. Their arrival had distracted the attention of the man holding me enough for me to manage to get my teeth apart and then close them with all my strength on a fleshy part of the hand that was fastened over my mouth.

  The man swore and his grip weakened enough for me to shout: “For God’s sake help us! We’re being robbed!”

  “She’s my wife!” my mother’s assailant cried.

  “That’s not true!” my mother exclaimed. “They are robbers!”

  “You can’t be flatts enough to believe such fustian, can you?” Jack shouted.

  “Who are you crying a flatt?” said an Irish voice, speaking indistinctly.

  “Mind your own business, Murphy,” Jack shouted.

  At this, the intoxicated Irishman struck him so that he let go of my mother who ran towards my attacker. Jack tried to follow her but several of the Irishmen grabbed him and seeing this, my assailant let go of me and tried to release his friend. As I moved away I glimpsed my tormentor’s face: flat, reddish, topped with bristling eyebrows.

  “Run, Mamma,” I shouted, and we hastened down the alley as fast as we could. Within a minute or two we had gained Tothill-street, crossed it and dived down the lane opposite into the ancient and now infamous Almonry and then made our way through the back-courts into Orchard-street. Now that we were clear of any possibility of pursuit we slowed to a walk.

  “Did they hurt you?” my mother sobbed, panting hard.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Who were they and how did they know I have the codicil?” my mother cried.

  “They followed us from the pawn-shop,” I gasped.

  “You are bleeding!” she cried catching sight of my face as we approached a street-lamp.

  “I am not badly hurt,” I said. “Come we must get home.”

  My mother stopped suddenly: “Is it safe to go home?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They do not know where we live. That is why they had to wait for us at the pawn-broker.”

  And yet, I asked myself, how could they have known to find us there? I hesitated to ask my mother any questions about this.

  When we burst in upon Miss Quilliam a few minutes later I could see in her expression of alarm as if in a looking-glass, how ghastly we looked. One side of my mother’s face was bruised so that it rose in a livid welt, and her lip was cut and swollen, while blood from the top of my head was running down my cheeks and neck, making it appear that my injuries were much worse than they were. We looked at each other in the light of the candle that Miss Quilliam lit and then my mother flung her arms round me weeping.

  It was some time before poor Miss Quilliam could get any sense from us, but at last, while she bathed our injuries, we told her the bare facts of what had happened. To our disappointment we discovered that all but a few shillings of the money left from Mrs Purviance’s sovereign had gone, presumably dropped in the course of my mother’s attempt to produce the codicil, but the document itself was still safely in her possession. Miss Quilliam, who of course knew nothing of the codicil, listened curiously as we spoke of it and must have wondered as she gathered that it had been the cause of the attack.

  “I’ll never be able to get the locket back now,” my mother kept sobbing.

  Seeing how over-wrought and exhausted she was, Miss Quilliam put her to bed after giving her (somewhat to my dismay)
a powerful draught to make her sleep.

  When my mother was asleep Miss Quilliam held a whispered conference with me at the window. As we spoke we glanced occasionally at the bed across the room where, lying with the faint moonlight upon her face, my mother looked very young, so that it was almost as if she were a sleeping child under discussion by her anxious parents.

  “This was no mere robbery was it?” Miss Quilliam began.

  I shook my head.

  “And it was a document in your mother’s possession that they sought?”

  I nodded for I believed no harm could come of confirming this.

  “May I ask what it is?”

  I hesitated, remembering Bissett’s betrayal. Yet surely I could trust her?

  “I know very little about it,” I said, “except that it is a codicil to a will.”

  She said gravely: “You’re very young to shoulder such a burden, but I must tell you that I don’t believe your mother has the strength to bear up very much longer — I mean the strength of both body and mind.”

  I nodded.

  “Can you think of any means of obtaining money?” Seeing me hesitate she prompted: “Is the codicil of any value, that someone is so anxious to obtain it?”

  I remembered how suspicious I had become when Mr Sancious had made the same suggestion, but surely there could be no possibility of Miss Quilliam knowing any more than she was able to guess?

  “Some people once offered to buy it,” I said. “But my mother refused to sell it, although they offered a very large sum.”

  “I see that you don’t mention their names. But tell me if you believe it was they who were responsible for this attack?”

  I felt a particular delicacy in suppressing the names of the Mompessons since they were known to Miss Quilliam, but this was not my secret to divulge.

  I said: “I don’t believe they would go so far. However, from things that my mother has let drop it seems that there is another party who is determined to get hold of it and who would gain so much by it and is so ruthless that he would use any means.”

  I told her about the attempt to abduct me from the village and that I believed the same monstrously tall man was involved in both attempts. Then I went on: “My mother says that if this enemy of ours obtained it, our lives would be in danger, for he could only profit by it if she and I were both dead.”