Quincunx

  “Mamma,” I whispered.

  I felt a shadow fall across me and glanced up. The Irishwoman who had given me bread was beside me and was gazing at me with an expression I could not read. She reached past me and began to pull up the edge of the ragged blanket. She drew it further and further and when I saw her intention I put out my hand and cried “No!” She looked at me for a moment, and when I let my hand fall she went on pulling the blanket up until it obscured my mother’s face.

  Characters who never appear directly in the narrative are in italics. Those who might possess the estate if Jeoffrey Huffam’s suppressed codicil were in force appear in bold typeface.

  PART THREE

  THE CLOTHIERS

  HOLBORN (Scale: 1″=70 yards)

  The top of the page is North

  Inheritances

  CHAPTER 51

  I invite you to return with me now to No. 27 Golden-square where, in that elegant morning-room with which you are familiar, we find Mrs Fortisquince in the middle of a rancorous argument with a guest.

  “I don’t understand how she did it,” she is saying.

  “Never mind how it happened. All that matters is that now we’ll get nothing for her from the old man.”

  “It’s hardly my fault that she got away.”

  “Oh no?”

  “Certainly not. I believed I was the only friend she had in London. So she told me many times.”

  “She lied,” Mr Sancious says bitterly. “You allowed yourself to be taken in by her plausible manner.”

  “It is ungracious of you to reproach me. You owe everything to my generosity. When Mrs Clothier and her son came to me for help, did I not frankly come and confide in you?”

  “You confided in me, certainly, ma’am, but you have been rewarded for that. And as for frankness, well I’m sure I don’t know how frank you’ve been. Why are you so anxious that old Clothier should not know of your involvement?”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “Well, he’ll have to know now for I’ll not take all the blame upon myself.”

  Mrs Fortisquince fixes him with her gaze and says softly: “If you tell him, I promise you that you will regret it.”

  The attorney bites his lip and then says: “Well, I suppose he doesn’t need to know. I’ll take the brunt of his anger myself, then. But at least he’ll be pleased that we’ve made the boy safe for him.” She nods and he adds: “And soon he’ll be even safer.”

  Mrs Fortisquince, however, says sharply: “I hope you don’t mean …”

  She leaves the rest unsaid.

  He stares at her in amazement: “But that’s what we agreed!”

  “Indeed we did not. We talked merely of making him safe.”

  “But I believed you meant what is usually meant by that term.”

  “I don’t know what you meant by the term. I meant what is commonly meant: that we could lay our hands upon him when we wanted to. He must not be harmed. Not yet.”

  “Your concern for the boy does you honour,” Mr Sancious says with a sneer.

  “I promise you, if anything befalls him, I will go to the authorities.”

  “I think not, Mrs Fortisquince, for in that case the good Quigg might say more than either of us would wish.”

  They stare at each other and then the widow slowly smiles: “Come, it is foolish for us to quarrel when all we can achieve is to harm ourselves.”

  “Well said, madam. We can gain so much more by being friends.”

  Mrs Fortisquince rings for Checkland and instructs her to bring tea, and so ten minutes later the two are sitting comfortably together on the ottoman.

  The widow looks thoughtfully at her guest and begins: “There is something I have been meaning to ask you for some time, Mr Sancious. As you perhaps know, I inherited from my husband some interests in landed property and securities.”

  The attorney nods gravely.

  “While he lived, of course,” Mrs Fortisquince goes on, “he handled them himself, and since his death my affairs have been in the hands of an attorney appointed by him as his executor. Though it seems disloyal to say it, I have not been altogether happy with his conduct of my affairs. In particular, now that the rate of interest on government stock has been reduced, I believe I could do better than my agent has been able to procure for me.”

  “Most certainly you could, ma’am!” the attorney exclaims. “Have you considered the bill-market?”

  “I have not. Is it not rather uncertain?”

  “No indeed. It’s as safe as the Bank of England — quite literally so, for it is the Bank itself that ultimately backs up bills drawn upon the banking-houses. And the Bank has not even suspended payment in gold within your lifetime, for the last time that happened was in ’97.” (The lady smiles at the compliment.) “I have plunged heavily myself. And though at first I was hesitant, now I am glad that I allowed myself to be persuaded, for the market has soared so much that I only wish I had gone in earlier. The truth is, I have staked everything I have. The market has never done so well. Go in now, and I’ll wager that by Christmas you’ll bless me for it.”

  Mrs Fortisquince raises her cup to her lips, watching him thoughtfully.

  CHAPTER 52

  Of what happened then I have no clear recollection. I only recall shouting and screaming at the old woman and perhaps even trying to hit her, for I know that I had to be dragged away from her by the young Irishman. Then I remember feeling a sudden nausea and clutching my stomach in the belief that I was going to be sick, for I recall the expression on the man’s face as he released me and stepped back. And after that I recollect throwing myself on the floor beside her, possessed by a terrible rage and hitting the rotten boards with my fist and digging my nails into my palms until they bled. And one thing more I recall — that I did not weep.

  I had refused to recognise what was plainly visible in her face when I had seen her on the steps of Mrs Purviance’s house just a few hours before, as if by denying it I could forestall it. I had prepared no defences against what had now happened and as the remorseless truth of it beat against me like an incoming tide, I felt myself collapsing inside like a fortress of sand built by a child. For I had never considered that she would die. And now as I thought of all the times I had answered her insolently or shewn my irritation at her or jeered at her understanding or pressed her too hard to reveal things she wished not to, I burned with remorse and rage.

  Hours passed. I may have slept but I cannot say for there was no difference between my waking and dreaming nightmares: the hideous, unblinking, monstrous fact that she was dead. Then slowly I became aware that dim light was entering the chamber through the rag-stuffed and begrimed windows and that other people were stirring near me. I looked at the silent form beside me, the blanket still pulled over the face, and could not believe that she would not tug it away and smile at me and tell me it had all been a game. I heard rough voices, children crying, drunken shouts and curses from which one cry emerged: “Stow yer racket, for the last time.” I did not look round to see if the speaker was addressing me but when I turned my head some minutes later I found that Lizzie was sitting near-by cross-legged, combing her straggling grey locks with one claw and watching me.

  “Don’t take on so,” she said. “You’ll get over it.”

  The thought horrified me: I did not want to be the person I would have to become if I ever got over it.

  “You’ve no money to bury her, have you?” the crone continued.

  I shook my head.

  “You must go to the paritch,” she said. “They will take care on her.”

  When I paid her no attention she seized my arm: “You’ve got to bury her dacent.”

  “Where do I go?” I asked in order to quiet her, for I thought it did not matter what became of her body.

  She gave me directions to the house in Leather-lane from which the parish-clerk conducted his business and as she spoke it suddenly came to me that it did matter. It mattered very much. And as
I rose to go a thought, a memory rather, occurred to me.

  “Will you watch over her?” I asked.

  “I will. Set your mind at ease.”

  I groped my way down the treacherous stair — still in near-darkness — and found myself in the flooded court. The storm had burnt itself out and the wind had fallen, but the louring sky shed little light and the rain still descended with a relentless malevolence.

  The directions I had been given soon brought me to the house I sought where a young skivvy at the kitchen-door rather doubtfully admitted me to the scullery. There I was kept waiting nearly an hour while Mr Limpenny — for the girl had told me his name — finished his breakfast, for I had not realized how early it still was. At last the servant-girl led me into his presence in the “breakfast-parlour” where he sat over his teapot and the remains of his meal, reading The Morning Post.

  “What do you want?” he asked abruptly, only half-lowering his paper.

  I stood before him and tried to speak but no words came.

  “Gome, speak out, boy. Don’t waste my time,” he said testily.

  “It’s about my mother.”

  “I’ll thank you to address me with respect,” he interrupted. “I beg your pardon, sir,” I said. Then I attempted to go on: “My mother … my mother has just died and I have no money to bury her.”

  “That’s very fortunate,” he answered.

  As I stared at him in amazement he wiped his hands fastidiously on a napkin and went on: “We bury paupers once a week and by good chance tomorrow is our burying day.”

  Without looking at me, he stood up and walked out of the room.

  Unsure what was expected of me, I followed him across the passage and found myself in a tiny room that, from the bundles of papers secured with pink ribbon, the old chests, and the tin deed-boxes that were piled in corners or stacked on shelves, obviously served as an office. “There are certain formalities to be discharged,” he said, sitting at a little desk. He pulled out a drawer and removed a printed paper, mended a quill and glanced up at me: “Name of deceased pauper?”

  “Mrs Mary Mellamphy, sir,” I said, suddenly not wanting to reveal our true name.

  “Mellamphy, female. Irish, I suppose,” he said wearily. “What is the parish of settlement of your mother’s husband?” Then with a sneer he corrected himself: “I should say, your father?”

  “I don’t know, Mr Limpenny.”

  He sighed. “You people. What makes you think you’re entitled to come here and die at the rate-payers’ expense without so much as a by-your-leave? I suppose it’s nothing to you that you’ve deprived this parish of its right to reclaim the cost of burying your mother from her own parish of settlement? Why, do you realize it would cost two pounds to bury a pauper decently? The coffin alone would come to twelve shillings!”

  No answer seemed to be required and I ventured none.

  “I suppose you’ll want someone to lay her out?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I should think so,” he said indignantly as if I had denied the need for this. Then he added: “And the parish pays for that, too.” He took another piece of paper and began to fill it in. “Address of deceased?”

  “Mitre-court, sir.”

  “I might have guessed it,” he said. He passed the second piece of paper to me. “Now take this order to No. 2 Ely-court and ask for Mrs Lillystone.”

  “And is that all?”

  “What more do you want?” he demanded angrily, ringing a bell that stood on the desk. “Now get off with you.” The girl appeared at the door.

  “Show this boy straight out,” Mr Limpenny said. “Mind, I say straight.”

  Back in the street I looked at the piece of paper I had been given and saw that it instructed Mrs Lillystone to wash, lay out, and put into a shroud the body of a “female pauper” at the address given. When I had found my way to the house and knocked at the door, there was a long silence before an upstairs window was raised and the head of a woman appeared.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “It’s my mother,” I had to call up to her.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Mitre-court.”

  “I know. Is she near her time?”

  “She has passed it,” I said.

  She stared at me hard then withdrew her head and banged the window shut. A minute or two later she opened the street-door and I saw that she was a large, slovenly woman in a gown that was none too clean. She was pulling on her bonnet and tying the strings.

  “Come,” she said. “There ain’t no time to be lost in sich a case.”

  “I don’t think you understand me,” I said and handed her the order.

  Without doing more than glance at it she gave it back: “That don’t mean nothing to me. I can’t read.”

  “It’s for a laying out.”

  She laughed: “I thought it was the other thing,” she said. “I heerd there was a woman there near her time. But then, it’s all one to me, a laying out or a lying in. I sees ’em into the world and I sees ’em out. And more often nor otherwise, the one follows hard upon the other.”

  Suddenly she said “Wait!” and shut the door.

  I huddled myself into the door-way to try to escape the rain which was still falling steadily. About ten minutes later Mrs Lillystone opened the door again and came out carrying a number of articles: a small copper, a tin bason, and over her arm a shroud of the cheapest material.

  As we walked along she asked: “Did you leave her with a relative to watch?”

  “Not a relative,” I said. “An old woman.”

  She hissed slightly through her teeth but said nothing more until we reached Mitre-court when she exclaimed in distaste at the floods of foul water over which she had to venture on her pattens. She objected strongly to the condition of the stairs as if I were to blame, and made a great business of getting up them with the articles she was carrying, at the same time refusing to entrust any of them to myself.

  When we entered the room it seemed to me that a silence fell among the people who were there and I saw to my surprise that while Lizzie was not to be seen, there was a family of strangers seated near our corner of the room. Mrs Lillystone and the middle-aged Irishwoman greeted each other and when I indicated to the layer-out the blanketed form in the corner of the room, she crossed to it and drew back the ragged covering.

  “As I thought,” she said. “Everything has gone.”

  I covered my face and turned away.

  “The old woman stripped her,” said a woman belonging to the strange family. “She said she was her daughter and she was going to lay her out, but she went away with her clothes and hasn’t come back.”

  “She’s left nothing but this ring,” Mrs Lillystone commented and raised the hand.

  I did not look.

  “Aye, she could not get it off,” said another of the interested neighbours.

  I did not need to look for I remembered that it was the plain brass ring which my mother had exchanged on the day of the bailiff’s raid for the gold wedding band that she had sold. It had her initials rudely etched upon it and was worth only a penny or two.

  “Well, she’s done some of my work for me,” said Mrs Lillystone, rolling up the sleeves of her gown.

  “You’re not going to do it here, are you?” I protested.

  “Where else?” she demanded.

  “But it’s not decent,” I said, and indicated the other people in the room.

  Those nearest murmured in agreement and made a point of ostentatiously turning their backs towards that corner of the chamber, but I saw that I had to submit to this arrangement.

  The kind Irishwoman indicated that I should sit with them but as I made to move away, Mrs Lillystone said: “Not before you’ve filled this copper for me.”

  So I went down to the pump and when I returned and helped Mrs Lillystone to place the filled copper over the fire, I could not help noticing that she had bound my mother’s face with a rag t
o keep the jaw closed. Shuddering, I joined the family of poor Irish as I had been invited, and they insisted that I share their pitiful breakfast of bread and herring, and, though barely able to speak more than a few words of English, tried to talk to me in an effort to distract my attention from the other end of the room.

  At last Mrs Lillystone announced that she had done and I saw the long shape roughly stitched into the cheap winding-sheet.

  “I found this under her,” she said and held out the pocket-book with the letter inscribed with her father’s name still in it.

  I took it from her and pushed it into my jacket. Wryly I recalled my legal tutorials: I was her heir-at-law and everything she owned now belonged to me.

  “The dead-cart will call early tomorrow,” Mrs Lillystone said.

  I expected her to depart but she stayed at the door looking at me strangely: “You won’t want to stay here till then, will you?” She screwed her face into an expression which I realized was intended to express motherly sympathy. “Not with that in the room. Why not come and sleep in my house tonight?”

  I don’t know and I never will know how justified I was in suspecting her display of kindliness, but I had the darkest suspicions of her motives, for I had not forgotten Mr Isbister’s allusions to the services of parish searchers. I merely shook my head, and, gathering up the implements of her trade, she left.

  I watched beside the body all through the rest of that day and the long night that followed. The Irishwoman had given me a piece of dry bread at midday and a little of their porage in the evening, and I was not hungry. When dusk began to gather, the deputy who kept the room had returned and demanded his tuppence, pointing out that my mother occupied the same floor space and should therefore pay for it, or he would “catch it hot” from Mr Ashburner if he should happen to look in. However, when the other occupants of the room protested he had backed down and agreed to take only a penny.

  Though I was determined to observe my vigil and not to sleep, I could not keep my resolution. My dreams, however, brought me no relief. I found myself in a great empty house, walking from one vast room to another or along passages so lengthy that though I carried a lanthorn their ends were lost in darkness. Then the floor began to creak and to sway and as I ran across it to find safety it crumbled beneath my feet and I crashed into the room beneath. Now there was a huge window before me through which I could see nothing but a great white moon in the black sky. Then the head and shoulders of a veiled figure appeared from below, and to my dismay the veil slipped away and revealed a face — and yet it was not a face, for the skin was deeply pitted, the eyes were blank, and the nose no more than a chewed stump. Now it grew larger and to my horror came thrusting at me through the window and I awoke in terror.