Quincunx

  CHAPTER 88

  The Huffams — or Houghams as they originally spelled the name — are a family of auncient and honourable lineage. The original founder of the family was given a grant of the manor of Hougham by the Conqueror himself, and in later centuries some of their wives came of royal stock. The blood of the Plantagenets flows through your veins, Master John. They held the estate quietly for the next few hundred years, gradually extending and improving it. They built the Old Hall while Henry IV was on the throne and very cannily managed to avoid the consequences of the civil wars between the factions of the white and red roses that did so much harm during the rest of that century. At the Dissolution they acquired considerable new lands from the old Carthusian monastery that had owned much of the property around there, and thus they became one of the greatest families in the county. But they adhered to the Church party — some say they were secret Papists — and so it was that during the Civil Wars in the following century they backed the King and thereby forfeited part of their estates when the Royalist cause was lost and many estates were sequestrated. Much of their land went to a family who had been small squires in the neighbourhood for many years and who had been shrewd enough to have backed Cromwell — I speak of the Mompessons. They claimed equal antiquity with the Huffams, insisting that they had given the name to the nearby village of Mompesson St. Lucy. But your own family always looked down upon them as upstarts and said that they had been yeomen-tenants of theirs and that they had taken their name from the village and not the other way round.

  Then the Huffams tried to win back what they had lost by making friends with the Parliamentarians and they came down fiercely against the Papists. Well, who can blame them? We’ve heard plenty about families trimming in their faith in order to better themselves. Yes, and converting from more than Papistry. However, they had misjudged the temper of the times, while on the other hand the Mompessons were long-headed enough to foresee the Restoration. So the Huffams regained nothing at that happy event and the Mompessons retained what they had acquired, and by the beginning of the old Queen’s reign they were fine gentlefolks — though nothing like as rich as us for we were still among the largest land-owners in that country. For it was a very fine property that your grandfather inherited and without any burdens since he was the only son, though he had two sisters, Laetitia and Louisa. I fear that as a young man he was wild and reckless, almost as much as your father, and racketed around the Town with other young bloods and they got into all manner of scrapes. He gambled and drank and spent his time and money in the way of wealthy young gentlemen at the time — indeed, at all times, I suppose. And he borrowed money, a great deal of it, for he needed it to set up his carriage and his horses and his … Well, everything that a young gentleman on the Town needs. He had already begun to borrow against his expectations even before he attained his majority, although the security he could give was in law worthless unless he chose to honour it. When he came into the estate at his father’s death he honoured these debts (despite the advice of Mr Paternoster that he should repudiate them) and in order to do so he borrowed heavily against the security of the land he had inherited.

  Now the individual to whom he became most deeply indebted was Nicholas Clothier who was a merchant and money-lender and projector and all manner of bad things. Your grandfather called him a mushroom man for he had risen quickly and in the dark. He referred to him as Old Nick and said he was rightly named. Clothier was already very rich and what he sought was to ally himself with a respectable old family and buy his way into landed society. So he fastened upon your grandfather and within a few years the estate was so deeply mortgaged to him that Mr Jeoffrey was very near to failing to keep up the interest payments and thereby giving him the chance to foreclose. But then, at the very last moment, he saved the estate. You see, your grandfather had a great deal of pride in his family and could not abide the thought of our ancestral lands falling into the clutches of a low bill-broker. So he shut down this house and went back to Hougham and lived there, taking the management of the estate entirely into his own hands. And by this means he retrieved his position and within a few years was safe from Clothier, who was furious at being cheated — as he conceived it — at the last moment of what he had expected to fall into his grasp.

  Well, all went well for some years and would have continued so had your grandfather not taken the fever for building that was all the rage amongst the gentry then. For instead of redeeming the securities still held by Clothier when they fell due, as would have been prudent, he renewed them so that he could spend his money on bricks and mortar. The Old Hall seemed to him not to be fit for a gentleman, and so he resolved to build himself a fine new house nearby. It was strange that he never cared much about where he lived in Town and was content to go on living in this house, though it was no longer in a tonish quarter once they built those new streets beyond St. James and even out as far as Tyburn. (For this district has declined sadly. The gentry have been moving away from here for the last fifty or sixty years, so this house is worth much less than when your grandfather promised it to me. You’ll maybe have noticed the Bagnio next door at No. 16 with the line of carriages and chairs outside it? And the soldiers’ tuppenny drabs along the wall of the Privy-gardens? This was why your grandfather turned the house around and stuck on a vestibule so that the back is now the front.) Of course, now that he had thrown up his old ways, he only came to Town on business about the building and furnishing of his new house. But it was while he was here that he made the acquaintance of Mr David Mompesson, the eldest son of that family, who was of an age with him. He was ambitious to establish himself in Society and, claiming the privileges of a fellow-countryman, succeeded in making the acquaintance of Mr Jeoffrey. He was determined to ally himself with your family and, knowing of your grandfather’s pecuniary embarrassments, paid his addresses to his younger sister, Louisa, and after a time was so bold as to request of Mr Jeoffrey her hand in marriage.

  But your grandfather, remembering how the Mompessons had gained what wealth they had and considering them to be beggarly upstarts, was furious at his impertinence and refused him in somewhat insulting terms. Mr Mompesson took this very ill and, as you will hear, resolved upon gaining satisfaction for the slight. Determined to elevate his family’s fortunes, he found himself as rich a bride as his rank could bring him, the daughter of a Bristol merchant. He went into partnership with his father-in-law and, shortly after the birth of his son, Hugo, he sailed for the West-indies, where he remained for upwards of ten years. His wife also bore him a daughter, Anna, who was born some months after his departure.

  Your grandfather, too, spending more and more money on his building mania, began to look about for a rich bride and also found himself an heiress. And her money was all he ever cared for, I fear, because there was no love between them — and this led to trouble. And shortly afterwards his first child, a daughter whom he named Alice, was born.

  Then Mr David Mompesson returned to England, having made a great fortune in the West-indian trade and acquired sugar-plantations and ships and I don’t know what not. He bought himself that new house in Brook-street which his family still occupies. Then he went into Parliament and purchased a baronetcy, (and your grandfather used to say that though the king might have made him a baronet, the Devil himself couldn’t make him a gentleman). And he took out a grant of arms incorporating the Huffam quincunx into his blazon, claiming that it had aunciently been the device of the Mompessons — though your grandfather was mighty angry at the impertinence. But he did not buy himself a landed seat for he had set his heart by one means or another on acquiring the Hougham property, partly because of the villages nearby named “Mompesson” which he believed would vindicate his family’s claim to auncientness, but also in order to get revenge for your grandfather’s out-of-hand rejection of his suit. But because his health was broken down by the tropics, he died soon after his return to England. His son, the present Sir Hugo, inherited his father’s West-indian p
lantations along with his ambition to own your grandfather’s estate.

  And he believed he had a good chance, for at that time, of course, your grandfather had no son, for your father was not born until some years after Mr Jeoffrey’s second child, Miss Sophia. Knowing of your grandfather’s pressing need for money, Sir Hugo calculated that, wealthy and titled as he was, he might succeed in forming an alliance where his father had failed, for your grandfather’s elder daughter, Miss Alice, was then almost of marriageable age.

  So Sir Hugo set out to renew the acquaintance with your grandfather which the two families had distantly maintained. But when he offered for her hand, Mr Jeoffrey insisted that she was too young to think of marriage and Sir Hugo feared that he was putting him off with excuses and that he would be rejected as an upstart, just as his own father had been. However, one way or another Mr Jeoffrey was brought to agree to the marriage. And the terms he accepted in the articles of marriage were very favourable to Sir Hugo, for your grandfather bound himself to settle the estate on the eldest son of the marriage if he himself died without a son. (His wife was then well advanced in years and was believed to be past the age of child-bearing.)

  There was a grand wedding, by all accounts. Sir Hugo loved pomp and splendour and heraldry and all that kind of thing and he had the house in Brook-street ablaze with lights and filled with heraldic emblems. But how briefly the truce between the two families lasted! The trouble came when Sir Hugo and his lady’s first child turned out to be a girl — christened Lydia — and was followed by no other child, and your grandfather refused to make a will in the infant’s favour. He argued that he had promised to favour the eldest son only. And perhaps the reason why she grew up such a strange creature, by all accounts, is that she was resented by her parents — for if she had been a boy everything would have been quite otherwise.

  Well, the next thing that happened was that, after all, it became known that your grandmother was expecting another child. And when your father was born the rift between your grandfather and the Mompessons became very wide. As you must know, your grandmother died in childbed and the infant was a weakling, and I suppose that it was because of this and being his father’s late-born son and having a doating elder sister, Miss Sophia, that your father grew up spoiled and indulged.

  All these years your grandfather had been building at Hougham instead of putting money into improvements on the estate, and therefore he had been getting deeper and deeper into debt to Clothier. (It cost a deal of money for he had to clear the village that stood near the Old Hall, in order to lay out the park.) At last, about ten years after the birth of your father and about six years before I entered Mr Jeoffrey’s service, Clothier was once again ready to foreclose. Your grandfather, however, proposed a bargain whereby his younger daughter, Miss Sophia, who was then a beautiful and sweet young lady of eighteen, should marry the old man. In return for Clothier’s agreement to extend the mortgages, Mr Jeoffrey consented to a marriage settlement which stipulated that the eldest son of the marriage be made heir to the Hougham property next after your father. Clothier reckoned that your father, then a sickly child of ten, would not survive to his inheritance. Your grandfather bound himself by covenant to make such a will, hoping, of course, that his son would survive to father an heir so that the clause would be worthless.

  Well, a son was born to Clothier and Miss Sophia the following year, and that was young Mr Silas of whom you may have heard something — none of it good, I’ll wager. When, however, Mr Jeoffrey did nothing about making a new will as he had undertaken to do, old Clothier began to threaten once again to foreclose. Your grandfather resisted making any new will at all since he was determined not to risk making young Mr Silas his heir in remainder until your father had married and fathered a child. But since, as he approached the age of majority, he showed no sign of doing so, eventually Mr Jeoffrey decided to make a new will but to do it without mentioning Master Silas.

  CHAPTER 89

  So this was how the land lay at the time I was speaking of just now, almost exactly twenty years ago. Mr Jeoffrey’s attorney, Mr Paternoster, drew up the will with my assistance and I was very gratified when your grandfather said that he intended to bequeath me this house as a mark of his gratitude and good-will towards me. (He had also increased my salary and all of this meant that I could marry at last.) Apart from that bequest, the new will simply confirmed the terms of his previous will making your father his outright heir, though your grandfather was sorely afraid that he intended to sell the estate when he should come into it. Mr Jeoffrey did not even mention his grandson, Silas, in the will — contrary to what he had covenanted to do.

  Well, Clothier insisted that your grandfather should show him the will in order to satisfy him that he had done what he had bound himself to, and when Mr Jeoffrey refused he went to law and got nearly all that he sought, for when the court ordered your grandfather to discover the will and it was found that he had ignored his undertaking, he was ordered to add a codicil to it naming Master Silas as heir in remainder and to have it witnessed by Mr Clothier himself.

  Well, now, your grandfather and Mr Paternoster and I had many a long discussion about what should be done both to prevent your father from selling the estate if he should inherit it, and to reduce Silas Clothier’s chance of inheriting in default of him. Mr Paternoster came up with a way of atchieving both ends: the codicil should entail the estate on your father (though since he had no heir, the entail was only upon him and it would not be difficult for him to break or bar it), and should name Master Silas as the heir in remainder if the entailed line should fail. This meant that he could only inherit if he were still alive when all the descendants of your father were dead. And if young Mr Silas were no longer alive at such time, then the entail passed to the only member of his family with whom Mr Jeoffrey had not quarrelled at that date — his elder sister, Miss Laetitia, who had married a gentleman called Maliphant. Finally, to allay your grandfather’s fears altogether, Mr Paternoster pointed out that there was nothing to stop him either revoking the codicil or making a new will if he chose, except that the Clothiers would contest this in Chancery — as, indeed, they have done. And so the codicil was drawn up in these terms and witnessed by Clothier himself.

  Naturally, your grandfather was very anxious that your father should marry as soon as possible in order to preserve the line, but when, shortly afterwards, Master James told him he had chosen a bride, Mr Jeoffrey very strongly opposed his choice. He believed that her family was not rich or well-born enough. And there were other reasons why he was against the match. For one thing, the whole family had been set at odds by a scandal over the fact that the daughter of Sir Hugo and Lady Mompesson — the queer young creature I told you of — had fallen in love with the lady’s brother, John Umphraville. Her parents opposed the match and your grandfather supported them over this. His nevy, George Maliphant, on the other hand, took the young people’s part and as a consequence Mr Jeoffrey quarrelled with him and determined to strike out his remaindership. Conversely, your grandfather’s sister, Louisa Palphramond, supported Mr Jeoffrey and so came back into favour with him. In the event the marriage between the girl and young Umphraville did not take place because of your grandfather’s opposition.

  Your father, however, succeeded in defying your grandfather for he and your mother made it up to run away together and be married. Because he had to do it secretly he acquired a special licence and arranged for the ceremony to be performed somewhere where his father would neither know of it nor be able to prevent it. Because of this there has always been a mystery about the marriage. And though it grieves me to say it, Master John, you must know that the accursed Clothiers have doubted the marriage — that is to say, they are claiming that it never took place and that therefore you are illegitimate. And since your parents are dead and no witnesses to the ceremony are known, nor any record of it in any of the parish registers that have been examined, I am afraid that they have a very strong case. So your grand
father’s opposition may have brought about what he most feared: the disinheriting of his own descendants.

  CHAPTER 90

  Well, early in the Spring of the following year your grandfather became very ill and when he realized that he was dying, he was haunted by the fear that your father would dock the entail and sell the property to Nicholas Clothier or, which was hardly less agreeable a thought, to Sir Hugo. He besought Mr Paternoster to think of a way to prevent this, but in vain. Then everything changed suddenly and you were the cause of it, Master John. For as soon as news came of your birth Mr Paternoster perceived a means to thwart your father’s intentions and outwit both Clothier and the Mompessons. However, I knew nothing of this at the time for I was down at Hougham, and everything I am now about to tell you I discovered only long afterwards.

  Following Mr Paternoster’s design Mr Jeoffrey made another will cutting out your father entirely by entailing the estate upon you. Yes, Master John, you are in Equity the entailed heir to the property and should be in possession of it at this minute. But be patient and I will tell you what happened. (I might also mention that your grandfather chose to take the risk of leaving out all mention of Master Silas and defying the Clothiers to contest it. And because he had quarrelled with his nevy George and made up with his niece, Amelia, he wanted to punish him and reward her. And so the entail, instead of going to him and his heirs in default of your issue, now passed to his niece Amelia and her heirs.)

  Now I have to tell you a terrible thing. Immediately after making this will, your grandfather died and so no-one knew that it existed except Mr Paternoster and the other witness to it who was one of his own clerks. And Mr Paternoster removed and suppressed it; and not only that but he also removed the codicil from the original will. (I will explain his motives in a moment.) So he produced the original will and said that your grandfather had revoked the codicil shortly before he died, and his clerk confirmed this for Mr Paternoster had paid him to hold his tongue and say what he was bid. Consequently, that earlier will was sent to probate. Of course Nicholas Clothier challenged it in the Court of Consistory, alleging that the codicil had been illegally suppressed, but since he had no evidence the case was dismissed after only a few months.