CHAPTER 11
A little more than two months later, Lady Day came round which was the time appointed for Mrs Belflower to take her leave of us. My mother had explained to me immediately after the interview with Bissett which was supposed to result in her dismissal, that as soon as she had raised the need to dispense with one of the servants, Bissett had leapt with such alacrity to the conclusion that it was to be the cook and had sympathised so much with her distaste for breaking the news to Mrs Belflower, and at the same time so cheerfully assured her that a cook — unlike a children’s nurse who was getting on in years — would experience no difficulty in finding other employment, that my mother had not had the heart to tell her that it was she herself who was the chosen sacrifice, and so what Bissett had assumed — or had pretended to — had actually become the case.
So early that morning Mrs Belflower stood in the front hall with her boxes packed, waiting for the carrier to arrive. His road-waggon would convey her to the nearest post-town, Sutton Valancy, where she would take the coach to her new employer, who lived far away in a village in the extreme west in a county I had never even heard of. When the crunch was heard of the waggon’s wheels on the road outside, Sukey could restrain her tears no longer.
“Now you be a good gal,” said Mrs Belflower to Sukey in a would-be stern tone whose effect was somewhat marred by the steady stream of tears running down her cheeks. “Mind what I larned you and don’t overcook your greens.” She enfolded the weeping girl in her arms, and then, gently disengaging herself, turned to my mother. They held each other’s hand and both tried to smile: “I’ve been so happy here, ma’am. I don’t expect I’ll ever be so happy anywhere again. You’ve been a good, kind mistress that I couldn’t wish for better.”
“Oh Mrs Belflower,” my mother exclaimed, “I only wish …” She broke off.
“I do understand the need for it, Mrs Mellamphy, and I pray all will come out for the best with you and the little master.”
They embraced each other and gave way to tears. And so a very dismal sight must have been presented to the carter and his boy when they came into the hall to carry the boxes out to the waggon. At this moment Bissett came from the kitchen and stood beside me at the door, and as we looked at each other I was sure that she knew how much I wished it were she who was going. Then Mrs Belflower quickly released my mother and tottered slightly as she made towards us and I suddenly realized that she was really quite old to be starting over again in a new place. Bissett held out a hand as if to protect herself against any more compromising gesture.
“Goodbye, Mrs Bissett, and God bless you,” said Mrs Belflower grasping the proffered hand. “We’ve had noises, you and me, as ’twould be foolish to deny. But I’ve always respected you as a person that lives by the lights of her religion.”
“Goodbye, cook,” said Bissett; “and I hope you will come among godly people and find the light of grace yourself. I will pray for that.”
She released the hand and Mrs Belflower stood with a troubled expression as if wondering whether to speak.
“Ready now,” said the carrier loudly at that moment, putting his head round the door.
Mrs Belflower started at the summons, and then turned quickly to me: “I shall always think about you, Master Johnnie, and wonder what a fine young man you are growing up to be who will take care on your mother.” As she stooped to kiss me she said in a low voice: “Be sure not to make things no harder for her.”
“I don’t know what you mean!” I said, pulling myself away from her.
Mrs Belflower shook her head gently and then after a last embrace from my mother and Sukey, she made her way down the steps and was helped up onto the cart. Until it had rumbled out of sight we stood on the steps waving.
The house seemed very empty without Mrs Belflower and we conducted ourselves as if in mourning.
A week or so later my mother sent Sukey to summon me to her. When I entered the sitting-room I found that she was at the escritoire and had on her most business-like expression. “Johnnie, I have just heard from Mr Sancious that Uncle Martin left us nothing, as I had expected.”
“But he should have!” I exclaimed.
She blushed.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Why, he was your uncle, wasn’t he?”
“I called him ‘Uncle’ but he was no blood-relation to me,” she said, still looking rather conscious.
“No blood relation to us?” I exclaimed. I thought about this. Then a question I had pondered ever since I had seen the locket rose to my lips: “Mamma, is my father still alive?”
She blushed: “Johnnie, I … I don’t know how to answer you. One day you will know everything. I promise. But the good news I wanted to tell you is that Mr Sancious has agreed to advise me on my financial affairs.”
At that moment there was a tap on the door and Bissett came in: “I didn’t realize as Master Johnnie was here. I should like a private word with you, ma’am, if convenient.”
“We had just finished,” my mother answered. And so, taking the hint, I went into the kitchen where I found Sukey sitting, sobbing into her apron, at the table.
“Has she been teazing you?” I asked. “You should stand up to her.”
“It ain’t jist that, Master Johnnie,” she said. “I’ve heerd some bad news. Do you mind that fetch as we seen in the buryin’-ground the Christmas a-fore last? Well, I feared it was my dad’s. But when I hadn’t heerd nought by this Christmas jist gone by, I thought he was all right. But on’y yesterday my poor mither got a letter and when we taken it to the clerk he told us as it said my father was dead. He’d died a-fore Christmas so it was his fetch we seed.” She hid her face in her apron again.
“But this is March, Sukey. Why did it take so long to hear?”
“The letter had a long ways to go, Master Johnnie,” she replied and would say no more than this.
When, after some time, Bissett came into the kitchen I went to ask my mother what she had wanted, but she refused to tell me.
CHAPTER 12
Equity summons Law once again, and so a second time you may follow in imagination your quarry — who is, of course, Mr Sancious — to the house in Cursitor-street. Equity — who, as you likewise know, is none other than Mr Barbellion — is again waiting in the shadows of the same dark little room, but this time Mr Sancious enters with an air of self-confidence. Only the curtest of greetings is exchanged between them and they seat themselves at opposite ends of the table.
“To what do I owe the honour of this … invitation?” asks Mr Sancious.
“I require your further assistance.”
“On the same terms as before?”
“To the penny,” answers Mr Barbellion with a sneer.
Mr Sancious smiles: “I am not sure that I can oblige.”
“Indeed? And what has changed your mind?”
“Just this: Mrs Clothier has recently taken me more largely into her confidence.”
“I understand. You mean that your price for betraying her confidence has gone up. Continue.”
Mr Sancious scowls and says: “I wish to know who your client is and why he is so anxious to obtain the document.”
“But I, you see, am not at liberty to disclose my client’s affairs.”
Mr Sancious flinches at this but goes on: “But my dear sir, your name is so widely-known and respected within our profession that the identity of the great families who form your clientship is certainly no secret. Consequently, it has not been difficult for me to learn that the party in whose interests you are acting must be one of the following: the Earl of Chester, the Viscount Portsmouth, the families of Verney, Waldegrave, De Temperay, Mompesson, and de Coverley. It can only be a matter of time before I establish which of these it is.”
“And what then?”
“Simply that I would be able to set a fair price on my services.”
“I see. But are you saying that the fact that Mrs Clothier has confided in you is the strongest card you
hold?”
“Do not speak of cards, my good sir,” Mr Sancious replies with a well-bred shudder. “I deplore games of chance and never take risks on principle. Say rather, that I have you in check.”
“If we are talking in those terms, let us say that you are trying to fool’s mate me.” Mr Sancious flinches. “If you know so much, do you know where she is?” There is a silence and the attorney flushes and looks down. “You see I know,” Mr Barbellion goes on, “that you still have to write to her through Fortisquince’s widow. And since she has not trusted you enough to tell you even her whereabouts, I doubt if she has told you anything else.”
“How do you know all that?” Mr Sancious says in indignant surprise.
“That is my affair. But I am not wrong in thinking you do not know her whereabouts?”
Biting his lip, Mr Sancious shakes his head.
“I warn you to learn from this,” Mr Barbellion goes on, “that I too despise games of chance. If I play with dice I ensure — to borrow terms from your professional acquaintance — that they are cogged. Now, will you assist me?”
Mr Sancious nods and the other gentleman takes from his pocket-book another sheaf of bank-notes and places it upon the table: “Very soon Mrs Clothier will write to ask you if she can afford to raise the wages of a servant. You will reply advising her in the strongest terms that she cannot.”
“Is that all?” the attorney asks in surprise.
“That is all for the present,” Mr Barbellion replies and while he pulls the bell-cord, his guest rises, picks up the sheaf, and hurries to the door.
CHAPTER 13
At the end of the street Mr Sancious crosses Chancery-lane and plunges into a maze of dirty back-streets. As he walks he mutters angrily to himself and bites his lip. But now he slows his pace and glances back several times as if he has heard something. Then he begins to walk faster, his hand clutching his pocket. He turns into a long and curving alley. By the end of it he is almost running. Just as he turns to look back someone shoots out of the mouth of a lane beside him. Mr Sancious presses himself against the wall, his heart pounding, and holding his arms in front of his face as if to ward off a blow: “Prig from me and I take my oath you’ll be twisted for it!”
The other man, however, says in surprise: “I ain’t on that lay. It’s Mr Sancious, ain’t it? I’ve been follering you for a wery long time, guv’nor.”
Mr Sancious looks out through the shield formed by his arms. Before him is a tall, poorly-dressed individual with a large head with close-cropped reddish hair, a big nose, and bright, eager blue eyes.
“Following me! What do you mean? Who paid you?”
“Nobody never paid me. I’ve been watching you for days waitin’ for a chance to speak to you in private, like this. You are Mr Sancious, ain’t you?”
The lawyer nods.
“And a ’torney?” Mr Sancious nods again. “You’re the only cove o’ that name I could hear on. It was you what saved Conkey George from being marinated, wasn’t it?”
Mr Sancious nods again: “What do you want of me?”
“He was a pall o’ mine. But it’s the other way around, guv’nor. I got something what I reckons you wants.” At this he reaches into a pocket and brings out a crumpled piece of paper which seems to have been torn from a larger sheet. He holds it out for Mr Sancious to see.
“It’s upside-down,” the attorney gasps.
“Be damned to it,” mutters the other man. “ ’Tis all one to me.” He turns the paper round and Mr Sancious peers at it.
“I cannot read it,” he says. “It’s not close enough.”
He reaches towards it but the other man steps quickly back: “Don’t lay a finger on it. Can you foller it if I say it?”
“I believe so.”
The other man recites: “ ‘To kerkude, you should soon receive the play-things and books what I have arst Mr Sancious to purchase. Speaking of which cove, you will see as I ingclose another letter under cover from that genel’man. I must warn you as he has been a-tryin’ agin, in wery indireck ways, to find out from me your whereabouts and I believe he would give a great deal to know.’ ” As the stranger repeats these last words he stares intently at Mr Sancious’s face, as that gentleman peers at the letters in the dim light of the alley-way. “Well, are you in for the game?” the stranger demands folding the letter up and putting it back in his pocket.
“Possibly,” mutters Mr Sancious. “But is the direction given?”
“Oh-ho,” says the other man. “So you still want to know it, do you? Jist like it says here.”
“I’ll tell you what, my good man. I’ll give you a guinea for that letter.”
“A guinea!” the other man repeats in such a tone that Mr Sancious quickly says:
“Very well, we will discuss it. But somewhere else, for heaven’s sake.”
“The Swan-with-Two-Necks in Lad-lane?”
The attorney nods and they set off, the stranger leading the way along dark passage-ways whose walls drip water, through sunless back-courts which have no front, and along dingy side-streets, until they reach a run-down old drinking-house, with paint peeling from its front and its windows obscured by dirt. In a few minutes they are seated in a boxed-off section against the bar separated by wooden partitions from the rest of the tap-room with a glass before Mr Sancious and a tankard before his companion.
“That letter was written nearly two years ago. How came you by it and why have you taken so long to find me?” Mr Sancious asks as he drinks the brandy and water before him.
“Now that’s a story,” the stranger says, pouring half of his quart of porter down his throat. “It was the summer before last. I had reasons for getting off the stones jist then what I’m sure you won’t expeck me to go into. Now I’m a j’iner by trade, and there was a great fambly what I’d worked for in Town off and on for years and I heerd as how they was doing some work on their country-house down in ——shire and got took on by the steward what I knowed. (Though in a general way I don’t have no fancy for the country.)”
“What is the name of the family?” asks Mr Sancious.
“In my own time and my own way, if you please, Mr Sancious. When I gived that over I set out to go on the tramp back up to Town again. Well, I didn’t have no blunt so I stopped at a crib to arst for wittles. I went up a lane off the high road. There was a young lady with a little boy in the garding.”
Mr Sancious leans forward at this.
“Well, the young lady was all right, but there was an old witch of a sarvint with her, a nuss-maid or some such. And she purwented the young lady from giving me nothin’. And she said things to me that weren’t called for, neither.” At the memory his face darkens and he mutters an oath under his breath. “And then the young ’un starts on at me, too. Shouting and bawling. So I goes back up the lane to the road and just at the corner an old file calls out: ‘What did they say to you?’ So I tells him, and it seems he’s the gardener there and has a grudge agin ’em, or agin everybody as far as I can tell. And he says: ‘Mebbe you’d like to get square with ’em and do yourself some good?’ And I says: ‘What have you got in mind?’ And he says: ‘Look where they’ve gorn and left that ladder down in that airey. That’s an invitation if ever I seen one.’ Well, I sees what he meant and lets him know it. And then he offers me a bite of supper and so I goes into his cottage. And he gives me a long spade for hooking the ladder up when I get over the railing, and tells me which of the upper winders is a room that nobody don’t sleep in. So that night I climbs on top of the railings and gets the ladder while he plays bo-peep. Well, it goes all right at fust. I gets down into the airey, and then I puts the ladder agin the wall and climbs up to the winder. Well, I’ve got my kifers with me, so I gets to work on the shutters. But arter a bit I finds I can’t get them open no-how. Not without making a lot of noise, anyhow. Then I notices that the shutters of the next winder are unbarred, so I thinks: ‘Well, if I’m very quiet I can mebbe get in that way even if there is someon
e sleeping. Leastways, I can take a look.’ So I gets up there and I’m just openin’ the shutters to look in when I’ll be blessed if that same boy don’t wake up and start screaming fit to bring the roof down. Well, next thing, I find I can’t move the ladder ’cause it’s got jammed into the angle of the wall and the ground on account of my weight. Well, the only thing now is to get through one of the winders down there. So I breaks the shutter-clasps and then smashes through the glazing-bars. So I climbs in and jist for the sake of me own self-respeck I ketches a hold onto some candle-sticks, but they was too big to carry easy, so I drops ’em. All I takes for my pains is a letter-case. A silver ’un. So then I gets the street-door open and I jist bolts. And the old file is waiting for me up the road and he says, ‘What did you get?’ Well, I knows he could make trouble and anyways he sees the case in me pocket. So I shows it to him, then I rips the lid off of it and throws it into the ditch and runs off. And when I looks back there he is, a-grubbin’ in the weeds for it. So arter that I keeps on running the rest of the night, ready to jump off the road into the hedge if I sees or hears anything coming behind me, ’cause I knows if I’m ketched with that letter-case, it’s Botany Bay or the tree with only one leaf for me. Well, towards dawn I makes it to a big old barn where I’d kipped on the way down on account of it being about two days’ tramp from Mumpsey-park.”
“From where?” asks Mr Sancious quickly.
“Mumpsey-park. That’s the big house what I told you of. Mumpsey’s the name of the people what owns it.”
“Mumpsey,” Mr Sancious says and shakes his head.
“Well,” the man continues, “I wraps the letter-case up in a piece of soft-leather to keep it dry, and don’t even think to open it up. Then I hides it in a hole in the wall and keeps on a-runnin’. Well, then it were more than a year a-fore I goes down there agin, but a six-month back, I goes to the barn and finds the letter-case jist as I’d left it. That’s when I opens it and finds the screeve inside. Well I was going to throw it away but then I thinks to meself ‘Well, I’ve heerd on screeves and dockyments as is worth a deal of money,’ so I decides not to. Now as it happens, Mr Sancious, my eddication was sorely neglected, first on account of my father being a lushington and secondly ’cause even though when I was a younker I ’tended the Floating ’Cademy at Chatham, the truth is I larned more about picking oakum and gettin’ beat than about conning my books. So the long and the short of it was, I showed the screeve to my brother’s gal. She’s a sharp ’un and can read you off any amount of words faster nor a dog can trot — both writin’ and print. So that’s how I heard on a Mr Sancious as was a split-cause and was so eager to find the direction on the front of this cover. It’s taken me a deal of time and trouble since then to run you down. So, Mr Sancious, don’t you talk to me about no guinea.”