Charles Palliser (69 page)

For the rest of that day I rehearsed this sequence of events and choices so that I could act without needing to think, made ready my shirt and jacket to hold the potatoes, and practised gathering them up quickly. At last, as the dusk thickened, I heard the boys returning from work. Watching through the gaps in the boards I saw them go into the barn and then the Quiggs carrying their dinner in. At last the Quiggs came out, carrying lanthorns for it was now nearly dark, and locked the barn-door. Were they going to ignore me and immediately release the dogs? It appeared that they were talking together and despite all that I had earlier decided, I was tempted to make my escape now in the hope that they would not check. But just at that moment one of the lanthorns separated itself from the other two and came towards me. Quickly I lay on the floor and peered through a crack between my eye-lids. The lanthorn was held up above the door and a couple of potatoes hit the straw beside me. As soon as the light was removed I gathered up the potatoes and stuffed them into my shirt, went to the loosened board and removed it as quietly as I could, then stepped out into the yard. I heard the barking of the dogs quicken in the way that indicated that they were about to be released. My heart thumping and my instincts urging me to run, I forced myself to replace the plank, wedging it firmly back in place. Then I hurried to the wall and began to clamber up it.

Although characteristic of that country, being made of large stones which offered many holds for the hands and feet, it was more difficult than I had anticipated because of my weakened condition and the awkwardness of the potatoes inside my shirt. Indeed, as I reached the top, three or four of them fell and I dared not climb down for FACES FROM THE PAST

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them since I would now be easily visible against the star-scattered sky from the farmhouse, were it not for the intervening barn.

Just as I began lowering myself down the other side I felt suddenly dizzy, and, rather than resist and risk injuring myself against the stones, I surrendered to the sensation of falling. To my horror, however, I fell much further than I had anticipated for there was a ditch on this side whose presence I had not suspected, and consequently I landed heavily and awkwardly.

Although I had bruised my knee and grazed my shins, as well as twisted my ancle, I did not think my injuries were any more serious. But I quickly had something else to occupy me, for I heard the dogs running over to this side of the yard, probably having heard the sounds of my fall which — I hoped — had eluded the duller senses of their master. From the noises the animals began making just on the other side of the wall, I realized that they had found the potatoes and were devouring them. Thank goodness they were consuming the evidence instead of carrying it back to Quigg! I breathed as quietly as I could and after a few desultory barks, they dashed away to another part of the yard.

I got up and felt a stab of pain when I put my weight on my right leg. It was obvious that I must abandon my intention of crossing the moors for I would be unable to scramble up ridges and jump across gulleys. I began to limp as fast as I was able towards the track that led up to the road and when I struck it I stayed parallel to it. I kept glancing round and just before I reached the crest of the ridge, I looked back at the farm for what I hoped would be the last time. I could see lights at two of the upper windows, but even as I watched one of them was extinguished. An occasional bark reached me but the farmstead looked completely at peace in the star-light and I hurried on. In a minute the road lay before me gleaming in the faint light. I took a moment to cram into my mouth one of the potatoes and then, turning left towards the South, I began to walk as fast as my injured leg would permit me.

I walked on through countryside which might have seemed beautiful if it had not been so inhospitable. My leg slowed me down considerably and, to my increasing disquiet, grew more painful with each step. I needed something I could use as a walking-stick, but in this treeless country that was not to be hoped for.

I limped on for more than an hour — my pace slackening as my leg grew more painful with each step — before I encountered anything except the tracks to three farms whose buildings I could see some distance off the road. Apart from these, there was no house, no cross-road, and no change in the featureless landscape. At the end of that time I saw a light approaching about two miles ahead and since I had decided that I would hide from any vehicle coming towards me in case its driver were stopped by my pursuers, I wasted precious minutes by lying down, when it was about a mile away, at the side of the road in the long grass and bracken — there being no wall or even ditch to provide concealment

— until the vehicle, a light waggon, had rumbled past.

After another hour or so my frequent glances behind me brought to my attention a vehicle approaching from that direction. It was travelling fast and in case it could be a pursuer — though I knew the Quiggs kept no carriage— I hid once again and looked out at it. As it drew nearer, however, I saw that it was a stage-coach and since in Stephen’s half-sovereign I had the fare to carry me two or three stages, I came forth and stood in the middle of the road waving my arms above my head. For answer the guard blew a long blast

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and I had to leap aside as the vehicle thundered past, the driver cutting at me with his whip. I was furious but I could understand their unwillingness to stop at night in that desolate place. Then I reflected that I had obeyed a foolish impulse, for one of the Quiggs might have boarded the vehicle behind me as the quickest way of gaining ground.

So I stumbled on for two or three hours, firmly resolved to conceal myself from any vehicle that approached from either direction, though none appeared to test me. Still I came to no cross-road and passed only a few farmhouses lying a mile or two off the road.

I figured that it must be an hour or two past midnight and my mind kept turning to possible events at the farm: the discovery of my flight, the leashing of the dogs, the saddling of the horses, the departure of the Quiggs in pursuit. If these things had not occurred already they could not be long delayed, and with the dogs to tell them which way I had gone, two of the Quiggs would be able to gallop down this road at three or four times my pace, leaving the third to follow on foot with the dogs. I began a grim calculation: even assuming my absence was not discovered until dawn which was still four or five hours off, the Quiggs would need only an hour and a half to reach the point I was at, and perhaps a little over another half-hour to come up with where I would be by then. My injury had reduced my chances of getting off the moors to where there would be more roads to choose from.

Then, peering into the distance far ahead, I thought I saw a dark shape on the silvery road. Yes, surely there was a vehicle ahead for now I saw a couple of faint lights. I increased my pace as well as I could for my leg was hurting more than ever, and at the end of another mile or two I made out that it was an eight-wheeled road-waggon. It took me nearly an hour to come up with it and see that it was carrying huge bales of wool loosely covered by tarred sacking. When I saw that the out-rider was up beside the driver and deep in conversation with him, an idea came into my mind that plunged me into an anguish of indecision. Either I could keep walking as far and as fast as possible, taking the risk that if the road ran on like this and I was not taken up by a vehicle it could only be a matter of time before the Quiggs overtook me, especially since I was tiring rapidly. Or I could try to board this waggon — which was going at least as fast as I and probably, henceforth, faster — in the hope of throwing the dogs off my scent and of soon coming to a cross-roads or a forking of the way, for then my pursuers would be forced to choose and might take the wrong road. Against this, the danger was that they would overtake the waggon and search it and then I would be trapped.

I would play the long shot. I approached cautiously, hoping that neither the driver nor the out-rider would look back and catch sight of me in the dim gleam of the lamps projecting on brackets from the sides. The huge wheels rose above my head, concave and seeming to bend sinuously as they turned, crashing over the uneven stone surface of the carriageway. I eyed the tail-gate a few feet ahead of me on which was painted

“Thomas Cavander and Sons: Carriers” and marked a foot-hold. I made a run and a jump and by means of this I managed to get one knee onto the top of the tail-board and then pulled myself over it and landed amongst the woollen bales. I crawled under a piece of the tarred sacking and arranged it so that I could look back at the road but not be seen by the out-rider if he turned round or dropped back. I longed to sleep but the jolting of the waggon, even through the bales I was lying on, and the smell of the oil from the lamps and the tar and above all the gamey

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sheep-smell of raw wool, made that impossible. I felt, anyway, that I should keep watch for a fork or cross-roads.

We travelled on for an hour or more and still none appeared. A couple of hours passed, and when I glanced out pale streaks began to appear in the eastern sky and I could see that there was snow on the crests of the hills. As the pale sun rose behind the thick layer of cloud, I saw that I was in a bleak country of furze and whinstone.

Then at last the waggon rumbled across some deep ruts and I saw first a finger-post and then over to my right another road alongside us receding at a widening angle. If my absence had not already been noticed, it was now being discovered, I knew, and I estimated that it would take my pursuers only two hours on horseback to reach the fork.

Here they might divide, assuming the third had stayed behind with the dogs, and this suggested that until we came to at least another fork I was still very far from being safe.

The Coming of Age

We are again in the old-counting house down among the wharves of Blackfriars. Mr Sancious, carrying a portmanteau, enters the private closet smirking, and the old gentleman looks up at him from his chair across his table in keen anticipation.

“I have something for you,” the attorney says.

He takes from the portmanteau a folded paper and opens it out so that the old gentleman, sitting on the other side of the table, can see it. Mr Clothier scans it for half a minute and then, rising with a fierce cry, reaches towards it. The attorney, however, steps backwards holding the document behind him.

“Fifty-five years I’ve waited for this,” the old gentleman moans. “For heaven’s sake tell me, how did you come by it?”

Mr Sancious smiles: “That is not my secret to reveal. But I can tell you that I used subtler methods than those that you employed. But come, do you want it?”

“Want it!” the old man repeats.

“Then what will you give me for it?”

“I’ll give you what we agreed.”

“Very generous of you,” the attorney says.

He watches while the old gentleman unlocks his strong-box in the dark corner where it is hidden and reaches into it. Mr Clothier brings out a bundle of papers and gazes at them lingeringly.

Then he says: “What of the woman and the boy?”

“Have no fear for them.”

“What do you mean?” the old gentleman almost whispers. “Are they … ?”

The attorney merely smiles.

“You know it’s worthless to me while they live,” Mr Clothier says, staring at the paper in the lawyer’s hand. “Is she alive?”

“Yes, but be assured that it will soon be worth many times more than you’re giving me for it.”

The old gentleman sighs. Then suddenly he says: “And the boy?”

“In due time. The people who have him are waiting for the word from me.”

“As soon as may be!” the old gentleman cries.

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“But don’t you want this?” Mr Sancious asks, waving the document and then putting it back in his portmanteau while the old gentleman stares at it in anguish.

“Yes, yes, here’s your money, curse you,” Mr Clothier says, laying one of the papers on the table.

“The price has gone up,” the attorney says. “For all my hard work and that of my helper, I want as much again.”

The old gentleman is a pitiable sight as he stands, holding the bundle of bills from his chest and looking at the document in the attorney’s hand. Then he says: “You’re trying to cheat me! That isn’t right! I’ll pay you what we agreed and the same again when you bring me proof that you’ve made them both quiet.”

“The same again for each of them,” Mr Sancious says.

Mr Clothier is silent for a moment and then he nods: “Very well.”

He draws out two pieces of paper from the bundle he is holding and says: “These are at three months drawn by the house of Pomeroy and due in six weeks. They are both backed by Shelmerdine and Tiptoft.”

The attorney nods and while the old gentleman places them on the table (all the while holding onto one end of them), Mr Sancious lays the codicil beside them, in his turn keeping his hand firmly upon it. While the old gentleman scrutinises the document the attorney examines the bills. They nod at each other and then each relinquishes his grasp so that the exchange can be made.

When Mr Clothier has placed the codicil in his strong-box and locked it, he offers his guest a glass of wine “to mark the successful conclusion of our business”.

When they have drunk each other’s health, the old gentleman says: “Well, Sancious, what do you think the Pimlico and Westminster Land Company should do now?”

“Sell the freehold and put out all the capital.”

“Sell it? With the way that the value of land in the metropolis is rising, we should hold onto it.”

“Very well, Mr Clothier. Speculation in land is certainly very profitable at present.”

“Then what should we do with the capital?”

“I had thought of putting it into government stocks,” the attorney suggests.

The old gentleman snorts: “At two or three per cent?”