‘What else could he have done? He’d compromised her and had to pay the price.’

  ‘So did his family—you in particular. Delicta maiorum immeritus lues.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s well known,’ murmured Clinton, ‘but I still don’t know it.’

  His uncle smiled and brought his fingertips together below his chin.

  ‘Though guiltless you must expiate the sins of your fathers.’ He reached for the decanter and filled both their glasses. ‘Don’t know about you,’ he went on, ‘but I’ve never been able to see any possible reason for plumping for a poor woman when rich ones are so plentiful.’ He stared at Clinton from beneath thick white eyebrows. ‘I gather you’re letting Markenfield go?’

  ‘Not by choice.’

  Richard Danvers looked at him impassively: a slight nod the only sign of his derision.

  ‘You’ve your father’s looks … a sound head. Marriage always helps a man’s career and never stops him taking mistresses.’

  Seeing his opportunity, Clinton took it.

  ‘But mistresses can sometimes make it hard to take a wife.’

  ‘You mean threats of scandal?’

  Clinton nodded gravely.

  ‘I don’t think it’d ever get that far. A woman to woman talk at an early stage usually proves more than most young ladies can stomach. The lady in question is an actress with a very caustic turn of phrase.’

  ‘Does this creature …?’

  ‘Want me to marry her?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘No. But she wants to make sure that if I marry anybody else she isn’t the loser by it.’

  ‘How much is she after?’

  ‘A great deal more than I can raise. At least two thousand.’

  ‘You can’t believe she wouldn’t settle for less?’

  ‘I know she wouldn’t.’

  His uncle closed his eyes and a heavy sigh stirred the ends of his wispy moustache.

  ‘A devil of a lot of money.’ He paused to fortify himself with a sip of wine. ‘I’ll not help you now, I tell you that. You find the right girl, tell me when you’re ready to propose, and I’ll state my terms.’

  ‘That’s very generous, but I can’t put the question after one or two meetings; and frankly I’d be sure to be found out. Best settle old scores before trying new ventures.’

  Danvers leant forward impatiently.

  ‘Can’t part with money like that. What if she came back for more? What could you do?’

  ‘She’s honest.’

  ‘Honest? God alive, do you call blackmail honest?

  ‘I’m afraid the boot’s not on my foot.’

  ‘Because you’re as big a fool as your father. Send her to my lawyer and he’ll draw up something … an agreement to pay her something when you get married and not a day before. And on condition she behaves herself. Try her with five hundred to start with.’

  Clinton shook his head.

  ‘She won’t sign anything.’

  ‘Of course she will.’

  ‘She’d think I might try to use it against her later … supposing she had plans to marry.’

  ‘Then send her here and I’ll din some sense into her. Thinks she’ll get two thousand pounds at the drop of a hat … without conditions. Let her think again.’ He got up abruptly, and stood tugging at the points of his waistcoat.

  ‘If she won’t see you?’ asked Clinton mildy.

  ‘I’ve had enough of her for one day. You’ll know my decision before you leave.’ He picked up his glass and drained it; then, without another glance at Clinton, left the room and went to bed.

  *

  Dejected to have come within measurable distance of success, only to see his goal recede still further, Clinton had the added anxiety next morning of not being summoned by his uncle’s manservant to accompany his master on his usual walk. He now had no idea whether the deception he had committed himself to had been a miscalculation.

  His first sight of his uncle that day was at lunch, which as always passed largely in silence. Danvers was reading Lucretius. Behind gold-rimmed spectacles, his uncle’s eyes remained inscrutable. After dessert, Danvers put a marker in his place and flicked back a few pages, searching for a particular passage. A moment later he smiled at Clinton.

  ‘Suave mari magno … I shan’t trouble you with the original. Sweet it is, when the winds lash the sea with high waves, to gaze from the land at another’s troubles.’

  He snapped the book shut and tweaked off his glasses, which he slipped into his breast pocket.

  ‘Not a sentiment that would appeal to mariners,’ remarked Clinton, ‘Is that how my situation strikes you?’

  ‘Hubris, dear fellow. You’re such a positive man that I can’t help finding a little humour in it. The biter bit … that sort of thing.’ He folded his napkin and secured it in a silver ring. ‘I hope you’ll come with me this-afternoon. I’m going collecting. Something more rewarding than bugs and beetles.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘I’ve a few things to get ready first.’

  Though suspecting a joke at his expense, Clinton did not see how, with the limited time left to him, he could refuse the invitation. Already his anger at his uncle’s ironic amusement had given way to the familiar and draining fear of failure that had oppressed him from the hour of his arrival. In a moment of optimism he wondered whether the afternoon’s proceedings might turn out to be some sort of test, which, if passed, might yield him everything he wanted.

  Getting into the open landau, Clinton was puzzled to see the dog-cart also drawn up in readiness, but aware that his uncle was enjoying bemusing him, he expressed as little interest in the expedition as he could contrive without rudeness. Whatever the object of their journey, it was evidently important enough to supplant his uncle’s normal afternoon sleep.

  Their carriage ride lasted just over an hour and ended rather lamely in front of a nondescript village church. Pausing under the porch, Richard Danvers listened anxiously for a few seconds, but smiled to himself as soon as he heard the sound of hammering coming from within. With a finger raised to his lips, he opened the door. The cause of the noise was immediately apparant: a carpenter was at work, replacing the pulpit steps. Looking around, Clinton saw nothing of interest Moving very quietly, his uncle edged his way closer to where the workman was crouching. Within ten feet or so, he sat down to watch. Clinton soon joined him in the same pew and gazed at the royal coat of arms above the chancel arch. He was considerably surprised when Danvers tugged at his sleeve to gain his attention, and then, with another admonishment to silence, pointed to the man’s rule and the way he was using it. Instead of bearing figures, the rule was marked out with pins: a different number for every inch. At that moment the carpenter looked up and Clinton saw that his eyes were completely white and partially concealed by deformed upper lids. He got up in disgust.

  ‘He’s blind.’

  Richard Danvers smiled.

  ‘Truly remarkable. The only blind joiner in the county. I’ve noticed he holds his chisel very near the end and marks his wood with it instead of with a pencil. Otherwise, apart from that rule of his who could tell?’

  Outside in the sunshine among the graves, Clinton saw the servants, who had come in the dog-cart, screwing a cumbersome square camera onto a massive tripod. Their answers to a few questions made it plain that his uncle’s ‘collection’ consisted not merely of people remarkable for their resourcefulness but of every imaginable human oddity that came to his notice either by word of mouth or through a wide range of local papers. Last month had seen the addition of three fine examples: a man who had not left his bed during the eight years since his wife had deserted him, a woman famous for predicting the dates when people were going to die, and a watchmaker who had cut off all his toes for no reason anyone could discover. Clinton sat down on a box-tomb and started to laugh, though deep down he felt something the reverse of amusement.

  On their way home Richard Danvers was in an excellent mood. The carpenter had more than lived up to expectation, counting among his accomplishments, making fishing nets and playing the violin in public houses.

  ‘An example to us all, wouldn’t you say?’ asked Danvers. ‘Best instance of self-reliance I’ve ever come across.’

  Clinton smiled imperturbably, aware of the invidious comparison being invited.

  ‘You may do better … a limbless sailor who puts ships in bottles with his teeth?’

  ‘Nothing’s too strange to happen.’

  The landau rolled along opulently on well-oiled springs, through a beech wood where the first yellow leaves were apparent, and out again across open downland dotted with sheep. After a silence, broken only by the horses’ breathing and the thud of hoofs, Danvers said reflectively:

  ‘I’ve a curious disposition, so perhaps I’ll get some pleasure out of it?’

  ‘Out of what?’

  ‘Helping you.’ As Clinton’s heart raced, his uncle looked at him closely. ‘You’ll have to give a good account of your wooing … the failures too. And I want to meet the front runners in the marriage stakes, when you’ve narrowed the field.’ He smiled to himself. ‘The actress must come here to argue her case. I’ll know what she’s worth.’

  ‘If she won’t come?’

  ‘No money.’

  An unmistakable glint of mockery in his uncle’s eyes made Clinton freeze. Suspicion turned to certainty.

  ‘You didn’t believe anything I said.’

  Danvers raised apologetic hands.

  ‘People who want money aren’t always particular how they come by it. It was a clever idea, I grant you.’

  The ground had opened beneath him, and in Clinton’s stomach a ghastly sensation of falling—the breathlessness, the fear. Outside the carriage, drowsy high summer; sunlit clouds, soft green hills. And still he fell.

  His uncle said quietly:

  ‘If you love someone you can’t marry I’m sorry, but I’ll not abet you in your father’s mistake. Forget about sending your mistress here. Propose to a suitable woman and I’ll pay your debts without condition.’ He paused and looked at Clinton with sudden concern. ‘Think of your father. Was there a thing he couldn’t have done? But how did it end?’ His voice had become very low. ‘You’ll not start on that path while I can stop you. If you won’t help yourself by marrying well, I’ll cut you off.’

  Sweat had broken out coldly on Clinton’s forehead; in an effort to calm himself, he took out his watch but hardly saw it. His whole personality was crumbling. He thought, this is how it feels to lose all hope—to struggle almost to the shore only to be dragged out again by the tide.

  32

  Arriving in London, Clinton soon suffered another reverse. At his bank, where he had hoped to draw out several hundred pounds by pledging the plate and jewellery held for him in the vaults, he was told by the chief partner that since this property was the bank’s only security for his overdraft, it could neither be sold, nor used as collateral for a further loan. Since he would have to pay three hundred into court in Lancaster by the end of the week to comply with the conditions of his discharge, Clinton had no illusions about his position.

  Apart from meeting this legal obligation, Clinton’s other objective was simple—to survive without service of more writs, until he could sell the lease on Hathenshaw, raise what he could on his disposable chattels, and leave the country with Theresa. By failing to meet the court’s requirement, or suffering a second arrest on mesne process—no unlikely event while his bank continued to dishonour his cheques—he would find himself in the hands of the Commissioners in Bankruptcy.

  At all costs he had to make a large enough payment to his bank to restore his credit for a few more weeks. Though depressed as never before, Clinton found a crumb of comfort in having reached the point where no remedy offering relief could be discarded, however dangerous. His initial steps seemed harmless enough. Three weeks earlier, he had sent Esmond’s letters to his solicitor for his opinion. Now he retrieved them, and after making some purchases at a stationer’s set out for Jabez Norton’s premises.

  Again he was received by the money lender’s clerk and not by the great man himself. Clinton had expected hypocritical sympathy and he got it in full measure. Never for a moment had Mr Norton expected Mendoza to act with such precipitate ferocity, in fact he had pleaded with the man to be allowed to buy back the bill. Clinton suffered these lies patiently.

  ‘Perhaps he neglected to offer what he got for it,’ he remarked affably. The clerk, who had obviously expected furious indignation, looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘I wouldn’t know the precise sum; but he was very upset about it. We both were, my lord.’

  ‘So of course you want to make amends. You offered a loan if my brother underwrote it. I’m glad to say he’s agreed to.’

  The clerk went over to the ledger table and picked up a pen.

  ‘How much might he guarantee?’

  ‘Two thousand.’

  Clinton watched him dip his pen in the ink and write this down as though indifferent to the magnitude of the sum. The wen on his eyelid made it impossible to judge what he was thinking.

  ‘For how long, my lord?’

  ‘A year.’

  Again the quill pen scratched loudly across the paper.

  ‘Over six months Mr Norton always requires interest in advance.’

  ‘I want the two thousand in hand.’

  ‘Then you must accept extra bills to cover it. I can’t do better than twenty per cent. Mr Danvers must endorse all your acceptances, including those for interest.’

  Clinton frowned.

  ‘Can’t you draw one bill for the whole sum?’

  The clerk opened a drawer and took out a bundle of docketed bills, which he untied and started to glance through.

  ‘In this instance I feel Mr Norton would prefer you to take up debts of his own dated a year hence. Mr Danvers’s endorsement will be very soothing to several of our creditors.’

  ‘You can’t mean there are people who doubt the soundness of your master’s acceptances?’

  ‘A sad reflection on the times we live in. There are gentlemen who expect the best rates to be had in London, and still complain about trifling delays … I needn’t tell your lordship how it can take a week or two to recover from a client in difficulties.’ He had now taken out what looked to Clinton like a dozen bills from the larger pile and placed them on top of a closed ledger. He smiled obsequiously. ‘But, need I say, any bill endorsed by a broker with Mr Danvers’s reputation feels as good as money in the hand to the most sceptical depositor.’

  ‘I won’t take a great wad of those things. Three or four at the most.’

  The clerk nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Perhaps we can’t really expect him to endorse anything under five hundred.’ He jotted down some figures and then made a final choice of bills. ‘We’ll make it four then. The total’s a pound or two over what you want but that’s a fault in the right direction.’ He put them in an envelope and gave it to Clinton. ‘Bring them back tomorrow and you’ll have the money by Tuesday.’

  ‘Why the delay?’ Clinton asked sharply.

  ‘Mr Norton has to get the money. No help for it … unless you’d care to take it in tea. We’ve a lot on our hands at the moment. Best quality orange scented Pekoe …’

  ‘I’m not a tea merchant.’

  ‘A joke, my lord. We levied execution on a tea importer last week. Should raise a fair price at auction; but you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with trade.’

  ‘Borrowing’s more my line,’ replied Clinton, ignoring what had looked very like a sneer; but with a man afflicted by a perpetual wink, it was hard to tell. Clinton left the premises to the accompaniment of effusive expressions of how pleased Mr Norton would be to be able to render his services.

  An hour later in an hotel bedroom, Clinton dragged the dressing table across to the window and drew aside the net curtains to improve the light. Then he took out Esmond’s letters and the purchases he had made at the stationer’s shop before going to Norton’s. He was disappointed by the way matters had gone at the money lender’s, but still intended to go through with his plan. His worst anxiety was that Norton might write to Esmond about the endorsements during the two day interval between delivery of the bills and production of the money. But on consideration, he thought the likeliest explanation of the delay was that Norton would need to use the endorsed bills to raise the money for the loan. Nor was the money lender likely to consider the forgery of negotiable instruments a credible occupation for a nobleman, given the severity of the penalties.

  He had hoped only to have to produce a single signature, thereby giving Norton no opportunity for comparison. But four autographs would make the smallest discrepancies perfectly apparent. From the outset Clinton faced another formidable difficulty: when writing to him, Esmond had signed with his christian name alone. And while Clinton was certain that his brother never adorned his full signature with any loops or flourishes, he was far from happy to have to construct ‘Danvers’ piecemeal, taking a ‘D’ from the opening ‘Dear’, ‘an’ from ‘and’, and ‘vers’ from a sentence containing the expression ‘chapter and verse.’ These elements he assembled on tracing paper, joining them as best he could, after a careful study of the way in which similar combinations of letters were linked in other words.

  His first efforts at making a freehand copy of his tracing in pen and ink brought him very close to giving up; but thoughts of the consequences of failure compelled perseverance. Nor could he bear to think of returning to Theresa in utter hopelessness.

  If he could keep his nerve, he might yet survive. The everday normality of his surroundings made him momentarily light-headed—the commonplace furniture, noise of passing carriages in the street, the sunlight on the drab brickwork of the houses opposite, and the innocent sheets of paper on the table. How could this be the setting for a serious crime? With a steadier hand, he set to work again. Esmond owed him reparation.

  Though the shopkeeper had assured him that the pen he had bought was much favoured by cartographers because it spread the ink evenly however hesitantly the nib were moved, Clinton found that he could not entirely prevent irregular edges to the letters wherever he paused in his laborious imitation. Looking at his work under a magnifying glass, his dissatisfaction grew. Clearly it was hopeless to try to produce a signature stroke by stroke. The tiny blobs, and occasional fluctuations in the ink flow, suggested the writing of a drunk, who though concentrating for all he was worth, still needed to break off for numerous rests. Success would only be achieved by practising the signature again and again until he could produce it spontaneously without hesitation. He therefore devoted the next half-hour to tracing over his original construction of the signature several hundred times; interspersing this activity with freehand attempts. Only when he could produce a run of half-a-dozen copies with his eyes shut, of a quality little worse than those made with them open, did he feel sufficiently confident to take out the bills. But once again his heart started to thump and he could no longer maintain the relaxation essential for fluency. His hands were sweating and the pen felt slippery. Afraid to get up and walk about in case he lost the automatic, almost hypnotic response induced by so many tracings, he was equally scared to touch the bills. And if the will-power required for a single signature was all but beyond him, how could he hope to go on and execute another three? He breathed deeply and wiped his palms on his trousers, ashamed of his weakness but unable to remedy it. An error on one bill could be concealed by a blot, but there could be no second chances granted with any of the others. Yet the thought that he had this single reprieve calmed him. The first bill would not be the all important one; and if he succeeded with it, nor even would the second.