The Quincunx
By Charles Palliser
Ballantine, 788 pages, $25
Just in case you have forgotten what your tutor or governess taught you concerning the quincunx, a gentle reminder is probably in order. A quincunx is a figure made up of five like elements, four of them forming a square, with the fifth in its center.
”A gentle reminder” because Charles Palliser has set out, and indeed succeeded, to recreate a 19th Century English novel in all its expansiveness and love of detail. And ”your tutor or governess” because even if you didn`t enjoy the services of one or the other, you`d better fake it rather than confess to that shameful lack in this particular fictional world, where class counts for almost everything.
As carefully constructed as a quincunx, indeed, as a series of quincunxes, this novel is made up of five books, in each of which the magic figure-a five-throw on a die, in case you`ve forgotten-is reconstructed, with the fifth book providing the long-sought key to the baffling contradictions and questions raised throughout. The five-part figure also is, just for good measure, a feature of the blazons of three families involved in a Chancery suit, families that revel in the sumptuous names of Mompesson, Palphramond and Maliphant. Their arms include either, or both, a quincunx of Tudor roses or one of five crabs-an image especially appropriate to the movement of the narrative.
Our young hero, whose picaresque adventures we follow through Regency England at all levels of that feverish society, is one John Huffum. Or at least he is introduced to us as such. Later, he and his widowed mother-or is she truly widowed?-assume a variety of surnames in their attempts to thwart the evil designs of their enemies, who apparently seek to do away with them.
Reared in a shabby-genteel household in a country village, young John faces the mystery not only of determining who he is but also of who his father may have been and what secret his indulgently improvident mother is withholding from him until he reaches his majority. His mother, Mary, adopts yet another series of surnames after their protector`s death, when they are bilked out of the small capital on which they have lived and take flight to London by stagecoach.
But before this, John, living close to the village of Hougham-can his name be a latter-day echo of this?-has ventured onto the large adjoining estate, which features both an Old and a New Hall. There he meets not only the beautiful young Henrietta but also her somewhat permissive governess, Miss Quilliam. John and Henrietta exchange rings before he leaves for the great city, and Henrietta is sent to a boarding school in Brussels shortly after.
Why must John and his mother flee? Why is Henrietta sent abroad? What is the document clung to by Mary that everyone wants to get hold of-either to destroy or, possibly, file in the Chancery Court? And is it genuine? This is just a sampling of the simpler questions facing the reader. More complex are those posed by an omniscient voice that, speaking from time to time, asks:
What is the difference between equity and justice? Has either of them any chance against power or-to speak plainly-money? And who are the genuine representatives of these abstractions in our convoluted tale?
Though ”The Quincunx” includes echoes of such writers as Wilkie Collins and Robert Surtees, Palliser`s prime model is Dickens. He writes almost as if he has set out to surpass his master-if not in the genius of his invention of character, at least in the variety and intensity of suffering that the working classes and the nearly destitute masses have to endure.
Once John and his mother reach London, they immediately become the victims of a clever thief who makes off with all their worldly goods. As they try to support themselves-Mary by her needle doing piece-work, John through a series of sordid jobs-we are conducted through the metropolis` underworld, sometimes quite literally. John, who first works for a body-snatcher and later for a crew of con artists, also supports himself for a time as the helper of a man and his son who make their living by recovering coins and other objects of value from the London sewers, into whose effluvia they have to plunge on one occasion to save their lives.
Each of these ”trades” speaks its own canting jargon, reproduced in loving detail by Palliser, the accuracy of which this reviewer certainly would not challenge, even though characters from various walks of life more than once angrily ”hiss” remarks in which no sibilants occur. To add to this feeling of authenticity, Palliser uses 19th Century spellings and idioms that have changed in today`s writing and speech.
Some of John`s humiliations make those of Dickens` young victims look almost like pleasant rewards. As John pursues the clues to his own great expectations he is sent to a north-country ”school,” run by a ruffian named Quigg and his two brutish sons, that makes Dotheboys Hall appear a first cousin to Eton or Harrow. But, like Dickens` heroes, John never loses hope or a frequently challenged belief in the underlying goodness of man. He is an ingenious escape artist, succeeding even after he has been confined to an insane asylum-like his putative father-once he has run away from the Quiggs. His mother, driven to making a living on the streets, is less fortunate.
The aforementioned Chancery suit is of so many generations` standing that it makes Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce of Dickens` ”Bleak House” look like the greenest of contests. Among other controversies, it involves the possible existence of a lost codicil to a will already before the court-not to mention the possible existence of a second, later will that might well reverse every settlement of the first and its limiting codicil. As if this were not enough, we learn late in the game that in addition to the two chief contending factions, an illegitimate line between them exists, and it may have its own legitimate legal claims.
What becomes of the codicil, the second will, the conflicting claims?
What lies ahead for Henrietta once she returns from Brussels? Surely, dear reader, you know enough by now about this constantly varied and engrossing crossing and recrossing of many figures that you must yourself seek and find the Great Key to the center of the larger Quincunx.
On your way you will meet many remarkable persons with names like Isbister, Advowson, Pentecost, Alabaster, Digweed and Clothier. (Be particularly attentive to the last of these.) You will be repeatedly surprised as you chase after clues or are distracted by red herrings, and you will begin to look with doubt upon everyone around you, especially those claiming to be your friends. But you will not, in the end, be disappointed, though you may indeed find yourself amazed.
