The Quincunx: A Novel

by Charles Palliser

Overview

An extraordinary modern novel in the Victorian tradition, Charles Palliser has created something extraordinary—a plot within a plot within a plot of family secrets, mysterious clues, low-born birth, high-reaching immorality, and, always, always the fog-enshrouded, enigmatic character of 19th century—London itself.

“So compulsively absorbing that reality disappears . . . One is swept along by those enduring emotions that defy modern art and a random universe: hunger for revenge, longing for justice and the fantasy secretly entertained by most people that the bad will be punished and the good rewarded.”—The New York Times

“A virtuoso achievement . . . It is an epic, a tour de force, a staggeringly complex and tantalizingly layered tale that will keep readers engrossed in days. . . . The Quincunx will not disappoint you. It is, quite simply, superb.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“A bold and vivid tale that invites the reader to get lost in the intoxicating rhythms of another world. And the invitation is irresistible.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A remarkable book . . . In mood, color, atmosphere and characters, this is Charles Dickens reincarnated . . . It is an immersing experience.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“To read the first pages is to be trapped for seven-hundred odd more: you cannot stop turning them.”—The New Yorker

“Few books, at most a dozen or two in a lifetime, affect us this way. . . . For sheer intricacy and ingenuity, for skill and clarity of storytelling, it is the kind of book readers wait for, a book to get lost in.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804152402
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/19/2014
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	800
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Charles Palliser's historical novels include The Quincunx, The Unburied, and Rustication. His fiction has been translated into a dozen languages. Palliser’s The Quincunx was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He has written plays for BBC Radio and the stage. Prior to becoming a full-time writer in 1990, he taught literature and creative writing at universities in the UK and the USA. A graduate of Oxford University, Palliser lives in London.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1
 
It must have been late autumn of that year, and probably it was towards dusk for the sake of being less conspicuous. And yet a meeting between two professional gentlemen representing the chief branches of the law should surely not need to be concealed.
 
Let us imagine, then, how Law might have waited upon Equity.
 
Approaching a particular house in a street near Lincoln’s-inn-fields, Law, embodied in the person of a small, pale-faced gentleman of about forty years of age with a large head, mounts the steps and rings the bell. The door is immediately opened by a young clerk. The visiter steps inside, is relieved of hat, great-coat, and gloves, and is then ushered into a small dark room at the rear of the house. There he sees a figure seated at a little table at the other end of the chamber. The clerk noiselessly withdraws. The gentleman who is already there rises with the briefest of bows and indicates a chair opposite him before the fire. The newcomer seats himself while the elder man takes his chair again and brings his gaze to bear upon his guest. Equity is some fifteen years the elder, with a high-coloured complexion, a lofty nose and a face most remarkable for a pair of black bushy eyebrows.
 
There is a long pause and at last the newcomer clears his throat: “It has been an honour, sir, to receive and obey your summons.”
 
There is a note of polite interrogation in this observation but Equity appears not to hear it for he continues to gaze at his guest.
 
After another minute Law asks nervously: “May I know how I can be of assistance?”
 
“Did you take the precautions I requested?” the host asks.
 
“Indeed I did. I am certain that no-one followed me here.”
 
“Good. Then our meeting has probably been kept from the knowledge of a third party.”
 
“A third party? My dear sir, you intrigue me. To whom do you refer?”
 
“I shall ask the questions,” the other gentleman replies with only the slightest emphasis on the pronoun.
 
His guest flushes.
 
The elder gentleman takes something from his pocket and says: “Now, you have a client whose name I have written on this piece of paper which I ask you to be good enough to read.” He holds it out for a few moments and when Law has looked at it and nodded in confirmation, he replaces it: “Very well. Then I will lose no time in coming to the point: the document which your client possesses has the capacity to damage very materially the interests of the party for whom I have the honour to act, and in view of this …”
 
He breaks off for on Law’s face is an expression of manifest bewilderment: “My good sir, I assure you I know nothing of such a document.”
 
“Come, come. Not two weeks past your client sent a copy of it to us demanding money and giving your name for correspondence.”
 
“That may be so … that is to say, I am certain that it is so if you state it to be. But I beg you to believe that I am no more than a receiving-office in this transaction.”
 
“What do you mean?”
 
“That I merely forward letters addressed to me in my client’s name. I know no more of that individual’s affairs than a letter-carrier does of the correspondence he collects and delivers.”
 
The other gazes at him and says: “I am prepared to accept that that may be so.” The younger gentleman smiles but his expression alters at the next words: “Then tell me the whereabouts of your client.”
 
“My dear sir, I cannot.”
 
“Beg your pardon, I’m forgetting to put up my stake,” the elder says and brings out from his pocket something that crackles as he lays it on the table.
 
Law leans forward slightly to look at it. There is surely an expression of yearning on his face. Then he says: “I assure you, my dear sir, I am quite unable to oblige you.”
 
“Oh-ho!” the elder gentleman exclaims. “You think to bargain with me, do you? I warn you not to try it or you will find that I am able to apply quite other inducements.”
 
“No indeed, sir,” the other stammers. “You entirely mistake my meaning. Your generosity quite overwhelms me and I only wish I could deserve it. However, it is wholly impossible for me to assist you.”
 
“I advise you not to attempt any of your games with me, my good fellow,” the other says in a brutally contemptuous tone. “I have made enquiries enough to know how ill these high-principled scruples become you. I’ve ‘smoked your lay’ — isn’t that how they call it in the jargon of your clients?”
 
The other gentleman becomes quite pale. He begins to rise from his chair but his eyes fall on the thing on the table and he stays in his seat.
 
Equity goes on: “Do you wish me to give you the catalogue — or perhaps I should say, calendar — of activities in which I know you to be involved?”
 
When Law makes no answer Equity continues: “A little brokerage of doubtful bills, rather more squeezing of debtors, and a great deal of tutoring witnesses? Is that not so?”
 
The other gentleman answers with dignity: “You have misunderstood me, my dear sir. I merely meant that I do not possess the information you seek. If I had it I would most willingly give it to you.”
 
“Do you take me for a fool? How do you communicate with your client, then?”
 
“Through a third-party to whom I forward my client’s letters.”
 
“That’s better,” the other growls. “Who?”
 
“A gentleman of the highest respectability who has been some years retired from my branch of our profession.”
 
“Most intriguing. Now be good enough to write down that gentleman’s name and address for I cannot identify him, even though your branch of the profession is hardly replete with gentlemen to whom that description applies.”
 
The other laughs shortly and joylessly. Then he takes out a pocket-book, writes “Martin Fortisquince, Esqr., No. 27 Golden-square”, tears out the leaf and hands it to the other gentleman.
 
Equity takes the paper from him and without looking at it says abruptly: “In the event of my needing to speak to you again we will communicate as before.” He reaches into a dark corner of the room beside his chair and tugs gently at a bell-rope.
 
Law rises with his eye on the thing on the table. Seeing this Equity carelessly pushes it towards him and he slips it into his pocket. Just as the door opens and the clerk appears again, Law hesitantly reaches out his hand towards his host. He, however, appears not to notice the gesture and Law hastily returns his hand to his pocket. The clerk ushers him to the door, restores to him his hat, great-coat, and gloves, and in a moment he finds himself out in Cursitor-street again. He sets off at a rapid pace occasionally looking anxiously behind him. When he has rounded several corners he draws into a quiet door-way and removes the package from his pocket. He cautiously counts it, counts it again, puts it back, and then sets off again more slowly.
 

Editorial Reviews

The epic length of this first novel--nearly 800 densely typeset pages--should not put off readers, for its immediacy is equal to its heft. Palliser, an English professor in Scotland, where this strange yet magnetic work was first published, has modeled his extravagantly plotted narrative on 19th-century forms--Dickens's Bleak House is its most obvious antecedent--but its graceful writing and unerring sense of timing revivifies a kind of novel once avidly read and surely now to be again in demand. The protagonist, a young man naive enough to be blind to all clues about his own hidden history (and to the fact that his very existence is troubling to all manner of evildoers) narrates a story of uncommon beauty which not only brings readers face-to-face with dozens of piquantly drawn characters at all levels of 19th-century English society but re-creates with precision the tempestuous weather and gnarly landscape that has been a motif of the English novel since Wuthering Heights . The suspension of disbelief happens easily, as the reader is led through twisted family trees and plot lines. The quincunx of the title is a heraldic figure of five parts that appears at crucial points within the text (the number five recurs throughout the novel, which itself is divided into five parts, one for each of the family galaxies whose orbits the narrator is pulled into). Quintuple the length of the ordinary novel, this extraordinary tour de force also has five times the ordinary allotment of adventure, action and aplomb. Literary Guild dual main selection. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

First novelist Palliser combines an eye for social detail and vivid descriptions of the dark side of 19th-century London with a gift for intricate plotting and sinister character development reminiscent of 19th-century novels. He weaves a complicated tale of a codacil containing a crucial entail, the possible existence of a second will, and a multiplicity of characters--all mysteriously related--seeking to establish their claims to a vast and ancient estate. Related by a young boy who often appears too worldly for his sheltered upbringing and wise beyond his years, the story occasionally bogs down in innuendo and detail which become tedious rather than suspenseful. Nevertheless, overall, this is a gripping novel. Highly recommended. Literary Guild dual main selection. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/89.-- Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.

Library Journal

So compulsively absorbing that reality disappears . . . One is swept along by those enduring emotions that defy modern art and a random universe: hunger for revenge, longing for justice and the fantasy secretly entertained by most people that the bad will be punished and the good rewarded.”—The New York Times

“A virtuoso achievement . . . It is an epic, a tour de force, a staggeringly complex and tantalizingly layered tale that will keep readers engrossed in days. . . . The Quincunx will not disappoint you. It is, quite simply, superb.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“A bold and vivid tale that invites the reader to get lost in the intoxicating rhythms of another world. And the invitation is irresistible.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A remarkable book . . . In mood, color, atmosphere and characters, this is Charles Dickens reincarnated . . . It is an immersing experience.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“To read the first pages is to be trapped for seven-hundred odd more: you cannot stop turning them.”—The New Yorker

“Few books, at most a dozen or two in a lifetime, affect us this way. . . . For sheer intricacy and ingenuity, for skill and clarity of storytelling, it is the kind of book readers wait for, a book to get lost in.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Publisher