Feral Park (10 page)

As Rose Ellen sat upon her bed partaking of milk-sopped bread crusts (easy upon the digestion), and Mrs. Dray—in her own apartment—was administered hartshorn and various draughts of medicaments for the nervous, and Gemma and her cousin Marie huddled upon Gemma’s window seat devising in whispers a plan to successfully scotch the acceptance by Gemma’s sister May of Mr. Shyman’s proposal of marriage on the chief grounds of his being a denier of the divinity of Christ, and as May herself wandered in a quandary through the Thistlethorn family picture gallery contemplating her future whilst imagining conversations of counsel with her gentile forebears whose images hung suspended upon the walls encompassing her, and whilst Mr. Peppercorn played backgammon with Miss Younge in the drawing-room, and was having a delightful time of it and being only moderately inconvenienced by the smell of the pianoforte, which now was only slightly redolent of digestive acids and largely emitting of the strong scent of wood soap, Anna was left in the company of John Dray, and the two agreed that a turn in the bright moonlight upon the lawn behind the house would not be a wholly unprofitable occupation, given the need in them both to discuss the state of things.

“What a night! What a night!” marveled John. “Will any of us recover?”

“We shall all most certainly recover and be the better for it,” replied Anna.

“Nights such as these are crucibles, are they not?”

“Of a sort,” said John in his high voice.

Thinking of the voice, Anna was given to ask, “Mr. Dray, why is your voice so highly pitched?”

“It has always been high and when I grew to manhood it did not sufficiently lower. Do you find it disagreeable?”

“No, no, not in the least.” Anna took a few quiet steps and then said, “Mr. Dray, I have spent a good portion of the evening studying your face and I must ask you an additional thing or two along this same line if you do not mind.”

“I mind not at all! I have determined that you are not a shrew, nor are you even inordinately querulous. I shall answer any thing you ask within the bounds of propriety.”

“Thank you for your courtesy. Your jaw—if I may, Mr. Dray—possesses a woman’s turn. And there is the absence of an Adam’s apple nodulating from your neck. If I did not think better, I should think you to be a woman, rather than a man.”

“And I should be greatly offended by the supposition if I were anyone but myself, yet your surmise is harmless to me, and especially when put with such gentleness. I am a man, be sure of it. I regret that I cannot offer conclusive proof to this fact, such a demonstrative avowal requiring a most mortifying disrobing—mortifying to the both of us—and so I must entreat you simply to take my word as oath upon the matter.”

“And upon my honour, Mr. Dray, I would never require such a thing from you or indeed from
any
man whom I suspect of being instead a woman! So, let us suspend this silly topic at this very instant! La, how freely we speak with one another, Mr. Dray. Our intercourse should be a scandal if it were ever to enter the ears of those easily put off by such frankness of expression.” “Let us therefore vow never to betray the content of our discourse to others.”

Dray, having now brought Anna to a moonlit spot where neither face was hidden by shadow, looked at his evening’s companion for a long moment before saying, “No, I think that I shall not.”

“Shall not what? Did we not establish already that a disrobing would not be nec—”

Dray interrupted: “You misunderstand me, Miss Peppercorn;
that
was not the thing which is in my head—the thing which I am tempted to say. But I will be strong and not do it, not
reveal
it. For I have hardly revealed the
thing
to anyone since the scheme was first explained to me and I shall not—regardless of how much wine I have drunk upon this most Bacchic evening—bring you into the scheme without knowing you better and being assured that I should trust you implicitly. Indeed, I have not even enlisted my own cousin Gemma, with whom I am very close. How could I ever enrol
you
before
her
?”

“Enrol me in what?” With some vexation: “Mr. Dray, whatever can be the purpose to this odd and unfathomable discursion?”

“I am merely articulating aloud what is being reasoned out within my private cogitations—that which I am tempted by our growing friendship, and the warmth which defines it, to convey to you.”

“Have you a secret, Mr. Dray, which you wish to impart? If so, I would be receptive to it.”

With a sigh of concession: “Alas, I cannot.”

“You must withhold?”

“Aye. I must withhold.”

“Then kindly keep your quarrel with yourself to yourself only. It is tiresome, Mr. Dray, to hear you fuss and flutter as would a woman.” “It is most interesting that you should say this.”

“That you act in the manner of a woman?”

“Aye.”

“And why is that, Mr. Dray?”

“My dear Miss Peppercorn,” (and then with a steadying breath,) “it is because I
am
a woman!”

At first, Anna did not seem to hear, or at least she thought that her ears had fully deceived her: “Mr. Dray, pray, repeat to me what you have just said.”

“I said, Miss Peppercorn, that I am not a
Mr.
Dray, but rather a
Miss
Dray.”

“My dear sir, perhaps now is not the time for jocularity.”

“’Tis no joke, Miss Peppercorn, and I am no
sir
. I am a
miss.
. I have always been—and in secret—Miss Dray. My mother gave birth to three girls: my sisters Marie and Rose Ellen and lastly myself. My parents had hoped that I would be a boy, but, alas, I was not. When it was learnt by my mother from the physician that she could have no other children, both of my parents decided from that moment forward to put me across as a boy. To this day no one has detected the scheme, nor has anyone been made deliberately privy to it other than my parents and the doctor who attended my birth and one other whose name I will shortly reveal.”

“This other person is not one of your sisters?”

Mr./Miss Dray shook his/her head.

“And neither of your sisters has
ever
discovered the scheme by mistake, perhaps during some moment of mindless undress or accidental dishabille?” “There has never been such a careless moment. My mother, who acted as my personal governess for this very reason, made certain of the concealment, even from my sisters. Marie and Rose Ellen have never believed me to be anyone but their younger brother.”

“I cannot believe that there have never been moments of doubt from anyone.”

“Not to my knowledge. I play quite well at being a man, do I not?”

“Not so well that
I
was not brought to question the sloped jaw and the lack of Adam’s apple, or the elevated pitch of your voice.”

“You, Miss Peppercorn, are the singular exception. Mr. Groves, the milliner and tailor, has even made an approach upon me, that whilst rebuffed, was nonetheless evidential of the success of my lifelong stratagem.”

“Mr. Dray—or shall I say
Miss Dray
?”

“You must always say ‘
Mr
. Dray,’ even when we speak privately, lest you slip up publicly through a careless ease of habit and the blunder be to my detriment.”

“Then, Miss Dray—”

Correcting: “
Mr.
Dray, Miss Peppercorn, as I have just now requested.”

“Did I not just now say
Mr.
Dray?”

“You did not. You said
Miss
Dray.”

“Oh, how my head spins.”

“Perhaps I was wrong to bring you so deeply into my confidence. I fear now that the disclosure will serve only to put you upon your guard with my family and complicate your relationship with both the Drays of Cowpens Acres and the Drays of Thistlethorn.”

“No, no. Allow me merely to compose myself and to digest in full what I have just been fed. For it is a large mouthful you have set upon my spoon.” “To be sure. Now you were about to ask something when we entangled ourselves momentarily in how I wish to be addressed.”

“Aye. You said that Mr. Groves made an approach upon you. To sell you a waistcoat or surtout? What was the nature of the exchange otherwise?” “It was rather less an
exchange
and more of an
importunity
.”

“And what do you mean by this?”

“An advance of the heart, my dear Miss Peppercorn. And a rather bold advance at that.”

With a gasp: “But Mr. Dray—then he must have gleant the ruse and advanced upon the
woman
whom he believes hides beneath the guise. The fact then most assuredly
disproves
your point.”

“To be sure, Miss Peppercorn, it was no
woman
he pursued, but the man he thinks I am. Have you no knowledge of his proclivities in this regard?” “I know that neither he nor the vicar derives pleasure from the company of women. Mr. Groves is for ever eager within his shop to rid himself of a female customer once a transaction has been completed. But whether a man suffers a woman gladly or no, is it not required by his nature that he—that he—”

“What you cannot say, my dear Miss Peppercorn, I will say for you: that he by his animal nature must desire congress with a woman. No, Miss Peppercorn, ’tis not a rule that finds consistent application. For I stand before you equally inclined to the exception from the reverse of that coin.”

“Do you mean, Mr. Dray, that you have no interest in knowing a man in the Biblical sense?”

John Dray smiled—the turn of the lips coming close to a simper—but not quite—and nodded his/her head. “Which makes my present situation an ironically convenient one, would you not say?”

“At present, Mr. Dray, I do not know
what
to say.”

“Then listen only. For there is much that I must say to
you
before we are bid to return to the house and conclude this strange evening with our communal valedictions. Now, I was most happy to learn from my cousin and your dear friend Gemma that you are set to secure husbands for the Misses Henshawe, and this fact stands greatly to your credit. To do such good by those girls whom fate has not blessed with agreeable features is commendable to be sure. It makes me feel ever the more confidant of your ability to favour
me
with your support and confidential endorsement.”

“But you mentioned that there is another who deserves your confidence, and who I assume does so through commensurate support and endorsement.”

“Have you not by now guessed the identity of the individual?” “I cannot think—but it could
not
be Miss Godby!”

With a smile: “And why could it not? I would be a low creature to marry one who thought me a man, leave alone the risk that such a disclosure should pose for me within the marital chambers, especially if I had attached myself to one who proved unsympathetic to my scheme!”

“And when was it that you revealed to her your true identity?” “She knew it from our very first interview. I was drawn to the scent of her hair—something floral which enchanted me. I sought permission to take a sniff and in putting myself so close to her face, I confess that I took most improper advantage of the situation and kissed her upon the cheek. She returned the kiss and remarked upon the smoothness of my own cheek. She then took the liberty to touch my chest. I had not corseted myself as tightly as I usually do and the breasts were easily discovered and cradled within her exploring hands. My word, how that first encounter flushes me even now several months later to think of it!”

John Dray fanned his/her hand back and forth in front of the face.

“I should sit down,” said the woman who chose to be a man, and a bench was secured nearer the house. The voices of the speakers now dropt to a cautious whisper, lest they be overheard by anyone wandering out of the house undetected in the nocturnal shadows.

Said Anna, “From your description of that first interview, one would think that she found both the scheme
and
your true nature to be wholly agreeable!” “Miss Peppercorn, the wine has compromised your faculties! ‘Agreeable’ scarcely begins to describe her grasp of the situation. You see, she loves me not in spite of my circumstances but fully
because
of them!”

“But will not the marriage inflate the scheme to the point of inefficacy?” “Not at all, not at all. She instead lends necessary legitimacy to my claim.

And even if this were not the case, marry we absolutely must. For she is deeply in love with me and I am violently in love with
her
!”

“But how may a woman be so violently in love with another woman? It is as if you told me that the cow had jumped over the moon and furthermore that you were wholly convinced of the validity of the assertion!”

“The more appropriate analogy I should think, Miss Peppercorn, would be the enraptured dish running away with the equally enraptured spoon. I do not understand how it is so, but I know that my heart does not prevaricate. And in one way it is not at all inconvenient. Because, my dear Miss Peppercorn,by marrying the object of my great affection, Miss Felicity Godby, I confirm to additional degree the fact that in outward appearances I am who I purport to be—a man—a man who would save his family manor from the despicable Mr. Quarrels and that blackguard’s grasping mother.”