Feral Park (2 page)

That evening after supper Henry Peppercorn, a prodigioius reader of books of every sort, retreated to his library. Mr. Peppercorn had his large collection arranged upon the shelves by both subject and size, and he relished the opportunity of pointing out to the occasional guest to his biblio-sanctorum those shelves devoted to small volumes on large subjects and those devoted to large volumes on small subjects. Anna’s father delighted in telling his visitor that the most formidable book in his possession was a remarkably large and detailed atlas of the world, and that the most unassuming was a chapbook of poetry so small as to be easily held between thumb and forefinger, but which was frequently difficult to locate upon the shelf.

During her father’s lengthy reading sessions, Anna was solicitously respectful of his solitude and did not disturb him. But this particular evening, having communed with her thoughts and concerns for as long as she could endure it, Anna Peppercorn found herself tapping upon the library door to engage her father, long before the evening was spent.

“Pray, come in,” said Henry Peppercorn, glancing up from the volume held in the delicate cradle of his aging hands. “Ah, it is you, and not James with my twist. Come in, come in. I will ring for James and have him bring you a cup, as well.”

“Thank you, Papa. But I do not chuse to drink my tea and coffee mixed together in such an interesting yet, to me, unimbibable fashion.”

“Ah, yes. You have never taken to it.”

“Aye, Papa. Pardon the interruption. I shall not detain you too long from…” (with a squint at the embossment upon the spine,) “…Mr. Gibbon.”

“It is not my first visit with the historian, daughter. I dip into Gibbon once every other twelvemonth, and the Roman Empire, with each fresh visit, never fails to rivet me anew to the page. Have you read
The Fall
, dear daughter?”

“No, sir, I have not.”

“Was it not upon the list I gave you for self-improvement? High upon the list, as I recall. Have you lost the list?”

Anna shook her head. “I simply wish, Papa, to read the books in my own order if I may.”

“Of course you may. Come now and sit next to your father by the fire and let us coze. Is that not the word which the young people use? How chilly it is for early June.”

“It was chilly last June as well, Papa. I believe that it even snowed.”

“It was chilly the world over. But the atmosphere has cleared itself of volcanic ash and there should be no more need for hearth fires in June. Oh, remind me before you go, to check with Betsey to see that the cows are put into the warmer stalls, out of the draft. Have you come to chat? I wish, in fact, that you would visit me more often in the evenings, and take up a book and curl up within your mother’s favourite dozing chair.”

“But Papa, I thought that you did not wish to be disturbed when companioned by your books.”

Mr. Peppercorn smiled. “Foolish child! That rule was rescinded long ago. If you will recall, it was only put into effect for the purpose of affording me periods of extended respite during your aunt’s lengthy visits to Feral Park, and in so doing, preserve my patience and good humour. But I have never—nor will I ever—reject a single opportunity to spend time with my only child. Next year you may be married and living in some far-flung place, and I shall rarely, if ever, see you. And what will I do then?”

“Read your books, I would presume,” said Anna, without expression.

“But only whilst missing terribly your most agreeable company. Are you snug there, my dear? Should I prod the fire?”

“I am sufficiently snug and cozy, Papa.”

“Very well. Observe, by-the-bye, that I am putting down the book. See how easily I do it? I will not even steal a glance in a moment’s time to make certain that it is still there, awaiting my return. Reading may be my hobbyhorse, but it is not a mania. So. Have you something beyond a light conversational collation with which to engage your bleary-eyed father?”

“I note that your eyes
are
bleary, Papa. I think that you are reading more than is healthy for your sight.”

“Aye, I am going blind, to be sure—just like our butler Mr. Maxwell. But that should be reason for one to read all the more, do you not think? Should I not be about the business of committing to memory as many of these fine volumes as I am able before cruel fate robs me of this pleasure for the remainder of my days?”

With a sigh of impatience: “You are not going blind, Papa.”

“But the left eye is blood-veined, is it not?”

“It is because you read too much and strain it.”

“Your friend Miss Dray is blind in one eye, is she not?”

Anna nodded, rubbing her hands before the warmth of the hearth. “Gemma has no eye at all in the left socket. It has been replaced by a glass orb similar in colour and size to her natural globe.”

“Do I recollect correctly that one of her ears is fabricated as well?”

“Yes, Papa. But you have known this since the evening it fell off and came ultimately to land in her soup.”

“Dear me. Yes, yes. I had all but forgotten! So rigid with mortification she was that it devolved upon her sister to fish it out for her. As
you
recollect, what was it that caused the ear to detach?”

“A fly had alit upon her cheek and in her effort to brush it back and away, she had brushed off the manufactured ear instead.”

“But how in pushing the ear to her rear did the facial appendage find its way
forward
and into her soup?”

“As I recall, Papa, the airborne ear first struck the maid—the one whose name I forget, yet whom you will remember quit our employ that very evening. She shrieked and batted at the thing, thinking, perhaps, that it was some flying creature determined to take a bite out of her, and in so doing she knocked the flying ear tableward where it completed its journey in Gemma’s pea soup.”

“And that was the end of it.”

“Not at all. Papa, I cannot believe the extent to which your memory abdicates.”

“All I recall for certain of that evening is being reminded of the loss of your mother by the appearance of a stray coin upon the floor and my desire to drink claret until I had reached the state of accommodating oblivion. Did you not make note of the fact that your father had sunk into a heavy-lidded stupor and had begun a slow slide down into the lap of his chair?”

“No, Papa. I was much too busy observing that when poor Gemma began to wipe away the tears of embarrassment that had begun to irrigate her face, she swept away her glass eye as well—or rather, dislodged it, and sent
it
flying. Miss Prowley, who could not keep her tongue if her very life depended on it, remarked with both horror and some amusement that Gemma was coming apart in bits and pieces and that there would be nothing left of her by evening’s end but a reticule upon a chair.”

“I am sorry to say that in my inebriated state I missed all of the frolics. Still, I would have gained no pleasure from attending with full faculties the spectacle of Gemma’s self-dismantling, and I hope that the giddily-unmannered Miss Prowley was singular in her reaction.”

“Yes, Papa. The rest of us were as sympathetically mortified as was Gemma.”

“Whilst we are on the subject of poor Gemma and her semi-cobbled self, have you ever been told the reason that she has come to relinquish so many of her natural body parts?”

“The reason has never been given to me, Papa. And I do not pursue. All I know for certain is that the causal event occurred when she was a girl.”

“Well, she has adjusted remarkably well to her physical deficiencies, and you should take every opportunity to tell her so. Now, daughter, shall I read to you? I have a volume of poetry which you will find delectable. The poet is Sir Reginald Davies. You will recall Sir Davies, the M.P. who in the time of my own youth refused to wear a wig. The title of the book is
Poetic Musings by the Man Who Would Not Wear His Peruke.
There is an etched portrait upon the frontispiece—I have it right here—but you see, it is not Sir Davies. The likeness is that of his father, who not only wore a wig, but was witnessed on more than one occasion wearing
several
wigs piled one upon the other—pilfered wigs, in fact, taken in mischief from other gentlemen unawares. The poems are quite amusing except for one in which Sir Davies anticipates his own death by choking on cold beef. This final poem is arrestingly tragic. ”

Anna waited with patience until her father had suspended his discursion. She shook her head politely. “Perhaps some other time, Papa. For this moment I wish to speak with you about a matter that has me somewhat perturbed.”

Mr. Peppercorn nodded and leant toward his daughter to convey his interest. “You have my full attention. I have totally forgotten that a volume of Gibbon awaits me upon the side table. Gibbon will be content to wait for as long as is necessary for me to assist you with your vexing matter.”

“Thank you, Papa. Do you know Mr. Waitwaithe who reads law at Mr. Scourby’s office? He clerks for the solicitor as well.”

“Yes, I am quite familiar with the young man, and perhaps you have forgotten that you have made previous mention of him a time or two yourself. He possesses a woman’s name, does he not: Audrey.”

Anna shook her head. “His name is
Aubrey
and Aubrey alone. However, people do tend, now and then, to make this mistake.”

“With a misdenomination such as Audrey, one would think that he might some day take up housekeeping with the vicar.” Mr. Peppercorn simpered but Anna did not apprehend the jest.

“Housekeeping? I do not understand, Papa.”

“Two men—sharing the same…interests. It is no matter. Gibbon has corrupted my sensibilities as he always does. The Romans were quite the Philistines you know, and in reading about them one is inevitably directed to contemplate a society thoroughly out of league with our own order, which appears at first glance to be a refined and wholly civilized enterprise. But now that the subject has been broached, I must say, daughter, that I do wonder at intervals if our modern and culturally sophisticated society, in spite of its pretensions to propriety and decorum, has, within the marrow of its tendencies, an inability to fully elevate itself above the degeneracy of its antecedents. I wonder if we may to-day be willing, more often than is comfortably owned, to explore without moral compass in similar fashion the nether regions of the human propensity to decadence, and simply refuse to speak of it in polite society.”

“Papa, I do not follow. Nor, I think, do I wish to.”

“Have we not always spoken openly and honestly with one another?”

“Yes, Papa. But I have come to put a matter to you of importance to
me
, and suddenly you are delivering parcels of your own—musing parcels pertaining to definitions of morality that would find more relevance in some philosophic forum.”

“Then forgive me, daughter. At present, you are one of only two individuals with whom I feel at ease to discuss my growing alarm over the fall and decline of our own empire—an empire marked by a dissoluteness and profligacy presently veiled by empty propriety and vacuous manners, but—I believe— erupting in replete and odious efflorescence behind the masks, beneath the tables, and within the dark corners of our rusticated provincial lives.”

“And who, pray, is the other individual who should possess this special privilege?”

“Dr. Quentin Bosworthy.”

“The Oxonian?”

“Aye. With whom I shared a coach on partial-post to London a few years ago. I have, incidentally, invited my scientific friend to stay with us during Trinity term this year, and just this morning I received word of his acceptance. You should be pleased by his visit, daughter, for I will burden you no longer with my philosophical musings. I will address the good doctor instead. Oh, the discussions and deliberations that he and I shall have!”

“I do not mind your musings, Papa, despite their darkling hue, or despite the fact that I do not understand your meaning except every now and then. It is just that—”

Mr. Peppercorn interposed: “What part of what I just put forth do you not understand?”

“Exactly what it is that is being veiled, for example. Have we Dionysian festivals in Berryknell of which I have yet to be made aware? Do our neighbours scatter into the woods in a Midsummer Night’s madness of unbound licentiousness? You have brought me up, Papa, to see good in all whom I meet, even as I grouse and repine at the empty or blockheaded intercourse of those round me. Yet here you sit suddenly and uncharacteristically suspicious that those who display vacuity in their character lead, in fact, secret lives of such calculated shame and lubricity such as to bring halt even to the pen of Gibbon himself. I know that you have not always felt this way. And I cannot believe that you wish me to join you in raking away ground-fodder and turning over stones and peering with a scientific Bosworthian eye at all that wriggles and squiggles in the harsh light of exposure. I should think, therefore, and if I may be candid, Papa, that you spend far too much time with your books and your theories and your newly-bred suspicions and not enough time in the company of men and women of
sensible
intelligence. To make amendment in this regard, I hereby request that we invite Mr. Waitwaithe to dine with us.”

“Good mercy! I did not foresee our ascent to
that
particular conversational crossroad, dear daughter, and may I commend you on the nimbleness with which you negotiated it! So impress me further: what would be the purpose of an evening spent in the company of your Mr. Waitwaithe?”