Feral Park (46 page)
Authors: Mark Dunn
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #British & Irish, #Historical, #Dramas & Plays, #Genre Fiction, #Drama & Plays, #Historical Fiction, #Irish, #Scottish
“My love for him will not desert me,” said Anna in a voice so low as hardly to be heard.
In the gig, Anna was silent, and Gemma did not coax her to speak. She was silent for the remainder of the day, as well, and also through dinner and through supper and then she said only a few syllables to beg pardon for not joining her Aunt Drone, Miss Pints and Mrs. Taptoe at the whist table and for not sitting with Dr. Bosworthy and her father and Georgiana Younge in the library. The three were discussing a strange woman, dubbed Princess Caraboo, who had recently fooled the entire town of Bristol and a good many others into thinking that she was a personage of exotic royalty, until a published picture in the
Bristol Journal
exposed her as an imposter; she was, in fact, merely a fraud-minded cobbler’s daughter, a servant girl of mean circumstances. Anna listened at the door and was fascinated by new details of the hoax, which she had been following in the newspapers, but chose not to enter the discussion, especially since Miss Younge still believed it all to be true and the woman to be, just as it was purported by a confederate, a primitive from the Isle of Javasu in the Indian Ocean where women swam naked, shot the bow and arrow, and prayed to Allah Tallah.
It was not until late that night that Anna was required to speak a few words in the presence of her father, who was worried over her low spirits and brought her a cup of warm chocolate, and sat upon her bed and made her drink it. “I know what is troubling you, for I know where you have been. I have gone down to the cellar and spoken with Gemma.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you and she were at the Pickler House this morning to offer succour to Perry Alford in his time of need—to hold and caress with tenderness his tremulous, laudanum-deprived hand. I think it is good that you have done this. The Alfords have very little money, but I want only for you to be happy and he has struck me as one who could make you very happy indeed, were he able to quit this deadly habit. It has made me think, as well, my dear, that I should hope that you and I will be there to hold the hand of one another through our own seasons of troubles, and I should like you to know that I am here to do that very thing to-night if it is required and to bring you more chocolate and whatever else will mend your broken spirit. We have drifted apart over the last few days—neither of us can deny it—but in time our society will return to its old ways, and in the face of every new thing we will always be father and daughter. Here is a bond that can never be severed.”
“Papa, there are things which you still have not told me. There are things, as well, which I have not told
you
. I do not know why we must have secrets, but their existence seems to mark the course of our lives these days.” “I cannot tell you every thing that I know, daughter, for reasons which may also not be revealed. These are all complicated matters and you must understand that my silence does not in any way affect the measure of my love for you.”
“Then you will understand why I too must keep certain matters from
your
ken.”
“If you must play that game, child, then play it. In time I will discover all that you know, and I am slowly learning this and that in patches and pieces even now. I know, for example, that you are now aware of the truth about your mother.”
“That she was
not
my mother? That, in fact, Mrs. Dray is my mother?” “Aye.”
“Had I not been informed by my aunt, would you ever have told me yourself?”
“In time perhaps I would—once I felt that you would be able to understand why I had to do what was done.”
“I understand perfectly well why you did what you did. I have understood perfectly well most every thing that you have done. You are my father.” “Are you happy to know now?”
“I am.”
“You do not seem happy at the moment. You seem wretched.” Anna took a sip of the chocolate, then nodded. “Payton Parish is not a bad place alone and by itself, Papa. It is the world that is bad in the aggregate, and it is the world in its enormity which visits pain and suffering upon each one of us who lives upon it, with only brief respites of joy. I know not why we do not every one of us drink ourselves into a laudanum fog from the hopelessness of the outcome.”
“The world may be a very bleak place at times, my dear girl, but the respites of which you speak cannot be so short-lived as you perceive them to be. Have not you yourself enjoyed a generally contented life?”
“My life has been content, Papa, perhaps because I was put into a state of ignorant bliss. Once my eyes began to open—and to open fully—I began to see less and less beauty about me and more a spreading, obscuring cloud of depravity and insuperable sadness, and inhuman cruelty exercised one against another, the likes of which I did not think possible.”
“So you take no solace from your prayers or from the assurance of your father’s love? Your mother’s as well, and your sisters. As your world seems to grow as dark as the blindness that envelopes Mr. Maxwell, are there not still those who stand before you with lighted candles to illuminate your dark path with love? Or do you squint your eyes so that the light should be ignored? Your troubled view concerns me greatly, daughter. I will address the matter most immediately by going down to the library and finding something light and funny to read to you, to raise your spirits and keep your dreams from turning ugly and haunted.”
“I think, Papa, that I should like to be read to on some other night instead. There was a rabbit in my room earlier this evening, and its incongruous presence here served the purpose of making me smile. It is a funny thing to see a furry cony in one’s own up stairs apartment. I have no doubt, therefore, that I shall dream about rabbits and giggle all the while.”
As Anna predicted, she dreamt that night about rabbits. The creatures were green. This is what people sometimes dream when they drink two glasses of absinthe before retiring.
It did not seem that Mr. Nevers could help himself. It had always been his custom to shake the hands of his parishioners
after
the Sunday morning service (and to have them tell him how much they enjoyed the sermon), but this morning he placed himself at the garden gate to greet a procession of gentleman farmers and cooks and shopkeepers and governesses and up stairs maids and farriers and poultry-tenders, many of whom had never before attended an out-of-doors Sunday service and were most eager to do so. There were some who came to services only on Easter or only for the Christmas Eve wassail (because wassail was served), but who would have thought that a June service could draw such a crowd to the church garden?
“We should gather out of doors every Sunday!” asserted the vicar to Anna upon her arrival. She was not in the best mood to receive his ebullient morning cheer, as she had slept badly (once the somnolent effect of the absinthe had worn off) and then awoke early to find an annoying rabbit in her bed, nibbling her sheets.
With a complacent smile Anna responded that it was nice to see her idea bear fruit but it was the vicar’s job to gather the orchard’s harvest. As he nodded his approval of the analogy, Anna found herself a place upon a rear pew beneath a pear tree. From this spot she observed Dr. Bosworthy and Aunt Drone and Miss Pints and Mrs. Taptoe settle into the pew in the very front, because Miss Pints had said that she could not hear well from anywhere else and also because Dr. Bosworthy enjoyed expressing his religious skepticism upon the canvas of his face in such close proximity as to unsettle and discomfit the firm believer who stood behind the pulpit. The arrival of Anna’s mother, Julia Dray, and Anna’s aunt, Lydia Quarrels, occurred at nearly the same time, and the concerted efforts made by each to avoid having to look at the other, and then the ordeal of succumbing to the requirement of their circumstances and nodding with some semblance of respectful civility and finally having to actually open their mouths and greet one another with the requisite “good morning” dictated by a shifting and shuffling of others such as to place them in close proximity, drew Anna’s interest and held it for the entire course of the family drama. At its conclusion, Anna’s mother and Anna’s half-sister May Dray seated themselves to the left of her, and Aunt Quarrels and her son Charles put themselves into the pew directly in front, as did Mrs. Quarrels’ three nieces, who squeezed themselves into a space to the right of their aunt much better suited for two than three. Mother and son could easily have moved down to make room for the three uncomfortably constrained Misses Henshawe, but neither of them did so, and the three young women did not hazard an appeal. Though unhappy to find her Aunt Quarrels sitting directly in front of her, the placement of the three Misses Henshawe to the right of their aunt was perfect for Anna’s purpose, which was the conveying to Miss Nancy Henshawe of the precise time for her to excuse herself and go off to meet Lieutenant Alford at the trysting place, as had been arranged.
Within a moment, Nancy, who was seated between her two sisters, turned fully to greet Anna and to place a finger next to her long, hooked nose, a gesture meant to suggest full knowledge and complicity in the scheme and readiness for its implementation. The other two sisters, whom Anna had not seen in many years turned to greet Anna as well, only to be reprimanded by Mrs. Quarrels and commanded in a stern voice to “face the pulpit this very instant and do not be a nuisance. This is why I do not take you out. You are like twitchy little dogs without a tether.” With this, Anna felt the urge to slap her aunt hard across the face for her rudeness and imperiousness, but she held her hand in her lap and then put a hymnal over it to be safe.
A moment later Anna could no longer stand the suspense and spoke to the back of her Aunt Quarrels’ head to enquire as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Henshawe.
In violation of her own rule with regard to turning round, Mrs. Quarrels turned
fully
in her seat to address Anna tête-à-tête: “She is not feeling well. I forced a clyster upon her and then sent for the leech man. Whatever is ailing her will have been drained or sucked out of all of her fluids by dinnertime. I do not see Gemma about. Is she also unwell?”
“Gemma is quite well,” offered Anna’s mother with formality. “She is attending to a sick friend,
without
clysters or leeches I should add.” Then under her breath she appended, “The Drays gave up medieval medicine in the year 1400.”
“That remark was unnecessary, Julia. Each of us does things in her own way. I, for, example, would not have worn that hat. You remind me of that odd duck who lives at Grantley Court. Do you see her yonder? She presently wears a forest upon her head.”
Mrs. Dray did not bother to look at Mrs. Epping. She raised her hymnal and put her face nearly into it. By this act she indicated that the interview was over.
Neither Mrs. Dray nor her daughter Anna would have told Mrs. Quarrels that Gemma had very much
wanted
to come, but Miss Godby had procured another corkscrew and drank all through the night as Gemma slept the deep sleep of the very exhausted. When Gemma awoke, she found the young woman in her care—the daughter of a lord and lady!—drenched and stained with spilt and dribbled wine, which had wet and then dried upon every part of her, including her hair. Miss Godby had also soiled herself in her one-person bacchanal to such an extent that the cellar now reeked of excrement. There was vomit in one place and then in another, which had slain a mouse in its projection. It was a crushing disappointment to Gemma to see Miss Godby in this recidivated state, for it meant that rather than spending her morning worshipping her Lord Christ Jesus amongst sweet-smelling garden flowers and beneath a clear azure canopy, she was now to oversee the bathing and sobering up of the still besotted and still incorrigible Miss Godby. It was a blow, but it was not the right of Gemma’s Aunt Quarrels to know anything about it.
Being rebuffed by Mrs. Dray through the wall of her hymnal, Mrs. Quarrels shifted herself to greet Anna’s father, who had not heard the previous exchange for he was lost in despondent thought over Miss Younge’s having preferred her dissenter service to his company—or at least this is how it appeared to Anna, who had been studying her father from time to time since the two sat down. She noted to his credit that he raised a polite smile for Mrs. Quarrels (as he had raised polite smiles for everyone who had greeted him that morning, though none be Georgiana Younge, whom he would have smiled the most to see). As Mrs. Quarrels turned back round to ask no one in particular why the service could not have been moved elsewhere, for there was the smell of cow ordure wafting over from the glebe that would in all likelihood take her mind from Jesus, the heads of each of the Misses Henshawe and the heads of Anna and her half-sister May and her mother all began to twist and turn and the eyes to seek and search about for the one who was to give this gathering its nonliturgical purpose: Lieutenant Alford. Where was he? Was he delayed? Would Miss Henshawe see him when he arrived? Where were she and he to meet? Oh, yes—that was decided. It was to be the old oak tree at the end of the gravel path to the plantation. Which oak tree? There was only one in that spot. It was quite large and could not be missed. What has kept him? Oh, there he is! An elbow nudge to Nancy Henshawe’s ribs from the left by her excited yet contained sister Eliza and from the right by her excited yet contained sister Sophia informed the oldest and most excited (and anxious) sister that all was happening as had been planned. Happy day! He is here! He is sitting down across the aisle and two rows ahead, and can be seen without obstruction except for Mrs. Epping’s enormously trimmed bonnet. He is sitting down next to his brother Colin. Oh, look at Colin—how smartly he wears his aubergine cravat!
The service began. Mr. Nevers was all reverence and joy. “I have never seen so many agreeable faces! And look at all the baskets for the picnic that is to follow! I trust that you have brought some bread and cheese for the vicar! And smell the lovely scent of the flowers and be still and the bees will buzz on to someone else. Do not swat at them; it will do no good. Now, let us turn to page forty-seven in our hymnals: ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God.’”
As the members of the congregation raised their voices in song, Mr. Peppercorn fidgeted and then turned to his daughter and whispered, “I am thinking of becoming a Methodist to make Miss Younge happy.”
Anna did not know how she was to reply, for her mind and eye were largely fixed upon Lieutenant Alford, to wonder when he would rise and go—as had been planned—so that she could then tap Miss Henshawe upon the shoulder, not at that very moment but a minute or so later, to prevent an association in the mind of Mrs. Quarrels between the two departures. To her father, Anna simply said, “Oh?”
“Yes, it is apparent that Miss Younge will not permit herself to join the Church of England, so I must join
her
church. I hope that it will not be required that I hug and kiss people when the peace is passed.”
Anna did not hear any thing that her father was whispering to her, for at the very moment of his reply the lieutenant rose from his seat and left for his appointment at the oak tree. At that very same moment Nancy Henshawe’s whole body began to convulse and Anna could see from the way that she clutched the pew-back in front of her that she was well-nigh in a swoon from the tension and anxiety which attended her crucial role in this carefully-scripted drama. After estimating two minutes’ passage in her head, Anna tapped Miss Henshawe surreptitiously upon the shoulder. In a voice that should have been taken down to a delicate whisper, but was any thing but this, Miss Henshawe said with a gulp and a shudder, “Aunt Quarrels, I must go and make a wee.”
“Right now? At this instant? You should have attended the necessary before the service began. I will not have you inconveniencing all these people by climbing over them.”
“But I really must wee, for I cannot hold it!” This assertion was delivered in nearly a full voice, and even though there was loud singing to cover the appeal, it appeared that several who were sitting nearby heard it clearly.
“Absolutely not!” barked Mrs. Quarrels in response.
“But I simply
must
!” Nancy Henshawe retorted in desperation. To demonstrate her distress, she held her hand to her lower belly, as did her sister Sophia in sympathetic support.
Nancy’s entreaty was followed by a nearly simultaneous appeal on the part of her youngest sister Eliza, as well as by a woman seated in front of Mrs. Quarrels, who turned suddenly and said sharply, “Let the girl go and make water, you hateful old bag!”
Mrs. Quarrels was so disconcerted by the intrusive remark that she was not able to catch Nancy as she rose and moved with apologies to each whom she would step over on her way to the aisle.
Anna held her breath to see if Mrs. Quarrels would pursue. She did not. Anna relaxed and took up the hymn, singing it joyfully and with volume and vigour. Mr. Peppercorn sang more desultorily. There followed a different hymn and then some remarks about the beauty of the downs and some liturgy, and by now Mrs. Quarrels appeared to be growing restless not knowing why Nancy Henshawe had not completed her business and returned to her seat. Finally she rose.
“Where are you going?” asked her son.
“To find out what has happened to Nancy.”
“She has probably run away. I will unleash the hounds upon our return.”
“You are being funny but I would not put it past her to attempt to flee and make both of our lives inconvenient in the recovery of her. I am going to look for her.”
Charles Quarrels shook his head and yawned and then took a pinch of snuff as his mother made her way down the pew and stepped on a toe or two without apology and then was into the aisle and off on her search.
Anna could not sit still to think that Mrs. Quarrels could very easily come across Nancy and Lieutenant Alford in their lovers’ assignation beneath the oak and spoil every thing through her malicious intentions. So she rose, herself, and moved to follow. Likewise, her father got up from his spot upon the pew and sidled out behind his daughter.
Once the two had reached the garden gate and taken the gravel path in pursuit of Anna’s aunt, who was moving at a fast stride several paces ahead, Anna asked her father why he had followed and he said that he could not concentrate on the lesson of the sermon, and what was
her
reason for jumping up in such a hurry?
“To foil a discovery. We must catch and detain my Aunt Quarrels, Papa, or she will surely come upon Lieutenant Alford and Nancy Henshawe and spoil their romantic rendezvous. Think of something dilatory to say to her.”
As Anna brushed past her aunt without a word, Mr. Peppercorn held the now-puzzled woman to her spot with a handshake (as if the two had not earlier exchanged a greeting) and then would not let go of the hand whilst engaging her with the topic of the mysterious Princess Caraboo.
“Have you not heard the latest thing—that she is not a princess at all, but a charlatan of the lowest order?” Mr. Peppercorn’s voice was loud and Anna could hear every word of the early portion of his interview with her aunt even as the distance increased between her and them.
“No, I have not, Mr. Peppercorn, but it makes no difference to me if she be a Stornaway lunatic. I have business which you keeping me from attending.”
“The truth is, Mrs. Quarrels, that she made up every word of that mysterious language she spoke. You see, it was all of her very own confection. My friend Dr. Bosworthy said that this alone constitutes a commendable feat, but it is still rather a silly tongue without etymological logic. She calls God Allah, as do the Mohammedans, but then she uses gipsy words as well, and is not a caraboo some sort of North American elk?”