Feral Park (18 page)

“You mean men who look as I do? You mean men not at all handsome in their appearance, in their aspect? Perhaps they are pocked or bear scars from some accident. Perhaps the mouth is ill-turned, or the nose is overly wide and pushed flat from some pugilistic misfortune, or the eyebrows grow together into one long furry brow which may frighten young children. Is this the sort of man you mean?”

Anna did not know how to answer. With some hesitation: “Well,
yes
.”

Suddenly, Nancy’s face became bright and her voice filled with cheer. “Then I should be most eager to attend such a ball! I have always dreamt that some day a long-browed man would take me for his wife, for there are a good many men with long, single brows, I wager. Or with varioles upon their faces, or chins that point sharply and oddly as does the joker’s face in a deck of cards. Miss Peppercorn, Cousin Gemma: I do not know how my sisters and I will ever repay you for facilitating our rescue from our present situation. But in the meantime, is there no immediate way to free my sister Sophia, and now young Eliza, from the nefarious grip of the monkey paw?”

“Alas, for the time being, I cannot answer,” admitted Anna with a sympathetic frown.“But there is something about your cousin and aunt known to Gemma’s mother that should serve us well if she would but tell us. Neither she nor my father, who knows of the thing himself, will say what it is. Gemma, you have asked your mother again for the intelligence regarding the Quarrels?”

“I have indeed. Unfortunately, she has conferred with your father on the matter. The result of
that
interview is a compact between our two parents by which each has agreed
never
to speak of what they know.”

“But it is so terribly unfair!” repined Anna. “There is something to which they have become privy which could be employed to keep Sophia and very soon her younger sister Eliza out of monkey fur and yet they refuse to assist? It is a horrible, terrible shame.”

“But, Anna, did not your father say that he had very good reason for
not
using the information he has obtained to bring the Quarrels to the bargaining table? Does not the reciprocal information pertain to your family, or to your father in particular? Perhaps the intelligence involves such loathsome behaviour on the part of your father that he would be a fool to countenance its publication.”

“Gemma Dray, whatever could there be about my father which he would not wish known to others in the parish?”

“I cannot say. I can only say this, Anna: that he has owned to attending performances at the Gracechurch Street Monkey Parlour when he was a younger man, thereby establishing the fact that he has in the past, at least, demonstrated an interest in areas of leisure frowned upon by the church for the iniquity which characterises it.”

“I am certain, Gemma, that for him this represented only an isolated incident or two of moral stumble. I believe with equal certainty, for example, that my father would in no case have chartered a boat so that he might bed his sister-in-law upon the English Channel.”

A moment of simmering quietude in the conversation brought Nancy to observe how odd was the harsh way in which Anna and Gemma spoke to one another. “What nasty arrows do each of you pull from your quivers!” she blurted.

“Friends will do that upon occasion,” said Gemma with a look of embarrassment.

“Then I have changed my opinion,” announced Nancy, still appalled at the exchange. “I should
not
like to have friends.”

“But, Miss Henshawe, this is the only way we know to make our points,” said Anna. “To that end, I am most reluctant to reiterate that I still do not think my father capable of the sort of morally deficient acts that have formerly defined the behaviour of Gemma’s mother. Forgive me for saying it, Gemma, but there is no comparison between Papa’s tentative visits to the M.P., followed by wrenching feelings of remorse, and the fully wanton bedroom frolics of the Dray brothers and their equally reckless wives. How could you even think to place the two within the same category?”

As the three strollers reached the shrubbery, which marked the bounds of the village, they stopt, but the heated debate between Anna and Gemma did not sputter and die away. Said the latter vaguely, “I know other things about your father that I will not impart.”

“You cannot say ‘I know other things’ and then not say them, Gemma, for I will think you guilty of prevarication to serve your hateful ends!”

“I will not asperse your father to make my points. He is a good and kind man, as is my mother good and kind. We are—all of us—good and kind, but we are, all of us,
human
creatures, Anna, and capable of mistakes that follow us to our inglorious detriment, your father included. And if your father, as a young man, sat himself within the monkey parlour and licked his lips whilst the women who commanded his eye danced their simian dances with little but monkey fur to clad themselves, then I cannot imagine that there was not a time or two that he did not do
other
things of which he to-day would certainly feel ashamed.”

“Then I ask you to tell me what other things have come to your ken.”

“Oh, must I, Anna? We have been such wonderful confederates and now we will become braying mules kicking at one another for no good reason.”

“Kick me, Gemma. For I must know what else my father has done. It is very important for me to be duly informed.”

“But
why
is it so important? You have never thought your father to be all of Christian perfection, now have you?”

“Nay, but I have always respected him and have always known him to be a man who
strived
to live in accordance with his strong moral convictions.” “He is a good and kind man, I agree. And we shall simply leave it at that.”

“If you do not tell me what you know, Gemma, I shall take the ear again and cut it to pieces with scissors.”

Nancy now sat down upon the ground and covered her own ears. It was obvious, given the look of disapproval upon her face, that she had never before seen two friends who behaved so dreadfully when in the company of one another.

“Now look at what we have done!” said Gemma. “We have thoroughly incommoded Nancy. Are you happy, Anna?”

“Nancy may sit there with her ears covered and it will be a convenience. Because now you can tell me in perfect confidence what horrible things my father has done about which I have a right to be informed.”

“One thing and one thing only is all that I shall tell. The other thing—that thing which my mother knows and will
not
tell—
I
cannot tell, for she exacted a promise from me that I must honour.”

“Do you mean, Gemma, that you know, too? How can this be?”

“Mamma tells me much. I am her confidante.”

“I cannot believe this!”

“I will tell you the
little
thing.”

“No. Tell me the
big
thing—the thing that keeps us from firing our shot at the Quarrels.”

“No. It must be the little thing only. Then I can say no more, and there is no way that you shall get it out of me, Anna, and I will fain bolt to prevent it, if necessary, so you should not even try.”

Anna had been pushed into a corner and did not know how to free herself. She consented to hear the little thing, at least.

In a dramatic whisper: “I know the contents of the locked book cabinet in your father’s library.”

“And how can you ever know such a thing, Gemma? Even
I
do not know what is in that cabinet, for Papa opens it to no one but himself.”

“He has never spoken of what is inside?”

“A few rare books of some worth. Family papers. Other items of import and value.”

“There are other books in there as well, perhaps valued in a different way from their monetary worth. I know this from the maid who quitted your father’s employ the night my body shed itself at your dining room table. What was the girl’s name?”

“I do not recollect the name of the forgettable maid, Gemma, but I believe I know vaguely of whom you speak. She was not one of our more conscientious servants.”

“Indeed, for the girl found the key to your father’s cabinet and went into it that very night looking for things, I would imagine, that she might take with her and sell to compensate herself for having been hit in the head by my ear.”

“You must have dreamt this, Gemma, for it is implausible and ridiculous as well.”

“I am telling you the truth, Anna. It happened this way: I left the dining table to attend to my eye and ear and situate them both upon my face in such a way that Mrs. Prowley would suspend her violent laughter. As I was seeking a secluded spot within the house, I stepped into your father’s library, recollecting that it provided a large looking glass over the mantel perfect for my needs. As I entered I saw upon that instant the vile girl, crouching beside the open cabinet, gathering this and that into her greedy arms in outright thievery!”

“You should have called for my father at that very moment!”

“I had thought to do it, but
my
plan proved more satisfying. I called her a ‘filching mort’ and took a poker to her.”

“What is that: ‘filching mort’?” asked Anna with a gape.

“It is common cant for lady thief.”

“How do you know common cant?”

“My stableman Rupert teaches it to me when I ride upon his back. It makes the journey pass quicker. But returning to your father: I knew that in his drunken stupor he would have been of little use, and here was my chance, once I had banished her from the room, to discover for myself if what
my
father had said about
your
father was true.”

“And what was it that your father had said?”

“That during the period of my family’s financial difficulties, your father had made an extraordinarily generous loan, which preserved our home and our good name, and then he extended his beneficence by totally forgiving it. Not even a single farthing would your father take in repayment!”

“Why would Papa do such a thing?”

“Because he is a most kind-hearted man, as I have already said, and that is why our contretemps was so unnecessary, for whatever has been recorded in the minus column of the ledger of his life is far outweighed by this act of generosity on the plus side. What I discovered in the cabinet was evidence that what my father had told me was true in every detail, for there was documentation therein that confirmed even the reason for this act of profound magnanimity: that there
was
no reason other than the exercise of a loving Christian heart. At the same time, I learnt from your father’s most personal effects of a small demerit to his character—a humanizing peccadillo, if you will.”

“Say it, Gemma. For the sake of my sanity!”

“It is a fondness for a certain sort of book. There were three within the cabinet: books on female anatomy and hygiene, copiously illustrated.”

“Female anatomy and hygiene?”

Nodding: “Copiously illustrated. I recall the titles even to this day:
Hygiene and Bodily Discovery in the Nubile Young Woman
and
Female Anatomy Revealed with Eight Hand-coloured Plates
and one more—what is the title? Ah yes:
Barlow’s Treatise on the Female Reproductive System Providing Generous Diagrams and Depictions Both Within and Without the Anatomical Subject.
”

“These must certainly have belonged to my mother.”

“Yes, to be sure,” said Gemma archly.

After a long moment during which Anna first held to the belief that the books had belonged to her mother, and then took up the theory that they had been her father’s, and that he had looked them over with a smack of the lips, and then shortly thereafter returned to her previous theory that the books must certainly have been her mother’s, for this is how the intellectually dim woman learnt about her body, being unable to read and the volumes being copiously illustrated, Anna asked Gemma if there was anything else within the cabinet worthy of report.

Gemma nodded. “There was something else pertaining to that matter which I have sworn to my mother that I will not divulge. And I shall not. Now let us help Nancy to her feet and vow never again to quarrel.”

“I cannot believe that you would stand there and refuse to tell me a thing that is my right as daughter to know!” railed Anna.

“If you wish to know what is in the cabinet, Anna, you must discover its contents on your own. Nancy, do rise and brush off the dust of the road from your seat. There is a man approaching.”

There was, indeed, a man coming toward the three young women. He was tall and carried himself in an upright and soldierly fashion.

“I do not know him,” said Anna, squinting down the lane. “But he is very handsome and presents himself quite well, does he not?”

“He does indeed,” remarked Nancy, who had perhaps never seen a man of such agreeable features either in the village or outside of it, for she had rarely in her life of nine and twenty years ventured much from the side of her mother or from the seclusion of her school. Even in her European travels she seldom raised her head to view any thing but the knees and feet of those few young men whom she would meet in her tours of tombs and antiquities.

“How do I look?” she asked of her two companions, whilst pinching at her cheeks and fussing with her hair.