Feral Park (44 page)

Very late that night Colin Alford came, as he said that he would, to the Feral Park mansion-house. Anna had expected that he would bring the poem with him—the one that the two had discussed in the orchard earlier that day and the one for which Anna had served as inspiration—but he did not have it. He could
not
have had it, for the verses were no more. The pages upon which the poem had been penned had been destroyed by Perry Alford’s own hand. Perry had discovered them amongst his younger brother’s things and had shredded each page into scraps and flakes, and thrown them all into the rubbish, and that was that. The plan to use Perry’s own words as a vehicle to redeem his health was spoilt.

“But my oldest brother and I have devised another scheme, this one simpler but equally promising,” said Colin to Anna at the back door of the mansion-house. “We will simply transport him at first cock-crow to Mrs. Pickler’s without his having any say in the matter. We will take him and deliver him to that kind woman so that he may benefit from her miraculous offices. There will be several of us about the task who are strong and not past the age of seventy, and with all of us fully employed, he will go, whether he be in accordance with our objective or not. Therefore, it is not necessary for
you
to come to the Super House, Miss Peppercorn, for there will be nothing for you to do, and moreover, you should only be in the way.”

“I see,” said Anna, who, aside from being affronted by the possibility of insult, was actually somewhat relieved to know that it was no longer required that she go and belittle and malign the man she loved in service to a higher purpose. “Then I shall meet you at Mrs. Pickler’s house later in the morning.”

“Very well,” said Colin, who then changed the subject to note that there had been a good many rabbits hopping hither and thither across the path as he walked from the Super House. “Do you not find them to be a nuisance?”

“To be sure. My father has agreed to allow a man to bring traps next week and take them all deep into the woods.”

Then changing the subject yet again, Colin Alford enquired as to how went the dinner that evening.

“It went quite well until Mr. Groves began to lick Mr. Waitwaithe’s calf.”

Colin Alford nodded without surprize. “Mr. Groves must appreciate a fine calf. Upon our first meeting he knelt before me and stroked my own with interest.”

Adieus were then said, and Anna returned to her bed.

The next morning she descended into the wine cellar and found Miss Godby and her new lady’s maid Gemma Dray sitting quietly with teacups and Miss Godby looking ashen and wretched and being full of apology for her terrible behaviour the night before.

When Miss Godby had finished her say, Anna turned to Gemma and said in a whisper, “I should like to take you with me to Smithcoat, if there is no danger in leaving Miss Godby alone.”

“I heard what you said, Miss Peppercorn,” said Miss Godby, “for your whisper is loud. I am not a lunatic who must be monitored at every moment. I will do quite all right down here for a few hours in the absence of attendance and close observation. Here. You may have this corkscrew. And here. You may have this other corkscrew, which I picked from the pocket of Mr. Maxwell when he was saying ‘good evening’ to that hogshead and thinking it to be a corpulent visitor to the cellar.”

Gemma’s face brightened. “Can this be true? I am to have a reprieve—a holiday from this onerous task? Oh, joyous day!”

“I heard what
you
said as well,” remarked Miss Godby, holding the teacup as if she had been proper and civil all along.

“I rather hoped that you would,” said Gemma with a glower. Hardly had these words left her mouth than Gemma was in happy flight, and bounding up the stairs by twos and threes. Anna had not even time to tell the best news of all: that Gemma would get to drive her father’s gig. Mr. Peppercorn did not know this, but James had already brought it round front, and if Anna and her sister departed without further delay, the appropriation of the carriage would remain undiscovered by Anna’s father until long after their purpose had been achieved, for the master of the house had been up very late the previous night observing the stars through the telescope in the company of Dr. Bosworthy and Miss Drone and Miss Younge, one of which—a very bright one—Mr. Peppercorn had named after his beloved to her great delight. It was later reported to Anna that Miss Drone had asked the doctor if he would name a star after
her
. He had replied that he could not; but there were a great many bees named after her already, and the magnum of wine which had accompanied the quartet to the roof of the mansion-house caused them all to laugh effusively at this jest, which at best would have produced only an indulgent smile in the sober daylight.

Once upon the seat with Gemma merrily taking up the reins, Anna spilt out every thing which came to mind relating to all that had happened the previous night whilst Gemma was chasing Felicity Godby all about the cellar and wresting bottles of wine away from her in a grappling roll-and-tumble upon the floor. Hearing the details of what went on in the Feral Park mansionhouse after she had been relegated to serving as nursemaid for the obstreperous Miss Godby, Gemma pursed her lips and snorted and then exclaimed, “I missed all of
that
? I am destroyed. And Perry Alford being made to go to Mrs. Pickler’s for rejuvenation—this is a development that has escaped me as well. Did you not even think to ask me what
I
thought before you chose to endorse such a bold plan?”

“No, I did not, Gemma, for how could it matter? He is not attached to you. He is attached to
me
, and must we go down this bumpy road again?”

“It is the only road to Smithcoat, but no, I see—you are being metaphorical. Take your Mr. Alford and heal him. He never came to visit me at all events and so I must conclude that I am no longer a candidate for his hand. It is a rare man who can overlook a woman’s physical deficiencies, and apparently Mr. Alford is not he, although his older brother, the lieutenant, sees attributes in even the most ill-countenanced woman in the parish. I suppose that some men may search the heart of a girl and discover every good thing that recommends her and rewards
him
, but others, such as your Perry Alford, see only that which rests cosmetically upon the surface.
Your
surface, Anna, being quite beautiful, punctuates my point perfectly.”

“And by this point do you insinuate that there is nothing, then,
beneath
my surface upon which a man may fix himself?”

“I insinuate nothing. I do not wish to fight, Anna. It is a beautiful morning. There is not a cloud in the sky and I am filled with relief and glee to be out of that oppressive cellar. I dare say that I shall never marry, but I refuse to repine. Mamma needs me and will require me even more as she grows older and feebler. I will be the old maid daughter who brings the shawl. I will be—what is that detestable thing that they call an old maid these days—yes, ‘ape leader.’ I will be deemed the ape leader of Payton Parish, who in the life hereafter, as punishment for not being fruitful and propagating the species, will lead all the apes into hell.”

“That was revolting, Gemma.”

“It is what they say.”

“The lower classes say a good many things, sister, but there is no requirement that you must insert their sayings into
our
society.”

“You did not allow me to name the recompense in the arrangement. You see, I should not be totally wretched, for I will, from time to time, take the gig or curricle about and give my horses their heads and be periodically rejuvenated, even as the children point and shout ‘ape leader!’ and ‘thornback’ and ‘fallow womb!’ as I pass.”

“Gemma, you do not flatter yourself when you self-berate.”

“How is it self-berating to reconcile oneself to one’s fate? And who is to say, now that I ponder it, that we will not the
both of us
end our season of youth by sitting at our mother’s side and hearing about her chills? For Perry Alford is almost dead. Only a miracle, as you tell it, will save him.”

“I believe that Mrs. Pickler will work that miracle.”

“Based upon what? You have no proof that she has ever done that which she has promised. But I will attempt to maintain a positive view. Now tell me again: why is it that you wish to see Tripp’s brother Trapp?”

“I wish to hire him to burn down the Three Horse Tavern and Inn.”

Gemma did not even blink an eye.

The Pickler House was a storybook cottage with quaint outside appointments and a picket fence encompassing a flower garden in riotous bloom. It was difficult for one to imagine that such a dear cottage could still be used for such an illicit purpose as prostitution, but this is what a good many Payton parishioners believed even to this day, including Constable Whitaker, who must
go on
believing in its iniquitous employment and go on taking payments from Mrs. Pickler to look the other way, or the cottage’s purpose as a way-house for escapees from the Bloody Code would be discovered by a more attentive Constable Whitaker and Mrs. Pickler would be trundled off to London to face the hangman’s noose her very self!

It was not the mistress of the house who greeted Anna and Gemma at the door, but three buxom and affable servant girls whom one would assume without much supposition were hired by Mrs. Pickler to cook and clean, but also to perform other tasks that were now rarely if ever required.

Mrs. Pickler was quickly summoned, and entered the room in a burst of good cheer and with a full and bouncing bosom that put Anna instantly to mind of Mrs. Taptoe, except that the latter did not wear so liberal an application of bright rouge upon the lips and cheeks (a habit that Anna supposed was taken up in Mrs. Pickler’s previous profession as a sporting lady) and a small and purposeful beauty mark upon the cheekbone—most unlike Mrs. Taptoe’s unsettlingly large carbuncle-like blotch. Otherwise, the similarities between the two women were quite striking: Mrs. Pickler was possessed of the same effervescence and vivacity as Mrs. Taptoe, and, as Anna would later discover, her Smithcoat hostess owned a tongue as frank and saucy as her Auntie, and perhaps even more so.

Given the warm and inviting welcome, it was difficult for both Anna and her sister Gemma not to smile and esteem during every early moment of their visit with Mrs. Pickler, and to be put instantly at ease in her presence.

“I am so glad to have you,” effused the genial hostess. “We get few female visitors to this house except the occasional lady convict, who has escaped a stretching for some ridiculous offence such as this last poor girl who came hither—a seamstress—who was condemned for spending six weeks with the gipsies merely to learn the gipsy crafts of dyeing and weaving. Fancy that! We are disturbed to hear when the Romany bands cheat and thieve and sneak into our poultry-yards to cloy our turkeys and chickens, and take our merrybegotten babies into their fold, yet does one ever commend their scarf-making and melodious fiddle-playing, or the restoration of our pots and pans by their wandering tinkers? Nay! Oh, but do not get me spouting my objections to the Bloody Code or we should never get round to your purpose in coming. And the Brothers Alford tell me there is in truth not one but two reasons for your visit.”

“Have you been told the sum and substance of either?”

“Aye. Mr. Trapp will speak with you as soon as he finishes his business in the back area dunegan. His brother awaits the completion of the intestinal evacuation, as well. Come. Let us go round back to meet him as he emerges triumphant from our little poopy house.”

Mrs. Pickler led Anna and Gemma through a succession of small rooms, each containing two or three occupants, some with hard looks and dark aspects, but others as innocent of face as bright-eyed young curates—bearing expressions of great relief to be spared the fate of a “stretching” by the unjust noose. In the room farthest to the rear was a young man being fitted for new trousers by none other than Mr. Groves. “Good morning, Mr. Groves,” greeted Mrs. Pickler. “I presume that you know Miss Peppercorn of Feral Park and Miss Dray of Thistlethorn?”

“Quite,” said he, executing a slight bow, even though he was crouched low to the floor.

“I see,” said Anna, “that your head and arm have mended well.”

“Good as new. Good as new. Please meet my friend Mr. X, who was condemned to death for a treasonous act.”

“And what was the act?” asked Gemma with great interest.

“I called the king a fartleberry,” the man answered for himself. “I should never have been arrested, for the king looked out of his carriage window, clearly in the grips of one of his lunatic spells, and said, ‘I suppose I
am
rather a fartleberry! An undesirable royal remnant upon the English anus whilst my regent son runs it all with skill and expedience and fine truffles and expensive port. Some day I shall be wiped cleanly away. Unhand that man and give him a guinea for his sharp discernment!’ But I was
not
unhanded (and the guinea still has never come to me). I was deemed, rather, a threat to the state and was one day away from being wiped away myself when the opportunity for escape from that hangman’s prison presented itself. What a lucky man am I! And look: thanks to Mr. Groves, I am also to have new trousers!”

From this room, the three took stairs down to the rear yard and there, scattering the chickens with his quick-step pace-about, was Mrs. Taptoe’s man Tripp. He smiled to see Anna and Gemma, but the brow remained fretted, and the feet for a moment or so longer continued to move in an anxious expense of energy; the picture was out of the usual run of things for the groom, who generally had little to concern himself with beyond which currycomb to use on Mrs. Taptoe’s tender-skinned rosinante. “I have spoken to my brother through the siding of the privy but I have yet to see him. He is six whole days without a movement and cries out every now and then in great discomfort from his obstipation. But what can I do?”