Feral Park (30 page)

Gemma could scarcely wait until her mother and sister had quitted the house to return to the matter of Lieutenant Alford and Miss Nancy Henshawe.“Anna, this is not a good time for you to be indisposed. You have a much better way with Mr. Nevers than have I, and someone
must
speak to him to enrol him in some plan to give Lieutenant Alford and our friend Nancy a little time together during the Sunday service. It will be Alford’s only opportunity to see Nancy before the ball, and to privately express his ardent feelings for her. Indeed, the word ‘ardent’ does not even fully capture the sentiment, for he is most
desperately
enamoured of her; it now appears. He tells me himself that he can neither eat nor sleep from thinking incessantly of her. He confides in me because he does not wish to distress his two brothers, who are most sensitive to his sensibilities. It is they who must each day endure the re-visitations of his raging war memories, who must attend the intermittent cries of: “The cavalry is down and we are taking a bloody drubbing!” and “Damn that bloodthirsty French hop-o’-my-thumb for bringing this stolid infantryman to infantile weeping!” and such other things as indicate that the war has left our friend battered in both mind and spirit. The lieutenant finds that when his brothers creep forward to check on him in the small hours, he must pretend to be sleeping soundly and restfully, with a smile upon the lips to indicate the absence of troubling dreams. At table he must put across the feint that he is nourishing himself, and to that end will pretend to bring the fork to the mouth and to chew and to swallow, even when eating is the last thing that interests him. You see, the appetite thoroughly vacates in the presence of such great anxiety. How will he win our Nancy when circumstances conspire so steadily against the match? It is one thing to bear a warrior’s scars, but something altogether different to pine in such torment over a presently elusive love.
That
is something that you and I
and
Mr. Nevers can very well do something about!”

“But Gemma, it is still incomprehensible to me that he should wish to have her, and to have her so zealously after only the briefest of meetings! You tell me that it is true and Perry Alford tells me this as well, and yet I simply cannot conceive of it.”

“Anna, my friend and now my dear sister: there is
much
within the parish which one may find inconceivable these days. For example, my maid Camilla just this morning conveyed to me very disturbing intelligence with regard to a matter which, if not soon corrected, will bring great heartache to someone whom I believe you dearly love.”

“Who is it?” Anna enquired with urgency. “Please tell me.”

“Only for a green drink.”

“A green—why, that is a silly request.”

“It is not silly at all. You had yours earlier and seemed to be immensely refreshed by it, and now I wish commensurate refreshment for myself.”

“
Immensely refreshed
? That is an exaggeration, Gemma. The beverage merely relaxed me. I have been in pettish spirits this morning and cook has been an irritant all by herself. The green liquid worked for a time but then, of course, there was our little tiff over Mr. Alford, and the soothing effect of it became all but erased under your provocation.”

“Alas, Anna, the society of our friendship has not improved even now that we are aware of our sororal connexion. We still snip and snap and poke the fingers of our peevishness into the eyes of one another’s otherwise good humours.”

“Ah, but we have a valid reason now, for is that not what
sisters
do?” posed Anna with an arch smile.

“I think that we would snap less in
this
session if you had yourself another drink and if I joined you. With your permission I will fain procure two full glasses from your cook.”

Anna did not consider the suggestion for very long before consent was granted, for she dearly wished to hear the disturbing intelligence which her sister Gemma had learnt from her maid. It was a longer period which passed before Gemma returned with two glasses filled nearly to the brim with the green liquor.

“You were away for so long,” Anna repined, “that I could have gone to Ireland and had something concocted for us to drink from shamrocks!” “Mrs. Dorchester at first refused to accommodate me. What audacity! She said that her son brings her only one bottle every six months on his visits from Switzerland, and so it is most precious to her.”

“I am aware that he comes only once every six months to see her, although I did not know he brought precious gifts.”

“When I finally succeeded in coaxing two more drinks from her, I then had to wait for a most interesting process of preparation to take place. It is clearly a magical drink, you see, which requires more than a simple decanting.” “Is there some incantational hocus-pocus that must be said?” “Nay. A small amount is put into a glass and then one places a slotted spoon over the top and in the curve of the spoon one sets a lump of sugar and then cold water is poured over the sugar and it melts it and it all drizzles together down into the glass. I asked your cook why all of this must be done and she said that otherwise it would be much too bitter to the taste.” Gemma took a sip and smiled. “’Tis not bitter now, so the procedure must have been successful. Yum. I am quite fond of licorice, and this is green licorice from a smart bottle.”

“I did not know that Mrs. Dorchester had only the one precious bottle. I will not impose on her again.”

“If this be our last, then we will drink it slowly and savour it,” said Gemma.

She took another very small sip and licked the green froth from her lips. “And was Mrs. Dorchester stingy with the name when
you
asked it?” “Not at all. It is called absinthe. What a strange name. What a very strange green drink! And now I shall tell you what I have heard from my maid Camilla, who tells me every thing. She saw Mrs. Taptoe’s maid Umbrous Elizabeth in Berryknell village yesterday and Elizabeth was in a very sorry and wretched state. She suspects that Mrs. Taptoe’s man Tripp, of whom she is quite fond, has fixed himself on another.”

It took very little time upon hearing this retail for Anna to blanch most noticeably.

“My word, Anna! Look at you! I did not know this absinthe could have such an effect upon the complexion of its imbiber.”

“Yes, it must be the absinthe,” dissembled Anna, securing a plausible reason to substitute for the
real
one: that now, having kissed Tripp most violently and fervently in the wood, Mrs. Taptoe’s man had fully assigned his heart to Anna

Peppercorn, and was, in fact, so taken with her that she occupied his every thought! The feelings must be similar, she ruminated, to those importunate yearnings which Lieutenant Alford must be having for Nancy Henshawe, but perhaps even stronger, Anna thought, for Nancy was by no man’s definition beautiful or even pretty, whereas Anna had always fancied herself amongst the most favourably-countenanced young women of the parish. “I can only imagine with horror,” thought Anna, “the level to which Tripp’s feelings for me have risen. It must be a very high tide, indeed!” She regretted with wretched misery having thrown herself upon him as she had. It was a selfish thing to teaze a man’s heart for the purpose of satisfying a whim of one’s own. “In time,” she feared to herself, “he will confess to Umbrous Elizabeth where his heart now lies, and the dwarf house will be pulled apart by crimination and injured feelings and announcements of possible departures, and perhaps then even the departures themselves, all of which should surely bring Mrs. Taptoe to great grief and disconsolation. How could I have been so thoughtless as to not foresee the consequences of my foolish foray in the wood? Had Tripp only been truthful to me when he said that Elizabeth would not mind a simple kiss (or five) with some other girl! Had he
only
told me that she was in truth a most jealous and possessive lover! How dreadful to learn that simple folk such as

Umbrous Elizabeth should be capable of such proprietary feelings!” Anna stared into the foamy green inside her glass and she was brought to mind of the green-eyed monster which now consumed Umbrous Elizabeth, and she did not know what in the world to do. And then suddenly she knew
exactly
what she must do. She must confess every thing to Elizabeth and tell her that Anna Peppercorn had never had a single design upon her beloved Tripp, and that in time he would surely see that any feelings he harboured for Miss Anna would come to no positive end, and so he must give her up without delay and return to his first and most secure love. Surely all would work out in the end and Mrs. Taptoe need not even know that her placid existence within the placid dwarf house had come so close to being thoroughly incommoded.

“I must get myself to Turnington Lodge as soon as possible, even if the foot is not totally healed. Papa will simply
have
to let James take me in the carriage, even though he hates to see it employed except upon a special occasion.” Anna regretted that her father was a man of economy, and that he had no intention of changing his ways in his settled autumn years. She had always wondered from whence came this desire to save and to spend far less lavishly than his neighbours, and now, of course, she knew the reason. It was her father’s desire to rescue Oliver Dray, to put him back on firm financial footing that had started it all! Anna surmised that it had required a great deal of money to save the Drays and to save their beloved Thistlethorn, and here for the first time, she allowed a current of discontent to ripple through her. “We are quite comfortable, Papa and I,” thought she, “and yet how much
more
comfortable would we be if he had not given away so much of his money to this friend and neighbour?” But then she checked herself. “The family of this neighbour against whom I am directing my selfish complaint now constitutes my very own mother and half-sisters! How ever could I wish poverty upon half of my own family simply so that I may ride about the parish in a fine barouche at my leisure! Papa has taught me better.”

Still, Anna had need of the lesser carriage at the earliest possible moment—perhaps the very next morning, if she were to act quickly to preserve tranquillity at the dwarf cottage, and so she hoped that her father would consent when she spoke to him of it. Otherwise, the trip would require her to limp or crawl all the way across the downs, and the gipsy children would find especial delight in
that
picture.

As Anna’s mind ran through all the thoughts comprised in the above, Gemma stared at her and snapped her fingers and finally said with a loud voice, “Where
are
you, Anna? Have you not heard any thing that I have been saying?”

“I heard you say, Gemma, that Umbrous Elizabeth suspects that someone has fixed her Mr. Tripp. How is she so
certain
of this, is what I should like to know.”

“For one thing, she catches him in frequent reveries, standing at the crib with his mind elsewhere as the horses whinny for their oats. She says that sometimes he throws his head back and closes his eyes and moves his body slowly as if he is being attended by caressing hands. Sometimes he will do this when she is in the very same room. A man simply does not close his eyes and imagine the caress of a girl with whom he could be united in an instant simply by reaching out for her—unless, of course, he be addled, and I do not believe Tripp to be addled.”

“Oh, my!” blurted Anna, without thinking.

“Oh, my, indeed. And all of this on the eve of Miss Godby’s arrival at the dwarf cottage—she who is used to thirty servants rather than a mere three—two of whom, if one is to except her own lady’s maid, will perhaps be at such odds with one another as to make her stay a most miserable one indeed!” “I did not think that you even liked Felicity Godby, and now you are concerned that she should be wretched during her stay?”

“I want all to go well for my cousin John. I am certain that you do as well, Anna, for I have observed that you are most fond of him. Were not the two of you walking most agreeably together in the moonlight upon the evening of the card-table dinner? And quite animated you both were! I should think that in spite of all that you have said to the contrary, you
would
be a candidate for his heart if Miss Godby had not stepped with a heavy mannish tread into his path and he had not come to cultivate this most curious fondness for her.” Thought Anna, “Perhaps
he
might wish to fix
me
but
I
should certainly not be able to return the sentiment, since John Dray is, after all,
a woman
!”

Anna smiled to herself, imagining what Gemma would think if she were ever to discover the true sex of her favourite cousin. But that was a cruel thought and so she checked herself. What was more appropriate to the moment was thinking how different John was from Perry Alford, and thought of Perry brought Anna to another smile, this one warm and tender. As Anna was paying a happy visit to the memory of her gamesome and lighthearted intercourse with Perry upon the lawn and thinking upon how conscientious and funny and wise he had been and how very much she would like to see him again,

Gemma began to speak anew of Perry’s older brother and his interest in Nancy Henshawe. Anna, now realising that Miss Henshawe was indirectly a relative of hers as well, found her advocacy for the formerly-assigned old maid increased multiple-fold, and now deemed Nancy’s future happiness to be an even more greatly desired objective than ever before.

“As I have said, Anna—if Lieutenant Alford’s motives are pure and his affection for our aunt’s niece sincere, then we are obligated to assist in whatever way possible to bring the two together in spite of our Aunt Quarrels’ wish to the contrary.”