Feral Park (43 page)

After Miss Godby was tucked in, Anna went back up stairs and instantly heard angry male voices coming from within the library. Mr. Maxwell, despite his having spent the chief of the evening in the presence of Mr. Waitwaithe, had just a moment earlier mistaken the latter for a hired footman and was now attempting to escort him out of that tome-filled room when all Mr. Waitwaithe wished to do was to stay where he was and enjoy a full view of its many volumes—an impressive collection of books, especially when compared to his own, which totaled three.

Anna corrected Mr. Maxwell and then dismissed him and was nearly ready to take advantage of the fact that she was now alone with the man who possibly knew the whereabouts of a second key to her father’s library cabinet, when she heard a distressed cry—not a scream, but almost so—originating from one of the house’s rear offices. A moment later Anna, panting-breathed, discovered Miss Pints standing mortified and quivering in a corner whilst Dr. Bosworthy stood at the other end of the room stroking his chin in thoughtful observation.

“It is most curious the way she goes on,” said he to Anna.“For your information, I have attempted to calm her, but she does not placate easily.” Anna went to Miss Pints and was successful in putting a comforting arm round the trembling bony shoulder of her aunt’s tiny companion.

“You must have startled her. See, Miss Pints, it is only Dr. Bosworthy who stands here, and he is quite harmless.”

Miss Pints shook her head with violence, and then buried that head in Anna’s bodice. “Tell me what is wrong, Miss Pints, and we will rectify it.”

Miss Pints, through stutter and falter and all the mispronunciations that come with a cleft palate, could not be understood as much as Anna tried. She found it necessary, therefore, to pull open the drawer to Mrs. Lacey’s desk and draw up a piece of paper and a quill pen and inkhorn. “Write down what is discomfiting you and it will all be emended.”

Miss Pints, after taking a long moment to get the pen going, wrote: “Dr. B. asked if I would help him with an experiment. Would I let him drink my make-water?” The last phrase took a very long time to flow from the pen, and after it did she wept anew.

“Dr. Bosworthy!” said Anna sharply. “What is the meaning of this?”

“It is true. I asked her if I could drink her urine. But you see, my request is purely scientific and for that reason should be above all reproach. I have learnt through scientific study the benefits of drinking one’s own urinary product. But I have always wondered if the salutary properties are the same or perhaps even increased when one drinks the output of others. I felt that Miss Pints made the best candidate for discovery along these lines; although stick-limbed and fragile, she seems hardly ever to fatigue and so I surmise that there must be something of benefit flowing through her kidneys that may be profitably shared with others.”

“Miss Pints will not allow you to drink her urine, Dr. Bosworthy. It is a disgusting and revolting request, and I entreat you to refrain from making it of anyone else within this house during your stay.”

“I will respect and honour your request,” said the doctor in soft-spoken disappointment.

“You understand, do you not, why Miss Pints would find the idea so loathsome?”

“I do. We are all of us different. What is one man’s elixir is another man’s poison. In terms of science alone, the discipline is rife with disappointments and misapprehensions such as these, the march of scientific progress being inexorable, Miss Peppercorn, and unwilling to stop to allow the rest of the world to catch up. You recollect our conversation in the cellar when we spoke of how the world may be two or five hundred years hence?”

Anna nodded.

“I wager all that I own that in the future, drinking one’s own urinary product and perhaps even the product of others will be as natural a thing to do as eating blood pudding, or spending one’s evening reading poetry and playing whist.”

“I would take that wager, Dr. Bosworthy, were I not feeling the desire to end this conversation at this instant. Miss Pints, go and find my aunt. If you wish to use a chamber pot, she will direct you to one that will not be appropriated and decanted by Dr. Bosworthy.”

After Miss Pints had quitted the room, Anna found herself so displeased with the doctor that she could not speak. She left the room shortly thereafter without saying another word, and started back to the library to speak to Mr. Waitwaithe. Upon her journey thither she came upon Mrs. Taptoe, who did not, herself, seem happy. In one hand she held the letter that had been her companion for the full evening. It was wrinkled and frayed from having been so widely distributed.

“Is any thing the matter, Auntie?”

“Nothing, dear,” answered Mrs. Taptoe, without animation. “I am merely fatigued and wish to go to bed. I was looking for your father to thank him for the entertaining evening. I believe that he is taking a moonlight stroll with Miss Younge, but I will not pursue him.”

“If you do see him, Auntie, please tell him that Dr. Bosworthy must be talked to. He asked Miss Pints if he might drink her urine.”

“Aye. He asked me as well. He has asked nearly everyone. Tripp may agree to it if there is to be a payment of some sort.” Mrs. Taptoe kissed Anna upon the forehead. “Goodnight, my dearest. Few seemed to find much to say about the picture of my Maurice. But what can one say? I rejoice in his return. You should look forward to it, as well, my dear, for he will be a good friend to you.”

“But why not
more
than a friend?” thought Anna to herself. “Why should I not be deserving of a more serious affiliation? Is there something unsavoury about his character? Is this why it is difficult for my father even to mention his name without frowning? Here is another secret. Odious secrets! Perhaps all will not be revealed with the unlocking of my father’s library cabinet, but what I learn will surely be more than that which I presently know.”

“Good night, Auntie,” said Anna, now more eager than ever to put her plan to Mr. Waitwaithe. A moment later Anna and her Auntie were off in opposite directions down the corridor.

Entering her father’s library Anna found Mr. Waitwaithe still within and reading a book, happy, it seemed, to be no longer incommoded by Mr. Maxwell’s misassumptions.

“It is
The Castle of Otranto
,” said he, rising to stand out of respect for his hostess, and tapping the book with his forefinger. “By Mr. Walpole. I have always wished to read it but could never put my hands on a copy.”

“Please sit down, Mr. Waitwaithe. I will sit as well. It is a most exhilarating book and you will certainly enjoy it. There is a ghost and a crushing and a poisoning and the destruction of a castle, but now I have told you too much. I will ask Papa if he will allow you to take the volume with you.”

“Do you think that he will?”replied Mr.Waitwaithe,with excited anticipation.

“I am sure that he can spare it.”

“I would be most grateful. A crushing, you say, and a poisoning? I can scarcely wait.” With that, Mr. Waitwaithe closed the book and gave Anna his full attention. “What an evening this has been, Miss Peppercorn. And it is not nearly over. Dr. Bosworthy has said that at midnight those who wish may join him on the roof and look at the constellations and the mares of the moon through his telescope. I have never done that. There is very
little
in my life that I have done, I must admit, but I am game for most things. Oh, I saw a rabbit in the hall. They are invading the house now!”

Anna laughed. She had seen rabbits in the house before, but it seemed more exceptional to hear it told by Mr. Waitwaithe with a surprized look—Mr. Waitwaithe whom she had to admit was every good thing that she did not think he
would
be—after, that is, her earlier opinion that he could
only
be a paragon of his sex.

“Were there many rabbits where you grew up, Mr. Waitwaithe?”

“Aye. There were creatures of
every
sort. I come from the wilds of Wiltshire—a Moonraker from birth—raised by my aunt and uncle when my mother was taken in childbirth and my father went to sea, never to return.”

“My mother died when I was but a baby myself. She was trampled to death by horses.”

“What an awful tragedy! I saw just such a thing happen here myself when I was a boy. We were on our way to Surrey—my uncle and aunt and I—and had stopt at the Three Horse Tavern and Inn for a repast and a change of horses and I asked my aunt for a shilling to buy a bag of sweet lozenges at the shop next to the vicarage. I believe ‘lollipops’ is what the children call them now. I walked up to the counter to put down my coin, but it was not within my pocket! It had fallen through a hole, and so much did I desire those lozenges (which were to last me all the way to Surrey) that I went racing out of the shop to retrace my path from the inn and there before my very eyes I came upon the horrific scene of a woman suddenly being crushed beneath the hooves of two large horses in the lane. The terrible picture staid with me for the remainder of our journey, and it so frightened me that I did not even leave the carriage upon our stop here on our return trip to Wiltshire. When a position opened in the offices of Mr. Scourby—the very position I now hold—I well-nigh turned it down because I never again wished to set foot in this parish where I had witnessed such a haunting tragedy.”

Anna asked the teller of this tragic tale if he remembered the day that it happened, and he said when it was, and then Anna gasped and began to weep and could not bring herself to tell Mr. Waitwaithe that his dropt coin was the very one which had brought her legal mother to such a terrible end in the lane in Berryknell, but then she had no other choice, for there was no way round it.

Hearing of his tragic connexion to Anna’s mother, Mr. Waitwaithe’s face turned several different hues in a very short period and abject wretchedness took immediate hold of him. Over and over again in a strange and rattled voice he said that he could not believe that he had brought about the death of Anna’s poor mother, and he could not believe that he had made Anna a halforphan from his own boyish carelessness, but of course it was true, and would there—
could
there ever be a way for him to make up for such a horrid thing that was done?

Anna knew just the remedy, but took some time in getting to it (for as much as the fact benefited her present cause, it was still a shock to hear that Mr. Waitwaithe had been unwittingly responsible for her legal mother’s death). Subsequently, it came out that Anna’s father had kept much about her mother from her ken, and that there were things Anna could learn about her if only she had a way to get into her father’s secret, private, personal cabinet, which was over there beneath the shelves that contained the large books on small subjects, and did Mr. Waitwaithe know if Mr. Scourby, Esq., himself kept a key to it?

“I believe,” said Mr. Waitwaithe, “that I
have
seen such a key within those offices.”

Anna’s mournful face brightened. “And is there a day when Mr. Scourby will be out of town on business in which I may come and ask you for the key?”

Mr. Waitwaithe thought about this for a moment. “I do not think it is wrong for you to want to know more about your mother. Perhaps your father has only been trying to prevent your grieving for her anew. Mr. Scourby will be away for three days next week. Do not come to the offices. I will have the key brought
to
you and you may use it as you see fit when your father has left the house, and then you should return it to me that very day and no one will be the wiser.”

Anna thought to herself that
she
would be the wiser, and, of course, that was the point of it. She felt fortunate to have found such a facile purchase of her plan. First Mr. Nevers and now Mr. Waitwaithe—each had come easily to subscribe to Anna’s calculated schemes. With conies taking over the Park and Miss Godby drinking up her father’s wine stores and Dr. Bosworthy mortifying each of the houseguests with his latest experiment, and Mr. Groves putting his tongue where tongues do not generally go, and Mrs. Taptoe indicating that either Anna was too good for her son or that her son was perhaps too good for Anna except as a friend, it was fortunate that at least two things had been put that evening upon the road to a positive outcome. Still, Anna had a momentary doubt as to whether it was right to be going into her father’s locked cabinet, and so she said to Mr. Waitwaithe, “You are certain that giving me this key is the proper thing to do?”

“But it
must
be proper if you are asking it of me, Miss Peppercorn, for I hold you in great esteem for all that you have done and continue to this very day to do for others. I have heard of the assembly that you are planning within these walls for those in the parish who are not well-favoured, and look how you and your father have taken in the ones who were turned out from Turnington Lodge! There are other things, as well, which recommend you as one whose good offices are willingly employed to improve the lot of those less fortunate round us. Much has been asked of
you
and here there is this one small thing which you seek from
me
, which I know that you seek for only the honourable purpose of learning whatever you can about a mother whom cruel fate has stolen from you when you were but a lamb, and how can I
not
help to illuminate that dark path? And even if you were
not
such a noble and generous person, my conscience requires me to find some way not only to make amends for the monstrous role I played in your poor mother’s death, but also to thank you for bringing me sundry afternoons of pleasure as I wondered why you were devoting so much of your time to looking at me with side glances as I was working at my desk or walking down the lane or stepping from a shop. Do not think that I was not attentive to every moment of
your
attention and oh, how it flattered me! I regret that it will not translate itself to attachment, but I nonetheless esteem your friendship with all my heart!”