Feral Park (53 page)

It was Thursday, and nearly a full day had now passed since Eliza Henshawe had run screaming into the woods and had not come back out. Mrs. Henshawe was beside herself with worry and fear, as were both of her other daughters and the Drays of Thistlethorn and all the legions who now resided in Feral Park. The constable sent out a group of deputized men with horns and dogs. Lieutenant Alford and Mr. Waitwaithe made it their duty to strike out on their own in a separate party that would sometimes include Tripp (when he was not seeking without success to see his brother at the gaol) and Colin Alford (when he was not teaching his dance lessons, which were becoming more popular with each day) and Mr. Groves (when he was not working on a special costume that was to be worn by some to the ball). For his part, Mr. Quarrels was troubled by Eliza Henshawe’s disappearance only insomuch as it left him one dancer short at the parlour for its opening night festivities. Quarrels simply had too much to do—overseeing the carpenters and fitters at the Three Whores and keeping an eye out for other arsonists—to take any time to go “tramping through the forest for a girl who has more than likely been devoured by the wolves which the Feral Park cook says are still within. Let the other men of the parish go to find and collect the remains. There are better ways for a busy man to occupy himself!” Nor could Sir Thomas be persuaded to join either the constable’s search party or Lieutenant Alford’s. He had just engaged a new governess and required time to introduce her to just how things were done at Turnington Lodge.

Anna spent part of that morning—a morning dark and rainy and heavy with gloom—in the sitting room of Moseley Manor with the hand-wringing Nancy Henshawe and the puffy-eyed Sophia Henshawe and the distraught and catch-voiced Mrs. Henshawe, and Gemma, and Gemma and Anna’s mother Mrs. Dray, all sitting and doing some knitting when the fingers would cooperate and waiting for news of Eliza, which did not come. Mrs. Quarrels, for her part, had left for a short holiday in Winchester to restore her spirits, which had been spoilt by all the talk of the disappeared Eliza and by the attendant chimera of false hope (bordering on ludicrousness) that the girl would ever be found. “So I am off and away,” she had said to Nancy that very morning at dawn. “Bring no one into the house in my absence or there will be consequences.”

Not even an hour had passed since her departure that Gemma and Anna and Mrs. Dray were sent for, each coming willingly to offer comfort and support in this time of sadness and trepidation, with all sitting down in a close circle and weeping and knitting and listening for the hoofbeats that would indicate the arrival of some news. All agreed that it was both a convenience and a blessing that Mrs. Quarrels had quitted the house for several days, and an irreverent prayer was sent up by one in the room (and endorsed by her two daughters) that Mrs. Quarrels would herself meet with some disaster upon her journey that may or may not involve hungry wolves. Mrs. Henshawe was scandalized to hear such a thing said by Mrs. Dray, but then approved the sentiment with a guilty but violent nod.

“They will find your poor Eliza, I am sure of it,” said Mrs. Dray to the missing daughter’s mother in a tone of soothing balm. “All will be well, you shall see.”

Mrs. Henshawe nodded her head and brushed away a tear.

“Anna herself spent a night in that woods and came out without a scratch.” “Came out a fully-fledged woman, in fact,” said Gemma in an under-voice

and privately into Anna’s ear. Anna kicked at her sister and then realised that her reproof-of-the-leg would only have been felt should she have been sitting on the other side, within reach of the one that was not carved from a tree.

An hour later, Gemma and Anna excused themselves to return to Feral Park, where Mr. Waitwaithe was to come with the key to Anna’s father’s cabinet. Mr. Peppercorn had been taken out of the parish for the chief of the day, commissioned by his daughter to visit with a country yeoman and his three sons, all of whom were excellent musicians but also deeply pitted upon the face. As a result of their discommendable physiognomies they were rarely asked to perform in public (although it was very much their desire to do so) and none had ever served a ball or village assembly, their most recent playing being limited only to the Chawton School for the Blind’s evening of “Clap and Hum,” and the Netley Lepers’ Asylum Summer “Touch-Me-Not” Picnic. Mr. Peppercorn intended to ask them to play for him, and if they were as good as he and Anna had been told, he would invite them to come to Feral Park and play for the Fête Galante on Monday night.

At the appointed time, it was not Mr. Waitwaithe who appeared upon the front step of the mansion-house at Feral Park, but the errand boy who worked at the Scourby law offices. In hand was an envelope with the law office seal upon it. “Mr. Waitwaithe sends his apologies, ma’am,” said the boy to Anna, “but he is still with the party what is looking for the girl who may have been eaten by the wolves. He said to give you this. I am to sit and wait and you will return the envelope to me with its contents when you be done with whatever business it brings to you.”

Anna thanked the boy and pointed to a place where there was shade, for the sun had come out and it was now hot. She closed the door and opened the envelope as quickly as her hands could untie the string. “Is it the key?” enquired Gemma as Anna emptied the contents into her hand. There was no need of an answer. Into her palm dropt that very thing, and off the two went to the library to open the mysterious cabinet and possibly unravel all the mysteries of Anna’s life.

What was found inside was disappointment for the most part and renewed puzzlement with regard to the books on the anatomy of young women. There was some jewelry and a deed or two and some other papers having to do with the Feral Park estate. There was a bill of exchange with the names of both Henry Peppercorn and Oliver Dray upon it; the word “accepted” had been put at the top, but it had been struck through, with other words scribbled below the strike-out: “debt forgiven in full, without liability, signed: Henry Peppercorn.”

“It is true then, about the loan.”

“But you knew already that it was true.”

“Yet to see it before my own eyes makes it all the more real. Here is a

letter from your father thanking
my
father for the money. I do not know what this means: ‘I was to offer a light unto the world but the price was too high. Someone else will come along to illuminate the way in a safer manner, but, alas, ’twill not be me; my turn has passed. Thank you, Henry, for understanding and supporting my decision, for indeed we share a love of humanity that without your munificence could have turned one of us into a Franciscan pauper!’”

“You know, do you not, Anna, the purpose of the business venture that my father started?”

“Aunt Drone said something about friction matches.”

“Aye.”

“The kind that light themselves when struck upon a grated surface?” “That is correct. A chemist sold Papa the formula and a large order was

produced, and there was great interest from the government at the time, for use by the army.”

“But something happened. Something bad.”

Gemma nodded. “People’s jaws started to fall off—the ones who made the matches, but also many of those who
bought
them and used them in their homes and their shops. The vapors from the white phosphorus had a nasty habit of attacking human bone, especially the mandible, and the jaw would abscess and disintegrate. All of my father’s workers became afflicted. In the darkness their jaws would glow an eerie greenish-white, as well, and there was such a stench from the decay. The enormous pecuniary gain that would be derived from this venture was not worth the sacrifice of the health and lives of Heaven-only-knows-how-many, and so Papa dissolved the company, and was left with that unfilled government order that well-nigh ruined him.”

“Your father was a man of great conscience and moral virtue.”

“And your father as well, Anna, for respecting my father’s reasons for closing down his factory. So many called Papa a fool for doing so. Sir Thomas said that he had thrown England back into the darkness.”

“The darkness is exactly where Sir Thomas should be,” said Anna as she took a handwritten book from the cabinet. She was about to open it when she was seized by a thought. “Oh, my gracious God!”

“What is it, Anna? What is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. I have just had a most interesting epiphany! If it were not for your father’s love of mankind and his belief that not a single jaw should be harmed so that he could stuff his own pockets with pound sterling, I would not be here! For it was our mother’s gratefulness to my father for helping
your
father in his time of financial travail that propelled the two into one another’s arms. By extension, it is white phosphorus friction matches which led to my very existence!”

“Why not stop there? Why not acknowledge the chemist who created the phosphorus and sulfur match in the first place?”

“And who was that man?”

“I know not. My father has never said, and now that he is gone the identity of the scientist is perhaps lost to us for ever.”

“Pity,” said Anna with a sigh. “For I should like to thank him.”

“What is that book in your hand?” asked Gemma. “I do not remember it from my previous visit to this safe.”

Anna opened the book and flipped its leaves with her thumb. “There is writing in the front but it is blank in the back. The hand is my father’s. Perhaps he is in the process of writing it still.” Anna turned to the front leaf and read the title:
Payton Parish: Being an Account of the Sins and Misdemeanours of a Typical English Parish / by Henry Peppercorn, Esq.
She turned to the introduction:

I, Henry Peppercorn, offer to the reader of this book an account of man and his moral missteps through a catalogue of the doings and undoings of the residents of one parish, being Payton in the county of Hampshire in the country of England, to edify the reader and infuse within him a knowledge of what is
not
to be done in the eyes of God and his fellow man and also those things which
may
be done with proper absolution and then those things that
must
be done to sweep away iniquity and burnish the escutcheon of English pride. Within this catalogue one will find examples of the moral failings of all whom I know and have known, including myself, for I am no hypocrite. All will be documented herein so that those who take secrets with them to the grave will be posthumously brought to account for themselves in the opinion of the ones who have been willfully deceived. I will take up each and every sin that has come to my knowledge without exception, both the felonies and the peccadilloes. I will begin with that which has tugged most urgently at my own heart.

The first chapter of the book was devoted to the story of a baby boy who was born within the parish with a number of defects and deformities, which were not described but which would have “assaulted the sensibilities of every kind soul” to think of them. The boy was taken very soon after birth to the Stornaway Asylum, where he was left under the care of its superintendent Dr. Goulding. A purse of money was given for his milk and keep. The father and mother of the deformed child left instructions that when the money was spent the baby was then to be starved to death so as to cause no further expense to anyone (unless he died before). Anna’s father wrote that he had learnt of all this from the father of the boy himself shortly before his death by shipwreck. The boy’s father had been plagued by nightmares about what he and his wife had done and therefore came to see his neighbour and friend Mr. Peppercorn to confess his sin and cleanse his soul.

After his friend’s death, Anna’s father went to the asylum to learn what else he could about the boy. He sought confirmation from Dr. Goulding, that, indeed, the child had been brought there, and to know when he had died. The doctor was quick to deny that a boy of this description had ever been taken in, and answered “no” and “I would not know such a thing” to each question put to him by Henry Peppercorn. And there was not even a shred of documenting evidence to counter the doctor’s refutations and obstructions. As Henry Peppercorn surmised, it was intended that there should be no proof extant once the boy passed on to his Heavenly reward, so that no one should ever learn the horrific truth of his placement at Stornaway by cold and unloving parents and then his slow murder by starvation at the hands of the equally cold and unconscionably pitiless Dr. Goulding. Here was a light which had flickered for but a brief while only to be snuffed out by brutal and selfish motive; yet the reality that the boy had indeed lived would not be erased from the heart and mind of Henry Peppercorn. It was the boy’s story, in fact, that had inspired the very book that Anna’s father was now writing. “For every evil deed,” wrote Henry Peppercorn, “there is a victim. One should draw comfort from the fact that diligent justice will come to serve
each
victim, though, sadly, it may not compensate within the sufferer’s own lifetime.”

Anna and Gemma, reading together, could not hold back their tears and well-nigh watered the book. “The Stornaway Asylum should be emptied and torched—if not by the likes of Mr. Trapp, then by me alone!” Anna proclaimed.

“Aye! Oh, Anna, I dearly wish that your father had said who it was. It is a vexation not to know.”

“Perhaps the family has left the parish. Did Papa not say that the father had died? Perhaps the mother has passed on as well, or has quitted the parish in some other manner. I wish that he had told it.”