Rustication (11 page)

· · ·

Euphemia was always preferred by both Father and Mother. She was the firstborn and a girl and handsomer and more charming and musically gifted than I. Father treated her much more gently than me. He liked to have her with him. He found more occasions to be alone with her than with me.

· · ·

Those girls. Those lovely teasing girls. I can’t get them out of my thoughts.

[A passage in Greek letters begins here.
Note by CP
.]

I am out in the fields and it begins to pour with rain. I find them sheltering under a tree. I lead them back here. They are soaked. In front of the roaring fire I encourage them to remove their dripping garments. Blushing, Enid takes off her blouse, turning away from me. She wraps herself in the towel I have given her. The younger girl is soon naked but holds her towel carelessly around her breasts and it hangs down just touching her belly. It’s as if she’s too young to know how much pleasure the sight of her sweet body gives a man. She says:
But you’re wet too
. She runs her hand across my trousers innocently. She notices the swelling. She says:
Are you hurt there?
She starts to unbutton me.

Δ

[The passage in Greek letters ends here.
Note by CP
.]

Saturday 19
^th
of December, 11 o’clock.

I
came down late for breakfast and found Mother in a very strange mood. She seemed tense and was very quiet as if she had learned something ominous. I mentioned the noises we had been hearing and she said she thought they were caused by rats and asked me to buy poison today. I saw a letter on the table beside her but she made no reference to it.

Noon.

Reading after breakfast alone in the front parlour. Sounds of raised voices from the rear quarters. When Mother came in she explained what had occurred. Betsy had complained that she freezes all day because she has access to no heat apart from the kitchen fire and Mrs Yass sleeps in front of it, blocking it from her.

Mother said she wonders what Betsy does when she is not working. She has no friends since she is not from this part of the country.

I said:
Perhaps she reads
.

She has never learned her letters. Euphemia promised to teach her though she seems to have forgotten
.

2 o’clock.

Luncheon just over. A morning of ill temper. House full of hysterical or irritable females. What is it that Mother and Effie are arguing about? I often hear raised voices but when I enter the room they fall silent.

4 o’clock.

Odd thing today in the little shop. (Mother had given me 1s. 6d. to buy her needles, thread, and rat poison.) Mrs Darnton, the woman who keeps it, has a gaunt, watchful, intelligent face. She is tall and thin with a beaky nose and a mouth drawn into a grimace of disapproval. What must it be like to be born poor in this backwater but afflicted with a keen wit, and to be denied education? Clearly her unused intellectual capacity goes into inquisitiveness about her neighbours for she was deep in conversation with another woman of about the same age but her exact opposite physically: large and fat and blowsy.

They were holding their heads together conspiratorially and speaking quite softly and did not notice that I had come in. Keeping far from the gaslight near the door, I lurked in a corner. At intervals the other woman would raise her head and incline it backwards in order to emit a harsh repetitive noise in her throat that I realised was a chuckle.

I only heard scraps because they kept dramatically lowering their voices at the most critical moments:

DARNTON:
Must hate the earl’s dandified nephew . . .

BLUBBER:
Many and many a time I’ve heerd him with my own ears when he was in his cups a-telling of how he’d like to squeeze the last drop of blood from his guts and then strangle him with them.

DARNTON:
It must gall him to see everything go to his younger brother and be pushed aside by a Johnnie-come-lately just as Esau was. He must hate him. It stands to reason. And that’s why they say that it was he who . . . that night in Smithfield . . . fired at him . . .

Blubber thumbed her nose with an expression of deep knowingness.

At that moment I unintentionally rustled a newspaper and alerted them to my presence.

Mrs Darnton demanded to know what I wished to purchase and when I said “rat-poison” she looked at me as if she thought I intended to murder the whole neighbourhood with it. Without taking her eyes off my face she called out:
Sukey!

Instantly a little crushed, washed-out dishclout of a woman hurried out from the back-premises—hunched back, scared eyes darting from side to side. Mrs Darnton barked out
Rat poison!
and the creature scuttled into a dark corner of the shop and returned with a tiny jar.

I also bought a small box of honey and cinnamon sweetmeats to help me win Betsy’s trust.

Memorandum:
OPENING
BAL
:
10s. 1½d
.
RECT
: (from Mother)
1s. 6d
.
EXP
: Purchases for Mother: (
11d
.) and sweetmeats (
4d
.)
TOTAL
EXP
:
1s. 3d
.
FINAL
GROSS
BAL
:
10s. 4½d
. (of which I owe Mother:
7d
.).
FINAL
NET
BAL
: 9s. 9
½d
.

· · ·

Did I misunderstand? How can a man be disinherited by his younger brother? It makes no sense.

½ past 5 o’clock.

What a blind stupid fool I have been!

This afternoon I went towards Monument Hill and ran into the Quance sisters teetering along the path in their fashionable footwear.

All Guinevere wanted to talk about was dresses and parties and of course the ball. Always that ghastly ball.

Even Enid found her prattle tiresome and at last snapped:
Hold your tongue and walk on
.

Guinevere said spitefully:
You’re just sulking because Willoughby hasn’t called on us for ages and ages
.

Who is “Willoughby”?
I asked.

They both turned to me in surprise.

Mr Davenant Burgoyne, of course
, the younger girl said.

I thought his Christian name was “Davenant”?

Enid addressed me for the first time:
You were mistaken. His full name is “Willoughby
Gerald
Davenant Burgoyne”
. She recited that ridiculous succession of syllables with an almost proprietorial air. Then she added:
Only his most intimate friends call him “Willoughby”
.

That was the name Mother blurted out when I took her by surprise in the scullery. It is proof! The man I saw Effie with yesterday is indeed Davenant Burgoyne. Euphemia has been meeting him and that has become widely known and so her good name is in tatters. The day I came home he must have been expected as a visitor and that is why Euphemia had dressed for dinner and why she went out in the rain to warn him not to enter the house.

Guinevere was studying my face.
You look surprised, Mr Shenstone. Have you heard anyone speak of “Willoughby”? Or of his lodgings in Hill Street?

At that point Enid uttered a sound that was so strange that it took me a moment to realise that it was a laugh.

People talk of falling suddenly in love but little is said of how you can fall just as precipitately out of it.

It was at this moment, looking at their faces brimming with gleeful malice, that I grasped the point of the story they told yesterday. The one about the young woman who was seen leaving a gentleman’s lodgings late at night. I wanted to say something that would throw their spite back in their faces. I said:
I am astonished that you should pass on tittle-tattle about people’s private lives
.

It wasn’t so private
, Guinevere said.
The girl intended to be seen. It was a mantrap. She had made a dead set at the gentleman and hoped to compromise him so that he would have to make a proposal of marriage
.

I said:
I grasp your meaning perfectly. She trusted to his honour and he turned out to have none
.

The girl enjoyed that but Enid said indignantly:
He refused to be blackmailed by a shameless adventuress
.

Enid is not just spiteful. She’s stupid as well. Is that worse than being clever and malicious like her sister?

She turned, and without even the briefest goodbye, both girls walked away.

6 o’clock.

I’ll probably never speak to either of them again. And I hope I never do. How could I have ever thought Enid worthy of my interest? To see her laughing at me behind her hand. How wrong I have been. What a fool. Cold, cold. Cold-hearted creature. That thin-lipped smile while she and her sister were trying to cause me pain. She’s a heartless shrew.

A ¼ past 6 o’clock.

My heart is hardened, the blossoms of love have withered. I will never love again.

½ past 6 o’clock.

Found the moment to slip the little gift from the shop into Betsy’s hand. She was surprised and I think pleased. I whispered:
We will talk later
.

7 o’clock.

Effie has just accosted me and pulled me into the damp old dining-room at the back of the house and said:
I know exactly what you get up to
.

I said:
What do you mean?

She said:
Up in your room. It’s disgusting, that foul practice of yours. And if you don’t leave the house tomorrow or on Monday at the latest, I’m going to tell Mother
.

I said I had no idea what she was referring to.

She was leaning so close that I felt her breath on my cheek. She said:
You’re going to hurt her horribly when she finds out but you don’t care about that, do you?

I said:
You want me to go so that you can continue your scandalous conduct
.

I just pushed past her and left the room.

½ past 7 o’clock.

Awful. Awful. I’ve never seen Mother so distraught. So unable to cope with her feelings.

About an hour ago she summoned me into the parlour where she and Euphemia were trying to keep warm in front of a miser’s fire of three lumps of coal. I could see how upset she was. She showed me the letter I had seen at breakfast and said it came from Uncle Thomas this morning and that he has been informed that I have been rusticated for “gross misconduct”.

Before I could open my mouth, Euphemia said:
You weren’t rusticated for failing an examination. It was because of your debts, wasn’t it? And they wouldn’t send you down for just twenty pounds
.

I had to admit that the total was about seventy.

Mother gasped.
Oh, Richard, you lied to me!

Euphemia said:
At every turn you have tried to hide the truth from us. First you had come home early because you had no money for your holiday. Then you had been suspended for failing an examination. Then for debts of twenty pounds. Is there some further disclosure to come?

How like Father she sounded!

With a heavy heart I promised that this was the whole of my offences.

What did you spend it on, Richard?
Mother asked.

Euphemia cut in:
The question is not where the money went but where it came from. How did you manage to get so deeply into debt?

I said nothing.

She hissed:
You’ve brought shame on all of us
.

Her words stung me into saying:
You can’t talk about shame
.
The whole neighbourhood is gossiping about you. I ran into the Quance girls this afternoon
. . .

Those primped up little vixens! How dare you listen to anything they say about me. The farrow of that evil old sow
.

They said you’ve compromised yourself
.

Mother started to speak but Euphemia rudely waved her to be silent:
No, Mother. I want him to go on
.

I saw you myself
.

Tell me what you are talking about?
she said coldly.

I saw you with your friend, your paramour, your what-you-will, on the Battlefield yesterday afternoon
.

Mother said in terror:
What are you saying, Richard?

I said:
I saw her with Mr Davenant Burgoyne
.

I turned back to Euphemia and saw that she was stunned. She and Mother were looking at each other in a state of amazement.

I said to my sister:
Mother has told me about your attachment to him in the autumn that was broken off by his uncle. Obviously you’ve continued to meet him
.

I had never seen my sister so angry. Her face was white and her lips were pressed into a thin line:
You can’t imagine I care for that dissolute pampered perjurer!

I’ve seen you walking arm-in-arm with him
, I said.

You snivelling little sneak. How dare you meddle in my business. You talk about my reputation. What about yours?
She came up to me and whispered:
I’ll make sure Mother and everyone else everyone knows about your nastiness: sneaking around the countryside at night and spying on people and trying to see things that shouldn’t be seen
. She turned to Mother:
He must leave the house immediately. I won’t have him here any longer
.

Leave the room, Richard
, Mother said.

I was only too pleased to oblige. From the coldness of the dining-room I heard their voices murmuring.

After a few minutes my sister came to the door and said curtly:
Mother wishes you to go to her
.