Rustication (3 page)

Seventeen and a half
, I pointed out.
Will there be anyone else worth wading through the mud for?

There’s a lady who comes to church in a veil
, Mother said.
She has one of those fine old houses on the Green. And lives alone, it seems. I mean, with just her servants
.

I said:
Well, I’m intrigued
.

Then you can represent the family if it’s raining tomorrow and you’ll probably see her
, Mother said.

I’ll go whatever the weather
, my sister said.

You want to speak to Mrs Quance?
Mother asked with a frown.
You still want those tickets?

Tickets?
I asked.

There’s a subscription ball that Euphemia wants to go to in town early in January
.

What does it have to do with Mrs Quance?
I asked.
Who is she?

The wife of the Rector and the secretary of the committee organising the ball
, Mother explained. She turned to Effie:
However, I’m not sure that we can afford to go
.

I’ve decided we can
, Euphemia said rather abruptly.

Mother said:
Then if it’s wet tomorrow you and I need not go to church. Richard can ask Mrs Quance about the tickets
.

And request one for myself
, I said.

You will be gone by then
, Effie snapped.

Oh will I?

Mother said quickly:
I hope it’s dry for you by Monday, Euphemia
.

Where are you going on Monday?
I asked Effie.

When she made no response, Mother said:
To Lady Terrewest’s house
.

Who is she?

I knew her many years ago. She’s a very old lady now. Euphemia goes to visit her
.

Why?
I asked Effie.

My mother answered for her:
To play the pianoforte and read to her. She’s housebound on account of her infirmities
.

I was surprised. It didn’t sound the sort of thing Effie would choose to do.

· · ·

When we had finished eating we removed to the best parlour at the front of the house where Betsy had lit a fire. And we needed it. The house is cold even though the weather is mild for the time of year. The pianoforte from Prebendary Street was in a corner. Effie went straight to it and launched into something loud and angry.

Mother ensconced herself on one side of the fire with some embroidery, her work-basket stacked against her arm like a mediaeval redoubt. I picked up Ovid’s
Tristia
and threw myself onto the sopha.

After a while I said quietly, though it was hardly necessary to lower my voice against the noise Effie was making:
Do I have to sit here every evening and listen to that?

We can’t afford to have a fire in another room
.

I saw an infinity of such dreary evenings stretching out ahead of me. Trapped in a dirty old house with a grieving old woman and an irritable young one. And with only the books I had brought with me, most of which were still in my trunk anyway.

After a moment Mother said:
Anyway, you must leave for London on Wednesday at the latest
.

I took her cold hand and said as gently as I could:
Mother, I still know nothing at all of how Father
. . .

She could not have looked more frightened if I had raised my fist to her. All the time Effie was crashing and banging away on the old Broadwood. Mother pulled her hand away and lowered her eyes to her work and after a few seconds said:
It’s very painful to talk about, Richard. It was so sudden. His heart
. . . She stopped.

It was heart failure?
I said gently.

I think his heart was broken
.

He was much older than Mother, I think about sixty or sixty-one. And he suffered from palpitations and pains in the chest. I began to ask another question but she held up her hand as if to ward off a blow and said:
Wait until tomorrow evening. We’ll have a Family Conclave after dinner
.

A Family Conclave. It will be strange to have one without Father presiding.

I stood up and walked up and down the room a few times. I couldn’t endure the noise Euphemia was making and the heat of the fire any more. Muttering something to my mother, I fled the room and came up here—cold though it is without a fire.

1 o’clock.

As I write I can hear sea-birds wailing like the ghosts of drowned sailors.

I don’t know why Euphemia is so keen for me to leave. She spoke of what happened to Father so bluntly it’s hard to believe she was upset by it. Yet I am sure she is distraught.
The violets withered all when my father died
.

I had such a wicked thought when I heard the dreadful news: I don’t have to worry any more about being forced into the Church. It’s my first death. I could not have imagined what it is like. It’s as if I were standing on a cliff looking out at the view when suddenly a huge piece of the ground slides into the sea. The very land has betrayed you. There is a vast gulf where once there was something solid. The sea is suddenly closer.

And what is this business about Uncle Thomas that Mother is hinting at? Does he want me in his trading-house? I have better uses for my time and energies than grubbing figures in a gloomy office.

2 o’clock.

The silence. I’ve just put down my pen and listened. Not a breath or a whisper came to me. Since it’s a windless night there is no rustling of leaves from the garden. The tide is at its lowest ebb so I cannot hear the sea. I’ve just looked out at the faint moon shining through a gauze of clouds, its light gleaming in long streaks on the mudflats.

The candle is guttering romantically and it’s time to bring this to a close. Here ends my first day in the house of my ancestors.

½ past three.

I suddenly woke up. I thought I heard footsteps outside the house as if someone were walking around it. I got out of bed and without lighting a candle made my way out into the passage and stood at a window. All was in darkness. I thought I heard the murmuring of voices—and one of them, strangely, seemed deeper than a woman’s. I stood for a long time listening and gradually the sounds I had taken for human voices seemed to resolve themselves into the rustling of foliage and the faint hiss of the waves.

Sunday 13
^th
of December, 2 o’clock.

I
’m writing this in the front parlour. I can hear clattering from the rear of the house where Mother and Betsy are preparing luncheon. The rain is descending with unhurried malevolence and although I’m chafing at the bit, I know I won’t be able to get out of this dreary old house this afternoon. I couldn’t walk an inch without getting soaked and slipping on the mud.

However, my excitement is leading me to get ahead of myself. Let me go back to this morning.

I was half-awake and it was very early when I heard voices rising and falling in animated argument. Only after a few moments did I realise the sound came from seagulls roosting on the eaves. That means there must be worse weather coming.

I found my mother and sister in the dining-room where they had just finished breakfast. The rain having held off during the night, it was decreed to be dry enough underfoot for the expedition to church.

Behold, therefore, a few minutes later one unimpeachably respectable family, the widow and children of a senior cleric, no less, in their full Sabbath regalia setting off for worship.

Seeing the house in daylight, I realise that, standing on a promontory that juts into the marshland, it is virtually on an island.

A strange thing happened as we walked. A smart carriage overtook us and its occupants were Mr and Mrs Lloyd whom Mother and Father knew in Thurchester. (They have a daughter of about my age, Lucy.) Yet neither side even acknowledged the other. I tried to find out why but Mother just shook her head.

We saw the tower of the church long before we reached Stratton Peverel and heard the bell ringing out its steady chime. It is dedicated to St James the Less—a saint for whom I’ve always felt a great deal of sympathy without knowing anything more about him than his name.

We took our places. A minute later the Rector pranced pompously on stage in his surplice followed by his train of acolytes. He wore one of those Tractarian ruffs which made him look like a leg of mutton.

I looked around. In the better pews I saw only the Lloyds and another family—a couple and some young people—who Mother whispered to me were called “Greenacre”. And then a tall lady in a veil slipped quietly in and took her place in one of the boxed pews.

It was easy to identify the parson’s wife and daughters. Mrs Quance is a large woman in a flower-sprigged gown and with a reddish complexion which is an infallible sign of a short temper. (I follow the adage:
Don’t cross the rubicund
.)

There was an older lady beside her of whom I took little notice at the time. The daughters, of course, were what interested me. The younger is a little snub-nosed creature with sparkling black eyes and long golden hair who kept glancing around with mischievous curiosity. But she is only about fourteen or fifteen so hardly has a heart worth breaking.

Her sister is tall and slender and when at last she looked round, I saw a long melancholic face with large grey eyes—striking against her alabaster complexion. Her movements are slow and languorous. I gazed at her all during the sermon through which her father trudged with a drayhorse tread—slow and laboured, drawing behind him a load of clanking quotations. I thought she was never going to notice me, but she did at last turn her head in my direction and I felt myself blush.

As we left the church the Rector stood in the porch with his wife beside him—an unnerving display of lace and chins and jowls—ceremoniously shaking hands with the departing worshippers. Quance gave me the impression of timid belligerence. He has a fierce nose but a jaw that drops away abruptly as if taking fright at such boldness while his eyes appear to be starting as if surprised to find themselves there at all.

When Mother introduced me to them, the Rector nodded perfunctorily and turned to the next member of the congregation.

His wife, however, took my hand. She has the kind of features that would fall into a scowl if they were not held up by the invisible strings of propriety into a caricature of a smile. Her heavy jowls hang like the flaps of a fleshy helmet on either side of her face and her small eyes nestle in the folds of her eye-sockets like sharpshooters searching out targets.

She gave us a grimace of acknowledgement and said to me:
I do hope your prospects are not affected by these unhappy events. Had you been hoping to take holy orders?

I stupidly shook my head and mumbled some inanity. Looking as if her hopes in me had been suddenly disappointed by this display of idiocy, she let go of my hand.

She smiled at Effie—a Borgiaesque rictus laced with poison—and said:
I’m sorry to have to tell you, Miss
Shenstone, that your request for tickets has not been successful
.

Euphemia, plucky girl, replied:
I am surprised that all the tickets have been sold already
.

I didn’t say that, Miss
Shenstone
.
Your application has been considered by the committee and it has found itself unable to accede to it
.

Euphemia who, knowing no Latin, is more of a Roman than I could ever be, did not even flinch at that.

Then something very rum happened. The veiled lady was now next in line. Mrs Quance looked at her with those eyes like nails and, raising her voice, said:
You may well fare better with an application to Lord Thurchester himself. Others doubtless have more influence in that quarter than a mere Rector’s wife can aspire to
.

I joined my mother and sister and we slowly walked along the gravel path towards the gate like survivors limping from a battlefield. Mother had heard every word of that venomous rebuff and looked beaten and crushed.

As I passed the Rector’s daughters the younger girl dropped her umbrella. I picked it up and returned it to her and she gave me a smile of thanks. An old lady who was with them said:
Thank you, young man. That will be perfectly sufficient
.

(
Literal meaning:
Loathsome male creature, how dare you besmirch the virginal modesty of my protégée.)

I hope my son is not being a nuisance
, my mother said.

(
Literal meaning:
You must be insane to believe that my son is trying to scrape an acquaintance with that shameless hussy.)

The old lady turned to Mother and said in the most ingratiating manner:
I do beg your pardon. I had no idea this young gentleman was with you
.

She is a small elderly woman who wears little round pince-nez that keep falling off her nose. Her features are constantly shifting with the eagerness of some small animal that, while it is feeding, glances around the whole time in case a predator is approaching. Her head is permanently cocked to listen out for an approaching sparrowhawk (Mrs Quance!).

Mother held out her hand with a smile and we were all introduced to each other. The old lady is Miss Bittlestone and the girls are Enid (the elder) and Guinevere.

Like an old gamebird waddling into flight, Miss Bittlestone, flapping her nearly featherless conversational wings, took off:
I was just saying to the young ladies how lovely it is to see so many new faces here
. She smiled at Euphemia.
It will be so nice for the girls to have a new friend
.

Guinevere looked up and caught my eye and smiled at that.

At that moment the sound of manly laughter came from where Mr and Mrs Lloyd were talking to the lady in the veil. Mother asked:
Who is the lady?