Rustication (31 page)

She said:
I don’t want to talk to you, Richard
.

I said:
I have to know what Euphemia told you. If she persuaded you I’m innocent, why aren’t you pleased?

She did persuade me
, she muttered.
I don’t believe you did any of those things
.

Why was she saying it like that, in that cowed and beaten manner?

What did Effie say?
I persisted.

She looked terrified and didn’t answer.

I said:
Then there’s nothing to worry about
.

Yes there is
, she said, glancing fearfully towards the door. She said in a low voice:
Come closer
. I advanced and she clutched my arm and whispered:
Willoughby means you harm. I went along with them. I didn’t know what they intended
.

I said:
Willoughby? What does he have to do with it? Why should he wish to hurt me?

She said:
I can’t tell you any more. I shouldn’t have said so much
.

What have you “gone along with”?
I demanded.

I don’t want to be old and poor and lonely. I don’t want to die here on my own in this cold damp old barn. Is that so wrong of me?

I don’t know why she said that. I asked:
What makes you think I won’t look after you? And Effie, too?

As if she had not heard she said:
You must leave right away
.

I said:
Do you mean this minute? It’s very late
.

She look confused and said:
No, not this minute. But the first thing
tomorrow morning you must pack and go. Don’t let your sister know I told
you
.

I said:
But, Mother, Euphemia is determined that I should escort you both to the ball. That’s tomorrow evening
.

She started:
The ball! That’s the point. You must not go to the ball
.

Without my having heard her approach, Euphemia glided into the room. She hissed:
I told you to leave Mother alone. Now get out
.

· · ·

Why should Willoughby Davenant Burgoyne want to harm me? It makes no sense. It is I who have reason to harm him.

The little governess, Helen, seems to be the only person who trusts and believes in me. But what was she saying about a boy? A child I am believed to have threatened? I’ve racked my brains but cannot imagine who is meant. I need to ask her. If I wait near the gate to the Greenacres’ place tomorrow morning I’m sure I will see her come out with the children for their daily walk.

[This is the next of the anonymous letters relating to the case and it is addressed to Mrs Greenacre.
Note by CP
.]

Saturday 9
^th
of January, 1 o’clock.

B
reakfasted on a hunk of bread before Mother and Effie came down. Ran much of the way to the Greenacres’. Then waited behind the hedge for nearly two hours. The wind was freezing. At last she came down the drive but she was alone and carrying a leather bag that looked heavy. She turned to the north.

I walked behind her for some distance and she must have heard me because she glanced around and then quickened her pace. She could not go very fast because of the bag.

We were now almost at the top of Brankston Hill. I caught up with her and asked if I could take her bag. When I spoke she started and looked at me with such dismay that I almost wondered if she had failed to recognise me. Then she shook her head. I asked her where she was going. She didn’t answer. Then at last, without turning towards me, she said:
I’ve been dismissed
.

I said:
Was it because you spoke to me the other day?

She said:
Mrs Greenacre has had another letter. She let me read it. It was foul
.

Now she looked at me for a moment. Such a cold regard. Not just cold but frightened. Who was she frightened of?

She said:
My employers have refused to give me a character. I don’t know what will become of me
.

I said:
That bag looks heavy. Can I help you?

She increased her pace and said:
If you want to do me a kindness, turn round and walk away from me
.

I said nothing but swung on my heel and walked quickly back the way we had come.

Realised I had forgotten to ask her about the boy.

½ past 2 o’clock.

Got back to find Mother and Effie fussing about the clothes they are to wear this evening. I had the impression that Mother had been cowed and whipped back into line after her brief attempt to break out last night. Without looking me in the face she silently placed an unopened letter in my hand.

Damned Uncle T. The self-righteous old curmudgeon.
No question of bailing you out . . . You incurred those debts and must take responsibility for them one way or another . . . The shame you have brought on your mother and sister . . . The chance of a passage on those two vessels remains open, but they sail within the week and my generous offer will not be renewed
.

To hell with him and his
generosity
.

A ¼ past 3 o’clock.

I was wrong about Mother having been beaten. At the last moment she raised another doomed mutiny and suddenly suggested that we abandon the ball. Euphemia was furious. She ordered her into the dining-room and closed the door and I heard her voice going on and on.

When they came out Mother’s spirit was broken. I believe she fears that Effie is planning to make a scene with Maud and her fiancé. I half want her to do something like that. Create a scandal that would destroy any chance we have of ever being accepted in this part of the country.

I can see no purpose in our going all that distance in our finery, bumping over frozen roads simply in order for Euphemia to watch her rival triumphing in front of her—rich, about to become a countess, surrounded by friends and admirers—while we endure the humiliation of being ignored and snubbed by families that toadied to us when my father had position and influence.

Never did any family prepare to set off for a ball in worse spirits or on worse terms with each other.

Mother is calling me and I know she wants me to go up the lane and meet the carriage. God alone knows what this ball will bring. I have an ominous feeling about it.

Saturday night or rather Sunday morning at about ½ past 5.

So much to try to cling onto and hold down. The swirling of the dancers, the heat of the ballroom, the dazzle of the lights, the odour of rich perfumes and then Tobias’s pig-face, burping and leering and making those insulting insinuations. Damn his squinting eyes.

My own sister was running down the stairs flushed and in tears. What was I supposed to do? And then that arrogant boorish oaf, his big ugly jaw moving up and down. Bastardy! How dare he!

If I can just manage to get it all down then I can make some sort of sense of it.

Carriage came. Got to town. Changed at the inn. Reached the Assembly Rooms by eight.

I was sure that our poverty was blazoned in the patches and stitchings of our threadworn clothes. The footmen sneered as they took our greatcoats and capes and then held them as cautiously as if their inadequacy gave off a palpable stink.

The heat and the press of bodies and the smell of the candles and the lamps. I saw the earl. Old man of about fifty or sixty. Just stood in the same place smiling as people came up to him. Could have replaced him with a mechanical dummy. Squeeze the hand and the mouth opens. All the arrogance of those thousands of acres and hundreds of years is in that black-toothed smile.

And of course there in the centre of a busy throng were the Lloyds—pointedly ignoring us. Lucy was staring venomously at Maud who had carried away the richest prize in the county.

She came in on the arm of that man. People smiled and called out good wishes. Primped and preened and smirked at each other. Cooing doves. As if she had him on a string. They went over to the earl and I watched them talking and smiling. The happy couple. The most hated and envied people in the whole assembly. Those two little Quance vipers could not take their eyes off them. Enid’s vacant face like the back of a saucer and her dead eyes staring.

And then the dancing. The screeching and scratching of the fiddles and the wailing skirl of the flutes and horns. The dazzling lights overhead and around us, stinking of burnt oil, mingling with the perfumes and sweat of the crowd.

It was the bridal pair—of course—who opened the ball with the first dance. He was barely able to make the movements because of his injured leg. Grinning with delight at his own pluck as he hobbled through the quadrille. I’d cripple him properly if I could. I’d make sure he never dances again. I watched to see if Maud and Euphemia looked at each other. Or if he looked at Effie. I saw no sign that my sister and those two had ever known each other. Cunning and devious but not sharp enough to deceive me.

It wasn’t my fault. I just meant to get wine for Mother and Effie. But when I reached the table with the champagne cup I found myself standing beside that oaf Tobias Boddington. He greeted me as if we were intimate friends. And yet I’ve hardly spoken to him. An ignorant stupid tosspot. He kept filling my glass. I guessed he wanted to tell me something that would cause pain. Why would he have spoken to me otherwise?

Then it came: He was sorry to hear about
my governor and everything
. His pretended sympathy was worse than open insults would have been. Am I now to be pitied by a wastrel like that? A man with all those opportunities which he has thrown away?

Would not let me escape. He kept grabbing me by the arm and saying:
I say, old fellow, I heard an awfully good yarn the other day
. They were all stories of men as stupid and feckless as himself. Then he told me a long complicated anecdote about how he himself had recently been cheated at a dogfight. It was something about
rigging the odds for a game dog and it was done by a fellow who’s half a gentleman and half a low scrub
.

The drivelling drink-sodden fool. What do I care about fighting dogs? Then he started to whinge about the
short commons
his father keeps him on so he
never has any tin
. How he won’t give him
an allowance fit for a gentleman
and yet he’s ready to empty his pockets for some of his clients. He gave me such a stupid sly look that I realised he meant Mother. I asked him what the devil he was getting at and he said I must know how kind his father had been to my family.

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. That Boddington should not only rob and cheat us but have the brazen effrontery to boast that he has helped us! I had to put the poor nincompoop right. I told him his father had chiselled my mother out of everything she should have inherited and he almost alone had brought us to the straits we were in.

He shouted:
You’re a damned liar. My governor’s a tightfisted old skinflint but he’s straight as a die
. I laughed in his stupid face. He said:
Why do you think he bought your mother’s ridiculous claim?

Just what I’d guessed! He was the secret purchaser! The lying cheat!

I said:
Why? In order to defraud her and get it at a knockdown price, that’s why. That’s why he did it in a sneaking underhand manner and you’ve let the cat out of the bag now
.

He stuck his ugly phiz in front of me and laughed, spitting in my face and reeking of wine, and then he shouted:
You dunce. He paid well over the odds for it. He did it to stop your damned mother beggaring herself
.

Must have raised my voice a little myself and I think I may have seized him by the lapels because some of the stewards came over and told us to take our argument outside. I said that it wasn’t an argument worth pursuing and turned my back on the drink-sozzled jackanapes. Went to find Effie but couldn’t see her. Had to ply my elbows to force my way through the press of damned idiots getting in my way.