by Kage Baker
He slipped his arm around her waist. She looked flustered, but said nothing. They walked on.
“Mamma is frightened,” said the child.
“There are disadvantages to being pretty,” said the tyger. “As you can see. I imagine she wishes she could be invisible, occasionally. Your uncle’s a subtle man; notice how he used words like duty and alas. No protestations of ardent passion. It’s often easier to get something you want if you pretend you don’t want it. Remember that.”
The little girl nodded.
She ate another cherry. A peahen ventured near the wall, cocking her head to examine the windfall fruit under the little trees. As she lingered there, a peacock came stalking close, stiffened to see the hen; his whole body, bright as blue enamel, shivered, and his trailing train of feathers rose and spread behind him, shimmering in terrifying glory. Eyes stared from it. The little girl caught her breath at all the green and purple and gold.
“You mustn’t allow yourself to be distracted,” the tyger cautioned. “It’s never safe. You see?”
“What, are you lurking there, you little baggage?”
The little girl looked around sharply, craning her head back. Uncle Randall dropped into a crouch beside her, staring at her. He was young, dressed in tawny silk that shone like gold. His voice was teasing and hard. He
smelled like wine.
“Ha, she’s stealing fruit! You can be punished for that, you know. They’ll pull your skirt up and whip your bare bum, if I tell. Shall I tell?”
“No,” said the child.
“What’ll you give me, not to tell?”
She offered him an apricot. He took it and rolled it in his hand, eyeing it, and hooted in derision.
“Gives me the greenest one she’s got! Clever hussy. You’re a little woman, to be sure.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing. He stared at her a moment longer, and then the tyger drew his attention.
“Aren’t you afraid of old Master Stripes? Don’t you worry he’ll break his bounds, and eat you like a rabbit? He might, you know. But I’m not afraid of him.”
The tyger growled softly, did not cease pacing.
“Useless thing! I’d a damn sight rather Johnnie’d sent us one of his blacks,” said Uncle Randall. He looked down at her again. “Well, poppet. What’s your Mamma’s favorite color?”
“Sky blue,” said the child.
“It is, eh? Yes, with those eyes, she’d wear that to her advantage. D’you think she’d like a velvet scarf in that color, eh? Or a cape?”
“She has to wear black now,” the child reminded him.
“She’ll wear it as long as it suits her, I’ve no doubt. What about scent? What’s her fancy? Tell me, does she ever drink strong waters in secret?”
The child had no idea what that meant, so she shook her head mutely. Uncle Randall snorted.
“You wouldn’t tell if she did, I’ll wager. Well. Does she miss your Papa very much?”
“Yes.”
“You must say ‘Yes, Uncle dear’. “
“Yes, Uncle dear.”
“There’s a good girl. Do you think you’d like to have another Papa?”
The child thought about it. Remembering the things Papa had said when he raved, that had made her creep behind the chair to hide, she said: “No.”
“No? But that’s wicked of you, you little minx. A girl must have a Papa to look after her and her Mamma, or dreadful things might happen. They might starve in the street. Freeze to death. Meat for dogs, you see, do you want your Mamma to be meat for dogs?”
“No,” said the child, terrified that she would begin to cry.
“Then you’ll tell her she must get you another Papa as soon as ever she may,” Uncle Randall ordered. “Do you understand me? Do it, and you’ll have a treat. Something pretty.” He reached down to stroke her cheek, and his hand lingered there.
“What a soft cheek you’ve got,” he said. “I wonder if your Mamma’s is as soft.”
The peacock was maneuvering up behind the hen, treading on her feathers. Seeing it, Uncle Randall gave a sharp laugh and shied the apricot at her, and she bolted forward, away from the peacock.
Uncle Randall strode off without another word.
“Now, your Uncle Randall,” said the tyger, “is not a subtle man. Nor as clever as he thinks he is, all in all. He talks far too much, wouldn’t you say?”
The child nodded.
“He uses fear to get what he wants,” said the tyger. “And he underestimates his opponents. That’s a dangerous thing to do. A bad combination of strategies.”
Wasps buzzed and fought for the apricot at his feet.
***
The summer heat was oppressive. All the early fruit had fallen from the trees, or been gathered and taken in to make jam. There were blackberries in the hedge, gleaming like red and black garnets, but they were dusty and hard for the child to reach without scratching herself on the brambles.
There was a thick square of privet in the center of the menagerie courtyard, man-high. Long ago it had been a formal design, clipped close, but for one reason or another had been abandoned to grow unchecked. Its little paths were all lost now except at ground level, where they formed a secret maze of tunnels in the heart of the bush. There was a sundial buried in the greenery, lightless and mute: it told nobody anything.
The little girl had crawled in under the branches and lay there, pretending she was a jungle beast hiding in long grass. She gazed out at the tyger, who had retreated to the shade of the sacking the grooms had laid across the top of his pen. He blinked big mild eyes. He looked sleepy.
“How fares your Aunt Caroline?” he inquired.
“She’s sick,” the child said. “The doctor was sent for, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with her. He said it might be her courses drying up.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“No,” said the child. “But that’s what Uncle Thomas is telling everybody. And he says, you mustn’t mind what a woman says because of it. He’s very kind to her.”
“How clever of him.” The tyger yawned, showing fearful teeth, and stretched his length. “And he’s even kinder to your Mamma, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Very kind.”
“What do you suppose will happen if your Aunt Caroline dies?”
“She will be buried in the graveyard.”
“So she will.”
They heard footsteps approaching, two pair.
The child peered up from under the leaves and saw Cousin Louise with one of the stableboys. She was a tall girl with a sallow complexion, very tightly laced into her gown in order to have any bosom at all. The stableboy was thickset, with pimples on his face. He was carrying a covered pail. He smelled like manure.
“It be under here,” he said, leading Cousin Louise around the side of the privet square. “The heart of it’s all hollow, you see? And you can lie inside in the shade. It’s a rare nice place to hide, and there ain’t nobody knows it’s here but me.”
“Audacious rogue!” Cousin Louise giggled. “I’ll tear my gown.”
“Then the Squire’ll buy thee a new one, won’t he? Get in there.”
The child lay very still. She heard the branches parting and the sound of two people awkwardly arranging themselves inside the privet. Turning her head very slightly, she caught a glimpse of them six feet away from her, mostly screened off by green leaves and the base of the sundial. She watched from the corner of her eye as they made themselves comfortable, handing the pail back and forth to drink from it.
“Aah! I like a cool drop of beer, in this heat,” the stableboy sighed.
“It’s refreshing,” said Cousin Louise. “I’ve never had beer before.”
“Like enough you wouldn’t,” said the stableboy, and belched. “Sweet wines and gin, ain’t that what the fine folk have to themselves? The likes of me don’t get a taste of your Madeira from one year’s end to the next.” He chuckled. “That’s all one;
I’ll get a taste of something fine anyway.”
There was a thrashing of bushes and Cousin Louise gave a little squeal of laughter.
“Hush! The keeper’ll hear, you silly slut.”
“No, no, he mustn’t.”
There was heavy breathing and a certain ruffling, as of petticoats. Cousin Louise spoke in an almost trancelike voice.
“How if you were a bold highwayman? You might shoot the driver, and there might be no other passengers but me, and I might be cowering within the coach, in fear of my very life. You’d fling the door wide—and you might look at me and lick your chops, as a hungry dog might—and you might say—you’d say—”
“Here’s a saucy strumpet wants a good futtering, I’d say,” growled the stableboy.
“Yes,” Cousin Louise gasped, hysteria coming into her voice, “and I’d protest, but you would be merciless. You’d drag me from the coach, and throw me down on the ferns in the savage forest, and tear my gown to expose my bosom, and then—”
“Oh, hush your noise,” the stableboy told Cousin Louise, and crawled on top of her. When they’d finished, he rolled off and reached for the beer pail. Cousin Louise was laughing, breathless, helpless, but her laughter began to sound a little like crying, and a certain alarm was in the stableboy’s voice when he said:
“Stop your fool mouth! Do you want to get me whipped? If you start screaming I’ll cut your throat, you jade! What’s the matter with you?”
Cousin Louise put her hands over her face and fell silent, attempting to even her breath. “Nothing,” she said faintly. “Nothing. All’s well.”
There was silence for a moment, and the stableboy drank more beer.
“I feel a little ill with the heat,” explained Cousin Louise.
“That’s like enough,” said the stableboy, sounding somewhat mollified.
Another rustling; Cousin Louise was sitting up, putting her arms around the stableboy.
“I do love you so,” she said, “I could never see you harmed, dearest. Say but the word and I’ll run away with thee, and be thy constant wife.”
“Art thou mad?” The stableboy sounded incredulous. “The likes of you wedded to me? The Squire’d hunt us sure, and he’d have my life. Even so, how should I afford to keep a wife, with my place lost? It ain’t likely you’d bring much of a dowry, anyhow, be the Squire never so willing. Not with everything going to them little boys, now.”
“I have three hundred pounds a year from my mother, once she’s dead and I am married.” Cousin Louise sounded desperate. “I have! And she’s grievous sick. Who knows how long she will live?”
“And what then? Much good that’d do me, if I was hanged or transported,” said the stableboy. “Which I will be, if you don’t keep quiet about our fun. Better ladies than you knows how to hold their tongues.”
Cousin Louise did not say another word after that. The stableboy drank the rest of the beer, and sighed.
“I’ve got the mucking out to do,” he announced, and buttoned himself and crawled from the bush. His footsteps went away across the paving-stones, slow and heavy.
Cousin Louise sat perfectly still for a long time, before abruptly scrambling out and walking away with quick steps.
The little girl exhaled.
“He didn’t speak to her very nicely,” said the tyger.
“No.”
“And she didn’t seem to have much fun. Why do you suppose she’d go into the bushes with a person like that?”
“She said she loved him,” said the child.
“Does she?” The tyger licked his paw lazily. “I wonder. Some people seem to feel the need to get manure on their shoes.”
The child wrinkled her nose. “Why?”
“Who knows? Perhaps they feel it’s what they deserve,” said the tyger.
***
The little girl had found broken china hidden in the green gloom behind the potting shed: two dishes, a custard-cup and a sauceboat. She carried them out carefully and washed them in the horse-trough, and then retired to the bed of bare earth under the fruit trees with them. There she set out the broken plates to be courtyards, and inverted the cup and sauceboat on them to be houses. Collecting cherry pits, she arranged them in lines: they were soldiers, marching between the houses. The rationale for making them soldiers was that soldiers had red coats, and cherries were red. The tyger watched her.
“There are visitors today,” he said. The child nodded.
“Uncle Henry and Aunt Elizabeth,” she replied. “They came to see John and James. Uncle Henry is going to be their godfather, because he’s a curate. They have a little girl, just my size, but she didn’t come, or she might have played with me.”
“Are you sorry she’s not here to play with you?”
The child lifted her head in surprise, struck by the question.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Would she see me?”
“She might,” the tyger said. “Children notice other children, don’t they?”
“Sometimes.”
“I think someone’s coming,” the tyger informed her. She looked up, and saw Uncle Henry and Aunt Elizabeth strolling together along the walk.
“…not so well-stocked as it was formerly, alas,” said Uncle Henry. He wore black, with a very white wig. Aunt Elizabeth was plump, wore a mulberry-
colored gown and a straw hat for the sun.
“Oh, bless us, look there!” she exclaimed, stopping in her tracks as she saw the tyger. “Dear, dear, d’you think it’s safe to keep a beast like that about, with so many little children in the house? I’m glad now we kept Jane at home, my love.”
“He’s never harmed anyone, that I’m aware,” Uncle Henry told her, taking her arm and steering her forward. “Poor old Bobo used to scream, and bite, and fling ordure; but I daresay it was because Randall teased him. Randall was frightened of this fellow, however. Kept his distance.”
“And very sensible of him too,” said Aunt Elizabeth, shuddering. “Oh, look at the size of it! I feel like a mouse must feel before our Tibby.”
“The same Providence created them, Bess.” Uncle Henry stopped before the pen. “Each creature has its place in the grand design, after all.”
“Tibby catches rats, and I’m sure that’s very useful indeed, but what’s the point of an animal like this one?” protested Aunt Elizabeth. “Great horrid teeth and claws! Unless they have giant rats in India?”
“I don’t think they do,” said Uncle Henry. “But I trust the Almighty had His reasons.”
“Well, I shall never understand how He could make something so cruel,” said Aunt Elizabeth firmly. “Look there, what are those? Are those parrots? Dear little things!”
“Budgerigars, I think,” said Uncle Henry.
They walked away to inspect the aviary, which was beyond the privet-square.
“Stay where you are,” said the tyger.
“Oh, I could never,” Mamma was saying distractedly. “I couldn’t think of such a thing, with poor Robert’s grave scarcely green.”
“Tut-tut, Lavinia!” said Uncle Randall, as they approached. “There’s none to hear but you and I. Look as pious as you like before the world. The demure widow, meek and holy, if you please! I won’t repeat what passes between us; but you and I both knew Robert. He hadn’t enough blood in him to keep you contented, a lively girl like you. Had he, now? How long’s it been since you had a good gallop, eh? Eh?”
She had been walking quickly ahead of him, and he caught up to her in front of the tyger’s pen and seized her arm. Her face was red.
“You don’t—oh—”
Uncle Randall stepped close and spoke very quickly. “The blood in your cheeks is honest, Madam Sanctimony. Don’t play the hypocrite with me! I know London girls too well. You got your hooks into Robert to climb out of the gutter, didn’t you? Well, keep climbing, hussy! I stand ready to help you up the next step, and the old man may be damned. We’ve got those boys, haven’t we? We’ll be master and mistress here one
day, if you’re not an affected squeamish—”
“You hound!” Mamma found her voice at last. “Oh, you base—thing!”
Uncle Henry and Aunt Elizabeth came walking swiftly around the privet
square, and advanced on the scene like a pair of soldiers marching.
“What’s this, Lavinia?” Uncle Henry’s eyes moved from Mamma to Uncle Randall and back. “Tears?”
“We were speaking of Robert,” said Uncle Randall, standing his ground. “Poor fellow. Were we not, dear Lavinia?”
Shocked back into silence, Mamma nodded. Aunt Elizabeth came and put her arms about her.
“My child, you mustn’t vex your heart so with weeping,” she said solicitously. “It’s natural, in such an affectionate match, but only think! Robert would wish you to be happy, now that all’s reconciled. And you must have courage, for the children’s sake.”
“So I was just saying,” said Uncle Randall, helping himself to a pinch of snuff.
“We must endure our sorrows in patience,” Uncle Henry advised her, looking at Uncle Randall.
“Come now, Lavinia,” said Uncle Randall in quite a kind voice. “Dry your tears and walk with us. Shall we go view the pretty babes? John’s the very image of Robert, in my opinion.”
They bore her away between them.
“Your Mamma doesn’t wish to make trouble, I see,” said the tyger.
“She didn’t tell on him,” said the child, in wonderment.
“Silence is not always wise,” said the tyger. “Not when it gives your opponent an opportunity. Perhaps your Uncle Randall hasn’t underestimated your Mamma, after all.”
“Why didn’t she tell on him?” The child stared after the retreating adults.
“Why indeed?” said the tyger. “Something else to remember: even bad strategy can succeed, if your opponent has no strategy at all.”
***
Just beyond the menagerie courtyard, five stone steps led down into a sunken garden. It was a long rectangle of lawn, with rose-beds at its edges and a fountain and small reflecting pool at its center. At its far end five more stone steps led up out of it, and beyond was a dense wood, and further beyond was open heath where deer sometimes grazed.
The roses were briary, and the fountain long clogged and scummed over with green. But there were men working on it today, poking with rakes and sticks, and it had begun to gurgle in a sluggish kind of way; and the gardener had cut back the briars that hung out over the lawn. He was up on a ladder now with his handkerchief, rubbing dust off the sprays of rose haws, so they gleamed scarlet as blood-drops.