The Daughters of Mrs Peacock

by Gerald Bullet

  She began to see that her former judgment had been hasty, superficial. He had, after all, shown unusual enterprise. It was greatly to his credit that he had approached her direct, defying convention by not first asking her parents’ permission. Though infinitely respectful, endearingly modest, he had been impetuous and brave. He knew what he wanted and was resolved to get it. Behind that mask of diffidence and excessive gravity lived a mature resolute spirit and a mind that refused to be deflected from its purpose by her evasive flippancies. Having thus created a new Mr Pardew, patient, masterful, and of wisdom and irony all compact, she proceeded to endow him with learning and saintliness for good measure: no sense in scamping the job. He was, she knew, a university man, with an honours degree, and might one day be a bishop. She grew hot and cold remembering how lightly she had dismissed him.

  The truth is, she said, I’m frivolous, too fond of making fun. At my age I ought to be more serious, like Julia. Why doesn’t he marry her? It would be just the thing. As a brother-in-law he would be nearly perfect. Yet, oddly, the idea did not entirely please her. Already she had certain property rights in the lover she did not want. She did not want him, but was not yet quite ready to let him go; and, though she half-dreaded the prospect, she was impatient to see him again.

  No woman since the world began—nor man either—has received with perfect indifference a declaration of love, no matter from what source; and even though disdain or repulsion or fear be her dominant emotion, mingling with it, in greater or less degree, is gratification, the response of a caressed vanity of which she may be unaware. Being young and inexperienced, neither Miss Sarah nor Mr Pardew was possessed of this universal truth of human nature. He did not, could not know, that by exposing his desire for her he had made himself for the moment the most interesting person in the world, nor she that her being desired had unsettled her judgment and half-persuaded her that she was fond of him. The seed he had sown, unregarded at the time, blossomed into a gratitude—mingled with compassion—that was dangerously akin to love, or at least could easily be mistaken for it if she were not careful. Unknowingly, he had added to her stature, transformed her conception of herself, given her a blissful sense of her own value: never again could she think of herself, without qualification, as the ordinary homely one, outshone by her beautiful sisters, with nothing but a lively sense of the ludicrous to offset her unremarkable appearance. Looking at herself in the glass, she tried to see what Mr Pardew presumably saw in her, and though the endeavour was unsuccessful she was more than ready to defer to his masculine and therefore (in this matter) superior judgment. There was, perceptibly, a new sparkle in her eyes, and with the hair done a little differently perhaps something might be made of her, in spite of the comic nose and dumpy figure. It was, at any rate, worth trying.

  Catherine, who still shared with her the big bedroom that had once been the night nursery for all three, was more conscious than Sarah herself of the outward change in her. She had noticed uneasily that except at mealtimes, when the family was fully mustered and a special effort was called for, this volatile sister of hers was strangely unlike herself: silent and self-absorbed. The comfortable bedtime chatter which they had enjoyed together all their lives, their voices, disembodied by the darkness, growing drowsier and drowsier till sleep at last supervened, had become, as the days went by, more and more abbreviated.

  ‘Sarah! … Are you awake?’

  ‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m fast asleep.’

  ‘Will you promise not to be cross if I ask you something?’

  ‘Cross? I’m never cross.’

  ‘You are, you know, sometimes. You have been, lately. Not cross exactly. But sort of.’

  ‘It’s news to me. Since when, pray?’ Regretting the incautious question Sarah hastened to add: ‘Can a person be cross without knowing it? I shouldn’t have thought so.’ There was safety in generalities.

  ‘Will you promise then?’ Catherine persisted.

  ‘All right. I’m not a dragon, Kitty. What is it?’

  ‘It’s since that game of croquet,’ said Catherine, ‘with Mr Pardew.’ Her clear young voice, urgent and oddly shy, seemed to hover suspended in the warm darkness. Silence engulfed the words, a long palpitating silence in which their implications echoed and re-echoed. ‘You’re not thinking seriously of him, are you?’

  ‘Why?’ said Sarah. ‘What if I were?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I only wanted to know.’

  ‘Does it matter to you so much?’

  ‘Not,’ said Catherine bravely, ‘if you really want him.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t worry, donkey. I said No. Nothing could have been plainer. He won’t ask me again.’

  ‘What on earth makes you think that? Of course he will. Men always do.’

  ‘Not he though,’ said Sarah. ‘He hasn’t been near us since. It’s nearly a fortnight.’

  ‘And you’re disappointed, aren’t you?’ It was an accusation.

  ‘Not at all. Why should I be? He’s had his answer. It’s only logical to keep out of the way.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ said Catherine resentfully, ‘I think it’s rather clever of him.’

  ‘Clever? No, he’s not clever. Not in that way.’

  ‘He’s getting you into a state. And then, in his own good time, you’ll see, back he’ll come.’

  ‘Will he? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t you? I do. I’m sure of it. So if you really don’t mean to have him, you’d better be prepared.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning, Kitty. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings … Shall we go to sleep now?’

  But sleep tonight did not come quickly to Sarah. The conversation had disturbed her more than she would admit. If he did ask her again, what would she say? That she could not confidently answer that question frightened her. She had had only one sight of him since the day of the proposal: in church, tall, unapproachable, priestly, reading the Lessons in a loud, polite, prefectorial voice. To see him so, a public figure, remote and impersonal in cassock and surplice, to hear him enunciating sentences too familiar to engage her thought, gave her the queerest sensation. The contrast between now and then was exciting: she could not forget that between this stranger and herself, whether she would or no, there now existed an intimate relationship, an invisible bond. How strange that a few unwelcome words could have effected so much, and all in a moment of time. Even now, in her fancy, he was thinking of her, as she of him. They shared a secret of which no one else in this crowded church, except Catherine, had any inkling. Except Catherine, sitting next to her. From time to time, waking from a dream, she became conscious of Catherine’s curious, wondering, speculative glance.

  Another Sunday came and went. At Evensong Mr Pardew occupied the pulpit.

  ‘Did it make you laugh, the sermon?’ Catherine asked, when they were alone again.

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘I thought not,’ said Catherine sadly. Trying again, she ventured: ‘But it was very churchified, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Sarah. ‘What else could it be? He’s not a good preacher. We’ve always known that.’

  ‘Never mind. I’m sure you’ll brighten him up when you’re married.’

  ‘Are you, donkey?’ said Sarah. ‘Then that’s all right, isn’t it?’

  Next day, exactly a fortnight after his former visit, he presented himself at the house half an hour before teatime. Mrs Peacock received him with her customary graciousness. He shook hands with the girls, letting his glance linger for only a moment on Sarah, and after some careful desultory conversation, in which he and Mrs Peacock did most of the talking, took his place at table, smiling gratefully on all the company. At Mr Peacock’s entry, a moment later, he leapt to his feet.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir. The bad penny again.’ He laughed selfconsciously, baring white teeth.

  ‘Afternoon, Pardew. Delighted to see you.’

  ‘Most kind. Most kind. I’m afraid the ladies spoil me. It’s so
nice to be made welcome. I do hope you’re fully recovered, Mr Peacock?’

  ‘Recovered? What’s this?’

  ‘Last time I had the pleasure of visiting here,’ said Mr Pardew, blushing and beaming, ‘you had recently been ill.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear fellow! An idle rumour. A zealously propagated myth. You mustn’t believe all my wife tells you.’

  ‘Really, Edmund!’

  ‘There,’ said Mr Pardew, ‘I must venture, with all respect, to disagree with you, sir. Mrs Peacock, I am sure, would never deviate by a hair’s breadth from the strict truth. And that, in this lax modern age, is so very important, don’t you think? It’s a thing I’m always trying to impress on my children at Sunday School. Speak the truth, children, I say, and shame the …’ He hesitated, glancing at the ladies. ‘And shame the, er, Evil One.’

  ‘Very sound advice,’ said Mr Peacock politely, with a covert glance at Sarah.

  ‘How is the Sunday School shaping?’ asked Mrs Peacock. ‘Such a good idea. Such a wholesome influence in the village. The little boys are so much better-behaved and respectful since you started it, Mr Pardew. It was a thing sadly needed.’

  ‘Very kind of you to say so, Mrs Peacock. Most kind. Most kind. The Vicar approves too, I’m glad to say. Prayers, a few hymns, and a short, frank talk. Just a simple service. It would never do, I told him, to let the chapel folk get ahead of us.’

  ‘Indeed no,’ said Mr Peacock. ‘Can’t have them getting to heaven before us.’

  ‘And you do it all by yourself?’ asked Julia. ‘That is good of you.’

  ‘At the moment, yes. But when our numbers grow, as I hope and pray they will, perhaps you, Miss Julia, or you, Miss Sarah, will be so kind as to come and help in the good work? That would be a great blessing, especially for the little ones. They need, after all, a lady’s guidance. Though as a mere man,’ he ended modestly, ‘one does what one can.’

  It needed only this, thought Sarah. The balloon of her fortnight’s eager imagining was pricked. She watched its collapse with regret but also with a sense of release. The dream was over: the waking, though painful, was salutary, liberating. Even now she strove to be just. The young man was sincere and well-meaning. She did not doubt that he did good and useful work. He deserved better than to be laughed at. But…

  The conversation went on and on, till the meal reached its end. Sarah, rising from the table with the others, became aware that Mr Pardew was angling for her private attention.

  ‘Before I go,’ he murmured, sidling up to her, ‘I wonder if you would be so kind as to show me the rose garden, Miss Sarah?’

  ‘Certainly, if you like. But it’s too early for roses.’

  ‘So it is. How forgetful of me. But the buds, don’t you think,’ he confided softly, bending towards her as she led the way into the garden, ‘fast-folded buds, the sleeping babes of Spring, as the poet says, are even more appealing?’

  ‘It depends on what one is looking for,’ answered Sarah. ‘Old Piggott wouldn’t agree with you. He takes a sort of angry pride in his roses, but only when they’re in full bloom and because he wins prizes with them. His chief interest is potatoes. We’ve persuaded him at last to spare a little space for asparagus, but he only does it to oblige, with much grumbling. It’s a wonder to me that things grow at all in the kitchen garden, with that comic old misery for ever scowling and sneering at them. I’m sure I shouldn’t. My meaning, miss, he says, if it beant one thing tis another. Never rain when we wants it and then a methuselah downpour, as the saying is, and they dratted creeping lilies everywhere. Ay, the weeds’ll grow fast enough, trust them: tis ten men’s funeral to keep pace with ‘em. He’s always called Old Piggott,’ she rattled on, ‘even to his face, because there’s another Piggott in the village, Young Piggott, aged about fifty. Everyone knows he’s his nephew, son of poor naughty old Lizzie, his sister——’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Mr Pardew, blushing. ‘How sad!’

  ‘But Old Piggott’—she hurried on—‘won’t admit the relationship. He be none of mine, miss, nor his mother neither. I don’t hold with ungodliness. Quaint, don’t you think, after half a century? You’d think he would have got used to it by now. The village isn’t usually so unforgiving.’

  ‘Forgive us our trespasses, yes,’ said Mr Pardew. ‘But repentance must come first.’

  His discomfort was manifest. Sarah realized that in her anxiety to keep his ardour at bay she had let her tongue run away with her. How shocked Mama would have been, could she have heard her!

  A silence fell between them. She could think of nothing to say.

  ‘What a lovely evening,’ sighed Mr Pardew. ‘So golden. So serene.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it. But I shouldn’t be surprised if we had rain before morning.’

  ‘Almost too lovely,’ said Mr Pardew. ‘Sometimes, do you know, the beauty of the world is almost more than I can bear.’

  ‘How very inconvenient for you!’

  ‘And when I am with you, Miss Sarah, it’s … it’s as if the gates of paradise itself were opening.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sarah firmly. ‘Because they aren’t, you know.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten our last conversation? May I hope that you’ve given some thought to it?’

  ‘Yes, but——’

  ‘Perhaps you feel I was too bold, too hasty? That I should have addressed myself first to your dear parents? That would indeed have been more proper. But, forgive me, I was carried away.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Sarah. ‘I thought no such thing. You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with. I assure you I shouldn’t have enjoyed being discussed behind my back. It was my affair, and yours. No one else’s.’

  ‘Then perhaps …’ he said, seizing her hand. She released herself quickly. ‘No, do not answer me yet. Give yourself time, and let me at least hope.’

  ‘No, Mr Pardew. I’ve had plenty of time. I’ve had a whole fortnight.’ To reject him, she found, was easier than she had feared. She was more than ever sorry for him, but she hardened her heart against pity, seeing now with clear eyes that only in his absence could she come within sight of loving him. ‘Forgive me, please, but my answer is still the same, and always will be. I hope,’ she added gently, ‘we need never speak of this again.’

  ‘If that is your wish, Miss Sarah, I will try to obey you. Your wish is my law. But——’

  ‘There is no but,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’m … I’m … grateful for your kind proposal, but what you ask is quite, quite impossible. I cannot see myself in such a position. I should never do justice to it.’

  ‘My dear Sarah, if that is your only reason——’

  ‘But it’s not, it’s not,’ she burst out, angry to find that she had set a trap for herself. ‘It’s the least of reasons. The true reason must be obvious, even to you. It’s simply,’ she said, driven to desperation, ‘that I don’t love you, Mr Pardew. Surely that’s sufficient? And don’t say that I might learn to love you, because it isn’t true, it’s quite out of the question.’

  ‘Very well.’ He was pale with mortification. ‘I have exposed myself to no purpose.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by exposing yourself,’ she said coldly. ‘But you needn’t imagine I shall boast of the honour you have done me. I propose to forget it.’

  She turned, and left him standing.

  Arrived back in the house she encountered a battery of curious eyes.

  ‘Well, my Sarah?’ said Mrs Peacock. ‘What have you done with your young man?’

  ‘If you mean Mr Pardew, Mama, he’s gone. He begs you will accept his most humble apologies for not taking leave of you. He has another visit to pay.’

  ‘Did you have a nice talk?’

  ‘Quite tolerable, thank you. Not exactly scintillating. You know what he is.’

  ‘I know he’s a very amiable young man, Sarah. I hope you weren’t rude to him.’

  ‘I hope not too, Mama. But he wouldn’t have noticed if I had been. His ch
ief contribution, I recall, was that repentance must precede forgiveness.’

  ‘And who, I wonder, is in need of forgiveness?’ inquired Mr Peacock urbanely.

  ‘Old Lizzie Piggott, Papa, who went astray fifty years ago.’

  ‘Really, Sarah!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘I’m surprised at you! Catherine, you may leave us.’

  ‘Thank you, Mama,’ said Catherine, making no move. Her eyes were on Sarah, trying desperately to read her mind.

  Chapter Three

  Midsummer Revels

  Sarah kept her word. Except to Catherine, who knew too much not to be told more, she said nothing of what had passed between herself and Mr Pardew. It was a little unkind in her, she sometimes felt, to deprive her family of such a gigantic plum of gossip, argument, and fun; it would have kept their tongues busy for days and been remembered ever afterwards as marking an epoch in the family history; but for her own sake, as well as his, she preferred to be silent. She had no wish to be the centre of discussion, to be argued with and perhaps disapproved of. Papa, she thought, would have been sorry to lose her, and would have raised his eyebrows at her choice; but of Mrs Peacock she was unsure. Silence therefore was best on all counts; and Catherine, sworn to secrecy, loyally resisted the temptation to chatter. Then by what mysterious process did Julia and Mama acquire some inkling of the situation, so that during the weeks that followed any mention of Mr Pardew’s name gave rise to meaning looks and expectant silences? Perhaps it was because Sarah no longer indulged her wit at his expense, and because on his subsequent visits—for he manfully continued to call—he had the air of cherishing a secret sorrow and could not refrain from angling for sympathy. Mr Pardew’s irruption into the family consciousness had turned the thoughts of all three girls in the direction of matrimony. Even Julia, cheerfully resigned to eternal maidenhood, looked with new eyes at every male visitor that came near them, half-consciously asking herself whether this one or that might ‘do’ for one or the other of her sisters. Dr Witherby, who with undeviating regularity came once a month to play chess with Mr Peacock, was clearly too old, probably not less than forty, and a confirmed bachelor to boot. Mr Garnish, the vicar, though a widower and sadly in need of someone to look after him and keep a busy eye on the parish, was older still: moreover, it was notorious that his housekeeper, Mrs Budge, imported from the county town of Mercester, was busy making herself indispensable and would never let him out of her clutches. Mrs Budge won’t budge, said the village, slapping its knee and roaring with laughter at the subtle pun. She, with the help of a fourteen-year-old daughter, and an overgrown lad from the village who was nominally the gardener but spent much of his time scrubbing floors and carrying coals, did all the work of the large half-empty vicarage. Several unmarried ladies of suitable age were suspected of aspiring to the position of vicaress, but had to content themselves with humbler offices: running the Bible class and the sewing guild, organizing ‘sales of work’ for the relief of the deserving poor, and decorating the church at harvest festivals. Julia herself, with no ulterior motive, took part in these activities; and the time could not be far distant when her sisters would be drawn into them.