The Daughters of Mrs Peacock

by Gerald Bullet

  Dr Witherby, a comparative newcomer to the district, was a tall man but from the habit of much courteous bending had acquired a slight stoop. The effect of his large aquiline features was softened by a nimbus of red beard surrounding them from ear to ear, chin and upper lip being clean-shaven, and by a pair of bushy and extremely mobile and expressive eyebrows which, had he been deprived of the power of speech, would alone have been adequate for all emotional occasions: in his chess-sessions with Mr Peacock they came much into play, sometimes rising so high as to threaten contact with his mass of brown, unkempt hair. He did not however rely on them exclusively for the expression of his varying moods: in moments of unprofessional relaxation he had a vein of sardonic talk that was highly congenial to Mr Peacock. It was characteristic of him, whether to call it tact or cunning is a moot point, that with Mrs Peacock and her like his manner was more ceremonious, lacking nothing of the sober, smiling gravity expected of a physician: he had in fact, it might almost be said, as many manners as he had patients, from Colonel Beckoning’s lady, of Manor Park, to old Mrs Bateson in her cottage. Despite his eccentric appearance, which suggested a tragic actor rather than a medical man, he was well regarded by rich and poor, alike. And perhaps, thought Julia in her new role of matchmaker, he was not too old after all: Sarah would be all the better for a steadying influence.

  The Vicar was quite another story. He had held his office from time immemorial, had christened them, all three, prepared them for confirmation, and was now rapidly declining into senility. His conduct of the church services had become a nervous embarrassment to the more percipient among his congregation. His speech grew more slow and uncertain with every week that passed, and at any moment, they felt, he might forget what he was at and precipitate a minor scandal in God’s house. Only stubbornness, and a bitter resolve not to be ousted by Mr Pardew whose youth and vigour he resented, prevented his retiring. It was whispered in the village that the curate had much to put up with in the way of sulks and snubs from his vicar, even to the indignity of having to receive his salary from the hands of Mrs Budge. This was unproven, but everyone remembered that dreadful Sunday morning when Mr Pardew, mounting the pulpit sermon in hand, had been silently but testily recalled and displaced by the feeble formidable old man, who then proceeded to preach for forty weary minutes on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. And the greatest of these is charity. Was it malice or mere absentmindedness? Mr Pardew himself would admit to no doubt on the point. An unfortunate misunderstanding, he insisted. Distressing, yes; but he, not the Vicar, was to blame. It is possible that he had profited from the sermon, though like others he had heard it often enough before. It is equally possible that he knew that no one would believe him. This episode, though not consciously recalled, was part of the background of Julia’s reflections. It was manifest that the Vicar, greatly as he needed a wife, if only to rescue him from Mrs Budge, was not a marriageable proposition.

  This attempt on Julia’s part to dispose of her sisters was no more than a game which she played in idle moments, when there was nothing more serious to occupy her. Mr Pardew had set it going, and it was to him, coupled in her fancy with Sarah, that her speculations always returned. She could not believe that his frequent visits, his delicately pointed attentions, his parade of a melancholy bravely borne under a mask of resolute cheerfulness, could ultimately fail of their purpose. At times she was tempted to take him aside and urge him to speak plainly, feeling it to be almost her duty, as the eldest in the family, to do what she could to ease his heart of its burden and promote her sister’s happiness. Nor was there any lack of opportunity, for she now, and she alone, helped him in the Sunday School. While he dealt with the bigger children, she got into a huddle with the little ones, telling them moral stories from the Old Testament, such as the Infant Samuel and Joseph and his Brethren, and explaining gently that if they were rude to old gentlemen, like the children who mocked Elisha (‘Go up, thou bald head!’), a she-bear would come down from the mountain and eat them up. Mountains, it was true, were conspicuously lacking in this midland shire, and bears not plentiful; but no doubt the lesson went home. Mr Pardew, however, gave her no opening, and she reluctantly decided not to interfere, at any rate for the present. Meanwhile it would be as well to sound Catherine.

  ‘Whatever shall we do, Kitty,’ she said one day, ‘when Sarah’s gone? We shall miss her dreadfully.’

  Catherine stared. ‘Do you mean when she goes to Aunt Druid’s? Perhaps they won’t ask her. And it won’t be till the autumn anyhow. It never is.’

  Aunt Druid, Mrs Peacock’s sister, was the wife of a prosperous farmer in a neighbouring county, a long slow train-journey away, involving two changes. It was her habit to have one of her nieces to stay with her for a few weeks every year. She would gladly have had all three, but it was understood that only one could be spared. This year it was Sarah’s turn. Catherine, disliking the prospect of losing her, did her best to pretend that it might not happen, but knew in her heart that nothing was more certain that that the invitation would punctually arrive.

  ‘I didn’t mean that, silly,’ said Julia. ‘I mean when she’s married.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Julia? Is she going to be married? But how exciting! Who to, pray?’

  ‘Well, it looks like it, doesn’t it? I mean …’

  ‘Yes? What do you mean?’

  Julia flushed, but was not to be put off. Her scrutiny on occasions could be as keen and shrewd as Mama’s.

  ‘I think there’s no doubt that she’s … liked a good deal, by a certain gentleman. You must have noticed that.’

  ‘Not I,’ said Catherine coolly. ‘I’m too busy to concern myself with other people’s likings.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s true then?’

  ‘How should I know? I’m not in your certain gentleman’s confidence.’

  ‘No, but you are in Sarah’s,’ said Julia quickly. ‘She tells you everything.’

  ‘Does she? I wonder. Not everything. No one tells everything. Still, I think she’d have told me, and you too, and Mama, if she were thinking of getting married. We’d have to know, wouldn’t we, sooner or later? I mean, she wouldn’t just elope, leaving a letter pinned to her pillow confessing all and begging forgiveness. That wouldn’t be a bit like her, so you really needn’t worry, dear Julia.’

  ‘Now you’re just being foolish,’ sighed Julia. ‘All the same, I’m sure he likes her.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  Catherine put on a considering air. ‘Well, it can hardly be Dr Witherby. And I don’t think it’s Mr Crabbe. The only other gentleman who comes to see us regularly is poor Mr Pardew.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Julia. ‘So you have noticed something!’

  ‘As for his liking her,’ said Catherine airily, ‘I daresay he likes all of us. I shall never marry, shall you? But it would be fun to collect a few proposals. I haven’t had one yet—isn’t it a shame? I shall write them all down in my diary and cry over them when I’m an old woman, like poor dear Miss Fotheringay in Tried in the Fire, or The Gold and the Dross. But of course that was different, because she was in love with fascinating Guy Chevenix, who jilted her and broke her heart. She had dozens of offers after that, but always said No, and promised to be a sister to them, because she never forgot Guy, he was the one love of her life. Where shall I begin, Julia? There’s not much time left. Do you think the Claybrook boys would do? Not very exciting, but one has to start somewhere, and I think I could bring them to the point if I set my mind to it. First Jack, then Will. With any luck I might get them quarrelling about me. A duel or something. Wouldn’t that be a triumph?’ Before Julia could think of a suitable answer, Sarah came into the room. ‘Hullo, Sally, you’re just in time. I’m planning to make Jack Claybrook propose to me. Julia thinks it’s a capital idea. I do hope you agree?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Sarah. ‘Will you accept him?’

  ‘Oh no. Will must have a turn too
. I shan’t accept him either.’

  Divided between laughter and impatience, ‘I must say,’ said Julia, ‘I’ve never listened to a more ridiculous conversation.’

  ‘Let the dear child prattle while she can,’ said Sarah. ‘When she comes to my age, she’ll sober down. Won’t you, Kitty?’

  Catherine grinned. ‘Yes, granny.’ She put out her tongue.

  ‘Don’t ever let Mama see you do that,’ Julia begged. ‘She’d think it most unladylike. Oughtn’t you to be busy with your needles, you two? It’s only four weeks to the Midsummer Ball.’

  ‘And why not you, Julia?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I’m not sure I shall go. It depends on whether Mama can spare me.’

  ‘We’ll make her go too,’ said Catherine. ‘And Papa, why not? I think I shall wear green satin,’ she went on, looking forward as much to the bustle of preparation, the measuring, the pinning-up, even the fine stitching, as to the dance itself. ‘Papa will buy it for me; Miss Jenkinson will cut it out, she’s so clever; and I shall help her with the sewing. What will you go in, Sarah?’

  ‘Pink, I expect, to match my maiden blushes. Or mustard yellow, to match my freckles. I wish it were going to be a masked ball. It would be so nice not knowing anyone, and having to guess. Besides, it would give one’s own face a holiday.’

  ‘Don’t you like your face?’ asked Catherine. ‘I do.’

  ‘I don’t mind it,’ said Sarah. ‘I don’t mind it at all. It’s quite a useful face for eating and talking with.’

  ‘I wonder if Mr Pardew will go to the ball?’ said Julia, in what she imagined was a casual tone. ‘And if he does, who he’ll dance with?’

  ‘Why not ask him?’ Sarah suggested. ‘I’m sure he’d be flattered by your interest.’

  Colonel Beckoning of Manor Park was a legendary figure, regarded by the village with admiring awe but seldom seen in the flesh. With his young second wife, four children, an aged aunt, and numerous servants, he lived two miles away, in a wnite-stone eighteenth-century house of many windows, surrounded by a hundred acres of undulating parkland. Whether or not he was in law as well as in fact the lord of that domain, or merely the heir and deputy of his aunt, Lady Mallard, relict of the late Sir Godfrey, was known only to themselves, to Messrs Peacock and Crabbe their solicitors, and possibly to the agent, Mr Prickett, who managed the estate and kept a sharp eye on the various rights and properties that went with it. Thirty years of soldiering in India had left the Colonel short of an arm and with a white scar running across his lean left cheek. His infrequent appearance in the village, mounted on a white horse and looking like an elderly Saint George in languid pursuit of the dragon, was always a nine days’ wonder and the occasion of much bobbing and bowing and touching of forelocks. But though he was apt to look stern and fierce he was not unduly proud. Hidden within him was a fund of geniality, carefully saved up and stored away for use at that joyous annual event, the Midsummer Night’s Ball at Manor Park, to which all the gentry and near-gentry of the neighbourhood were invited. The villagers had their own revels of which singing and dancing formed only a part.

  This year the Peacocks went in force. Since the girls could not go unescorted, and their next neighbours who farmed the contiguous acres (once Peacock property) had a bunch of female cousins to transport, Papa and Mama, after putting up a token resistance, allowed themselves to be persuaded.

  ‘Your father and I,’ said Mrs Peacock insincerely, ‘are getting too old for dancing. I’m sure the Claybrook boys will oblige us, as they did last year.’

  ‘We do not care to be obliged, Mama,’ said Sarah. ‘Besides, they have their own party. There’ll be no room for us. You would not have us sit on their knees?’

  ‘Not in front of the cousins,’ said Catherine with a giggle. ‘They’d scratch our eyes out.’

  ‘Jack and Will Claybrook,’ Mrs Peacock reminded them, ‘have known you all since you were children. They’re like brothers.’

  ‘They are brothers,’ said Sarah. ‘But to each other, not to us.’

  ‘We shan’t enjoy it half so much,’ murmured Julia, tactfully interposing, ‘without you and Papa.’

  ‘If that is so, Emily my love,’ said Mr Peacock, ‘we must try, don’t you think, to forget our grey hairs, our dwindling blood, our palsied limbs, and indulge the girls?’

  Julia had never quite outgrown the feeling that to be up and about at an hour long after bedtime was a kind of wickedness, and some echo of a childish guilt came back to her on this midsummer evening as with parents and sisters she took her seat in the seldom-used carriage, sank back against the warm-smelling leather upholstery, and felt herself riding, sailing, floating to adventure, on an invisible road that slipped away under the turning wheels. It was strange and exhilarating, dashing and daring, to be setting out at so late an hour with the prospect of turning night into day. Harry Dawkins, scrubbed and polished for the occasion and wearing a smart green livery that reeked of camphor, handled the reins; her sisters, wonderful to relate, were dumb with expectancy; Mama and Papa were wearing their most polite, benign, party-going faces; and nothing was lacking that could make her heart beat quicker and her dark eyes sparkle.

  Their progress, despite Harry Dawkins’s cajoling grumbles and readiness with the whip, could not be rapid. Manor Park, as was only proper, was at a slightly higher elevation than the village. To reach it one must ascend a winding and gently rising hill flanked on either side by fields of young corn, alternating with lush meadows where ruminating cattle stood at gaze. Trees cast a lengthening shadow and the colours of sunset were draining from the inverted bowl of the sky as the carriage turned in at the Park gates. Ten minutes later the house came into view. Cool and mellow in the afterglow of day, solid embodiment of elegance and good sense, it seemed to Julia at this distance both beautiful and unreal, a harmonious incident in an imaginary landscape.

  But the mood of wonder very soon gave place to more practical considerations. For now they had arrived, and there were things to worry about: their reception by host and hostess, the disposal of the horses, the meeting with old acquaintances and the being introduced to strangers. For one nervous moment she wished herself home again. The moment, however, passed quickly. No sooner had the carriage come to a halt than servants were at hand to help the ladies to alight and to take charge not only of the horses but of Harry Dawkins as well. He, having received his instructions from Mr Peacock about the return journey, quickly made himself scarce and was seen no more.

  Though brightness had gone from the air, dusk was not yet come; but already, in the great ballroom, the five central candelabra and the many wall-sconces held minims of flame whose every movement was reflected in hanging lustres and surrounding mirrors. In the middle of the upper lawn, just beyond the open french windows, stood an ancient cedar, its lower branches hung with variously-coloured Chinese lanterns soon to be lit. The sound of the fiddlers tuning up wove a pattern of expectancy against a background of chattering voices and rustling shimmering silks. Julia awoke to the alarming consciousness of having lost sight of her family, but before she had time to despair a voice at her elbow said, with elderly courtesy: ‘Miss Peacock, may I present my son? Captain Arthur Beckoning. Miss Peacock.’

  A tall figure, resplendent in scarlet dress-uniform, stood at attention before her.

  ‘Your servant, ma’am.’ He bowed stiffly. Julia, speechless with timidity, sketched a curtsey. ‘May I have the honour of the first dance?’

  Murmuring assent, and vexed with herself for feeling frightened, she surrendered her card. Having signed it, with the little pencil attached, he retained it for a moment in his left hand, while the other delicately stroked his long moustaches. He gazed down at her, frankly admiring.