The Daughters of Mrs Peacock

by Gerald Bullet

  ‘What a lovely evening,’ said Robert. ‘The best time of the day.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Catherine.

  Now that she had at least part of her wish, and need struggle no more, peace descended on her. She gazed at the gilded street, a river of brightness intersected by long, clean-cut, patches of shade. Soon she must resume her campaign, but for the moment it was enough to be with Robert, enjoying the shared silence, the occasional word, the illusion—if it were no more—of intimacy. But the quietness she had won was not absolute: it was quickened by her sense of his physical presence, as of something long imagined and dwelt upon and now miraculously actual.

  ‘Are you staying long in Newtonbury?’

  ‘Only ten days, I think. With the Skimmers.’

  ‘Ah yes. The watchmaker.’

  ‘Do you know him, Robert?’

  ‘Not socially, of course. But I’ve been to his shop.’

  ‘Why of course? Don’t you like him?’

  ‘Oh, quite. An odd but amiable character, I imagine.’

  ‘He’s really, you know, rather clever in his way. Much cleverer than Ellen, though she’s nice too, and they think she’s marvellous, poor dears. He’s got any number of books, Robert. I know, because I sleep with them.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Sleep with them,’ she repeated, laughing. ‘They’ve put up beds for us in his library. I’m sorry you don’t like him much, because they have a sort of reading circle every Sunday after Evensong, and I was wondering if you could come. They’d be very pleased and flattered if you did. They’re reading Dante or something, but I’m sure they’d change over to Omar Khayyám if you’d rather. Just a few neighbours,’ she finished breathlessly, echoing Mrs Skimmer’s words, ‘and a cup of coffee.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not possible. I have an engagement for next Sunday.’

  ‘What a shame.’

  ‘But there are other evenings, aren’t there?’ he said quickly. ‘Would you and Sarah do me the honour of letting me drive you to Crowle Hill to see the Ruins one evening this week? And your friend Miss Skimmer too, of course, if she cares to come.’

  ‘Thank you. How very polite of you. Would you take us on your machine?’

  He laughed, glad of the chance. ‘No difficulty about that. I’m sure Jobson will hire me a carriage. We might, don’t you think, make a picnic of it?’

  ‘What fun,’ said Catherine flatly. ‘I shall be well chaperoned, shan’t I? Don’t you think Mr and Mrs Skimmer ought to come too, just to make sure?’

  ‘Certainly.’ He ignored the irony. ‘If we can squeeze them in.’

  Silence fell between them. The proposal was left in the air. It had served its purpose of carrying them past an awkward moment, and whether or not it would be put into effect was a matter of almost indifference to Catherine, so remote was it from what she had hoped for. Normally the prospect of an outing would make her heart leap, but a party of four, three women and a man, would bring her, she thought despairingly, no nearer to Robert. It would leave him, moreover, free to follow his own dangerous devices on the Sunday. She ached to know the truth of that situation.

  The silence lengthened. The precious minutes dragged by. She sat broodingly, staring at the ground, only half aware of the eyes anxiously watching her averted profile. In a few moments she must get up and go back to North Street. With nothing said to the purpose? The idea was intolerable. Yet how, without shocking and repelling him, could she expose herself, men being so proper, so conventional, so stupid?

  Anger came to her rescue. ‘Will you tell me something, Robert?’

  ‘Of course, if I can.’

  ‘Are you as careful of Mrs Stapleton’s reputation as you are of mine?’

  He did not answer.

  Turning to him, searching his face, she said tragically: ‘Now, I suppose, I’ve offended you. You’ll never speak to me again.’

  A queer smile visited his severe features. It vanished instantly, giving place to a gentle gravity that made her heart turn over.

  ‘No, Catherine. I’m not offended.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ she said eagerly. ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Nothing you say could offend me,’ he said, lightly touching her hand. ‘But… well, never mind.’

  ‘Tell me then. Are you very fond of her?’

  ‘Why? Why do you ask? Is it so important?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Catherine. ‘Yes. Yes. You know it is.’

  ‘But why, my dear? What can it matter?’

  ‘Don’t call me your dear,’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘You don’t mean it. Else you wouldn’t be so blind.’

  ‘Am I blind? I didn’t know.’

  ‘It’s not fair. I can’t help being young.’

  ‘It’s not such a bad thing to be, you know.’

  ‘Can’t you see she’s not your sort?’ asked Catherine in a tone of wonder. ‘Besides, she’s too old for you.’

  He smiled. ‘I’ve no doubt she must seem very mature to you. But you forget: I’m not so young myself. At least fifteen years older than you.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Catherine. ‘It’s nice. Just the right difference.’ Embarrassed by his sudden, startled comprehension, she got up. ‘I must go now. Good-bye.’

  ‘May I not see you home?’

  ‘Of course, if you wish.’

  The walk to North Street was accomplished in all but silence: a silence on her part full of a tremulous happiness, shot through with doubts and fears; and on his part, what?

  In this flat country, enclosed on all sides by uninterrupted sky, Crowle Hill was a curiosity and an excrescence: no soaring eminence, but a sudden round bump, smooth and green, that looked as though it had been turned out of a gigantic pudding-basin. It was one of the recognized ‘sights’ of the county, and a favourite resort of picnickers. Coupled with it, by the accident of propinquity, were ‘the Ruins’, a broken geometrical pattern of walls, open to the sky, which were all that remained of Newtonbury Abbey where centuries ago generations of monks had lived and died, holy and aloof, taking no part in the busy life of the town three miles away. The thing to do was to ascend the obscuring hill and on reaching its rounded summit exclaim in wonder and delight at the expected yet always surprising sight spread out below, and then descend on the other side to make its nearer acquaintance and perhaps, if one had a taste for such experiences, imagine oneself to be living for a moment in that bygone age.

  Robert Crabbe, by virtue of his temperamental bias, was able to do just that: standing in the long grass full of nettles and willowherb, and surrounded by the walls of what had once been the Abbot’s Kitchen, he assumed in fancy a monk’s habit, feeling the sun warm on his bare, tonsured head, and under his sandalled feet the hard brick floor that was in fact buried under centuries of accretion. Not so his two young ladies (Ellen had elected to stay at home): to them the ruin was a ruin and no more, the past remote and unreal, the present, the living moment, everything. It was nice to be here; it was fun; but the mystery of time did not engage them. It was enough for them, Catherine and Sarah, that they were alive now, now and for ever, in an endlessly exciting and amusing world.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Robert, ‘in the Abbot’s Kitchen. The external shape, you see, was a square; but the interior was octagonal, with fireplaces and chimneys filling in the four corners.’

  ‘Why the Abbot’s?’ asked Sarah. ‘Did the poor man have to do his own cooking?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Robert, smiling but serious. ‘He was an important person. His authority was absolute. The work of the place, I imagine, was done by lay brothers, men whose vocation was for the humbler forms of service. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, as the phrase goes.’

  ‘Poor things,’ said Catherine. ‘It doesn’t sound much fun. What did the rest do, Robert?’

  ‘They would be engaged in spiritual exercises, don’t you see? Prayer and meditation.’

  ‘What, all day long? I think I’d rather have been a what-d’you-call-it, a
lay brother.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Well, yes, perhaps you would. But we must remember they also produced some beautiful works of art. Illuminated missals and so on. Let’s go and see the chapel, shall we? What’s left of it. Actually, it’s the best preserved of all the ruins.’

  They picked their way through the rank grass and emerging from the kitchen resumed their exploration in an easterly direction, along a lane enclosed by low ivy-clad walls. Three parts of the chapel, and even a section of its roof, were still intact. Nave and chancel were buried under soil and grass, the sediment of the ages giving ground for new growth; the odour of incense lingered only in imagination; and where prayer and praise had once ascended, invisible exhalation of piety, was now the haunt of wayfaring or roosting birds. A whirr of wings startled the silence as they approached. Suddenly alert, they came to a standstill.

  ‘Where we’re standing now,’ said Robert, ‘were the cloisters. The floor, it’s supposed, is some three feet below the present ground level. How do we know that? Not by digging, though that would be a good way to make sure. But no. It’s because on moonlit, nights, at a certain time of the year, a ghost has been seen, perhaps the old Abbot himself, gliding along the cloister, head sunk in meditation. I say gliding because only the upper half of him is visible, the rest of him, from the waist downwards, being submerged. That means, don’t you see, that he’s walking on the original flagstones: which, of course, is what one would expect, isn’t it?’

  Catherine shivered. ‘How gruesome!’ But Sarah, eyeing him curiously, said: ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Not quite, my dear Sarah. But it’s a good story.’

  Catherine, clutching at his arm, said urgently: ‘Look, Robert! There’s someone there now—in the chapel!’

  ‘Dear me! So there is. How very——’

  He left his comment uncompleted, embarrassed by what he read in Catherine’s face.

  ‘Don’t worry, Kitty,’ said Sarah equably. ‘She’s not a ghost.’

  ‘So I see,’ remarked Catherine. The toss of her head, the look she flashed at Robert, were an accusation.

  ‘How very extraordinary,’ said Robert, ‘and unexpected.’

  She averted her eyes from him, burning with the consciousness of having been seen and watched by the interloper, perhaps for some minutes. How hateful, she thought. How shameless. She’s come to look after her property. Not for a moment did she doubt who the woman was; nor did she ask how she knew that Robert was to be here this evening. He had told her. He had told her everything. She, Catherine, had been the subject of an amused conversation. Her first impulse was to escape, but a counter impulse resolved her to stand and give fight.

  Olive Stapleton, elegantly posed, awaited the party’s approach with an air of polite indifference tempered by amusement.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Stapleton,’ said Robert, raising his hat. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’

  ‘Is it?’ She offered her hand. ‘But why so formal, dear Robert? Won’t you introduce your young friends?’

  ‘I was on the point of doing so. Miss Sarah Peacock. Miss Catherine Peacock.’

  ‘Ah! So we meet at last, my dears. I’ve heard so much about you. Haven’t I, Robert?’

  ‘Have you? I don’t recollect——’

  ‘But yes indeed. The Peacock sisters are famous. He talks of you day and night, and always, I assure you, in the most flattering terms. How odd that we should chance to meet here. A chance in a thousand.’

  ‘A remarkable coincidence,’ said Catherine.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it, Miss Catherine? Yet perhaps not so remarkable. I so often come here. It provides, you know, an objective for one’s evening walk.’

  ‘You’re fond of walking, Mrs Stapleton?’

  ‘I dote on it, Miss Sarah. And I dote on these dear ruins. So quaint. So old.’

  ‘Age, I imagine, is a feature of most ruins,’ remarked Sarah. ‘You must be fond indeed of walking to have come so far.’

  ‘Ah, but one’s little house is only half an hour away. I make nothing of the distance. Something less than two miles, wouldn’t you say, Robert?’

  ‘We shall believe you,’ said Catherine, ‘without Mr Crabbe’s corroboration.’

  ‘Dear me! What long words for a young girl!’ drawled Olive Stapleton.

  Robert said, tactfully intervening: ‘Too far, I suppose, for Harold’s small legs? Mrs Stapleton, Catherine, has a charming little boy.’

  It could not be denied, even by Catherine, that she was handsome in a bold, exotic fashion: high-arching eyebrows, regular features, brilliant colouring, an elegant sinuous figure. Her voice was warm and caressing, her every movement had a feline grace. Worst of all, she was mature without being old. Her self-assurance was impregnable: the sight of it made Catherine feel like a schoolgirl battling against impossible odds, a schoolgirl whose crudeness and rudeness were no match for the subtle insolence that gleamed in her rival’s eyes and sat like a predatory cat in the curve of her sleek full lips. Catherine perceived that this scene had been carefully staged by Mrs Stapleton with the sole view of demonstrating that she was the woman in possession.

  The desultory unmeaning conversation went on, and Catherine, retired into herself, let it flow past her unheeded, till something that Robert was saying stabbed her resentment into quivering life.

  ‘We came in a hired carriage. You must let us drive you back.’

  Catherine said: ‘If you don’t mind, Mr Crabbe, I prefer to walk. Shall we go, Sarah?’

  ‘Very polite of you, Robert.’ The voice was velvet, the smile at once bland and satirical. ‘But, thank you, I shall not join your party. Something tells me I should be de trop. I wonder what?’ Her glance, like a pointing finger, indicated Catherine, and coming back to Robert presented the absurd child for his derision. ‘Good-bye for the present, Robert. I must be on my way. I shall see you on Sunday, no doubt, if by then you are released from your nursemaid duties. Good-bye, Miss Peacock. Good-bye, little Miss Catherine. So delighted to have made your acquaintance.’

  Almost before she was out of earshot Sarah remarked, fixing her candid gaze on Robert Crabbe: ‘So that’s the notorious Mrs Stapleton! Quite a pretty performance. Is she always like that, Mr Crabbe?’

  His brow was dark, whether with anger or discomfort she could only surmise. Painfully aware of Catherine’s condition, the burning cheeks, the sullen eyes, the puckered, trembling lips, she refrained from looking her way and resisted, though with difficulty, the impulse to offer comfort. She got no answer to her question: it was doubtful whether he had heard it.

  ‘I think I’ll go back to the carriage now,’ she announced, ‘and have a talk with that nice horse. He must be tired of being tied to the gate, poor thing. Come when you’re ready, you two. But not too soon, or we shall overtake her on the way back. That would be too much happiness for one evening.’

  So far, since Olive Stapleton’s departure, neither Robert nor Catherine had uttered a word. Nor did they evince any sign of having heard Sarah’s careful speech. Her going found them still silent.

  But presently, without looking at him, Catherine said: ‘I apologize, Mr Crabbe, for being rude to your friend.’ He made a deprecating gesture. ‘It was childish, unpardonable,’ she continued, pale and cold.

  ‘No, no,’ said Robert, avoiding her eyes. ‘Don’t be angry, Catherine. Only give me time.’

  ‘Give you time?’ she echoed. Then, suddenly reverting to her natural self, ‘Why did you have to tell her, Robert?’ she burst out.

  ‘Tell her? I didn’t tell her. Well, yes. I may have mentioned in passing that we were coming here. But I never dreamt——’

  ‘Didn’t you? More fool you. Anyone but a baby would have known what she’d do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Catherine. I’m more than sorry. Shall we not discuss Mrs Stapleton any more?’

  ‘Certainly we won’t, since the subject is so sacred to you.’

  ‘You misunderstand me
.’

  ‘On the contrary. I understand everything. Everything. It’s all too hatefully clear to me. Shall we go back now? There’s no more to be said.’

  ‘I think perhaps there is. Much more. But … I have no right. Be patient, Catherine. Give me time.’

  Time? Time for what? A flicker of hope kindled in her heart, but she could not bring herself to ask the question. In silence they made their way to where Sarah awaited them, on the broad grass verge of the road; and drove back to Newtonbury at a careful walking-pace.

  Chapter Five

  Sarah: Julia: Sarah

  In the home-going train on Monday evening, ‘Well, my children, have you enjoyed your stay at Newtonbury?’ asked Mr Peacock.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Papa,’ they answered in chorus. And Catherine said: ‘But we shall be glad to be home again.’

  It was true of both, but especially of Catherine. The two days that had passed since their visit to the Ruins had been a weariness, and to Catherine a torment. It had been a comfort on Friday night to join with Sarah in caustic remarks about Mrs Stapleton, and to ask again and again what Robert could see in her that attracted him; but the question was rhetorical, insincere, for Catherine, who had read many a lush contemporary novel about simplehearted gentlemen and predatory charmers, fancied she knew the answer all too well. Conscious of her inexperience, her deplorable youngness, she felt sadly at a disadvantage in this duel with an expert man-catcher. Saturday found her in a fever of hope and fear: she spent it with Sarah and Ellen, chattering and laughing but hearing only half they said. It was maddening to be so near Robert and not see him; yet to visit him in his office, on some specious excuse, would have been worse than useless. It would have been impolitic, it would have looked ‘forward’, and it would have told her nothing of his state of mind. Sunday evening, she decided, would be crucial: against all reason she cherished the crazy hope that despite his previous engagement he might, he just might, turn up at the Skimmers’. Obsessed by her dream she found it difficult to believe him indifferent: how was it possible that her own feelings should evoke no response in him? He is mine, mine, her heart said stubbornly; but cold reason told another story. He is kind, compassionate, brotherly; but he doesn’t want me; he wants someone cleverer, older, more artful in the ways of love; I’ve embarrassed him to no purpose. Looking in her glass she despaired, wishing herself ten years older.