The Daughters of Mrs Peacock

by Gerald Bullet

‘I don’t want to see her. She’s being very unkind to me.’

  ‘But surely …!’ For a moment astonishment bereft her of speech. ‘You were always happy together, weren’t you?’

  ‘That was a long time ago. She doesn’t like me any more. She torments me.’

  ‘Oh no! You mustn’t say that.’

  ‘She does, I tell you. She’s here in this house. Here in this room. She’s listening to us, laughing at us. I can’t see her, but that’s her artfulness. She keeps out of my sight. But she’s here. Oh yes! Mocking me. Trying to frighten me.’

  Julia shivered. But her voice when she answered him held no hint of dismay.

  ‘Tell me, do. What makes you think that?’

  He resisted her questions. He was cunning in evasion, like a child with a shameful, frightening secret. But at last, after a long duel, she got it out of him. Mrs Budge, it appeared, had seen the late Mrs Garnish peering in at the window just as dusk was falling. That was the first apparition. The very next day she appeared on the stairs when Mrs Budge was on the point of descending them. She was dressed, asserted Mrs Budge, in an oldfashioned style, with a large feathered hat, as in her picture. When challenged she paid no heed but came gliding, floating on. Mrs Budge, so the story went, stood at the stairhead bravely barring the way; and the next thing she knew was a blast of cold air, chilling her to the bone, as the apparition passed through her. Turning she saw it vanish through the shut door of the bedroom. So back she went, zealous to protect her dear master by telling him all about it: at first indirectly, in a series of dark hints, but finally, with every appearance of anguish, in plain speech. ‘She’s here now. Look, over there! Can’t you see her? She’s coming nearer. She’s looking at you. She’s hovering above the bed, like the demon she is.’ Everything was as in the picture except that the face was distorted by a cruel, hungry, derisive smile. ‘Ah, poor dear, now you’re taken bad again,’ said Mrs Budge. ‘She’s gone now. She’s got her wish. Budge is with you, never fear.’ Mr Garnish’s response, inevitably, was yet another heart-attack, a grinding mounting agony that lasted four minutes—or was it four hours?—and left him whimpering and exhausted. The ordeal was protracted beyond its usual term because something, she didn’t know what, jogged her elbow as she was pouring out the medicine, the pain-subduing medicine on which he so anxiously relied. Three times, since then, the portrait—‘touched by no mortal hand,’ said Mrs Budge—had been found lying face downwards on the floor.

  ‘It’s not true,’ said Julia. ‘Don’t you see, it can’t be true! Your Essie would never do that. She was always so good and kind. And now she’s in heaven, with gentle Jesus.’

  ‘Lost and damned,’ he retorted angrily, shutting tight his eyes. ‘A tormented spirit. But why do they let her torment me?’

  Mrs Budge had done her work too well. Nothing Julia said could avail against his stubborn, despairing conviction.

  ‘Dr Witherby,’ said Julia, ‘shall hear of this.’

  She went downstairs, to await the doctor’s arrival.

  He was late this morning: once again there was an epidemic in the village. Never had she looked so eagerly for his coming. The room where she waited, standing by the window that commanded a view of the approach, was hardly less far gone in decay than its master upstairs. The carpet, dull red, and once luxurious, was faded and worn; feathers oozed from holes in the cushions; the chimneypiece with its array of ornaments, the uncovered mahogany table, and indeed every horizontal surface, were visibly coated with dust. The ornate ormulu clock had stopped, perhaps years ago. The walls were stained with patches of creeping damp. It was a dead room, dead and deserted, its dreariness enhanced by mute witnesses to a happier, confident time, now long past. There were two pleasant landscapes in heavy gilt frames. There was a pencil sketch, embellished in water colour, of eleven young gentlemen in cricketing attire, one of them, stalwart and broadly smiling, Tom Garnish. Near the empty, dusty grate stood a pole-screen whose Jacobean design, of birds and flowers, had been worked, Julia believed, by his young wife during the first year of their marriage.

  The house, to Julia’s sense, was strangely silent, with a silence that made her shudder to remember the stricken man upstairs and the embodied malice lurking unseen in the kitchen quarters. Neither Mrs Budge nor her daughter had shown themselves this morning. Julia, as always now, had effected her entry by the use of a duplicate key which Dr Witherby, without asking anyone’s permission, had had cut for her. The ghost-story, she surmised, was part of Mrs Budge’s retort to that bold strategem.

  At last she saw him, picking his way through the wilderness that had once been a garden. An odd-looking creature, not unlike an exuberant gargoyle. Yet he seemed to her at this moment an angel from heaven. She ran quickly to open the door.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Julia. Think I was never coming?’

  At sound of his voice, at sight of his robust masculinity, the tumult was stilled in her.

  She answered composedly: ‘Good morning, doctor. Before you go upstairs I want to talk to you.’

  He followed her into the room she had just vacated.

  ‘Well? How’s my patient this morning?’

  ‘Not well. He’ll never be well again.’

  The ambiguity, and the manner in which it was uttered, made him say briskly, impatient of euphemism: ‘Do you mean he’s dead?’

  ‘No, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Ah yes. I daresay.’ His eyebrows soared. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you. But unprofessionally, mind. As a medical man it’s my business to keep him alive.’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ said Julia, ‘he’s frightened. Frightened out of his wits. Mrs Budge …’

  Dr Witherby’s facial contortions as he listened to her story, glaring eyes, switchback brows, wide angry grin, aggressively jutting jaw, would in any other circumstances have made her want to laugh. Today they did not seem very funny.

  When she had finished speaking his features slipped back into their normal shapes and situations, thus restoring his customary look of sardonic, unsurprised melancholy.

  ‘So that’s it, eh? I hardly thought the woman had it in her.’

  ‘What shall we do, doctor?’ Not waiting for an answer Julia said with quiet urgency: ‘Will you fetch her for me, please? I want to talk to her—in your presence.’ The last words had a comfortable sound. Dr Witherby’s presence would make all the difference.

  In a few minutes he returned, with Mrs Budge, tight-lipped and formidable, in tow.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Budge,’ said Julia. ‘Mr Garnish has been telling me a strange story, about a ghost.’

  ‘A ghost, miss? The poor old gentleman’s not himself.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Budge. A ghost. The ghost of his late wife, which you, I understand, have been seeing lately. Dr Witherby and I would like to hear your version, if you please.’

  ‘If the Vicar’s told you,’ said Mrs Budge, boldly staring, ‘what’s more to say? He knows as much about it as me.’

  ‘Not quite, I think. It’s you, isn’t it, that see this curious manifestation? The Vicar knows only what you have told him. The first time was on the stairs, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, miss. No, miss. The first time was looking in at the window.’.

  ‘Ah yes, the window. And then the stairs, I think?’

  ‘That’s right. But no good’ll come of talking about it. Them as are dead don’t like it. They turn nasty.’

  ‘And after that,’ said Julia smoothly, in quite her mother’s manner, ‘there was that alarming incident in the bedroom. Something made you spill the medicine, didn’t it?’

  ‘What if it did? I’m not to blame.’

  ‘Quite so. But it was a pity, wasn’t it? Without the medicine he might have died.’

  ‘Night and day I’m on the go,’ said Mrs Budge. Her voice was shrill. ‘Watch over him like a mother I do. Bed-pans and all, but I don’t complain. Not that it’s what I’m used to, not by any manner of means.’

  ‘Mrs Budge,’
said Julia, gently inquiring, ‘would you like to be hanged?’ By now she had all but forgotten Dr Witherby. In the small cunning eyes that glared at her she saw astonishment and a momentary terror, quickly veiled by a parade of indignation. ‘Because if you would, you’re going the right way to work.’

  The eyes fell. The hands twisted. ‘I dunno what you’re talking of.’

  ‘Don’t you, Mrs Budge?’ said the lawyer’s daughter. ‘Then I’ll explain. Frightening someone to death, dear Mrs Budge, is murder. And trying to frighten someone to death is attempted murder. We don’t believe your story, Dr Witherby and I. Nor do you, Mrs Budge.’ The incessant repetition of the name was like a satirical caress. ‘Have you, may I ask, any relations living?’

  ‘What’s that to you, pray? I didn’t come here to be called out of my name. Call yourself a lady! I know better. You needn’t think you can scare me. Oh dear no! And I’ll tell you something, Miss Clever Peacock. This’ll be my house before I’m much older, and I’ll thank you to get out of it, double quick.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Julia, unaware of Witherby’s amazed admiration, ‘you’ve a married sister at Mercester, I think you once told me. That will do very nicely. You will now go and pack your belongings, Mrs Budge, you and your daughter. There’s a train to Newtonbury at twelve o’clock. See that you catch it.’

  ‘What——’ began Mrs Budge.

  ‘In plain terms you’re dismissed,’ said Witherby, speaking for the first time.

  ‘Indeed? Fancy that now! I’m taking no orders from you, doctor, nor her neither. Here I am and here I stay, till the master says otherwise. And he won’t, don’t you worry. He’d be lost without me, after all I done for him. Fingers to the bone, and always the pleasant word. It’s a plot between the two of you, and no better than you should be I daresay. I’m in charge here, and for a very good reason. It’s my house, I tell you straight, or soon will be, and every stick in it. I’ve got it in writing, see? All signed and everything.’

  ‘Signed by whom, I wonder?’ said Julia. ‘By the Ecclesiastical Commissioners? The vicarage, you know, is their property.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dr Witherby, ‘but this rather alters the situation, Miss Peacock. If the good Mrs Budge is sole legatee …’ He directed a grave look at Julia, one eyelid significantly drooping. ‘Perhaps, Mrs Budge, you will be kind enough to show me the document.’

  ‘Not me. I’m too old a bird to be caught with chaff.’

  ‘As you please,’ said Julia pleasantly. ‘But you won’t refuse to satisfy our curiosity on one point. Whose is the signature on this piece of writing you have?’

  Scornful in triumph, Mrs Budge answered: ‘His upstairs, of course. Who else’s?’

  ‘Yes indeed. Who else’s?’

  ‘No one else’s, my fine madam. So there!’

  ‘No witnesses?’ asked Julia. The woman looked blank. ‘Isn’t that interesting, Dr Witherby? No witnesses. Poor ignorant creature, she’s had all her wicked trouble for nothing. You may go now, Mrs Budge, and get on with your packing. We shan’t need you again.’

  ‘We’ll see what the master’s got to say about that,’ retorted Mrs Budge. She turned her back on them, making for the door.

  ‘Stop!’ bellowed Dr Witherby. She turned again, to face him with an ugly uneasy smile. ‘If you go near my patient, woman, I’ll break every bone in your body. Do you understand? And if you’re not out of this house within half an hour I shall send Miss Peacock for the police and have you locked up.’

  She faced him with grinning, gaping fury, laying bare her yellow teeth; but under the bright beam of his anger her defiance suddenly dissolved.

  He stared her out of the room.

  ‘Come, Miss Julia, we’ll go to him, lest she does him a mischief.’

  Trembling now, shaken by the discovery of a Julia so ruthless in anger, so unlike her normal self, she followed him upstairs and stood limply in the background while he approached the bed. The old man lay very still, his eyes closed. Witherby bent over him. ‘It’s all right,’ he assured her. ‘He’s asleep.’

  Finger on lip, he approached Julia. ‘What now?’

  ‘I shall stay with him,’ said Julia, ‘till the end. Will you tell Mama, please, and fetch me my night things? She’ll know what’s necessary.’

  He nodded, and came nearer.

  ‘Julia, you’re a wonderful woman. By gad you are!’

  His two hands lightly touched her shoulders. She made no movement, either in response or evasion. He hovered for a moment, hesitating; then, gently, briefly, kissed her brow.

  ‘Thank you, doctor,’ she murmured, colouring slightly. ‘Please go now. He’ll be safe with me till you return.’

  In addition to his pleasant looks and good manners, Edward Linton had everything to recommend him to Mrs Peacock except a large fortune. As her husband remarked, it was a sign of grace in him that he had had the foresight to be born the only child of eminently respectable parents. His father, it appeared, was vicar of a parish in Sussex, and his mother second cousin to a baronet. The latter fact, of which he seemed slightly ashamed, emerged accidentally and did him no irreparable harm in the eyes of his prospective mother-in-law. As such she already privately regarded herself, noting with great satisfaction Catherine’s pleasure in his company. That he had come to them on the strength of his acquaintance with Sarah did not prevent her from seeing that he had eyes only for Catherine, who now, in the light of her newly restored happiness, grew prettier every day. For Sarah she had other plans, not yet precisely formulated, in which sometimes Jack Claybrook figured, sometimes his brother Will: either would be suitable. But that could wait: at the moment she had Catherine on her conscience. And it gratified her to perceive that young Linton was finding favour with dear Edmund, was indeed in some danger of being monopolized by him to the exclusion of the girls. They played chess assiduously, and they talked the same ridiculous language.

  ‘So you hail from Sussex, eh Linton?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Never mind, my boy. We won’t hold it against you. One of the southern counties, I believe?’

  ‘Rather a large one, sir. And it has, if you remember, a coastline.’

  ‘Ah yes. I think I’ve seen it on the map.’

  ‘Really, sir? That’s most encouraging.’

  ‘And now, having seen Lutterfield, the centre of civilization, you’re proposing, Sarah tells me, to start a new school in these parts.’

  ‘My father has some such idea for me, either here in the Midlands or elsewhere. Not necessarily a new school. An old one would do, a going concern, provided the headmastership fell vacant.’

  ‘Quite so. Have you considered Eton or Harrow?’

  ‘No,’ confessed Edward. ‘Do you recommend them, sir? Would they be worthy of me?’

  ‘Have you never thought of taking holy orders, Mr Linton?’ said Mrs Peacock. ‘But no. I think I shall call you Edward.’

  ‘Please do, Mrs Peacock.’

  ‘We all will,’ said Catherine eagerly, who in fact had never called him anything else.

  ‘I feel sure,’ said Mrs Peacock, ‘that you would make a good clergyman.’

  ‘Very kind of you, Mrs Peacock. But mistaken, I fear.’

  ‘Such a nice, dignified life. And so useful.’

  ‘It has been suggested,’ admitted Edward. ‘My parents at one time were quite set on it. But I felt I had no vocation. And there are other reasons.’

  ‘Other reasons?’

  ‘I suppose you might call them intellectual scruples.’ He caught a warning glance from Sarah. ‘My usefulness, if any, must lie in another sphere,’ he added hastily.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Peacock. ‘That masterpiece of Elizabethan compromise, the Thirty-nine Articles, sticks in your throat perhaps? I don’t wonder. You prefer to teach facts, and to the young.’

  ‘I’m sure Edward meant nothing of the kind,’ said Mrs Peacock. ‘Did you, Edward?’

  ‘The truth is, Mrs Peacock, I do not f
eel worthy of so high a calling.’ He could almost hear Sarah’s sigh of relief. ‘It demands very special qualities, don’t you think? Qualities that I am very conscious of not possessing. My father has them in abundance. Infinite patience and understanding. He, if I may say so, is father to the whole parish. He spends half his time listening to their troubles. Listening, he says, is the chief of his duties. He’s like Chaucer’s Poor Parson of a Town, you know. Except that he’s not, luckily, so very poor. But Cristes loore, and his apostles twelve, / He taught, but first he followed it himselve. And my mother, too. She does her part, and it’s no small one, I assure you.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ said Mr Peacock, ‘that your true metier is diplomacy, my dear fellow. But we mustn’t try to deflect you from your chosen course. And school-mastering, after all, has one great advantage in common with parsoning. They can’t answer you back.’

  ‘You’d be surprised, sir. Some of the brighter lads will argue the hind legs off a donkey when they’re in the mood. However, I don’t mind that. Anything is better than a drowsy acquiescence. Why, they say, didn’t the Romans speak English, sir, like sensible chaps? Because it wasn’t their native language for one thing, I tell them. And because, for another, it hadn’t yet come into existence. Please, sir, why hadn’t it, sir? … And then we’re off. It’s a dodge to get me talking history instead of bothering them with declensions and conjugations. They’re cunning little brutes.’

  ‘But you rather like them, all the same?’ suggested Sarah.

  ‘In a way,’ admitted Edward, grinning. ‘You see, I was one myself once.’

  ‘And not,’ said Mr Peacock, ‘so very long ago. I can still discern traces in you, Edward, of that original sin.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ cried Edward. ‘I do hope not!’

  Even Mrs Peacock, though the point of the joke luckily eluded her, joined in the general laugh. There was no doubt about it: the house had become a livelier place, and the girls visibly happier, since Edward’s arrival. She would try to persuade him to stay over for Catherine’s birthday—or at any rate to come back for it after visiting, as was proper, his parents. By then, she felt sure, something decisive would have happened.