First the barred wings lifted, then from his saddle rose erect a plaque of bronze, then upswept the iridescent fan cleaving to this support, and then, centrepiece to blue-green pride studded with discs of bluer blue and greener green, each quilled feather tipped with a softly-waving arrow-head of dust-colour, the peacock was equipped for venom, and, still in his hatred, would by some unguessable process contrive to rattle quite audibly his each delicate quill until every feather was jarred.
Dickon, the gardener, was alternately teased by and facetious towards the bird’s appearances. In facetiousness he followed that universal practice of the working-class in addressing the object of his banter by the latest topical surname, regardless of any poor side-issue of relevancy; thus if the peacock merely appeared and watched him he became Hitler, but when outraged at the unerring flair shown by the trespasser for the more delicate produce, its cultivator would upbraid the ex-chancellor of Germany in broad Normanshire. Towards the grower of these tit-bits the peacock, on his side, though watchful, was largely neutral as he was to Nursie, who being housed on the third storey and practically room-bound very seldom saw him at all. They had met, of course, in a past in which Nursie’s age was a little less what is bafflingly known as ‘tidy’, but the encounters were negligible. Nursie just stood there addressing him as Chook, Chook, Chook, while the peacock merely inspected the old dependent (one felt he was thinking of Nursie in those terms).
3
But in that house the peacock had one ally, one faithful champion.
For him, Sue Privett could brave even the cook or Mr. Musgrave: towards him she had never shown the slightest fear. For him she also would save tit-bits from her own meals, and when; she, peeping out of the kitchen windows on highest tiptoe, glimpsed him in the shrubbery, she would glance round, but with the minimum of caution, lest the eye of an upper servant be on her, and run to meet him at the great side door.
At times of her permitted leisure, the staff itself had noticed that the bird even appeared to advance to meet her, though that, they all agreed, must be a coincidence, and that the nasty brute must have been meaning to come in to parade the kitchens in any case. But (a housemaid had seen it happen) the peacock had once taken food from Sue’s very hand, pecking it as tame as you like, and actually (here the domestic credulity collapsed) letting her stroke its neck.
4
It was Sue Privett who had first come running to the cry of Miss Angela when the peacock bit her. Miss Angela had stopped making any noise when Sue hurried to her (the gentry never carried on before anyone) but her face was very white and there was blood on her wrist, at sight of which the little kitchenmaid’s face turned as white. The peacock stood his ground. Sue turned on him.
‘Why, you bad boy! Whatever are you thinking of?’ The bird, head tilted, seemed to consider this and emitted a feeble squawk. ‘Yes, you may well say you’re sorry.’ And then Sue forgot all etiquette. ‘What did you do, Miss?’
Loss of faith, her nerves jangled, Angela’s voice was sharp. ‘Do? Nothing. Just gave him some food.’
‘You should’ve sent for me, Miss, to find out what ’e likes.’ Angela was stung. ‘I only gave him some of my own breakfast — ’ Sue was clumsily winding a clean glasscloth round Miss Angela’s wrist. ‘He didn’t ought to’ve minded that. He knows you and I.’
‘Well, it seems he did mind. He struck at me the moment I held out the bit of hardboiled egg.’
As she looked at her the hands of the other girl were stilled.
‘He wouldn’t touch that, Miss.’
‘But he’s never pecked you — ’
‘I’ve never offered ’im egg, Miss Angela.’
‘Then how d’you know he doesn’t like it?’
It may have been the exasperation in her mistress’s voice that caused Sue to begin to go to pieces herself. ‘I — well — I know ‘e won’t eat it.’ Her voice rose. ‘It won’t never be any good givin’ it to ’im.’
‘Well . . . thanks, Sue.’
Angela Roundelay slowly passed on into the house by the main door. She was trembling a little, longing for the privacy of the house, but one didn’t break down before servants.
Back in the scullery, Sue Privett, her filched glasscloth and the use to which it had been put having been promptly discovered and scolded, suddenly became the centre of attention by turning a shade whiter and tumbling on to a chair. The cook, always hoping against hope that the girl had got herself into trouble with one of the village lads, felt that she had been defrauded when Sue in a muffled sort of voice conveyed to those present that it was Miss Angela’s wrist that’d turned her green. And then she said a thing whose oddness passed right over the head of her audience.
‘I never could abear the sight of blood, nor my Mum couldn’t nor my Gran neither, not if it were unkindly come by.’
5
A few months later there had been another small episode, on the day that the peacock trespassed into the drawing-room. For, discussing it at luncheon, Sir Edmund suggested that the peacock be offered to the Severns, whose estate was separated from Delaye by the public road to Delaye village and Norminster alone.
Severn kept peacocks, didn’t he? and this creature was the sole survivor of what peacocks Delaye had ever harboured. The poor brute probably wanted — hum — company. And what price getting Severn to send a man over to fetch the peacock and then we’d be quit of him? Sir Edmund would telephone in person.
The squire of Delaye was more than agreeable. They had at the moment — ah — rather too many peahens, and quite . . . quite . . . and what price the present world situation? Looked pretty nasty. On the brink, if you ask me. There’s one thing: if we’re really for it it’ll free us all at last to say what we really think about friend Adolf. Oh, entirely so, but what Edmund Roundelay felt was that even the British gutter Press behaved better than they did in — oh well, it was a relatively New World, of course, with no traditions . . . look at the way they handled that business about Mrs. — well, hope to see you soon. G’bye.
And that same evening at sunset, a servant — it should, hierarchically speaking, have been an under gardener but it happened to be his half day off so a young footman was detailed for the job — presented himself in the grounds of Delaye and began a resentful, harried but still deferential hunt for the accursèd fowl.
It was Sue Privett, all unwittingly if a little surprised, who put the footman on the right track. ‘He likes the lil’ temple come the light goes’, and there that the bird was found, taking the sunset, at his ease, and there that, six seconds later, a very unearthly screeching set up of which the household took small notice, peacocks being like that, but which brought Sue Privett running, against all etiquette and precedent and to the upset of the culinary routine, across the pleasure grounds. She was a swift mover.
At sight of the green and blue armful and of Joe Dale’s beaded face in which ill-humour and professional outrage were equally obvious she drew up short. It was when the footman started running towards the avenue, asylum, and decency that bird and girl set up their mutual outcries.
‘Mr. Dale! Put ’im down. ’E won’t let you hold ’im.’ The footman slowed his slogging to retort ‘I can see that, can’t I?’
‘You’re making ’im misruble, put ’im down!’
‘I’ve my orders — ’
‘What orders? I tell you, ’e won’t let nobody touch ’im but me.’
‘Oh . . . well then, you take ’im. ’E’s ’cavy, but it’s only over to squire’s.’
‘What?’
The man was riled to shouting point. ‘They want ’im over at Severn’s. Sir Edmund’s getting rid of ’im — ’
But he spoke to the air, for the kitchenmaid was scudding back to the house.
6
It was in a sense a scene, and Lady Roundelay who coped with it, kind, a little impatient, largely in the dark. Servants always got hysteric at trifles.
‘But my dear child, really you must allow the master to kn
ow best. The peacock is very pretty, I know, but he’s a horrid nuisance, not only in the kitchen garden but in the house as well. Mrs. Hatchett tells me he comes into the kitchens, he’s bitten Miss Angela, and to-day he came right into the drawing-room.’ The maid was sullen with obstinacy. ‘ ’E does no real harm, m’lady, a bit here an’ a bit there, p’raps, and I know there was Miss Angela’s wrist, but she offended ’im, like.’
‘She what?’
Sue looked confused. ‘Please, m’lady, she fed ’im what ’e don’t eat an’ won’t look at.’
‘Well, that’s all past and done with — ’
‘If you could see your way, m’lady . . . ’e’d miss me . . . a word to the master — ’
‘But we don’t want him, Sue. I’m sorry if he’s your pet’ (for some reason the girl winced at this), ‘but can’t you look at it from the poor thing’s point of view? He must be fearfully lonely here, that’s probably why he’s so unfriendly to everybody.’
‘Unfriendly?’ Sue clenched her hands in her apron and answered slowly, ‘If it’s for ’is good, m’lady — ’
Lady Roundelay was brisk and thankful. ‘I’m sure it is. And he’ll have plenty of company of his own kind, and’ (here she allowed herself to indulge in the whimsical as sop to her kitchen-maid) ‘plenty of lady friends to play with.’
Servants were an incalculable race. For at this bright remark, Sue Privett’s eyes dilated, and an extraordinary look came over her face as she moved off to her own quarters. Thinking it over as she returned to the dining-room, Evelyn Roundelay incredulously ran the impression to earth.
Resentment. Sue resented the peahens.
She related the incident to Angela, half laughing, half impatient, and Angela said nothing, but looked troubled.
7
And after all Sue had nothing to fear. For next morning the peacock paced over the road from Severn Court and displayed himself as usual upon the front lawn of Delaye.
Three times was a manservant sent to fetch him, thrice was he removed, screeching, and thrice punctually reappeared upon the following day.
The squire and Sir Edmund admitted defeat and the heart of Sue Privett was content.
CHAPTER XIII
1
ANGELA ROUNDELAY’S well of pity for the peacock had not dried as a result of her bitten wrist, it was, rather, replenished by the latest development. But two days after the third return and the unwilling reinstatement of the peacock in her father’s home she had a shock. The happening, baldly stated, was trivial on the face of it. But she sensed that the face of it was a misleading one, knew that it alienated her. Something was wrong, somewhere, or if not wrong, which implied ill-doing, un-right.
The incident itself could easily be viewed in a humorous light in the retailing; seen, it wasn’t funny at all. It could be translated and explained by many a precedent of understanding between human and animal, and that, too, failed to satisfy.
Angela had strolled into the grounds before tea, a field that you approached through the coppice where the gardener’s boy brought home logs and kindling on a barrow. There was nobody on the estate in sight, that afternoon: the men were at tea. She had come here by instinct, out of her programme, to rediscover Delaye after a London visit to her aunts, to own once more the tangs, the silences that even a baby wood can give you, asking only in return that you stir your feet for the russet smell of beech-mast and use your eyes for a shrivelled last-year nut lying by some sparse outbreak of bluebell or primrose, if it were Spring. This was September, season of wood smoke and browning nut, unready as yet. It was only the second of September. . . .
And then in the field she saw them, Sue and the peacock, strolling together.
Angela, leaning on a bough to watch, was moved at first glance to an inexplicable pleasure, a vicarious sensation of triumphant exhilaration on their behalf until something about the spectacle misgave her. She was at that moment in the plight of those who feel a grief to which they are not officially entitled, and which, of all woe, is hardest to endure. Almost, in some antick manner, she was self-convicted of eavesdropping. . . .
Round the field went bird and kitchenmaid, quite obviously taking a walk. It was a pretty sight . . . if you came to it fresh . . . The peacock helped out the idea of a deliberate stroll by failing as all creatures do sooner or later to drop behind and peck and stray, or rush ahead towards some unseen attraction, edible or enemy. Quite literally, he was out for a walk, and quite incomprehensibly Angela Roundelay received the impression that this was not their first outing.
Sue, she noted, was wearing her village-made best. Her day off, Angela supposed. Then, why hadn’t she started earlier? It was already tea-time and Sue was still on the estate . . . She turned to go, very quietly, but the peacock heard her, and wheeled. Angela, discovered, did the only possible thing, and waved. Sue hurried across the field, the peacock hastily mincing at her side. They stood in talk for a minute or so, the maid recovering poise as her young lady spoke of the afternoon, the wood, and the sights of London.
As Angela was leaving, Sue, emboldened, remarked ‘Say goodbye to Miss Angela, my lad, and tell ’er you’re sorry about what you did’, and the peacock, poised for evasion if danger signalled, its eyes bright, fearful but steady, stretched out its neck and for a moment put its head upon her hand, its neat and twinkling crest brushing her fingers.
CHAPTER XIV
1
IT was pleasant in the garden on a hot autumn morning, even on Sundays, and that, thought Evelyn Roundelay, was a distinct feat for any garden to achieve, especially where, as at Delaye, your ear could catch blurred intermittent quanglings carried by the lazy breeze from the peal of three bells from the village church. Bells, unless they were behind the doors of very small shops, were a depressing sound and the Reverend Basil Winch-combe himself had once denounced them roundly on the ground that they were an abuse of privilege, and that, carried to its logical and fair conclusion, every pub ought to own a peal as well to announce its time of opening. Bells, he had summed up, should be relegated solely to melodrama of post-1914 vintage, and moving scene round village cenotaph, while hero stands at attention very bronzed and loyal to the strains of the National Anthem and the German spy suavely smiles from behind the pump, muttering Gott Strafe England in the accents of Kennington Road, or to those hayfield-cum-production numbers of revue, when the leading lady on the chorus enquiring ‘But where is our Harvest Queen?’ leaps from a hay wain with genuine straws adhering to her rural gown as conceived by Furbelow of South Molton Street.
The question was, thought Lady Roundelay, weeding the beetroot beds, did one love the job or was it boring, exhausting and disheartening? In common with most translated townswomen she didn’t know but was irresistibly drawn to the earth. Without the comings and goings of Dickon and the boy the garden fell half undressed: which meant that if you did good work on the beds there was no voice to praise however grudgingly, but also meant that should you commit agricultural gaffes there was no professional eye to see and expose them.
2
In the hall Miss Jessie was ready for church. One must allow twenty minutes to reach the village. Once more she regretted that the transport question ruled out worship at Norminster cathedral. There was a motor bus from Delaye village that would get her in in time, but the returning bus would not set her down outside the public house at Delaye until two o’clock so that one was always the best part of an hour late for luncheon, counting the walk back. Evelyn was very kind about this, but Edmund and Maxwell never liked it, and then the staff expected to get away earlier on Sundays.
‘Oh, aunt Jessie, do go! Do do something you want to, sometimes! Think of Nora and The Doll’s House and just walk out!’ Evelyn had exclaimed over the years, but aunt Jessie, she saw, offered an unlikely surface for Ibsenite pokings-up and was of the scourging generation that elevated duty to the status of a vice and whose life was earmarked as one long unintelligent sacrifice to heaven really only knew what, an arrangemen
t which as usual pleased nobody and probably bored God stiff into the bargain, ‘and honestly’, Lady Roundelay often thought, after yet another time-wasting and sticky verbal session in which aunt Jessie abandoned her own will for the Almighty’s or anyone else’s in face of all opposition, ‘I’d tip the postman to seduce her!’
Raising her aching back Evelyn flung her cardigan over a bough, selected an apple and ate it.
How, she wondered once more, had old Jessie got ‘struck so’? What, so to speak, had been the original impetus which had propelled her into the everlasting arms of goodness? Was it possible she didn’t know the tonic, the uplift, the cleansing that a deliberate occasional fall from any grace you prefer could be? Was it possible to go through life never once having allowed yourself to spend just more than your means, kiss the improper person, eat to excess or drink the drop too much? It was: it must be, and Jessie was the living proof. She didn’t even resemble old Sapphy or Amy in their existence of a nullity that was at least social, neither did she share the inherited lust of jewels which had in their case acted as a preservative and kept them still of the world. Even Jessie’s reactions to the peacock were unknown, if she felt any, nor had the Roundelays, if one came to think of it, ever noted any kind of emotion shown by the peacock towards Miss Jessie. It really seemed as though the creature knew all about the essential cipherdom that was her portion, and refrained of system from wasting powder and shot upon her.
3
It was, after all, the social Miss Sapphire Roundelay who achieved the cathedral that morning, unexpectedly, but also precariously and by the skin of her teeth as were so many of her outings. The Severns had telephoned at the last moment offering a lift in their car to the Roundelays and too late to save Miss Jessie. Many small dilemmas then presented themselves for solution. Miss Sapphy wasn’t ready: had not dressed in her Sunday best: Lady Roundelay might wish to attend the service? Or Margaret, or Angela? Amethyst her sister Sapphire ruled out at once, too flustered to be harried by her own slight deviation from the scrupulous, but there was no time to send message or write postcard to her room to enquire. Edmund was as usual all over the place — every day was a Sunday to him, or rather, no day was, including Sunday, Jessie had often regretted, and Maxwell wouldn’t turn out if you paid him. Also, his hands were probably all over paint; he was engaged upon a painting of the façade of the house this time, he was so angry about the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
A Footman for the Peacock Page 13