A Footman for the Peacock

by Ferguson,Rachel

  3

  Mrs. Privett, that handsome high-nosed veteran, was quite willing to see the Reverend Basil Winchcombe. Sitting by her bed he hoped that he wasn’t trading unfairly upon her state in directing the virtual monologue into his own channels. A sentence of hers with reference to her condition (‘It displeases me to leave Roon’) gave him his cue. He spoke of her long and he hoped happy life, of the family association with Delaye, of Miss Angela’s affectionate friendship for Sue.

  ‘She would never presume,’ said Mrs. Privett.

  Winchcombe was certain of that: Sue was universally liked by the Roundelays and Miss Angela had told him that she and Sue had very nearly tamed the peacock, ‘Quite a feat’, added Mr. Winchcombe brightly, and — curious, wasn’t it? — that a former servant at Delaye had been called Peacock? And sat back with shoulders mentally hunched as a man does against a downpour.

  ‘He was a lackey,’ assented the old woman, ‘a current lackey.’ (Current? Did she mean of his time or courant?)

  Mr. Winchcombe believed that even as far back as that there was a Privett at Delaye, wasn’t her name Polly?

  Very surely.

  That would be when the French lady was mistress?

  (Now, was there or was there not an alteration in the face upon the pillow at this comment? Or was it that Winchcombe, knowing the Rohan folk to excel at poker faces, was on the look out for it?) But she assented, quite normally.

  He wondered aloud what the lady had been like to work for, whether, for instance, her charm stood up to that of Delaye’s present mistress.

  Mrs. Privett had always understood that it did, refuging, he wondered, in the no-man’s-land of hearsay. And then she volunteer’d a remark. ‘She was just.’ Mr. Winchcombe was politely glad to hear that. It was only on his return home that it occurred to him that the adjective might after all be a Rohan locution for ‘right’. Juste . . .

  Underlying his conversation an interior questioner asked: Can one refer to the sacking of Polly? Still undecided, he blurted provisionally, ‘Has your family, by any chance, any souvenir of Mrs. Marguerite Roundelay?’

  ‘The family has made us presents; Lady Roundelay is always generous and gentle and the French lady had in her turn’, Mrs. Privett had heard. If Mr. Winchcombe was interested in French knick-knacks (she called them ‘brellocks’), she had an object that it would give her great pleasure to present to him for his kindness. A souvenir. It was below in the parlour and — understood — must be suitably wrapped. But if he would call in again?

  He would, and left the cottage well pleased.

  4

  It was during the first of Sue’s late absences from Delaye that the screaming began again in the garden at night.

  To Angela’s ears the peacock’s outcries were, this time, of a different quality from those of rage or mockery; there was anger, but here there was also an element of indignation, as when you pick up a flustered hen.

  Throwing aside the bedclothes she pulled on a sweater and huddled into a coat. The nights were already beginning to be sharp, the peacock had evidently found that, too, and had sought his temple shelter — the sounds came from there. He missed Sue? Then Angela must take over and quiet him, if he would let her. It would be quite awful if father chose this opportunity to get rid of him, and of course it was an atrocious noise and would disturb Nursie and the aunts.

  Groping and flashing her torch over the front door she unbolted it, ran down the steps and over the lawn. The outcries ceased as she neared the temple although her feet could have made no sound across the turf.

  When she stood in the entrance, the torch’s ray training upon the uncouth improvisation of materials lashed to its pillars, focusing at last upon a splodge of green and blue, she understood why. For the great bird, struggling furiously at the linen already slashed by its beak, had caught its head in a larger rent and was, in the brainless way of all creatures in difficulty, half strangling itself in the effort to wrench free.

  Angela up-ended her torch upon a ledge, and nervously approached. To herself she was urgently saying, ‘Oh, if Sue were here, or Mr. Winchcombe!’ Then she set to work.

  The peacock stayed his efforts at her voice. ‘I’ll do it for you: you’ll be all right.’

  Easing the material backwards over his head — he wonderfully docile — a mark upon it caught her eye. It was the shirt brought from that room by Sue for her to see.

  He was quiet, now, leaning against her as she crouched on the floor among the hay and old carpeting, her hands at her eyes, while the time passed.

  The beam from a second torch picked out the pair as Basil Winchcombe came into the temple.

  ‘I saw your light,’ he remarked, but his attention was for the bird, his absent ‘ahh . . .’ the intonation of a suspicion confirmed as he set his torch by Angela’s and dropped to one knee. Her relief was so enormous that she was able to revert to the saneness of curiosity. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Was over at Sue’s grandmother, met Sue there. We were going upstairs and she told me you wanted me as if she’d just remembered to tell me. I took it for a message, at first. She’s coming along too. I had my bicycle and she’s borrowing one.’

  ‘But — it’s late.’

  ‘Half past tennish.’

  ‘I was wanting you here.’

  ‘So Sue thought! I helped her out a bit — took her remark about you naturally, even suggested her coming with me. Don’t allude to it when she turns up, it may worry her. She evidently doesn’t know that you can send out these S.O.S’s to her. Fortunately, I think old Mrs. Privett’s illness will sidetrack her. She’s dying, I’m afraid. She’s just given me something which may or may not be helpful, by the way. We’ll see later. Now then, my son.’ His hands were gently feeling the peacock. ‘Accident?’

  ‘No, not really. He caught his neck in that shirt, you know. The stained one.’

  He stared at her, muttered pitifully as his fingers cupped the bird’s breast, neck and saddle. She asked faintly, ‘Is he — all right?’

  ‘Angela, I may be absolutely out, but I’m afraid he’s dying. I don’t think he’s in any bodily pain.’ He had sunk his voice as doctors and nurses do before patients. Tears rained down her face suddenly, and, to her, shamefully.

  ‘You mean, it’s his mind. His feelings were so hurt about the shirt being used . . . he’d forgotten it, or never forgotten it And then, seeing it suddenly . . . as though we thought it was all he was fit for . . .’

  He stroked the peacock as he considered. ‘I’ve always wondered if it’s literally possible to die of a broken heart. One reads so many stories and newspaper accounts of pet animals which seem to point to it beyond doubt, and yet — ’

  ‘What can we do?’

  He got up. ‘Well, I may sound rather crazy, but my instinct is to explain to him. Talk to the Thomas Peacock, running footman, that he once was. If he understands, all right. If he can’t, we’re none the worse, except for having made blazing fools of ourselves that nobody will ever know about except the two of us. If Sue gets here, stop. She won’t understand. I think this is worth trying. After all, one apologizes to a dog if one’s trodden on his paw . . .’ He thought a second or two. ‘Know any French?’

  ‘The usual school stuff: very ungrammatic.’

  ‘Try. It may help him to remember you.’

  Uncomprehending but obedient she bent to the peacock.

  ‘Mon pauvre garçon, vous avez courru si loin aujourd’hui, et il me chagrine tant. Il faut donc se reposer.’

  The peacock leaned doser, listening to the halting words.

  ‘Prenez garde que les chevaux ne vous attrapent . . .’

  Sadly, fascinated, Winchcombe listened.

  ‘We have been cruel and stupid, but never again, I promise. Jamais encore. Sue loves you, she couldn’t hurt your feelings. And I never meant to, about the egg I gave you. It was stupidity. I didn’t recognize you, Thomas, for the moment. We want to give you the best we have. You’re among fri
ends who know you. Do you think you can ever forgive us? Enfin, dormez bien, mon ami.’

  As once before in the coppice with Sue, the creature lifted his head and brushed her fingers with his crest.

  And then Sue ran in, her eyes only for him as she flumped to her knees beside Angela.

  ‘He’s ailing,’ she stated.

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ the clergyman assented. ‘Say good-bye to him, Sue. He’s not been alone long, Miss Angela came at once.’

  ‘He was calling out?’ the servant’s voice was accusatory.

  ‘He probably missed you.’

  ‘What’s the matter with ’im?’

  ‘The nights are very sharp, you know, and he must have caught a chill,’ lied Winchcombe easily, ‘you couldn’t have done more and he’s not a young bird, remember.’

  They waited in a silence broken by the kitchenmaid’s whimpering. It was Basil Winchcombe whose more experienced eye saw the sudden slackening of the peacock’s muscles, though all three watchers stared amazed as languidly the great tail feathers unfolded, spreading their fan over the lap of Angela, and the little jewelled head fell forward into the palm of Sue Privett’s hand.

  ‘Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,’ murmured Winchcombe.

  5

  Between them, he and Angela coaxed Sue back to the house, and she went, crying. ‘She’ll get over it,’ he said, ‘to her the bird was only a pet. Now look here, Angela, with your sanction, I’m going to send the poor soul to the vet and find out what he did die of, and then, have him buried here. Find him a pleasant corner.’

  ‘Here? After what he went through?’

  ‘My dear, in life his poor affections were centred at Delaye, if we’ve guessed right.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes. He shall have a quiet place where there is sun. And I’d like to wrap him in something special. There is that dress of Marguerite’s — does that seem ridiculous?’ She asked as amateur does to professional, with diffidence and apology, and he smiled as he answered with conviction, ‘I think it is the perfect shroud’.

  6

  Next day, the Reverend Basil Winchcombe examined the Rohan souvenir formally presented him by Mrs. Privett.

  Absurdly excited he unwrapped it. To his incredulous gaze there was exposed a china vase of cheerful curlicues and imitation fishing-nets across the front of which was writ in gilt

  Souvenir de Boulogne.

  ‘Why — the old faggot!’ exploded the man who that very morning had administered to her the Holy Sacrament.

  Rohan had scored once more.

  But inextinguishable memories of Conan Doyle and The Adventure Of The Five Napoleons stirred him to recollection that Holmes had experienced his usual luck with the fifth plaster bust in which was embedded the great black pearl (whereat even the Inspector had burst into applause that made Holmes’s thin cheeks flush with gratification), and taking up the egregious vase Winchcombe rapped it heartily against the fender. It fell into seven clanking pieces of cheap pottery in which there was nothing at all.

  ‘Well, it’s bust, that’s one thing,’ he remarked to himself, ‘that’s what I call A Vawse.’ Then he laughed till he cried.

  A week later came the verdict of the Norminster veterinary surgeon.

  ‘Dear Sir,

  ‘With reference to the peacock deposited by you on the 17th ult., I beg to inform you that examination has revealed the presence of valvular weakness of long standing, which, however, was not in my opinion other than a contributory factor. The bird was an old one, and death was due to some sudden strain upon the heart which would be consistent with overexertion, or chasing by children, a similar condition being commonly present in the cases of death from excessive running.’

  As instructed, he was returning the bird to Delaye, and he was very truly Mr. Winchcombe’s.

  7

  Sue Privett, Angela and Evelyn buried the peacock one fresh October morning in a border near the sunk garden. The gardener, kicking clods of earth from his spade and addressing the defunct with rough comradeship as Hitler, informed the satin-wrapped burden that now perhaps his early peas would have a chance. The Misses Sapphire and Amethyst, ubiquitously appearing from nowhere, pottered round the grave, ignoring each the presence of the other, and remarking (aunt Sapphy) that we should all be quite strange without him and (aunt Amy) what was that they’d put round him?

  ‘Only some old stuff, aunt. I hate putting people’s pets into just the ground,’ answered Evelyn. Hers not to reason why . . . it was a pity about the dress but Angela had seemed so set on it. The wrecked face of Sue Privett was accepted by everyone as being within the bounds of understanding, and it was with Lady Roundelay’s arm round her shoulders that they returned to the house.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  1

  THE autumn took its toll of Mrs. Privett and turned attention to other Rohan prospects. The sight of Vicar and curate in their midst became a commonplace to the inhabitants.

  It was on one of his parochial visits that Basil Winchcombe walked into a small crowd gathered about a mound of household effects piled outside the empty cottage of Mrs. Privett. The auctioneer, bowler hat pushed to back of head, was making halfhearted efforts to extol the collection, his harangue interspersed by facetiae received by the Rohan folk with impassive faces of flint.

  Winchcombe joined the group, the gesture of greeting of Ronsell the farrier delighting him no less than his own finished response (like Lord Sandys and Buckingham in Henry The Eighth, he gloated), as, salutations completed, his eyes were free to assess the goods displayed in all their defencelessness — sentences without context. Extraordinary how pathetic was a brass fender laid on the ground, no more to know the pressure of its clique of neighbourly feet. The lesser pieces went in lots, a senseless and horrid system by which willy-nilly you became owner of the unwanted in order to secure the thing you did want. Lot 3 consisted of two frying-pans, an ancient mop and a corner cupboard, Lot 4 of a set of crockery, a warming-pan and a clothes-brush, Lot 5 of a large framed picture of a labourer driving a flock of sheep nowhere in particular on an evening of singular depression, a bundle of fusty-looking books and a group of shell silk and bead flowers under a glass dome. Quite good of its kind, he saw: early Victorian stuff. Winchcombe flicked his fingers and acquired it for seven-and-sixpence; the picture and books he tactfully offered to remit, but the auctioneer wanted a clearance, and damning the picture, the clergyman parked it in his first place of call against the umbrella stand, returning home with books and the flower piece, having anti-socially omitted to reclaim the picture on leaving.

  The books smelt, the familiar odour like long-closed rooms and rust, and he damned them as well, as, conscientiously, he ran through them in his own living-room that afternoon.

  The inevitable Royal Gift Book, a repellent-looking and dateless novel called Beulah, a copy of The Giant-Killer by A. L. O. E. which he put aside with a reminiscent grin and anticipation of another comfortable dose of nineteenth-century bathos (‘Sunday! A clergyman’s lawn! A pretty sight for all the village!’) What a ghastly prig the excellent Aleck was: what the sailors would make of him on board baffled imagination.

  Before he reached the bottom of the pile Winchcome’s interest blunted and his glances at titles became cursory. One book, an album bound in worn leather, hadn’t even got a title, and he opened it bored in advance.

  ‘. . . et je lui disait, “Mon pauvre garçon, vous avez courru si loin, aujourd’ hui . . .”’

  Three minutes later he was at the post-office, telephoning to Delaye, being charming and casual with the fluttered Miss Tybonnet (who thought him quite beautiful), even lounging an unnecessary half-minute in chat while excitement clanged within him, remembering that a village was a village and the postmistress’s eye, ear and tongue in excellent condition. There was no call box; when you telephoned at Delaye post-office you did so for all the world to hear with your elbow propped on a chiffonier in her parlour, your eye gazing unwillingly into the enlar
ged face of her uncle Frederick framed in fumed oak.

  ‘Oh, that you, Musgrave? Mr. Winchcombe speaking. Is Miss Angela in? Thanks . . . Miss Roundelay? This is Winchcombe. Can you come over? . . . well, partly to show you a rather nice piece I picked up at Mrs. Privett’s sale, but mainly the usual cadge for produce and flowers for the Harvest Festival. Marguerites aren’t still on, are they? I’m no gardener. And about that French dictionary you very kindly offered to lend me — if it isn’t burdening you too much . . .’

  The faint ‘ohh’ from the other end of the line told him she had understood and he muttered ‘good girl!’ as he rang off.

  2

  It was Angela who held the dictionary, Winchcombe who roughly translated the diary of Marguerite Roundelay, sometimes reading aloud the entire French original if a sentence was obscure or beyond their united knowledge, sometimes breaking in with his own comments and interpretations, colliding as they did with Angela’s. The pauses for the hunting of unfamiliar or forgotten words were maddening.

  The entries covered a period of ten months, from October 1791 to the following July where they ended abruptly. They were with one exception headed ‘Delaye’: the exception seemed to indicate a visit to some English country house of which the writer had nothing salient to say.

  The temptation to gorge themselves at one sitting upon the whole diary was almost irresistible and had it been written in English they might have succumbed, but their typical education in translation slowed them up to an extent which, Winchcombe decided, called for system, and he suggested that first they run to earth that which might bear upon Thomas Peacock and Polly Privett, and later absorb the general gist of the dead woman’s statements. He found what they wanted almost immediately. Translated into colloquial English, the writer said:

  ‘“The cold is already beginning to be abominable and once again I ask myself how I shall survive another English winter. The invitations from mother and my friends in France are equally heartening and depressing: they keep up my spirits and half kill me with longing. And I could go! The house runs itself, as they go their ways whatever I say — in the matter of custom, of course. Even Marcus would dismiss a servant who disobeyed me. He doesn’t really need me either now he’s got me. I might have known it. He wants me because it is the thing and he won’t travel with me because his voyaging is over. Like that. Like a purge for the grippe! I’m really a table ornament, rather costly, like my comfit boxes, that he points out to his friends before beginning the real business of the evening, drinking and talk of hunting and dogs. Frenchmen make better husbands. They neglect their wives with charm and politeness. The Englishman is faithful (too much so!) until he’s unfaithful and runs amok like a bull in a china shop. Our men conduct their affairs with finesse — you’d hardly know you’d lost their affection, so my married friends tell me.