Rustication

by Charles Palliser

  You want to speak to Mrs Quance? Mother asked with a frown. You still want those tickets?

  Tickets? I asked.

  There’s a subscription ball that Euphemia wants to go to in town early in January.

  What does it have to do with Mrs Quance? I asked. Who is she?

  The wife of the Rector and the secretary of the committee organising the ball, Mother explained. She turned to Effie: However, I’m not sure that we can afford to go.

  I’ve decided we can, Euphemia said rather abruptly.

  Mother said: Then if it’s wet tomorrow you and I need not go to church. Richard can ask Mrs Quance about the tickets.

  And request one for myself, I said.

  You will be gone by then, Effie snapped.

  Oh will I?

  Mother said quickly: I hope it’s dry for you by Monday, Euphemia.

  Where are you going on Monday? I asked Effie.

  When she made no response, Mother said: To Lady Terrewest’s house.

  Who is she?

  I knew her many years ago. She’s a very old lady now. Euphemia goes to visit her.

  Why? I asked Effie.

  My mother answered for her: To play the pianoforte and read to her. She’s housebound on account of her infirmities.

  I was surprised. It didn’t sound the sort of thing Effie would choose to do.

  · · ·

  When we had finished eating we removed to the best parlour at the front of the house where Betsy had lit a fire. And we needed it. The house is cold even though the weather is mild for the time of year. The pianoforte from Prebendary Street was in a corner. Effie went straight to it and launched into something loud and angry.

  Mother ensconced herself on one side of the fire with some embroidery, her work-basket stacked against her arm like a mediaeval redoubt. I picked up Ovid’s Tristia and threw myself onto the sopha.

  After a while I said quietly, though it was hardly necessary to lower my voice against the noise Effie was making: Do I have to sit here every evening and listen to that?

  We can’t afford to have a fire in another room.

  I saw an infinity of such dreary evenings stretching out ahead of me. Trapped in a dirty old house with a grieving old woman and an irritable young one. And with only the books I had brought with me, most of which were still in my trunk anyway.

  After a moment Mother said: Anyway, you must leave for London on Wednesday at the latest.

  I took her cold hand and said as gently as I could: Mother, I still know nothing at all of how Father . . .

  She could not have looked more frightened if I had raised my fist to her. All the time Effie was crashing and banging away on the old Broadwood. Mother pulled her hand away and lowered her eyes to her work and after a few seconds said: It’s very painful to talk about, Richard. It was so sudden. His heart . . . She stopped.

  It was heart failure? I said gently.

  I think his heart was broken.

  He was much older than Mother, I think about sixty or sixty-one. And he suffered from palpitations and pains in the chest. I began to ask another question but she held up her hand as if to ward off a blow and said: Wait until tomorrow evening. We’ll have a Family Conclave after dinner.

  A Family Conclave. It will be strange to have one without Father presiding.

  I stood up and walked up and down the room a few times. I couldn’t endure the noise Euphemia was making and the heat of the fire any more. Muttering something to my mother, I fled the room and came up here—cold though it is without a fire.

  1 o’clock.

  As I write I can hear sea-birds wailing like the ghosts of drowned sailors.

  I don’t know why Euphemia is so keen for me to leave. She spoke of what happened to Father so bluntly it’s hard to believe she was upset by it. Yet I am sure she is distraught. The violets withered all when my father died.

  I had such a wicked thought when I heard the dreadful news: I don’t have to worry any more about being forced into the Church. It’s my first death. I could not have imagined what it is like. It’s as if I were standing on a cliff looking out at the view when suddenly a huge piece of the ground slides into the sea. The very land has betrayed you. There is a vast gulf where once there was something solid. The sea is suddenly closer.

  And what is this business about Uncle Thomas that Mother is hinting at? Does he want me in his trading-house? I have better uses for my time and energies than grubbing figures in a gloomy office.

  2 o’clock.

  The silence. I’ve just put down my pen and listened. Not a breath or a whisper came to me. Since it’s a windless night there is no rustling of leaves from the garden. The tide is at its lowest ebb so I cannot hear the sea. I’ve just looked out at the faint moon shining through a gauze of clouds, its light gleaming in long streaks on the mudflats.

  The candle is guttering romantically and it’s time to bring this to a close. Here ends my first day in the house of my ancestors.

  ½ past three.

  I suddenly woke up. I thought I heard footsteps outside the house as if someone were walking around it. I got out of bed and without lighting a candle made my way out into the passage and stood at a window. All was in darkness. I thought I heard the murmuring of voices—and one of them, strangely, seemed deeper than a woman’s. I stood for a long time listening and gradually the sounds I had taken for human voices seemed to resolve themselves into the rustling of foliage and the faint hiss of the waves.

  Sunday 13th of December, 2 o’clock.

  I’m writing this in the front parlour. I can hear clattering from the rear of the house where Mother and Betsy are preparing luncheon. The rain is descending with unhurried malevolence and although I’m chafing at the bit, I know I won’t be able to get out of this dreary old house this afternoon. I couldn’t walk an inch without getting soaked and slipping on the mud.

  However, my excitement is leading me to get ahead of myself. Let me go back to this morning.

  I was half-awake and it was very early when I heard voices rising and falling in animated argument. Only after a few moments did I realise the sound came from seagulls roosting on the eaves. That means there must be worse weather coming.

  I found my mother and sister in the dining-room where they had just finished breakfast. The rain having held off during the night, it was decreed to be dry enough underfoot for the expedition to church.

  Behold, therefore, a few minutes later one unimpeachably respectable family, the widow and children of a senior cleric, no less, in their full Sabbath regalia setting off for worship.

  Seeing the house in daylight, I realise that, standing on a promontory that juts into the marshland, it is virtually on an island.

  A strange thing happened as we walked. A smart carriage overtook us and its occupants were Mr and Mrs Lloyd whom Mother and Father knew in Thurchester. (They have a daughter of about my age, Lucy.) Yet neither side even acknowledged the other. I tried to find out why but Mother just shook her head.

  We saw the tower of the church long before we reached Stratton Peverel and heard the bell ringing out its steady chime. It is dedicated to St James the Less—a saint for whom I’ve always felt a great deal of sympathy without knowing anything more about him than his name.

  We took our places. A minute later the Rector pranced pompously on stage in his surplice followed by his train of acolytes. He wore one of those Tractarian ruffs which made him look like a leg of mutton.

  I looked around. In the better pews I saw only the Lloyds and another family—a couple and some young people—who Mother whispered to me were called “Greenacre”. And then a tall lady in a veil slipped quietly in and took her place in one of the boxed pews.

  It was easy to identify the parson’s wife and daughters. Mrs Quance is a large woman in a flower-sprigged gown and with a reddish complexion which is an infallible sign of a short temper. (I follow the adage: Don’t cross the rubicund.)

  There was an older lady beside her of whom I t
ook little notice at the time. The daughters, of course, were what interested me. The younger is a little snub-nosed creature with sparkling black eyes and long golden hair who kept glancing around with mischievous curiosity. But she is only about fourteen or fifteen so hardly has a heart worth breaking.

  Her sister is tall and slender and when at last she looked round, I saw a long melancholic face with large grey eyes—striking against her alabaster complexion. Her movements are slow and languorous. I gazed at her all during the sermon through which her father trudged with a drayhorse tread—slow and laboured, drawing behind him a load of clanking quotations. I thought she was never going to notice me, but she did at last turn her head in my direction and I felt myself blush.

  As we left the church the Rector stood in the porch with his wife beside him—an unnerving display of lace and chins and jowls—ceremoniously shaking hands with the departing worshippers. Quance gave me the impression of timid belligerence. He has a fierce nose but a jaw that drops away abruptly as if taking fright at such boldness while his eyes appear to be starting as if surprised to find themselves there at all.

  When Mother introduced me to them, the Rector nodded perfunctorily and turned to the next member of the congregation.

  His wife, however, took my hand. She has the kind of features that would fall into a scowl if they were not held up by the invisible strings of propriety into a caricature of a smile. Her heavy jowls hang like the flaps of a fleshy helmet on either side of her face and her small eyes nestle in the folds of her eye-sockets like sharpshooters searching out targets.

  She gave us a grimace of acknowledgement and said to me: I do hope your prospects are not affected by these unhappy events. Had you been hoping to take holy orders?

  I stupidly shook my head and mumbled some inanity. Looking as if her hopes in me had been suddenly disappointed by this display of idiocy, she let go of my hand.

  She smiled at Effie—a Borgiaesque rictus laced with poison—and said: I’m sorry to have to tell you, Miss Shenstone, that your request for tickets has not been successful.

  Euphemia, plucky girl, replied: I am surprised that all the tickets have been sold already.

  I didn’t say that, Miss Shenstone. Your application has been considered by the committee and it has found itself unable to accede to it.

  Euphemia who, knowing no Latin, is more of a Roman than I could ever be, did not even flinch at that.

  Then something very rum happened. The veiled lady was now next in line. Mrs Quance looked at her with those eyes like nails and, raising her voice, said: You may well fare better with an application to Lord Thurchester himself. Others doubtless have more influence in that quarter than a mere Rector’s wife can aspire to.

  I joined my mother and sister and we slowly walked along the gravel path towards the gate like survivors limping from a battlefield. Mother had heard every word of that venomous rebuff and looked beaten and crushed.

  As I passed the Rector’s daughters the younger girl dropped her umbrella. I picked it up and returned it to her and she gave me a smile of thanks. An old lady who was with them said: Thank you, young man. That will be perfectly sufficient.

  (Literal meaning: Loathsome male creature, how dare you besmirch the virginal modesty of my protégée.)

  I hope my son is not being a nuisance, my mother said.

  (Literal meaning: You must be insane to believe that my son is trying to scrape an acquaintance with that shameless hussy.)

  The old lady turned to Mother and said in the most ingratiating manner: I do beg your pardon. I had no idea this young gentleman was with you.

  She is a small elderly woman who wears little round pince-nez that keep falling off her nose. Her features are constantly shifting with the eagerness of some small animal that, while it is feeding, glances around the whole time in case a predator is approaching. Her head is permanently cocked to listen out for an approaching sparrowhawk (Mrs Quance!).

  Mother held out her hand with a smile and we were all introduced to each other. The old lady is Miss Bittlestone and the girls are Enid (the elder) and Guinevere.

  Like an old gamebird waddling into flight, Miss Bittlestone, flapping her nearly featherless conversational wings, took off: I was just saying to the young ladies how lovely it is to see so many new faces here. She smiled at Euphemia. It will be so nice for the girls to have a new friend.

  Guinevere looked up and caught my eye and smiled at that.

  At that moment the sound of manly laughter came from where Mr and Mrs Lloyd were talking to the lady in the veil. Mother asked: Who is the lady?

  That is Mrs Paytress. She is a widow. The old woman stepped closer to us and, lowering her voice dramatically as if to keep her next utterance from the girls’ hearing, added softly: Apparently.

  The word was delivered with the smoothness of a hired poniard sliding into a Renaissance neck.

  Remembering what Mrs Quance had said, I asked: Does Mrs Paytress know Lord Thurchester?

  The younger girl made an ill-concealed attempt to stifle a laugh. The old woman turned to me a face that was both horrified and thrilled: What makes you ask that, Master Shenstone?

  (Master Shenstone! I’m not a schoolboy.)

  I told her how Mrs Quance had mentioned the earl and had looked at Mrs Paytress at that moment as if there were some connection.

  The old spinster said in tones of hushed awe: Mrs Quance and the Rector, of course, know Lord Thurchester and have dined at the Castle.

  What an honour, my mother murmured politely.

  And Enid was one of the guests. She simpered in the elder girl’s direction and said: She was invited because the earl’s nephew was staying at the Castle. The Honourable Mr Davenant Burgoyne. Such a very charming young man.

  The young lady turned away as if to hide a blush at this tribute to her magnetic power of attraction.

  He took her down to dinner, the old woman crowed.

  Though he couldn’t hold her arm, the younger sister put in slyly. And he could not dance.

  Poor young man, the old woman agreed. He had recently suffered a grave misfortune and as a consequence, he was limping and had his sleeve pinned to his coat. So romantic. He looked as if he had just returned like a triumphant hero from a great victory.

  Miss Bittlestone suddenly blenched. I followed her gaze and saw Mrs Quance summoning her with a menacing smile. With a quick bow in our direction, the old woman scuttled off with the girls behind her.

  They were barely out of earshot when Euphemia said: What a malevolent old gossip that woman is. What has Mrs Paytress done to her that she should blacken her name by implying that she is not really a widow and hinting at something improper involving the earl?

  The mysterious widow, I said.

  Why do you have to find a mystery everywhere? she snapped. Why does everything have to become a thrill from a railway novel for you?

  It’s clear that the Lloyds don’t believe Miss Bittlestone’s insinuations, Mother said emolliently.

  Or Mrs Paytress’s quarrel with Mrs Quance, Euphemia suggested, has earned her their friendship.

  I said: In that case, all we have to do is to make enemies of the right people and our social success is assured. And we seem to have made a good beginning.

  Euphemia rounded on me and said: You turn everything into a joke. One day the joke will be against you.

  · · ·

  I was listening for the name “Willy” or something resembling it. Nothing. And I saw no man who looked plausible as an admirer of my sister. There is no curate, for example. Though knowing my sister, I think Effie would aim rather higher than a mere curate—the protozoa of the clerical phylum!

  ½ past 7 o’clock.

  Stuck inside all afternoon. I’d have been out exploring the country if it weren’t for this infernal rain.

  Finding mysteries everywhere. I don’t have to manufacture them. They are all around me:

  Nr 1.) What were the circumstances of Father’s death and why
is Mother so unwilling to talk about it?

  Nr 2.) Who is Willy or William and why was Mother expecting him on Saturday evening?

  Nr 3.) Why was Effie dressed up and out in the rain last night?

  Nr 4.) And why is she so keen to go to the ball given the distance and the expense?

  Nr 5.) Why did the Quance woman refuse her a ticket? And the Lloyds pretend not to know us?

  · · ·

  Enid. What an enchanting creature. The delicate features framed by her dark hair. The pale eyes with their long lashes. She exudes a sense of gentle melancholy.

  · · ·

  Just as we were finishing dinner, I mentioned the quality of the repast and not in flattering terms, and the mater said: I have engaged someone to take care of that.

  A cook? I exclaimed.

  Mother nodded: She would have arrived on Thursday but for the bad weather. I hope she’ll come when the carter brings your trunk.

  That won’t be until the roads are passable again, I said.

  My tone must have betrayed me because Euphemia asked: What is in your trunk that is so precious?

  Just my books and my flute.

  Is it missing your books that is making you so insupportable? If you can’t be more agreeable, why don’t you find somewhere else to lodge for the vacation?

  I’m not lodging here, I said. I live here.

  She spoke as if I had not answered: Did you make any friends at Cambridge? If so, then go and stay with one of them.

  Of course I made friends, I said. Some close ones since I count friends by their quality and not by their number.

  She scowled and I could see that had struck home.

  You certainly had a large number in Thurchester, Euphemia, Mother murmured in a placatory manner.

  A positive militia, I said. How are your senior lieutenants—Maud and Cecily and Lucinda? I saw a warning glance from my mother. What had I said? Haven’t you seen them since you moved out here?

  It’s too far, Richard, Mother said.

  I could see that Effie was getting more and more irritated, but some spirit of devilry made me go on teasing her: What? Not even Maud?

  She is her best friend. Or was. A handsome creature and very alluring with those darting eyes and that secretive smile. She’s been spoilt by her rich father and is accustomed to getting what she wants. She must have irritated Effie by her assumption of superiority as the daughter of Archdeacon Whitaker-Smith. I went to her house with Effie a few times and all they ever talked about were dresses and suitors. And there was that little brother of hers—whose name I forget—but he was a gifted musician and came to our house to take singing lessons with Father and he joined the Cathedral choir. Then I heard that he had been sent away to public-school and I remember wondering if he was hating it as much as I had since he seemed a quiet, thoughtful boy who would be unsuited to the rough-and-tumble of a place like Harrow. Perceval! That’s his name. Occurs to me that Maud and Effie are too alike to have stayed friends for long.