Rustication

by Charles Palliser

  I hope I didn’t blush. To hear that word on her lips was strangely exciting. Is someone doing that?

  So they say. Going out at night with a knife or summat and stuffing their ballocks down their throats and slashing open their wames.

  She told me that everyone had been talking about it at the shop. Someone had gone out last night and not only maimed animals but also written lewd messages in red paint on walls in the village.

  I said: That’s frightening. Are you frightened, Betsy?

  Why should I be afeart, sir?

  Well, of that or anything else. Ghosts. They say this old place is haunted. Then more softly I said: If you’re ever frightened by a ghost or anything else during the night, come to my room.

  She didn’t say anything but as she turned away she pressed her mouth into that sly, pleasure-hinting smile, half-secretive, half-inviting.

  · · ·

  How can Mother say I don’t have friends? It’s true that I have always had fewer than Effie, but that is because I choose them more carefully.

  10 o’clock.

  I’ve just found out that a goose has been purchased from a nearby farmer. Betsy and Mother intend to pluck it tomorrow. Back at Prebendary Street she left that to the cook so I don’t know how she will manage it herself. She has been putting up holly and mistletoe around the house in an attempt to recreate the old Christmases. But it’s absurd. This year nobody has sent a single card. All of that is over and done with. I tried to tell her that but she became very upset.

  This evening we opened our presents to each other as we always used to do on Christmas Eve.

  Euphemia said: My gift for you, Richard, is the ticket I bought.

  What generosity! I don’t even want to go to the damned ball.

  Mother gave Euphemia a miniature of Father as a young man that used to hang by the mantelpiece at Prebendary Street, and she received in return a silver thimble Effie had owned for years and never used. What a contrast with last year! My gift from Father was a silver shaving set and Mother’s was my very handsome knapsack. This time she handed me an old shirt that I thought she had thrown away but she had secretly repaired it and embroidered the neck and cuffs into a kind of embossed lace. She asked me if I was pleased with it. How did she imagine I would respond? I shrugged and said it would do. How could she expect me to be cheerful when she was saying such cruel things about me to virtual strangers?

  Euphemia said: Don’t take any notice of him. He’s just a sulky little boy.

  That was it. I got up and left them sitting there with their sad little presents around them.

  · · ·

  ½ past 10 o’clock.

  A moment ago Betsy tapped at the door and came in with a plate of mince-pies! It was her own idea, as she admitted when I asked. I begged her to sit down for a minute while I ate so that she could take the plate back and she shyly seated herself in a chair facing me.

  I was afraid I had frightened her last time so I decided not to say or do anything but all the time I was thinking how under that rough woollen skirt is a soft warm girl’s body that I longed to touch. I said: I hope Christmas away from your own family isn’t too dreary a time for you.

  She pressed her lips together as if to discourage me from that topic. Perhaps it is too painful for her to think of her family now.

  It was hard to think of any new subject after that and yet there was no awkwardness and we sat in companionable silence while I ate.

  I said: I hope I don’t frighten you, Betsy?

  Frighten me, sir? Whyever should you say that? And then she gave that enigmatic half-smile as if I wouldn’t understand her amusement. And now she was looking directly at me in a way that she has rarely done before. It was oddly disconcerting and yet it was what I had been trying to get her to do ever since I had arrived.

  I said: Because I’m a man and so much older than you. She kept on smiling at me as if she were enjoying a joke I had made. I was a little irritated and I said: And because I know so many more things than you do.

  Then she stood up and took the empty plate from me saying: But perhaps I know things you don’t know.

  She walked out. I don’t know what to make of that.

  · · ·

  ½ past 11 o’clock.

  Astonishing! Just two minutes ago I passed Betsy in the hall and she came close and whispered: I can milk your udder for you if you like. She moved away before I could answer. So she did notice my cockstand. And didn’t mind it!

  If I like!

  · · ·

  A day or two ago Mother complained about the smell from my smoking. (I thought I was far enough away for it not to be detected.) She said there was an odd odour emanating from my part of the house. Effie said: Just what are you smoking up there? Mother pricked up her ears at that. I must be more careful.

  I’ve noticed a smell, too. But it’s not anything I’m doing. It seems to be coming from somewhere near the front parlour or the hall. Something corrupted and decaying.

  A ¼ to 1 o’clock in the morning.

  [A passage in Greek letters begins here. Note by CP.]

  She glides into the room carrying a candle and comes towards my bed. She says: I’m dreadful skeert, sir. I say: Sit on the bed, my girl. She does so. I lean forward and blow out her candle. My hand slides under her rounded haunch, soft and smooth and warm. I say: You’d be warmer under the covers. She gets in. I say: You must be hot with that thick nightdress.

  Δ

  [The passage in Greek letters ends here. Note by CP.]

  Christmas Day, 11 o’clock.

  A lowering sky and clouds like a dark hand closing over the countryside. I had no desire to write this morning. I am bored and wretched.

  Just after breakfast the farmer’s boy from up the way brought the goose to the door holding it upside down by the feet. To our horror it was alive. We told him we had expected it to have been killed but he just thrust it into Mother’s hands and then hurried away.

  None of us—Betsy included—had ever seen a goose put to death but Mother said she had watched it being done to chickens and knew the method.

  We all went into the kitchen-yard at the back. Mother gripped the head of the poor creature with one hand and the body with the other and then began to twist the head.

  It should break, she said. The miserable bird flapped its wings and scrabbled desperately with its feet. After several failed attempts, Mother said: I’m not strong enough. You try, Richard.

  I felt an overwhelming reluctance to do what she had asked and I said: This is your fault, Mother. I didn’t ask for a goose.

  She cried: At least hold the wretched thing and I’ll try again.

  Euphemia offered to do it but I felt humiliated by that and so, much against my will, I gripped the poor frightened creature while Mother tried to snap its neck. We must have been doing something wrong for it stubbornly failed to break.

  Betsy had vanished and now came back with a broom and said we should try something she had heard about: You put the fowl on the ground and lay the broom across it and then stand on both ends of the handle and yank the neck up sharply to break it.

  I tried to do that. Somehow it escaped us and ran round the yard flapping its wings. I chased after it and Betsy laughed so much she was unable to speak so that Mother lost her temper and snapped at her.

  Oh this is ridiculous, Euphemia said. She hurried away and I thought she was abandoning us. But a few moments later she came back with the axe that is used for chopping wood.

  Mother cried out: Don’t do that! There’ll be blood all over you.

  You can’t do it on the ground, I said. I’ll get the chopping-block.

  When I had placed it in position Euphemia and I chased round the yard until we had caught the damned bird. Then I held it while Effie hit it on the head with the flat of the axe-blade and it went still. She then laid its neck across the block and swung the axe. She severed its neck with her first blow and sprang back but not fast enough because blo
od spurted out in short bursts for about five seconds and the first spattering caught her on the arm. She gave a sudden laugh in exultation. Horribly the wings continued to flap for half a minute until the bird finally lay still.

  Seeing a creature blindly fighting for its life—resisting death by the same instinct that possesses us—awakened so many images in my mind. I saw Father falling to the ground helpless, gasping for breath, terrified of the approaching darkness. And then involuntarily I saw Edmund not fighting for his life but choosing to give it up.

  Effie was smiling at her handiwork but I couldn’t help saying that the whole thing had turned my stomach.

  She said: You’re a hypocrite and a sentimentalist. You’re going to eat it, aren’t you? In that case, it has to be killed.

  Mother and Betsy plucked the goose and have just put it in the oven. They had some difficulty because of its size.

  Time for church.

  3 o’clock.

  When the service ended the Lloyds happened to be leaving the church behind us and with them was a young woman whom I did not recognise. Then it struck me that it was their daughter Lucy. She has grown up since I last saw her. That red-golden hair is now darker and is decorously concealed, of course, beneath a bonnet from which a few locks peeked.

  She saw me staring at her and gave a slow half-smile, her eyes sliding away from mine so that I could not decide if she was pleased to see me or merely amused. She kept her eyes demurely lowered while her parents moved off towards the gate while she lagged behind. At my prompting, Mother spoke to her, telling her our name and reminding her of how we had all known each other in the old days in Thurchester. (Effie walked on ahead of us as if she had not seen her.) She seemed pleased by our overture and explained that she had been away at school in France for several years.

  She said: I attended the convent-school in Toulouse where Mother was sent as a girl. And it turns out that Mrs Paytress was a pupil there—years after Mother, of course. And so we speak French when we are together. She smiled and turned to me: I know who you are. You’re the little boy we all used to pinch.

  I don’t recall that, I said.

  Yes, we used to tease you mercilessly, we girls. And we would make you cry. What little monsters we were.

  Mother laughed and said: I remember what monkeys you three girls were—you and Euphemia and Maud Whitaker-Smith.

  Lucy said: Oh yes, Maud. I have something to tell you about her.

  She glanced at Euphemia’s back and, lowering her voice, began: The clever creature has . . .

  We were destined not to hear it because at that moment Mrs Lloyd turned towards us and looking straight at her daughter frowned in a way that clearly meant: Stop talking to those people and come here.

  With an apologetic smile at Mother and me and a defiant toss of her head, Lucy took leave of us. But instead of rejoining her parents, she skipped pertly across to the Quance sisters who were waiting a few yards from their mother and father. With a charming little bow and a dimpled smile she said something to them. Whatever it was horrified them. Enid seemed to totter and was caught by her sister and her mother. They supported her as they made their slow way towards the Rectory with Miss Bittlestone fussing along in the rear.

  As we walked home I speculated on the meaning of that little drama. Could it be connected with Davenant Burgoyne’s presence in the district yesterday?

  A ¼ to 9 o’clock.

  Disaster! A few minutes after we got home, I was alerted by raised voices in the kitchen—audible all the way from the parlour. I hurried out and found Mother and Betsy having a furious argument. The goose was barely half-cooked and Mother was saying that the girl had failed to keep the oven hot enough while Betsy was protesting that the bird was simply too big.

  Eventually Mother decided that it should be cooked over the open fire. That meant that poor Betsy had to stand in the heat and keep turning the spit while she ladled hot fat over the bird.

  The three of us sat in the parlour getting hungrier and hungrier and drinking the one bottle of sherry that had survived from Prebendary Street. Mother would hurry out at intervals to see how the goose was coming on and to prepare the vegetables.

  While she was out there for about the fifth time Effie and I heard a scream and we both ran to the kitchen.

  The fowl was ablaze! The hot fat had caught fire. Betsy seized a pan and began to fill it with water from the cistern but Mother shouted: No! Don’t do that! You’ll ruin it! She seized a cloth and threw it over the bird and then wrapped it around it and the flames died out.

  When Mother removed the cloth—now singed and full of holes—we all looked at the goose and then Mother prodded it: It was burnt on the outside and still raw inside.

  She reproached Betsy bitterly for having allowed too much fat to build up in the pan.

  To see her bullying a servant like that! It was so unlike the old days. I looked at her thin shoulders under her worn and patched Sunday best and thought how she had come down in the world. How we all have. So much has slipped away from us that we—I at least—had always assumed was permanent: civility, graciousness, and generosity. Now the wood is showing through the varnish. We are all as likely to detonate as a loaded spring-gun.

  Euphemia had one of her sudden fits of rage and cried: Oh damn the wretched thing! She seized it and was going to throw it into the waste-bucket but it was so hot that she dropped it.

  Mother was furious with her and picked it up with the burnt cloth while Effie stormed out. I withdrew while Mother was giving Betsy instructions on how she should wait until the goose had cooled a little and then wipe it down and carry on cooking it.

  It all happened because Mother was determined that we should eat a proper Christmas dinner like the ones we enjoyed in the past. Foolish, foolish Mother! How I hate it when she does something like that and then becomes frightened and angry when it turns out badly.

  We went back into the parlour and sat in a simmering silence to wait for the goose. Mother brought out what she said was the single good tablecloth she still had—one made of “damasked linen” with lace edging. Nobody had bid for it at the auction, she said, because it had a tear that had been repaired but which didn’t show when the table was small enough. I thought it looked rather absurd with the cheap old cutlery laid on it.

  I had finished the last bottle of Father’s good claret the day before but to my astonishment Mother announced that she still had one. I asked where it had come from and she said she had put it aside because I did not trust you with all that wine! She asked me to decant it. I pointed out that it should have been opened a couple of hours before but when I saw the bottle I realised she had chosen poorly and the wine was hardly worth decanting. Mother, however, insisted on my doing so.

  We sat and drank without speaking. We had nothing to say to each other. Then unfortunately Mother—just to break the silence—asked me if I had yet replied to Uncle T. I said I hadn’t and she became very indignant. It’s my life, my decision. I think I should be allowed to take my time over it. I tried to say that but Mother told me I was throwing away the best opportunity I would ever be offered and that if I stayed in England my debts and lack of a degree meant that I would be a burden on her and my sister!

  The best opportunity! Banishment for life! With perils on the way there and further dangers once I arrived.

  Euphemia backed Mother up. How dare she interfere! She wants me to go to the other side of the world just to please her—but only when I’ve escorted her to a damned ball! Frankly, I don’t see why I should humour her when she cares so little for my interests and my wishes.

  We were almost shouting at each other when Mother said: We’ll drop the subject. I want to hear no more about it. This is Christmas and we’re together as a family.

  · · ·

  When at last we began dinner, we had all drunk too much sherry and claret. Though burnt on the outside, the goose was still bloody in places but some of it was eatable.

  We hardly spoke
as we chopped and chewed. Mother and Effie talked about what they would wear to the ball and I hardly listened as Mother said she had an old dress that she had worn many years ago and that she believed could be given new life.

  I said: You do both realise that while we’re in here celebrating the chief Christian festival of the year like a loving and affectionate family, poor little Betsy is out in the scullery cleaning pots on her own.

  Of course I’m aware of that, Effie began.

  What are you suggesting? Mother demanded, interrupting her as she rarely does. (The wine!) That we invite her to share our dinner? Have you forgotten that at Prebendary Street the servants had their own meal downstairs at Christmas?

  Yes, I said, but here there’s only Betsy.

  Don’t you preach to me about Betsy’s virtues, Effie cried. I know all about them and you can’t deny that she doesn’t contribute ten times what you do for this family. Before I had a chance to point out that she had said the opposite of what she had intended, she went on: Look, I’m carving some of the meat to take out to her now. She began placing slices of breast on a plate.

  A moment later she jumped up and hurried out with it.

  Mother and I sat for a long time in silence. At last I said I’d go and see what had become of my sister. As I approached the kitchen Effie and Betsy must not have heard me because they were standing together holding each other. Betsy, so much smaller, had her head against Effie’s bosom and from the movements of her head seemed to be weeping quietly. Then I realised that it was Effie who was crying and the girl was comforting her.

  I sneaked away without letting them know I had seen them and told Mother that Effie would be along in a minute.

  She took her time. Eventually she joined us again and we started our dessert. Then, as I’d guessed she would, Mother began reminiscing about past Christmases in a voice that trembled on the edge of tears. Euphemia joined in and it became a threnody of self-pity. I kept mum even when Effie began to talk about Father and said it would be remiss not to pay our respects to his memory on this day. What is strange is that Mother did not endorse that sentiment. I’ve noticed that she has been more and more reluctant to defend Father and less and less hostile to Uncle Thomas.