Rustication

by Charles Palliser

  But who has the means to do that? Not Betsy or anyone else I can think of!

  A ¼ past midnight.

  I joined Mother and Euphemia in the parlour for our special dinner with the bleakest of expectations. Betsy was taking charge of the meal with occasional assistance from Mother who had purchased a small capon—already killed and plucked, thank heavens!

  Mother started talking about the New Year’s Eves of her childhood. She was more loquacious on the subject than I had ever heard her. (She had mysteriously found another bottle of wine despite having assured me at Christmas that we were drinking the last one.) She recounted how she and her mother would put on their very smartest clothes and set out from their little cottage on the outskirts of the town. I had never heard her speak of it before and asked her where it was.

  She said Trafalgar Row and then seemed to regret the words. She hurried on: I was given such a beautiful silk gown and I wore it for my visits.

  She and her mother would call on her aunts and uncle at their big old place in Trinity Square: It was called Mulberry House and was the townhouse of the Herriard family and had been in their possession for more than a hundred years. They would be led up to the dining-room and Mother would go round and curtsy and kiss each of the old creatures and then be sat at the table and fed nuts and sweetmeats.

  This annual ritual ended when she was twelve. The old people were dying one by one and Cousin Sybille did not keep up the tradition.

  She talked of how her ancestors had been among the biggest land-owners in the district and, fixing me with her (slightly unsteady) gaze, said: Richard, never forget that you are a Herriard.

  Euphemia said angrily: Why is it of any importance who our forefathers were? What matters is what we make of our own lives.

  Mother looked really frightened and said no more on the topic. Euphemia has always cared about rank. Why is she saying these things now?

  The dinner turned out to be dreadful: the capon over-cooked and the carrots and potatoes underdone. When the girl came to take things away Mother followed her into the passage and I heard her giving her a savage telling off for her carelessness. The next time Betsy brought dishes to us she had her head down and when she raised it I saw her sullen expression. It looked to me as if she had been crying. When the others weren’t looking I caught her eye and smiled at her and she seemed to brighten.

  We somehow got through a long ill-tempered evening and then, just as we’ve always done, we went into the hall to listen for the old clock striking midnight. It was cold and draughty. On the twelfth stroke we all kissed each other.

  I wonder if Mother and Effie were thinking of the contrast with last year. God alone knows if the new year will be better than the old one. I don’t imagine that it could be worse. A shame to have to begin it with dinner at the Greenacres. I will not waste my breath trying to talk intelligently to Quance: Fine words butter no parsons.

  1 o’clock.

  Of course, Mrs Darnton herself could add a letter to the post-bag before it went to Thurchester without anyone knowing. And she hears everything in that shop. There was that fat woman I saw her gossiping with who was obviously a rich source of scurrility and slander. The one who seems to know things about Davenant Burgoyne and his half-brother.

  Friday 1st of January, 4 o’clock in the morning.

  That little glimpse of a smile that Betsy gave me. That woebegone little face. Thought I’d go and cheer her up.

  I tapped at the door and asked if I could come in and she called out in an unsteady voice: Give me a moment, sir.

  I waited a minute and heard her light a candle and then I advanced into the room. She was sitting up in bed and pulling her nightgown around her.

  I heard you weeping, I said.

  No, she said boldly, her eyes red and moist. I wasn’t.

  I’m sure the dinner wasn’t your fault.

  She nodded.

  Seeing that she did not seem frightened and since there was nowhere else to sit, I sat on the little bed.

  I said: I’ve come to apologise. When we stood in front of the clock to mark the New Year, we should have invited you to join us.

  I’m not kin to you, sir, she said.

  I asked her if she had any family in the neighbourhood and she seemed surprised that I did not know that she was what she called “an outcountry gal”. Mother had taken her from a parish workhouse some miles to the east. (Why had she gone so far to find a girl, I wonder? There must be armfuls of destitute girls all around us.)

  Her mother had died when she was very young and she had kept house for her father and brothers. The parish took her in when she was eleven and hired her out by the week to local families as a petty-servant.

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

  I was touched by her story and told her so. It was the last thing on my mind but she suddenly reached her hand up my leg under my nightgown and ran it up my cock and squeezed it. She gave me a sweet quizzical look and murmured: Master Peg’s asleep.

  She gently stroked it. Master Peg woke up.

  Then she yanked up her own nightgown exposing the whole of her belly and her pudenda with its thin wispy cluster of hair and indicated that I should lie across her so that my cock was on her belly and when I did that, she rubbed it against her soft stomach with one hand while her other hand was running over my chest and shoulders. I pulled her nightdress down and lowered my head and licked one of her little bubbies. She kept up a stream of whispers: Do you like that? Is that nice? Does that feel good?

  She gripped my hand and moved it down her body and showed me how she wanted me to rub her. I did so but was shocked by this eagerness for her own gratification. She began to pant and gasp and I felt irritation and even envy that I was giving her so much more pleasure than I was gaining—as well as dismay that the sounds she was making might be heard on the floor below. Now we seemed to be addressing the point and I tried to shift myself down but she said: You can’t come in. I don’t want to be one of those gals that get caught. You’ll have to spend on my belly.

  Almost as she said the words—so matter of fact about it, so happy to accept it—I became so excited that I spent. She gave me a quick smile and then mopped it up with her handkerchief.

  Δ

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

  We lay together for a while not speaking, half-dozing. Then she started talking drowsily about my being nice to her next time and hinting that she would do more to give me pleasure and that I only had to be “kind” to her in return.

  I was horrified. She was asking for money. I had thought she was doing this because she felt some affection for me. I had given her presents but that was different from hard cash. She curled up beside me and within a minute she was snoring. I was cold though it seemed that the bitter chill had lifted a little. I crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain and saw heavy snow falling steadily. It seemed unkind to leave while she was asleep so I lay beside her and tried to keep warm and stayed there for a ½ hour or so.

  6 o’clock.

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

  Shameful. I was thinking about Guinevere while she was doing it—imagining her delicate little white hand on my swollen cock, her mischievous face with that slightly turned up nose, looking up—eyes dancing at me. It’s her and not her lemon-faced sister that I love. How could I have failed to see that?

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

  ½ past 8 o’clock.

  Hardly slept at all. I can hardly believe what I’ve done. How could I have lured a girl as young as that into disgusting and bestial activities which she performed solely in the hope of a gift. I must be depraved. I will not give her cash if that is what she was asking for. That would demean both of us. I will buy her something as a recompense. Something handsome.

  11 o’clock.

  Just back from the shop. As soon as I entered, Mrs Darnton started harassing me with q
uestions: What was I looking for? A gift was it? Was it for my mother or my sister? Or did I have a sweetheart? I said it was for my sister and I bought a packet of ribbons. (I hope the prying tittle-tattle does not ask Effie how she liked them!)

  Memorandum: OPENING BAL: 9s. 2½d. EXP: Gift for B: 1s. 1d. FINAL BAL: 8s. 1½d.

  · · ·

  How I’m dreading dinner at the Greenacres’.

  Midnight.

  What an utterly abject and humiliating disaster. We had strolled across the Battlefield in the golden light of a beautiful late afternoon to dine with one of the most respected families in the neighbourhood. We dragged ourselves home, nursing our wounds, cold and dejected.

  We were the only guests apart from Mr and Mrs Quance. The latter glared at me and then decided to pretend I didn’t exist. As we went in to dinner Mrs Quance lumbered majestically ahead of me and I recognised her suddenly as a barbaric figure of the kind I’ve seen in engravings of African monarchs. I almost saw the shrunken heads of her victims swinging from her belt.

  Unfortunately, even before we had finished the soup Mrs Greenacre, casting about for a topic, brought up Davenant Burgoyne’s engagement. Presumably she had no idea of its significance for both Euphemia and Enid.

  I glanced surreptitiously at my sister. She was impassive.

  Mrs Quance volunteered that the earl’s nephew had behaved disgracefully by playing on the hopes of other young ladies. Whether deliberately or not her eye fell at that moment on Euphemia.

  My sister took the bait: Maud has told me of the attempts made by other girls to ensnare her fiancé. Some of the mothers were a thousand times more shameless than their daughters.

  Here she smiled charmingly at Mrs Quance.

  In pursuit of revenge, that lady brought the conversation round to the isolation of the district and the need for a carriage and then pretended to sympathise with us for not having one and yet moving to a neighbourhood where we knew nobody.

  I blurted out: Oh but we do have some connections here. Our cousin, Lady Terrewest, lives a mile or two beyond Stratton Peverel.

  Mother shot me a glance of disapproval.

  I know a great deal about Lady Terrewest, Mrs Quance said threateningly. She turned to Euphemia and smilingly asked: Are you enjoying working for her?

  I felt my cheeks burning with shame. Of course: Effie was paid to visit the poor old creature.

  I could feel the Greenacres wondering why they had invited us. People who came to dinner on foot in mid-winter and whose daughter worked for her living.

  Effie parried well: Lady Terrewest has a sweet nature and presses gifts on those whom she loves.

  In a desperate attempt to change the subject, Mr Greenacre asked in a bluff manly tone: Has anyone heard any more of these wicked hoaxing letters?

  All the women present had received one and so had others not there: Enid, Miss Bittlestone, Mrs Lloyd and her daughter Lucy.

  All the letters have been addressed to ladies, Mrs Greenacre remarked thoughtfully.

  Apart from that strange man, Fourdrinier, her husband objected.

  Quance nodded sagely and indicated that we were about to benefit from his superior insight.

  The man carries his dignity before him like an Oriental potentate with an umbrella-bearer walking in front of him. And yet, with his small frightened eyes and those papery jowls that hang straight down like the hindquarters of a pig, there is nothing impressive about him. If his nose were a tail he would be the perfect image of a sow’s rear end.

  When we had acknowledged his importance with a respectful silence, he said: That fact suggests to me that the author is a woman. A deranged person would want to inflict pain on his or her own gender.

  And yet much of the content is masculine, Mother said with a shudder. Grossly so.

  Quite, said Mrs Quance. She glanced sharply at me. I’m convinced that there are elements in those letters that can only have been imagined by a man. Or more likely, a youth.

  So has she dropped her absurd idea that the writer is Mrs Paytress? Or is she simply torn between wanting it to be her and hoping that it will turn out to be me? I suppose a collaboration between us would be most gratifying to her.

  But the concerns of the author are feminine, Mrs Greenacre said. I can hardly be more specific without indelicacy, but the author seems to be preoccupied with what one might call the defining function of the female gender.

  And yet a woman could not be responsible for the other atrocities, Mr Greenacre pointed out. The attacks on animals.

  Then we should be looking for a man who is out in the fields at night, Mrs Quance interrupted, staring at me.

  My point is, Mr Greenacre persisted, that a woman would be noticed. Certain articles would need to be carried. Paint and brushes for the obscene slogans. The fetishes.

  The fetishes? Mother asked.

  Since it was a shocking revelation, they were all delighted to explain. Objects representing human beings—either a child’s doll or a crude mannikin made of wood and straw—have been left outside houses at night or fastened to gates. In several cases the fetish was clearly intended to represent one of the occupants of the house. They had often been savagely damaged: a wooden knife stuck through the heart or the neck broken so that the doll’s head lay at an unnatural angle to the body.

  What I suspect, Mrs Quance announced gravely, is that the letters are written by a man and a woman in collaboration and the acts are carried out by the male person alone. The woman is educated but the man is not.

  I beg to differ, Mrs Quance, Mr Greenacre said. I believe the letters are wholly the work of an uneducated person.

  The letters certainly appear illiterate, Mr Quance said. But there are a few anomalies that struck me. Perhaps my training in Biblical scholarship has given me an advantage. For example, in one of them the writer makes an accusation of mercenariness as a motive for marriage and writes of “wholy matrimoney”. He spelled the words out and then said: In my view that piece of wordplay betrays a much higher level of education than is being pretended. And there are others, some of which are too coarse to be mentioned—a play on my own title and a disgusting allusion to Salisbury.

  Quance, pompous old fool though he is, has hit upon the truth. I recalled the sentence he sticks his dick werever he can men boys women girls cows sheep goats monkies. I had only half-noticed its strangeness. The phrase goats and monkeys is of course Othello’s when he is thinking of his wife’s suspected adultery.

  In that case, is the author an educated person? If so, could it be Lucy after all? I believe she is malicious enough but is she capable of such obscenity?

  Interestingly, Mrs Quance began talking about Lucy. Not by name, of course. She was saying that the letter she had recently received made reference to a young lady known to us all. She was the daughter of a gentleman of means living quietly in retirement near Upton Dene.

  Mrs Greenacre asked what the nature of the allusion was.

  Mrs Quance paused importantly and then said: It made the grossest charge imaginable against the young woman and . . . a close relative of hers. A male relative.

  There was a shocked silence as we all pretended not to know what was meant and then, whether in order to divert us from that topic or fuel our outrage with further horrors, Mrs Greenacre volunteered: In the letter we received our governess was attacked in the most vicious terms.

  What was said? Mrs Quance asked, almost slavering.

  Mrs Greenacre hesitated. There were dreadful charges against her character and her chastity. We felt that we had to put the allegations to her and she broke down in tears.

  Mrs Quance looked at her shrewdly and said: Very probably a sign of guilt. I’ve always disliked that young woman. A sly creature who never looks you straight in the face. Were you sure of the references when you employed her? She moved on to her next target: One of the letters addressed to myself reveals facts about a certain individual who has attracted notice since she arrived in the neighbourhood.


  The Rector looked alarmed and said: We can’t be certain they are facts.

  His wife held up a hand to silence him and went on: Although some of the details are luridly exaggerated, I know that the central allegation is true because I have heard other reports that confirm it.

  Like a rather stupid terrier with its teeth stuck in a bone and growling at anyone who tries to remove it, she was back on her favourite victim. Her husband had tried to prise the bone from her but she was too stubborn to let him. Only a brisk kick to the jaw would have any effect.

  Effie rose to the defence of Mrs Paytress: At least she cannot be guilty of both of those things. She cannot be writing the letters and besmirching her own character.

  Mrs Quance stared at her stonily. Her bluff had been called and she did not know how to respond.

  It suddenly came to me: That is precisely what Lucy is doing. Without thinking, I said: Why not? Whoever is writing these letters might have a good reason for doing precisely that.

  Mrs Quance stared at me: Can you explain that extraordinary remark, Master Shenstone?

  I said: The writer might try to throw off suspicion by defaming himself or herself in such exaggerated terms that the allegations cannot be believed. For once I was listened to.

  To my dismay, however, Mrs Quance then said triumphantly: That answers your objection, Miss Shenstone. The person we are speaking of has exaggerated the facts to the point where nobody will believe even the truth.

  I was already regretting having given Mrs Quance this weapon against Mrs Paytress. My sister turned towards our common enemy: Are you now saying, that the allegations are too grotesque to be believed?

  In their most extreme form, yes. But the underlying substance is true.

  So you’re simply choosing which of the lurid charges against that lady to believe?

  My dear girl, Mother said warningly.

  Seeing the way things were going, Mrs Greenacre stood up as the signal for the ladies to withdraw. As she rose from the table, Euphemia shot me a glare which was my reward for having suggested the idea.