by Anne Rice
“Since the War, Mr. Jeffries, one has to be grateful for whatever help one can get.”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure one does. Well, thank you, Vicar. It was good of you to say what you did about my mother … Excuse me. I see Mrs. Peck is signaling.”
On the way home he tried to make small talk with Mr. Strickland, having growing eager for a hint of what lay in store. But the other was not to be drawn, and most of the time they went in silence.
Infuriatingly, though, the sexton’s hymn-tune had taken root in his brain, and more than once he found himself humming it against his will.
Sitting at one end of his mother’s mahogany dining table, with the lawyer at the other and these people he might have met but didn’t know on either side, Neville felt as though he were about to face a firing squad. Rain and sleet on the windows provided the appropriate roll of muffled drums. Controlling himself with all his might, he waited for the news that would dictate his future.
“Ahem! This is the last will and testament of me Edith Annette Jeffries née Lang. I hereby revoke …”
Get on with it, damn you!
Eyes twitched toward him. He feared he might have spoken aloud. The sexton’s tune recurred. He feared he might start to sing or hum it. He started to feel faint again—genuinely, this time. He feared buzzing in his ears would prevent him from hearing Strickland’s words.
At long last, after miscellaneous bequests to Mrs. Peck, some gardener or other, Strickland himself, a charity or two (at each of which Neville fumed inwardly), here was the nub of the matter.
“ ‘And the residue of my estate, whatsoever and wheresoever situate, both real and personal, to my son Neville George Jeffries.’”
That’s all right, then! I can sell this horrible place, and—
Unwittingly he had started to push back his chair. All attention fixed on him. Strickland hadn’t finished. Pretending he had only wanted to avert an attack of cramp, he composed himself anew.
“ ‘Title therein shall pass upon the day of the baptism of his first child born in wedlock, until which time he shall receive an income not exceeding two hundred pounds per annum.’”
He sat stunned.
In other words, you old bitch, you’re going to force me to marry! Worse yet, you’re going to force me to breed! You did figure things out, didn’t you? Oh, you BITCH!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day melted into a haze due to the port, sherry and brandy in the Fortnum hamper.
“I must go and see Strickland,” he announced. “There must be something I can do!”
In Mrs. Peck’s face he read disapproval as keen as his mother’s, with commentary: He’s nearly thirty—past time he married—any normal man wants a wife and family. He’s not normal—he’s an unnatural son.
“It’s Boxing Day,” however, was all she said aloud. Jolted by recollection of last Christmas and all the Christmases of childhood, he suppressed an oath.
“I forgot to lay in a stock of change!” Then optimistically: “But people won’t bother a house in mourning, will they?”
“There’s some as may,” sighed Mrs. Peck. “I took the liberty of changing a pound note into silver.”
“Thank you … I’d better get dressed, I suppose.”
Thinking of Bunny Soames’s guests, with champagne to look forward to instead of tea.
The prospect of being compelled actually to live in this dump, perhaps for years, rather than sell it and head back to Town had come to dominate his thoughts, so he forced himself to be tolerably polite to those who did trespass on his mourning to pay the compliments of the season and in turn be paid in coin. Postman, telegraph boy, baker’s boy, under-gardener, grocer’s boy, milkman … “Will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?” Once Leo would have beamed on him for citing such an apt quotation.
And all of a sudden here was the boy he had seen in the churchyard.
Except she wasn’t a boy.
True, her skirt was shorter than her coat, so boots and gaiters showed beneath, that looked no different at a distance from a boy’s, but … No, this was not a youth but a young woman.
How in heaven’s name could he—he of all people—have made such a ridiculous mistake?
Abruptly cold, colder even than the chill of this ungrateful house would warrant, he kept glancing at her while addressing her—what? Her father? Her keeper? Her … Leo?
“Good morning, Captain Hopper,” he said mechanically, and added pointlessly, “I don’t believe we met last Boxing Day.”
Pointlessly, because he was certain they had not. Unlikely as it was that he would have forgotten that ragged beard—it had apparently been grown to hide a scar on his cheek, in which task it failed—it was beyond credence he should have forgotten the man’s companion. She was swarthy-skinned with dark eyes and hair; she wore the same hideous garb as at the churchyard; she was in no sense pretty, having too large a mouth, but she could safely be called handsome; moreover she had hands like a pianist’s, both delicate and strong, and there was something about her posture that spoke eloquently to his gaze.
She was bored. He could read it in every line of every muscle. Bored.
A solution to his problems trembled on the brink of consciousness, but Captain Hopper was talking, and without as yet knowing the details of the plan emerging in his head, Neville was at least aware that it involved treating this man politely. He heard reference to Africa, the West Indies, South America …
“Well, that’s all very interesting,” he said at last with what show of enthusiasm he could feign. “Perhaps we can talk again when I’ve got over the shock of losing my mother. Meantime, the compliments of the season.” He chose a half-crown from the pile of coins Mrs. Peck had provided and handed it over; then, after a second’s hesitation, took a sixpence as well.
“Something for you too, young lady!” he said. “Ah—?”
“Emily,” Hopper exclaimed promptly. “Well, go on, girl! Take it and say thanks!”
She having obeyed, they took their leave, he humming the same tune he had been whistling in the graveyard. To the housekeeper, when she returned after showing them out, Neville said, “I’m not at home to anybody else, Mrs. Peck. I need to think.”
“Very well, sir. Lunch is almost ready anyway.”
“One thing before you go. What exactly did this so-called Captain Hopper do for my mother, that he expected a Christmas box? Did she employ him about the grounds?” He was thinking of the gardener and his boy.
“No, sir.”
“What then?”
“She liked him to tell her stories.”
Neville blinked. “Seriously?”
“Her sight was failing toward the end, as you know”—even though you didn’t seem to care, was the inaudible gloss—“and she found it too tiring to read. And he was a much-traveled man. I didn’t approve, to be frank, but he did keep the mistress entertained. I was surprised not to hear him mentioned in her will, but I suppose she’d not had time to change it. He only moved to the district last summer.”
“I see.” Neville frowned. “What of the girl?”
Mrs. Peck coughed, looking embarrassed. “No one knows anything about her.”
“His daughter?”
“One hopes so.”
“I see … Right, Mrs. Peck. That will be all.”
The idea that had struck Neville was transfixing in its clarity.
If he wanted to inherit what was rightfully his, he must marry. Worse, he must reproduce. The prospect appalled him. But when the devil drives … A miracle had offered a compromise that might evolve into a solution. Here at hand was a young woman sufficiently like a boy for him, even him, to have mistaken her for one. Doubtless she was ill-educated. Yet she had the potential to be made presentable. She was, mutatis mutandis, very much like himself before he was taken up by his succession of protectors, and consequently very much like the companions he himself had been planning to seek out once he entered into his inheritance.
There was enough at stake to o
vercome repugnance. He would act. The possibility of refusal never crossed his mind. How could a father with his daughter’s interests at heart decline so generous an offer from a social superior with wealth in prospect?
Absurd!
He celebrated his inspiration by finishing the port and brandy, mixed. Draining the final glass, he found himself humming the sexton’s tune again, this time not in the least put out by the grip it was securing on his mind:
“Dah-dah-di-di-dah-di-di-dah!
Di-dah-di-dah-dah-di-di-dah!
Di-dah-di-dah-dah-di-di-dah
Dah-dah-di-dah-dah-di-dah-dah!”
Sometime, perhaps, he might track down the words. But it didn’t seem worth going to special trouble.
Compelled to reside here for the time being, he decided not to press his suit too obviously. First of all, he contrived to meet Hopper and the girl (what had he said her name was—Emily? Later on it would have to be changed, say to Amelia) here and there around the village, lifting his hat as though she were a lady, exchanging pleasantries with …
Her father? The more he pondered Mrs. Peck’s ambiguous remark—“one would hope so”—the more it disturbed him. Hopper showed no sign of physical affection toward the girl, nor she toward him, continuing in the state of patent boredom that boded so well for eventual acceptance of Neville’s offer of escape. Clearly what Mrs. Peck had declined to put into words was the possibility that Hopper was living in sin with this much younger woman, acquired the other side of the Atlantic. Neville, however, found it incredible that the vicar should engage a blatant fornicator as his sexton, no matter how hard help was to come by nowadays.
Of course, according to what he had been told, it would be much easier to break in a pretrained girl; in principle there should be no essential difference between her and a boy with the same background. Yet he suspected there might be, and wished he could talk to someone with relevant experience. Would Hopper not be more reluctant to part with a mistress than a daughter? Unprepossessing as he was, he’d be hard put to it to find a new companion.
Christmas well past, Neville even risked phoning Leo from the public phone at the post office, but there was no reply.
Yes: exchanging pleasantries with Hopper, not with her. She never seemed to say anything beyond a good morning, and often had to be coaxed into that … Not much of a drawback, though. To be married to a chatterbox would be unbearable. And he would have to spend some time with his wife, for the sake of appearances. So, on balance, better a shy bride than a forward one. He remembered a pub sign he had seen, showing a woman decapitated, head under arm.
The pub was called The Quiet Woman.
He chuckled.
Encouraged by successors to the Fortnum port and brandy, plans multiplied like yeast within his head. Where, for example, should they live? The West End would remain out of reach even when he had sold this monstrous pile and invested the proceeds, but there were other parts of London artistic and Bohemian enough to furnish a tolerable life-style. Somewhere like Hampstead would do; its open spaces would allow him to send away Emily—Amelia—for long periods of every day on the excuse of airing the baby in his pram. Also, he believed, there were schools in the area.
He devoted much of his time to ransacking the house, vaguely hoping that an Old Master might turn up in the attic or cellar. There was also the distasteful task of sorting his mother’s clothes and other belongings, which he left to Mrs. Peck until he caught her about to toss out what looked like Honiton lace. He was just in time; she was also on the point of discarding velvets, brocades, and fine silks such as tussore, on the grounds that they were hopelessly soiled. She appeared never to have heard of dry cleaning.
In a sudden burst of frenzied energy, Neville bundled up a sackful of fine materials and sent them by train to Pullar’s of Perth. In due course they came back, still redolent of cleaning fluid, and enabling him to put into effect a further stage of his scheme.
On his now daily promenades around the village he could count on crossing Hopper and the girl either buying fish on the black stone quay, or haggling for vegetables in the market, or at the baker’s (his bread was coarse and made appalling toast), or as today on the way to the Foul Anchor, the pub the “captain” preferred of the village’s two—probably not because of its name, the other’s being equally ill-omened: the Ship Aground. Spotting them, he let out a hail and traversed the street rather than waiting for them to approach.
Raising his hat to Emily, smiling at her, he said, “Well met, Captain. You enjoy a good yarn, so I’m told, and my mother, rest her soul, left many books. I was thinking you may care to borrow some.”
“Ah, sir,” came the gruff reply, “my sight grows dim these days. All my reading any more is in the hymnal and the psalter. Still, it’s a kind thought, and thank you.”
“Not at all. I understand. However, I can make another offer that I’m sure will be of great interest to this young lady.”
It was as though a light came and went behind Hopper’s dark eyes. They were set between lids whose wrinkles were as heavily emphasized as a chorus girl’s lashes, thanks to years of ingrained salt and dirt. To have a peasant like this for a father-in-law… ! Neville had to repress a shudder. In his daydreams Hopper had conveniently vanished, or retired, or gone back to sea.
But that might not be a problem. He could probably be paid off.
“Emily, you don’t seem to have many clothes. If you’ll forgive me saying so. My mother left a lot of rather good material—silk and velvet and stuff. I’ve had it cleaned. Any time you’d like to come up to the house you can take your pick.”
Dark eyes between dark lids stared at him, but she said nothing. Hopper said hastily, “You must excuse her, sir. She’s not used to talking with gentry.”
She’ll have to get used soon enough! But Neville managed to cancel the words before utterance. Keeping a smile on his face, he continued, “They’re first-rate quality. Do come up and see them. You could make them into—well, all sorts of things.”
Troubled for a moment, he glanced at Hopper.
“Does Emily not sew?”
“Like me,” Hopper grunted.
“Excuse me?” Neville found himself blinking nervously.
“Like a seaman, sir! Turning to in a calm to make do and mend with a canvas hussif and a sail-needle! None of your fancy work, none of your embroidery. No, sir.”
Neville had had the confused impression that all girls were taught to sew, not merely darning and patching but making whole garments, and that his mother had just been a resentful exception. He said without having thought it through, “Well, I’m sure there are women in the village who will make things up. Bring her round so she can choose what she likes.”
No reaction. Divining the reason: “Oh, if it’s a matter of cost … It’ll only be a few shillings, I suppose.” After the tailors of Jermyn Street it seemed to him that in these remote parts few articles cost more than a loaf of bread or a postage stamp.
Did the girl show any sign of excitement yet? Surely the prospect of finery to replace her drab coat and dress—none too clean, those, not having had the benefit of a trip to Pullar’s!—surely that must elicit some response?
Indeed, though she had to be prompted by Hopper, she did force a smile and murmur what sounded like thanks. Relieved, Neville tipped his hat again and they parted, the captain resuming his inevitable tune.
From the corner of the street he glanced back. Hopper had entered the pub. Emily was standing docile beside its door. There was a stone bench adjacent, but she showed no inclination to sit down. She seemed resigned to waiting as long as required.
Neville nodded. There was much to be said for a passive wife. Here in the north people still remembered the original meaning of “buxom,” as in the old-style marriage service: “bonnie and buxom in bed and at board.”
It meant bendable.
So far, then, so good.
But so good did not mean very good. He ought, he decided, to le
arn more about Hopper, and set about making inquiries. His first approach was to the Baptist minister, a prematurely stern young man who confined himself to stating that Captain Hopper attended chapel regularly and that the girl came with him. He did not know her first name, nor had he inquired about her relationship to the captain.
Annoyed, Neville called after as he turned away. “Just a moment! Can you tell me whether this belongs to a hymn?”
He hummed the melody he kept hearing from Hopper. Before he had finished the first line, the minister was nodding.
“Yes, yes! It is a hymn tune. Good morning!”
Thus frustrated in one alley, Neville turned to another, and ventured into the ill-lit, smoky Foul Anchor, making sure Hopper would not be present. He hoped by buying drinks to loosen tongues. In that he succeeded, but to small effect, since the sailors who forgathered here were fishermen having little in common with one who had crossed the Atlantic scores of times.
He did establish one thing: the general opinion was that the so-called captain had been at best a bo’sun or first mate. Nonetheless they tolerated his adoption of the title, for, as one of them said, having spent so much time in the West Indian trade he had seen more deep water than most. For a moment Neville found himself contrasting the easygoing attitude of these men with the bitchiness and backbiting of the circles he had frequented in London, and considered coming here again, perhaps on a regular basis. Then he contrasted the squalidness of this bar with the elegance of the Cacahuète or the Élysée, and shuddered and went home.
January was bad. Mrs. Peck cooked him flavorless meals that he left untouched. To keep himself going he bought spirits from the village’s single grocery; he bought so much there was none left until the next delivery and realized he was at risk of being branded an alcoholic. Word could reach Hopper … He purchased lemonade and smiled ingratiatingly at the shopman.
But telegraphed Leo’s wine merchant in London and had a case of brandy sent by rail.
Why would that silly girl not take up his invitation? Was Hopper preventing her? Must be! And why could he no longer cross them on the street? He kept hearing the familiar tune, hummed or whistled, but somehow the couple were contriving to avoid him. In desperation he headed back and back to the Foul Anchor, not intending to enter but only to see whether Emily was waiting by the door. She never was.
