The Daughters of Mrs Peacock

by Gerald Bullet

  Nearly every morning then, after breakfast, she set out for the village, a quarter of an hour’s brisk walk, carrying with her such edible dainties as she thought might tempt the appetite of an invalid. The vicarage, hidden from the road by tall funereal fir-trees, stood some sixty or seventy yards back from the High Street, surrounded by two acres of neglected garden, a wilderness of rank grass, weed-infested flower-beds, decaying summerhouses, and overgrown laurels; for Roy Tupkin, since the beginning of his master’s illness, had abandoned even the pretence of being a gardener, and now spent what time he could spare from more congenial pursuits, such as eating and sleeping and pursuing the village girls, in scrubbing floors and filling scuttles for the formidable Mrs Budge and her fourteen-year-old daughter Gladys. A stranger entering upon the desolate scene would have supposed the place to be uninhabited; nor would his first sight of the house itself, bleak, grimy, uncared-for, have contradicted that impression; but, though the interior too was comfortless and forbidding, the wallpaper discoloured by damp, the pictures slightly crooked, the upholstery dying of old age, once inside, and confronted by Mrs Budge, no one could doubt that inhabited it was, and by someone who would not be easily dispossessed.

  In appearance, as in some of her habits, Mrs Budge resembled a plump, elderly hen; but there was cunning as well as greed in her small, sharp eyes, and her manner, an uneasy mixture of obsequiousness and self-assurance, suggested that she entertained delusions of grandeur and was determined to be taken at her own valuation.

  ‘Most kind, I’m sure, miss,’ she too-carefully articulated, on Julia’s first visit. ‘Most kind,’ The eyes glittered. The thrusting beak hovered over the basket. ‘Not but what dear Mr Garnish is being well looked after. Anything he fancies. He has only to name it.’

  ‘Quite so, Mrs Budge. And now, if you please, I should like to see him.’

  ‘Not today, miss, I fear, if you’ll excuse me. It wouldn’t, you must understand, be quite convenient.’ She switched on a false, deprecating smile. ‘The poor gentleman’s in bed.’

  ‘So I suppose,’ said Julia. ‘All the more reason why I should see him. Please tell him Miss Peacock is here. Miss Julia Peacock.’

  ‘Seeing he’s so out of sorts, miss, I don’t care to disturb him. But I’ll tell him you called. Good morning.’

  Julia, on the doorstep, stood firm, refusing the hint. The two stared at each other, the one gravely intent, the other goatishly smiling. Then the face of Mrs Budge withdrew. The door, so narrowly open, began closing. A spasm of unwonted anger quickened Julia’s pulse. Insolence, and from an inferior, was something her mother’s daughter would not brook. She stepped quickly forward, put out a hand, and pushed her way into the house.

  ‘I think perhaps you misunderstood me, Mrs Budge,’ she said pleasantly. ‘I wish to see the Vicar. Be so good as to announce me. I shall follow you.’

  ‘Very good, Miss Peacock. No offence, I hope. I only want to do what’s right.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ said Julia. ‘Shall we go upstairs then?’

  ‘And if harm comes of it,’ said Mrs Budge, as she turned to lead the way, ‘it can’t be laid at my door.’ Arrived within sight of the bedroom she darted forward and attached herself to the door-handle. ‘I’ll see if he’s awake,’ she said over her shoulder; then entered and shut herself in. Julia waited and listened, still utterly resolved, but fearful of intruding at an awkward moment. After an uncomfortable interval the door opened and Mrs Budge peered round its edge. ‘The Vicar can spare you five minutes, I find.’

  Pink-eyed, chap-fallen, and with a stubble of grey beard blunting the line of his jaw, the Reverend Mr Garnish was an unlovely sight. He sat, a picture of apathy and old age, in a large four-poster bed, wrapped in a dressing-gown, three pillows at his back, his hands lying limp on the coverlet. On a bedside table were a number of books, a candlestick, a nightcap, a dirty handkerchief, and a carafe of water. On the wall to his right, interrupting, a cabbage-rose pattern in sage-green, hung a full-length portrait in oils of the late Mrs Garnish, dressed in the style of twenty years earlier: a tall, fair, elegant woman, leaning against an improbable tree, in a sunlit garden, and smiling fixedly at distance. Julia half-remembered having seen it before, in the drawing-room downstairs, a memory dating from the days, now long past, when she and her family were occasionally invited to tea at the vicarage. Its presence in the old man’s bedroom struck her as pathetic.

  ‘A lady to see you,’ said Mrs Budge, rearranging the pillows. ‘Now isn’t that nice!’

  He slowly turned his head, peering from screwed-up eyes.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Garnish.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It’s Julia,’ said his visitor. ‘Julia Peacock.’

  ‘H’m. So I see. Good morning, my dear.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear you’re not well.’

  ‘Well? No, I’m not well. How should I be?’

  Julia looked at Mrs Budge, who stood as it were on guard, at the bedhead. ‘There’s no need for you to stay, Mrs Budge. I won’t take up any more of your time.’

  ‘My time is the master’s, miss, thank you.’

  ‘Of course. But I’m sure Mr Garnish will excuse you.’

  The woman made no move. Julia looked a question at Mr Garnish, but he seemed not to have noticed the exchange. Short of an unseemly brawl, there was nothing to be done. She decided to contain her indignation.

  ‘What does the doctor say, Vicar?’ she lamely asked.

  ‘Doctors are no use to me. Too old for doctors.’

  ‘But I’m sure Dr Witherby——’

  ‘Ah, Witherby. Yes, he came once. Not been near since, and good riddance. That’s what she says.’ He jerked a nod in the direction of Mrs Budge. ‘I’m at the end of the road, eh Budge?’

  ‘It’s the Lord’s will,’ said Mrs Budge. ‘Not but what we don’t hope you’ll get better, I’m sure,’ she hastily added, meeting Julia’s look. ‘It’ll be a sad day for Gladys and I when you’re taken.’ She produced a wad of handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped an imaginary tear from her eye.

  ‘Could find nothing much wrong, the duffer. Bah! Nothing but everything! Let’s hope they’ve more sense up above. Is your father still alive, girl?’

  ‘Good gracious, yes!’

  ‘So much the worse for him. It’s a dreary business, living.’

  ‘Oh no!’ protested Julia. ‘It’s wonderful. Think of all the lovely things you’ll soon be enjoying again.’

  ‘Darkness and corruption, child. A convocation of worms.’ His eyes closed. His head sank back against the pillow. ‘Don’t let that smart young curate come near me,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t do with him.’

  Julia was dismayed, pity mingling with a sense of revulsion of which, instantly, she was ashamed.

  ‘You’re tired,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’ll leave you now. Have a nice sleep.’

  Reluctantly leaving Mrs Budge in possession, she tiptoed out of the room, ran downstairs, and let herself out. What she had seen and heard, so different from her sentimental expectations, had shocked and frightened her: to emerge from that spiritual darkness into the strong morning sunlight was a release almost unnerving in its suddenness. She looked up and down the wide, gently sloping High Street, from the ancient church at the higher end, with its green copper spire pointing heavenwards, to the broad-based comeliness of Lutterfield’s eighteenth-century alehouse, the Waggon and Horses, at the other; and was surprised and comforted to find everything placid and unchanged. The street at this mid-morning hour was empty of people, and at any other time she would have enjoyed the sunlit solitude, but now, after her glimpse of hell, she longed for the reassurance of a human contact. She resisted, however, the temptation to look in at the grocer’s and for the sake of a chat with Mrs Salop make some small purchase; for with Sarah and Catherine away at Newtonbury there was no one but herself—apart from three capable domestic servants—to attend upon Mama. Indeed she must hurry home. But not, she suddenly
decided, until she had seen Dr Witherby.

  The idea reinvigorated her, and five minutes later she was knocking at the door of his house.

  Ever so sorry, but the doctor was out on his rounds. Would Miss Peacock care to wait? Well, it might be an hour or it might be less: you could never tell with the doctor. But he’d be in for his dinner at one o’clock—unless he was kept unexpected.

  While Julia stood hesitating, Dr Witherby and his dogcart, drawn by a sturdy grey cob, came spanking down the road. He drew up at his house and alighted.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Peacock.’

  ‘Oh doctor, I’m so glad to see you!’

  ‘My dear young lady, how gratifying! No one ill, I hope?’

  ‘Indeed there is. It’s Mr Garnish.’

  ‘Ah, the man of God. He’s a difficult customer, I find.’

  ‘I know,’ said Julia. ‘But——’

  ‘Between ourselves, Miss Peacock, he as good as showed me the door. I’ll look in again tomorrow, I said to him. No, you won’t, said he, you’ll wait till you’re sent for—good morning. Dr Witherby grinned at the recollection.’ ‘I’m a wicked fellow, don’t you see? I don’t go to church.’

  ‘Yes, that is wrong of you,’ said Julia, in simple candour. ‘But that’s not why he’s rude. It’s because he’s old and ill and miserable. You must know that quite well.’ She gave him a straight, severe look. ‘And you will go and see him, won’t you, doctor? There’s something queer going on in that house.’ She shivered at the memory. ‘That Mrs Budge, I don’t like her. She’s up to no good. I know it’s difficult for you,’ she went on, before he could answer. ‘But if you can’t go as a doctor surely you can go as a friend, a neighbour?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dr Witherby, ‘but the poor old gentleman doesn’t regard me in that light. To him I’m still a newcomer, an interloper, a fellow who doesn’t belong. Bless you, I don’t mind his manners. I don’t mind his not liking my face. Why should I? I don’t much care for it myself. But if he’s taken against me I can’t be much help to him, you’ll admit.’

  ‘I’ve just come from the vicarage,’ Julia said. She was too intent on her purpose to argue with him. ‘I don’t trust her. I believe she wants him to die.’ Her own words startled her. ‘No, I oughtn’t to say that. But we must do something, doctor. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone in the room with him?’

  He looked at her appreciatively. There was irony in his eyes, but kindness too. She was suddenly conscious of liking him, in spite of his odd appearance, his sardonic manner. A fringe of beard enclosed his otherwise shaven face with a semi-circle of fire, like an inverted halo. His high-raised bushy eyebrows, very mobile and expressive, with a life of their own, seemed not to belong to him, as though stuck on, part of a comic disguise. But the man who looked out from the disguise, with his alert humorous eyes, square jaw, resolute nose, was a good man, she decided; was friendly; was a man she could trust. Moreover, Papa thought highly of him, played chess with him, enjoyed his company; and if Mama didn’t.… well, it was possible, just possible, that Mama was mistaken for once.

  ‘What happened, Miss Peacock?’ said Dr Witherby. ‘Suppose you tell me the whole story.’

  What she told him made him thoughtful. He listened in silence, and when the recital was over he made no promises beyond saying that he would see what he could do. His business at the moment was to get Mrs Bateson her pink medicine. It had to be pink, he explained: no other colour did her any good; and its pinkness was its only medicinal virtue.

  Three days later he presented himself at Peacock Place to report progress. He had visited the Vicar and talked to him about everything under the sun except his health.

  ‘I talked a good deal about you, Miss Peacock. Your name worked wonders. It’s hardly too much to say that it’s made a new friend for me. That, and our hearty contempt, his and mine, for doctors. Doctors are duffers, he said. Not only duffers, said I, but thieves as well. They take your money and do nothing for it but look wise. You’ll get, said the Vicar, no money from me, young Witherby. And you, my dear Vicar, will get no doctoring from me, if you don’t mind your manners, I told him. So put out your tongue, man. It’s a rude gesture. Just your style. Ah! As I thought. Filthy. Let’s hope it’s not an index of the state of your soul.’

  ‘Oh, doctor!’ cried Julia, delighted but a little shocked. ‘Did he laugh?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, my dear. But he did as he was told, and he didn’t throw me out, and I’m seeing him again tomorrow. That’s something gained. As for your Mrs Budge, if I have any nonsense from her I’ll frighten the life out of her.’

  That was the beginning of Julia’s campaign, an enterprise that now occupied much of her waking thought. Her visits to the vicarage grew more frequent as the weeks went by, and now she was going nearly every day.

  Sarah’s hope of meeting some new people at Meonthorpe was quickly fulfilled. The very next day Cousin Patience, prompted by Aunt Bertha, put on her best bonnet and took their visitor to call on their nearest and most eminently presentable neighbours, Mr and Mrs Pluvius. Away from the house, and with no father to compete with, Patience Druid became a new woman, showing unexpected signs of animation. A hint of colour came into her cheeks as she spoke of the treat in store. To be on visiting terms with the Pluviuses, her manner suggested, was a privilege, but not an undeserved one. They lived a quarter of a mile from the village street, in a large Queen Anne house, one might almost call it a mansion, surrounded by five acres of lawn, flower-beds, shrubbery, paddock, and playing-field. Here some thirty-five young gentlemen, their ages varying from twelve to eighteen, were being prepared by Mr Pluvius for the battle of life, with the help of Mrs Pluvius, five domestic servants, and Mrs Pluvius’s nephew, young Edward Linton. The friendship between Mrs Pluvius and Aunt Bertha, who had discovered interests in common and enjoyed a good gossip, did credit to the broad-mindedness of both parties: Mrs Pluvius tactfully ignored the social difference implied in Mrs Druid’s supplying the school with eggs, dairy produce, and boiling fowls; and Mrs Druid did not hold it against Mrs Pluvius that her husband was, or had formerly been, a nonconformist minister.

  ‘The Reverend Pluvius,’ said Patience, with a touch of defiance, ‘thinks a lot of my father, too.’

  ‘How nice,’ said Sarah. ‘Does my uncle give him good advice?’

  Patience glanced suspiciously at her young cousin, but the look that met hers was all innocence.

  ‘They don’t meet very often. My father’s too busy. But when they do there’s always plenty to talk about.’

  ‘I’m sure there is,’ said Sarah, with simple veracity.

  ‘He’s got letters after his name,’ said Patience. ‘And quite a number of his boys go on to Oxford or Cambridge. But so did my Uncle Edmund, didn’t he? So of course it’s nothing to you.’

  Except for a murmured disavowal of the implied grandeur, Sarah found no answer to that meekness.

  There was a story told in the Peacock family of how a four-year-old Sarah, looking out of the window, had remarked in an interested, matter-of-fact tone: ‘Here’s Mr God coming down the street.’ A dim echo of that forgotten moment accompanied her first encounter, these many years later, with Mr Pluvius, whose short legs and tubby figure supported—somewhat precariously, it seemed—a majestic head, high-domed and venerable, and whose features, all but the small bright eyes and eagle nose, were hidden behind a copious snow-white beard, which was still, however, in the region of the upper lip, stained with the mustard colour of his earlier years. His wife, a tall sandy woman, slim and erect, presided with a certain stateliness at the tea-table. The severity of her looks betokened no ill will: it was her habitual tribute to the importance of any social occasion that was graced by the presence of the headmaster.

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Mrs Pluvius, but we really didn’t mean to stay to tea,’ said Patience Druid nervously, continuing to worry a recent bone of civil contention. ‘Did we, Sarah?’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear. Two lum
ps or three? It’s not every day we have the pleasure of seeing Miss Peacock.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Mr Pluvius, in a high reedy voice that would have seemed querulous but for the benign smile that accompanied it, ‘and a notable example of meiosis, since in point of fact we have never had that pleasure before.’

  ‘You know very well what I mean, headmaster.’

  ‘Perfectly, Mrs Pluvius. And so, I am sure, does the young lady.’

  Here in Highfield House, taking tea with the Pluviuses, Sarah felt very remote from the Meonthorpe farm, which was only seven minutes away. But for her cousin’s presence she could have forgotten that the place existed, or at any rate could not have supposed that there existed any connexion between the two so different worlds. It was this element of continual surprise that made life, the unfolding story, so unpredictable, so full of interest, so quick with expectancy. The coming here had been enjoyable: the walk down the village street and into Church Lane, the distant glimpse through trees of the ancient church itself standing lonely and aspiring in a three-cornered field, the turning into a narrow winding drive that was like a dark green tunnel: from which one emerged, with an effect of suddenness, into a region of wide sky and sunlit lawn, with the great white house, embodiment of dignity and good sense, in the middle distance. And now, in this cream-coloured drawing-room, lofty and spacious, hung with water-colours in gilt frames, and containing (above all) two persons never met before and therefore a challenge to curiosity, Sarah sat in smiling silence, bewildered for the moment by the riot of her new impressions. Conscious of being the youngest member of the party, and a stranger, she surrendered to her shyness and allowed Patience to do the talking, contenting herself with brief answers to the polite questions fired at her. How did she like Meonthorpe? Was she making a long stay? Had she found the journey tiring, and was it not very enterprising of her to come so far by herself?