Quoits and Quotability

by William Stafford

  “Reading?” Quentin’s nose wrinkled at the idea. “I’m not reading anything. I’m a writer; I told you.”

  “All writers must read, my dear Quentin-”

  “Quentin!”

  “Kon-tan. You must read; it is the best way to appreciate and learn the craft. Drop by the free library over the road. They have all the classics there. Homer, Ovid, Defoe.”

  “And is that your prescription for me, Doctor? You presume to advise before you have read a single word I have written!”

  “My dear boy, only a moment ago you were saying how much you should like my advice.”

  Quentin’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way until he could master his temper. “For this potion, I thank you. I believe you know where to send the bill.”

  He turned on his boot heels and strode out, only to collide with a red-faced woman who dropped into a clumsy curtsey and coughed on his boot toes.

  Cursing, Quentin returned to Satan and deposited the brown bottle in the saddlebag. “Father is right,” he told the horse. “The man is evidently a charlatan. Fancying himself as a literary critic when, like all critics, he is incapable of producing a scrap of art for himself.”

  Whatever his views on the matter, the horse kept them to himself. The rider took silence as agreement and fed the beast a carrot for his loyalty.

  The boy’s blue eyes fell on the frontage of an establishment opposite the doctor’s office. Its windows were crowded with books and there were crates out front, spilling over with volumes, like a particularly abundant, albeit rectangular, harvest festival.

  “Reading...” the boy muttered. “Free library, indeed! Why, there are books enough at home, should I ever feel impelled to read one of them. And why should I read one on his say-so? Just because he is a doctor, must I follow his orders? No; I shall not read a thing even if my life depends on it. Clearly, the man knows nothing. A writer writes so that readers may read. Even you can see that.”

  So it was in sullen mood that the youngest Quigley rode homeward. There was no short cut on the return journey. Satan seemed to intuit his rider’s disposition and plodded slowly along. The sun too had given up the ghost, ceding its place in the sky to a gang of ominous dark clouds that were gathering like bandits preparing to strike. The first drops of rain, as round and as cold as pennies, were falling by the time the main gates of Quigley Manor hove into view. Satan quickened his gait as he trotted along the drive, eager to return to his stall now that the weather had broken.

  A brace of dappled horses stood miserably at the front steps, harnessed to a trim carriage. The creatures looked thoroughly downcast and miserable. When Quentin attained the stables, he instructed Francis to see to their care.

  “Right you are, sir. I was about to take them out a little bit of something. Here, is everything all right, sir? You don’t seem quite right to me, sir. If you don’t mind me saying.”

  Quentin stiffened. “I do mind,” he snapped. “I mind a great deal. Now, do what you’re here for and see to those horses.”

  He stamped out to the house to remonstrate with the owner of the carriage for leaving the poor creatures out in the rain.

  Question

  Quentin had barely pulled off his riding boots when he was summoned to his father’s study.

  “Is my father not in his bed?” he asked Birkworth the butler as he followed the trusty retainer along the corridor. “And I should know the way around my own house by now, don’t you think?”

  The butler said nothing but there was a certain look in his eye as he opened the study door. It looked, Quentin was alarmed to realise, an awful lot like pity.

  Quentin stepped, unshod, across the threshold and immediately regretted not running a mile in the opposite direction for, sitting at his father’s desk, her aquiline features illuminated by the green shade of an oil lamp was Quentin’s most dreaded relation, the fearsome and formidable Aunt Fanny.

  He heard the door close behind him as Birkworth made swift his escape. Quentin tried to calculate how much of a run-up might be necessary for hurling himself out of the window but the implacable stare of his aunt’s hooded eyes sapped him of the power to think at all.

  “There you are,” said Aunt Fanny in a voice like a parrot with a throat infection.

  “Yes, Aunt,” Quentin confirmed. “What an unexpected pleasure-”

  “Do not seek to flatter me, young fellow-me-lad.” An eyebrow rose. “Tell me, is it common practice to appear before one’s elders and betters in one’s stockinged feet? Or is it the latest fashion from Paris? - I know how fond you are of being à la mode.”

  She lifted a pile of receipts as though to illustrate her point. “But more of that anon. Your father has been carried most ignominiously up to his chamber where he now lies on his counterpane, bearing more than a passing resemblance to the handle of a walking stick. You were singularly absent for his removal and several horny-handed ruffians had to be recruited to perform this office. An explanation is due, if you please!”

  Quentin opened his mouth but found his throat was too dry for speech. He coughed against his knuckles, wilting under penetrating scrutiny.

  “Speak up, boy!”

  “Well - ahem - I rode out to the doctor - I had almost forgot! The poultice is still in Satan’s saddlebag, so distracted was I by the plight of two dappled mares left out in the rain.”

  Aunt Fanny glowered. “Beasts of the field are more than adequately equipped for the vagaries of the English climate. And I do wish you would exchange your stallion’s name for something a little less controversial. It does not to do to hear one’s nephew is riding abroad with Satan. One suffers all kinds of misgivings.”

  Quentin smirked. “Like ‘Napoleon’, Aunt?”

  “Don’t be absurd!”

  “And what kind of misgivings, Aunt?”

  “Never you mind. Now, to the matter of this interview, which could not be timelier.” She picked up the pile of papers again. “I am afraid these receipts will not be countersigned. All the goods to which they appertain must be returned forthwith.”

  Quentin winced. The threat to his wardrobe emboldened him to speak out. “What mean you by this? Surely a man may dispose of his allowance in any manner he sees fit.”

  “Oh, really?” A clawed hand lifted the uppermost paper from the pile. “From Messrs Rosencrantz and Bloom of Saville Row. Silk hats - three!”

  “A man must have a hat, Aunt, lest his head catch a chill.”

  “But three? Have you extra heads about your person? No! This is insupportable extravagance. To buy three hats!” She fanned herself with the receipt.

  “But they are all quite different, Aunt, to serve different purposes.”

  Aunt Fanny squinted at the paper. “It says here that they are all black.”

  “Yes, that is correct but one is rounder, one is taller, and the third has the sweetest little bow on the hatband. It would be altogether striking at a funeral.”

  “Preposterous! You are the son of a squire not some preening, degenerate dandy. The hats shall be returned, all three, and I shall unearth from his closet one of your father’s old tricornes and that will suffice to keep your head from catching cold.”

  She addressed the next receipt. “Trousers?” she blinked. “Why on Earth should you need trousers? Breeches and stockings are good enough for your father - and were so for his father before him. No, no, I cannot support trousers. The cost outstrips those of breeches and stockings combined.”

  Quentin’s cheeks flashed bright red. “My dear Aunt,” he struggled to keep an even tone, channelling his outrage into his palms via his fingernails, “the Prince Regent himself wears full-length trousers.”

  “I daresay His Majesty can afford them,” Aunt Fanny sneered. “And you would do well to find another model if you must have someone to ape.”


  “What? Like a vagabond on the highway?”

  Aunt Fanny turned to the third receipt. “Undergarments.”

  Quentin stamped his foot, which devoid of boot, made no sound on the carpet so he let out a cry of fury. He snatched the receipts from the table. “I have no wish to discuss matters of such delicacy with my maiden aunt,” he roared.

  Aunt Fanny waited for the outburst to be over. “The fact remains, however, that your expenditure far exceeds your allowance. Why you should need to purchase so much ink and paper is beyond my ability to comprehend.”

  Quentin decided against disclosing his literary ambition. If his aunt learned he was penning a three-volume novel, her response would be dismayingly predictable: Why write a book when there is in this very house a library teeming with them?

  “The goods must be returned,” she said flatly. “Or...”

  Quentin did not like the sound of the unfinished threat. “Or else what?”

  “Or else you shall have to be married, my dear. Your father’s estate cannot support you any longer; therefore you shall have to become allied with one that can.”

  ***

  Sleep eluded Quentin. His mind was too busy with thoughts that flashed up like wild fires. No matter how swiftly he stamped one out, another sprang up in its place, more insistent, more troubling, and in his aunt’s voice: You are to be married!

  No! He rolled over in torment. Never!

  Rain rattled the windowpanes. A storm was raging outside; it seemed the whole of nature was in tune with Quentin’s turmoil. He had never considered himself to be marriage material. It had simply never entered his consciousness. Even though two of his brothers had tied their respective knots before they reached Quentin’s age, they were practically a different species entirely. When one thinks of ‘husband’ or ‘married man’ one does not think of me, he bit his knuckle in anguish. No; one thinks of someone more stable and solid, someone more mature.

  Someone like Doctor Goodhead, for example. He possessed all the qualities one might expect: stability, wisdom, integrity, intellect, strength both moral and physical - ah, yes, it was Doctor Goodhead one ought to hold up as a prime example of marriage material - a silly epithet that brought to mind the white satins, silks and laces of a bridal gown.

  Lightning cracked the sky and Quentin’s bad mood, improved by consideration of the doctor’s more commendable qualities, cracked with it.

  The nerve of the man! To suggest that I ought to read more! What knows he of the novelist’s art? One may discover from books how to set a broken bone or which remedy best suits which ailment, but to glean anything of the mystic alchemy that brings about a work of literature - in three volumes, no less! - The notion was too ludicrous to merit contemplation.

  He rolled over again and again, punching his pillow and turning it over so that its cooler side afforded temporary relief.

  Perhaps he should use this sleepless period to think of his novel, rather than squander another second on that fool of a quack; what a dull husband he would make for some unwitting creature! They would do nothing but what they could find in books. Oh, read this, darling, do; it is the perfect recipe for frangipane...

  Hold a moment... Is frangipane cakes or flowers? Or is it neither? Or both?

  The question compelled him to remain fully alert. He tried to recall when he had last heard the word and in what context. A tour of someone’s gardens, perhaps. “I see you admiring my frangipane. It is quite, quite lovely this year.” Or during afternoon tea somewhere. “Do help yourself to more frangipane; Cook has excelled herself this time.”

  The question ousted all other thoughts from his mind, like a cuckoo evicting hatchlings from a nest. Lightning flashed again and Quentin sat up, propping himself on his elbows. There was a way to settle the frangipane issue decisively and for evermore. He would go to the library and consult a book. A dictionary, perhaps, or a gazetteer - something of that nature.

  He left his bed and his room and padded barefoot along the landing. A flash of lightning illuminated his reflection in a mirror, startling a gasp from him. In his white nightshirt, he looked like a wraith, a ghost roaming the mansion in the small hours of the night... Perhaps he could include such a phenomenon in his novel... The idea was not without appeal.

  He tiptoed down the main staircase. A lamp was burning softly on a hall table, for the Squire was well-known for his midnight excursions to the liquor cabinet and Birkworth had had enough of his master’s nocturnal stumbles. Moth-like, Quentin headed directly to it.

  He carried the lamp to the library, pushing open the double doors. Raising it aloft, he saw the seemingly endless rows of shelves towering over him. The library was situated in a tower-like addition to the west wing and was at least two storeys high. The walls curved around Quentin and he experienced the curious sensation of being at the bottom of the well.

  So many volumes... It was an impressive sight, to be sure. The books, leather-bound, with their spines tooled in gold leaf, gave off a satisfying smell - the aroma of status, for surely it was the finest collection in the county. Quentin’s chest swelled with pride - and gratitude for his grandfather’s good taste in furnishing such a striking addition to the ancestral seat.

  He placed the lamp on a table between a pair of overstuffed armchairs and wondered where he should begin. It occurred to him he should return in daylight when the contents of the room would be fully accessible to him but, now that he was here, it could not hurt to have a quick look to see if he could resolve the burning flower-or-cake question once and for all.

  There was a book already on the table but it was too much to hope it might be anything as useful as a dictionary of plants or patisserie. It was a tome about wills and legacies, open at a chapter dealing with the rights of siblings and property inheritance.

  How unutterably dull! Quentin closed the book lest it bore him further. Perhaps he should take it back to his room; a paragraph or two would soon despatch him to the Land of Nod.

  He browsed the nearest and lowermost shelves but in the gloom could find nothing that might yield the answer he sought. He resolved to return in the morning for a proper and more thorough search - or, failing that, he might sound out the cook or accost the gardener for their views on the topic.

  He picked up the lamp and turned to leave. Yet another lightning flash made him jump but what caused him to freeze in terror’s icy grip was the fleeting illumination of a silhouette at the window.

  “Who’s there?” he cried, wishing his voice were not so tremulous. “Birkworth?”

  The only response was a roll of thunder and the hiss of driving rain.

  Quentin scurried from the library and up the stairs to bed. Under the covers he felt both safe and foolish. It was probably nothing. A trick of the light in conspiracy with his overly tired imagination.

  What else could it be?

  Quandary

  At breakfast, Aunt Fanny sat at the head of the table, the Squire being confined to his bed for the foreseeable future. Quentin sat as far from his intimidating relative as possible but that only resulted in the raising of her voice. Birkworth, ever tactful, made a discreet withdrawal.

  “There are several matters I wish to discuss with you, Quentin,” she began.

  “Actually, it’s Quentin...”

  “No! It most certainly is not. I cannot abide this fad for all things French. It’s absurd. We are at war with the blighters more often than not. Talk not to me in French or of the French. What I wish to discuss is the continuing absence of your brothers.”

  A little stunned, Quentin put down his fork. “What is there to say, Aunt? I am not accountable for my brothers’ lives elsewhere.”

  “Quite so,” Aunt Fanny agreed. “But you may play a vital role in their return to the family seat. You shall write to them each and explain your father’s indisposition. Y
ou will hint that the situation is more precarious than it is and advise them to hasten their return while there is still time.”

  “I am not going to lie to my brothers, Aunt, or use my father’s health to coerce their behaviour.”

  Aunt Fanny pursed her lips, in that it was like the pulling of the drawstring of a moneybag. “When you have quite finished with your high moral stance,” she said. “You will do as I say or I shall change the subject to the planning of your nuptials.”

  Quentin shuddered visibly. Even from a distance, Aunt Fanny saw the effect of her pronouncement and was pleased. They ate in silence for a few moments, the one smirking to herself and the other preoccupied with an urgent pondering.

  “Aunt?” said Quentin at length. “Might one have such a thing as frangipane at one’s wedding breakfast?”

  “What a queer question! Frangipane, you say? Well, I don’t see why not, if it’s in that direction your tastes lie.”

  “I was thinking perhaps a bunch at each table.”

  “A bunch? What mean you, sirrah?”

  “I would have said bouquet, Aunt, but I fear that is a word from the wrong side of the Channel.”

  “You speak nothing but nonsense, boy. Now, be off with you and pen those letters. If you are expedient, you shall catch the afternoon post.”

  “Yes, Aunt.”

  “An opportunity to put your expensive ink and paper to good use.”

  “Yes, Aunt.”

  “Do this office well and I might be disposed to allow you to keep one of your three new hats.”

  “You are exceeding generous, Aunt.”

  Quentin removed himself from the breakfast room before the full impact of his sarcasm reached Aunt Fanny’s ear. He trudged back to his room and sat at his writing desk.

  My brothers... He had not had word from any of them for quite some time. There were the annual newsletters around Christmastide, compiled by the wives, for the Quigley boys were by no means men of letters.