Rustication

by Charles Palliser

  4 in the afternoon.

  After luncheon I went and looked at the Monument. It is an octagonal tower about forty feet high and surmounted by an absurd cupola held up by a ring of classical columns.

  As I was crossing the path between the village and the shore, I spotted the Quance girls with their old cicerone. As we approached each other Guinevere stopped and said something. Her sister glanced in my direction and frowned. She made a moue of distaste. We had not been on a course to meet, but Guinevere led them towards me.

  Simply don’t know what to make of Enid. Was she teasing and mocking me by her silence? Does she have no idea how I feel about her?

  The old woman exclaimed: Master Shenstone and I are quite old friends.

  The girls exchanged glances. Oh yes, the famous tea which we’ve heard so much about, Guinevere said. She chattered away and gave me the chance to observe her properly for the first time. Pity she isn’t a little older. Even a year or two. She might be quite a beauty by the time she’s sixteen. She has a tiny dimple on her left cheek near her mouth which gives her a strange charm. She’s a teasing little vixen.

  She started talking about the ball: What she was going to wear. What her sister was going to wear. Then she inquired: Are you coming, Mr Shenstone? You and your sister? She giggled and placed her hand over her mouth in a theatrical manner.

  She must know that her mother has refused Effie tickets. I can see her merry face now and I’m sure the little shrew was teasing me. Then she demanded: Who do you intend to dance with? Mrs Paytress?

  Enid said: Don’t be a goose. You know very well that that woman is not going to be there.

  Guinevere turned to her chaperone: Is she also on Mama’s blacklist, Miss Bittlestone?

  (Also? So we Shenstones are on the list?)

  The old woman stood in confusion.

  Guinevere addressed me: It’s the earl’s ball and is to be opened by his nephew, Mr Davenant Burgoyne, and there is a great deal of speculation about which young lady he intends to dance with.

  At this Enid looked conscious. Is it true? Are she and that boor destined to marry?

  He’s fearfully handsome, Guinevere said. Isn’t he, Enid? Her sister blushed obediently. And very tall. How tall are you, Mr Shenstone?

  Oh, my dear girl, what an indelicate question, Miss Bittlestone muttered. Whatever next?

  Guinevere giggled.

  I told her my height and she said: Mr Davenant Burgoyne has the advantage of you by a good three inches.

  I instantly thought of the tall man I had encountered on Tuesday.

  A moment later Guinevere started talking about her mother’s criteria for selling tickets: No governesses, Mama says.

  Enid nodded and said: Only ladies.

  Guinevere frowned as if genuinely puzzled: What is your view, Miss Bittlestone? Can a woman be paid money and still be a lady? Mama says not.

  I would not dream of dissenting from your mother’s view. A lady is one who behaves as a lady should.

  Guinevere screwed her pretty face into the expression of one troubled by a philosophical issue and asked: Can an unmarried girl go about on her own and still be counted a lady, Miss Bittlestone?

  Well, the old lady said doubtfully. That depends.

  Suppose the girl were seen coming out of her friend’s lodgings at ten in the evening, Guinevere went on. And the lodgings were in, say for example, Hill Street in town where I believe a number of young unmarried gentlemen lodge . . .

  What! the old woman shrieked. You’re not talking about a single man’s lodgings?

  Yes, Miss Bittlestone, Guinevere said with an expression of irreproachable innocence.

  My dear child! No woman’s character could survive such an episode.

  By now the old woman was clucking like a broody hen and urging her charges to walk forward. So we parted and I strolled on. That little chit, Guinevere, is a strange mixture of coquetry and caprice. She bids fair to becoming an outrageous flirt.

  Then in the distance I saw two figures—a man and a woman. The man was very tall. And the woman, I realised as I drew nearer, was my sister. I could see that they were walking arm in arm and seemed to be laughing. At moments their heads seemed to come close together and stay there for a moment.

  I could not get any closer because it was impossible to cross the open fields without being seen. And then, before I could approach them by a more circuitous route, the falling dusk hid them from my sight.

  As ever, Euphemia thinks nothing of bringing dishonour on the family. She has never shown respect for the feelings of anyone else. Father allowed her to do what she chose. He beat me for minor offences and smiled at her for much more serious ones. But I suppose she doesn’t realise what she is doing. A girl brought up in the cossetted, protected way that Euphemia was, knows nothing. If she had seen and heard what I’ve seen and heard at Cambridge she would understand the danger she is in.

  7 o’clock.

  Odd thing a couple of hours ago. I went into the kitchen to find Betsy and saw Mrs Yass laying out some herbs on the table. I asked her what they were and she said: Tansy and pennyroyal. I said I didn’t know they were ever used in cooking and she replied: That depends on what you’re cooking, don’t it?

  · · ·

  Earlier this evening I turned round suddenly in the parlour and saw Euphemia looking at me. An unguarded look of loathing for myself. I’ve never seen such open hatred. What can have provoked that?

  11 o’clock at night.

  Unpleasant scene after dinner. When we had had our coffee we repaired to the parlour and Effie began thumping away at the pianoforte—all the while complaining that her hands were too cold to play. And the instrument is out of tune. Well, we’ve thrown away the chance to remedy that by turning our backs on Mrs Paytress.

  I sat beside Mother on the sopha and opened my book while she began her embroidery. Euphemia was playing louder and louder and at last I went over and almost had to shout in her face: I can’t read while you’re making that row.

  Euphemia is so selfish. Nobody else matters when her pleasures are at issue.

  You can go and read in your room, she said. You spend enough time there. Heaven alone knows what you do. With those words she shot me such a look.

  You almost read too much, Mother murmured with threads dangling from her mouth so that I could not help thinking of a ferret with a rat in its jaws. You’re like your father who always had his nose buried in a book.

  On the rare occasions when he was at home, I thought, and sober.

  Then Euphemia said: People are more interesting than books, Richard. And you can’t put them back on the shelf when you’re bored with them.

  I said: I don’t ever find people uninteresting. On the contrary, I find them so fascinating and so highly-flavoured that after small helpings, I have to go away and chew them slowly and analyse the taste of them.

  Euphemia said: Chewing and swallowing! That’s a very revealing remark. You think other people are created just for your benefit!

  I said: That’s ironic. You’re the one who’s only interested in people for what they can do for you.

  Mother made a low noise of reproof, her mouth still full of thread.

  My words had stung Euphemia: That’s a lie. People do things for me because they like me and so they want to. Who has ever wanted to do anything for you?

  Are you suggesting that people don’t like me?

  Mother said: If you two are going to bicker I’m going to bed.

  Euphemia said: I’m not trying to pick a quarrel, he is.

  Mother said: That’s what you used to say when you were a little girl, but I said to you then and I will repeat it now: You are older than your brother and should know better.

  Effie said: Will you still be saying that when I’m fifty and he’s forty-seven?

  Mother looked shocked: I won’t be here to say it then.

  Effie said: You always punished me more harshly than him because I’m older.

 
; That isn’t so, Mother exclaimed.

  You always wished I had been a boy because that’s what Father wanted and what he wanted was always what you wanted.

  I can’t imagine why you say that, Mother said. She was still holding a needle in one hand and her glasses had slid down her nose. If anything, you were Father’s favourite even after Richard was born.

  And you didn’t like that did you, Mother?

  Mother started and said: Whatever can you mean?

  You were jealous. You always wanted to come between Father and me. You begrudged every moment of his attention to me.

  Mother put her hands over her ears and, when Euphemia stopped speaking, stood up slowly, letting her work fall to the floor. She said: I won’t be spoken to like that. She went slowly to the door and then turned: You wouldn’t dare to adopt that tone if your father were still alive. Then she walked out of the room.

  I said: That was cruel of you. Can’t you see how much pain you caused Mother?

  You’re a fine one to speak! You’re causing her pain just by being here. Just as you vexed and worried Father.

  How can you say that and at the same time claim that he preferred me to you?

  My dear Richard, I didn’t say he liked you more than me. (I hate it when she addresses me like that. So superior. As if she were a generation older than me.) But you were a boy. You were going to be Father’s heir and bring glory on all of us. Like Jacob you took your elder sibling’s blessing. And look how you’ve disappointed everyone. At least Father didn’t live to see it, though he guessed that you were not going to be the son he’d hoped for.

  That’s a lie!

  Not long before he died he talked of how your reports had always accused you of being dreamy and idle at Harrow. And he’d scrimped and saved to send you there. He feared you’d never make anything of yourself and his fears were confirmed when he found out that you were getting into bad company at Cambridge. Her voice almost breaking with sudden emotion she said: It’s no coincidence that he died shortly after that.

  I said: You must have invented something to discredit me. You always tried to turn him—him and Mother—against me. You told lies about me.

  She almost shouted: You yourself turned them against you! It was only when you showed yourself to be idle and dissolute that they began to found their hopes on me.

  It wasn’t my fault things went badly. Father sent me away to Harrow even though I hated it and begged him to let me go to school in the town.

  Father was determined to make a man of you. He hoped Harrow would do it and he was bitterly disappointed when it failed.

  Father never thought that.

  Yes he did. You don’t know what really happened. You were too young. Father loved me until you came along. As soon as you were old enough to amuse him, he lost interest in me. He had his beloved son at last. I was cast aside.

  I said: He shouted at me and beat me and he never did those things to you.

  That’s because he cared about what you would make of yourself. For years he hardly noticed me.

  That’s not true. He loved you. Look at how he played music with you. You’d inherited his aptitude for it and I hadn’t. He was furious with me for that.

  She said: Let me tell you something. From when I was nine years old Father always used to take me to choir practice but when you reached that age, he started taking you instead.

  But you’d almost turned twelve. It wouldn’t have been proper to take you to a place where there were only men and boys.

  It wasn’t that. He was so proud to have a son. And then you failed him so badly.

  That was enough. I walked out.

  · · ·

  Can Effie really believe it was such a privilege to have been sent to Harrow? My time there still haunts my dreams. The food, the boredom, and the beatings. And the thrashings by the masters were nothing compared to what the prefects and the other fellows inflicted on us little ones in the first years. Especially on the hated scholars.

  But most of all, Euphemia could not begin to imagine the things that happened in the Great Hall when we were locked in together at night—fifty boys of all ages with no master present. Many a time I fought to protect myself. Bartlemew, on the other hand, submitted without a struggle. What a sly, eye-on-the-main-chance weasel he was. Nobody trusted him and I was besmirched in the eyes of the other fellows just by dint of coming from the same town.

  · · ·

  Euphemia was always preferred by both Father and Mother. She was the firstborn and a girl and handsomer and more charming and musically gifted than I. Father treated her much more gently than me. He liked to have her with him. He found more occasions to be alone with her than with me.

  · · ·

  Those girls. Those lovely teasing girls. I can’t get them out of my thoughts.

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

  I am out in the fields and it begins to pour with rain. I find them sheltering under a tree. I lead them back here. They are soaked. In front of the roaring fire I encourage them to remove their dripping garments. Blushing, Enid takes off her blouse, turning away from me. She wraps herself in the towel I have given her. The younger girl is soon naked but holds her towel carelessly around her breasts and it hangs down just touching her belly. It’s as if she’s too young to know how much pleasure the sight of her sweet body gives a man. She says: But you’re wet too. She runs her hand across my trousers innocently. She notices the swelling. She says: Are you hurt there? She starts to unbutton me.

  Δ

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

  Saturday 19th of December, 11 o’clock.

  I came down late for breakfast and found Mother in a very strange mood. She seemed tense and was very quiet as if she had learned something ominous. I mentioned the noises we had been hearing and she said she thought they were caused by rats and asked me to buy poison today. I saw a letter on the table beside her but she made no reference to it.

  Noon.

  Reading after breakfast alone in the front parlour. Sounds of raised voices from the rear quarters. When Mother came in she explained what had occurred. Betsy had complained that she freezes all day because she has access to no heat apart from the kitchen fire and Mrs Yass sleeps in front of it, blocking it from her.

  Mother said she wonders what Betsy does when she is not working. She has no friends since she is not from this part of the country.

  I said: Perhaps she reads.

  She has never learned her letters. Euphemia promised to teach her though she seems to have forgotten.

  2 o’clock.

  Luncheon just over. A morning of ill temper. House full of hysterical or irritable females. What is it that Mother and Effie are arguing about? I often hear raised voices but when I enter the room they fall silent.

  4 o’clock.

  Odd thing today in the little shop. (Mother had given me 1s. 6d. to buy her needles, thread, and rat poison.) Mrs Darnton, the woman who keeps it, has a gaunt, watchful, intelligent face. She is tall and thin with a beaky nose and a mouth drawn into a grimace of disapproval. What must it be like to be born poor in this backwater but afflicted with a keen wit, and to be denied education? Clearly her unused intellectual capacity goes into inquisitiveness about her neighbours for she was deep in conversation with another woman of about the same age but her exact opposite physically: large and fat and blowsy.

  They were holding their heads together conspiratorially and speaking quite softly and did not notice that I had come in. Keeping far from the gaslight near the door, I lurked in a corner. At intervals the other woman would raise her head and incline it backwards in order to emit a harsh repetitive noise in her throat that I realised was a chuckle.

  I only heard scraps because they kept dramatically lowering their voices at the most critical moments:

  DARNTON: Must hate the earl’s dandified nephew . . .

  BLUBBER: Many and many a time I’ve heerd him with my own ear
s when he was in his cups a-telling of how he’d like to squeeze the last drop of blood from his guts and then strangle him with them.

  DARNTON: It must gall him to see everything go to his younger brother and be pushed aside by a Johnnie-come-lately just as Esau was. He must hate him. It stands to reason. And that’s why they say that it was he who . . . that night in Smithfield . . . fired at him . . .

  Blubber thumbed her nose with an expression of deep knowingness.

  At that moment I unintentionally rustled a newspaper and alerted them to my presence.

  Mrs Darnton demanded to know what I wished to purchase and when I said “rat-poison” she looked at me as if she thought I intended to murder the whole neighbourhood with it. Without taking her eyes off my face she called out: Sukey!

  Instantly a little crushed, washed-out dishclout of a woman hurried out from the back-premises—hunched back, scared eyes darting from side to side. Mrs Darnton barked out Rat poison! and the creature scuttled into a dark corner of the shop and returned with a tiny jar.

  I also bought a small box of honey and cinnamon sweetmeats to help me win Betsy’s trust.

  Memorandum: OPENING BAL: 10s. 1½d. RECT: (from Mother) 1s. 6d. EXP: Purchases for Mother: (11d.) and sweetmeats (4d.) TOTAL EXP: 1s. 3d. FINAL GROSS BAL: 10s. 4½d. (of which I owe Mother: 7d.). FINAL NET BAL: 9s. 9½d.

  · · ·

  Did I misunderstand? How can a man be disinherited by his younger brother? It makes no sense.

  ½ past 5 o’clock.

  What a blind stupid fool I have been!

  This afternoon I went towards Monument Hill and ran into the Quance sisters teetering along the path in their fashionable footwear.

  All Guinevere wanted to talk about was dresses and parties and of course the ball. Always that ghastly ball.

  Even Enid found her prattle tiresome and at last snapped: Hold your tongue and walk on.

  Guinevere said spitefully: You’re just sulking because Willoughby hasn’t called on us for ages and ages.

  Who is “Willoughby”? I asked.

  They both turned to me in surprise.