Rustication

by Charles Palliser

I asked: Where is the young lady?

  He turned and glared at me and delivered the breathtaking words: What damned business is that of yours? Any more than it was your business to find out where I live?

  He glanced—I assume involuntarily—towards the north-east and there, about a hundred yards away, was the girl and she was coming towards us. She stopped and then turned her back and began to walk very fast the way she had come.

  Then the most extraordinary thing: He said: Do you hope to stir my pot? Is that what you’re thinking, young fellow? You take me for a limp brush?

  I must have stared at him like a madman myself. I felt that the obligations of social intercourse were suspended and so, without another word to the old booby, I turned and ran after the girl. He called out furiously: Sirrah!

  She glanced back and saw me and quickened her pace. By now I had become excited by the chase and, furious at the old rascal’s discourtesy, I threw propriety to the four winds.

  After twenty or thirty paces I came alongside her. Please don’t be alarmed, I said. There appears to have been some misunderstanding. She walked on quickly, looking behind her. The old man had dropped the tool and was scurrying towards us on his fat old legs.

  Then she spoke: Wut the ell djoo want wiv me?

  It was the accent and language of the London streets—the lowest and meanest of its most abject rookeries. The contrast between the delicacy of her features and the coarseness of her voice was so striking that I stopped dead.

  She turned back and began to hurry towards the old man. I let her go. The scales had fallen from my eyes. The girl is certainly not the old scoundrel’s niece. But what does puzzle me is what has occasioned this sudden change in his attitude towards me. And what the devil he meant by that letter he was talking about.

  10 o’clock.

  After dinner Mother said that we had to have a serious talk. She began by addressing Euphemia: Richard and I have discussed his intentions for the future. He intends to start earning his living by . . .

  She interrupted: That’s all very well, but what is going to happen about his debts? Who is going to pay them?

  I said: I will. If you will have the courtesy to allow Mother to speak, she will explain how.

  Mother went on uneasily: Once my claim to my father’s estate has succeeded, there will be no difficulty in paying all our creditors.

  So I’m to see a part of my inheritance given up to pay his debts? My birthright sold like Esau’s for a mess of pottage. She paused and then with an angry smile asked: Did Uncle Thomas say anything in his letters about settling with Richard’s creditors?

  Mother and I exchanged a look and Euphemia said: Oh, weren’t you going to tell me? You see, I met Old Hannah on her way here this morning and asked if there were any letters and while she was rummaging in her box, I saw them.

  There was no escape. Mother showed her the letter Uncle Thomas had sent her and she read it several times and then asked Mother to explain what his proposal was. When she had heard it she turned to me: This is a magnificent offer. It means you can leave all your mistakes behind you and start a new life.

  No regret that her brother would be on the other side of the world! (And how dare she refer to all my mistakes!)

  It’s not much of an offer, I pointed out. I’d be away from England for many years and I’d be nothing more than a mere clerk.

  But with wonderful opportunities. You must know how many young men went out as penniless clerks and came back as millionaires.

  Well you go and spend the rest of your life in some remote colony, I said.

  I would if I were a man! But why do you say “the rest of your life”? When you’ve earned enough to pay off your creditors, you can return.

  I could never return. Not after fleeing abroad to escape my creditors. No gentleman could face the shame.

  You should forget all those notions. Nobody cares now who someone’s father was. Only what talents he has and how hard he works.

  Who has she been talking to? That note of sansculottism is a striking change of tune. This is the girl who grovels and curtsies to a title at every chance! The girl who is risking everything to catch herself an earl! Is there something I have failed to understand?

  Then she said: Mother, Richard must accept immediately. She turned to me: When are the sailing dates?

  I said: A few weeks.

  Well, when? she demanded. Before or after the ball?

  What an extraordinary remark! What does it matter? I said.

  It matters a great deal, she said. You can’t leave before then.

  Go and fetch the letter, Mother ordered.

  I hurried up here to get it and then read out to them: “On Thursday 14th January The Hibernian Maid departs from Southampton bound for Newfoundland. The Caledonian Maid sails from Rye, after being refitted, on Saturday 16th January for Hong Kong.”

  Then there’s no difficulty, Euphemia pronounced. The ball is on the 9th.

  Mother seemed as surprised as I did at the idea that the course of my entire life should depend on the date of a ball.

  But I’m not going to accept Uncle Thomas’s offer, I said. Mother and I have agreed that I will follow another course.

  And what is that? Euphemia asked sarcastically.

  I will become a literary journalist!

  Her eyes widened in amazement. (Quite the actress!) I explained what I had said to Mother while she listened impatiently.

  You’re deluding yourself, she said, interrupting me before I had finished. To earn your living by your pen at seventeen! Without even a degree! Do you have any conception of how difficult that would be?

  I said: Mother agreed that I could do it.

  What does she know about it? She turned to Mother: You know nothing about the world outside the cloisters of Thurchester Cathedral.

  She spoke with such unveiled contempt that Mother started as if she had been struck. How dare you take that tone with me.

  Well it’s true. All you’ve ever thought about is running a house and looking after us. Father could never talk to you about anything serious. Anything that he really cared about.

  That’s a wicked thing to say.

  He admitted it himself. You never understood him properly. You never helped him when he was persecuted by the mediocrities who hated him because they could never match him.

  I think you’re exaggerating, Mother said.

  Are you saying he imagined it? Euphemia demanded. You know that Father made enemies—as he used to say himself, “effortlessly”—because people envied him, and if you’d understood that better you could have saved him from what happened.

  That wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t I who did those things. He chose to do them.

  I’m not going to deny that he didn’t make mistakes but he only made them because you failed him when he needed you.

  Mother stared at her and then rose and walked stiffly out of the room.

  When the door had closed behind her, Euphemia said: You’re like Mother. You delude yourself about what is really happening. You’re not going to make me suffer for your stupidity.

  I said: What mistakes? Are you referring to his accounts? How could any of that have been Mother’s fault?

  She crossed to the pianoforte and began to play vengefully.

  ½ past 11 o’clock.

  She must have felt it. She must have known what it was. She cannot be so innocent. It must have felt like a finger prodding her even through her thick dress. The thought that she knew what it was is gratifying. If she hadn’t known she would have looked round to see what it was. She is interested!

  · · ·

  Mother and Betsy have been busy in the kitchen much of the day preparing for Christmas. It’s like a pale ghost of the old times with all the servants scurrying around and the holly and mistletoe everywhere and the comings and goings and the making up of the Christmas boxes.

  Midnight.

  From my room I can just see Euphemia’s window and, I think, Betsy
’s above it. I have just noticed the candle being extinguished behind the curtains in Effie’s room. Then exactly four minutes later the candle went out in Betsy’s room.

  Thursday 24th of December, 11 o’clock.

  Mother caught me on my own after breakfast and told me that she now believes that my hopes of starting a literary career are “absurd”.

  Between hacking coughs that shook her thin shoulders in their threadbare covering, she said: Your sister is right. You would starve in London. You must take up Uncle Thomas’s offer. Otherwise, what will become of Euphemia and me? I want to live long enough to see my children comfortably settled. I don’t want to be a contemptible dependant like Miss Bittlestone—patronised by people like Mrs Quance.

  I said: Uncle Thomas’s proposal is a sentence of transportation.

  There is no argument about it, Richard. You must accept. And he requires a reply within the next couple of days.

  And what if I won’t?

  You’re my child, Richard. I bore you and raised you and have loved you and it would be tearing you out of my heart by the roots if I had to sacrifice you, but I warn you that under certain circumstances I would do it. Then she left the room.

  2 o’clock.

  At luncheon Mother calmly announced to Effie and me that she had taken an important decision without consulting us. Boddington had written this morning to say that since she was determined to go ahead with the Chancery suit, she should sell part of the claim for a share of the costs. I had no idea such a thing was possible but it seems there is a market for actions at law as there seems to be for everything else. She now told us that she had written immediately giving him instructions to do that and had posted the letter in the village this morning.

  Effie just shrugged. I said nothing.

  ½ past 6 o’clock in the evening.

  I can hardly write for anger.

  I had passed the end of our lane and got some way towards Stratton Herriard when I saw a tall man approaching me walking with a limp. It was clear from his handsome surtout and beaver hat that he was a gentleman of means. I recognised him from his height and when he had passed me I turned round and, keeping about twenty yards to his rear, I tagged him along the road wondering how to approach him. Since I was behind him I could not come up to him face-to-face. I had followed him for only about two hundred yards when he suddenly swung round and lunged at me. Before I knew what was happening he had gripped me by the shoulders and spun me around so that he was behind me. He twisted my arms so that I cried out in pain.

  You damned cur! Why are you following me? Who paid you? To my astonishment he started searching my pockets with one hand. Are you carrying a firearm?

  I said: Certainly not!

  He wrenched me round to face him and shouted in my face: I have one and I warn you, I will use it if I need to. Then he said: I won’t be taken for a sitting duck a second time.

  When he had satisfied himself that I was not armed he thrust me from him.

  With as much dignity as I could muster, I said: I believe you are Mr Davenant Burgoyne.

  He said: You know damn well I am but who in the name of the devil are you, sirrah?

  I told him he had mistaken me for someone else. I said My name is Shenstone. Richard Shenstone.

  What’s that to me?

  I’m sure he was pretending not to know the name. He must have recognised it. Damnable coxcomb.

  I said: I’m the brother of Miss Euphemia Shenstone.

  Effie, eh? he said with a sneer. Are you, by God? What do you want to make of it? He studied me for a few seconds and then turned away.

  This was not at all what I had expected—or had the right to expect. I said: Sir, I am a gentleman and entitled to courtesy from another. And moreover, you might have recognised from my name that you and I are related, albeit very distantly.

  The devil we are, was all the courtesy that speech elicited.

  I persevered: My mother is the daughter of the late Nicholas Herriard, Esquire.

  Then he halted and turned to me with a thin-lipped smile: Well, Master Shenstone, I took you for some low sneaking fellow. But now that I understand you are the grandson of Nicholas Herriard, Esquire, I realise that I have not done you justice.

  We began to march along the lane together in the most absurd manner quite as if we were partaking of a companionable stroll. I was wondering what to say. I must be wrong about him and Euphemia for surely even the most arrogant aristocrat could not be so offensive to his prospective brother-in-law. In that case, how do relations between him and Effie stand?

  Then he said—almost as if he meant his condolences to be taken at face-value: I heard of the sudden death of your much-respected father and regret that I never had the honour of meeting him, but then I don’t remember ever finding myself in The Dolphin Tavern.

  The name meant nothing to me at the time. But when I thought about it afterwards, I remembered that I have heard Bartlemew mention it as a place he frequents.

  Davenant Burgoyne and I proceeded in silence for a few yards while I wondered how to respond, and then he said boorishly: Are you following me?

  I have no desire to impose my company upon you, sir, I said with dignity.

  I slowed my pace. He strode on ahead of me and after a few minutes turned up the path towards Upton Dene. I looked at his gait as he walked away and I was struck by how much more marked his limp was now than it was a few days ago.

  I can’t imagine why he was in such a funk. Could he really have believed that a complete stranger—met by chance—meant to take his life?

  I was marching along in a complete daze when, as if waking from a dream, I found myself suddenly a few feet from the Quance girls.

  Guinevere said: What a surprise!

  She smiled pertly and I know the sly little miss was implying that I had contrived to meet them. Her sister stared at me coldly.

  I don’t know why I didn’t pass them by without speaking except that I am drawn to them as to something that both hurts and gives pleasure.

  Are you on patrol? Guinevere asked, glancing at my walking-stick.

  Why should I be? I asked.

  She studied my face with an intensity that was insolent and yet rather gratifying. You haven’t heard what has happened to set the whole neighbourhood by the ears?

  I shook my head.

  You truly know nothing of what some wicked person is doing to poor harmless beasts?

  On my honour. Are you saying that animals are being killed?

  No, not killed. (A quiver of excitement in her face.)

  What then? Harmed?

  Yes and in a special way, Guinevere said and then laughed.

  Was she laughing from fear or pleasure? And what could she possibly mean by “a special way”? I wanted to ask, but when I saw Enid giggling with spiteful glee I remembered that I had promised myself to have no more to do with them. I quickly took leave of them with the barest minimum of formality and walked on.

  They seemed not to know that Davenant Burgoyne was in the district. Odd. Is Enid out of the running?

  As I walked through the village in the twilight with the girl’s words ringing in my head, the world I had thought I knew began to metamorphose: the slumbering hills, clumps of trees, and dark shapes of houses that had seemed so safe and familiar, became the hidden lairs of some unknown and evil passion. Where the houses ended, the undifferentiated fields lay on either side of me under their coverlet of snow. By now the sun had slipped out of sight and the wind whistled through the hawthorn bushes like a sigh from the end of the world.

  I was almost at Stratton Herriard when I saw two figures ahead of me in the near-darkness. I caught up with them before I realised they were Mother and Miss Bittlestone and because Mother was carrying some packages, I was about to signal my presence and take them from her when I heard her say something which made me fall back and walk behind them:

  Like his father he falls into black depressions in which he spends time by himself and do
es not answer when spoken to.

  Miss Bittlestone said something I didn’t catch and then Mother went on: He’s never made friends easily—and when he does, he chooses them badly.

  At that moment we arrived at the turning to our house and they both stopped. I hailed them as if I had just reached them. Mother asked the old hen to come and celebrate the season with a glass of punch but Miss Bittlestone happily explained that she was on an errand for the Quances in Upton Dene. She then chattered boastfully about how she was spending Christmas with the Rector’s family as usual. I took Mother’s parcels from her and when we arrived home she laid out their contents on the table in the parlour together with the results of a day of baking. So there were all the things she used to prepare in the drawing room at Prebendary Street: mince-pies, mulled wine and punch for the men and fruit cordial for the choirboys, candied fruit, and so on.

  This is very lavish. Are we expecting the waits? I asked.

  Of course, she said with a tired smile. It’s Christmas Eve.

  9 o’clock.

  At about seven o’clock while we were eating our supper we heard the distant sound of the band approaching down the road from Stratton Herriard. I looked at Mother’s face. This meant so much to her: recognition that we were back in the clerical fold. The thought that she cared so much that a mere rural Rector and his swinish wife should consider us to be worthy of their attention is upsetting. But it was not to be. After a few minutes it became clear that the sounds were getting fainter and I saw on her face her growing dismay at the humiliation and the waste of money that could ill be spared. The church-band and choristers had taken the fork that led to Netherton.

  Don’t they know that this house is now inhabited? Mother said.

  I was sure I detected the hand of Mrs Quance in this. It was a signal that we were not yet wholly accepted. More penance would be required. I was angry with Mother for caring so much.

  After supper I got Betsy alone in the passageway to the kitchen and asked: Have you heard talk of anything strange going on? To do with animals? Something nasty?

  You mean cutting off their ballocks, sir? she said boldly looking straight at me. Was she smiling?