Feral Park (14 page)

“Not a word. The young woman is most troubled over something which she will not divulge. We cannot pull it out of her and so all that we
can
do is arrange transport for her back to her home in Ibthorpe. It is a sad occasion. She was most loved by the girls, and Lady Jane and I are quite fond of her, as well. Miss Peppercorn, know you any young women of approximately your age whom you may wish to recommend for the position?”

Anna shook her head.“I know only of Miss Younge, who is visiting Thistlethorn from Bath. But she seems satisfied with her present situation there.”

“But you will let me know if any other candidate becomes known to you? Youthful, like yourself, as I have said and…” (with a wink,) “it would not hurt if she were equally well-countenanced.”

“I will, sir, indeed,” said Anna with a blush.

Tipping his hat: “It was a pleasure to see the both of you. And now I shall go, and leave you, Mrs. Taptoe, to your letters. One looks to be of particular interest.”

“Yes, yes!” said Mrs. Taptoe, having segregated one from the others and now holding it to her breast. “It is from my son!”

“Do you mean your son-in-law in the village, Mrs. Taptoe?” asked Anna. “Mr. Mallard?”

“Oh, no, no, no! My son—my true son—whom I have not seen for fifteen years!”

“Then to your letter, by all means,” concluded Sir Thomas, and then again tipping the brim of his hat: “Good day to you both.”

Mrs. Taptoe was so fixed upon the letter that she did not think to accompany Sir Thomas to the door. That task was left to Anna.

Before departing, Sir Thomas whispered to his escort, “I would have staid for a bit longer, but I could see that the letter was important and would occupy our friend’s every thought until it was opened and read.
You
should not quit the woman, however, lest its contents prove unsettling and she require consoling or steady counsel.”

“Yes, you are right, Sir Thomas. I shall remain, and be of whatever service is required.”

When Anna returned to the parlour, she found that Mrs. Taptoe had collapsed with flayed limbs into one of the room’s tiny chairs. The letter lay littered upon the floor, one page alone still clutched between her fingers. She had not fainted, for her eyes were still open and blinking, but the body was limp.

Anna flew to her side. “Auntie! Dear Auntie! Are you unwell? Umbrous Elizabeth! Come at once!”

Anna patted Mrs. Taptoe gently upon the face in an attempt to bring the patient to a state of communicativeness. Umbrous Elizabeth entered the room half-undresst, her stays untied, her skirts rimpled, her hair blowsy and out of sorts. Anna did not feel that it was the time nor was it her place to admonish the servant for her unkempt appearance. Had she not called her with great urgency, leaving little time for the young woman to make a proper toilette? But, Anna wondered, whatever could a maid-servant have been doing in the middle of a work-morning to present herself in such a state of disarrangement? The answer came by a jut of the head of Mrs. Taptoe’s man Tripp through the door which led to the dining parlour. He was naked above the waist, his blouse bunched in hand. “How is my lady? Is the situation dire?”

“She will be fine,” said Umbrous Elizabeth, kneeling next to her employer, and rubbing the old woman’s hands briskly between her own.

“Have you ever seen her in such a state before?” asked Anna.

Elizabeth nodded. “My lady does not faint. She collapses, instead, into chairs and stares with a glassy gaze until she can be brought round. Look—she is coming back to us already.”

“And you say she has done this before?”

“’Tis an infrequent occurrence, miss. Something in that letter did it. Take the blooming letter and burn it, I say. For her own good.”

“No, no, no!” cried Mrs. Taptoe, coming now fully to her self. “It is joy and joy alone that has put me in this state. Mercy, Elizabeth, your right teat is nearly exposed! Can you and Tripp not confine your love-play to the sundown hours when I have less use for a fully-clothed servant girl?”

“Beg your pardon, ma’am. I did not know that you would have further need of me with the tea things already brung in, and so I slipped off for an afternoon romp. And then Miss Peppercorn called and there was little time to cover me impetuous teats!”

Tripp nodded his concurrence. Try as she may, Anna could not avert her eyes from Tripp’s own teats and the muscular he-chest that formed the landscape about them. She coloured and the fine-looking male servant, taking notice, smiled in spite of the gravity of the moment. Thought Anna, “He will surely think that I fancy him now and I most certainly do not. Still he draws the eye most assuredly. I must compose myself. I must pretend that he is not even there, lest Umbrous Elizabeth misinterpret a casual diversion of the eye to be an act of brazen poaching on my part.”

“Yes. You are right,” said Mrs. Taptoe. “You are a good girl and know what is most important. Lace yourself up now and be gone. I must have a private counsel with my niece.”

After Umbrous Elizabeth and Tripp had quitted the room and Anna had gathered the pages of the letter together—pages which had fluttered apart as Mrs. Taptoe had passed into an apoplectic stupor—the latter addressed her guest with pure, unalloyed happiness: “He has written me a letter, dear Anna! My son Maurice from whom I have not heard in fifteen years has written to me! It is remarkable! I had taken him for dead many years ago.”

“But where has he
been
these many years?”

“In America! I cannot even fathom it. He says here that he went to sea and then settled in Philadelphia where he has worked as first a tinsmith’s apprentice and then as a tinsmith himself. It is all within the letter. I will give you the gist of it as I read it more carefully.”

“But how ever did it find you?”

“Look at the envelope, my child. There are a great many strikings. It last went to my daughter Guinevere and to her credit she has sent it on to me. I think better of her now. I would have formerly thought that she would put it out with the rubbish. She cares little for me, and from what she has said about Maurice, leaving us all so many years ago, she cares even less for her younger brother. But all has come out right!” (Reading,) “‘Dearest Mother: this letter must come as a great surprize to you, for you must think me dead.’” (To Anna,) “Did I not just say that?” (Returning to the letter,) “‘I at times thought myself dead. I have been shipwrecked not once but twice and upon one occasion cannibals had all but set their plates with me as the second course!’ Oh, dear, dear me, Anna. I cannot tell if he is pranking or if such a thing could be true!”

“I suppose that it
could
be true. I have heard of men who feast on the flesh of other men.”

“I shall skip ahead. ‘I left the King’s navy as an ensign and started life anew in America. I was married to a girl but she died of yellow fever. I courted another girl, who left me for a different suitor, and then a third individual, who to my misfortune I discovered to be married. I loved this person most terribly, Mother, and our love did not respect the vows of fidelity taken at the altar. It brought to mind your own situation—the situation which caused me at age fifteen to leave home, determined never to return. I must admit, Mother, that I would not have forgiven you your own trespass, had I not found myself similarly wooed by a most violent and all-consuming love for one whom I could not wed without destroying a good and solid marriage. I now realise that I have been most cruel in my assessment of
you
, dear Mother. But I will make amends. I plan to return to England by Michaelmas and will devote myself for the remainder of our lives together to earning your forgiveness for my severe departure and for all the years that I have estranged myself from you and from your love and support.’ Then he goes on to tell me other things that have happened to him over the course of the last fifteen years and says how much he misses England. And he says a thing or two about the uncouthness of American manners and how much he should like to have a meat pudding, which he cannot get there. Then there is a joke or two, which I do not understand—they must be American jokes—and he concludes the missive by telling me again that he will be home in early autumn by the very latest and he asks that I write to him immediately should the letter find me. Oh, dear Anna, I should get pen and paper and write to him at this very instant. I do not even know what I should say. Will you help me with the letter? Oh, but you must return home soon with James or risk being accosted by the gipsy tatterdemalions without his protection.”

“Perhaps we may finish the letter more quickly than you estimate.”

“No, there is simply too much that should be said. Expressing the depth of my love alone should take four pages. My word! I have it! Release your man James to return to Feral Park and I will send you off with my man Tripp when we have done. He will not mind the return trip in the dark, for he is stalwart. Do you subscribe then, my dear, to what is shaping itself into a perfect scheme to keep us together for a few hours more?”

“Yes, Auntie. The plan is a very good one.” But Anna was not thinking at all about the “plan.” Instead she was recollecting how Tripp had stood within the parlour, without his shirt and without an ounce of shame over the deficiency.

The hope for the letter being completed in time for Anna and Mrs. Taptoe to call on the three brothers in the other Turnington Lodge rental cottage did not come to fulfillment. Anna had wished—privately, of course—that the two might finish the letter to Maurice Taptoe and put the afternoon to a second purpose that should have a bit more to do with
Anna
and a bit
less
to do with a prodigal Taptoe son in whom she had little personal interest at that moment, except for that born of inevitable curiosity.

As the afternoon progressed, the curiosity took a more secure, and finally a most impertinent hold of Anna, and supplanted every other thought. What was the “violent love” about which Maurice Taptoe had written? And what was the trespass that had created such anger within his heart toward his mother? Had Mrs. Taptoe broken her marital vows with another man? Who could that man have been? Mrs. Taptoe answered none of these questions in the letter, which she dictated to Anna (because she preferred Anna’s hand to her own; hers she described as “chicken scrawl—My foot could do better!”). And so Anna was left to ponder whether or no these questions could be put with any success to her father, who seemed to know every misdeed and moral misstep perpetrated within the parish and perhaps even the whole county!

“Oh, look at the time by my little Dutch clock!” remarked Mrs. Taptoe, as the sun had begun its descent within the early evening sky. “At least the letter is finished, and, my dear, I am much indebted to you for helping me. You are an admirable girl—and I should think of you warmly as my own daughter, were ‘niece’ not a comfortable enough appellation for the present.”

With a frown: “But we did not visit the young men! Oh, bother. You must come back to-morrow and we will do exactly that.”

“I regret that I cannot on the morrow. I must go with Gemma to Moseley Manor to speak with the Misses Henshawe and Mrs. Henshawe.”

“Yes, you had mentioned that
their
cause is become your own. I will wish you very good luck, my dear, for they are not handsome young women—sweet dispositions, each of them, but not handsome in the least, bless their souls. You, on the other hand, are most beautiful, and look at you! Is there no one you wish to bring close to your heart but a clerk at the solicitor’s office who is given to drooling?”

“Who told you that Mr. Waitwaithe was a drooler?”

“I heard it said by Mr. Groves, the milliner and tailor, who heard it from Mrs. Prowley, who had spoken to your friend Gemma.”

“Is the parish populated only by shameful gossips?”

“Perhaps so. Yet, my dear, do not lose my point: drooling is not a trait to recommend a young man. I advise you to look elsewhere.”

“My heart is my very own business, Auntie. Forgive my insolence.”

“I do not interpret insolence in the statement. You are a girl who knows her own mind and I fully approve the trait. May I ask you, though—”

With some wariness: “Yes, Auntie?”

“If you have ever been kissed?”

“That is a rather forward question I should think.”

“Ah, but is the dwarf cottage not the sanctorum for forward questions?”

Anna could not disagree with all that had been asked and answered therein; yet she did not dare to pose the question that was most burning upon her own lips: “What was done by you fifteen years ago, my dear auntie, which drove your only son away from you?” She simply
could
not. She was much too fond of the old woman. Yet that same old woman was now putting a query to her of nearly equal impertinence, and the unfairness of the equation rankled her.

“Come now, my dear. ‘Tis a simple question. Have you or have you not at least once been kissed?”

“In what way do you mean?”

“With romantic intention, of course!”

“No, madam, I must report that I have never been kissed in the manner you describe.”

“Oh, dear, dear. I find that you are a most proper and upstanding girl in
every
way imaginable.”

“You say that as if it should be deemed a demerit.”