Feral Park (23 page)

At half past five Anna’s aunt arrived, along with her companion Miss Pints, for a stay of perhaps a fortnight or slightly longer. From Feral Park they would travel on to Eastbourne, where, by twelvemonth custom, they planned to take holiday lodgings near to the water.

Anna was present to greet her aunt’s carriage with a curtsey and a kiss upon both cheeks, although the curtsey was not necessary since Miss Drone did not stand by such ceremony amongst members of the same family. Looking about the hall, the aunt nodded in agreement with herself. “Yes, it is exactly as I remember it: palatial yet conversely intimate and inviting. These shall be a most happy and restorative two weeks and perhaps a few days more. Miss Pints! Miss Pints! Where is your sheep?”

Miss Pints had befriended a sheep, which she had named Mr. Hodges (though it was a ewe), and when it was dead from anthrax she had it stuffed, and the man who did it was subsequently infected with anthrax of the skin, his arms and hands covered with black carbuncles. He came to the Drone house in Salisbury and said with some irascibility born of the infection, “Look at what your sheep has done to me. Look at what Mr. Hodges has done to my arms and hands and a place upon my ankle where I thoughtlessly scratched an itch, and I think that I shall never be the same again.”

“I am most sorry to hear of your predicament,” Miss Drone had replied with a squint and a down-turned mouth to indicate sympathy for a man she hardly knew, “but I must ask for the sake of my companion that you have the pelt thoroughly cleaned before it is mounted and brought over, for I do not wish anthrax upon Miss Pints through your carelessness.” The interview had taken place at the front door, and hearing the gruff voice of the animal skinner and thinking that he may come inside and spread his anger about with pushes and shoves, Miss Pints had fled to the kitchen, where she curled herself into a frightened ball between the cupboard and the sideboard and would not produce herself again until she was assured by Miss Drone that the impolite man was gone.

“It is all right, my dear,” Anna’s aunt had finally said, in soothing tones whilst lifting the spindle-limbed minikin to her feet. “The coast is clear, and Mr. Hodges will be delivered—with a fully-laundered pelt—in time for him to be taken with us to see my brother-in-law and niece in Payton Parish, and will that not be lovely? Mr. Hodges will ride with us, atop the carriage with the luggage and the freight, and he will enjoy the privilege of viewing the most beautiful countryside in all of England excepting the northern half.”

“Nay! Inside!
Inside!
” protested Miss Pints with a nasally tone resulting from her fissured palate and lip.

“Then inside the carriage it shall be,”replied Miss Drone with a complaisant sigh and without further pursuit of the delicate subject.

Within moments of her arrival at Feral Park Miss Pints had placed Mr. Hodges up stairs in her guest apartment, so that when it came time to introduce the stiff and lifeless animal to Anna and her father it was not immediately available.

With some prompting, Miss Pints finally responded that Mr. Hodges was to have his rest first and then he would be more than happy to entertain guests.

Apropos of this reply, Mr. Peppercorn, who always required a day or two to learn anew how to translate what Miss Pints was conveying through her cleft, turned to his sister-in-law and whispered, “I did not get a word of what the young woman just said.”

Miss Drone explained Miss Pints’ meaning to Anna’s father and to Anna, as well (for she was also curious about the sheep), but suggested that perhaps the human guests should eat first since the only sustenance that had been taken by the travelers over their full day’s journey had been a bit of cheese and some overly ripe strawberries sold at roadside by a blind girl whose olfactory faculties did not compensate for the deficiency in her sight. “And perhaps after supper, Brother, Anna and you may view the ewe.”

“A capital plan, Miss Drone, for I am hungry, too,” said Mr. Peppercorn. As the four strolled into the dining parlour, father asked daughter if the afternoon had been a productive one and daughter riposted that it had been a spanking good afternoon to be sure, and father did not apprehend the pun therein.

That evening after all had retired, Anna crept up to the servants’ floor to knock upon the door of the room occupied by Miss Leeds, her personal maid. “Miss Leeds, may I intrude upon you for a moment or two?” asked Anna through the door.

“Of course you may, miss,” came the reply. “Do come in.”

Miss Leeds, who was wearing her sleeping smock, was seated at her table playing patience with the cards.

“I have always wondered what you do each night after I dismiss you. Sometimes it is quite early and I know that you do not know how to read.”

“No, miss, I do not read but Mr. Peppercorn will sometimes lend me a picture book or two to bring to bed with me. He is most generous with his books.”

“Aye. May I sit?”

“Why, of course you may, miss.”

“Please sit yourself, Miss Leeds.”

“Should I make us tea, miss?”

“No, no. I will not detain you for long,” said Anna, looking about the tiny room, which she could not recall having ever visited before. “It is quite small, is it not?”

“An’t small for
me
, miss. Not for a lady’s maid. Would be small for a housekeeper, but fits me perfectly fine.”

“I should like to call you Flora, if that will suit you, Miss Leeds. I know that we agreed you should be Miss Leeds from your fortieth birthday…”

“And I’m still most grateful for the change, miss. It sets me apart from all them younger girls.”

“Yet if it poses no difficulty for you—because I intend to speak more intimately with you over the next few minutes than our usual—‘Flora’ would serve better.”

“I’ve no objection to it, miss. And can I, in turn, call you by
your
Christian name?”

“I am afraid that you may not, Flora. We shall not be
that
intimate.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Oh, look: that jack goes upon the queen.”

“Yes, miss. Thank you kindly, miss.”

“I have not the patience for patience.”

“I am quite fond meself of solitary card games. They pass me long nights quite well. The cards and the picture books, and sometimes…” (with a confidential whisper,) “…one of the other girls comes in and we chin-chin right up to bedtime.”

“Tell me, Flora, do you speak on occasion to
other
servants in the parish, not just the ones who work for my father and me?”

“I am acquainted with a good many of them, I am. I see them at church and round the village on their sundry errands.”

“And governesses as well?”

“Governesses, miss?”

“Yes, Flora. Do you ever have cause to speak with any of the governesses in the neighbourhood?”

“Not so very often, miss. A governess is a different sort of servant. She don’t generally lower herself to chin-chin with lady’s maids.”

“And yet, was there not a particular governess who until quite recently worked for Sir Thomas and Lady Jane at Turnington Lodge? Her name, I believe, was Miss Pulvis, and I have been told that she fled that house and that she spent a few succeeding minutes sobbing in your arms in Berryknell village. Is there any truth to this report?”

“Yes, miss. There is truth. I offered me shoulder to her in her moment of need.”

“And did she give you the reason for that sudden flight? Did she tell you why it was that she had to leave in such a terrible hurry and in such a wretched state?”

“She did, miss.”

“Have you sworn an oath not to disclose what she said to you?”

“I don’t recollect that she asked me to swear an oath, miss.”

“Then may I know what was said?”

“’Tis important for you to know?”

“Most important, Flora, for I have delivered my new friend, Miss Younge, under my own auspices, to Turnington Lodge to serve as the new governess there, and now I find myself entertaining doubts sufficient to regret the application of my offices for this purpose—doubts which may either be fortified or dismissed upon my learning the details of Miss Pulvis’ own hasty departure.”

“It’s a fair request, it is, miss. I’ll tell you then what she said happened to her, but you must do something for me in return.”

“How curious! What is it that you require, Flora?”

“That for a minute or two, or maybe three, I should be allowed to call you by
your
Christian name. I should like to see what it feels like to have ease of address with someone so high above me own station.”

“But Flora, my dear, it simply is not done.”

Miss Leeds tightened her brow and drew in her lips. “It
will
be done here and now, miss, or I shall keep mum about what was said by the poor forlorn creature. I shall not even tell you the colour of her bonnet!”

“Flora, I find this insolence from you to be quite extraordinary.”

“Still,it is a small thing for one such as myself to ask,and its accommodation, miss, here within these walls, would never be known without. You may think of yourself as being in a play, if it helps the pill to go down easier.”

“I should play then, a mistress who has lost her mind, yet remains amiable.”

“If you wish, miss.”

Anna sighed. “Very well, then. I will go along with it for a brief moment or two.”

“Thank you, miss.” (And then, correcting herself,) “Thank you,
Anna.
Now,
Anna
, shall I tell you each thing what was said to me through those falling tears?…
Anna
.”

“Yes, but you need not abuse the privilege I have just granted you, Flora. No one speaks to another by saying the name of the other person over and over again to the point of ridiculousness.”

“Aye. It was a silly request.”

“No truer words were spoken.”

“I have a different request, then, to replace it.”

“Flora. This is most trying.”

“’This one is even better than the first, miss. I have just now decided that I should like to be called for the next minute or two, or three, ‘Lady Leeds,’ or simply, ‘Your Ladyship.’”

“Flora, I could never accommodate such a request. It is appalling.”

“But I have never been called such a thing before, miss, and it would delight me to no end.”

“I refuse to call you Lady Leeds. It is an abomination of title.”

“Then I will not tell you what you wish to know. And furthermore, I will to-morrow report to your father that you have not taken a clyster since you were fourteen years of age—not even the week you went five days without an evacuation and became fractious and insulting to all of the servants and not just to myself, who begged you either to take a clyster or to eat a large bowl of dried fruit to move the stubborn stools, and you chose to do neither.”

“But Flora, I simply will not—regardless of your threats—lower myself to call you something that you will never be. The request is preposterous.”

Miss Leeds rose from her chair and began to walk about the tiny room thinking and saying things that came to her: “Miss Peppercorn. Do you ever wonder how easily fate could have put me
here
,” (pointing to the queen of clubs,) “and you
there
?” (pointing to the two of spades) “An’t you not where
you
are, miss, only because of the family into which you was born, and an’t I not where
I
am by a different act of—of—

of—”

“Of random fate? The answer to your question is no, Flora. For to have been born into
my
situation you would have had to have people not so very unlike my mother and my father for your parents—individuals of high breeding. I know not who your parents were, but I cannot believe that either of them could have been any thing but of
low
station.”

“Yet a man may be very smart and still of low birth and therefore never permitted to meet any purpose in his life other than that to which he is—is— is—”

“Relegated?”

“Yes, ma’am. Likewise, there are those of the gentry like your mother—” Miss Leeds checked herself. She did this in a very obvious way by throwing her hand up to her mouth as if she had suddenly and foolishly allowed an invective to escape her tongue.

“My mother? Yes, Flora? What was it you were about to say about my poor, long-dead mother?”

“Simply, miss, that she wasn’t—I will put this gently, miss—she was not the brightest flame in the candelabrum. But this you already knew.”

“You are saying, Flora, that my mother was stupid.”

“I an’t saying that at all, miss. Begging your pardon and with all due respect, miss, I’m saying that your mother was
below
stupid. As you perhaps do not recall, miss, I came hither to Feral Park a year before your mamma’s trampling death by them horses, and during that year it was as clear to me, as it was to all the others what served the Park, that Mrs. Peppercorn had perhaps the mind of a six-year-old child, and this guess may be—may be—may be—”

“Overly charitable? What a nasty, odious, loathsome woman you are to say such things! How dare you speak of my deceased mother in such contemptible terms? You will quit Feral Park on the morrow for such insubordinate and detestable speech!”