Feral Park (45 page)

“I am certain that he will be finished soon,” said Mrs. Pickler, soothingly. “I have never known my special clyster to fail.”

From the privy now came a great anguished wail, followed by a celebratory huzzah, and then within a brief minute the door was thrown open and brother was embracing brother, each weeping in the arms of the other to think of how long their separation had lasted and how they never believed that they should meet again. Tripp introduced his older brother Trapp to Anna and to Gemma. Anna thought that the two looked very much alike, although Tripp was more muscular and tawny. Trapp, though large-framed like his brother, had the pale and pasty look of one who did not eat well and kept himself from the sun.

Mrs. Pickler took Gemma to see her flitches in the curing house (a source of pride it was that the mistress of the house was able to feed so many undercover with her pigs), and Tripp receded to allow Trapp and Anna a few moments to speak to one another on a bench, although the brother was always standing within eyesight, grinning and proud.

“Mrs. Pickler tells me that there is to be a monkey parlour here in Payton Parish,” said Trapp.

“Aye,” said Anna. “In Berryknell. The work to fit the tavern has already begun. I suppose that a stage is to be built and that there will be a decoration of jungle fronds and such.”

Trapp nodded. “I am more than a little familiar with monkey parlours from all of them that I have visited in London in the course of burning them down.”

“How many have you destroyed in this manner, Mr. Trapp?”

“Seven. Each fully deserving of the torch.”

“Do you then know my cousin Charles Quarrels?”

“I know not only of the depraved man but something, as well, of his cousin Miss Henshawe, and what he has subjected her to there. I have gone to the Gracechurch Street parlour on more than one occasion to figure a way to rescue her, my heart breaking each time to see her dancing joylessly in the monkey fur, but she was watched far too closely for me to make an attempt. I decided, instead, that my only recourse would be to burn the place down just as I had all the others. Ironically, I was foiled in my efforts by the same man whom I now learn has purchased a stake in the parlour that is to be opened here in Berryknell. You see, as I waited for all to leave the establishment on the night of my arrest—for I will never put flame to a place if there are people inside who could catch fire as well—it was Mr. Quarrels who kept me loitering outside the longest. It was important for him, you see, to further humiliate Miss Henshawe after all the others had gone—to say this and that about her performance and how it could be improved or what parts of it could
never
be improved for she was, in his punishing words, ‘a stupid, ugly girl’—stupider and uglier than any he had ever known. I could hear the sniffling expulsion of her sad tears through the whole of the upbraiding. And yet there was nothing I could do but wait until after they had gone before I could light my fire. Once they were out of the building and I was creeping toward an opposite door to initiate my revenge on behalf of all the beautiful damsels who had suffered therein, I could see, out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Quarrels handling Miss Henshawe most abominably—tossing and whipping her back and forth with a strong arm—and I could not bear the sight of it, the potent spirits I had earlier imbibed further emboldening me. Without thought of the consequences, I flew immediately to her aid, detached him from her and then began to clout the beast over and over in the face until his girlish screams summoned those who would ultimately stay my hand and place me forthwith under arrest. I recollect that as I was being dragged away, Sophia Henshawe mouthed the words ‘thank you, my knight’—those very words! What delight I took in the fact that my act of chivalry had been so admiringly appreciated! And even though I thought that I would perhaps never see her again, her words gave me such joy and solace from that moment forward, providing me with the strength to face my end bravely, unlike so many I have seen who approach the gallows with kicking and weeping and begging and pissing and wet-soiling themselves such as to turn away the heads of the spectators in shame (and with some displeasure, for they had come to see a good, clean show). Happily, in my case, unforeseen circumstances—namely, a drinking party by several of the guards, which lost them their keys—allowed for my escape (and the escape of eleven of my runagate comrades), and it was not necessary for me to go to my death with Miss Henshawe’s thank-you a consolation to my demise.”

Trapp thought for a moment and then said with earnestness, “Do you think, Miss Peppercorn, that when Mr. Quarrels has been defeated, it would be possible for me to see Miss Sophia Henshawe again?”

Anna nodded, even though she could not imagine how such a re-union could be arranged nor even whether Sophia should wish to entertain the attention of a man of Trapp’s impoverished class and incendiary occupation, in spite of his most satisfying clouting of her hateful cousin.

“Whatever transpires, Miss Peppercorn, I would consider it a special privilege to burn down the Three Horse Tavern, Inn, and Monkey Parlour before a single girl in this parish is forced to demean herself upon its stage. I cannot tell you which would be the evening that the deed should be done, but I would prefer to perpetrate it on the very same night in which it has been decided here at the Pickler House that I am to make my cloaked departure from the parish.”

“Thank you, Trapp. There are many girls in Berryknell and Smithcoat and even upon the parish estates who will stand most gratefully in your debt.”

Approaching the two colloquists, Tripp added a word of his own: “You see now, Miss Peppercorn, that my brother is a good man with a good heart and soul, even though he be a felon.”

“And my brother Tripp is himself a veritable paladin!” responded Trapp, whilst throwing a fraternal arm round the shoulders of his sibling. “He has told me through the privy wall how he came to be thrown off Turnington Lodge. We are all knights and ladies of noble cause, and for my part I serve the commonweal by burning things down. What could be more elemental than that?”

At that moment Mrs. Pickler and Gemma came round the rear buildings, accompanied by a young man with a strange face. As he drew nearer to Anna, she could see that in addition to possessing a retreating chin that receded even more than the usual amongst Englishmen, he had a harelip in nearly the same formation and placement as Miss Pints’. Mrs. Pickler introduced the man to Anna as her nephew Samuel Denny, who articulated slightly better than Miss Pints, perhaps through longer practise and slightly less reserve. Still, there was a tendency, no doubt, from years of odd looks, to cover his mouth slightly when he spoke. “My nephew has something which he wishes to ask you, Miss Peppercorn, if he may.”

“Please ask whatever you wish, Mr. Denny,” replied Anna cordially.

“I have heard that you are to have a ball for ugly people,” said he.

“We do not use the word ‘ugly,’” interjected Gemma with a correction. “We say ‘ill-favoured’ or ‘of less agreeable countenance than the usual.’”

Mr. Denny nodded.

“But never ‘ugly’ or ‘hideous,’ nor will we allow the odious phrase, ‘she was attending the necessary when God passed out the good looks.’
That
we would simply never tolerate.”

“I believe that Mr. Denny has taken your point, Gemma,” admonished Anna.

Mrs. Pickler turned to her nephew and clasped her hands together. “I told you that you need only ask!” and then to Anna and Gemma: “He has never been to a ball or to
any
assembly for that matter. Most of his thirty and two years have been spent within these area gates tending the pigs or listening rapt to the stories of the fugitives who come for a brief time and then disappear into the black night. The fact that he wishes society with others in such an open and courageous fashion gives me great hope that his time for hiding from the world is perhaps drawing to a close.”

“I suppose I
am
more confident now,” said he.

“Then take your hand down from your face.”

“But I look like a cony.”

“You cannot look so much like a cony, Samuel, that you will not go to the ball and dance and be merry. You must start from this moment forward to keep the hand to your side, even if it is required that the other hand be employed to hold it there. Oh, Anna, you must ask Mr. Colin Alford to teach my nephew a step or two.”

“And I shall,” said Anna, who, now thinking of Colin Alford, was immediately brought to mind of Colin’s older brother Perry, who now resided somewhere within the house across the yard.

Mrs. Pickler seemed to read Anna’s face: “The Alford brothers are in my dressing-room, which I have fitted as a healing room for young Perry so that he may be kept under close watch. Do you wish to see him?”

Anna had been about to ask for this very thing and was most amenable to the preemption. She nodded and followed Mrs. Pickler back into the house. Gemma remained to give Mr. Denny an early lesson of her own in the figures of one of the contra-dances that were popular that year. Tripp and Trapp, expressing interest in learning a step or two themselves, first required the establishment between them of whom should be the man and whom the woman. The door, therefore, was shut on disputatious brotherly voices and Gemma’s “one-two-and-turn,” but thereafter these sounds achieved a state of dull external chatter, which did not infringe in the least upon Anna’s attendance to her next, most somber duty.

Slowly, Mrs. Pickler led Anna up the creaking back stairs to her private apartments and then into a dark room in which the curtains had been drawn and a candle or two lighted. It took a moment for Anna’s eyes to adjust to the fact that all sunlight had been banished from the little room. Then slowly a picture began to form itself before her gaze. It was this: Colin Alford seated next to the bed in a stiff, slatted chair, his oldest brother Lieutenant Wallace Alford leaning against the mantel-piece, with his arms folded one over the other, and there on the bed the brother who meant the very most to her: the sick-faced and thin, panting, seething, wild-eyed brother whom still she loved in spite of his frightening look. One leg was chained to the footboard as if he were a prisoner, which, in a very real sense, he was.

“You have no right to do this,” the captive whispered hoarsely and with muted rage to no one in particular. “No right at all.” Then turning upon Mrs. Pickler’s entrance he said the thing again, directing the words to her and her alone, and offering them with a look of unalloyed contempt that raised goose flesh upon Anna’s arms and legs. A brief moment later Perry must have noticed that there was a second person standing in the darkness, situated slightly behind the mistress of the house. He squinted and cocked his head. Was it a servant come to bring him something odious to take into a stomach that presently was having nothing come down that was not immediately sent directly back up the pipe? But it was
not
a servant. It was none other than Anna Peppercorn— Anna, who looked small and meek and sad and did not know what to do with her hands, so she swung them nervously at her side like a funny walker. At the moment of recognition the expression on the face of Perry Alford changed to one of deep, torturous injury—an injury which went so deep, in fact, as to touch the very core of his soul; it was the look of one who had been betrayed by one he had greatly trusted, and betrayed in the most grievous way thought possible.

“Is that you, Anna?” asked the patient in his raspy whisper. “Aye,” replied Anna in a voice as soft-spoken as his own.

“Are you come to rescue me?”

“We are
all
rescuing you, Perry. Each of us. That is why you were brought hither.”

“Bull-shite! My brothers have brought me hither for one reason only: because they do not think a man has the right to live and die in the manner of his own chusing. They think that somehow they
own
me—that they have lease upon my very life. But they do not. Nor do you. If you are not come, Anna, to unlock this chain and take my hand and walk me out of this criminal house, then I have no more need for you.”

“Then I shall not stay. I have come only to tell you—” The words that succeeded were marshaled with great difficulty, for Anna had never said them to anyone but her father and once or twice to her Aunt Drone, and then only in a familial context. “I have come to tell you that I love you. And that I endorse every thing that is being done here to preserve your life. You may hate me for it now, but I pray that when the journey is over, you will come to love me in return.”

“I will love you
only in hell
, Anna Peppercorn!” the patient bellowed and fell back upon the bed in anguish. “Give me something! I am dying! Give me anything! I will sniff a poppy!
You
are killing me! Killing me! You bastards! Malignant, maleficent bastards!”

Anna could not hold back her tears. She fled from the room and into the vestibule and into the arms of one of the buxom servant girls, who held her tightly and consolingly and petted her hair whilst she cried as she had never before cried in all of her life. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Pickler came out and took Anna into her own generous arms and said, “We will keep him here for as long as is required—perhaps for several weeks. The worst is what comes first. Then it will be better. You were brave to come and see him, and I think that your presence here was the very best thing for him. He will remember that you came and
why
you came. He will have time to think upon this once the initial delirium has run its course. If you wish, you may come back in a couple of days, but understand that opium does not let go of a man willingly. It is a long road—that road which lies ahead. If your love for Mr. Alford does not desert you, he will heal faster with you at his side.”