Rustication (21 page)

She marched right past.

I turned back and half-ran towards her but she must have heard my footsteps because she glanced round and then she and the girl began to walk very fast. I stopped and resumed my way.

10 o’clock.

I think Old Hannah believes I am the madman who was at the Edwards farm that night. Was it a mere coincidence or does the perpetrator lurk along the lane at night and follow me?

· · ·

During dinner I had such a strange fancy. I looked at my mother and sister and thought:
These people are strangers. If I had met them for the first time today I would not wish to know them
.

A ¼ past 11 o’clock.

I can’t throw off the feeling that something malign is coming nearer and nearer. And in this house at the end of a promontory, I’m trapped. There is only that single lane back to the road. Unless there is a way to cross the marshes to the south-west.

If I were to attempt it, it would have to be at low-tide. If that story of the mad bride is true, however, to venture into that marsh is to embrace a muddy death.

A ¼ to midnight.

I think I’ve worked out Mother’s hiding-place: her ever-present work-basket.

· · ·

2 o’clock in the morning.

Wicked ugly foul perverted filth! I wanted to tear it up and burn the pieces and take the ashes out of the house and throw them into the mud where such foulness belongs. I almost wept to think of poor Mother reading such words.

Is that what is being said?
Every day!

When everyone was asleep I crept downstairs and found the work-basket on the sopha. At first I could discover nothing but then I noticed a hidden pocket containing some coins and the letter.

The Harrow allusion explains Mrs Quance’s interest. And why Effie believes Bartlemew is the author. But I think the name implies “one who harrows” or “harries”. Bartlemew could not be so well informed about Mrs Paytress and the Quances. And besides, he would certainly not have written such an illiterate letter.

Is it a man or a woman?

The letters are sent to women and defame and abuse that sex which implies female authorship, although the language and attitudes are unwomanly.

(I wonder, however: Did old Fourdrinier receive one? He asked me if I had had
A letter from someone I don’t know
.)

What I might call the “strategy” the writer is using is to defame one person to another because while people will conceal allegations against themselves, they will pass on charges against their neighbours.

· · ·

I’ve just managed to make out that the postmark is Thurchester. I need to know if letters handed in locally are franked here or there.

Who are the possible authors?

Nr 1.) Betsy. Yet Mother said she is unable to read or write.

Nr 2.) Mrs Yass. She departed in fury and the first letter arrived not long after that. But she has left the district so she would have no way of knowing what is going on here.

Nr 3.) Old Hannah. She hears everything and is a bloodhound for scandal.

Nr 4.) Mrs Darnton or her miserable slave at the shop, Sukey.

But the assaults on animals and the slogans—they must be part of the same wicked campaign, and a woman out in the fields at night would attract too much notice.

So is it after all a man?

[This is the next of the anonymous letters relating to the case and it is addressed to Mrs Quance.
Note by CP
.]

Thursday 31
st
of December, 11 o’clock.

F
ound an opportunity to test Betsy. I left a volume of Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
on the table and sat down. When she came into the room I said:
I think there’s a book I want there
.

She picked it up and began to walk towards me but I said:
No, tell me its title
.

She stopped dead and looked at me strangely and then said:
I have not learned my letters, sir
.

Of course, that might not be the truth. If she is writing those letters, pretending to be illiterate is the best disguise.

1 o’clock.

Have just done the most reckless thing of my life and nearly died in the attempt: I tried to find a way across the marsh.

The weather was perfect for it—an icy sunlit day with a bright hard light. I could see the road to Upton Dene a few hundred yards away. I found no stepping-stones but could place my feet on the tussocks. The stench of decaying seaweed and brackish water was overpowering. The ice in the puddles cracked under my feet like a glazed cake and only in some places was thick enough to bear my weight. But for that I would have slipped deep into the slough. As it was my legs kept sinking and finding no
terra firma
, and then I was forced to go back and try another route.

At the furthest point I reached I could see firm ground only twenty or thirty yards away but the marsh that lay between us offered nothing that would bear my weight. So I turned back. I thought I was retracing my steps precisely but I must have made a mistake for suddenly my left leg sank up to the knee and kept on sinking. I moved my right leg forward to keep my balance and that, too, began to descend and the mud reached the top of my boot before I managed to lean sideways and grab a clump of vegetation from a tussock. Luckily it held and for some time—ten seconds? a minute?—I hung there feeling the tug of the quagmire and wondering if I would be dragged into it. Then I slowly began to pull my right leg free of the tenacious loam and eventually I succeeded in manoeuvring my foot onto the tussock so that as I straightened up, I was able to lever my trapped leg up from the grip of the marsh.

· · ·

2 o’clock.

After cleaning my boots I went to the shop. Mrs Darnton grew distinctly cool when I asked her some questions: What happened to a letter that was handed in? Did she frank them herself? Stared at me as if she thought my wits were distracted. Of course not. They are taken back by the chaise that brings the mail and are franked in Thurchester.

I had had my quota. She is a tall woman with black eyes and looked rather terrifying when she said:
That’s enough questions, Master Shenstone. Is there anything you wish to buy?

6 o’clock.

Every receiving-house in the district must be on the watch and so it’s virtually certain that the letters are posted in Thurchester and probably into the box outside the main office.

But who has the means to do that? Not Betsy or anyone else I can think of!

A ¼ past midnight.

I joined Mother and Euphemia in the parlour for our special dinner with the bleakest of expectations. Betsy was taking charge of the meal with occasional assistance from Mother who had purchased a small capon—already killed and plucked, thank heavens!

Mother started talking about the New Year’s Eves of her childhood. She was more loquacious on the subject than I had ever heard her. (She had mysteriously found another bottle of wine despite having assured me at Christmas that we were drinking the last one.) She recounted how she and her mother would put on their very smartest clothes and set out from their little cottage on the outskirts of the town. I had never heard her speak of it before and asked her where it was.

She said
Trafalgar Row
and then seemed to regret the words. She hurried on:
I was given such a beautiful silk gown and I wore it for my visits
.

She and her mother would call on her aunts and uncle at their big old place in Trinity Square:
It was called Mulberry House and was the townhouse of the Herriard family and had been in their possession for more than a hundred years
. They would be led up to the dining-room and Mother would go round and curtsy and kiss each of the old creatures and then be sat at the table and fed nuts and sweetmeats.

This annual ritual ended when she was twelve. The old people were dying one by one and Cousin Sybille did not keep up the tradition.

She talked of how her ancestors had been among the biggest land-owners in the district and, fixing me with her (slightly unsteady) gaze, said:
Richard, never forget that you are a Herriard
.

Euphemia said angrily:
Why is it of any importance who our forefathers were? What matters is what we make of our own lives
.

Mother looked really frightened and said no more on the topic. Euphemia has always cared about rank. Why is she saying these things now?

The dinner turned out to be dreadful: the capon over-cooked and the carrots and potatoes underdone. When the girl came to take things away Mother followed her into the passage and I heard her giving her a savage telling off for her carelessness. The next time Betsy brought dishes to us she had her head down and when she raised it I saw her sullen expression. It looked to me as if she had been crying. When the others weren’t looking I caught her eye and smiled at her and she seemed to brighten.

We somehow got through a long ill-tempered evening and then, just as we’ve always done, we went into the hall to listen for the old clock striking midnight. It was cold and draughty. On the twelfth stroke we all kissed each other.

I wonder if Mother and Effie were thinking of the contrast with last year. God alone knows if the new year will be better than the old one. I don’t imagine that it could be worse. A shame to have to begin it with dinner at the Greenacres. I will not waste my breath trying to talk intelligently to Quance: Fine words butter no parsons.

1 o’clock.

Of course, Mrs Darnton herself could add a letter to the post-bag before it went to Thurchester without anyone knowing. And she hears everything in that shop. There was that fat woman I saw her gossiping with who was obviously a rich source of scurrility and slander. The one who seems to know things about Davenant Burgoyne and his half-brother.

Friday 1
st
of January, 4 o’clock in the morning.

T
hat little glimpse of a smile that Betsy gave me. That woebegone little face. Thought I’d go and cheer her up.