Rustication (25 page)

Lucy ran towards the vehicle calling out for help and her father gave the reins to a man-servant beside him and jumped down holding his whip.

Lucy clung onto him and cried out:
Master Shenstone has insulted me and laid hands on me. He has accused me of being the defamator
.

Lloyd raised his whip and advanced towards me. I stood my ground and he lashed the whip at me so that it kicked up the pebbles at my toes. He said:
If you ever come near my daughter again I will swear out a warrant against you
.

I told him calmly that his daughter was a liar and a mischief-maker and it was she who stood in need of a good whipping and not I.

He flushed and said:
I won’t take that from a member of your family—
a family that has displayed such degraded behaviour that it has earned them notoriety over the entire county
.

I was so stung that I said:
Do you know that the whole district believes you have debauched your daughter?

He lowered the whip in surprise. Then, defying him to attack my undefended back, I turned quickly and walked away while he shouted insults after me.

· · ·

So all the evidence points to that grotesque charge being true: She and her servant are lovers. She must be one of those women who are drawn to the uncouth, the savage, in a man.

I can hear Mother calling me to get ready for Morning Service. Damn. Damn. Damn.

½ past 1 o’clock.

We had almost reached the church when, as we passed Mrs Paytress’s house, the hideous goblin who I now believe is her lover stepped forward from where he had been waiting by the gate. I stared at him and the image came into my mind of his gnarled hands on her body, his pitted cheeks pressed against her soft skin. He put into Mother’s hands a note which she opened and then showed us:

Dear Mrs Shenstone,

I beg you to forgive the unconventionality of my request and spare me a few minutes of your time.

Most respectfully yours,

Jane Paytress

Mother hesitated but Euphemia pointed out that after the open conflict with Mrs Quance, we had nothing to lose by going into the house in the full sight of all the district’s churchgoers.

Mrs Paytress received us in her drawing-room. I could hardly bring myself to meet her gaze in the light of what I now know. She said she was desirous of giving us an explanation of her character and her conduct because we were the only persons in the neighbourhood whose good opinion she valued. She realised that she had in some way forfeited it and lost the opportunity to count us as friends and she believed that that had happened because we had been led to believe false stories about her that were in circulation. She wished to lay before us the facts.

For a moment I believed she was going to confess to her
amour
with the man-servant. However, this is the story she told us:

I suffered the double misfortune of being an heiress and of seeing my parents die while I was still young. They left me with material riches but without the protection of competent guardians. My wealth made me prey to a much older man—worldly and charming—who was looking for a rich wife. I married without provision being made for my independence
.
All too soon I understood the truth about my husband and I became extremely unhappy. He turned out to be a violent drunken gambler and worse than that. Eventually I managed to flee taking my jewels which, in the eyes of the law, now belonged to him. I lived under a new name because I had to hide from my husband. There was another factor which is too painful to talk about. I will merely say that it vastly increased the difficulties of my situation
.

What did she mean? That she became the earl’s mistress? That she had fled with her lover, the servant?

I sought refuge with an old friend in Salisbury. I raised money from the sale of the jewels and together we founded a school. Recently my husband’s mental faculties so far deteriorated that he was made a ward in Chancery and I was able to salvage some money from the wreckage of his estate. I sold my share of the school and moved here. In the last couple of weeks I have learned that my husband has died. I can now call myself a widow and return to my legal name—Mrs Guilfoyle
.

I said:
Why did you come to this neighbourhood?

She looked surprised:
Because of the sea which I have loved all my life. I grew up on the coast of Suffolk
.

I said:
You knew nobody here?

I heard Mother muttering reproachfully.

No. I had an acquaintance in Thurchester but nobody closer than that
.

Was that an allusion to the earl?

I asked:
What do you know about the anonymous letters that someone has been sending?

Both Mother and Euphemia cried out in protest at my words. Mrs Paytress said:
I’ve received two myself
.
I destroyed them immediately
.

How very convenient!

Then she fastened her gaze on me and started saying that whoever was writing them was deeply unhappy. The letters were intended to inflict pain and that was a sign of the agony that their author must be feeling.

I decided to spare her nothing. I said:
The servant who brought us here just now
,
I happened to see him out in the fields late last night. Do you know what he was doing?

She looked at me with feigned surprise.
I haven’t the least idea. My servants’ free time is their own. Are you accusing him of something?

I said:
Are you trying to protect him? Do you know what is being said by your neighbours? About your relations with that man?

I apologise for my son’s conduct
, Mother said rising to her feet.

When we were outside she and Euphemia turned on me and said the harshest things. I swung round on my heel and walked home.

I think she came here to be fucked by the earl and when he’s not fucking her she settles for her servant.

· · ·

Harry—or Richard if that is what you now prefer

What a surprise to hear that you wrote to me. I can’t say it was a pleasant one. You were always happy to toady after me at school, but back home you pretended you didn’t know me. Why should you when your dad was a Canon of the Cathedral and mine was a poor bousy schoolmaster?

Well, how do you like it now your governor’s dead and your mam’s as poor as mine? I suppose you blame me for all of that. I wish I could take the credit for the fall of the House of Shenstone. You were always laughing up your sleeve at everyone else. You thought you were so superior. See how high-minded you can be now that you’re a friendless beggar.

And don’t pester my mother again.

B

Spiteful, vicious, carping sneak. This is his response to a perfectly amiable overture from myself.

If I’m going to be sure that Mrs Paytress and not Lucy is the writer, I need to see more of the letters. I must get the one old Bittlestone talked about. Assuming it exists. If she offers some excuse for not being able to produce it, that will be evidence that
she
is the author.

· · ·

I suppose you blame me for that
. What does he mean? Mother and Effie certainly blame him for something.

· · ·

4 o’clock.

I obtained it from the old woman easily enough. I knocked on the door of her little hovel and walked straight in. She was horrified to see me. I found I could hardly breathe. The smoke blowing back from the fireplace stifled me and I choked. I can’t imagine how she can endure to live like that.

I just told her bluntly what I wanted. She looked at me in such terror that I thought she was going to admit that it never existed. But she turned and opened a drawer. She brought out a wooden box and it seemed to be full of her treasures. A miniature on a chain. What looked like a legal document. A dried flower. A faded visiting-card. A large yellowed invitation with a dance-card tied to it with a piece of ribbon on which three names only had been written out of a dozen dances. Several letters tied up in ribbon. She removed one of them and handed it to me. All the while she was nodding her head at me like a demented hen.

· · ·

What can I learn from this hate-filled eruption?

That monstrous calumny against Lucy. I now think it rules her out as the author. She could not write such a thing unless she were completely depraved. But then whoever is writing these letters must be depraved. And yet there is nobody in the district who shows signs of the seething inferno of hatred that must be bubbling beneath the surface.

I can make no sense of the reference to “Pursniffle”.

There is so much about “fucking” that I think the author is a female who is trying too hard to sound like a man. If it’s not Lucy it must be Mrs Paytress. And her servant-beau!

But why write such libels? And attack animals?

½ past 6 o’clock.

I have wronged her, thank heavens. She is as innocent as the new-fallen snow. I have found out the truth! The foolish old crone has exposed herself. And only to save the price of a stamp.

Mother insisted we attend Evensong since we had missed the morning service. As we reached the gate into the churchyard, the Quances were converging on it slightly ahead of us on their way from the Rectory. Though they must have seen us, they walked straight past without turning their heads in our direction like a line of soldiers on parade. Once inside the gate we saw the Bittlestone creature standing forlornly as if waiting for them on the path to the church, but they ignored her and marched past without breaking step. The old thing, as if pushed aside by the wake of the Quances’ passing, washed up beside us like a dead leaf against the river-bank.

Mrs Quance won’t speak to me
, she wailed to Mother and without prompting told us how her patroness had come back from the dinner at the Greenacres’ and instantly ordered her out of the house.

Then the old coot started whining to Mother about how I came to her cottage that morning and took the letter.

Mother ordered me to return it immediately. Seeing a look of alarm on the old woman’s face she said:
But you must never go to Miss Bittlestone’s cottage again alone
.

She invited the old creature to tea on Tuesday. She could have the letter back then.

I had a flash of inspiration. I said:
One thing, Miss Bittlestone. Would you be good enough to bring the envelope that it came in?

She looked dismayed and said:
I’ve probably thrown it away
.

Then it came to me in an instant: There is no envelope because she did not post the letter! She wanted to save the money for the stamp. She wrote out the letter to show around but she had not spent the tuppence to post it to herself! I have her!

In the earlier letters she attacked Mrs Paytress in order to please her patroness. Then she libelled Lucy because she was a rival of Enid’s. She lives her life on the droppings from the tables of others and must resent her treatment—for all her appearance of unassuming humility. Now that the Quances have rejected her, she turns on them.

How could I have been so foolish as to think Mrs Paytress was behind the letters?

The old woman hurried on ahead. As soon as we were out of her hearing Mother said:
I am very annoyed with you for what you did to that poor harmless creature. You must have terrified her
.

I said:
Has it occurred to you that Miss Bittlestone might be responsible for these letters?

She stared at me in astonishment. Did she think I might be right?

As we entered the church, heads turned and I distinctly heard a voice I did not recognise say in a loud whisper:
Rotten fruit falls from a rotting tree
. Why did they all look at me like that? As if they knew a terrible thing about me? I heard muttering on all sides. I noticed among the congregation the farmer I had seen watching me when I found the fetish. He was pointing me out to his neighbours and I guessed what he was saying.

Mrs Paytress entered a moment or two after the service had started. She glanced around and I tried to catch her eye to send an apology and it seemed to me that our gazes locked together for an instant but she quickly turned and took her place in her pew. What a fool I had been to suspect her. Virtually to accuse her to her face. I burn with shame at the memory.

While the congregation was singing, I stared at the mouths opening and shutting around me and they seemed to me to be so many dead bodies, yawning pits for mouths, worm-mouths drawing in food at one end and expelling excrement from the other, corpses in their Sunday best.

Then a dramatic interruption. Halfway through the service a female in servant’s costume entered the church and slipped up to Mrs Paytress’s pew and said something to her. She turned and I saw an expression of alarm on her face before she lowered the veil and hurried out with the woman behind her.

½ past 8 o’clock.