Bernard: She must be delighted to have Hannah Jarvis writing a book about her
garden.
Valentine: Actually it's about hermits. (Gus returns through the same door, and
turns to leave again.) It's all right, Gus - what do you want? - (But Gus has gone again.) Well. . . I'll take Lightning for his run.
18
Bernard: Actually, we've met before. At Sussex, a couple of years ago, a seminar . .
.
Valentine: Oh. Was I there?
Bernard: Yes. One of my colleagues believed he had found an unattributed short
story by D. H. Lawrence, and he analysed it on his home computer, most
interesting, perhaps you remember the paper?
Valentine: Not really. But I often sit with my eyes closed and it doesn't necessarily
mean I'm awake.
Bernard: Well, by comparing sentence structures and so forth, this chap showed that there was a ninety per cent chance that the story had indeed been written by the
same person as Women in Love. To my inexpressible joy, one of your maths mob
was able to show that on the same statistical basis there was a ninety per cent
chance that Lawrence also wrote the Just William books and much of the previous
day's Brighton and Hove Argus.
Valentine: (Pause) Oh, Brighton. Yes. I was there. (And looking out.) Oh - here she comes, I'll leave you to talk. By the way, is yours the red Mazda?
Bernard: Yes.
Valentine: If you want a tip I'd put it out of sight through the stable arch before my
father comes in. He won't have anyone in the house with a Japanese car. Are you
queer?
Bernard: No, actually.
Valentine: Well, even so.
(Valentine leaves, closing the door. Bernard keeps staring at the closed door.
Behind him, Hannah comes to the garden door.)
Hannah: Mr Peacock?
(Bernard looks round vaguely then checks over his shoulder for the missing
Peacock, then recovers himself and turns on the Nightingale bonhomie.)
Bernard: Oh . . . hello! Hello. Miss Jarvis, of course. Such a pleasure. I was thrown
for a moment - the photograph doesn't do you justice.
Hannah: Photograph?
(Her shoes have got muddy and she is taking them off.)
19
Bernard: On the book. I'm sorry to have brought you indoors, but Lady Chloe
kindly insisted she -
Hannah: No matter - you would have muddied your shoes.
Bernard: How thoughtful. And how kind of you to spare me a little of your
time. (He is overdoing it. She shoots him a glance.)
Hannah: Are you a journalist?
Bernard: (Shocked) No!
Hannah: (Resuming) I've been in the ha-ha, very squelchy.
Bernard: (Unexpectedly) Ha-hah!
Hannah: What?
Bernard: A theory of mine. Ha-hah, not ha-ha. If you were strolling down the
garden and all of a sudden the ground gave way at your feet, you're not going to go
'ha-ha', you're going to jump back and go 'ha-hah!', or more probably, 'Bloody
'ell!'... though personally I think old Murray was up the pole on that one - in France,
you know, 'ha-ha' is used to denote a strikingly ugly woman, a much more likely
bet for something that keeps the cows off the lawn. (This is not going well for
Bernard but he seems blithely unaware. Hannah stares at him for a moment.)
Hannah: Mr Peacock, what can I do for you?
Bernard: Well, to begin with, you can call me Bernard, which is my name.
Hannah: Thank you.
(She goes to the garden door to bang her shoes together and scrape off the worst of
the mud.)
Bernard: The book! - the book is a revelation! To see Caroline Lamb through your
eyes is really like seeing her for the first time. I'm ashamed to say I never read her
fiction, and how right you are, it's extraordinary stuff- Early Nineteenth is my
period as much as anything is.
Hannah: You teach?
Bernard: Yes. And write, like you, like we all, though I've never done anything
which has sold like Caro.
Hannah: I don't teach.
Bernard: No. All the more credit to you. To rehabilitate a
20
forgotten writer, I suppose you could say that's the main reason for an English don.
Hannah: Not to teach?
Bernard: Good God, no, let the brats sort it out for themselves. Anyway, many congratulations. I expect someone will be bringing out Caroline Lamb's oeuvre
now?
Hannah: Yes, I expect so.
Bernard: How wonderful! Bravo! Simply as a document shedding reflected light on
the character of Lord Byron, it's bound to be -
Hannah: Bernard. You did say Bernard, didn't you?
Bernard: I did.
Hannah: I'm putting my shoes on again.
Bernard: Oh. You're not going to go out?
Hannah: No, I'm going to kick you in the balls.
Bernard: Right. Point taken. Ezra Chater.
Hannah: Ezra Chater.
Bernard: Born Twickenham, Middlesex, 1778, author of two verse narratives, 'The
Maid of Turkey', 1808, and 'The Couch of Eros', 1809. Nothing known after 1809,
disappears from view.
Hannah: I see. And?
Bernard: (Reaching for his bag) There is a Sidley Park connection. (He produces
'The Couch of Eros'from the bag. He reads the inscription.) To my friend Septimus
Hodge, who stood up and gave his best on behalf of the Author - Ezra Chater, at
Sidley Park, Derbyshire, April 10th 1809. (He gives her the book.) I am in your
hands.
Hannah: The Couch of Eros'. Is it any good?
Bernard: Quite surprising.
Hannah: You think there's a book in him?
Bernard: No, no - a monograph perhaps for the Journal of English Studies. There's
almost nothing on Chater, not a word in the DNB, of course - by that time he'd been completely forgotten.
21
Hannah: Family?
Bernard: Zilch. There's only one other Chater in the British Library database.
Hannah: Same period?
Bernard: Yes, but he wasn't a poet like our Ezra, he was a botanist who described a
dwarf dahlia in Martinique and died there after being bitten by a monkey.
Hannah: And Ezra Chater?
Bernard: He gets two references in the periodical index, one for each book, in both
cases a substantial review in the Piccadilly Recreation, a thrice weekly folio sheet, but giving no personal details.
Hannah: And where was this (the book)?
Bernard: Private collection. I've got a talk to give next week, in London, and I think
Chater is interesting, so anything on him, or this Septimus Hodge, Sidley Park, any
leads at all... I'd be most grateful.
(Pause.)
Hannah: Well! This is a new experience for me. A grovelling academic.
Bernard: Oh, I say.
Hannah: Oh, but it is. All the academics who reviewed my book patronized it.
Bernard: Surely not.
Hannah: Surely yes. The Byron gang unzipped their flies and patronized all over it.
Where is it you don't bother to teach, by the way?
Bernard: Oh, well, Sussex, actually.
Hannah: Sussex. (She thinks a moment.) Nightingale. Yes; a thousand words in
the Observer to see me off the premises with a pat on the bottom. You must know
him.
Bernard: As I say, I'm in your hands.
Hannah: Quite. Say please, then.
Bernard: Please.
Hannah: Sit down,
do.
Bernard: Thank you.
(He takes a chair. She remains standing. Possibly she smokes; if so, perhaps now.
A short cigarette-holder sounds right, too. Or brown-paper cigarillos.)
22
Hannah: How did you know I was here?
Bernard: Oh, I didn't. I spoke to the son on the phone but he didn't mention you by
name . . . and then he forgot to mention me.
Hannah: Valentine. He's at Oxford, technically.
Bernard: Yes, I met him. Brideshead Regurgitated.
Hannah: My fiance. (She holds his look.)
Bernard: (Pause) I'll take a chance. You're lying.
Hannah: (Pause) Well done, Bernard.
Bernard: Christ.
Hannah: He calls me his fiancee.
Bernard: Why?
Hannah: It's a joke.
Bernard: You turned him down?
Hannah: Don't be silly, do I look like the next Countess of-
Bernard: No, no - a freebie. The joke that consoles. My tortoise Lightning, my
fiancee Hannah.
Hannah: Oh. Yes. You have a way with you, Bernard. I'm not sure I like it.
Bernard: What's he doing, Valentine?
Hannah: He's a postgrad. Biology.
Bernard: No, he's a mathematician.
Hannah: Well, he's doing grouse.
Bernard: Grouse?
Hannah: Not actual grouse. Computer grouse.
Bernard: Who's the one who doesn't speak?
Hannah: Gus.
Bernard: What's the matter with him?
Hannah: I didn't ask.
Bernard: And the father sounds like a lot of fun.
Hannah: Ah yes.
Bernard: And the mother is the gardener. What's going on here?
Hannah: What do you mean?
Bernard: I nearly took her head off- she was standing in a trench at the time.
Hannah: Archaeology. The house had a formal Italian garden
23
until about 1740. Lady Croom is interested in garden history. I sent her my book -
it contains, as you know if you've read it - which I'm not assuming, by the way - a
rather good description of Caroline's garden at Brocket Hall. I'm here now helping
Hermione.
Bernard: (Impressed) Hermione.
Hannah: The records are unusually complete and they have never been worked on.
Bernard: I'm beginning to admire you.
Hannah: Before was bullshit?
Bernard: Completely. Your photograph does you justice, I'm not sure the book
does.
(She considers him. He waits, confident.)
Hannah: Septimus Hodge was the tutor.
Bernard: (Quietly) Attagirl.
Hannah: His pupil was the Croom daughter. There was a son at Eton. Septimus
lived in the house: the pay book specifies allowances for wine and candles. So, not
quite a guest but rather more than a steward. His letter of self-recommendation is
preserved among the papers. I'll dig it out for you. As far as I remember he studied
mathematics and natural philosophy at Cambridge. A scientist, therefore, as much
as anything.
Bernard: I'm impressed. Thank you. And Chater?
Hannah: Nothing.
Bernard: Oh. Nothing at all?
Hannah: I'm afraid not.
Bernard: How about the library?
Hannah: The catalogue was done in the 1880s. I've been through the lot.
Bernard: Books or catalogue?
Hannah: Catalogue.
Bernard: Ah. Pity.
Hannah: I'm sorry.
Bernard: What about the letters? No mention?
Hannah: I'm afraid not. I've been very thorough in your period because, of course,
it's my period too.
Bernard: Is it? Actually, I don't quite know what it is you're . . .
24
Hannah: The Sidley hermit.
Bernard: Ah. Who's he?
Hannah: He's my peg for the nervous breakdown of the Romantic Imagination. I'm
doing landscape and literature 1750 to 1834.
Bernard: What happened in 1834?
Hannah: My hermit died.
Bernard: Of course.
Hannah: What do you mean, of course?
Bernard: Nothing.
Hannah: Yes, you do.
Bernard: No, no... However, Coleridge also died in 1834.
Hannah: So he did. What a stroke of luck. (Softening.) Thank you, Bernard. (She goes to the reading stand and opens Noakes's sketch book.) Look-there he is.
(Bernard goes to look.)
Bernard: Mmm.
Hannah: The only known likeness of the Sidley hermit.
Bernard: Very biblical.
Hannah: Drawn in by a later hand, of course. The hermitage didn't yet exist when
Noakes did the drawings.
Bernard: Noakes. . . the painter?
Hannah: Landscape gardener. He'd do these books for his clients, as a sort of
prospectus. (She demonstrates.) Before and after, you see. This is how it all looked until, say, 1810 - smooth, undulating, serpentine - open water, clumps of trees,
classical boat-house -
Bernard: Lovely. The real England.
Hannah: You can stop being silly now, Bernard. English landscape was invented by
gardeners imitating foreign painters who were evoking classical authors. The whole
thing was brought home in the luggage from the grand tour. Here, look - Capability
Brown doing Claude, who was doing Virgil. Arcadia! And here, superimposed by
Richard Noakes, untamed nature in the style of Salvator Rosa. It's the Gothic novel
expressed in landscape. Everything but vampires. There's an account of my hermit
in a letter by your illustrious namesake,
25
Bernard: Florence?
Hannah: What?
Bernard: No. You go on.
Hannah: Thomas Love Peacock.
Bernard: Ah yes.
Hannah: I found it in an essay on hermits and anchorites published in
the CornhillMagazine in the 1860s. . . {She fishes for the magazine itself among the books on the table, and finds it.} . . . 1862 . . . Peacock calls him {She quotes from memory.} 'Not one of your village simpletons to frighten the ladies, but a savant among idiots, a sage of lunacy.'
Bernard: An oxy-moron, so to speak.
Hannah: {Busy) Yes. What?
Bernard: Nothing.
Hannah: {Having found the place) Here we are. 'A letter we have seen, written by
the author of Headlong Hall nearly thirty years ago, tells of a visit to the Earl of Croom's estate, Sidley Park -'
Bernard: Was the letter to Thackeray?
Hannah: {Brought up short) I don't know. Does it matter?
Bernard: No. Sorry. {But the gaps he leaves for her are false promises - and she is
not quick enough. That's how it goes.) Only, Thackeray edited the Cornhill until '63
when, as you know, he died. His father had been with the East India Company
where Peacock, of course, had held the position of Examiner, so it's quite possible
that if the essay were by Thackeray, the letter. . . Sorry. Go on. Of course, the East India Library in Blackfriars has most of Peacock's letters, so it would be quite easy
to . . . Sorry. Can I look? {Silently she hands him the Cornhill.) Yes, it's been
topped and tailed, of course. It might be worth . . . Go on. I'm listening . . . {Leafing through the essay, he suddenly chuckles.) Oh yes, it's Thackeray all right. . . {He slaps the book shut.) Unbearable . . . {He hands it back to her.} What were you saying?
Hannah: Are you always like this?
26
Bernard: Like what?
Hannah: The point is, the Crooms, of course, had the hermit under their noses for twenty year
s so hardly thought him worth remarking. As I'm finding out. The
Peacock letter is still the main source, unfortunately. When I read this (the
magazine in her hand) well, it was one of those moments that tell you what your
next book is going to be. The hermit of Sidley Park was my ...
Bernard: Peg.
Hannah: Epiphany.
Bernard: Epiphany, that's it.
Hannah: The hermit was placed in the landscape exactly as one might place a
pottery gnome. And there he lived out his life as a garden ornament.
Bernard: Did he do anything?
Hannah: Oh, he was very busy. When he died, the cottage was stacked solid with
paper. Hundreds of pages. Thousands. Peacock says he was suspected of genius. It
turned out, of course, he was off his head. He'd covered every sheet with cabalistic
proofs that the world was coming to an end. It's perfect, isn't it? A perfect symbol, I
mean.
Bernard: Oh, yes. Of what?
Hannah: The whole Romantic sham, Bernard! It's what happened to the
Enlightenment, isn't it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind
in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and false emotion. The
history of the garden says it all, beautifully. There's an engraving of Sidley Park in
1730 that makes you want to weep. Paradise in the age of reason. By 1760
everything had gone - the topiary, pools and terraces, fountains, an avenue of limes
- the whole sublime geometry was ploughed under by Capability Brown. The grass
went from the doorstep to the horizon and the best box hedge in Derbyshire was
dug up for the ha-ha so that the fools could pretend they were living in God's
countryside. And then Richard Noakes came in to bring God up to date. By the
time he'd finished it looked like this (the sketch book). The decline from thinking to feeling, you see.
27
Bernard: {A judgement) That's awfully good. (Hannah looks at him in case of irony but he is professional.) No, that'll stand up.
Hannah: Thank you.
Bernard: Personally I like the ha-ha. Do you like hedges?
Hannah: I don't like sentimentality.
Bernard: Yes, I see. Are you sure? You seem quite sentimental over geometry. But
the hermit is very very good. The genius of the place.
Hannah: (Pleased) That's my title!
Bernard: Of course.
Hannah: (Less pleased) Of course?
Bernard: Of course. Who was he when he wasn't being a symbol?
Hannah: I don't know.
Bernard: Ah.