Rustication

  I shouted: How dare you!

  He began to walk away but I wasn’t going to let the scoundrel insult me with impunity. I grabbed him by the coat and hauled him back and demanded an apology. He started bellowing as if he was in danger of his life. Several of the onlookers stepped forward as if to support him. I saw that evil witch Mrs Darnton staring at me. I let go of the old fool and gave him a push.

  I said: You’re a depraved old lecher. A whoremonger. Everyone knows that.

  I turned my back on him and left him standing there.

  ½ past 5 o’clock.

  Effie wasn’t back when I got home and Mother told me she wanted to have a serious talk. She began by saying that although Euphemia had tried to protect me for a long time, she herself had noticed the odd smell coming from my chamber and remarked my eccentric behaviour at times and realised that I was indulging in a very dangerous habit up in my room and that was what was making me behave so erratically. She had asked Euphemia if her suspicions were correct and after prevaricating for a while, my sister had admitted it.

  I told her it wasn’t true. (I don’t want her to worry about me.) What she had smelled was merely an exotic variety of tobacco. I wasn’t sure if she believed me.

  ½ past 6 o’clock.

  Dreadful. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. We can’t go on living together like this.

  Euphemia got back this afternoon and burst into the parlour. She said to Mother: Have you heard of this new shame he has brought upon us? She gave Mother a grotesquely distorted narrative of my encounter with Fourdrinier and ended by saying: Everyone in the shop was talking about how Richard assaulted the poor old gentleman.

  Poor old gentleman! I exclaimed. Repulsive old sensualist, rather.

  And it’s worse even than that, Mother. People are saying that Mr Fourdrinier’s stolen tool is the one that is being used to harm animals.

  Mother turned to me and said: Your conduct is becoming more and more disgraceful. You seem to have cast off all restraints. Even after my warning, you behaved shamefully towards the Greenacres’ governess only yesterday.

  I tried to defend myself but Mother held up her hand and went on: There is a graver charge against you, Richard. I understand from your sister that you have dishonoured this very house. Euphemia has told me that Betsy has complained of you.

  I stared at Effie. She said: She has told me that you have given her presents. And cajoled her into committing various acts.

  I seized her by the arm and said: What do you mean?

  She squirmed and said: Richard, you’re hurting me. Let go of me. You’re frightening me. But I’m telling the truth. Betsy has told me of the disgusting way you’ve been pestering her. The filthy things you want her to do.

  I was so surprised I released her.

  She sprang away rubbing her arm and said: Can you deny that you’ve indulged in unrestrained grossness with the poor child?

  How dare you! I said. And what a hypocrite you are! You’re the one who’s gross. Everyone knows what you’ve been doing in the tower with that man.

  She stared at me sullenly.

  I won’t have this, Mother said. Richard, go to your room.

  No, I said. You need to hear this, Mother. What those foul letters accuse her of, it’s true. She has been meeting that man. On the Battlefield. And then he takes her to the tower on the hill and . . . Well, he has it fitted out for entertaining women. I won’t say any more.

  They both stared at me: Euphemia in horror that I knew so much and Mother in dismay at learning the truth.

  Then to my astonishment Mother seemed to lose control of herself completely. She almost screamed at me: That proves it! You’re the one. Nobody in the world believes that nonsense apart from the madman who’s been writing those foul letters. She paused and said more calmly: I’ve decided. You leave the house tomorrow morning.

  I stared at her in amazement.

  Then something even more extraordinary. Effie spoke up for me! She said: Mother, you’re quite wrong. I know Richard has been behaving strangely but I don’t believe for a moment that he has anything to do with those letters.

  I don’t know whether Mother or I was the more surprised.

  You’re mistaken, Euphemia. The last letter Mrs Quance has received, the one she showed me this morning, it makes exactly that allegation—that absurd allegation—against you. In the coarsest terms. And not only that. It displays a vicious—a quite deranged—hatred of Maud Whitaker-Smith and her family for the harm they’ve done to us.

  That proves I can’t be the author, I protested. I don’t know what they did.

  Don’t you? Mother said. Hasn’t your friend told you the whole story?

  Bartlemew? How could he? I haven’t seen him since I’ve been back. I corrected myself: I haven’t spoken to him. Mother gazed at me with such open disbelief that I faltered not because I was lying but because I couldn’t bear to see her look at me like that.

  You’ve been in correspondence with him, Mother said coldly. But one thing above all convinced me though, God knows, I didn’t want to be convinced. When we went to tea with Mrs Quance you teased her with the word “lucubrations.” A little later a disgusting version of that word appeared in one of the letters she showed me this morning.

  I don’t know what you are referring to, Mother. So I can’t defend myself.

  There is no defence. The evidence is overwhelming—the parallels with the letters, the actions I’ve seen and heard you commit, what you’ve been doing with Betsy, and Mr Fourdrinier’s claim that you stole the implement being used in the attacks. I’ve made a decision, Richard, and it’s irrevocable. Tomorrow morning you leave here. I have a few sovereigns I can spare you. You depart this house and this district. You go to Thurchester and you get on a train to somewhere. I don’t know where and frankly I hardly care. But you leave here for your sister’s sake and, if it comes to that, for mine.

  Before I could say anything Euphemia exclaimed: No, Mother! Let him stay a little longer.

  Mother remained obdurate.

  Then Effie turned to me: Leave us, Richard.

  I obeyed.

  11 o’clock at night.

  So my own mother thinks I’m a night-prowling madman! Isn’t your mother supposed to be the last person to give up on you?

  And I’ve been betrayed even by Betsy. I thought you liked me. And I didn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to.

  They’ve been shut up in that room for ½ an hour. I must try to find out what they are talking about.

  ½ past 11 o’clock.

  Shamefully I lurked outside the parlour door but nothing was audible except the murmur of voices. Then I heard a quick step and hastened into the hall. Mother came out walking fast. As she passed she started at the sight of me and shot me such a haggard, careworn look that I almost forgave her for the cruel things she had said. I turned to follow her but Euphemia hurried out and seized my arm: Let her go, Richard. I want to talk to you.

  She almost pulled me back into the parlour. We sat down and she said: You don’t have to go away. I’ve convinced Mother that you didn’t write those letters or do any of those other things.

  I hardly knew where to begin. If that was so, why did Mother look as if she had aged ten years?

  What did you tell her? I asked.

  Never you mind and I don’t want you to ask her. Anyway, she won’t tell you.

  I’m going to wait until Effie has gone to bed and then try to talk to Mother.

  A ¼ past midnight.

  I sneaked along the passage and knocked very quietly at Mother’s door and went in. The sitting-room was deserted. I tapped at the door of the bedroom and cautiously pushed it open. Mother was lying fully dressed on her bed holding an open bottle of wine. It was nearly empty and there was no drinking-glass. She looked up at me in terror, frowning and squinting. I had never seen her like this—apart from the night I returned from town, but this was much worse.

  She said: I don??
?t want to talk to you, Richard.

  I said: I have to know what Euphemia told you. If she persuaded you I’m innocent, why aren’t you pleased?

  She did persuade me, she muttered. I don’t believe you did any of those things.

  Why was she saying it like that, in that cowed and beaten manner?

  What did Effie say? I persisted.

  She looked terrified and didn’t answer.

  I said: Then there’s nothing to worry about.

  Yes there is, she said, glancing fearfully towards the door. She said in a low voice: Come closer. I advanced and she clutched my arm and whispered: Willoughby means you harm. I went along with them. I didn’t know what they intended.

  I said: Willoughby? What does he have to do with it? Why should he wish to hurt me?

  She said: I can’t tell you any more. I shouldn’t have said so much.

  What have you “gone along with”? I demanded.

  I don’t want to be old and poor and lonely. I don’t want to die here on my own in this cold damp old barn. Is that so wrong of me?

  I don’t know why she said that. I asked: What makes you think I won’t look after you? And Effie, too?

  As if she had not heard she said: You must leave right away.

  I said: Do you mean this minute? It’s very late.

  She look confused and said: No, not this minute. But the first thing tomorrow morning you must pack and go. Don’t let your sister know I told you.

  I said: But, Mother, Euphemia is determined that I should escort you both to the ball. That’s tomorrow evening.

  She started: The ball! That’s the point. You must not go to the ball.

  Without my having heard her approach, Euphemia glided into the room. She hissed: I told you to leave Mother alone. Now get out.

  · · ·

  Why should Willoughby Davenant Burgoyne want to harm me? It makes no sense. It is I who have reason to harm him.

  The little governess, Helen, seems to be the only person who trusts and believes in me. But what was she saying about a boy? A child I am believed to have threatened? I’ve racked my brains but cannot imagine who is meant. I need to ask her. If I wait near the gate to the Greenacres’ place tomorrow morning I’m sure I will see her come out with the children for their daily walk.

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

  Saturday 9th of January, 1 o’clock.

  Breakfasted on a hunk of bread before Mother and Effie came down. Ran much of the way to the Greenacres’. Then waited behind the hedge for nearly two hours. The wind was freezing. At last she came down the drive but she was alone and carrying a leather bag that looked heavy. She turned to the north.

  I walked behind her for some distance and she must have heard me because she glanced around and then quickened her pace. She could not go very fast because of the bag.

  We were now almost at the top of Brankston Hill. I caught up with her and asked if I could take her bag. When I spoke she started and looked at me with such dismay that I almost wondered if she had failed to recognise me. Then she shook her head. I asked her where she was going. She didn’t answer. Then at last, without turning towards me, she said: I’ve been dismissed.

  I said: Was it because you spoke to me the other day?

  She said: Mrs Greenacre has had another letter. She let me read it. It was foul.

  Now she looked at me for a moment. Such a cold regard. Not just cold but frightened. Who was she frightened of?

  She said: My employers have refused to give me a character. I don’t know what will become of me.

  I said: That bag looks heavy. Can I help you?

  She increased her pace and said: If you want to do me a kindness, turn round and walk away from me.

  I said nothing but swung on my heel and walked quickly back the way we had come.

  Realised I had forgotten to ask her about the boy.

  ½ past 2 o’clock.

  Got back to find Mother and Effie fussing about the clothes they are to wear this evening. I had the impression that Mother had been cowed and whipped back into line after her brief attempt to break out last night. Without looking me in the face she silently placed an unopened letter in my hand.

  Damned Uncle T. The self-righteous old curmudgeon. No question of bailing you out . . . You incurred those debts and must take responsibility for them one way or another . . . The shame you have brought on your mother and sister . . . The chance of a passage on those two vessels remains open, but they sail within the week and my generous offer will not be renewed.

  To hell with him and his generosity.

  A ¼ past 3 o’clock.

  I was wrong about Mother having been beaten. At the last moment she raised another doomed mutiny and suddenly suggested that we abandon the ball. Euphemia was furious. She ordered her into the dining-room and closed the door and I heard her voice going on and on.

  When they came out Mother’s spirit was broken. I believe she fears that Effie is planning to make a scene with Maud and her fiancé. I half want her to do something like that. Create a scandal that would destroy any chance we have of ever being accepted in this part of the country.

  I can see no purpose in our going all that distance in our finery, bumping over frozen roads simply in order for Euphemia to watch her rival triumphing in front of her—rich, about to become a countess, surrounded by friends and admirers—while we endure the humiliation of being ignored and snubbed by families that toadied to us when my father had position and influence.

  Never did any family prepare to set off for a ball in worse spirits or on worse terms with each other.

  Mother is calling me and I know she wants me to go up the lane and meet the carriage. God alone knows what this ball will bring. I have an ominous feeling about it.

  Saturday night or rather Sunday morning at about ½ past 5.

  So much to try to cling onto and hold down. The swirling of the dancers, the heat of the ballroom, the dazzle of the lights, the odour of rich perfumes and then Tobias’s pig-face, burping and leering and making those insulting insinuations. Damn his squinting eyes.

  My own sister was running down the stairs flushed and in tears. What was I supposed to do? And then that arrogant boorish oaf, his big ugly jaw moving up and down. Bastardy! How dare he!

  If I can just manage to get it all down then I can make some sort of sense of it.

  Carriage came. Got to town. Changed at the inn. Reached the Assembly Rooms by eight.

  I was sure that our poverty was blazoned in the patches and stitchings of our threadworn clothes. The footmen sneered as they took our greatcoats and capes and then held them as cautiously as if their inadequacy gave off a palpable stink.

  The heat and the press of bodies and the smell of the candles and the lamps. I saw the earl. Old man of about fifty or sixty. Just stood in the same place smiling as people came up to him. Could have replaced him with a mechanical dummy. Squeeze the hand and the mouth opens. All the arrogance of those thousands of acres and hundreds of years is in that black-toothed smile.

  And of course there in the centre of a busy throng were the Lloyds—pointedly ignoring us. Lucy was staring venomously at Maud who had carried away the richest prize in the county.

  She came in on the arm of that man. People smiled and called out good wishes. Primped and preened and smirked at each other. Cooing doves. As if she had him on a string. They went over to the earl and I watched them talking and smiling. The happy couple. The most hated and envied people in the whole assembly. Those two little Quance vipers could not take their eyes off them. Enid’s vacant face like the back of a saucer and her dead eyes staring.

  And then the dancing. The screeching and scratching of the fiddles and the wailing skirl of the flutes and horns. The dazzling lights overhead and around us, stinking of burnt oil, mingling with the perfumes and sweat of the crowd.

  It was the bridal pair—of course—who opened the
ball with the first dance. He was barely able to make the movements because of his injured leg. Grinning with delight at his own pluck as he hobbled through the quadrille. I’d cripple him properly if I could. I’d make sure he never dances again. I watched to see if Maud and Euphemia looked at each other. Or if he looked at Effie. I saw no sign that my sister and those two had ever known each other. Cunning and devious but not sharp enough to deceive me.

  It wasn’t my fault. I just meant to get wine for Mother and Effie. But when I reached the table with the champagne cup I found myself standing beside that oaf Tobias Boddington. He greeted me as if we were intimate friends. And yet I’ve hardly spoken to him. An ignorant stupid tosspot. He kept filling my glass. I guessed he wanted to tell me something that would cause pain. Why would he have spoken to me otherwise?

  Then it came: He was sorry to hear about my governor and everything. His pretended sympathy was worse than open insults would have been. Am I now to be pitied by a wastrel like that? A man with all those opportunities which he has thrown away?

  Would not let me escape. He kept grabbing me by the arm and saying: I say, old fellow, I heard an awfully good yarn the other day. They were all stories of men as stupid and feckless as himself. Then he told me a long complicated anecdote about how he himself had recently been cheated at a dogfight. It was something about rigging the odds for a game dog and it was done by a fellow who’s half a gentleman and half a low scrub.

  The drivelling drink-sodden fool. What do I care about fighting dogs? Then he started to whinge about the short commons his father keeps him on so he never has any tin. How he won’t give him an allowance fit for a gentleman and yet he’s ready to empty his pockets for some of his clients. He gave me such a stupid sly look that I realised he meant Mother. I asked him what the devil he was getting at and he said I must know how kind his father had been to my family.

  I could hardly believe what I was hearing. That Boddington should not only rob and cheat us but have the brazen effrontery to boast that he has helped us! I had to put the poor nincompoop right. I told him his father had chiselled my mother out of everything she should have inherited and he almost alone had brought us to the straits we were in.