Feral Park (36 page)

Miss Younge opened her mouth to speak, but Colin preempted her: “And what is the Super House?”

“It is where the Feral Park servants go to die,” volunteered Tripp. “It is a good thing that there is a place for a worn-out maid or footman to end up, but it is a bleak house, I have heard, and smells of rank gums and old skin and rot.”

“Tripp!” Anna did not hide her displeasure over the candid description.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

“No, it is
my
fault,” said Colin. “You see, I have given Mr. Groom a tongue. Restrain yourself, man, and know your place.”

Tripp bowed his head in abjection. Then he raised it to say, “What is to become of Umbrous Elizabeth and myself?”

Anna thought about this for a moment and said, “Well, you will have to come with Mrs. Taptoe and that is that.”

Secretly, Anna was more troubled than she had even admitted over how Mrs. Taptoe would take the news of her eviction for no reason of her own doing. But Anna should be the one to tell her and she would think of how best to do it.

Anna now asked Miss Younge if she wished to go with Tripp to gather up her things from the Turnington Lodge manor house, lest Sir Thomas take one final opportunity of advantaging himself at her expense. Yet Miss Younge did not seem even to be thinking of this possibility. Instead, she wore a distant look upon her face—a face that also possessed the hint of a smile.

“Your father fancies me, he does?”

With a nod: “You have not noticed it?”

“I have noticed small acts of kindness from him now and then, to be sure, but I did not think that his feelings went beyond courteous solicitude. It is most convenient to learn that there may be a serious attachment on his side, for I am most seriously taken with
him
. But perhaps you have noticed this already in
me
.”

“I must say, Miss Younge, that I have sensed that something beyond a mere platonic fondness was budding.”

Replied Miss Younge in a rapturous voice: “To then open and blossom and bloom in full blow! Oh, I should like that very much!” Then suddenly, the speaker became grave in her expression. “But Miss Peppercorn, I should hope that you harbour no objections to our attachment to one another, for I could not bear it if you did.”

“I am terribly happy for you
and
for my father, Miss Younge, and I am happy to see my father made so happy through thinking of you. He was not happy last night, however, for he was worried sick about you, and worried for good reason, it now turns out. But as unfortunate as is your loss of gainful employment for the time being, the cloud does have a bright lining in compensation, as we all now see.”

“Yes, bright indeed!” said Miss Younge in continuous raptures. Colin Alford ah’ed and sighed to be in the presence of such felicity. Tripp only grunted, impatient to be on his way.

Mrs. Taptoe, in fact, took it all quite badly—worse, even, than Anna thought she would. Her tears were copious and their production did not abate for some time. Umbrous Elizabeth was of little consolation to her mistress, for she herself was full of tears over her own expulsion from the dwarf house. Neither Anna nor Tripp had the heart to tell her
why
her beloved had been present at the gamekeeper’s cabin so as to find himself in the fortuitous role of Miss Younge’s dashing knight of rescue. In such a vacuum of information Anna’s subsequent appearance behind Tripp upon a horse was suspiciously indictable, and for this reason Umbrous Elizabeth was still given to believe that it was Anna who daily occupied Tripp’s wandering thoughts. This fact was made most clear to Anna by the glower that stalked her at every moment that the dusky servant did not have her head bowed in pitiful weeping. If Anna was to be exonerated, the truth about Tripp and Colin Alford would have to come out at some point, but in the interim Anna would have no friend in her Auntie’s maid, and she would sniff her tea for retaliatory excipients.

During intervals in which Mrs. Taptoe was not wiping back her own tears, she was pounding her plump fist upon the wee furniture and asking why it was that only seldom in her long life had things ever worked in her favour. “Two husbands and a daughter dead and a second daughter who despises me and now eviction. I fear that next I shall receive a letter that my dear Maurice has met a tragic stormy end in his ocean voyage home! Now, I am generally an affable woman, but I feel that I will fail this new test of my mettle most miserably and be made permanently morose as a consequence.”

“I do not believe it, Auntie,” said Anna with a gentle touch to the woman’s moistened cheek. “For it is not within your nature to see only the clouds which crowd the sun. And Maurice will
not
perish, as you shall soon see. He will arrive safe and sound and throw his arms round you with all the fullness of a son’s love. As for your daughter Guinevere, there may be hope for reconciliation yet. May I go and talk to her and ask if she and her husband will take you back in?”

“You may if you wish to, my dear. But I shall eat lye first.”

“Then you will have to come to Feral Park to live instead. My Aunt Drone will be only too happy to share her truckle bed with Miss Pints, and you shall have the room that Miss Pints now occupies.”

“With the fleas?”

“It is my belief that she no longer retains fleas. I have not found a new one on Miss Pittypaws in the time that Miss Pints has been with us.”

“You are a dear girl and I am being monstrous rude not to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this generous offer of lodging within your own house. I should wait, though, to hear what your father says.”

“I am certain that he will raise no objection to your moving in.”

Tripp and Elizabeth both looked on as would hungry dogs at the kitchen door.

“And the welcome extends to your servants, as well. We will make room for all three of you.”

“And my horses?”

“And your horses.”

“And all of my small furniture? It should all fit in one corner of my new apartment with ease. No, no. I should not even put you out to that extent. I will place it in storage. Oh, so much to do, to think about. Oh, Lord! What
of
Maurice? What if he should not know where to find me?”

“He will be told where you are, Auntie. All will be well. Lord, am I tired.”

Anna leant back in her chair and, to the surprize of everyone in the room, fell fast asleep.

When she awoke, there was a young woman standing before her whom she had never before seen. She had a self-important aspect and a detached yet conversely critical eye. There was another woman, who appeared to be the maid-servant of the first, scurrying in and out of the front door, hugging and clutching dressing-cases and bandboxes and a large wicker hamper and an even larger portmanteau and one end of a trunk, which was supported on its opposite side by Umbrous Elizabeth. Tripp bore an even more massive trunk on his back like a Nubian porter, and all of the activity was being directed by Mrs. Taptoe, who seemed as flustered and agitated as the aristocratic young woman appeared calm and inscrutable. In fact, the visitor stood in near similarity to a rigid statue, without any expression save that look of preserved indecipherability which often appears upon the face of nobility when one knows not what to make of a thing except that they should not like it, but for the time being they would keep the screen which hides their true opinion securely in place.
This
was the inaptly named Felicity Godby.

“Oh, you have finally woken!” Mrs. Taptoe called to Anna. “Look who is here. Miss Godby, this is Miss Peppercorn, and Miss Peppercorn, here we have the newly arrived Miss Godby, who is to stay with me, as you have arranged.” There was a disagreeable shading to the last of these words, for it was apparent that Mrs. Taptoe had yet to speak a syllable to her lodger about the impending eviction. “It must be said, however,” thought Anna to herself at that very moment. “Perhaps after all of her luggage is put away” (there was a waggon piled high with it, which drew Anna’s eye through the window) “and things have settled down a bit.” This is what Anna thought and Mrs. Taptoe’s face said to her that she was thinking the very same thing.

“I seem to have discomposed you,” said Miss Godby to Mrs. Taptoe, teacup in hand. “Has my arrival come at a difficult time?”

Mrs. Taptoe cleared her throat. “I am afraid, my dear, to be perfectly honest, that it has come at a
most
difficult time. For I have just learnt this past hour that I am to be evicted.”

Miss Godby raised an eyebrow and this was the extent of her reaction.

A long moment later she placidly enquired as to the cause.

“It is a long story and involves some behaviour on the part of one of my servants.”

“Does he or she remain in your employ or has the guilty party been removed?”

“No. He is still here. His behaviour, in fact, far from being discommendable, was actually quite admirable. He came to the gallant rescue of one who was imperiled, but the rescue carried a heavy price, for the evildoer was none other than my very own landlord.”

“And when does he ask that you remove yourselves from this tiny dwelling?”

“By Sunday night. I would therefore advise you not to unpack, for there would be no time at all before you must pack again.”

“Mrs. Taptoe, I had no intention of unpacking, as I can now see that there should be no place within this tiny cottage for me even to hang a frock. I was told that the structure was small, but I was not prepared for a doll’s house. Still, I appreciate the kindness of your invitation, and will not hold you to blame for my inconvenience.” Turning to Anna: “Miss Peppercorn, you seem to be the one who arranges things in this parish. Would you know of another place where I may lodge in concealment until the day of my marriage to Mr. Dray?”

“I should say, Miss Godby, that to find a place at this late stage would be most difficult.”

Miss Godby sighed. “Well, I told Mr. Dray that this scheme of his would not work, for how was I ever to hide here in this house with all of my things, and if I should not put myself into a little room and close all the windows and stop even taking in a breath—which makes a sound from my inherited stertorous wheeze—how would we ever have kept my presence from the ken of those who would have pried and poked about? For I know that there is a propensity on the part of the residents of these rusticated parishes to seek intrigue to spice up their dull, insipid lives. I would have been found out here in a day, and my father would have learnt of it almost immediately, and the scheme would have been spoilt. Perhaps it is for the best that you have been thrown out, Mrs. Taptoe—I mean for my
own
purpose. Now let me think, let me think.”

Felicity Godby began to think. After a moment or two she said with a soupçon of animation, but no more than that: “I have it. I shall conceal myself in Feral Park. I will compensate your father generously, Miss Peppercorn, for accommodating me in such a manner as fits my needs.”

Anna shifted uncomfortably in her chair (which was not the large and capacious one). “But there would be great difficulty to it, Miss Godby, for half of Payton Parish seems now prepared to take up lodgings there. It should be fête and county fair all the day long and I should think that your whereabouts would be known to a great many in very short order.”

“Miss Peppercorn, with all due respect, I do not intend to sit myself upon a throne in the middle of your hall and shout revelatory facts about myself to my fellow lodgers. Do you have a wine cellar?”

“We do. My father is quite fond of wine. Wine and books are his primary indulgences.”

“Good. And who has the key to the cellar?”

“Our butler, Mr. Maxwell. And, of course, my father and me.”

“Hum. And could a comfortable space be made for my maid and me down there?”

“Comfortable? No, I do not see how—”

“Then what if I were to forgo all comfort and convenience for the duration of my stay?”

“Then I should say that it may be possible to lodge you there. But, Miss Godby, it would be nothing at all like that which you are used to.”

“My dear Miss Peppercorn,
nothing
you should offer me would be like what I am used to. I intend for purposes of this scheme to be the deprived ascetic—to endure the pains of a bare and base existence so that my marriage to Mr. Dray will be successfully secured.”

“But are you entirely certain, Miss Godby, that—?”

“That this truly be my choice? My dear Miss Peppercorn, I
have
no choice. If my father learns that I have come hither with the intention of marrying Mr. Dray, it will be bad both for me and for my lover—very bad indeed. Father will not allow me to marry anyone of my own chusing, as there is quite a fortune at stake, not to mention the importance and éclat of the Godby name. I am his only child. Must I go further into it with you? If there are two cots and a chair and a chamber pot, and if my maid and I receive our proper meals, then I will resign myself to a most diminished existence for the days and nights which will pass between now and Midsummer Eve, and if
I
am amenable, there is no reason that you and your father should not be amenable as well. Now, Mrs. Taptoe, I am very tired; is there a place where I may lay my head and fully stretch out my legs?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Taptoe. “Elizabeth! Take Miss Godby to her room, or rather to the other room with the bed. The room in which I had
intended
to put her is now so filled with luggage that it cannot even be entered.” Something outside the cottage now caught Mrs. Taptoe’s eye.“Oh, look! Another waggon!”