Our Eternal Curse I (25 page)

His departure for school in
Cambridge was an emotional occasion for all on the estate.  Every member of
staff came out to see Robert off and even the men fought back tears.  They had
all taken such a keen interest in every aspect of his years at Spellbrook
because each day Miss Parks and the coach driver provided the gossip.  They
kept the servant rumor-mill fully informed while sitting around the big fire in
the scullery every evening after dinner.  All below stairs knew the characters
in Robert’s saga intimately as Wagstaff and Putnam became their villains and
Robert their hero.  These exaggerated tales then began the gossip that passed to
every corner of the estate.  Even the farmhands and gamekeepers followed the
daily updates with great interest.  They all cheered and waved as Robert’s
coach moved along the driveway from the big house on its way to the gatehouse
by the main road.  As his carriage turned at the massive gates the gatekeeper’s
family came out to cheer him off.  Robert waved at the keeper, his wife and ten
children standing in a line all arranged according to their height, and then he
was on the road to his future.

As the coach traveled the thirty
miles to Cambridge along the old Roman road it passed through the market town
of Bishops Stortford.  It was a busy day in the town because, being a Thursday,
it was market day and the coach had to slow down for the cattle and sheep being
herded to auction along the high street.  From his window Robert watched
hundreds of people milling around the brightly covered market stalls lining
both sides of the street.  He observed money changing hands as food of all
kinds were sold.  Auctioneers called out as they sold their livestock and
market stallholders shouted to attract customers.  Something about this scene
provoked vague feelings of familiarity within Robert but he gave it little
thought because he was quite certain that he had never seen anything like it
before.

Once clear of the town they
resumed their swift pace passing through small villages with names such as
Stansted, Quendon and Wendons Ambo.  Sitting forward to get a better view of
the world passing by Robert observed the people who toiled in these
strange-sounding places.  He noticed something different about the laborers in
the fields he was passing compared to those on his father’s estate.  It was
their condition.  All of the farm workers at Pishiobury were well treated and well
fed but these poor people looked thin and drawn in appearance.  The starvation
Robert saw from his carriage shocked him.  He had heard his father talk about
the appalling conditions caused by the industrial revolution in the north of
England but had no idea that things were equally as bad here in the south.

Robert’s father had explained
that since 1760 steam-powered mills and factories in the Northern Counties had
been sucking the populations away from the countryside in their insatiable
thirst for more and more cheap labor.  Mills once powered by water wheels had
been rapidly superseded by steam-powered pistons which needed more and more
people to provide the fuel to power them.  By 1780 almost all trees in the
north of England had been cut down and coal had become the most sought-after
commodity.  Men, children and ponies were sent down unsafe pits which collapsed
or exploded with no notice.  Lord Pishiobury had been disgusted as he talked
about the pit owners who became incredibly rich on the back of these
underprivileged people without spending any money to make them safe.

Looking at the state of these
tragic workers, as he passed. Robert understood for the first time why the
peasant people in the North had flocked to the fast-growing cities.  He grasped
the appeal of an income, weatherproof terraced housing and the chance of
regular meals.  Even working long grueling hours in dangerous mines and mills
was better than scratching a living in these cold, hedgerow-lined fields. 
Living in rows of soot-covered houses with your neighbor just one brick’s width
away would be unappealing to a Pishiobury worker but to peasants who lived in
the dilapidated alms cottages with unglazed windows it would be a great
step-up.

In light of the world passing
outside Robert’s coach the things his father’s said began to make sense.  The
people in the North must have believed that anything was better than their lot
in life but what they actually got was a hell on earth.  It was a world in
which children did the work of men.  Sleeping by the looms and machines which
regularly claimed their emaciated limbs, they were fed only once during their
sixteen-hour working day.  When they died, as they did in great numbers, they
were buried in communal graves with no stone to commemorate their existence. 
Adults were employed only for the task that required strength and they worked
as hard as the children but went home to their slums at the end of the day. 
The little pay they earned was taken back by the factory owners for rent and
food because they also owned all of the houses and shops.  If anyone complained
about their inhumane existence they were thrown out of their job and of course
their home.  Losing one’s employment was tantamount to a death sentence, so no
one protested.

Robert also remembered his
father saying that the vast industrial towns in the North were making Britain a
power on the world stage but no recognition went to the people who made it
possible.  The rapidly growing middle class was becoming rich on the back of
the lower classes but all these rustics could expect was a short miserable life
spent in suffering.  Robert knew that the common belief among the people of his
class was that peasants could be made to take any amount of abuse without
daring to make even a whimper.  The aristocracy had believed this for hundreds
of years.  It did not matter how badly they treated the common people — they
never rebelled.

Most of the wealthy
establishment treated the peasant classes as scum but Robert had been raised in
a community that was built on respect and trust. Seeing the real world was
opening his eyes and he no longer trusted the upper class rhetoric.  He knew
that the French revolution was incited by a maltreated population.  He had lost
a close relative in the terrible debacle just a few miles across the channel
and he wondered if the same would happen to England.

The thought of his mother and
father being killed by the angry mob made him sit bolt upright in his hard
leather seat.  The distant North seemed a great deal closer at that moment and
it gave him something new to worry about; and while still deep in thought,
Robert felt his coach pull to a standstill outside the main entrance of the old
public school.

The bursar of many years, Mr
Poynton came out to greet him saying as he came, “Good evening to you young
man.  I trust that I find you well?”

“
Yes thank you Sir,” replied Robert still a little
shaken by his thoughts.

“
The porter will take your luggage to your
dormitory,” said Mr Poynton as the driver lifted the heavy leather trunk from
the roof rack on the top of the passenger compartment.

Before walking into the great
stone building in front of him Robert turned and much to the amazement of Mr
Poynton embraced his driver.  He noticed the shimmer of a tear reflected in the
lamplight as the hardy-looking coachman bid the boy farewell.  Such a display
of fondness for one’s employer was very rarely observed at his school and the
rawness of the emotions moved Mr Poynton deeply.  He was a humanitarian of
great standing and his view of mankind was very different from many others of
his class.

Dressed all in black, the porter
lifted the trunk as instructed and walked behind the bursar and the new boy. 
Robert thought about offering to help the lad who was no more than two years his
senior but this was not Pishiobury Park.  He had been versed in the importance
of maintaining one’s station and accordingly let the poorly fed boy struggle.

The dormitory with its twenty
beds had the same look and smell as his classroom at Spellbrook.  All but one
bed held a boy and as each sat up to look at him Robert felt a recurrence of
the trepidation experienced during his first days at the old school.  As the
boy in black placed his trunk at the foot of the only vacant bed Robert became
so frightened his humorous defenses spontaneously quipped, “What are all these
people doing in my bedroom?”  Realizing his mistake Robert braced himself for
the worst because showing his playground self to an adult in school had always
caused him pain in the past but on this occasion it met with approval.  Much to
his surprise and delight the witticism made Mr Poynton chuckle and for the
first time Robert relaxed in the company of an adult outside of Pishiobury
Park.

“
These are new boys like yourself, Pishiobury,” explained
Mr Poynton still smiling.

“
Do I address you as Poynton or Mr Poynton?” asked
Robert.

“
You address all masters, house masters and tutors
as Mr or Sir; other boys you will refer to simply by their surname.”

“
Thank you Sir, I will do my best.”

As Mr Poynton departed the
dormitory Robert walked to the bed that was allocated to him.  He gave the
porter no expression of gratitude.  This behavior was entirely alien to Robert
but he was determined to fit into the ruling classes outside the Pishiobury
estate just as Nanny had taught him to.

The years passed, Robert grew
and the masters became fond of the boy who made everyone laugh with his
hilariously constructed observations of life.  Most of the boys also enjoyed
his antics regardless of their age.  The only people who did not enjoy his
company were the other insecure boys who like him had built their defensive
personalities around humor.  These boys all tried to compete with his sharp
mind but their jesting appeared contrived and puerile in comparison with his. 
Whenever Robert was present they lost the focus of attention and therefore
regard for themselves.  Ironical, defeating others with his mind was completely
unintentional because Robert really didn’t believe he had one to speak of.  Any
cerebral ability that others thought he may possess was merely a defense
mechanism and the obliteration of others was an innocent coincidence.

Robert could not accept credit
for any intellectual achievement because his poor academic performance at
Spellbrook led him to believe that he was unintelligent.  Mrs Putnham had
impressed upon him that intelligence is not measured by the speed of abstract
thoughts but tangible things such as the ability to spell or complete
mathematical calculations.  This was unfortunate because numbers and letters
became jumbled or reversed when Robert wrote them down and try as he might
nothing would make them appear as they were supposed to.  Mrs Putnham had
treated his disability like a sin and as she could no longer catch Robert out
verbally she used it to deliberately undermine his confidence.  When in need of
a vindictive break from the boredom of her life she would tell Robert to write
on the blackboard. So while he stood at the head of the class with a board full
of unintelligible characters, Mrs Putnham found sadistic pleasure in repeating
the words, “You are lazy and stupid, what are you boy?”  Not until he repeated
these words loud enough for all in the class to hear could he return to his sad
and lonely seat.

Despite the encouragement he
received from the supportive masters at the Leys, Robert’s time with Mrs
Putnham formed the opinion he held of himself and she had made it abundantly
clear that he was incapable of any academic achievement.  Quite understandably
Robert also harbored an obsessive fear of writing and this hindered his
scholastic progress greatly.  The brilliant minds that surrounded him at
Cambridge understood that the humor he constructed was born of genius but he
could accept no credit for this ability because it was merely a defense against
his terrible weakness.  Everyone who met Robert saw him as a very bright young
man but he saw himself as just another unworthy dullard who could crack a joke
or two — but in his mind, anyone could do that

Inevitably Robert found a field
in which he excelled and his ability to compete and win any sporting challenge
began to compensate for the shortfalls he believed existed in other areas of
his life.  During his eight years at the Leys, Robert spent his free time
during the winter terms playing football and cross-country running, whilst in
summer he played cricket, tennis and rowed in the regattas for his school
house.  The constant athletic activity overcame the occasional breathless
condition that had been with him since childhood and in the process developed
his splendid physique.  In his final year at the Leys, Robert became known as
something of an elite athlete within the Cambridge rowing fraternity and being
one of the leaders in such a sport-obsessed community gave Robert a God-like
status.  In his unassuming way Robert wondered at the respect he garnered from
masters and boys alike.  It intrigued him to think that people with fantastic
minds capable of the most innovative thought processes admired him for
something so basic as physical strength.  Robert could never have imagined it
but the thing these academic thinkers were actually admiring was not the power
of his body but the speed of his brain.

As an escape from reality Robert
rowed for hours on the slow flowing river which gave the old Iron Age, then
Roman city its name.  Every morning he pulled away from the boatsheds on route
to open water while the dawning sun painted the stone arched bridges red.  More
often than not a mist lifted from the ancient ribbon of water to play in the
tentacles of the weeping willows on the banks of the Cam and in these moments
Robert found a small measure of peace.  Only here could he relax his defensive
persona and return to his childhood by the river Stort.

A seemingly normal boy no one
guessed that Robert secretly longed for the last day of each term, a return to
Pishiobury and a semblance of calm.  Home was the only place his mind could
completely stop performing and the many breaks between terms were necessary to
preserve his sanity.  Lord Pishiobury’s own coachman always insisted on
collecting him from school even though a perfectly reliable public coach
service was available.  Robert always rode high up in the seat next to his
driver in order to hear the gossip which carried his inquisitive mind home
ahead of his body.

After his physical arrival at
Pishiobury Park, Robert commenced his own process of unwinding by re-enacting
the security of his childhood.  Walking through the estate for the first few
days of each break Robert shed Cambridge like a grass snake sheds its skin. 
Virtually leaving an obsolete casing behind him Robert ran with the black
Labradors which came from the litters of his beloved Marie.  They made such
fine substitutes because they behaved with exactly the same honesty as his two
childhood friends.  Lord and Lady Pishiobury observed and accepted the change
in Robert.  His extroverted personality always remained for the first few days
of his visits then gradually melted away.  It was like watching two people and,
as trust came creeping back, the Robert they loved as a child would
progressively return to them.  Before their eyes and ears the repartee would
slow and eventually stop.  Then little by little the very same boy who brought
meaning to so many things reappeared.  Lady Pishiobury always postponed any
social functions during his visits because in front of the guests Robert
regressed to his school self and she would lose her wonderful boy for days
afterwards.

Nanny spent endless hours in the
garden with Robert simply sitting and talking to the child she loved and missed
so terribly.  She no longer had a work function on the estate as Robert was an
only child but no one had ever thought of sending Miss Parks away.  She was a
member of the family as far as the Pishioburys were concerned and she would be
welcome to live the rest of her life comfortably within the grounds of the
estate.

Inevitably the time always came
for Robert to return to Cambridge and a few days before departure he would
subconsciously begin raising the defenses once more.  By the time he boarded
his carriage the comedian was completely in control but no one tried to talk
Robert out of this behavior because they were all very mindful of the
alternative.