Rustication (33 page)

I said:
Yes, I thought so. Davenant Burgoyne’s bastard half-brother
.

That’s the fellow
, Tobias mumbled.
Willoughby Lyddiard, damn his eyes
.

I was so astonished I stopped dead while he staggered on ahead so that I had to run to catch up with him.

I grabbed his arm and demanded:
Do he and his half-brother both have the name “Willoughby”?

Yes
, he threw over his shoulder and blundered into the darkness.

I stood there for a minute or two in the middle of the carriageway. What he had blurted out is extraordinary. It changes everything. It was not Davenant Burgoyne who came to the house on my first evening home. Whatever had occurred between him and my sister was over by then. Her visitor was Lyddiard—her new admirer, lover, or whatever word is appropriate. And worst of all: My mother knew that! In the next few days I had confused two tall men seen at a distance and Euphemia had allowed—indeed, encouraged—me to persist in that mistake. But what I could not understand was why Mother—so bent on Euphemia making a “good marriage”—wished her daughter to marry an impecunious and illegitimate good-for-nothing. Or had she wanted that? Had that been the subject of the arguments I had overheard?

The lawyer’s allusion to Lady Terrewest set me thinking. Euphemia’s insistence on going to the old lady so often had puzzled me and now I thought I had guessed her motive. I decided to make a diversion as I walked home.

I reached Thrubwell while it was still dark and the house was shut up. But there was a light burning on the ground-floor. I climbed over the wall that separated the house from the road and approached it. I peered through the window where the light came from. I saw a fat old lady seated in a high-backed armchair in a sitting-room. I remembered Euphemia saying that Lady Terrewest spends all her time downstairs because of her incapacity. She was talking to someone whom I could not see. Tears were running down the old creature’s cheeks and her face was convulsed. I thought she must be in great pain. Then the other figure passed into view and I saw that it was a second obese woman dressed in the plain gown and apron of a housekeeper or a cook. She put her head back and shook with unheard laughter. I recognised her as the woman I had seen talking to Mrs Darnton in the shop—the one I’d called “Blubber”. I looked again at Lady Terrewest and saw that what I had taken for a grimace of agony was amusement. Her tears were being shed in delight at some joke or story the two old parties were sharing.

This was not a house of grief and pain as I had imagined. This was no ailing invalid living in quiet retirement as I had been led to believe. I had thought of Euphemia as sitting in sombre silence or playing mournful threnodies on the pianoforte. Now I realised that every time she went there she was taking part in a vast joyous feast of scandal-mongering. The house is a veritable laundry of gossip in which every scrap of information is beaten until it yields its dirt.

The servant disappeared for a minute or two and then returned with a tray which she laid before the old lady. At the sight of her devouring the most copious and delicious breakfast, I felt a pang of hunger. I had taken nothing since the night before.

A dog’s paws suddenly appeared on the old lady’s lap. A mastiff. It tried to shove its nose into a plate of buttered muffins she was eating. She pushed it away saying something to the servant who seized its collar. She disappeared. After a moment I heard an outside door open at the back of the house and, guessing that the dog was being released, I began to make my retreat but I wasn’t quite fast enough and as I was scrambling up the wall the brute came up to me and started barking and growling. I landed on the road and hid behind the tree I had used to conceal myself on an earlier occasion. I waited to see if the dog had alerted the occupants of the house to the presence of an intruder. It fell silent and nobody came out.

I stayed hidden, hoping that I might be able to return if the dog went back inside. After about twenty minutes something happened that I had not anticipated: a man approached from the direction of Stratton Peverel. He was walking swiftly and yet furtively. When he reached the opening in the wall surrounding the house, he produced a huge key from his pocket and unlocked the outer gate and the dog ran up to him barking loudly. The man reached towards his belt to which I saw there was secured a short whip and the dog stopped barking and growled, stretching out its paws ingratiatingly.

I had recognised him. He was the stranger I had seen sitting in a wagon with the chained dog. Because he had been lying down, I had not realised on that occasion something that was evident now: He was extremely tall. I knew exactly who he was. He was the man referred to as “Tom the Swell”—the very tall man I saw with Euphemia and took for Davenant Burgoyne. Now I was pretty certain I knew his real name:
Willoughby Lyddiard
. I could imagine his mother giving him that absurd aristocratic name to try to buttress his claim on the Burgoynes.

He walked past the door from which the dog had been ejected and used another key to let himself into a different part of the old house.

There was nothing more to be gained from staying there. I continued on my way. On the road between Stratton Peverel and Stratton Herriard, I encountered the carriage which had conveyed Mother and Euphemia home—or at least, to the end of our muddy lane—and it rattled past me without the driver noticing my salute.

I reached the house at about one o’clock and entered as silently as I could, squeezing the front-door shut behind me. I stole through the hall to the door of the parlour and peered through the gap between it and the doorframe. My mother was sitting on the sopha and looking up at Euphemia who had her back to me and was saying something in a voice that was too low for me to catch.

I entered the room. My mother started and looked up at me guiltily. Euphemia turned and presented me with a defiant face.

As soon as I saw her I felt a wave of hatred. I could hardly bring myself to meet her gaze. She stared back at me boldly.

My mother asked me why I had taken so long and said they had been expecting me for an hour and a half.

I said:
Have you been worried about me? I do apologise
.

Then I walked out and came up here.

I need to understand. Not what my sister and her minion have done, for that is clear enough. It is they who have been writing those wicked letters. (How close Mrs Quance came when she suggested they were concocted by a woman in collaboration with a man.) They used gossip that Euphemia had gleaned from Lady Terrewest and her housekeeper. Then he took the letters into Thurchester and posted them there. And it was he who crept out at night from his lair at Lady Terrewest’s house and practised his savage knife-work on farm-animals. All that is apparent to me now but what still eludes me is the point of it all. Why, after my mistaking one tall man for another, did they set out to make me think that my sister was still meeting Davenant Burgoyne and to inflame my jealousy against him? What were they hoping to gain? Why send those letters making savage threats against him as if coming from me? And why was it so important that I attend the ball? Above all, how much did Mother know?

Having had no sleep since yesterday morning, I must stop now and rest.

7 o’clock.

I had lain down on my bed fully dressed and had been sleeping for several hours when I was awakened by a distant banging. I hurried along the passage and watched as Betsy opened the door. On the step loomed a magnificent man-servant in livery who announced in a booming voice that he came from Mr and Mrs Tomkinson. Betsy stood in paralysed dismay in front of this impressive figure and I hurried down. The man handed me a sealed envelope addressed to my mother.

I took it into the parlour. My mother was alone there. The name meant nothing to either of us but the note explained in the most courteous terms that they were the brother-in-law and sister of Mrs Paytress. They had come to Stratton Peverel at her request to close the house, retrieve her possessions, and pay off the servants. (So much for the cruel slander about bailiffs!) Mrs Paytress had asked them to convey a certain object to us as a gift and if it were convenient, they would like to bring it within the next couple of hours and have the pleasure of meeting us—if only very briefly.

My mother sent Betsy to fetch Euphemia down, and after discussing it with her, she scrawled a reply pressing the Tomkinsons to join us for tea and the footman hurried away with it.

Of course all Mother and Euphemia could talk about was the strangeness of it and then they threw themselves into frantic efforts to make the house look less dilapidated and the rooms less threadbare. Betsy was soon running around mopping and polishing.

I had cleansing of my own to carry out. I came up here and broke the pipe and put everything connected with it into a little wooden box. I went out and walked along the path to the beach and opened the box and scattered its contents in the sea. It had brought about the worst thing that I had ever done and had helped to put me in the power of those who wished me ill.

On my way back in I passed Euphemia in the hall and, allowing myself a sarcastic sneer, said to her:
Not going to Lady Terrewest today?

She walked on without replying. I believe the attraction that took her to Thrubwell is no longer present. Moreover, I don’t think there will be any more threatening letters. Whatever purpose they served has either been achieved or has failed.

I called out to her:
Can you delay your departure for a few minutes? I have something I want to say to our mother and you
.

She halted and turned and slowly followed me into the parlour.

Mother was sitting at her embroidery and looked startled as we came in. I asked Euphemia to sit down and then I said:
I’m going to tell you what happened at Cambridge. I don’t want to hide anything from you any longer. Things are too far gone for that. Here’s the truth. I became a friend of Edmund Webster before I understood how dangerous to me he was. I had never known anyone I liked so much. But what I only gradually discovered was that because of his wealth, he had been recruited into a dissolute circle. He and his rich friends drank and gambled and did worse things. But there was one other thing that Edmund introduced me to and it led to all the bad consequences. It was opium
.

There. I had said it and I knew that Euphemia had no power over me now. She and Mother exchanged a look.

I went on:
We didn’t realise how dangerous it was. Edmund’s uncle had made his fortune as a China merchant and taught him to smoke the drug as they do in the East. It’s even harder to break the habit if you’ve been doing that. But I have wonderful news to tell you. I’ve given it up
.
I’ve just thrown away all my opium and the pipe
.

Neither of them seemed impressed or pleased by my news.

Euphemia asked:
Was it because of opium that your friend took his own life?

I just shook my head as if puzzled rather than denying it. Euphemia knows more than I had realised. I suppose I will have to tell Mother the rest of it.

· · ·

After what Mr Boddington said, it is clear that when the lease on this house runs out at the end of this year, Cousin Sybille will demand rent and when Mother is unable to pay it, will evict her and Euphemia.

½ past 8 o’clock.

I stayed in my room until I heard the Tomkinsons arrive. (They had had to leave their carriage some way up the lane and walk from there.) I joined them but I spoke not a word the whole time we were in the parlour together. They were very charming and seated themselves on the dirty old sopha as if they were in the most elegant drawing-room in Marylebone.

The man-servant who had brought the letter followed them into the house carrying a large square object wrapped in a thick hessian cloth. Mr Tomkinson told him to prop it against the wall.

When the usual civilities had been gone through, my mother asked about the closure of the house and dismissal of the staff. Mr Tomkinson said all had gone well except that he had had to deal with a very abusive servant who had become involved in some criminal enterprise in the district.

Mrs Tomkinson opened proceedings by saying that her sister had wanted us to hear the truth because we were the only people who were kind to her during her brief residence in the district. I looked at my mother to see how she took that.

They confirmed what Miss Bittlestone had told us about the child. His condition had been deteriorating for several weeks and on Sunday night his mother had rushed into Thurchester with him, but he had died in her arms in the carriage.

The proper things were said in the proper tone. Then Mr Tomkinson unwrapped the picture with some help from me. Of course it turned out to be the painting of Salisbury Cathedral that Euphemia had admired.

Mrs Tomkinson began to talk of how her sister had been ostracised in the district because of an incident shortly after her arrival. She was dining with the earl to whom she had a recommendation through a shared acquaintance:
Unfortunately she unintentionally offended the wife of the local Rector
.
The company were talking of Mr Dickens and his travels in Europe when Mrs Quance said: “He is most assuredly in the Parthenon.” Nobody understood what she meant. The earl asked: “Do you mean at this very moment?” Mrs Quance said: “Certainly. Now and for all time. He is in the Parthenon with Byron and Shakespeare.” People looked at each other in puzzlement and my sister, just to retrieve the situation, most unfortunately exclaimed: “Oh, you mean the pantheon! The pantheon of great writers.”

I could imagine how Mrs Quance must have brooded about this slight—all the more offensive for being unintended.

Our guests rose to leave and then Mrs Tomkinson exclaimed that they had almost forgotten that her sister had expressly asked her to invite Euphemia to come and choose for herself as much of her music as she wished. I could see how pleased my sister was at this. So it was settled that she would go back with them now in their carriage.