The Daughters of Mrs Peacock (2 page)

‘Have you forgotten? You can't have. It was dear Mr Pardew's turn to preach. He was
so
amusing.'

‘I didn't know he was amusing,' said Julia.

‘Nor did he. That was the best part of it.'

‘Mr Pardew,' said their mother, ‘is a very good young man. And a
great
help to the Vicar. I don't know what's come over you girls,' she continued, with a glance that excluded Julia.

‘Us, Mama?' said Catherine, making big eyes.

‘You and Sarah are a pair. She'll cut herself one day, Sarah will, with that sharp tongue of hers. And gentlemen, let me tell you, Sarah, don't like cleverness in young women.'

‘How funny of them,' said Sarah. ‘Do they prefer stupid girls?'

Ignoring the pert question Mrs Peacock said, addressing Catherine: ‘Yes, child, you can get down, when you've thanked God for your good breakfast.'

The four heads bowed. ‘For what we have received …' murmured Catherine.

Heaven placated, the napkins were replaced in their rings, the chairs pushed back from the table, and the family dispersed.

They dispersed to their appointed duties. Later in the day, after luncheon, the girls would be allowed a little judicious freedom, freedom within the limits of decorum to follow their own devices and cultivate their several talents. Julia would bend over her embroidery frame by the hour together; Sarah was accounted clever with her pencil; Catherine, when she had spent some of her young energy on outdoor pursuits, liked nothing better than to lose herself in a book, with Bundle the golden tabby purring sonorously in her lap. Evenings were another matter: they were sociable occasions. Lutterfield was a scattered and not populous parish, but there were three or four congenial families within visiting distance, and seldom a week passed without some getting-together for whist or cribbage, well spiced with gossip and good fellowship, at one or another of their houses. And often, whether guests were present or not, there would be music round the piano, if Mama were in the mood. She was a tolerably good accompanist, and the girls' voices went
pleasantly together in catches and part-songs. It was no part of Mrs Peacock's plan to make fine ladies of her daughters, but the elegances of life were not to be neglected and they had all three been suitably educated: first at home, under the governance of Miss Smith, and afterwards at a young ladies' seminary at Cragford, which was one station distant from Newtonbury. Nor was their education yet ended: it would never end so long as they were in their mother's care, for it was her constant endeavour to make good housewives of them and see that they employed their time usefully.

Mornings, therefore, were dedicated to industry. For Julia, on this particular morning, this was no hardship. Quite the contrary. To visit Mrs Bateson in the character of Lady Bountiful was by a long way more agreeable than mending linen, making preserves, helping Alice the housemaid with the dusting and bedmaking, or seeing that Jenny remembered to clean the silver. On her return there would be a number of small household duties to perform; but meanwhile she could enjoy the walk into the village, the respectful welcome of Dolly Bateson, and half an hour's genial Christian gossip about her aches and pains, in which, though she deplored them, the old woman took great pride, having nothing else but her many years to be proud of.

‘How are you today, Mrs Bateson?'

‘All the better for seeing
your
bright face, Miss Julia. But I've had a bad turn, there's no denying.'

She proceeded to describe the bad turn and her present sad condition in avid detail: yet cheerfully, even boastfully, as if conscious that they were much to her credit and
must be to Julia, as they were to her, of consuming interest. Julia, who had a sympathetic nature and did nothing by halves, in a measure shared this view, exclaiming, condoling, asking questions, and saying everything that was kind and proper to the occasion. Her basket, covered with a cloth, stood at her feet on the much-worn brick floor, mute token of an impending charity and carefully ignored by both. A moment of unwonted disquiet visited her, a half-heard whisper like the beat of a dark wing, as with smiling solicitude she watched the aged animated features of this little old woman, who with sunken cheeks and knotted misshapen hands sat so carefully still in her straight-backed chair, like a ship in dry dock waiting to be broken up: though indeed the small bright eyes, from which the imprisoned spirit looked out, betrayed no consciousness of that coming event. Where and what shall I be, thought Julia, when I am as old as she is? Still at home, still helping Mama, came the comforting yet not quite satisfying answer. She did not pursue the thought, did not pause to calculate that Mama would then be within sight of her hundredth year, still less that she might be no longer alive. A world that did not contain Mama was beyond her imagining.

Uncovering the basket, she said: ‘I've brought you a few eggs, Mrs Bateson.'

‘There now!' exclaimed Dolly Bateson, with well-simulated astonishment. ‘Isn't that kind! I'm sure I'm ever so obliged, Miss Julia, if it won't be robbing you. And aint they beauties too! Such big ones as I never seen. So kind. So kind. Precious as diamonds they are, for I had to give up my few chicken, you know, what
with my rheumatics and all. But my son Willie,' she continued, going off at a tangent, ‘he's very good. Writes to me regular, and always sends me a little something when he can, him being at sea, you know, which was a great surprise, running away from his poor father, the bad boy, though forty-nine next birthday.'

‘What a pity,' said Julia lamely, ‘you can't see more of him. And your grandchildren too.'

‘Fine big boys now, they tell me,' said their grandmother proudly. ‘But Liverpool's a long way, and a body can't have everything. We shall all meet in heaven, I daresay.'

‘Before I go,' said Julia, rising, ‘is there anything I can do to help?' Her discreetly roving glance took in the dinginess, the near-squalor, of the little room, with its almost dangerously low ceiling, its flaking walls, its patch of threadbare carpet in the middle of the damp brick floor, and the dirty remains of breakfast on the table. The only adornments were a framed text,
God bless Our Home
, and a crudely coloured sketch of a ship at sea, Willie's ship no doubt. ‘Yes, let me tidy you up a bit.' Ignoring Dolly's protest—‘Dear me, no! Tis no work for a lady!'—she gathered up the crocks, carried them to the sink, and at once set about washing them, in water from a big iron kettle that was simmering on the hob. ‘There! That's done. Now where shall I find a broom?'

‘Ah, Miss Julia,' said Mrs Bateson at parting, ‘it'll be a lucky gentleman as gets you, my dear.'

As she made her way home the words echoed for a moment in her mind, but she dismissed them with a smile
that was only half a sigh. No gentleman, so far, had manifested more than a friendly interest in her; and it did not enter into her scheme of things, or into Mama's, that anyone should. Her destiny seemed to be already fixed and foreseeable. Not so Sarah's. Not so Catherine's. Being neither of them Mama's favourite daughter and right-hand man, anything dangerous and exciting might in time happen to them. Catherine indeed was too young to be the subject of prediction, but already it was tacitly assumed, though perhaps not by Sarah herself, that Sarah, the comparatively plain one, would some day marry a gentleman-farmer, of whom there were several likely specimens in the county. She was being diligently trained to that end. Nor, whatever her secret intentions, did she resist the process. The life of the fields, the energy of growth, the sowing and reaping, the changing moods of the sky, all were congenial to something deep and inarticulate in her nature. She was genuinely interested, too, in the work of the dairy, this morning her allotted sphere, taking pleasure not only in the process of buttermaking or cheesemaking but in the very tools she must handle, their shapes and functions: the milk-sieve, the skimmer, the butter-scoop, the butter-worker, and not least the churn itself, agent of that sublime moment when to a quick ear, or some other more mysterious sense, it becomes apparent that the butter has ‘come'.

Mrs Peacock, too, was alive to the homely drama of that moment, and she enjoyed Sarah's enjoyment of it: in this work together they achieved an unspoken harmony of companionship that was sometimes lacking between them. It was perhaps as much for that, as for the training in a
marriage-marketable skill, that she continued week after week to command Sarah's attendance in the dairy, where Julia, having served her apprenticeship in past years, was no longer needed, and to which Catherine was not yet promoted. She would never admit to herself that she did not quite understand this unpredictable and sometimes disconcerting daughter, with her odd smile, as at some secret joke, and her habit of urbane impudence: such a suggestion would have seemed to her preposterous. To understand and control, to mould and guide, was as inevitably the prerogative of a mother as was implicit obedience the duty of children. All she could allow, even in the privacy of her mind, was that Sarah had certain faults from which Julia, dear girl, was blessedly free, and which Catherine, she rather feared, was in process of acquiring by force of imitation: an unseemly degree of independence, a cool yet stubborn adherence to her own opinions, a disposition to pertness. It could all be summed up in one sad word, conceit. Where did she get it? Not from her parents, that was certain. Dear Edmund was a clever man but no one could call him conceited or self-willed: he was always ready, in matters outside his own sphere, to defer to his wife's better judgment. As for herself, conceit had no part in her. She was always willing to learn from anyone capable of teaching her, and took no credit to herself for the inescapable fact that in her maternal capacity she was always and necessarily right.

‘I think it's come, Mama,' said Sarah, at the churn. She wrinkled up her nose in a pleased, triumphant smile. ‘Shall you look and see?' It was a diplomatic question:
she had no doubts. But Mama liked to be consulted and liked to instruct.

‘Yes,' said Mrs Peacock, having looked. ‘There's a clever girl. Now a pint or two of cold water, to harden the grains, and a few gentle turns. Then we'll draw off the butter-milk and wash the butter in the churn till the water comes clear.'

‘Yes, Mama,' said Sarah, betraying no consciousness of having heard it all a dozen times before. Though amused she was an affectionate girl, not unduly impatient, and found the ritual repetition endearing. Old people were like that.

‘I'm pleased with you, my dear. You're picking it up very nicely. Not that you won't have maids to do it for you, if you marry well. But it's good to know how.'

‘Yes, indeed,' assented Sarah. ‘Besides it's rather fun.' She poured water into the churn and set it gently in motion. ‘And since I can't be ornamental I must learn to be useful, mustn't I?' she said with deceptive meekness. ‘Do you think Mr Pardew would have me, Mama, if I asked him? I could write his sermons for him as well as make his butter. It would be a splendid match.'

‘Now you're being silly again,' sighed Mrs Peacock. ‘Why must you spoil yourself, my dear child? I know it's a joke,' she added quickly, lest lack of humour should be imputed to her, ‘but not a very sensible one. Marriage is a serious business.'

‘Is it Mama? Then perhaps I'm not cut out for it. But it wouldn't be serious with Mr Pardew. It would be comical. He's so exactly like a curate.'

‘What
can
you mean, child? He
is
a curate.'

‘Yes, Mama. So he is. Look, the water's coming pretty clear already. But I'll give it two or three more rinsings, shall I, to make sure?'

While the butter-making was in progress, and Julia on her way to visit Mrs Bateson, Catherine, well wrapped up against the north-east wind, was engaged in conversation with Harry Dawkins in the stable-yard, a slow-speaking, weatherbeaten, rubicund old man of sixteen, whose duty it was to look after the horses, clean out the pigsties, water the bull, fetch the cows in from grass, limewash the fruit-trees, kill the rats in the granary, chivvy the hens to bed as dusk fell, lend a hand with the milking, and when not otherwise occupied be at the beck and call of Old Piggott, the gardener. It was a perennial joke among the girls, and a mystery, that though all these multifarious jobs somehow got done, and by Harry, he was rarely, if ever, detected in the act. To hurry was alien to his nature: neither urgency nor threat could persuade him to it. He was nearly always elsewhere when wanted, and when at last run to earth he gave the impression—maddening or soothing, according to one's mood—of having an infinity of leisure and of being mildly astonished that anyone should require action of him. The world is a pleasant place, he seemed to say: why not sit quiet and enjoy it?

It was therefore no surprise to Catherine to find him doing just that: sitting on an upturned bucket, his eyes half-shut, his back against the stable half-door.

‘Good morning, Harry,' she said. His eyes opened wider. ‘Had a nice sleep?'

‘Morning, miss.' He shambled slowly to his feet,
touched his forelock in mechanical salute, and stood, a looselimbed overgrown lad, awaiting her pleasure. ‘It's a good un, too,' he drawled, ‘though a sharp little wind.'

‘Now listen,' said Catherine. ‘Are you sure you're awake?'

He grinned vaguely, puzzled but unresentful. ‘Yes, miss.'

‘My mother says you're to drive me into Newtonbury.'

‘Ah,' said Harry. The idea sank slowly in. ‘When, miss? Smorning?'

‘This very morning. This very minute. Now.'

‘That'll be old Judy and the trap, I reckon?'

‘Of course,' said Catherine. ‘Come along. Let's go and say good morning to her.'

‘She's a good little pony for her age,' said Harry, as they entered the shadowy warm-smelling stable together. ‘Spanks along like one o'clock, yet quiet as a mouse. Kimmup, Judy. Kimmup, old girl.'