The Daughters of Mrs Peacock (5 page)

‘What a good idea of yours, Mr Pardew,' said Sarah, when all was ready. ‘It'll be the first game of the year.'

‘I'm glad,' said Mr Pardew. ‘It will be something that I shall always remember. Always.' He coughed nervously. ‘My name, Miss Sarah, is Hugh. Could you perhaps do me the honour of using it?'

‘Would that be quite proper, do you think,' she countered, ‘and you a clergyman?'

He smiled uncertainly. ‘But I am not, you know, so very old.'

‘Well, shall we begin?' said Sarah, with nervous briskness. ‘There ought to be four of us really. Perhaps Catherine and Julia would join us. Shall I go and ask them?'

‘Not on my account,' he answered quickly. ‘By no means. Far from it. I am more than content. Two, if I may say so, is the perfect number. Just you and I.'

‘Very well. Which colours will you have?'

But no, he said:
she
must choose. The choice must always be the lady's. To choose in such matters, nay to command, was the undoubted prerogative of the fair sex. By ‘such matters', she retorted, he meant trivial matters she supposed, flustered by his excess of politeness into arguing with him. In everything else women were expected only to obey.

‘Oh no,' he protested. ‘Where there is love, a true union of hearts, no question of obedience can arise. Guidance, yes. A little gentle guidance.
Strong to protect and resolute to serve
, as the poet says. But not … but not … how shall I put it?'

‘Don't trouble to put it at all,' Sarah said. ‘We've come here to play croquet, you know, not to talk about love.'

‘I rather hoped,' he said meaningly, ‘that we might do both.'

‘Since I'm to choose,' said Sarah, ‘I shall take the red and the yellow. That means you begin.'

‘Must I?' he said unhappily.

‘Certainly you must. It's laid down in the rules. Blue, red, black, yellow: that's the order of play.'

‘Well … if you insist.'

The game began. It proceeded in an uneasy silence, punctuated by brief conventional exclamations. Mr Pardew played well. He had a good eye and wielded the mallet with grace and precision. It was impossible to deny that he was a personable young man. His lithe athletic figure showed to great advantage in this agreeable exercise, and Sarah could have admired it without stint or afterthought but for knowing that his mind, like her own, was elsewhere, not on the game. Even so, she could not help enjoying the sunshine, the scent of the grass, the delicious moment of contact between her mallet and the ball; but an uneasy suspicion of his intentions weighed upon her spirit, making these pleasures of the senses fitful and precarious. She knew, all too well, what was hatching in his mind. She could already hear in imagination the prepared phrases, the sentimental sighs, the quotations from the poets. It was flattering, disturbing, totally unexpected. It was also, for reasons she could not stop to analyse, profoundly unwelcome. Had she liked him less she could have laughed at his ridiculous plan: had she liked him much, much more, she might have been tempted to entertain it.

She won the game by a narrow margin. Her opponent was radiant with satisfaction.

‘Splendid, splendid,' he cried, clapping his hands. ‘
Ave, victrix!
A most enjoyable game and the happiest possible ending.'

‘If you talk like that,' she said tartly, ‘I shall think you weren't trying.'

‘Oh, but I was, I do assure you,' he protested. ‘Nevertheless, since justice has been vindicated, I rejoice.'

‘I'm not sure that I approve of that,' said Sarah, belabouring the theme in the hope of avoiding seriousness. ‘To be a good loser is quite the thing, I know. But unless you can contrive to seem just a little mortified, you cheat me, don't you see, of my triumph.'

Puzzled, contrite, anxious to please, ‘But … but surely …' he stammered.

‘Dear Mr Pardew, don't look so worried,' she cut in. ‘I was only joking. It's a bad habit of mine.' She despaired of him: how could one talk to a man so obtuse? ‘Shall we go in now? Or would you like another game, so that you can take your revenge?'

‘Thank you, but no. I've no wish for revenge. Far from it. Far from it indeed.' Weighting his words with solemn unction, holding her in the leash of his soulful gaze, ‘I am more, more than content to be conquered, Miss Sarah,' he said, ‘by you.'

‘That you've already made plain,' she answered, turning away. ‘It's very disobliging of you, Mr Pardew. One should always play to win, else there's no game. Come along, we'd better go in. You'll stay to tea, won't you?'

‘But
have
I?' he said eagerly. ‘Have I made my meaning plain? I fear not. Give me another moment or two, dear Miss Sarah. Hear me out.'

Seeing no way of escape, short of impossible rudeness, she faced him again, saying earnestly: ‘I do assure you, Mr Pardew, the subject is not worth pursuing.'

‘How can you say that, before I have spoken? May I tell you what is in my heart?'

‘Truly,' she said, ‘I would rather you didn't. I think it would embarrass us both.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said simply. ‘I'm desolated.' He stood very straight and stalwart before her, suddenly invested, it seemed to her, with a new stern dignity. ‘But I've said too much not to say more. It is my dearest wish that you will one day consent to be my wife.'

The grave pronouncement, though so utterly foreseen, shocked, gratified, and dismayed her. Because it was without precedent it marked an epoch in her life. She was desired. Can this be happening to
me
, she thought incredulously. It was a situation which, though hitherto outside her experience, she had often enough read about in the romances she and Catherine so much enjoyed; and it was they that provided her with the right, the inevitable answer.

‘I am deeply sensible, Mr Pardew, of the great honour you do me. I wish I felt it possible to do as you ask.' No sooner had she uttered the stilted sentences than she was beset by an untimely temptation to laugh at them. But the sight of Mr Pardew's stricken eyes kept her sober, and with a sudden reversion to her natural self, she exclaimed impetuously: ‘Oh, why did you have to say it? I tried to stop you.'

‘You mean there's no hope for me?'

She shrank from saying yes, there was no hope: it seemed needlessly brutal. And she dared say nothing that would encourage such hope.

‘Let's forget this conversation,' she said, forcing a
smile, mutely inviting him to relax and be cheerful, ‘and just be friends. Thank you for my game of croquet. I enjoyed it.'

‘Hullo,' said Catherine, looking up from her book. ‘Have a good game? Who won?' Not listening to the answer, she stretched herself sinuously, like a cat, flushed and drowsy with her long literary seance. ‘Where's Mr Pardew?'

‘He's gone,' said Sarah. ‘He couldn't stay for tea.'

‘Gone!' cried Catherine. ‘Without saying goodbye to
me
! I'm heartbroken.' She struck a tragic attitude. ‘Alas, and I so young!'

The performance fell flat. Sarah did not even smile.

‘Anything wrong, Sally?' Her eyes grew bright with suspicion. ‘Did he make you an offer?'

‘Don't be absurd,' said Sarah. Her discomfort was manifest.

‘But did he? Come on! Tell! … I do believe he did,' Catherine persisted. ‘You wouldn't be so serious else.'

Sarah said, turning away: ‘I never heard such nonsense. Be quiet, do.'

‘All right,' said Catherine sadly, her face clouding. It was a new thing for her to be shut out of Sarah's confidence. ‘If you don't want to tell me, don't. I'm not inquisitive.'

‘Of
course
you're not,' agreed Sarah, suddenly herself again. ‘Politely interested, yes, but never inquisitive. Far from it, as Mr Pardew would say.' Unwilling to
leave it at that, seeing Catherine was hurt, ‘But if you
must
know,' she continued, ‘yes, he did.'

‘Golly!' said Catherine, round-eyed. Paradoxically she was startled by this confirmation of her guess: startled and impressed. A proposal in the family, no matter from whom, was a tremendous event. ‘What a lark!' she murmured, but with more of hope than conviction.

‘But it's a secret, mind.' Sarah was quietly emphatic. ‘Don't say a word to anyone, or I'll never speak to you again.' To soften this threat, ‘It would be mean,' she explained, ‘to give him away.'

‘You like him, don't you?' said Catherine, appalled by the discovery. ‘All right. I'm not a telltale tit.' After a pause she asked in a small anxious voice: ‘Do you …
like
him, Sarah?'

‘I don't think so. Not in the way you mean. But I will say this for him,' she went on in a cheerful tone. ‘He plays a very good game of croquet. And what,' she inquired, in her mother's voice and manner, ‘what have
you
been doing, child, this afternoon? Ruining your eyesight with a foolish book, when you might have been out in the sunshine?'

Jenny, in the doorway that led from the drawing-room, said breathlessly: ‘Oh, you're here, Miss Sarah. I've been looking everywhere. Tea's ready and waiting, and the master's home.'

‘Thank you, Jenny. We're coming.'

‘How nice,' said Catherine, ‘having Papa for tea.'

‘Very nourishing,' said Sarah. ‘But don't we always?'

‘Yes. That's what's so nice.'

‘Very well, donkey,' said Sarah. ‘Very well, scratch-cat,' said Catherine. They grinned at each other, pleased with this echo from their nursery days.

Tea with the Peacocks was no elegant toying with thin bread-and-butter and exiguous ladylike pastries, but a noble spread, the last major meal of the day. It normally began at half-past five, when Papa got home from his office, and continued in a leisurely, talkative fashion for the best part of an hour. A huge loaf sat boldly on its trencher, waiting to be cut. Honey, homemade jam, Mama's best butter, a large fruit cake, and sometimes a bowl of thick cream, contributed their various colours to the scene. There would be ham on the sideboard for Papa, the breadwinner, the tired city man, and boiled eggs for anyone who chose to have them. A huge brown teapot—not the silver one: that was reserved for breakfast—dominated the table, with Mrs Peacock in proud command of it. It was a symbol of the maternal authority, untouchable, except by her permission expressed or implied, by any hands but hers. Teatime, because it marked the return after eight hours of absence of dear Papa, was a daily celebration, the hour of the family reunion, a feast of gossip and news at which all were tacitly expected to give an account of themselves. All except Mr Peacock himself. He, who had been out in the great world and must be supposed to have much to tell, made a great tantalizing point of never talking about his professional affairs. This reticence added to his other and more genial attractions an alluring air of mystery: his womenfolk liked to regard him as a man full of dark secrets.

‘Well, girls, what have you all been doing with yourselves today?' He turned to his wife, teasingly. ‘You first, my dear.'

‘I am no longer a girl, Edmund.'

‘Certainly you are. And the prettiest of the bunch.'

‘You must excuse your father,' said Mrs Peacock, smiling at her three daughters. ‘It's his first day back at the office, remember, after his illness.'

‘After my fiddlesticks!' he retorted. ‘Never been ill in my life.'

‘What have
you
been doing, Papa?' said Sarah mischievously. ‘That's more to the point. Who is going to law with whom? And why? And when?'

‘Simple drudgery, my love. The common round, the daily task. Nothing could be more unexciting.'

‘We had a visitor this afternoon,' said Catherine. ‘Sarah and I.'

‘A visitor? Who?' Mrs Peacock's tone was sharp.

‘Ah, who?' said Catherine. ‘Can't you guess, Mama?'

‘Possibly. Possibly not. I prefer, however, that you should tell me, Catherine.'

‘It was only Mr Pardew,' said Sarah, with a warning glance at her sister.

‘Mr Pardew! Why wasn't I told?'

‘We didn't quite know where you were, Mama. And he begged us not to disturb you.'

‘Very polite of him. He's a very well-mannered young man. But I wasn't far away, you know that. Julia and I were busy upstairs, with the linen. I hope you asked him to tea?'

‘Of course,' said Sarah. ‘But he wouldn't stay. We
had a game of croquet. That was a great help. It saved the trouble of making conversation.' Her wish to make fun of Mr Pardew had mysteriously vanished, but it would look odd if she did not speak of him disdainfully. ‘Besides,' she continued, glad to let her tongue run away with her, ‘it was a kindness to Catherine. My dear little sister was able to go on with her book. I call it noble of me.'

‘So you and Mr Pardew played croquet together? Is that how it was?'

‘Yes, Mama. Was it improper of me? I do hope not. I suppose I could have got Jenny or Alice to chaperon me, but I didn't think of it. It
was
a risk, wasn't it? But all is well. I emerged from the ordeal quite unscathed.'

‘That will do, Sarah. I don't enjoy that kind of joke.' But catching her husband's quizzical look—it was very nearly a wink—she blushed slightly and summoned up a smile. ‘And you, Catherine, you chose to spend your afternoon with a foolish book, did you, when you might have been enjoying the sunshine.'

‘Yes, Mama,' said Catherine. She dared not look at Sarah, but her eyes danced. ‘Are all books foolish, would you say, or only the ones I read?'

Julia, softly intervening, remarked that Catherine knew very well what Mama meant. Nobody enjoyed a really good book better than Mama.

‘What is it about, Catherine?' asked Mr Peacock. ‘Let us all have the benefit of your abstruse studies.'