The Daughters of Mrs Peacock (7 page)

‘Most kind. Most kind. I'm afraid the ladies spoil me. It's so nice to be made welcome. I do hope you're fully recovered, Mr Peacock?'

‘Recovered? What's this?'

‘Last time I had the pleasure of visiting here,' said Mr Pardew, blushing and beaming, ‘you had recently been ill.'

‘Nonsense, my dear fellow! An idle rumour. A
zealously propagated myth. You mustn't believe all my wife tells you.'

‘
Really
, Edmund!'

‘There,' said Mr Pardew, ‘I must venture, with all respect, to disagree with you, sir. Mrs Peacock, I am sure, would never deviate by a hair's breadth from the strict truth. And that, in this lax modern age, is so very important, don't you think? It's a thing I'm always trying to impress on my children at Sunday School. Speak the truth, children, I say, and shame the …' He hesitated, glancing at the ladies. ‘And shame the, er, Evil One.'

‘Very sound advice,' said Mr Peacock politely, with a covert glance at Sarah.

‘How is the Sunday School shaping?' asked Mrs Peacock. ‘
Such
a good idea. Such a wholesome influence in the village. The little boys are
so
much better-behaved and respectful since you started it, Mr Pardew. It was a thing sadly needed.'

‘Very kind of you to say so, Mrs Peacock. Most kind. Most kind. The Vicar approves too, I'm glad to say. Prayers, a few hymns, and a short, frank talk. Just a simple service. It would never do, I told him, to let the chapel folk get ahead of us.'

‘Indeed no,' said Mr Peacock. ‘Can't have them getting to heaven before us.'

‘And you do it all by yourself?' asked Julia. ‘That
is
good of you.'

‘At the moment, yes. But when our numbers grow, as I hope and pray they will, perhaps you, Miss Julia, or you, Miss Sarah, will be so kind as to come and help in the
good work? That would be a great blessing, especially for the little ones. They need, after all, a lady's guidance. Though as a mere man,' he ended modestly, ‘one does what one can.'

It needed only this, thought Sarah. The balloon of her fortnight's eager imagining was pricked. She watched its collapse with regret but also with a sense of release. The dream was over: the waking, though painful, was salutary, liberating. Even now she strove to be just. The young man was sincere and well-meaning. She did not doubt that he did good and useful work. He deserved better than to be laughed at. But…

The conversation went on and on, till the meal reached its end. Sarah, rising from the table with the others, became aware that Mr Pardew was angling for her private attention.

‘Before I go,' he murmured, sidling up to her, ‘I wonder if you would be so kind as to show me the rose garden, Miss Sarah?'

‘Certainly, if you like. But it's too early for roses.'

‘So it is. How forgetful of me. But the buds, don't you think,' he confided softly, bending towards her as she led the way into the garden, ‘
fast-folded buds, the sleeping babes of Spring
, as the poet says, are even more appealing?'

‘It depends on what one is looking for,' answered Sarah. ‘Old Piggott wouldn't agree with you. He takes a sort of angry pride in his roses, but only when they're in full bloom and because he wins prizes with them. His chief interest is potatoes. We've persuaded him at last to spare a little space for asparagus, but he only does it to oblige, with much grumbling. It's a wonder
to me that things grow at all in the kitchen garden, with that comic old misery for ever scowling and sneering at them. I'm sure I shouldn't. My meaning, miss, he says, if it beant one thing tis another. Never rain when we wants it and then a methuselah downpour, as the saying is, and they dratted creeping lilies everywhere. Ay, the weeds'll grow fast enough, trust
them:
tis ten men's funeral to keep pace with ‘em. He's always called Old Piggott,' she rattled on, ‘even to his face, because there's another Piggott in the village, Young Piggott, aged about fifty. Everyone knows he's his nephew, son of poor naughty old Lizzie, his sister——'

‘Dear me!' said Mr Pardew, blushing. ‘How sad!'

‘But Old Piggott'—she hurried on—‘won't admit the relationship. He be none of mine, miss, nor his mother neither. I don't hold with ungodliness. Quaint, don't you think, after half a century? You'd think he would have got used to it by now. The village isn't usually so unforgiving.'

‘Forgive us our trespasses, yes,' said Mr Pardew. ‘But repentance must come first.'

His discomfort was manifest. Sarah realized that in her anxiety to keep his ardour at bay she had let her tongue run away with her. How shocked Mama would have been, could she have heard her!

A silence fell between them. She could think of nothing to say.

‘What a lovely evening,' sighed Mr Pardew. ‘So golden. So serene.'

‘Yes, isn't it. But I shouldn't be surprised if we had rain before morning.'

‘Almost too lovely,' said Mr Pardew. ‘Sometimes, do you know, the beauty of the world is almost more than I can bear.'

‘How very inconvenient for you!'

‘And when I am with you, Miss Sarah, it's … it's as if the gates of paradise itself were opening.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Sarah firmly. ‘Because they aren't, you know.'

‘You haven't forgotten our last conversation? May I hope that you've given some thought to it?'

‘Yes, but——'

‘Perhaps you feel I was too bold, too hasty? That I should have addressed myself first to your dear parents? That would indeed have been more proper. But, forgive me, I was carried away.'

‘Not at all,' said Sarah. ‘I thought no such thing. You've nothing to reproach yourself with. I assure you I shouldn't have enjoyed being discussed behind my back. It was
my
affair, and yours. No one else's.'

‘Then perhaps …' he said, seizing her hand. She released herself quickly. ‘No, do not answer me yet. Give yourself time, and let me at least hope.'

‘No, Mr Pardew. I've had plenty of time. I've had a whole fortnight.' To reject him, she found, was easier than she had feared. She was more than ever sorry for him, but she hardened her heart against pity, seeing now with clear eyes that only in his absence could she come within sight of loving him. ‘Forgive me, please, but my answer is still the same, and always will be. I hope,' she added gently, ‘we need never speak of this again.'

‘If that is your wish, Miss Sarah, I will try to obey you. Your wish is my law. But——'

‘There is no
but
,' she said impatiently. ‘I'm … I'm … grateful for your kind proposal, but what you ask is quite, quite impossible. I cannot see myself in such a position. I should never do justice to it.'

‘My dear Sarah, if
that
is your only reason——'

‘But it's not, it's not,' she burst out, angry to find that she had set a trap for herself. ‘It's the least of reasons. The true reason must be obvious, even to you. It's simply,' she said, driven to desperation, ‘that I don't
love
you, Mr Pardew. Surely that's sufficient? And don't say that I might learn to love you, because it isn't true, it's quite out of the question.'

‘Very well.' He was pale with mortification. ‘I have exposed myself to no purpose.'

‘I don't know what you mean by exposing yourself,' she said coldly. ‘But you needn't imagine I shall boast of the honour you have done me. I propose to forget it.'

She turned, and left him standing.

Arrived back in the house she encountered a battery of curious eyes.

‘Well, my Sarah?' said Mrs Peacock. ‘What have you done with your young man?'

‘If you mean Mr Pardew, Mama, he's gone. He begs you will accept his most humble apologies for not taking leave of you. He has another visit to pay.'

‘Did you have a nice talk?'

‘Quite tolerable, thank you. Not exactly scintillating. You know what he is.'

‘I know he's a very amiable young man, Sarah. I hope you weren't rude to him.'

‘I hope not too, Mama. But he wouldn't have noticed if I had been. His chief contribution, I recall, was that repentance must precede forgiveness.'

‘And who, I wonder, is in need of forgiveness?' inquired Mr Peacock urbanely.

‘Old Lizzie Piggott, Papa, who went astray fifty years ago.'

‘Really, Sarah!' exclaimed her mother. ‘I'm surprised at you! Catherine, you may leave us.'

‘Thank you, Mama,' said Catherine, making no move. Her eyes were on Sarah, trying desperately to read her mind.

Sarah kept her word. Except to Catherine, who knew too much not to be told more, she said nothing of what had passed between herself and Mr Pardew. It was a little unkind in her, she sometimes felt, to deprive her family of such a gigantic plum of gossip, argument, and fun; it would have kept their tongues busy for days and been remembered ever afterwards as marking an epoch in the family history; but for her own sake, as well as his, she preferred to be silent. She had no wish to be the centre of discussion, to be argued with and perhaps disapproved of. Papa, she thought, would have been sorry to lose her, and would have raised his eyebrows at her choice; but of Mrs Peacock she was unsure. Silence therefore was best on all counts; and Catherine, sworn to secrecy, loyally resisted the temptation to chatter. Then by what mysterious process did Julia and Mama acquire some inkling of the situation, so that during the weeks that followed any mention of Mr Pardew's name gave rise to meaning looks and expectant silences? Perhaps it was because Sarah no longer indulged her wit at his expense, and because on his subsequent visits—for he manfully continued to call—he had the air of cherishing a secret sorrow and could not refrain from angling for sympathy. Mr Pardew's irruption into the family consciousness
had turned the thoughts of all three girls in the direction of matrimony. Even Julia, cheerfully resigned to eternal maidenhood, looked with new eyes at every male visitor that came near them, half-consciously asking herself whether this one or that might ‘do' for one or the other of her sisters. Dr Witherby, who with undeviating regularity came once a month to play chess with Mr Peacock, was clearly too old, probably not less than forty, and a confirmed bachelor to boot. Mr Garnish, the vicar, though a widower and sadly in need of someone to look after him and keep a busy eye on the parish, was older still: moreover, it was notorious that his housekeeper, Mrs Budge, imported from the county town of Mercester, was busy making herself indispensable and would never let him out of her clutches. Mrs Budge won't budge, said the village, slapping its knee and roaring with laughter at the subtle pun. She, with the help of a fourteen-year-old daughter, and an overgrown lad from the village who was nominally the gardener but spent much of his time scrubbing floors and carrying coals, did all the work of the large half-empty vicarage. Several unmarried ladies of suitable age were suspected of aspiring to the position of vicaress, but had to content themselves with humbler offices: running the Bible class and the sewing guild, organizing ‘sales of work' for the relief of the deserving poor, and decorating the church at harvest festivals. Julia herself, with no ulterior motive, took part in these activities; and the time could not be far distant when her sisters would be drawn into them.

Dr Witherby, a comparative newcomer to the district,
was a tall man but from the habit of much courteous bending had acquired a slight stoop. The effect of his large aquiline features was softened by a nimbus of red beard surrounding them from ear to ear, chin and upper lip being clean-shaven, and by a pair of bushy and extremely mobile and expressive eyebrows which, had he been deprived of the power of speech, would alone have been adequate for all emotional occasions: in his chess-sessions with Mr Peacock they came much into play, sometimes rising so high as to threaten contact with his mass of brown, unkempt hair. He did not however rely on them exclusively for the expression of his varying moods: in moments of unprofessional relaxation he had a vein of sardonic talk that was highly congenial to Mr Peacock. It was characteristic of him, whether to call it tact or cunning is a moot point, that with Mrs Peacock and her like his manner was more ceremonious, lacking nothing of the sober, smiling gravity expected of a physician: he had in fact, it might almost be said, as many manners as he had patients, from Colonel Beckoning's lady, of Manor Park, to old Mrs Bateson in her cottage. Despite his eccentric appearance, which suggested a tragic actor rather than a medical man, he was well regarded by rich and poor, alike. And perhaps, thought Julia in her new role of matchmaker, he was not too old after all: Sarah would be all the better for a steadying influence.

The Vicar was quite another story. He had held his office from time immemorial, had christened them, all three, prepared them for confirmation, and was now rapidly declining into senility. His conduct of the church
services had become a nervous embarrassment to the more percipient among his congregation. His speech grew more slow and uncertain with every week that passed, and at any moment, they felt, he might forget what he was at and precipitate a minor scandal in God's house. Only stubbornness, and a bitter resolve not to be ousted by Mr Pardew whose youth and vigour he resented, prevented his retiring. It was whispered in the village that the curate had much to put up with in the way of sulks and snubs from his vicar, even to the indignity of having to receive his salary from the hands of Mrs Budge. This was unproven, but everyone remembered that dreadful Sunday morning when Mr Pardew, mounting the pulpit sermon in hand, had been silently but testily recalled and displaced by the feeble formidable old man, who then proceeded to preach for forty weary minutes on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
And the greatest of these is charity.
Was it malice or mere absentmindedness? Mr Pardew himself would admit to no doubt on the point. An unfortunate misunderstanding, he insisted. Distressing, yes; but he, not the Vicar, was to blame. It is possible that he had profited from the sermon, though like others he had heard it often enough before. It is equally possible that he knew that no one would believe him. This episode, though not consciously recalled, was part of the background of Julia's reflections. It was manifest that the Vicar, greatly as he needed a wife, if only to rescue him from Mrs Budge, was not a marriageable proposition.