The Daughters of Mrs Peacock Read online

  Gerald Bullett

  The Daughters of

  Mrs Peacock

  FOR

  ANN CLAIRE

  twenty years hence

  The Chapters

  I

  Five in Family

  II

  A Proposal

  III

  Midsummer Revels

  IV

  Catherine in Action

  V

  Sarah: Julia: Sarah

  VI

  Catherine and Robert

  VII

  A Game of Chess

  VIII

  Twenty-First Birthday

  IX

  Epilogue

  A Note on the Author

  Chapter One

  Five in Family

  Taking their seats at the breakfast-table this April morning, the three Peacock daughters—Julia, Sarah, and Catherine Ann—could have no thought to spare for the character of the epoch in which an obliging Providence had placed them. Living in the green middle of England, untroubled by politics, untouched by news from abroad, they accepted without question the world they shared with each other and with their parents. Each in her dreams and daydreams, her bright hopes and shadowy fears, was a person apart, a solitary spirit; but so soon as they came together, as just now in the mere act of entering the breakfast-room, their individual isolation was dissolved in a warm if unthinking family relationship. They had a mother to rule them, a father to provide for them, servants to minister to their comfort; and it was beyond their imagining that things could have been or ever would be different. God was in his heaven, Victoria on her throne, and all was right with the world. True, there were wicked people here and there, atheists and lawbreakers and the like; there were poor people, who did not get enough to eat; and somewhere in distant parts of the earth there were the unfortunate heathen, of various colours, for whom it was one’s duty to pray; but these three categories did not constitute a serious problem. The poor were conveniently divided into two classes: the deserving poor, who could be visited and helped a little, and the undeserving, who were best forgotten. There were also, of course, the rich: people with titles and large estates, all busily engaged in propping up the divinely-established order. They too were taken unenviously for granted. The Peacocks did not consider themselves rich, but they were comfortable, and well content to be so. They occupied, both geographically and socially, the best position of all, the middle position; and having no taste for extremes they were proud of it, or would have been had they given it a thought.

  ‘Good morning, my dears,’ said Mrs Peacock, sailing into the room in the wake of a large silver teapot, which was carried, like an emblem of state, by Jenny the parlourmaid, prim and respectful in cap and apron. The girl had been christened Euphemia, but Mrs Peacock considered the name unsuitable for one in her station, and being precluded by good sense and natural kindliness from aping the manners of the upper classes and calling her Briggs, she had decided on Jenny, to everyone’s satisfaction.

  ‘Good morning, Mama,’ said the girls in chorus.

  ‘We shall not wait,’ their mother announced. ‘Your father is out of sorts. I’m keeping him in bed. Catherine!’

  To Catherine, as the youngest, fell the duty and privilege of saying grace.

  ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. For Christ’s sake, Amen.’

  The bowed heads lifted. Napkins, extracted from their rings, were unfolded. Breakfast began. Sunlight from the broad sash-windows overlooking the street made the silver and crockery on table and sideboard gleam, enhanced the whiteness of the napery, set the glass lustres on the chimneypiece brilliantly glittering, and gilded the contours of a pair of equestrian bronzes that stood, high rearing, on either side of the great marble clock, in front of the overmantel looking-glass. From the opposite, pink-beflowered wall, Grandfather and Grandmother Bartlow, in maple frames, gazed self-consciously at distance, seeming to set the seal of their approval on the cheerful domestic scene: even in heaven, Mrs Peacock believed, it was a satisfaction to them that their daughter held them in pious and dutiful remembrance. The space above the sideboard was occupied by an engraving of Landseer’s Shoeing the Bay Mare. Its fellow, The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, was elsewhere, in the servants’ parlour. Both were from the Bartlow home.

  A curious observe might, though with some difficulty, have discerned a likeness between the venerable Bartlows on the wall and the ripe fruit of their marriage who was now, and had been for a quarter of a century, Edmund Peacock’s wife. Tall, and with a certain stateliness of carriage, she in her middle years was still both comely and vigorous: dark eyes, dark hair, decided features, a gipsy-brown complexion, and a slim but womanly figure which child-bearing had surprisingly not impaired. The only one of her daughters who resembled her, and that to an almost comical degree, was the firstborn, Julia, who had just completed her twenty-third year. Julia, earnestly co-operating with nature, by force of filial admiration had made herself into an echo of her mother, copying her manner, adopting her opinions, and blushing with pleasure, prettily enough, when strangers remarked on the physical likeness between them. She was in fact Mother’s Blessing, zealous to establish her law in the minds of Sarah and Catherine, and shocked when, as sometimes happened, they showed signs of indifference or even of rebelliousness. For these younger girls, especially Catherine who was but lately emerged from her teens, were highspirited and inclined to be independent, so far as that was possible in a rigidly ordered world: it was sometimes difficult to believe that they were their mother’s daughters. They had nothing of her darkness, Sarah being medium-fair in colouring, brown hair and blue eyes, and Catherine fairer still, with a sanguine complexion and eyes whose fugitive bronze gleam, like fire in a sky-reflecting pool, matched the warm tone of her hair. Sarah was round-faced and comely; Catherine was slighter, with smaller and more delicately modelled features; both were by an inch or so less tall than their sister. Julia loved them dearly, as in duty bound. So far as they would let her she watched over them with anxious affection. But Mama was the centre of her universe. She was happy in having one of Mama’s names, Emily, for her own second, and was a little jealous of Catherine Ann for having the other. Sarah, the middle one, had received only one name at her christening, perhaps because she was not the boy her parents had petitioned for in their prayers. She suffered the penalty without complaint, and now, at twenty-two, she enjoyed being Sarah Peacock, contemplating her image in the glass with a mixture of irony and resignation. The world had been at no pains to conceal from her that she was less pretty than her sisters, but nature had compensated by giving her a keen eye for human absurdity and a rich capacity for enjoying it.

  ‘And what are my girls going to do with themselves this morning?’ inquired Mrs Peacock with a commanding smile, as breakfast neared its end.

  Recognizing the question for what it was, the prelude to instruction, Julia waited meekly for the sequel, turning dark eyes on her mother. Catherine, absorbed in thoughts of her own, paid no attention.

  ‘We don’t know yet, Mama,’ said Sarah. ‘But we shall in a minute.’

  ‘You, Sarah, shall help me with the butter-making,’ said Mrs Peacock. ‘And my Julia, I think, must go and see poor Dolly Bateson, with a basket of eggs. She wasn’t at church on Sunday: that means she’s had another of her attacks.’

  ‘Very well, Mama,’ said Julia. ‘That will be nice.’

  ‘Then one of you must get Harry Dawkins to drive you into Newtonbury with a message for Mr Crabbe from your father.’

  ‘Would that be Catherine, I wonder?’ said Sarah. ‘I knew we should learn our destinies in time, if we were patient.’

  ‘May I,
Mama?’ said Catherine eagerly. The prospect of Newtonbury allured her. ‘And may I go and speak to Papa first?’

  ‘If you do, you must be careful not to disturb him. He may be asleep.’

  ‘I do hope Papa is not ill?’ said Julia, on a note of anxious inquiry.

  ‘No, not ill, my dear. I wouldn’t say ill. But his cough’s troubling him. I’m afraid he’s caught a new chill.’

  ‘Shall you send for the doctor, Mama?’

  ‘Time enough,’ said her mother. ‘We’ll see how he is after a day in bed.’

  ‘Poor Papa!’ said Catherine, who hated being kept in bed. ‘It’s such a lovely day too. The sunshine would do him good.’

  Julia’s admonishing look said as plainly as speech that Mama knew best. It was the first article of her religion.

  Mrs Peacock said, in gentle rebuke: ‘Your father, Catherine, is not a young girl.’

  ‘Else we should not be here, Kitty,’ explained Sarah gravely. ‘Remember that, child.’

  ‘What are you giggling at, Catherine?’

  ‘Nothing, Mama.’

  ‘There is no need for you to be silly, just because Sarah is.’

  ‘But we like being silly sometimes,’ said Catherine, with simple veracity. ‘Don’t we, Sarah?’

  ‘Innocent laughter,’ said Sarah, ‘is said to be one of the privileges of the young, Mama.’

  ‘I like to see happy young faces about me,’ said Mrs Peacock, ‘but there are times when laughter is out of place. With your father lying ill in bed——’

  ‘But, Mama,’ cried Sarah, ‘you said he was not ill!’

  ‘That will do, Sarah. I do not argue with my children.’

  ‘How true,’ murmured Sarah pianissimo. Only Catherine heard her.

  Julia said earnestly: ‘We are all very sorry for Papa. Aren’t we, girls?’

  ‘Indeed yes,’ said Catherine. ‘Mama knows that, don’t you, Mama?’

  ‘But how will Mr Crabbe manage without him?’ asked Sarah, joining in the peacemaking endeavour. ‘Is he a clever man, Mama?’

  ‘With your father to guide him, I fancy he does well enough,’ said Mrs Peacock loftily.

  ‘But without Papa?’ Sarah insisted. ‘Will he ruin us? Shall we all starve? That will be a new experience.’ Her placid smile made it seem an attractive one.

  The greater part of Edmund Peacock’s income was derived from the firm of Peacock and Crabbe, solicitors, of which, inheriting from his father, he was the senior partner. He had rural interests as well, in the shape of some sixty-five acres of grass and ploughland, with a bailiff and three men to do the work, and enjoyed nothing so much as riding round his estate on summer evenings, counting his sheep, admiring his cattle, and discussing crops and weather with John Sampson. Farming, he believed, was in his blood, transmitted to him from his father’s father, who had devoted his whole life to it, with much profit to himself and his heirs. It gratified Edmund that though only a tenth part of the original farm remained to him he was living in the same farmhouse, with its barns and granary, stables and byres; and he sometimes regretted that his father had broken with family tradition by taking to the law. It was a long stone house, decently proportioned; and that its front door opened straight on to the road was no hardship in these days of horsedrawn traffic, of which, moreover, there was not much. Here was rural seclusion, enlivened by the serene leisurely bustle of seedtime and harvest, milking and sheep-shearing: yet the thriving town of Newtonbury, where in black coat and white collar he practised his major profession, was only three stations away, on a branch line. Mrs Peacock, therefore, enjoyed the best of two worlds. She had the status of a professional man’s lady and the homelier pleasure of being a farmer’s wife. She played both parts with an equal and effortless facility. Her butter was without peer. Her cheeses were the pride of the county. And her handmaidens held her in high respect.

  ‘I am sorry not only for Papa,’ remarked Sarah with mock-solemnity. ‘I am sorry too for poor Mrs Bateson. She missed a treat by not going to church on Sunday. But don’t tell her, Julia. It wouldn’t be kind.’

  ‘What do you mean, Sarah?’ said Julia unguardedly.

  ‘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, c
overed 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?’