Authors: Mark Dunn
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #British & Irish, #Historical, #Dramas & Plays, #Genre Fiction, #Drama & Plays, #Historical Fiction, #Irish, #Scottish
“Yet he does
not
intend to put them out, daughter. Allow me, please, to tell the story without your interrupting supposition and commentary.”
“Ah! Then he is truly a compassionate and charitable young man to respect and honour the rights of his cousins at the expense of his own. A rarity amongst the gentry, to be sure!”
“You have interrupted me again, daughter, and again with an erroneous deduction. Yes, he permits the three young women and their widowed mother to remain within the house, but such sufferance does not come without a heavy price exacted from one of the daughters.”
“A price?”
Mr. Peppercorn nodded, his expression turning grave.
Fearfully, Anna asked if the young man took the preferred cousin to his bed. “I can stand to know the foul details of it, Papa. And if he
does
, I also wish to know why does he not simply do the respectable thing and marry her as his price for permitting the Henshawes to remain in tenancy at Moseley Manor.”
“Because, daughter, it is not his
wish
to take her either to bed
or
to wife. It is his desire only to remove her periodically into London where she is forced to dress as a monkey-girl and dance the monkey dance within the Gracechurch Street Monkey Parlour.”
With this, Anna’s throat tightened to such a degree that she began to cough and choke, and with worried slaps upon the back from her father, the bite of apple which had lodged itself in the throat was successfully dispelled in a spray of pulp and saliva into her father’s lap. “I am so sorry, Papa, but I have up until this moment heard of the infamous London monkey parlours only through the tales of Elwood Epping and his young wife Lucy, who, when she was ere his ward, you may recall, used to come to our park to fish in our north stewpond, and to tell stories which beggared belief.”
“But alas, my dearest, this particular story is not at all a confection of Mr. Epping’s imagination, nor the fancy of his equally inventive wife. Granted that one should doubt the veracity of Mrs. Epping’s toes being nipped at by snapping well turtles during her long pendulous dangle within the well outside this chapel, for I believe as do most of those who have argued the truth and falsity of the account that there is no such thing as a well turtle, snapping or otherwise. But there
are
monkey parlours within the town of London in which men pay large sums of money to gaze upon women of compromised repute, who will dance the simian dance for their pleasure. And I was surprized and dismayed to learn that such employment was the price to be paid by Miss Sophia Henshawe to keep her family from being turned out.”
“How would the dance proceed, Papa? I am curious.”
“With the arms flapped about thusly, waved and rippled this way and that.” Mr. Peppercorn rose to demonstrate the mechanics of the dance for his daughter. “And upon occasion one curls the hands inward and addresses the armpits.”
“And what of the legs? What happens there?”
“They are generally bent in an exaggerated fashion such as this.”
“And is there monkey chatter to be heard within the parlour?”
“Most assuredly. It is quite loud, for there are several monkey girls giving the dance in simultaneity.”
Anna clapped her hands together. “Papa, you are very good. You speak as if you have been to such a parlour your very self.”
No response came forth from Mr. Peppercorn.
Anna gasped. “Surely, Papa, you have merely been shewn the dance secondhand by one who observed it for himself, because you would in no case frequent such a place, or am I grievously mistaken upon this point?”
Mr. Peppercorn found it most difficult to uphold his head. He kept it bowed in mortification as he said, “I confess that I have attended a show or two at the Gracechurch Street Monkey Parlour upon my former trips to London to purchase folios for my library. I am loathe to admit this.”
“As am I loathe to
receive
such news!”
“But upon my third—perhaps fourth—and final visit I was struck with such remorse over my attendance, and filled with such heartfelt consideration for the young women who through, no doubt, similar circumstances to those of Miss Henshawe—all beyond their own making—are required to dance the monkey dance for the blissful diversion of men without scruples, that I vowed never thereafter to return, and upon my honour, I have not. Indeed, I have never even seen Sophia Henshawe in her monkey costume. I have only
heard
that she has been forced by her scurrilous cousin into such an occupation of ignominy and disgrace.”
“What does the costume look like, Papa?”
“Well, I scruple to tell you, dear daughter, that there is little costume to it at all beyond the placement of hair and fur in very selected places about the person.”
“Merciful heaven, Papa! I am appalled beyond measure!”
“Will you forgive me for having ever visited such a place? I must say in my own admittedly weak defence of my actions that your mother had been dead not even a twelvemonth when I first went thither and it was only because I felt a certain need at the time for which it is difficult to give voice.”
“But Papa! A need to witness the chattering and flailing about of women without coverage of clothing!”
“There
was
the fur, of course.”
Ignoring the remonstrance: “And this delighted you and teazed your sensibilities?”
“I own that it did. Once a man has seen a monkey girl it is difficult to exile the picture from one’s thoughts.”
“I do not know what to say.” Anna sat for a very long moment saying nothing at all. Subsequently, she again found her voice. First came a long, deep sigh, then the following acquittal: “That is past, and you have assured me that you will never again frequent such an establishment. If forgiveness is required to assuage your guilt, I forgive you.”
“Thank you, daughter. Now, have you any thoughts as to how poor Sophia may be rescued from her troubling indentureship, yet not at the expense of the Henshawes being put to destitution? For Mrs. Henshawe, in the absence of juncture, has little income of her own, and fate is stubbornly denying her daughters for the present even the most meager prospects for attachment.”
“I think, Papa, that we shall put ourselves to the dual task of removing Sophia from her present humiliating employment whilst seeking and securing for each of the sisters a husband of merit.”
“
We
shall do this? But how am
I
to be of help? I am not one who
does
things, daughter. I am a reader of books and a listener to my confiding friend and little else am I equipped to do beyond these two things.”
“Then I shall put myself to the task alone, or employ one or two others who may assist me.”
“Yet you must not betray the confidences I open to you.”
“Perhaps it is not common knowledge to our neighbours that Sophia Henshawe is a monkey-dancer. But anyone who knows the Henshawes must also have some intelligence obtained in even casual discourse in the lanes of Smithcoat and Berryknell as to the dark nature of Mr. Quarrels and his mother, to such extent that sufferance of residence for Mrs. Henshawe and the Misses Henshawe would not,
could not
be granted without some form of recompense.”
“Aye, this is true.”
“Perhaps an appropriate course would be for you to obtain intelligence from your friend of a most secretive nature about some hidden thing which has to do with Mr. Quarrels or Mrs. Quarrels—or perhaps even the both of them—which, if retailed widely, would redound most badly to their detriment.”
“And you think there is such a secret being held by the Quarrels under lock and key and behind sealed lips?”
“One or more secrets, to be sure, Papa, which they believe is known only to themselves, but which surely
must
be privy to your all-knowing friend as well. I wonder sometimes, Papa, if your friend is not the very well-informed Satan himself!”
“Blasphemy, child! I will not hear of it! And within the walls of this chapel! Kneel this instant and pray forgiveness!”
“Papa, my wit of the moment was ill-coloured, to be sure, but it was, in all events, wit in a most rudimental and uncalculating form; so I believe a dispensation is in order, as no sin or harm was intended.”
Mr. Peppercorn nonetheless sent up a silent prayer on his daughter’s behalf.
Anna continued upon her course: “By virtue of his virtueless character with regard to his perpetrations upon poor Sophia and the virtue-bereft character of a mother who would countenance or even, God forbid, fully endorse such a thing, Charles Quarrels and Mrs. Quarrels, in spite of their good names, seem capable of acts far more objectionable than that which is being visited upon Miss Henshawe—acts which, if brought to light, would destroy both their name
and
whatever reputation they boast within the parish to such a degree that mother and son should be forced back to whatever fleahouse they had crawled out of in London, there to hide themselves for ever in shame.”
“Oh, my dear daughter! Wherever did you acquire the skills of the intrigant?”
“I know what is right, Papa, and what is wrong, and I know what should be
made
right. And
this
should be put to rights. I will see to it. Will you not ask your friend if he or she knows of any thing about Mr. Quarrels and Mrs. Quarrels that I may use to strike a bargain to keep the Henshawes at Moseley Manor and poor Sophia far from the vicinity of the disreputable Monkey Parlour in Gracechurch Street?”
“I will do whatever I am able. I should add that I am at this moment most proud to call you my daughter, dear daughter.”
“And I am proud to be the daughter of one who provides me the means by which to create hope and happiness in some of our most deserving parish neighbours for whom these companion feelings have heretofore been infrequent visitants. It will be a special joy for me to combat degradation and depravity amongst our neighbours through the good offices of justice and fair play. I have never before felt so dedicated to a purpose. Perhaps it becomes even a crusade.”
“Ah, Anna—you have become a different daughter altogether!”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“You seem now to view others with a species of charity that had previously been lacking in your character.”
“I believe, Papa, that my tendency to charity has always been present, but fate had formerly refused to deliver the eligible into my hands. Perhaps it has been the society that I have kept. It is no important matter. I shall be keeping a different society in future. Now, Papa, may we quit this chapel? The stench of emptied gipsy bladders affronts me.”
That afternoon Anna ventured into Berryknell to see a gown. It was not important which gown it was, nor its colour, nor how it was made, for she would glance only now and then at the garment and spend the balance of her time before the dressmaker’s window with her head turned leftward and her gaze set upon the window of the building adjacent—the window occupied by the torso of the lucubrating Aubrey Waitwaithe, he of the employ of Tillman Scourby, Esq., solicitor.
“Will he never look up?” Anna asked herself with irritation. “I have stood in this same spot for well-nigh four minutes, by the clock upon the village hall tower, and he does not raise his head for even a second! I believe that he has fallen fast asleep over his papers and the head will remain nodded there for as long as he remains undisturbed. Perhaps, therefore, I should be the one to disturb him. And what will be my reason? I know. I shall extend to him a
personal
invitation to dine with my father and me at Feral Park.” She turned her body toward the solicitor’s door, but was stopt by her own scruples. “Yet a card of invitation is
already
on its way to him by the hand of my father’s footman. It will seem oddly redundant for me to invite him also by mouth. By what other pretext, then, may I rouse my sleeping object from his impromptu afternoon nap? Think, Anna, think!” (a groan and a sigh) “I can devise
no
other reason. I am miserable. Wake up, Mr. Waitwaithe, and look at the woman who loves you and whose misery you are compounding through your ridiculous drowse! Oh, bother. I have now been standing before this window for so long a period that I will be compelled to buy the dress that has by every presumption so thoroughly enchained my eye, only to find upon donning it that it does not favour me at all!”
Anna was rescued from this most painful conference with herself by her friend Gemma.
“Good morning, Anna!”
Anna, startled by the voice, stumbled backwards a step or two.
“Oh, dear, I have frightened you. I am always frightening people, especially when I must reaffix the leg. Why my mother will not simply buy me one that attaches more dependably, I do not know. And sometimes I feel the irritation of a cinder in the well of my troublesome socket and I must enucleate myself to remove the burr, and it frightens people in equal measure to see a woman holding her eyeball in her palm. But seldom do I startle simply by saying ‘good morning’ with all of my parts intact! When I do, most assuredly, it is you, Anna, who is the alarmed object. Were you in the midst of a reverie as I approached? I have been watching you standing before this window and I have been wondering how you ever could become so captivated by a frock of such poor stitching.”
“You are half correct. I have been looking at the dress but I have been thinking only of Mr. Waitwaithe.”
“With no companion thought of my cousin John Dray? Even though he comes soon to Thistlethorn—two days early, in fact! Herein lies the reason for my good cheer in finding you here amongst the shops—the opportunity to amend my earlier invitation to ask if you and your father will dine with us tomorrow evening, rather than on Friday.”
“You should be happy to learn, Gemma, that to the best of my knowledge, both my father and myself are entirely free of engagement on the morrow.”
“Most wonderful news! I cannot wait to seat you and cousin John next to one another at table, and sit back and wait for love to knit the two of you together for all time.”
“Gemma, I must profess that I find your desire for a connexion between Mr. Dray and myself to be an example of the most foolish sort of school-girl matchmaking, especially knowing as you do that my interest in Mr. Waitwaithe has not lessened since the first day that I laid my eyes upon him. You are a very hopeful girl, Gemma Dray. But hope seems all that you are about these days. Remove hope and what is left?”
“Why is there always such bile in your speech to me! Can we never discuss a thing without your use of scornful and derisive language?”
Gemma turned to walk away, her sensibilities assaulted once again by the sharp tongue of her habitually depreciating friend Miss Anna Peppercorn. Seized by regret over the injudiciousness of her remark, Anna laid a hand upon Gemma’s arm to prevent her friend’s pettish departure. “I am very sorry, Gemma. My thoughts are terribly crowded these days—and they do not confine themselves only to Mr. Dray and Mr. Waitwaithe. Let us take a turn to the skirts of the village and back, and I shall tell you.”
Gemma warmed immediately to the opportunity of listening to something from Anna other than her oppugnant jabs and provocative pronouncements, and drew her arm within her friend’s.
As they strolled past Mr. Waitwaithe’s window in this comfortable fashion, casting their conjoined shadow within, the subject of Anna’s protracted interest occasioned finally to look up. Indeed, the clerk
had
been asleep—
fast
asleep— whilst suspended over his papers the whole time. This fact was confirmed by the thread of saliva, which was now clearly pendant from the corner of his mouth, and which descended at its length almost down to his papers and inkhorn. It was not a flattering picture of the young man by any means. The portrait was made even less appealing by the fact that the clerk was not even aware than his mouth was being emptied of its accumulated moisture in such an objectionable manner. To make the matter yet worse, he did not even seem to see Anna and Gemma, but looked farther on.
“I cannot even look!” yelped Gemma in mortification from behind the palm of one hand.
Yet Anna, whilst repulsed at first, quickly collected herself and extended sympathetic understanding and favour upon Mr. Waitwaithe, for he could in no case have
intended
such a thing to happen, and in Anna’s accommodating way of thinking should not be reprehended for it.
“Such a thing could happen to anyone, Gemma!” declared Anna to counter her friend’s disgust as the two walked along. “I am certain that it has happened to even the two of us at some time or another.”
Gemma shook her head. “It has never happened to me, for I do not ever fall asleep sitting in a chair with my head nodded as would a very old man between the soup and cheese courses. But do I hear an admission from
you
about such a thing?”
“I own that I have. Moreover, there is no shame in it!” admitted Anna, bristling. “Moreover still, you have only one eye, a false ear and a wooden leg, and are, therefore, not without abundant shortcomings of your own!”
“What a perfectly horrid thing to say!” Gemma replied, stopping in the lane to fasten an appalled look upon Anna. “This season of cruelty from you seems to have no end. I have been waiting for the final frost, waiting and waiting, and yet it never comes! You hurl icicles and snowballs packed hard like stones and trip me with your mischievous feet upon glazed paths so that I tumble again and again like an uneducable muttonhead, and I grow fagged from the gelid treatment, Miss Anna Peppercorn. I am fagged and hurt and I think that I shall turn and walk away and never see you again. I will extend apologies on your behalf to my cousin John, for you are officially dis-invited to my dinner to-morrow night, but that is all that I shall do for you from this moment forward.”
Gemma turned to go, but she did not depart. Tears welled within the functioning duct from her natural eye and began to trickle down her cheek. She took her finger and removed some of the moisture to the other cheek so that it would appear that the dry duct operated equally as well. She looked at Anna to discover if her friend was also having herself a cry.
Anna was not, but there was sympathy of some sort to be found amongst the lineaments of her countenance.
“Every thing you say is true,” said Anna, though her voice had a catch and she was not easily understood. “I will essay from this point forward to make amends.”
“You have said this before,” snuffled Gemma in reply. “I no longer believe you.”
“But this time I will make every effort, I promise. I am a good person, Gemma, but for some reason I do not always present myself to you as such, even though you are my very best friend. For you I cultivate all too often only disapproval and displeasure, and it is wrong. You do not deserve it, and it would destroy me if my thoughtless stupidity were to lead to the end of our close friendship. Even when my disposition directs me to coif the cap of the censorious crosspatch, I will vow to work all the harder to hold my tongue and not lace you.”
“But what I have yet to understand, Anna, is what is inside of you that tells you to aim those icicles at me? And to toss your barbs always in
my
direction? To fling erenow those handfuls of nettles that burn and sting? To prod at me with things that catch the skin and pinch? Why, Anna, do you persist in slapping me so willingly with the hand of your angry nature? Why do you kick at me and poke me and correct me when no correction seems required, or simply censure me for the glee of it?”
“Upon my honour, Gemma, there is never
glee
in my reprobations! I feel wretched the minute the severe words leave my mouth, you may depend on it!”
“Is it because I have a mother and you have not?”
Anna considered the theory and found more than a tincture of merit to it. “Do you think that it is jealousy?”
“Perhaps.”
“Yet you do not treat me in a similar fashion, Gemma, for being without a father whilst my own lives and breaths and doats upon me.”
“Aye. But a mother is a different sort of creature, offering a different sort of love—a tender and suckling kind of love, and you have none. There. I believe that the mystery is hereby solved, and now that you know why you act sometimes so sharply and petulantly and cruelly toward me, you must think to yourself, ‘It is no fault of Gemma’s that my mother ended her life early by placing herself foolishly beneath the hoof of a horse.’”
“There is perhaps some truth to what you say, Gemma, although I would not have put it the way you did, which makes my mother sound like a ninny.”
“Be that as it may, now that you know what drives you to whip me with the scolding stick and take the broom of rebuke and thrust its prickly bristles at my tender bottom, you will check yourself in future, so that our friendship may again breathe freely?”
In a low voice, Anna replied, “My mother was
not
a ninny.”
“I did not say that she was.
You
likened her to one. May we turn the subject, Anna? I am growing weary.”
The two friends walked on for a moment without speaking, whilst receiving the encompassing sounds of cheeping and chirruping and peddlerhawking and cart-wheel trundling and chicken-clucking and close-by canterclopping-upon-pavement-stones and distant-down-mooing and near-flock bahing and brash goose-honking and cadging dog-pule-barking and someone hammering and someone else sawing and someone happy-hallooing and a baby mewling and two old women somewhere nearby chattering about nothing important—nothing at all—not like Anna and Gemma, who must attend the serious business of repairing the rent in their long friendship this bright and sunny-warm and floral-redolent and pungent made-hay-smelling Tuesday afternoon. Stopping at a road marker, Anna turned to her companion and said, “I still feel, Gemma, that you require proof of my most heartfelt friendship and of my intention to preserve that friendship against the jealousy you say I indulge beyond my control. I will therefore tell you something that will surely command your most attentive interest and I will conclude my account by seeking your enlistment in my plan to right a terrible wrong. We shall be full partners, should you chuse to join my efforts. And I do so wish that you will say yes, for I require your assistance most greatly—as greatly as I require your devoted friendship in reciprocity.”
“I am all ears, Anna,” said Gemma (who was only one ear in rigid truth, but it was only an expression and so Anna did not make comment). Gemma’s face was all eagerness and anticipation, and Anna pressed her hand warmly into the hand of her best friend and then told her every syllable of the unfortunate circumstances of the three Henshawe sisters and their mother, except for the part about Sophia and the monkey parlour. As the two recommenced their stroll, Gemma replied that she knew one of the sisters quite well: the youngest, Eliza, as the two had played together as children. Gemma was on less familiar terms with Eliza’s older siblings and the mother, but because they were each tangentially related to her through the marriage of her uncle, Charles Quarrels (the father), to their aunt Lydia Quarrels, nee Henshawe, none of the four was a stranger to her. Anna found great convenience in this fact.
“Then Charles Quarrels, the son, is your first cousin.”
“Aye.”
“And can you tell me, Gemma, any thing about the Misses Henshawe that would explain the dearth of marital prospects for each?” sought Anna.
“I can answer your request with certainty: they are, each of them, quite ugly.”
“Oh, dear. Now how ugly would be your estimation?”
“How do you mean?”
“Ugly beyond repair? Or unattractive as simply a consequence of indecorous grooming and want of ton and toilette?”
“Perhaps the former for the oldest, Nancy, for she would be most unattractive no matter what could be done to improve her. However, I would place the younger two in the second category, which affords hope.”
“Yes. Hope. That is the word I wished to hear.”
“One may even consider Sophia altogether comely should she be serviced by someone skilled at moderating her less desirable features and accenting her more desirable aspects. Unfortunately, she does not possess such a skill on her own.”