The Daughters of Mrs Peacock (11 page)

‘I don't say it's wrong, but it may sometimes be inconsiderate, tactless, and therefore hardly polite.'

‘People don't mind being asked, unless it's something they're ashamed of. And it couldn't be that, with Robert … with Mr Crabbe. Could it?'

‘Of course not.' Mr Peacock laughed shortly. ‘But it's time you outgrew these nursery notions, my dear child. Civilized life isn't quite so simple as you seem to imagine. I do declare!' he exclaimed, halting and
looking back. ‘That fellow Harry is asleep again already by the look of him! Did you ever see such a drowsihead? Why doesn't he go home, since it's Sunday?'

‘Because his mother would find him a job to do,' said Catherine. ‘He knows where he's well off, does our Harry.'

She knew better than to pursue the subject of Robert Crabbe. To do so might provoke an awkward question. They rejoined the rest of the family; nothing more to the point was said; and it was not until some hours later that she inadvertently, but conveniently, overheard a scrap of dialogue not meant for her ears.

‘You must speak to him, Edmund.'

‘I can hardly do that, my love.'

‘It's your duty. She's a notorious person.'

Catherine tiptoed guiltily away. She had heard enough—too much. It was time to take action.

Action, but how? It was more easily said than done. The first step was obvious: since in the ordinary course of events she would not see him again for four weeks, during which time anything disastrous might happen, she must begin by writing him a letter. That in itself would surprise him, mark an epoch in their relationship, and remind him pointedly of her existence; for she had never had occasion to write to him before. Moreover she would address him, boldly, as ‘Dear Robert'; yet not too boldly, for to sharpen the point, and at the same time hint at shyness, she would first put ‘Mr Crabbe' and then cross it out and write ‘Robert' above it. What to say was the
next problem, and how to combine decorum with the necessary secrecy. A dawning enthusiasm for literature was the answer. Books, apart from Mrs Stapleton, were his chief preoccupation, so books provided the easiest and most innocent form of approach. Dear Robert (she began in her mind), Will you be very kind and lend me a book, please. Mama does not know I am writing to you, I fear she would disapprove! If you can spare it for a week or two I would so much like to read that poem you told us about, Persian I think you said, about grasping the sorry scheme of things entire, it sounded very nice and rather original. Now I must bring this letter to a close. Yours very sincerely, Catherine.

Dispatching this letter, marked
Private
to prevent its being confused with business communications, involved stealing a postage stamp from Mama's davenport and then making a secret trip to the village: she accomplished both crimes without scruple. When the book arrived,
if
it arrived, there would be questions and explanations; but in her eagerness to open the campaign she refused to think about that. She had but the vaguest notion of what ‘the sorry scheme of things' referred to: the only scheme she wished to shatter to bits was the one she attributed, rightly or wrongly, to Mrs Stapleton. She could not doubt that whatever was afoot between those two was Mrs Stapleton's doing, not Robert's: he was the innocent predestined victim, like poor Henry Maltravers in
Lovers' Rue, or The Ways of Woman
. For Robert was not, like silly Captain Beckoning, a flirt. He was serious and good and full of deep thoughts, no gay deceiver. She remembered, with a belated thrill, the ceremonial
hand-kissing in the office three months ago. A perplexing episode, but nothing could have been less alarming or more utterly respectful than that grave salute.

Not till she stood, letter in hand, confronting the wide mouth of the pillar-box, did she hesitate; and then only to savour more deliberately the high drama of the moment, the delicious frightening sensation of standing on the brink of an irrevocable act of which the consequences could not be foreseen. Her fingers released the letter. It fell, light as a whisper, into the box, and was gone beyond recall. In imagination she went with it on its journey and watched Robert's face—surprised, gentle, gravely sympathetic—as he read it.

‘Hullo! Where have you been?' asked Sarah, on her return.

‘Why? Has there been a hue and cry?'

‘Mama was asking for you. Something about doing the flowers.'

‘What, again? They've been done once today. Have they disarranged themselves, the clever things?' Catherine brooded for a moment on her wrongs. ‘Of course it had to be
me
—just because I wasn't here. Flowers indeed! She might have thought of something more likely.'

‘Don't excite yourself, donkey,' said Sarah. ‘It was the best she could manage on the spur of the moment.'

‘I'm not in the least excited. But I
am
rather tired of being on a lead. Aren't you? Sometimes I feel like running away.' Uneasy in her conscience, she was still rattled, her sense of humour in abeyance.

‘Good idea,' said Sarah, dissembling her surprise at
this uncharacteristic outburst. ‘Let's go together. You can be Rosalind, you'd make a pretty young man, and I'll be your Celia. And we'll take Harry Dawkins with us for our Touchstone. But where shall we go? There aren't any suitable forests hereabouts.'

The Shakespeare allusion, by reminding her of school, gave Catherine an idea.

‘Why can't we go and stay with Ellen Skimmer for a few days? She's invited us often enough.'

‘You, not me,' Sarah objected. ‘She was
your
bosom friend, after I'd left. I hardly knew her.'

‘At school you didn't, but you quite liked her when she was here last summer. It was fun having her. I can't imagine how we came to lose touch. It would be nice to see her again.' And highly convenient to be domiciled in Newtonbury for a while. The sooner the better if Olive Stapleton's design was to be frustrated. It was, in fact, she suddenly perceived, the only way.

Sarah remembered Ellen Skimmer as a plump, cheerful, ordinary girl with nervous ultra-ladylike manners in the presence of her elders and a disposition at other times to excessive enthusiasm and loud laughter. She had accepted her serenely as Catherine's friend; the visit, though unrewarding, had been accounted a success; but neither Sarah nor Catherine herself had been greatly grieved when it came to an end. Ellen's chief virtue in Sarah's eyes, apart from a general amiability, was her evident devotion to Catherine; but it was as much Catherine's lack of eagerness as Mrs Peacock's gentle obstructiveness that had made the reciprocal invitation abortive. During the twelve months that had passed
since then there had been an occasional exchange of letters between the two girls, but Ellen's name had occurred but seldom in the family conversation, and she herself had become a shadowy, almost forgotten figure. Her sudden emergence from that semi-oblivion, her promotion to the status of urgently desired companion, was therefore a surprise to Sarah. It was a case of any port in a storm, she supposed; but, being unaware of any storm, of its nature and origin she could have no inkling.

‘If that's how you feel, my child, you'd better go. Why not? If Mama will let you.'

‘She'll never let me go alone,' said Catherine, frowning. ‘You'd have to come too, to keep an eye on me.' Seeing a satirical gleam in Sarah's eye she added quickly: ‘Besides, it would be more fun.'

Sooner or later it might be necessary to confide in Sarah, who could, if she would, play a useful part in the work of rescue by occupying Ellen's attention while she, Catherine, was elsewhere. But not yet. Her secret was too new and too precious to be divulged lightly, even to Sarah. She quivered, in an ecstasy of embarrassment, at the thought of exposing herself, of being argued with and perhaps, however gently, laughed at. Moreover, to' listen to reason', to be ‘sensible', was the last thing she intended.

‘Here she comes,' said Sarah, recognizing their mother's step. ‘Why not ask her and see?'

‘Ah, Catherine, so you're back. Where did you get to, my dear? We've been looking for you everywhere.'

‘I'm so sorry, Mama. Did you look in the doubleyou? I might have been there, you know. Or in the garden. Or anywhere. Does it matter?' Before her affronted
parent could answer this impertinence she went on: ‘Or perhaps I was taking the dog for a run. Poor old Gruff! He deserves a treat now and again.' By this transparent evasion, and by re-airing an old grievance, she hoped to confuse the issue and escape an inquisition. The only dog about the place was a sheepdog who was not allowed in the house and whom it was forbidden to make a pet of.

‘Very well, Catherine,' said Mrs Peacock, in a tone of offended dignity. ‘If that is your attitude there is no more to be said. You must try to forgive your mother for taking an interest in your doings,' she continued with heavy irony. ‘She never interferes with her girls. She is content for them to enjoy a wonderful freedom. But she does like to know that they are at hand, within call, ready to render any little service she may ask of them.'

An uncomfortable silence followed.

‘Well, Catherine?'

‘Yes, Mama?'

‘I shall not ask you again where you've been.'

‘Thank you, Mama.'

Mrs Peacock retired defeated, but, as her daughters knew, more formidable in defeat than in victory. Catherine, with a defensive sub-smile on her lips that made her look even younger than she was, a stubborn pretty child, kept her eyes averted, refusing the challenge of Sarah's half ironical, half sympathetic glance. Conscious of having blundered, and interpreting Sarah's tactful silence as disapproval, she felt lonely, defiant, and a little frightened, yet still resisted the temptation to explain herself to this one person in the world who would understand. Sarah was the first to speak.

‘I'm on your side, Kitty. You know that. But I'm afraid Mama is hurt.'

‘Angry, you mean.'

‘It's the same thing,' said Sarah. ‘Very tiresome for you, but you'll have to say you're sorry, you know.'

‘I'm not sorry. I can't tell a lie.'

‘Can't you? I can. It's quite easy with a little practice.'

‘I must say,' said Catherine, ‘it's a pretty fine thing if one can't go for a walk without being put in the dock.'

She knew now, but would not admit it, that her tactics had been wrong from the start. It would have been far better had she boldly left her letter with the others, on the hall table, to be collected by the postman when he came with the morning's delivery: there were even chances that it would never have been noticed, and if it had its innocence would have been apparent for very lack of concealment. Instead, by a piece of childish secretiveness, she had invested a simple action with an appearance of shamefaced guilt which could not but be remembered against her when the moment of revelation arrived, And arrive it must, unless Robert failed to reply: a contingency too painful to contemplate.

‘Yes,' agreed Sarah, ‘but it was a pity, don't you think, to make a mystery of it?'

The voicing of her own thought was almost more than Catherine could bear.

‘Oh, Sarah! Why are you always so
sensible
?'

‘I know,' said Sarah. ‘It
is
annoying, isn't it. But something will have to be done about it, you know. We can't leave poor Mama immured in High Dudgeon. Miffy is coming tomorrow, don't forget.'

‘Good gracious, so she is!' exclaimed Catherine. After a frowning contemplation of the prospect, her brow cleared. ‘But what a lucky thing! Don't you see, Mama will
have
to come out of her castle, whether she wants to or not.' She smiled triumphantly, confirmed in her unfilial resolve to offer no apology.

‘Will she? Perhaps.' Sarah was dubious. ‘But there's the rest of today to get through.'

‘I shan't say I'm sorry,' declared Catherine, ‘because I'm not. But don't fret: I'll be as sweet as honey to her, all smiles and girlish chatter.'

This plan, suddenly conceived, had all the attractiveness of a new discovery: that by seeming serenely unaware of being in disgrace she could make her mother's minatory attitude ridiculous and untenable. So, in the sequel, it proved. At teatime, still unappeased, Mrs Peacock began by pointedly ignoring her errant daughter; but Catherine, aided by Sarah, and unwittingly by their father who was in his usual high spirits, succeeded before the meal was done in coaxing her into at least a semblance of good humour. This happy result, because achieved without the ritual of apology, constituted a great and unprecedented victory. It was the beginning of a new era in the family history.

Uplifted and heart-softened by success, and eager to reinstate herself in Mama's affection by a pointed recognition of her authority, Catherine, all sweet submission, begged to be allowed to meet their visitor with the pony and trap: a tacit plea for reconciliation to which Mrs
Peacock, kind as well as possessive, instantly responded. The asking and the giving gave comfort to both. Hurt feelings were forgotten: the lamb was back in the fold. For the pony's sake, since Miss Smith was sure to bring heavy luggage with her, both Julia and Sarah elected to stay at home and forgo the rapture of seeing their onetime governess alight from the train and break into smiles at sight of them. Catherine, gratefully conscious of her privilege and half-ashamed of having snatched it, went to the station alone.

The railway station at Lutterfield, which her father used most days of the week, had never quite lost for Catherine the romantic charm with which she had endowed it in childhood, that morning of the world when the most ordinary object of sense—bird, flower, milk-jug, newel-post, Mama's silver thimble, a pattern of sunlight on the nursery floor—was seen in its essential character, uniquely and miraculously itself. The tiny booking-office resembled a child's toy; the brief stretch of platform, set in the midst of flat green country under a wide arch of sky, was divided from the lane that flanked it by a low white-painted fence; the rails this afternoon, still wet for a magical moment from a recent shower, gleamed with a startling brilliance. Catherine, with five minutes to wait, had time to savour the delight of her situation: the sense of adventure, the fragrance of half-conscious memories, the expectation of presently seeing the train appear in the far distance, creeping like a snake nearer and nearer and growing every moment bigger in the process, like a gradually realized thought, till at last it should come puffing its way into the station, a plump
tall-funnelled engine so friendly and familiar as to be almost a person, dragging importantly behind him a load of maroon-coloured carriages, in one of which Miss Smith, Miff-Miff, Miffy—she answered with equal composure to all three names—would be primly seated, ticket in hand, pretending to be quite calm.