The Ladies of Grace Adieu: And Other Stories (5 page)

When he arrived, Mr Strange smiled and spoke of the view and of the weather and, in the space of five minutes, was altogether more communicative than he had been in the entire past fortnight. None of the ladies had much to say to him, but Mr Strange was not the sort of gentleman who, once he has decided to talk, is to be put off by a lack of encouragement on the part of his listeners.

He spoke of a remarkable dream he had had.

"I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that that is great nonsense. Miss Tobias, you have studied the subject, what is your opinion?"

But Miss Tobias was silent.

Strange went on. "I had this dream, Mrs Field, under rather curious circumstances. Last night I took some little bones to bed with me - I happened upon them quite recently. I put them under my pillow and there they stayed all night while I slept. Mrs Strange would have had a great deal to say to me upon the subject, had she known of it. But then, wives and husbands do not always tell each other every thing, do they, Mrs Field?"

But Mrs Field said nothing.

"My dream was this," said Strange. "I was talking to a gentleman (a very handsome man). His features were very distinct in my dream, yet I am quite certain that I never saw him before in all my life. When we came to shake hands, he was very reluctant - which I did not understand. He seemed embarrassed and not a little ashamed. But when, at last, he put out his hand, it was not a hand at all, but a little grey-furred claw. Miss Parbringer, I hear that you tell wonderful stories to all the village children. Perhaps you will tell me a story to explain my dream?"

But Miss Parbringer was silent.

"On the day that I and my wife arrived here, some other people came to Grace Adieu. Where are they now? Where is the thin dark figure - whether boy or young woman I do not know, for no one saw very clearly - who sat in the gig?"

Miss Tobias spoke. "Miss Pye was taken back to Reigate in our carriage. Davey, our coachman, conveyed her to the house of her mother and her aunt - good people who truly love her and who had wondered for a long, long time if they would ever see her again."

"And Jack Hogg, the Captain's servant?"

Miss Tobias smiled. 'Oh, he took himself off with remarkable speed, once it was made plain to him that staying would do no good at all."

"And where is Arthur Winbright? And where Frederick Littleworth?"

They were silent.

"Oh, ladies, what have you done?"

After a while Miss Tobias spoke again. "That night," she said, "after Captain Winbright and Mr Littleworth had . . . left us, I saw someone. At the other end of the passageway I saw, very dimly, someone tall and slender, with the wings of birds beating all around their shoulders. Mr Strange, / am tall and the wings of birds were, at that moment, beating around my shoulders . . ."

"And so, it was your reflection."

"Reflection? By what means?" asked Miss Tobias. "There is no glass in that part of the house."

"So, what did you do?" asked Strange a little uncertainly.

"I said aloud the words of the Yorkshire Game. Even you, Mr Strange, must know the words of the Yorkshire Game." Miss Tobias smiled a little sarcastically. "Mr Norrell is, after all, the Yorkshire magician, is he not?"

"I greet thee, Lord, and bid thee welcome to my heart," said Strange.

Miss Tobias inclined her head.

Now it was Cassandra's turn. "Poor man, you cannot even reconcile what you believe in your heart to be true and what you are obliged to write in the quarterly reviews. Can you go back to London and tell this odd tale? For I think you will find that it is full of all kinds of nonsense that Mr Norrell will not like Raven Kings and the magic of wild creatures and the magic of women. You are no match for us, for we three are quite united, while you, sir, for all your cleverness, are at war, even with yourself. If ever a time comes, when your heart and your head declare a truce, then I suggest you come back to Grace Adieu and then you may tell us what magic we may or may not do."

It was Strange's turn to be silent. The three ladies of Grace Adieu wished him a good morning and walked on. Mrs Field alone favoured him with a smile (of a rather pitying sort).

***

A month after Mr and Mrs Strange's return to London, Mr Woodhope was surprized to receive a letter from Sir Walter Pole, the politician. Mr Woodhope had never met the gentleman, but now Sir Walter suddenly wrote to offer Mr Woodhope the rich living of Great Hitherden, in Northamptonshire. Mr Woodhope could only imagine that it was Strange's doing Strange and Sir Walter were known to be friends. Mr Wood-hope was sorry to leave Grace Adieu and sorry to leave Miss Parbringer, but he comforted himself with the thought that there were bound to be ladies, almost as pretty, in Northamptonshire and if there were not, well, he would be a richer clergyman there than he was in Grace Adieu and so better able to bear the loneliness.

Miss Cassandra Parbringer only smiled when she heard he was going and that same afternoon, went out walking on the high hills, in a fine autumn wind, with Mrs Field and Miss Tobias - as free, said Miss Parbringer, as any women in the kingdom.

WHEN I WAZ a child I lived at Dr Quince's on the other side of Lickerish Hill. Sometimes in a winters-twilight I have look't out of Dr Quince's windowe and seen Lickerish Hill (where the Pharisees live) like a long brown shippe upon a grey sea and I have seen far-awaie lights like silver starres among the dark trees.

My mother was mayde and cook to Dr Quince, an ancient and learned gentleman (face, very uglie like the picture of a horse not well done; dry, scantie beard; moist, pale eyes). This good old man quickly perceived what waz hid from my mother: that my naturall Genius inclin'd not to sweeping dairies or baking cakes or spinning or anie of the hundred thinges she wish'd me to know, but to Latin, Greeke and the study of Antiquities, and these he taught me. He alwaies meant that I should learne Hebrew, Geometrie, the Mathematiques, and he would have taught me this yeare but Time putt a trick on him and he died last summer.

The day after the pore old doctor died my mother baked five pies. Now malicious persons will open their mouths and lies will flie out and buzz about the World, but the truth is that those pies (which my mother baked) were curiously small and, for certaine pressing and private reasons of my owne - to witt a Great and Sudden Hunger - I ate them all, which was the cause of a quarrel betweene my mother and me. Angrilie shee foretold that terrible Catastrophes would befall me (povertie, marriage to beggars and gypsies, etc., etc.). But, as Mr Aubrey sayz, such Beautie as mine could not long remain undiscover'd, and so it waz that I married Sir John Sowreston and came to Pipers Hall.

Pipers Hall is the loveliest old house - alwaies very smiling in the sunshine. It was built long ago (I thinke in the time of King Solomon). About the house are many lawns where stand ancient trees that overtop the roofs like Gracious and Gigantique Ladies and Gentlemen from more Heroique Times, all robed in dresses of golden sunlight. Its shadie alleys are carpeted with water-mint and thyme and other sweet-smelling Plantes so that in a summers-twilight when Dafney and I walke there and crush them with our feet 'tis as if an Angell caress't you with his Breath.

Sir John Sowreston is two-and-thirty yeares of age; size, middling; eyes, black; legges, handsome. He smiles but rarely and watches other men to see when they laugh and then does the same. Since a boy he haz been afflicted with a Great Sadnesse and Fitts of Black Anger which cause his neighbours, friends and servants to feare him. It is as if some Divinitie, jealous of the Gifts Heav'n haz bestowed on him (Youth, Beautie, Riches, etc., etc.) haz putt an eville Spell on him. There waz a little dogge borne upon our Wedding-daye. At 3 or 4 weeks old it would always goe a little sideways when it walked and would climb upon Sir John's shoulder when he sat after dinner and sleep there, as if it loved him extreamlie. But, being frighted by a horse looking in at the windowe, it fouled a coat belonging to Sir John with its excrements and Sir John putte it in a sack and drowned it in the horse-pond. We called it Puzzle because (Dafney sayd) whatsoever happen'd puzzled it sorely. (I thinke it was puzzled why it died.) Now Sir John haz gott 3 great blacke dogges and his greatest pleasure in all the Worlde is to goe hunting on Lickerish Hill.

Two months after Sir John and I were married we travelled to Cambridge to seek a cure for Sir John's melancholie from Dr Richard Blackswann, a very famose Physician. We took with us a little cristall flask that had some of Sir John's water in it. Dr Blackswann went into a little closet behind a curtain of blacke velvet and prayed upon his knees. The Angell Raphael then appearing in the closet (as commonly happens when ever this doctor prays) peer'd into Sir John's urine. Dr Blackswann told us that the Angell Raphael knew straightway from the colour of it (reddish as if there waz bloude in it) that the cause of Sir John's extreame Want of Spirits was a lack of Learned Conversation. The Angell Raphael said that Sir John muste gather Scholars to his howse to exercise their Braines with Philosophic, Geometric, Rhetorique, Mechanicks etc., etc., and that hearing of their schemes would divert Sir John and make his thoughts to runne in pleasanter courses.

Sir John waz very much pleased with this Scheme and all the way home we sang Ballads together and were so merry that Sir John's three great black dogges raised their voices with us in praise of learned Dr Blackswann and the Angell Raphael.

On the evening that we came home I waz walking in the garden by myselfe among the Heroique Trees when I met Mrs Sloper (my mother).

Mrs Abigail Sloper, widow; person thin and stringy; face the shape of a spoon and the colour of green cheese; cook and nurse to the late Dr Hieronymous Quince; made nervous by Dr Quince's talking Hebrew on purpose to discompose her (she mistook it for incantations) - a cruel Satire on her Ignorance, but I could not gett him to leave off; talkes to herselfe when in a fright; haz two old English Catts (that are white with some blewnesse upon them) - Solomon Grundy (4 yeares old) and Blewskin (10 yeares old) and a Cowe called Polly Diddle (one yeare old); in 1675 she buried a little blew pot of shillings at the bottom of Dr Quince's garden, under some redd-currant bushes, but he dying shortly after and the house being sold very suddenly, she was cast into a Great Perplexitie how to recover her monies which she haz not yet resolved.

"Good Evening, mother, my deare," sayz I. "Come into the howse and have some vittles and drinke."

But she would not answer me and cast her Glances all over the garden, a-twisting and a-twisting of her apron. "Oh!" sayz she (with her eyes fix't upon a Beech-tree, so that she seemes to address it), "my daughter'U be so vex't."

"No, I won't," sayz I, "Why are you in such a pickle? Take time, my deare, and tell me what you're afeard of."

But instead of a Replie she rambled about the Garden, complain'd to a Briar-rose that I am Ungrateful to her, told two little Oringe-trees that I doe not love her.

"Oh, mother!" sayz I, "I doe not wish to be angrie, but you will make me so if you doe not tell me what the matter is."

At this she hid her head in her apron; wept very piteously; then suddenly reviv'd.

"Well!" sayz she (apparently to a monument of Kinge Jupiter that look't downe on her with much contempt), "You remember the day after the pore owd doctor died I baked five pies and my daughter ate 'em all, first and last!"

"Oh! Mother!" sayz I, "Why doe you perpetuate these old quarrels between us? Those old pies waz such tiddly little thinges!"

"No, they warn't," sayz she to Jupiter (as if he contradicted her). "Howsomediver," sayz she, "I were so vex't an' I muddled about an' I told little owd Solomon Grundy and owd Blewskin . . ." (she meanes her Catts) " . . . I sayz to 'em, My daughter haz ate five pies today! Five pies! And I lookes up and I sees Sir John Sowreston a-sitting on his hobby-horse - as bewtiful as butter. And he sayz to me, What are you a-saying of, Mrs Sloper? Well! I knowed Sir John Sowreston waz extreamlie in Love with my daughter an' I knowed he'd come to looke at har through the owd Elder-hedge an' I didn't like to say as how my daughter had ate five pies. So I sayz, right sly like, I sayz My daughter haz spun five skeins o' flax today . . ."

"Mother!" sayz I, "You never! You never told Sir John such a lie!"

"Well then," sayz she, "I did. An' there ain't nothing but good come to my daughter a'cos of it. Sir John Sowreston lookes at me with his bewtiful Eyes like two dishes o' Chocolate a-poppin' out of his Head and he sayz to me Stars o' mine! I never heerd o' anyone as could do that! Mrs Sloper, I'll marry your daughter on Sunday. - Fair enough, sayz I, an' shall she have all the vittles she likes to eat and all the gowns she likes to get and all the company she likes to have? Oh yes! sayz he, all o' that. But come the last month o' the first year she must spinne five skeins o' flax every day. Or else . . ."

"Or else what, mother?" sayz I in a Fright.

"Oww!" she cries, "I sayd as how she'd be vex't! I knew she would! I have made her a Grand Ladye with such a bewtiful Husband and all the vittles she likes to eat and all the gowns she likes to get and all the company she likes to have - and her never a bitt grateful. But," she sayz a-tapping herselfe upon the nose and lookinge sly, "No harm will come to my daughter. Sir John Sowreston is still extreamlie in Love an' he haz forgott those owd skeins of flax completely . . ."