Until now, K had hoped he could avoid labelling his boss as ‘criminally insane’, but now felt it wouldn’t be far off the mark. He only hoped his meeting with the Lady wouldn’t plunge him into worse trouble, for he easily believed in the unseen ‘dangers’ Tollswhip had mentioned. It was all very distressing, and he felt he would very much like a cup of tea and a stroll in the fresh air to recover. Fortunately, he knew where he could go to get a hot brew and some sympathy any time of day (though not without paying the price for it).
Mrs. Gunnering was her usual, fretful self down in the kitchens, yet she looked on K with a mixture of respect and indulgence – as if she thought him a very foolish little boy, but was too afraid and impressed by his manners to say so outright. She was quite willing to serve him a cup of tea and a bit of cake – being convinced that he must be malnourished – but as ever she gave him a piece of her mind in the bargain.
Just to amuse himself, and with a certain pride and delight at his own ignorance (a very unhandsome quality), K told her he was meeting the Lady later that day. He’d no idea the impression this news would make on her. At first he was met with nervous laughter and shakes of the head, but since he would not be contradicted, the poor lady got flustered and began to think him silly. Eventually she was wringing her hands and rallying all the cooks under her in the kitchen around K, beseeching him as if he were some ministering angel at whose feet she could supplicate. The others joined her in this, so that the lad (who was perhaps just as foolish as Mrs. Gunnering had initially thought him) had to endure a litany of supplications he was supposed to repeat to Her Ladyship.
He had no idea how to extricate himself without disappointing all those sincere, pleading faces now looking up to him, a stranger. It had been stuffy in the kitchen anyway; now he began to feel faint from the heat and the crowding, not to mention the din. At last Mrs. Gunnering herself restored order, by clanging a bell and calling the cooks back to their places. K almost fell on her in gratitude, but only thanked her and promised to pass on her requests when he could.
He left the kitchen in a daze, with less time than he’d reckoned on to get to the upper floors. It occurred to him that if he told the lift attendants he had a meeting with the Lady they would surely allow him access – the problem was finding them. He returned to the place he’d taken a lift with Tollswhip, but found it locked, with no one on duty there. He dawdled about, wondering what to do, and growing more desperate with every minute that went by.
In the end, he had to take one of the concealed routes to the top floor – dashing into another of the dark, hidden, passageways he’d followed Travis down several days before. To his misfortune, however, the only way up was via ladder that ran through one of the three main chimneys of the estate. Suffice it to say that his careful morning toilet was rapidly undone by the dust, dirt, soot and other contaminants floating about the airways on this toilsome journey. Yet by some miracle he was up at the receiving rooms with a little time to spare, and, though he had no access to a bathroom to clean himself – and all his efforts to get the soot off his face only ended up spreading it still more over his hands, head, and arms – he did not despair, but continued according to plan.
He knocked on the door to the tea-room, which he found easily enough – a first for him, in this place – and a servant opened it, dressed all white. His supercilious smile plummeted when he saw K, and he backed away, as if the lawyer had something he might catch, goggle-eyed and mute at the unhygienic anomaly standing in front of him. In the end, K had to ask him to announce him to Her Ladyship, for the fellow was almost beside himself. This he managed, with an effort, and K heard the Lady’s low, musical voice calling out a greeting in response. He stepped over the threshold at her invitation, and approached with as few steps as he could manage – each one leaving a dark, greyish mark on the plush carpet.
Her eyes widened somewhat, and her face coloured a little, but aside from this, in true aristocratic fashion, the Lady made no reference whatsoever to the state K had got himself into. Instead, she asked him to sit down opposite her in a soft, velvety armchair, while she rang a little bell for tea to be brought.
‘You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come and see me,’ the Lady began, rather obviously, as several more servants arrived bearing trays and setting out the tea things. ‘But before I tell you, Mr. K, I need your solemn assurance that whatever is said between us does not leave this room. Is that understood?’
K, who had just started pouring himself some tea, felt the pot slip through his grimy hands as he answered her, its contents running onto his knee.
‘I err, ouch – I understand, and I swear that I will keep this confidential.’ He said, mopping his trousers with a napkin.
‘Excellent.’ The Lady continued, and a new life came into her body – she sat up straighter, but less stiffly; her eyes brightened, lighting up her face with excitement. ‘Mr. K – I understand that you have recently visited our paperless exhabitants in the undeclared territories, is this true?’
K thought it best to honour their understanding and tell the truth plainly.
‘It is, Your Ladyship. I... befriended an estate employee – a man in the messaging department – who lives out of bounds, and he welcomed me into his family home.’
‘Really?’ The Lady gasped, before she could stop herself. ‘Ahem, so you stayed in one of their residences?’
‘Just one night, Your Ladyship. Duty called me back to the estate the next day.’
‘I wonder,’ the Lady continued in a more controlled tone of voice, as she added sugar to her tea, ‘if you might tell me all about what you found there. Please don’t be worried – it won’t leave this room. This confidence runs both ways.’
K had some reservations about recounting the experience, but he recalled what Horace had said about the Lady’s interest in the welfare of the paperless; that it was she who had freed up the land for them. Besides, he rather liked this young Lady, for on closer acquaintance he found her sweet and sincere and a little absurd, and he knew beyond doubt that she must find him very odd indeed, yet out of her own initiative she had closed some of that vast distance between them. That had to count for something.
Still, as he told his story he did his best to omit all the proper names of persons and places – just in case he should get anyone into trouble. The Lady listened with rapt attention, asking some pointed questions at various places in the narrative, which K answered to the best of his ability. All in all, it took about half an hour, and he was anxious to draw the meeting to a close. The Lady seemed to sense his impatience, and didn’t shy away from asking if he had somewhere to be.
‘To tell you the truth, I got an invitation to go there – to their settlement – today, but the time clashed with this meeting. I’d like to get there to explain things, if possible, before it’s too late.’
‘My goodness, Joseph, why didn’t you say so! Of course, you must be off at once!’ The Lady almost hurled down her teacup in haste, rising to her feet.
‘You may give my apologies to your friends – you may tell them I requested your presence at the last minute, and you dared not refuse me. But, if I may: do please come and see me again, and tell me more about these non-residents and how they live. It’s been… most informative.’
She extended a hand for him to kiss, and he feigned to do so as politeness required, before rushing from the room with all speed.
On his way back to the lower floors, he finally managed to read the invitation Horace had sent him. It ran as follows:
Dear Mr. K. Horace here. It was our great pleasure to welcome you into our home the other day, and our sincere wish that you would join us this day for an event of great importance. I won’t say too much in this letter, save that I hope you like poetry, music, and drama. The show starts at 4 o’clock, but it will run on into the night, so brace yourself for a long evening (if you decide to stay, that is). Hope to see you there. Yours, etc. Horace.
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Poetry? Music, and drama? K couldn’t remember the last time he’d encountered these thing, except in his dreams. He’d never stepped foot in a theatre in his life, and he was still too inexperienced to see the great drama that was playing out every day on the Postlethwaite estate – too lost in his part. The thought of what festivities might be in store for him called to mind happy childhood scenes enacted in the playhouse of his memory, and he rejoiced inwardly at the thought that such things still pervade a sober, grown-up world. Mightn’t there be a melody in his own soul, buried beneath book-learning and study, that would rise to such an occasion, lending its voice in counterpoint to those rustic artists?
Thrilled by this thought, he made haste out of the estate, through the grounds and back into the wilds. Who can say if it was not all the excitement of the day, or the excessive tea-drinking, that kept his spirits high and his soul soaring above the clouds, as he trotted and hummed through the fields and lanes towards Horace’s house? Not knowing the way seemed a matter too trivial for consideration, and to his strange fortune, though it took him an hour or so – with several changes of direction and a few retracings of his steps – he made it, eventually, to a ridge on which he could see the settlement laid out in a distant crook of the woods.
It was now well past 6 o’clock, though the sun was far from setting, and he could only faintly make out the thin white skeins of smoke from the chimneys against a pale blue sky. K bounded down the hill towards them, stopping just long enough to savour the full scope of the view. The hamlet itself appeared deserted when he arrived; though this was only because every man and his dog had been invited to the Palmers’, and while only about half had showed up, the rest were either at work or abed. The dusty thoroughfare was as blank as Tollswhip’s record for lateness and improprieties at work, and K found it just as spooky. Faintly, he heard the sound of music coming from further up the sloping path towards the wood, in the vicinity of Horace’s house. Following the sound to its source, he had to pass round the back of the garden wall (no one answered his knocks on the front door), and through the back gate.
Fortunately, he found himself not backstage, but at the rear of a great assembly of locals, seated on chairs spread out on the lawn. At the other end of the garden, by the back of the house, a low, wooden stage had been erected, on which a few young girls were playing some instruments. Bunting hung over the heads of the crowd, and there were tables laid out at one side, laden with refreshments. Joseph spied Horace standing by the edge of the stage, in some strange gown over his usual clothes. It was a little like the garments K had worn at his graduation, but homespun: black, with a strip of shimmery material – sometimes blue, sometimes a bottle-green, if it caught the light – running from the level of the sternum to the hips. Under this was a white lining, which overhung the bottom. The overall impression was strangely familiar. Short and stocky as he was, he looked to K like some overlarge bird, the way the fabric flapped about as he applauded at the end of the girls’ performance.
One of these young musicians – Primrose – leapt off the stage and into his arms, almost bowling him over, and the people in the front seats cheered. Then the two of them stepped up onto the stage and Horace began to announce the next act. He stopped short, however, when he spotted K standing at the back, and gave him a warm welcome.
‘My dear friends, thank you all for coming. Thank you to Mr. K, at the back there, please help yourself to the punch, make yourself comfortable – are we ready for the next number?’ He called to someone backstage, whereupon the rest of the family, led by Mrs. Palmer, walked out to whoops and cheers, in full theatrical costume.
K couldn’t quite follow the ensuing drama, which seemed to be packed full of puns and in-jokes about the estate, for it elicited many laughs from the other locals. What he could appreciate were the elements which a regular theatre-goer would have described as ‘generic’ – the pantomime cliches that make anyone between childhood and adulthood cringe at their being so contrived: the romantic plot between the two star-crossed lovers, thwarted by the jealous, tyrannical rival; the appearance of a wise old counsellor preaching wisdom; the betrayal of a close ally. Here these were all played for laughs, but to K they had no ironical overtones – they were like timeless and beautiful gems set in a tinsel and paper crown, and they thrilled him. He found, moreover, that however tongue-in-cheek they played their parts, the Palmers never lost their appreciation for the drama itself – so that the comedy became almost a simple gloss on a rich tradition of which Horace’s family were the joyful torch-bearers. Looking around at the audience, it was clear that K was far from being alone in this appreciation of their humble art. Between the laughs, the faces of both young and old were enraptured by the spirited displays of emotion and intrigue. The children sat at their parents’ feet, open-mouthed and conscious of nothing else but Mrs. Palmer’s soliloquy as the scheming sorceress, or Livy’s lovelorn sighs from her enchanted prison. Young Tybold Palmer stole every scene he was in with his brooding heroism – raising a little more laughter than he perhaps intended. And all throughout Horace dashed back and forth between the action and backstage, in innumerable changes of costume; always carrying forward the drama in a supporting role; reminding the young children of their lines, in sotto voce; never taking the limelight, but directing from the side. K couldn’t believe that one man could have quite so many voices in him, albeit they all sounded vaguely familiar. With this and all the surprises, novelties, and the pathos of this little play, the young lawyer thought he had never been so entertained in his life, and when the family disappeared behind a hanging sheet after the final act (for want of a stage curtain to come down), he was on his feet applauding as much as any man, woman, or child there. They came out again, mere moments later, in their normal clothes, but with some smudges of makeup still to be removed, and took a bow before their audience of friends and relations.
This, it appeared, was the centre-piece of the fête that had been arranged, for the audience began to disperse a little from then on, while a series of more musical or comic solo acts followed onstage. Before long, Horace – in his black gown again – announced that dinner was soon to be served, so could they all lend a hand in setting up the chairs and tables in two, orderly rows? The people of their little community in the wild, some begrudgingly, some eagerly, set to it, and soon there were more tables out, and courses of food arriving on big trays – like gifts of tribute at the court of some king of old.
K did his part to lend a hand, looking to see any familiar faces among the locals, but, friendly though they were, there were none who knew him. He wondered if Macarius were off working somewhere, or asleep on the estate, and why he was not here with his friends on such an occasion. He couldn’t understand the old man’s relationship to this place, and doubted he ever would.
As they were setting out candles on the main table – for dusk was now falling fast – his ears caught a familiar sound. It was that same distinctive, rattling bird call that one often heard in these parts, albeit a little too affected and deliberate to be a real bird. Horace, who was darting about showing some of the guests of honour to their seats, heard it too, and immediately he rushed to the back gate to admit someone. A very hunched figure, with a stovepipe hat – broad-brimmed – and a bushy beard, limped into the garden. He hesitated a moment, and then, to K’s great surprise, removed both hat and beard in a single gesture. Even more astonishing was that it was his colleague, Gerald, beneath the disguise. Horace clapped him on the arm like an old friend, complimenting him on his ‘most attractive hump’, and in response Gerald produced a whole plucked goose from within his overcoat.
‘Had to sweet-talk Mrs. Gunnering for that one, I expect.’ joked Horace, gratefully receiving the bird and sending it off to be cooked.
‘You know me too well, Horace.’ Gerald grinned, before helping himself to a drink. K had no idea what to make of finding his work colleague at such a function, so he went up to say hello. Gerald didn’t appear at all surprised, but greeted him casually, and they chatted for a while about estate business. K still felt embarrassed to be in debt to the man regarding the work he’d neglected, but Gerald wasn’t one to remember such things, let alone bring them up at a party. The scrupulous shadow of Tollswhip still hung above the young lawyer, but was batted away by the good cheer and lively music of the place.
Now it was time to be seated, and Horace rapped on a glass for silence.
‘Once again, my dear friends, thank you for attending our humble festivities. We Palmers are honoured to have you. Talk is cheap, poetry preferable, so I’ll keep it brief and say: let’s eat!’
A great cheer followed these words, and much feasting followed. Course followed after course in the banquet that evening, for every person had brought something to share. The talk of the table was merry and full of jesting, but not disordered or coarse. An old local wise-woman sat aside from the diners and played a few lays, first on a lyre of sorts, and then she brought out a Hurdy Gurdy. K felt he had been plunged into the distant past, imagining jesters and jongleurs prancing and dancing to the music as at a court – of the kingly, not the legal kind.
As the sun sank below the horizon, more candles were brought out, and paper lanterns were hung overhead, while the talk died down a little, for now there were poetry readings being given from various ends of the table. After much coaxing and some teasing from the others, Gerald was induced to read one of his own poems, looking very embarrassed as he did so, at first. As he delivered the first stanza, all were silent, and K felt some instinctive anxiety – what if it were no good? Or simply mediocre? Not that those present would have cared, but he needn’t have worried. Gerald was a master of simplicity. There was no flashy showmanship to the verse he read, but strong rhythms, a clear, lucid line and regular rhymes. It was poetry appreciable to all, written in all sincerity and truth, and, like the drama, it held the crowd spellbound while it lasted, eliciting applause afterwards. Finally, the table began to be cleared away, and the guests took their leave in twos or threes, until only a handful remained besides the Palmers. The fête, or holiday – whatever it was – had come to an end.