پیتر بیچاره

CHAPTER FOUR

Poor Peter

I have often noticed that everyone has some little meanness. Miss Matty Jenkyns was mean about candles. In the winter afternoons, she used to knit for hours just by firelight; and though candles were brought in with our tea, we never burnt more than one of them.

One evening, I remember, this meanness quite annoyed me. Miss Matty had fallen asleep and it was too dark for me to sew even in front of the fire. When Martha brought in the lighted candle and tea. Miss Matty woke up with a sad little jump. She had been dreaming about her early life. I think, because all through tea she talked about her childhood. Then, afterwards, she went to her room to fetch some old family letters. I wanted more light by which to read them, but Miss Matty still refused to light a second candle.

The earliest letters were two yellow packets, tied together. ‘Letters between my dear parents before their marriage in July 1774.’ said Miss Jenkyns’s writing. The rector of Cranford was about twenty-seven at that time, and Miss Matty’s mother was not yet eighteen. The only writing of the rector’s I had seen before was a grand sermon in the style of Dr Johnson. So it was strange to read these fresh young letters from him, full of love for his Molly.

The girl’s letters were rather different - all about wedding clothes, and a white silk dress she desperately wanted.

‘We must burn them, I think,’ said Miss Matty doubtfully. ‘No one will care for them when I’ve gone.’ One by one, she dropped the letters into the fire. The room was light enough now.

The other letters were written between about 1775 and 1805. There were sweet letters between the mother and grandmother when Deborah was born. There were later letters from the rector, full of Latin words. There were badly-spelt replies from his wife about ‘beautiful little Matty’. And there was one letter from the grandfather about a son. How strange, I thought, that I had never heard of this son before.

Then we came to Miss Jenkyns’s letters. It took us two nights to read them all. The longest ones were written during a visit to Newcastle-upon-Tyne early in 1805. Some people were expecting Napoleon Buonaparte to land there, and Miss Jenkyns was clearly alarmed.

‘It was a frightening time, my dear.’ explained Miss Matty. ‘I used to wake up at night and think I heard the French entering Cranford! My father, I remember, wrote a lot of sermons against Napoleon.’

The son, Peter Arley Jenkyns (‘poor Peter!’ Miss Matty began to call him), was at school at Shrewsbury by this time. The rector wrote in Latin to his boy, and the boy wrote back careful ‘show’ letters, with notes to his mother at the end; ‘Mother dear, do send me a cake!’

Soon, ‘poor Peter’ was in trouble at school. There were letters to his father apologizing for some wrong-doing, and a note to his mother. ‘My dearest Mother, I will be a better boy. I will, indeed. But please don’t be ill because of me. I’m not worth it.’

After this note, Miss Matty was crying too much to speak. She got up and took it to her room in case it was burnt by mistake. ‘Poor Peter!’ she said. ‘He was always in trouble. He was too fond of fun and jokes. Poor Peter!’

Peter won no honours at school, it seemed, and he was brought back to Cranford, to study at home.

‘He was a kind boy in many ways,’ said Miss Matty. ‘Like dear Captain Brown, he was always ready to help any old person or child. But he did like playing jokes and making fun. Once, I remember, he dressed himself as a lady visitor to the town and asked to see “the rector who gave such wonderful sermons”. My father believed him. I mean her, and offered her all his sermons about Napoleon. Then he made Peter copy them all out for her instead of going fishing! How I wanted to laugh!’

‘Did Miss Jenkyns know about these jokes?’ I asked.

‘Oh, no! I was the only one who knew. Peter used to say that the old ladies in the town needed something to talk about. But sometimes he didn’t tell me, and at last a terrible, sad thing happened…’

Miss Matty went to the door and opened it. There was no one there. She rang the bell, and told Martha to go across the town for some eggs. ‘I’ll lock the door when you’ve gone, Martha. You’re not afraid to go, are you?’

‘Oh no, madam! Jem Hearn will be proud to come with me.’

Miss Matty’s eyes widened. She was still a little worried by the idea of Martha having a follower.

‘I’ll put out the candle, my dear,’ she said to me as soon as we were alone. ‘We can talk just as well by firelight.

‘Well, it was a quiet spring day, I remember. Deborah had gone away for a fortnight, and my father was visiting some sick people in the town. Peter, it seems, went up to Deborah’s room and dressed himself in her old dress and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow from her bed into - are you sure we locked the door, my dear? - into a little baby with long, white clothes. And he walked up and down outside, and nursed the pillow just like a baby, and talked to it in the way people do to babies. Then, oh my dear, my father came back and saw a crowd of people looking into our garden. At first, he thought they were looking at his flowers. Then he saw Peter. His face went white, he was so angry. He tore the clothes off Peter’s back and threw the pillow into the crowd and. in front of everyone he beat Peter with his walking stick. My dear, that boy’s joke, on that spring day, broke my mother’s heart and changed my father forever.

‘Peter stood still until my father had finished. Then he walked slowly into the house, put his arms round my mother and kissed her. Before she could speak, he had gone. We couldn’t understand it.

‘She sent me to ask my father what had happened. “Tell your mother I have beaten Peter,” he said.

‘When I told her, my pretty little mother sat down, very white. Then we began to search the house. It was a big old house, and we searched and searched. “Peter, dear!” my mother called softly. “It’s only me.” Then her cry grew louder. “Peter! Peter! Where are you?”

‘The afternoon went on. The servants joined the search. My father sat with his head in his hands. When it was nearly dark, he got up. “Molly.” he began, “I did not mean all this to happen -“

As he looked at my mother’s poor white face, tears came into his eyes. And then she took my father’s great hand in her little one and led him along, from room to room, through the house and garden, everywhere.

I sent someone to Mr Holbrook to ask if Peter was at his house. Mr Holbrook was Miss Pole’s cousin, you know, and he had been very kind to Peter and had taught him how to fish. But Peter wasn’t there or anywhere in Cranford. ‘ ‘Where was he?’ I asked.

He had gone to Liverpool. There was war then, and some of the king’s ships were at the mouth of the River Mersey. They were glad to have a fine, tall boy like Peter. The captain wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my mother. Those letters are here somewhere too.’

We lit the candle and found them. The captain’s letter told the parents to come to Liverpool immediately if they wished to see their boy. And Peter’s letter begged his mother to come. ‘Mother! We may go into battle. I hope we shall, and that we’ll defeat those French. I must see you first, though.’

‘But my father and mother arrived too late, said Miss Matty. ‘The ship had gone.’

We sat silently for a while. Peter’s ship went to the Mediterranean. Miss Matty told me at last, and later he was sent to India. Her mother had never been strong and she died less than a year after he went away.

‘And the day after her death - yes, the day after - a packet arrived for her from India from her poor boy. It was a large, soft, white shawl. Deborah took it in to my father and he held it in his hands and said. “She always wanted a shawl like this. We’ll bury her in it. Peter would like that.”

‘On the day of my mother’s funeral. Deborah told me that she would never marry and leave my father, even if she had a hundred offers of marriage. This wasn’t very likely, of course - I don’t think she had one; but it was good of her to say it. She was a wonderful daughter. She did everything for my father.’

‘Did Mr Peter ever come home?’

‘Yes, once. My father took him into every house in Cranford, he was so proud of him in his uniform. Deborah used to smile (I don’t think we ever laughed again after my mother’s death) and say she was not needed any more.’

‘And then?’ I asked.

‘Then Peter went to sea again. And after a while my father died, and we had to come to this small house with just one servant instead of four. Poor Deborah!’

‘And Mr Peter?’

‘Oh, there was some great war in India and we’ve never heard of him since then. I believe he’s dead, though sometimes when all the house is quiet, I think I hear him coming up the street. But the sound always goes past and Peter never comes… Is that Martha? I’ll go, my dear. No, I don’t need a candle…’

‘Was it Martha?’ I asked when she returned.

‘Yes. And I heard such a strange noise when I opened the door.’

‘Where?’

‘In the street, just outside. It sounded like-‘

‘Talking?’

‘No! Kissing!’