Arcadia (4 page)

Valentine: Well, even so.

(Valentine
leaves, closing the door.
Bernard
keeps
staring at the closed door. Behind him,
Hannah
comes to the garden
door.)

Hannah: Mr Peacock?

(Bernard
looks round vaguely then checks over his shoulder
for the missing Peacock, then recovers himself and turns on the Nightingale
bonhomie.)

Bernard: Oh ... hello! Hello. Miss Jarvis, of course. Such a
pleasure. I was thrown for a moment—the photograph doesn’t do you justice.

Hannah: Photograph?

(Her shoes have got muddy and she is taking them off.)

Bernard: On the book. I’m sorry to have brought you indoors,
but Lady Chloe kindly insisted she—

Hannah: No matter—you would have muddied your shoes.

Bernard: How thoughtful. And how kind of you to spare me a
little of your time.
(He is overdoing it. She shoots him a glance.)

Hannah: Are you a journalist?

Bernard:
(Shocked)
No!

Hannah:
(Resuming)
I’ve been in the ha-ha, very
squelchy.

Bernard:
(Unexpectedly)
Ha-AaA!

Hannah: What?

Bernard: A theory of mine. Ha-hah, not ha-ha. If you were
strolling down the garden and all of a sudden the ground gave way at your feet,
you’re not going to go ‘ha-ha’, you’re going to jump back and go ‘ha-hah!’, or
more probably, ‘Bloody ‘ell!’... though personally I think old Murray was up
the pole on that one—in France, you know, ‘ha-ha’ is used to denote a
strikingly ugly woman, a much more likely bet for something that keeps the cows
off the lawn.
(This is not going well for
Bernard
but he seems
blithely unaware.
Hannah
stares at him for a moment.)

Hannah: Mr Peacock, what can I do for you?

Bernard: Well, to begin with, you can call me Bernard, which
is my name.

Hannah: Thank you.

(She goes to the garden door to bang her shoes together
and scrape off the worst of the mud.)

Bernard: The book!—the book is a revelation! To see Caroline
Lamb through your eyes is really like seeing her for the first time. I’m
ashamed to say I never read her fiction, and how right you are, it’s
extraordinary stuff—Early Nineteenth is my period as much as anything is.

Hannah: You teach?

Bernard: Yes. And write, like you, like we all, though I’ve
never done anything which has sold like
Caro.

Hannah: I don’t teach.

Bernard: No. All the more credit to you. To rehabilitate a forgotten
writer, I suppose you could say that’s the main reason for an English don. Hannah:
Not to teach? Bernard: Good God, no, let the brats sort it out for themselves.

Anyway, many congratulations. I expect someone will be bringing
out Caroline Lamb’s oeuvre now? Hannah: Yes, I expect so. Bernard: How
wonderful! Bravo! Simply as a document shedding reflected light on the
character of Lord Byron, it’s bound to be—Hannah: Bernard. You did say Bernard,
didn’t you? Bernard: I did.

Hannah: I’m putting my shoes on again. Bernard: Oh. You’re
not going to go out? Hannah: No, I’m going to kick you in the balls. Bernard:
Right. Point taken. Ezra Chater. Hannah: Ezra Chater. Bernard: Born Twickenham,
Middlesex, 1778, author of two verse narratives, ‘The Maid of Turkey’, 1808,
and ‘The

Couch of Eros’, 1809. Nothing known after 1809, disappears from
view. Hannah: I see. And? Bernard:
(Reaching for his bag)
There is a
Sidley Park connection.

(He produces ‘The Couch of Eros’from the bag. He reads the
inscription.)

To my friend Septimus Hodge, who stood up and gave his best
on behalf of the Author—Ezra Chater, at Sidley Park,

Derbyshire, April 10th 1809.

(He gives her the book.)

I am in your hands. Hannah: The Couch of Eros’. Is it any
good? Bernard: Quite surprising. Hannah: You think there’s a book in him? Bernard:
No, no—a monograph perhaps for the
Journal of

English Studies.
There’s almost nothing on Chater,
not a word in the
DNB,
of course—by that time he’d been completely forgotten.

Hannah: Family?

Bernard: Zilch. There’s only one other Chater in the British

Library database. Hannah: Same period? Bernard: Yes, but he
wasn’t a poet like our Ezra, he was a botanist who described a dwarf dahlia in
Martinique and died there after being bitten by a monkey. Hannah: And Ezra
Chater? Bernard: He gets two references in the periodical index, one for each book,
in both cases a substantial review in the
Piccadilly Recreation,
a thrice
weekly folio sheet, but giving no personal details. Hannah: And where was this
(the
book)?
Bernard: Private collection. I’ve got a talk to give next week, in

London, and I think Chater is interesting, so anything on him,
or this Septimus Hodge, Sidley Park, any leads at all

... I’d be most grateful.

(Pause.)
Hannah: Well! This is a new experience for
me. A grovelling academic. Bernard: Oh, I say. Hannah: Oh, but it is. All the
academics who reviewed my book patronized it. Bernard: Surely not. Hannah:
Surely yes. The Byron gang unzipped their flies and patronized all over it.
Where is it you don’t bother to teach, by the way? Bernard: Oh, well, Sussex,
actually. Hannah: Sussex.
(She thinks a moment.)
Nightingale. Yes; a thousand
words in the
Observer
to see me off the premises with a pat on the
bottom. You must know him. Bernard: As I say, I’m in your hands. Hannah: Quite.
Say please, then. Bernard: Please. Hannah: Sit down, do. Bernard: Thank you.

(He takes a chair. She remains standing. Possibly she smokes;
if so, perhaps now. A short cigarette-holder sounds right, too. Or brown-paper
cigarillos.)

Hannah: How did you know I was here?

Bernard: Oh, I didn’t. I spoke to the son on the phone but he
didn’t mention you by name ... and then he forgot to mention me. Hannah:
Valentine. He’s at Oxford, technically. Bernard: Yes, I met him. Brideshead
Regurgitated. Hannah: My fiance.

(She holds his look.)
Bernard:
(Pause)
I’ll
take a chance. You’re lying. Hannah:
(Pause)
Well done, Bernard.
Bernard: Christ. Hannah: He calls me his fiancee. Bernard: Why? Hannah: It’s a
joke. Bernard: You turned him down?

Hannah: Don’t be silly, do I look like the next Countess of-Bernard:
No, no—a freebie. The joke that consoles. My tortoise

Lightning, my fiancee Hannah. Hannah: Oh. Yes. You have a
way with you, Bernard. I’m not sure I like it. Bernard: What’s he doing,
Valentine? Hannah: He’s a postgrad. Biology. Bernard: No, he’s a mathematician.
Hannah: Well, he’s doing grouse. Bernard: Grouse?

Hannah: Not actual grouse. Computer grouse. Bernard: Who’s
the one who doesn’t speak?

Hannah: GUS.

Bernard: What’s the matter with him?

Hannah: I didn’t ask.

Bernard: And the father sounds like a lot of fun.

Hannah: Ah yes.

Bernard: And the mother is the gardener. What’s going on here?
Hannah: What do you mean? Bernard: I nearly took her head off—she was standing
in a trench at the time. Hannah: Archaeology. The house had a formal Italian
garden until about 1740. Lady Croom is interested in garden history. I sent her
my book—it contains, as you know if you’ve read it—which I’m not assuming, by
the way—a rather good description of Caroline’s garden at Brocket Hall. I’m
here now helping Hermione.

Bernard:
(Impressed)
Hermione.

Hannah: The records are unusually complete and they have
never been worked on.

Bernard: I’m beginning to admire you.

Hannah: Before was bullshit?

Bernard: Completely. Your photograph does you justice, I’m
not sure the book does.
(She considers him. He waits, confident.)

Hannah: Septimus Hodge was the tutor.

Bernard:
(Quietly)
Attagirl.

Hannah: His pupil was the Croom daughter. There was a son at
Eton. Septimus lived in the house: the pay book specifies allowances for wine
and candles. So, not quite a guest but rather more than a steward. His letter
of self-recommendation is preserved among the papers. I’ll dig it out for you.
As far as I remember he studied mathematics and natural philosophy at
Cambridge. A scientist, therefore, as much as anything.

Bernard: I’m impressed. Thank you. And Chater?

Hannah: Nothing.

Bernard: Oh. Nothing at all?

Hannah: I’m afraid not.

Bernard: How about the library?

Hannah: The catalogue was done in the 1880s. I’ve been
through the lot.

Bernard: Books or catalogue?

Hannah: Catalogue.

Bernard: Ah. Pity.

Hannah: I’m sorry.

Bernard: What about the letters? No mention?

Hannah: I’m afraid not. I’ve been very thorough in your
period because, of course, it’s my period too.

Bernard: Is it? Actually, I don’t quite know what it is you’re
...

Hannah: The Sidley hermit.

Bernard: Ah. Who’s he?

Hannah: He’s my peg for the nervous breakdown of the Romantic

Imagination. I’m doing landscape and literature 1750 to
1834. Bernard: What happened in 1834? Hannah: My hermit died. Bernard: Of
course. Hannah: What do you mean, of course? Bernard: Nothing. Hannah: Yes, you
do.

Bernard: No, no ... However, Coleridge also died in 1834. Hannah:
So he did. What a stroke of luck.
(Softening.)
Thank you, Bernard.

(She goes to the reading stand and opens Noakes’s sketch
book.)

Look-there he is.

(Bernardgoes to look.)

Bernard: Mmm.

Hannah: The only known likeness of the Sidley hermit.

Bernard: Very biblical.

Hannah: Drawn in by a later hand, of course. The hermitage
didn’t yet exist when Noakes did the drawings.

Bernard: Noakes ... the painter?

Hannah: Landscape gardener. He’d do these books for his
clients, as a sort of prospectus.
(She demonstrates.)
Before and after,
you see. This is how it all looked until, say, 1810—smooth, undulating,
serpentine—open water, clumps of trees, classical boat-house—

Bernard: Lovely. The real England.

Hannah: You can stop being silly now, Bernard. English landscape
was invented by gardeners imitating foreign painters who were evoking classical
authors. The whole thing was brought home in the luggage from the grand tour.
Here, look—Capability Brown doing Claude, who was doing Virgil. Arcadia! And
here, superimposed by Richard Noakes, untamed nature in the style of Salvator
Rosa. It’s the Gothic novel expressed in landscape. Everything but vampires.
There’s an account of my hermit in a letter by your illustrious namesake,

Bernard: Florence?

Hannah: What?

Bernard: No. You go on.

Hannah: Thomas Love Peacock.

Bernard: Ah yes.

Hannah: I found it in an essay on hermits and anchorites published
in the
CornhillMagazine
in the 186os ...
{She fishes for the magazine
itself among the books on the table, and finds it.)
... 1862 ... Peacock
calls him
{S he quotes from memory.)
‘Not one of your village simpletons
to frighten the ladies, but a savant among idiots, a sage of lunacy.’

Bernard: An oxy-moron, so to speak.

Hannah:
{Busy)
Yes. What?

Bernard: Nothing.

Hannah:
{Having found the place)
Here we are. ‘A
letter we have seen, written by the author of
Headlong Hall
nearly
thirty years ago, tells of a visit to the Earl of Croom’s estate, Sidley Park—’

Bernard: Was the letter to Thackeray?

Hannah:
{Brought up short)
I don’t know. Does it
matter?

Bernard: No. Sorry.

{But the gaps he leaves for her are false promises—and
she is not quick enough. Thaf show it goes.)

Only, Thackeray edited the
Cornhill
until ‘63 when,
as you know, he died. His father had been with the East India

Company where Peacock, of course, had held the position of

Examiner, so it’s quite possible that if the essay were by

Thackeray, the
letter ...
Sorry. Go on.

Of course, the East India Library in Blackfriars has most of

Peacock’s letters, so it would be quite easy to ... Sorry.
Can I

look?

{Silently she hands him the
Cornhill.)

Yes, it’s been topped and tailed, of course. It might be
worth ...

Goon. I’m listening ...

{Leafing through the essay, he suddenly chuckles.)
Oh
yes, it’s

Thackeray all right ...

{He slaps the book shut.)
Unbearable ...

{He hands it back to her.)
What were you saying?

Hannah: Are you always like this?

Bernard: Like what?

Hannah: The point is, the Crooms, of course, had the hermit
under their noses for twenty years so hardly thought him worth remarking. As I’m
finding out. The Peacock letter is still the main source, unfortunately. When I
read this
(the magazine in her hand)
well, it was one of those moments
that tell you what your next book is going to be. The hermit of Sidley Park was
my ...

Bernard: Peg.

Hannah: Epiphany.

Bernard: Epiphany, that’s it.

Hannah: The hermit was
placed
in the landscape
exactly as one might place a pottery gnome. And there he lived out his life as
a garden ornament.

Bernard: Did he do anything?

Hannah: Oh, he was very busy. When he died, the cottage was
stacked solid with paper. Hundreds of pages. Thousands. Peacock says he was
suspected of genius. It turned out, of course, he was off his head. He’d covered
every sheet with cabalistic proofs that the world was coming to an end. It’s
perfect, isn’t it? A perfect symbol, I mean.