Feral Park by Mark Dunn Read Free Book Online Page A

our communal benefit may be effected in such an amiable way, then that is the way I am most sanguine to promote.”
    During the last of Mrs. Taptoe’s explanation Anna had become aware of animal-like noises issuing from the vicinity of the stable. She now glanced out of the window to see James pacing to and fro beside the front picket fence, which was nearly hidden by a reticulation of trailing rose bushes, the hundreds of buds within days of full blow under the warmth of the early June sun. James’ ears were slightly pricked to the interposing sound in spite of his apparent efforts to pretend ignorance of its evidence. Attending the same, Mrs. Taptoe rose from her chair and crossed to the door in the front passage where she stood to address the Feral Park coachman and man-servant upon the threshold. All the while, the noises from the stable grew more impudent in volume. They incorporated a moaning of some sort and porcine-like grunts—decidedly animalistic, yet conceivably human as well.
    “James! My good man! Have you been put out from the stable? What goes on in there?”
    “I an’t been put out, ma’am. I was sent to find a fourth for a rubber of whist. I don’t know where I am to find such a person, so I’m taking me a moment of leisure to myself.”
    Mrs. Taptoe put her head round the wall that separated the passage from the parlour, and addressed Anna: “It is, without doubt, some ploy devised by my wily servants to rid themselves of your man for a bit.” Then back to James: “It is all but impossible to hear what you are saying over the din. Will you not gain the house, so that we may speak to one another without shouting?”
    It was a howl, like that of a wolf, which came next.
    James opened the gate and entered upon the small grassy court before the dwarf-house.
    “James,” said Mrs. Taptoe as he drew near, “I gather your ill ease in pursuing the topic, but allow me to trespass upon your cooperative nature for a moment longer: what by your estimation is the genesis of all that noise coming now from the stable?”
    James remained mum.
    “Do you know?”
    “I have myself a good guess about it, ma’am.” James said this without looking at Mrs. Taptoe. He stared down at his boots, one of which he scraped repeatedly upon the doorsill in an act of empty purpose.
    “Is it Tripp and my housemaid Umbrous Elizabeth?”
    “Yes, ma’am. I believe that it is them’s what’s making the noisy voices we’re hearing.”
    “Are they frolicking?”
    A pause, and then a mortified nod of the head from the Feral Park servant.
    “Well, why ever I must wonder, do they not frolic less noisily? They are loud enough to be heard by Sir Thomas and Lady Jane far up the hill! That ‘unh, unh.’ That rutting animal noise. Dear me, I have never before heard such a cacophony emanating from Cupid’s Grove. Yet I am happy for Tripp and Elizabeth that they are able to enjoy sportive communion with one another, and listen now, how quiet it has become. Perhaps they have finally tired themselves out or they have come to their climactic finis, although Elizabeth usually concludes with a hymn of some sort. Ah, there now I hear the hymn. But I will not acquit them in full; they should not have sent you off on such an impractical errand as to seek a fourth for a rubber. I do not intend to play cards within a barn, nor, I think, should Miss Peppercorn. They ought to have been more mindful of the unfeasibility of the request. Do you not agree, Anna?”
    Anna would not find her voice for a moment longer.
    “Run along now, my good man. I should like to talk to your mistress again outside your presence.”
    Having dismissed the servant, Mrs. Taptoe returned to her tiny chair and resumed her chat with the young woman she now regarded as her niece. “The solicitor Mr. Scourby—now, he may assist me with the legal changing of my name, do you not think?”
    Anna nodded.
    “Anna, my dear, your cheeks are crimsoned to a hue I have