Plays 5 Page 3

  Bernard So I telephoned yesterday and I think I spoke to you –

  Valentine To me? Ah! Yes! Sorry! You’re doing a talk about – someone – and you wanted to ask Hannah – something –

  Bernard Yes. As it turns out. I’m hoping Miss Jarvis will look kindly on me.

  Valentine I doubt it.

  Bernard Ah, you know about research?

  Valentine I know Hannah.

  Bernard Has she been here long?

  Valentine Well in possession, I’m afraid. My mother had read her book, you see. Have you?

  Bernard No. Yes. Her book. Indeed.

  Valentine She’s terrifically pleased with herself.

  Bernard Well, I dare say if I wrote a bestseller –

  Valentine No, for reading it. My mother basically reads gardening books.

  Bernard She must be delighted to have Hannah Jarvis writing a book about her garden.

  Valentine Actually it’s about hermits.

  Gus returns through the same door, and turns to leave again.

  It’s all right, Gus – what do you want? –

  But Gus has gone again.

  Well … I’ll take Lightning for his run.

  Bernard Actually, we’ve met before. At Sussex, a couple of years ago, a seminar …

  Valentine Oh. Was I there?

  Bernard Yes. One of my colleagues believed he had found an unattributed short story by D. H. Lawrence, and he analysed it on his home computer, most interesting, perhaps you remember the paper?

  Valentine Not really. But I often sit with my eyes closed and it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m awake.

  Bernard Well, by comparing sentence structures and so forth, this chap showed that there was a ninety per cent chance that the story had indeed been written by the same person as Women in Love. To my inexpressible joy, one of your maths mob was able to show that on the same statistical basis there was a ninety per cent chance that Lawrence also wrote the Just William books and much of the previous day’s Brighton and Hove Argus.

  Valentine (pause) Oh, Brighton. Yes. I was there, (and looking out) Oh – here she comes, I’ll leave you to talk. By the way, is yours the red Mazda?

  Bernard Yes.

  Valentine If you want a tip I’d put it out of sight through the stable arch before my father comes in. He won’t have anyone in the house with a Japanese car. Are you queer?

  Bernard No, actually.

  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 Chloë 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-hah!

  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 fiancé. (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 fiancée.

  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 fiancée 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.

  Bernard goes 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 Cornhill Magazine in the 1860s … (She fishes for the magazine itself among the books on the table, and finds it.) … 1862 … Peacock calls him (She 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. That’s how 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 … Go on. 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 migh
t 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.

  Bernard Oh, yes. Of what?

  Hannah The whole Romantic sham, Bernard! It’s what happened to the Enlightenment, isn’t it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and false emotion. The history of the garden says it all, beautifully. There’s an engraving of Sidley Park in 1730 that makes you want to weep. Paradise in the age of reason. By 1760 everything had gone – the topiary, pools and terraces, fountains, an avenue of limes – the whole sublime geometry was ploughed under by Capability Brown. The grass went from the doorstep to the horizon and the best box hedge in Derbyshire was dug up for the ha-ha so that the fools could pretend they were living in God’s countryside. And then Richard Noakes came in to bring God up to date. By the time he’d finished it looked like this (the sketch book). The decline from thinking to feeling, you see.

  Bernard (a judgement) That’s awfully good.

  Hannah looks at him in case of irony but he is professional.

  No, that’ll stand up.

  Hannah Thank you.

  Bernard Personally I like the ha-ha. Do you like hedges?

  Hannah I don’t like sentimentality.

  Bernard Yes, I see. Are you sure? You seem quite sentimental over geometry. But the hermit is very very good. The genius of the place.

  Hannah (pleased) That’s my title!

  Bernard Of course.

  Hannah (less pleased) Of course?

  Bernard Of course. Who was he when he wasn’t being a symbol?

  Hannah I don’t know.

  Bernard Ah.

  Hannah I mean, yet.

  Bernard Absolutely. What did they do with all the paper? Does Peacock say?

  Hannah Made a bonfire.

  Bernard Ah, well.

  Hannah I’ve still got Lady Croom’s garden books to go through.

  Bernard Account books or journals?

  Hannah A bit of both. They’re gappy but they span the period.

  Bernard Really? Have you come across Byron at all? As a matter of interest.

  Hannah A first edition of ‘Childe Harold’ in the library, and English Bards, I think.