Percival Keene

Mrs Culpepper was in person enormous—she looked like a feather-bed standing on end; her cheeks were as large as a dinner-plate, eyes almost as imperceptible as a mole’s, nose just visible, mouth like a round O. It was said that she was once a great Devonshire beauty. Time, who has been denominated Edax rerum, certainly had as yet left her untouched, reserving her for a bonne bouche on some future occasion.

She sat in a very large arm-chair—indeed, no common-sized chair could have received her capacious person. She did not get up when I entered; indeed, as I discovered, she made but two attempts to stand during the twenty-four hours; one was to come out of her bedroom, which was on the same floor as the parlour, and the other to go in again.

Miss Culpepper was somewhat of her mother’s build. She might have been twenty years old, and was, for a girl of her age, exuberantly fat; yet as her skin and complexion were not coarse, many thought her handsome; but she promised to be as large as her mother, and certainly was not at all suited for a wife to a subaltern of a marching regiment.

“Who have we here?” said Mrs Culpepper to her husband, in a sort of low croak; for she was so smothered with fat that she could not get her voice out.

“Well, I hardly know,” replied the gentleman, wiping his forehead; “but I’ve my own opinion.”

“Mercy on me, how very like!” exclaimed Miss Culpepper, looking at me, and then at her father. “Would not you like to go into the garden, little boy?” continued she: “there, through the passage, out of the door,—you can’t miss it.”

As this was almost a command, I did not refuse to go; but as soon as I was in the garden, which was a small patch of ground behind the house, as the window to the parlour was open, and my curiosity was excited by their evidently wishing to say something which they did not wish me to hear, I stopped under the window and listened.

“The very picture of him,” continued the young lady.

“Yes, yes, very like indeed,” croaked the old one.

“All I know is,” said Mr Culpepper, “Captain Delmar has desired me to fit him out, and that he pays all the expenses.”

“Well, that’s another proof,” said the young lady; “he wouldn’t pay for other people’s children.”

“He was brought down here by a very respectable-looking, I may say interesting, and rather pretty woman,—I should think about thirty.”

“Then she must have been handsome when this boy was born,” replied the young lady: “I consider that another proof. Where is she?”

“Went away this morning by the day-coach, leaving the boy with the captain, who sent his coxswain for him.”

“There’s mystery about that,” rejoined the daughter, “and therefore I consider it another proof.”

“Yes,” said Mr Culpepper, “and a strong one too. Captain Delmar is so high and mighty, that he would not have it thought that he could ever condescend to have an intrigue with one beneath him in rank and station, and he has sent her away on that account, depend upon it.”

“Just so; and if that boy is not a son of Captain Delmar, I’m not a woman.”

“I am of that opinion,” replied the father, “and therefore I offered to take charge of him, as the captain did not know what to do with him till his uniform was ready.”

“Well,” replied Miss Culpepper, “I’ll soon find out more. I’ll pump everything that he knows out of him before he leaves us; I know how to put that and that together.”

“Yes,” croaked the fat mother; “Medea knows how to put that and that together, as well as any one.”

“You must be very civil and very kind to him,” said Mr Culpepper; “for depend upon it, the very circumstance of the captain’s being compelled to keep the boy at a distance will make him feel more fond of him.”

“I’ve no patience with the men in that respect,” observed the young lady: “how nobility can so demean themselves I can’t think; no wonder they are ashamed of what they have done, and will not acknowledge their own offspring.”

“No, indeed,” croaked the old lady.

“If a woman has the misfortune to yield to her inclinations, they don’t let her off so easily,” exclaimed Miss Medea.

“No, indeed,” croaked the mamma again.

“Men make the laws and break them,” continued Miss Culpepper. “Mere brute strength, even in the most civilised society. If all women had only the spirit that I have, there would be a little alteration, and more justice.”

“I can’t pretend to argue with you, Medea,” replied Mr Culpepper; “I take the world as I find it, and make the best of it. I must go now,—my steward is waiting for me at the victualling office. Just brush my hat a little, Medea, the wind has raised the nap, and then I’ll be off.”

I walked very softly from the window; a new light had burst upon me. Young as I was, I also could put that and that together. I called to mind the conduct of my mother towards her husband Ben; the dislike of my grandmother to Captain Delmar; the occasional conversations I had overheard; the question of my mother checked before it was finished—“If I knew who it was that I had been playing the trick to;” the visits my mother received from Captain Delmar, who was so haughty and distant to everybody; his promise to provide for me, and my mother’s injunctions to me to be obedient and look up to him as a father, and the remarks of the coxswain, Bob Cross,—“If I were not of the Delmar breed:” all this, added to what I had just overheard, satisfied me that they were not wrong in their conjectures, and that I really was the son of the honourable captain.

My mother had gone; I would have given worlds to have gained this information before, that I might have questioned her, and obtained the truth from her; but that was now impossible, and I felt convinced that writing was of no use. I recollected the conversation between her and the Captain, in which she promised to keep the secret, and the answer she gave me when I questioned her; nothing, then, but my tears and entreaties could have any effect, and those, I knew, were powerful over her; neither would it be of any use to ask Aunt Milly, for she would not tell her sister’s secrets, so I resolved to say nothing about it for the present; and I did not forget that Mr Culpepper had said that Captain Delmar would be annoyed if it was supposed that I was his son; I resolved, therefore, that I would not let him imagine that I knew anything about it, or had any idea of it.

I remained more than an hour in deep thought, and it was strange what a tumult there was in my young heart at this discovery. I hardly comprehended the nature of my position, yet I felt pleased on the whole; I felt as if I were of more importance; nay, that I was more capable of thinking and acting than I was twenty-four hours before.

My reveries were, however, disturbed by Miss Medea, who came to the back-door and asked me if I was not tired of walking, and if I would not like to come in.

“Are you not hungry, Master Keene? Would you like to have a nice piece of cake and a glass of currant wine before dinner? We shall not dine till three o’clock.”

“If you please,” replied I: for I would not refuse the bribe, although I had a perfect knowledge why it was offered.

Miss Medea brought the cake and wine. As soon as I had despatched them, which did not take very long, she commenced her pumping, as I had anticipated, and which I was determined to thwart, merely out of opposition.

“You were sorry to leave your mamma, weren’t you, Master Keene?”

“Yes; very sorry, miss.”

“Where’s your papa, dearest? He’s a very pretty boy, mamma, ain’t he?” continued the young lady, putting her fingers through my chestnut curls.

“Yes; handsome boy,” croaked the old lady.

“Papa’s dead.”

“Dead! I thought so,” observed Miss Medea, winking at her mother.

“Did you ever see your papa, dearest?”

“Oh yes; he went to sea about eighteen months ago, and he was killed in action.”

After this came on a series of questions and cross-questions; I replied to her so as to make it appear that Ben was my father, and nobody else, although I had then a very different opinion. The fact was, I was determined that I would not be pumped, and I puzzled them, for I stated that my aunt Milly was married to Captain Bridgeman, of the marines; and not till then did Miss Medea ask me what my father was. My reply was that he had also been in the marines, and they consequently put him down as a marine officer, as well as Captain Bridgeman.

This added so much to the respectability of my family, that they were quite mystified, and found that it was not quite so easy to put that and that together as they had thought.

As soon as they were tired of questioning, they asked me if I would not like to take another turn in the garden, to which I consented; and, placing myself under the window as before, I heard Miss Medea say to her mother—

“Father’s always finding out some mare’s nest or another; and because there is some likeness to the captain, he has, in his great wit, made an important discovery. It’s quite evident that he’s wrong, as he generally is. It’s not very likely that Captain Delmar should have had an intrigue with the wife of a marine officer, and her sister married also into the corps. The widow has brought him down herself, it is true, but that proves nothing; who else was to bring him down, if it was not his mother? and the very circumstance of her going away so soon proves that she felt it improper that she should remain; and, in my opinion, that she is a modest, interesting young woman, in whom Captain Delmar has taken an interest. I wish father would not come here with his nonsensical ideas, telling us to make much of the boy.”

“Very true, Medea,” replied the mother; “you might have saved that cake and wine.”

Thinks I to myself, you have not pumped me, and I never felt more delighted than at having outwitted them. I thought it, however, prudent to walk away from the window.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Culpepper returned, accompanied by one of the numerous Portsmouth fitting-out tailors. I was summoned; the tailor presented a list of what he declared to be absolutely necessary for the outfit of a gentleman.

Mr Culpepper struck out two-thirds of the articles, and desired the remainder to be ready on the Friday morning, it being then Wednesday. The tailor promised faithfully, and Mr Culpepper also promised most faithfully, that if the articles were not ready, they would be left on his hands. As soon as the tailor had gone, Miss Medea asked me if I would not like to take another run in the garden. I knew that she wished to speak to her father, and therefore had a pleasure in disappointing her. I therefore replied, that I had been there nearly the whole day, and did not wish to go out any more.