Pugg's Portmanteau by DM Bryan

Author:DM Bryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Published: 2018-12-13T20:12:59+00:00

Chapter 11

Curiosity now prompted us to walk on; the nearer we came to the house, the greater we found the profusion of flowers which ornamented every field.

Sarah Scott’s A Description of Millenium Hall.

Bath, 1762.

From the back bedroom of Edgar’s Buildings on Bath’s George Street, Sarah can see how the whole of her new garden fits into a single pane of window glass. She has lied by the most recent post, telling brother William this plot is a hundred feet long. She told him the area is not so large as to entail expense but big enough to bring her pleasure. Now, looking down from above, she knows the opposite is true. Enriched town soil is expensive, producing only sad roses, haunted by weedy convolvulus. One day, perhaps, she will learn to love this patch of soil, but at present the length of red-brown clay leaves her as dissatisfied as the other aspects of her life in Bath. Every day, their new home uncrates itself around Lady Barbara and herself, items appearing as needed—a chair to drop into, a bed for sinking down upon. A cup for tea, the saucer sliding into place, just in time for the clink. Even so, each object arrives precisely placed and subtly wrong, as if drawn from the wrong angle. And then there is this garden. Through the window, Sarah takes one more look at the meagre, townish stretch of clay that is hers to tend. How she misses the man More, who digs and plants and spreads the cow shit for brother William now.

In her pocket she has a letter from Mr. Newbery, who is publishing the novel she wrote in hope of saving Batheaston—too late now. Any money earned must pay for the expenses incurred in the move. Mr. Newbery writes to say the process of printing Millenium Hall is well underway, and the book will be ready soon. He expects the work to be well received and has prepared it for the public with diligence. The finished volume, he tells her, will contain a fine frontispiece, and he has sent her a proof of the print. Two gentlemen stand in graceful attitudes along an avenue of oaks. In the distance, stands that honest and entirely imaginary edifice, Millenium Hall. Sarah will approve his choice of frontispiece—Mr. Newbery is certain of that.

Sarah wonders what right John Newbery, for all his goodness, has to be so sure of her opinion. In fact, he has a knack for misinterpreting her sentiments. The very words she commits to ink seem to slide about on the page while in the post-carriage to London. By the time Mr. Newbery opens her letters they have achieved a new form. He challenges her prefaces and her conceits, remarking they are too delicate for a reading public. He says delicate, but he means obscure—Sarah knows this. Lady Barbara’s view is that Mr. Newberry knows his business as well as any man alive. Mr. Newbery, says Lady Barbara, is all kindness and strategy.

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