Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

“It is for your own good, my daughter,” said Mr. Pupker in so indifferent a tone that one would think he was reading words from a book. “Your mother and I want to see you made well and this is the only way that your health and future happiness can be secured. Now go with Boldwig and let us end this ridiculous spectacle.”

“Step aside, Trimmers,” said Dr. Towlinson in concurrence. “And you, too, Dr. Timberry, if you do not wish for me to petition for the revocation of your brand new medical license for conduct unbecoming a physician. Let us end this unnecessary intervention on behalf of this poor young woman. Suffer the sheriff to pass with the girl, or I shall ask him to arrest you.”

I didn’t budge. Moreover, I took a step to put myself even more obdurately between Boldwig and Hannah Pupker. Timberry did the same, coming to stand to my right, just as Antonia positioned herself upon my left, so that the three of us became a triumvirate of bricks in a single wall of opposition. All the while, Mrs. Lumbey wrapt her arms round Hannah to do her own part in opposing this unjustified removal of her adopted ward.

The silent deadlock lasted for nearly a minute, for neither I nor my friend Dr. Timberry nor my friend Antonia Bocker was willing to step aside — even if our refusal to do so should result in our arrest — so that a conniving, unloving father and his accommodating accomplices, including a newly-sworn sheriff who wasn’t more than a mediocrity in every aspect of his former deputyship — all members of that secret fraternity of inside agents who would save themselves at the expense of the rest of us — should not take an innocent young woman and subject her to a most undeserved fate. It was an offence and an outrage that Muntle should be removed from his office (on what I would later learn was the wholly manufactured charge of shrieval misconduct based upon his unauthorised trip to the Chowser School), but what was being done to Hannah Pupker — innocent of innocents — was tragedy in exponential terms.

Hannah finally broke the silence herself with these words addressed to her father: “Papa. You know exactly why you wish to have me put away, and I will not say it here, but you know that it has nothing to do with the question of my sanity. It is a ploy — a ploy that has been born of a scheme concocted by you and Mama to protect yourselves from public disclosure of certain acts you have perpetrated and the prevention of whatever consequences may rise from them. I know now that you, Sheriff Boldwig, benefit from this silence as well, or else you would not be so complaisant and obliging with my father. I know that you , Dr. Towlinson, are also in some way in collusion with my father or you should not be so ready to do his bidding through your medical offices. Likewise, Judge Fitz-Marshall can only be of that same covert fraternity. I know not what it is nor what it does but I do know that I am now to be sacrificed to it, simply for having gotten too close to whatever secrets it keeps. Sheriff Boldwig: I will not submit to being put into a deep and cooperative sleep, nor will I agree to whatever else should befall me in that house of horrors that Dr. Towlinson superintends. Subsequently, I say to you the following: that you will have to strike me down with a heavy truncheon before I will suffer myself to be trundled off with you.”

With that bold declaration, Boldwig turned to Pupker and Pupker turned to Towlinson and all heads nodded almost in synchronicity, and then the new sheriff reached into his satchel and produced something that had never before been seen in all of the 113 years of Dingley Dell: a gun. More specifically, a revolving pistol.

I stared at the evil Outland weapon, half-curious and half-frightened out of countenance to find it here in Dingley Dell after so long an absence.

I turned to look at Pupker. “In all the years of Muntle’s tenure as sheriff of this dale, Pupker, he was able to uphold the law through use of his wits and billy club alone, and rarely did he even have much cause for employment of the latter. This whelp of a sheriff has been in the employ of the Petit-Parliament for only a few hours, and lo! he cannot even bring a frightened young woman, half his size, to heed his authority without deploying this implement of modern brutality. Are there others, Pupker? Other guns, other twenty-first century weapons that you have had brought here to maintain the power of your cabal? If you will authorise their use upon your own daughter, is there anyone upon whom you will not use these weapons to keep all of us in a state of subservience to your wishes?”

It was clear to me now. At that very moment it was become translucently clear what was happening: the Dell was to be put under strict martial controul to maintain order until July 15, the day that each member of the Petit-Parliament and those who closely orbited that nefarious body would climb to the top of the Summit of Exchange and turn and look for the last time upon the valley that had been their home for all of their years. Dingley Dell was to be kept placid and quiet in its valedictory days by whatever harsh measures would do the trick. Those who were ignorant were to be kept ignorant. But those who were coming to see the way of things would be put under restraint, tossed into gaol cells, strapped into strait-waistcoats, or perhaps even shot squarely between the eyes (the most efficient means of acquiescence yet devised!). With the removal of Sheriff Muntle there was no law left in the land that did not comport with the self-serving objectives of the Petit-Parliament, for laws could be made up exigently as things went along — the needs of that body being narrowly focused upon how best to preserve the peace (at whatever the cost) so that a smooth and tidy departure could be effectuated for the bastard Bashaws of Dingley Dell.

The way of things was made even clearer to me in that next moment when the trembling, clammy Boy Sheriff ’s finger accidentally pulled the trigger and the gun was fired, the thunderous crack of its discharge echoing off all of the buildings in the vicinity of Mrs. Lumbey’s shop, its bullet streaking past my ear and shattering into thousands of little pieces the show-window glass behind me.

I heard Amy Casby cry out (as she dropt herself into a little ball upon the ground), and Charlotte make a similar, more deep-throated cry. I heard uninditable epithets stream from the mouth of the window’s owner. I heard Antonia Bocker murmur, “madmen” in a deep underbreath. And I heard most pronounced of all (though the words did not rise in volume any louder than anything else) Hannah Pupker say that she would go, without further objection, to Bethlehem Hospital upon Highbury Fields, to keep us all from bloodshed. “I will not have my friends made dead to keep you from tying me to a bed and sedating me,” she said to Dr. Towlinson in capitulation, though her tone was that of bitter imprecation.

Boldwig put the gun away. Pupker allowed himself at last to take in full breath. His startled face and indeed the equally startled countenance of Dr. Towlinson had said that neither man had intended for the gun to be fired. It was merely a prop in the little play — a means to an end. Perhaps it would have worked its business without the shot, but that was now past, and its aim had been achieved nonetheless (although its literal aim could very well have produced the death of one or more of us).

“I cannot afford to have this window replaced,” repined Mrs. Lumbey in near tears. “The glazier charges a fortune and I don’t have it.”

“I will pay for it, dear,” whispered Antonia with a hand of commiseration resting upon my landlady’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Antonia. You are a treasure.”

Had the two women finally ended their long feud? It appeared so.