Feral Park Read Online Free

I feel at ease to discuss my growing alarm over the fall and decline of our own empire—an empire marked by a dissoluteness and profligacy presently veiled by empty propriety and vacuous manners, but—I believe— erupting in replete and odious efflorescence behind the masks, beneath the tables, and within the dark corners of our rusticated provincial lives.”
    “And who, pray, is the other individual who should possess this special privilege?”
    “Dr. Quentin Bosworthy.”
    “The Oxonian?”
    “Aye. With whom I shared a coach on partial-post to London a few years ago. I have, incidentally, invited my scientific friend to stay with us during Trinity term this year, and just this morning I received word of his acceptance. You should be pleased by his visit, daughter, for I will burden you no longer with my philosophical musings. I will address the good doctor instead. Oh, the discussions and deliberations that he and I shall have!”
    “I do not mind your musings, Papa, despite their darkling hue, or despite the fact that I do not understand your meaning except every now and then. It is just that—”
    Mr. Peppercorn interposed: “What part of what I just put forth do you not understand?”
    “Exactly what it is that is being veiled, for example. Have we Dionysian festivals in Berryknell of which I have yet to be made aware? Do our neighbours scatter into the woods in a Midsummer Night’s madness of unbound licentiousness? You have brought me up, Papa, to see good in all whom I meet, even as I grouse and repine at the empty or blockheaded intercourse of those round me. Yet here you sit suddenly and uncharacteristically suspicious that those who display vacuity in their character lead, in fact, secret lives of such calculated shame and lubricity such as to bring halt even to the pen of Gibbon himself. I know that you have not always felt this way. And I cannot believe that you wish me to join you in raking away ground-fodder and turning over stones and peering with a scientific Bosworthian eye at all that wriggles and squiggles in the harsh light of exposure. I should think, therefore, and if I may be candid, Papa, that you spend far too much time with your books and your theories and your newly-bred suspicions and not enough time in the company of men and women of sensible intelligence. To make amendment in this regard, I hereby request that we invite Mr. Waitwaithe to dine with us.”
    “Good mercy! I did not foresee our ascent to that particular conversational crossroad, dear daughter, and may I commend you on the nimbleness with which you negotiated it! So impress me further: what would be the purpose of an evening spent in the company of your Mr. Waitwaithe?”
    “So that you may engage in intelligent, non-apocalyptic discourse, Papa, and with one whom I am certain holds no dark secrets so as to further diminish your opinion of mankind. Now to the particulars: perhaps you may devise some legal pretext for bringing him hither.”
    “But a legal pretext would beckon his employer, Mr. Scourby, in his stead.”
    Anna smiled and shook her head. “I happen to know that Mr. Scourby will be in London on legal business on Friday se’nnight. In his absence an invitation extended to Mr. Waitwaithe alone should possess sufficient credibility.”
    “Surely, daughter, we cannot invite Mr. Waitwaithe and Mr. Waitwaithe alone. We must set the table for others as well, so that your purpose is not brought to instant transparency.”
    “You are correct, Papa. So whom else shall we ask?”
    “As luck would have it, the date of your dinner coincides perfectly with the visit by your Aunt Samantha and her companion Miss Pints, who will be stopping hither for a fortnight on their way to a bathing holiday in Eastbourne.”
    “I find nothing lucky about such a visit whatsoever.”
    “She is your mother’s only surviving relation, and although the visit incommodes me as much if not more than it does you, it is the right thing