Arcadia Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    (Bernardgoes 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: