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A Footman for the Peacock
The peacock displayed himself and paraded the lawn, sometimes pausing to look up at the sky.
Waiting? Listening? Guiding. No. Signalling.
Controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility, A Footman for the Peacock can now be enjoyed as a scathing satire of class abuses, a comic masterpiece falling somewhere between Barbara Pym and Monty Python.
Sir Edmund and Lady Evelyn Roundelay live surrounded by a menagerie of relations and retainers. The Roundelays’ history of callous cruelty is literally etched on a window of the servants’ quarters with the words “Heryn I dye, Thomas Picocke. 1792”. Sir Edmund reflects cheerfully on the running footmen who have ‘died off like flies’ in the family’s service.
But now—amidst digressions on everything from family history and servant woes to the villagers’ linguistic peculiarities and a song immortalizing the footman’s plight—war threatens the Roundelays’ smug superiority. What’s more, it appears that the estate’s peacock is a reincarnation of Thomas Picocke, and may be aiding the Nazi cause … By turns giddy and incisive, hilarious and heartbreaking, A Footman for the Peacock is Rachel Ferguson at her very best. This new edition features an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford.
‘The Roundelays are people to live with and laugh at and love’ Punch
Waiting? Listening? Guiding. No. Signalling.
Controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility, A Footman for the Peacock can now be enjoyed as a scathing satire of class abuses, a comic masterpiece falling somewhere between Barbara Pym and Monty Python.
Sir Edmund and Lady Evelyn Roundelay live surrounded by a menagerie of relations and retainers. The Roundelays’ history of callous cruelty is literally etched on a window of the servants’ quarters with the words “Heryn I dye, Thomas Picocke. 1792”. Sir Edmund reflects cheerfully on the running footmen who have ‘died off like flies’ in the family’s service.
But now—amidst digressions on everything from family history and servant woes to the villagers’ linguistic peculiarities and a song immortalizing the footman’s plight—war threatens the Roundelays’ smug superiority. What’s more, it appears that the estate’s peacock is a reincarnation of Thomas Picocke, and may be aiding the Nazi cause … By turns giddy and incisive, hilarious and heartbreaking, A Footman for the Peacock is Rachel Ferguson at her very best. This new edition features an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford.
‘The Roundelays are people to live with and laugh at and love’ Punch
- GenresFictionWorld War II
221 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1940
21 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Ferguson
22 books19 followersRachel Ferguson was educated privately, before being sent to finishing school in Italy. She flaunted her traditional upbringing to become a vigorous campaigner for women's rights and member of the WSPU.
In 1911 Rachel Ferguson became a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She enjoyed a brief though varied career on the stage, cut short by the First World War. After service in the Women's Volunteer Reserve she began writing in earnest.
Working as a journalist at the same time as writing fiction, Rachel Ferguson started out as 'Columbine', drama critic on the Sunday Chronicle. False Goddesses, her first novel, was published in 1923. A second novel The Bröntes Went to Woolworths did not appear until 1931, but its wide acclaim confirmed Rachel Ferguson's position in the public eye. Over the next two decades she wrote extensively and published nine more novels.
Rachel Ferguson lived in Kensington until her death in 1957.
In 1911 Rachel Ferguson became a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She enjoyed a brief though varied career on the stage, cut short by the First World War. After service in the Women's Volunteer Reserve she began writing in earnest.
Working as a journalist at the same time as writing fiction, Rachel Ferguson started out as 'Columbine', drama critic on the Sunday Chronicle. False Goddesses, her first novel, was published in 1923. A second novel The Bröntes Went to Woolworths did not appear until 1931, but its wide acclaim confirmed Rachel Ferguson's position in the public eye. Over the next two decades she wrote extensively and published nine more novels.
Rachel Ferguson lived in Kensington until her death in 1957.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 16, 2017
I wasn’t at all sure how to explain how I felt about this book, until I thought of this:
“Imagine that you found an old battered box of books tucked away in an attic. The books had been tossed in, in a fairly haphazard way, and as you inspected them one by one you found that you had some absolute gems, some rather ordinary books, and some books that looked rather odd and that you wouldn’t be quite sure about until you had examined them much more closely. You would be bemused as to what sort of person would put away a selection of books like that, but you would be very curious to know more about them and what else they might have read. And, though you wouldn’t claim to have found the best box of books ever, you would be very glad that you did find it…”
I hope that makes some kind of sense.
Rachel Ferguson begins, conventionally enough you might think, by describing a house; it’s history and it’s inhabitants. Her writing though is anything but conventional. It comes in wonderfully complex, elaborate and discursive sentences; each one is a wonderful construction, loaded with facts and descriptions, inferences and opinions; and they come tumbling down one after another, in a way that feel entirely natural and right.
“There are denes, priories, castles and manors, in the rooms, galleries and grounds of which Catherine Howard still screams and Jane Grey had pricked her finger, Bloody Mary exclaimed ‘God’s death!’ Raleigh had smoked the first pipe of tobacco, Charles the Second hidden in an oak tree, someone else had signed something historic and damaging, Barbara Castelmaine had threatened to throw herself out of the window and Prince Arthur had actually done so; where the Queen of Scots had given away trinkets to faithful retainers and Wolsey had all of his taken from him. And there are English families with fairy banners and ‘lucks’ famed in ballads, and others of equally ancient lineage and no luck at all. One contingent still entertains the autumnal shooting party and is pictured in the papers filing like portly Sherlock Holmeses across the moors, while the second party emerges from posterns at sunset and hopefully pops away at rabbits for the larder on their own mortgaged estates.
And somewhere in England, in rating between the extremes of screaming queen and the pedigree’d pursuit of pot-luck stands Delaye, seat of the Roundelays, presently occupied by Sir Edmund Roundelay, his family and various collaterals.”
Others have written this way, but none of them that I have read have written in quite the way that Rachel Ferguson has here. I believed that her voice rang true, I believed that she had a point of view, and I loved it. She gave everything such depth, and I came to know the house and the people who lived and worked there so well.
The men of the house were Sir Edmund Roundelay, who hadn’t expected to inherit the estate and wasn’t entirely sure why he had been knighted; his son and heir, Stacey, who was temporarily exiled to learn estate management at agricultural college; and his cousin, Maxwell, who had some to stay when he left the army and his horrified mother decided not to come home.
The women were Evelyn, Lady Roundelay, who hadn’t expected to live in a country house and was rather taken by it; their two daughters, Margaret who was practical, and Angela, who was sensitive; three unmarried great-aunts, Miss Amethyst, Miss Sapphire and Miss Jessie, who had lived in the house all of their lives and continued to follow the customs that knew as young women; and Nursie who had a wonderful sense of her own importance and was clearly sliding into some kind of dementia.
There were some lovely digressions into the interests and concerns of that marvellously diverse band of characters.
But I couldn’t help feeling that this book was missing a plot.
When war broke out it seemed that the story was beginning. The Roundelays were horrified that they might have to take evacuees into their home and did their level best to escape responsibility; they were not amused by the call for blackouts, and considered it wholly unreasonable that they should have to find materials to cover their windows themselves; they went just as appalled to find that they were expected to travel to the nearby village of Rohan to have gasmasks fitted; and they really didn’t understand why the butcher could not provide meat for their table,
Evelyn’s sister set letters from London, telling her what was happening, and what she was doing for the war effort, but still they didn’t understand. They were oblivious, completely failing to appreciate why the country was at war, what others might be going through, and why it might be incumbent on them to play any part.
The satire was biting.
But the portrayal of the household staff and the residents of Rohan made it clear that the gentry was not the author’s only target. She indicated, rather more gently, that the people around them were happy with – or at least accepted – the status quo, and expected it to continue.
There is also the matter of the running footman and the peacock to consider.
I had a idea of what a running footman was. A superior kind of errand boy I thought, but I was wrong. The job was much more onerous.
“… to footslog over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, herald and warning to the approaching town or hamlet or to any pedestrian that the coach of his master was imminent, and that a way for it must instantly be cleared. Hardly human, the running footman was more in the nature of a social gesture to the world at large, an earnest of the importance of the family he served, a panting castemark. Without change of linen at the end of a heating run in all weathers, including winter’s snows, the running footman must wait for hours in the kitchen, steaming in front of the open hearth, before word was brought him via a chain of house servants, that his family above-stairs had concluded its visit. He then took staff and nerved himself for the return footslogging. Oh yes, these fellows, poor devils, died off like flies of consumption—the local graveyards were known to be peppered with them. Pay? Oh, five pounds a year, livery and all found. And, oh yes, it might interest Sir Edmund’s visitors to know that the staff borne by these footmen possessed a metal cap at the tip in which was placed one hard boiled egg to sustain them during the runs …”
Might the peacock that stalked the grounds be a reincarnation of a running footman named Thomas Peacock who had died in the house? Might the bird’s attachment to housemaid Sue Privett have something to do with another member of her family who was a housemaid when Thomas Peacock was the running footman?
Angela thought so, and events might prove her right.
I loved this fanciful and illuminating aspect of the story; but, other than illustrating that the Roundelays had always been unthinkingly cruel, it didn’t really sit naturally with the rest of the book.
That was my problem with this book. The whole was less than the sum of the parts, because the parts didn’t work together as well as they might have.
There were moments of brilliance, but there were also some quiet spells when I couldn’t help thinking that this book needed an editor with a very firm hand.
I’m delighted that I read it though, because I found so much to love: wonderful and distinctive writing, masses of lovely details, and characters, incidents and opinions that struck me in so many different ways.
And because I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like it.
“Imagine that you found an old battered box of books tucked away in an attic. The books had been tossed in, in a fairly haphazard way, and as you inspected them one by one you found that you had some absolute gems, some rather ordinary books, and some books that looked rather odd and that you wouldn’t be quite sure about until you had examined them much more closely. You would be bemused as to what sort of person would put away a selection of books like that, but you would be very curious to know more about them and what else they might have read. And, though you wouldn’t claim to have found the best box of books ever, you would be very glad that you did find it…”
I hope that makes some kind of sense.
Rachel Ferguson begins, conventionally enough you might think, by describing a house; it’s history and it’s inhabitants. Her writing though is anything but conventional. It comes in wonderfully complex, elaborate and discursive sentences; each one is a wonderful construction, loaded with facts and descriptions, inferences and opinions; and they come tumbling down one after another, in a way that feel entirely natural and right.
“There are denes, priories, castles and manors, in the rooms, galleries and grounds of which Catherine Howard still screams and Jane Grey had pricked her finger, Bloody Mary exclaimed ‘God’s death!’ Raleigh had smoked the first pipe of tobacco, Charles the Second hidden in an oak tree, someone else had signed something historic and damaging, Barbara Castelmaine had threatened to throw herself out of the window and Prince Arthur had actually done so; where the Queen of Scots had given away trinkets to faithful retainers and Wolsey had all of his taken from him. And there are English families with fairy banners and ‘lucks’ famed in ballads, and others of equally ancient lineage and no luck at all. One contingent still entertains the autumnal shooting party and is pictured in the papers filing like portly Sherlock Holmeses across the moors, while the second party emerges from posterns at sunset and hopefully pops away at rabbits for the larder on their own mortgaged estates.
And somewhere in England, in rating between the extremes of screaming queen and the pedigree’d pursuit of pot-luck stands Delaye, seat of the Roundelays, presently occupied by Sir Edmund Roundelay, his family and various collaterals.”
Others have written this way, but none of them that I have read have written in quite the way that Rachel Ferguson has here. I believed that her voice rang true, I believed that she had a point of view, and I loved it. She gave everything such depth, and I came to know the house and the people who lived and worked there so well.
The men of the house were Sir Edmund Roundelay, who hadn’t expected to inherit the estate and wasn’t entirely sure why he had been knighted; his son and heir, Stacey, who was temporarily exiled to learn estate management at agricultural college; and his cousin, Maxwell, who had some to stay when he left the army and his horrified mother decided not to come home.
The women were Evelyn, Lady Roundelay, who hadn’t expected to live in a country house and was rather taken by it; their two daughters, Margaret who was practical, and Angela, who was sensitive; three unmarried great-aunts, Miss Amethyst, Miss Sapphire and Miss Jessie, who had lived in the house all of their lives and continued to follow the customs that knew as young women; and Nursie who had a wonderful sense of her own importance and was clearly sliding into some kind of dementia.
There were some lovely digressions into the interests and concerns of that marvellously diverse band of characters.
But I couldn’t help feeling that this book was missing a plot.
When war broke out it seemed that the story was beginning. The Roundelays were horrified that they might have to take evacuees into their home and did their level best to escape responsibility; they were not amused by the call for blackouts, and considered it wholly unreasonable that they should have to find materials to cover their windows themselves; they went just as appalled to find that they were expected to travel to the nearby village of Rohan to have gasmasks fitted; and they really didn’t understand why the butcher could not provide meat for their table,
Evelyn’s sister set letters from London, telling her what was happening, and what she was doing for the war effort, but still they didn’t understand. They were oblivious, completely failing to appreciate why the country was at war, what others might be going through, and why it might be incumbent on them to play any part.
The satire was biting.
But the portrayal of the household staff and the residents of Rohan made it clear that the gentry was not the author’s only target. She indicated, rather more gently, that the people around them were happy with – or at least accepted – the status quo, and expected it to continue.
There is also the matter of the running footman and the peacock to consider.
I had a idea of what a running footman was. A superior kind of errand boy I thought, but I was wrong. The job was much more onerous.
“… to footslog over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, herald and warning to the approaching town or hamlet or to any pedestrian that the coach of his master was imminent, and that a way for it must instantly be cleared. Hardly human, the running footman was more in the nature of a social gesture to the world at large, an earnest of the importance of the family he served, a panting castemark. Without change of linen at the end of a heating run in all weathers, including winter’s snows, the running footman must wait for hours in the kitchen, steaming in front of the open hearth, before word was brought him via a chain of house servants, that his family above-stairs had concluded its visit. He then took staff and nerved himself for the return footslogging. Oh yes, these fellows, poor devils, died off like flies of consumption—the local graveyards were known to be peppered with them. Pay? Oh, five pounds a year, livery and all found. And, oh yes, it might interest Sir Edmund’s visitors to know that the staff borne by these footmen possessed a metal cap at the tip in which was placed one hard boiled egg to sustain them during the runs …”
Might the peacock that stalked the grounds be a reincarnation of a running footman named Thomas Peacock who had died in the house? Might the bird’s attachment to housemaid Sue Privett have something to do with another member of her family who was a housemaid when Thomas Peacock was the running footman?
Angela thought so, and events might prove her right.
I loved this fanciful and illuminating aspect of the story; but, other than illustrating that the Roundelays had always been unthinkingly cruel, it didn’t really sit naturally with the rest of the book.
That was my problem with this book. The whole was less than the sum of the parts, because the parts didn’t work together as well as they might have.
There were moments of brilliance, but there were also some quiet spells when I couldn’t help thinking that this book needed an editor with a very firm hand.
I’m delighted that I read it though, because I found so much to love: wonderful and distinctive writing, masses of lovely details, and characters, incidents and opinions that struck me in so many different ways.
And because I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like it.
July 23, 2018
A Footman for the Peacock is another novel in the great series in the Dean Street Press and Furrowed Middlebrow collaboration. Rachel Ferguson is best known for The Brontes Went to Woolworths, and another of her titles, Alas, Poor Lady, has been published by Persephone Books. I very much enjoyed the former; the latter is one which I have yet to read.
The introduction in this volume, which has been penned by Elizabeth Crawford, is insightful, particularly with regard to Ferguson's creation of characters. The protagonists here are the largely unlikeable Roundelay family, who live at the grand estate of Delaye in the fictional county of Normanshire. The Roundelays spent the entire novel, which was first published in 1940, trying to talk their way out of doing anything for the war effort.
Ferguson has such an unusual and distinctive voice, and she is quite unlike any author I have read. The story here is peculiar, and becomes more so as it goes on. I was not expecting the kind of magical realism which suddenly launches onto the page at around three-quarters of the way through. I enjoyed the realist parts of this book on the whole, but found the sudden jump rather jarring, and have come away feeling a little disappointed.
The introduction in this volume, which has been penned by Elizabeth Crawford, is insightful, particularly with regard to Ferguson's creation of characters. The protagonists here are the largely unlikeable Roundelay family, who live at the grand estate of Delaye in the fictional county of Normanshire. The Roundelays spent the entire novel, which was first published in 1940, trying to talk their way out of doing anything for the war effort.
Ferguson has such an unusual and distinctive voice, and she is quite unlike any author I have read. The story here is peculiar, and becomes more so as it goes on. I was not expecting the kind of magical realism which suddenly launches onto the page at around three-quarters of the way through. I enjoyed the realist parts of this book on the whole, but found the sudden jump rather jarring, and have come away feeling a little disappointed.
May 25, 2020
Not really for me I'm afraid, written about an eccentric English family the Roundleys who live in a typical English pile with servants and umpteen relative hangers on.
Apparently controversial when first published for the satire, and the them and us attitude of the family towards the "staff"
I'm afraid I didn't find it funny or interesting.
Apparently controversial when first published for the satire, and the them and us attitude of the family towards the "staff"
I'm afraid I didn't find it funny or interesting.
September 10, 2020
Bland, diffuse, rambling and rather pointless. "Scathing satire"? Hardly that. Anyone who gets bitten by this non-satire has led a sheltered existence indeed. "Comic masterpiece"? Well, I think my lips twitched once. Maybe. The comparison with Barbara Pym was fair...but Monty Python is stretching it rather a lot.
I've read plenty of real correspondence and diaries covering the period just before and just after the declaration of war between Britain and Germany, and any of it is preferable to this "controversial" (?) non-story. This book doesn't really go anywhere. The peacock would appear to be the lynch pin, but it doesn't pin much of anything down.
Yawn. I read it mostly at bed time because Ferguson's prose was so sleep inducing.
I've read plenty of real correspondence and diaries covering the period just before and just after the declaration of war between Britain and Germany, and any of it is preferable to this "controversial" (?) non-story. This book doesn't really go anywhere. The peacock would appear to be the lynch pin, but it doesn't pin much of anything down.
Yawn. I read it mostly at bed time because Ferguson's prose was so sleep inducing.
October 29, 2016
This is possibly the weirdest book I've ever read - maddening and crazy. Set in a grand house at the outbreak of World War 2, it creates a fantastic sense of a particular place at a particular time and is filled with quaint and hilarious character, but there's also a bristle of anger in the narration, definite criticism of this class and its blase attitude to the war, which will be a damned nuisance and put up the price of feed etc. It's a slim book - I expected a quick read but you can't rush through it. It's rather like a kaleidoscope in the way there are so many glimpses from unexpected viewpoints, so much digression, such a scattered story. I nearly gave up on it in the beginning but it also really made me laugh - I'm curious to learn more about this writer.
January 2, 2022
This is a strange book. The funny/satirical parts are wonderful, but there wasn’t much of a plot. The best part of the book was the first half where the scene is set, the characters introduced, and there is hope of greatness to come. A knights family on their estate right as WWII breaks out, a doddering retired nurse living in the attic, hints of ghosts, and then it all went strange. A peacock which may be the ghost of a former footman, and some unlikely explanation of the backstory of that situation, a servant girl who is in touch with the ghost, and another character, and yet is considered too ignorant to understand what is going on.
But the amusing parts were very amusing. “There are houses, manors, halls, granges and abbeys in which Queen Elizabeth is known to have slept, and a large number from which sheer lack of time compelled the indefatigable recumbent to abstain.”
But the amusing parts were very amusing. “There are houses, manors, halls, granges and abbeys in which Queen Elizabeth is known to have slept, and a large number from which sheer lack of time compelled the indefatigable recumbent to abstain.”
November 10, 2022
Couldn't get the newer, digital edition from Furrowed Middlebrow but it turned out my library had the original printing from 1940.
This had its moments of charm, with a crazy cast of eccentric characters inhabiting an English country house as WW2 looms (and begins), but it was mostly a meandering mess for me. I found parts incomprehensible and there's a "magical realism" aspect in the tale that just didn't work for me either.
Giving three stars because it did make me laugh a few times. (The maiden aunts Amy, Jessie, and Sapphy are the primary points of humor, alongside Nannie.)
This had its moments of charm, with a crazy cast of eccentric characters inhabiting an English country house as WW2 looms (and begins), but it was mostly a meandering mess for me. I found parts incomprehensible and there's a "magical realism" aspect in the tale that just didn't work for me either.
Giving three stars because it did make me laugh a few times. (The maiden aunts Amy, Jessie, and Sapphy are the primary points of humor, alongside Nannie.)
August 13, 2024
I thought this Rachel Ferguson's "A Footman for the Peacock" a very strange book that I did not care for many parts except the drama of the peacock, Angela and Sue. Still certain questions remain like did the French woman have a child after leaving England? The recarnation is just plain weird and interesting. I found half of this novel very trying though I am glad I stuck through to the end.
Story in short- A quirky English family and family drama pre and during the second World War.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 6
Controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility,
Page 1
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 1
Delaye, seat of the Roundelays, presently occupied by Sir Edmund Roundelay, his family and various collaterals.
Page 5
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 5
Oh yes, there had been a Thomas Peacock; he was an outside servant — that settle by the second kitchen fireplace was no doubt his bed at night. His place
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 5
in the domestic hierarchy was a low one. He was, in point of fact, a running footman, his duty to footslog over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, herald and warning to the approaching town or hamlet or to any pedestrian that the coach of his master was imminent, and that a way for it must instantly be cleared. Hardly human, the running footman was more in the nature of a social gesture to the world at large, an earnest of the importance of the family he served, a panting caste-mark. Without change of linen at the end of a heating run in all weathers, including winter’s snows, the running footman must wait for hours in the kitchen, steaming in front of the open hearth, before word was brought him via a chain of house servants, that his family abovestairs had concluded its visit.
Page 6
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 6
On the yellowed pages from the years 1790-1792, the name of Thomas Peacock intermittently appeared.
Page 15
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 15
Nursie, when at long last the scheme had been made clear to
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 15
her, had refused the Old Age Pension which would have slightly relieved the financial strain on the Roundelays on the grounds that she had never taken charity yet and didn’t intend to begin, and had worked hard all her life. She had a post office savings book buried full fathom five among her possessions, none of the family knew if she knew where; this nest-egg, it was hoped, would defray her funeral expenses, but, as Major Dunston remarked, by the time the book was unearthed
Page 16
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 16
there’d probably be no one left alive at Delaye to bury her.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
The Roundelays and their family estate which includes peacocks, and history of past Roundelays that include some mystery of a footman named Thomas Peacock and his death in an upper room and his lover Polly who was discharged in 1792 for putting her lover in the house because he was ill. The year of the story is 1939 and the current Roundelays are dealing with a peacock that brings havoc to their estate. An ancestor of Polly's named Sue has a liking for the peacock which Angela Roundelay thinks that the animal's spirit is from the footman that die at Delays. The whole blaise attitude to the war but mostly the inconvenience of it all. This is the first book published from that time that gives such antagonistic response to any change.
Story in short- A quirky English family and family drama pre and during the second World War.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 6
Controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility,
Page 1
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 1
Delaye, seat of the Roundelays, presently occupied by Sir Edmund Roundelay, his family and various collaterals.
Page 5
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 5
Oh yes, there had been a Thomas Peacock; he was an outside servant — that settle by the second kitchen fireplace was no doubt his bed at night. His place
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 5
in the domestic hierarchy was a low one. He was, in point of fact, a running footman, his duty to footslog over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, herald and warning to the approaching town or hamlet or to any pedestrian that the coach of his master was imminent, and that a way for it must instantly be cleared. Hardly human, the running footman was more in the nature of a social gesture to the world at large, an earnest of the importance of the family he served, a panting caste-mark. Without change of linen at the end of a heating run in all weathers, including winter’s snows, the running footman must wait for hours in the kitchen, steaming in front of the open hearth, before word was brought him via a chain of house servants, that his family abovestairs had concluded its visit.
Page 6
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 6
On the yellowed pages from the years 1790-1792, the name of Thomas Peacock intermittently appeared.
Page 15
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 15
Nursie, when at long last the scheme had been made clear to
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 15
her, had refused the Old Age Pension which would have slightly relieved the financial strain on the Roundelays on the grounds that she had never taken charity yet and didn’t intend to begin, and had worked hard all her life. She had a post office savings book buried full fathom five among her possessions, none of the family knew if she knew where; this nest-egg, it was hoped, would defray her funeral expenses, but, as Major Dunston remarked, by the time the book was unearthed
Page 16
Highlight (Yellow) | Page 16
there’d probably be no one left alive at Delaye to bury her.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
The Roundelays and their family estate which includes peacocks, and history of past Roundelays that include some mystery of a footman named Thomas Peacock and his death in an upper room and his lover Polly who was discharged in 1792 for putting her lover in the house because he was ill. The year of the story is 1939 and the current Roundelays are dealing with a peacock that brings havoc to their estate. An ancestor of Polly's named Sue has a liking for the peacock which Angela Roundelay thinks that the animal's spirit is from the footman that die at Delays. The whole blaise attitude to the war but mostly the inconvenience of it all. This is the first book published from that time that gives such antagonistic response to any change.
January 20, 2023
Despite the title, the peacock in this story is really a minor character, albeit with an interesting past (or past life, if you will). Most of this novel is about a rather shabby and sprawling family of landed gentry taken aback and rather put out by the inconveniences surrounding the onset of World War 2. The prose is twisty and witty and requires a slow read, but it's worth the effort and very funny.
April 8, 2023
Fascinating unusual style of writing. It was hilarious at first and then I was hit by the pathos of it all. Inspite of having grown up reading about country houses and their staff this is the first I have heard of a running footman. It broke my heart and I think this will stay with me for a long time.
October 11, 2025
Like other reviewers I was totally flummoxed.
I was tempted to give up but kept going because I am a great admirer of this generation of writers and because I really wanted to understand the purpose of this novel.
I believe the book blurb was misleading. “Controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility,”. I didn’t find them loathsome as much as a bit pathetic and the war didn’t break out until the second half of the book. It was described as a scathing satire. I love satire but the family and the story were too Gormenghast to constitute a satire exposing recognisable human foibles. Perhaps human behaviour has changed so much since 1940 that I simply fail to appreciate the opinions of those who found the book controversial.
So did I ever really understand ‘A Footman for the Peacock’? Not really. Not even the title – perhaps it should have been ‘A Peacock for the Footman’. There was no main character as such (unless it’s the peacock) and they all seem to drift or meander through life. The first section centred on Lady Evelyn Roundelay fooling me into thinking she was the main character. Her experiences reminded me of The Diary of a Provincial Lady except it wasn’t as funny. I was continually forgetting which aunt was which and Angela seemed slightly deranged.
Then we have the village of Rohan which is not in the least like Tolkein but is uncomfortably reminiscent of Children of the Corn or The Wicker Man or M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. Its inclusion seemed an unnecessary detail or distraction until near the end when the mystery of “Heryn I dye, Thomas Picocke. 1792” is finally solved.
Afterthought
It really is all about the peacock.
I was tempted to give up but kept going because I am a great admirer of this generation of writers and because I really wanted to understand the purpose of this novel.
I believe the book blurb was misleading. “Controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility,”. I didn’t find them loathsome as much as a bit pathetic and the war didn’t break out until the second half of the book. It was described as a scathing satire. I love satire but the family and the story were too Gormenghast to constitute a satire exposing recognisable human foibles. Perhaps human behaviour has changed so much since 1940 that I simply fail to appreciate the opinions of those who found the book controversial.
So did I ever really understand ‘A Footman for the Peacock’? Not really. Not even the title – perhaps it should have been ‘A Peacock for the Footman’. There was no main character as such (unless it’s the peacock) and they all seem to drift or meander through life. The first section centred on Lady Evelyn Roundelay fooling me into thinking she was the main character. Her experiences reminded me of The Diary of a Provincial Lady except it wasn’t as funny. I was continually forgetting which aunt was which and Angela seemed slightly deranged.
Then we have the village of Rohan which is not in the least like Tolkein but is uncomfortably reminiscent of Children of the Corn or The Wicker Man or M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. Its inclusion seemed an unnecessary detail or distraction until near the end when the mystery of “Heryn I dye, Thomas Picocke. 1792” is finally solved.
Afterthought
It really is all about the peacock.
July 19, 2023
Not entirely unreadable, but that's hardly a strong recommendation. While reading it, I was puzzled. It was overwritten (in a Firbanks or Cabell sort-of-way) but I wasn't sensing any particular wit from it, it was just verbose and purple. Eventually we settled in on a character, but again, I wasn't drawn in, it wasn't funny, touching, straightforward, suspenseful, intriguing (which all might have made me continue), it was uninteresting, confusing, unengaging, etc.
So I wondered why I was reading it. Was it recommended to me because I had liked Invitation to the Waltz, was it a surprising early fantasy novel, an award winner, or had she written something I'd read and liked earlier—bingo! Turns out I'd picked it because I'd liked her The Brontës Went to Woolworths, very much. This one though? No.
Described as a cross between Pym (who's always a clear, clean writer, nothing ever overwritten) and Python (absurd, creative, hilarious), this novel is neither.
So I've moved on.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.)
So I wondered why I was reading it. Was it recommended to me because I had liked Invitation to the Waltz, was it a surprising early fantasy novel, an award winner, or had she written something I'd read and liked earlier—bingo! Turns out I'd picked it because I'd liked her The Brontës Went to Woolworths, very much. This one though? No.
Described as a cross between Pym (who's always a clear, clean writer, nothing ever overwritten) and Python (absurd, creative, hilarious), this novel is neither.
So I've moved on.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.)
February 1, 2017
Really enjoyable English country estate with great characters and a fascinating mystery. And wonderful complex sentence structure.
May 17, 2018
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018...
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018...
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