A Footman for the Peacock

A Footman for the Peacock

<p><i>The peacock displayed himself and paraded the lawn, sometimes pausing to look up at the sky.</i></p><p><i>Waiting? Listening? Guiding. No.</i> Signalling<i>.</i></p><p>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>A Footman for the Peacock</i> can now be enjoyed as a scathing satire of class abuses, a comic masterpiece falling somewhere between Barbara Pym and Monty Python.</p><p>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.</p><p>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, <i>A Footman for the Peacock</i> is Rachel Ferguson at her very best. This new edition features an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford.</p><p>‘The Roundelays are people to live with and laugh at and love’ <i>Punch</i></p>