Let me say up front that I understand that the death of a beloved pet—like the death of a newborn baby--is no laughing matter. And yet, like the bad person that I am, I found myself giggling at the macabre--even Gothic!--story of Quackers, the late lamented runner duck owned by Julie Montagu, Viscountess Hinchingbrooke.
As reported first on Lady Montagu’s Instagram feed and then all over the British press (see, for instance, here, here, and here), the ten-year-old Quackers had the misfortune last month to encounter a small dog whose owner was strolling on the palatial grounds of the Montagus’ Dorset estate, Mapperton, in violation of signs mandating that pets be kept leashed.
In short order, unleashed dog seized duck; duck flapped; dog dropped duck; and dog owner picked up injured duck, briskly strangled it, tossed corpse into long grass, and left estate pronto. A gardener witnessed the carnage, and eventually the estate staff found Quackers’ body and buried it on the grounds. (Since the grounds encompass nearly two thousand acres, there was probably no shortage of potential gravesites.)
Something about the wall-to-wall coverage of this tale strikes me as irresistibly English. The fascination with the minor-ish concerns of the aristocracy. . . the intense devotion to an animal not known for its cuddliness. . . the speculation that Quackers’ unknown killer “is probably from the countryside, perhaps with shooting experience” because of her proficiency at duck-strangling. . . it’s all priceless.
And there’s even a contemporary twist: The American-born Lady Montagu, whose husband is the eldest son and heir of the Earl of Sandwich--a descendant of the man who allegedly inaugurated the eponymous food item--is a sort-of star of reality TV and social media. A decade ago, she appeared in Ladies of London, a UK avatar of the Real Housewives franchise, and she now has a YouTube show called American Viscountess, with 223,000 subscribers.
Ordinarily, I would have to pass over this story in silence, since I’m writing a Jane Austen blog here. But luckily for me, one of Mapperton House’s claims to fame is that it stood in for Randalls in the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow adaptation of Emma, so the dead-duck story counts as Austen-adjacent.
Alas, the movie was made before Quackers was hatched, so he doesn’t appear on screen. But you can catch him waddling about—“in happier times,” as they say—in the American viscountess’s Instagram post.