Short Stories 1895-1926 (29 page)

‘“Golden Swan”! You should see it to-day ma'am. “Ugly Duckling” would be nearer the mark! And now, if you'll take advantage of this elegant bench a moment' – he proffered a trembling and gallant hand – ‘you may just espy the sisters. See, now' – he had climbed up beside me – ‘there's their cypresses, and, in the shade beneath, you should catch sight of the urns. Terra-cotta, ma'am; three. Do you see 'em? Three.'

I gazed and I gazed. And at last nodded violently.

‘Good!' he cried. ‘And thus it runs.' He traced with his umbrella in the air, over the inscription, as it were:

‘And their nieces and grandnieces have gone on saying it – with worse manners – until one's ashamed to look one's own cat in the face. But that's neither here nor there. To judge from their portraits, mind ye, they were a rather masculine trio. And Nature prefers happy mediums. I'm not condemning them, dear young lady. God forbid; I'm no Puritan. But —'

‘That reminds me,' I interposed hastily, ‘of an epitaph in my own little churchyard – Gloucestershire: it's on a wife:

‘A gem! a gem! my dear young lady,' cried my old gentleman – as if he had himself remained a bachelor solely by accident; ‘and that reminds
me
of one my dear Mother never tired of repeating:

‘And
that
reminds me of yet another which I chanced on – if memory does not deceive me – in one of the old city churches – of London: ah, twenty years gone or more:

‘And who wrote
that,
I wonder?'

‘Ah,' he echoed slyly, “‘Who killed Cock Robin?” Dickie Doggerel, maybe – his mark! But what I was going to tell you concerns yet another spinster; also of this parish. Names are no matter. She was a wild, dark-eyed solitary creature, and in the wisdom of the Lord had a tyrant for a father. Even in the nursery – generally a quiet enough little mite – when once she had made up her mind, there was no gainsaying her. And she had a peculiar habit – a rooted instinct – my dear young lady, when she was crossed, of flinging herself flat on her face on the floor. Quite silent, mind ye – like one of those corpse-mimicking insects. Nothing would move her, while she could claw tight to anything at hand.

‘However trivial the cause – perhaps a mere riband in her hair – that was the result. In a word, as we used to say when we were boys, she shammed dead. Of course, as the years went by, these fits of stubborn obstinacy were less frequent. All went pretty well for a time, until her very wedding-day – bells ringing, guests swarming, almond-blossom sprouting, bridesmaids blooming – all of a zest. And then and there, fresh from her maid, she flung herself flat on her face once more. Refused to speak, refused to stir. Her father stormed; her aunts cajoled; her old nurse turned on the wateringcart.' My old gentleman grimly chuckled. ‘No mortal use at all. The lass was adamant.

‘And fippety-foppety Mr Bridegroom, whom I never cared much for sight or scent of, must needs smile and smile and return home to think it over. From that moment her father too fell mum. They shared the same house, the same rooms, the same table – but mute as fish. And either for want of liberty or want of company, the poor young thing fell into what they used to call a decline. And then she died. And the old despot buried her, laying her north to south, and face downward in her coffin.'

‘Face downward!' I exclaimed.

‘Face downward,' he echoed, ‘as by rights our sprightly three over yonder should have been buried, being all old maids. And she, poor soul, scarce in her twenties … And for text:
“Thou
art thy mother's daughter.”'

‘Autres temps, autres moeurs,' I ventured, but feeling uncommonly like a piping wren meanwhile.

‘Ah, ah, ah!' laughed my old gentleman; ‘I have noticed it! … And now, perhaps you may be able to detect with those young eyes of yours a little old tombstone set under that cypress yonder … Too far? Too “dark”, eh? … Well, that's a sailor's; found wellnigh entirely fish-eaten in the Cove yonder – under Cheppelstoke Cliff. And pretty much to the point it is. Let – me – see. Ay, thus it goes.' He argued it out with his gloved forefinger for me:

‘Good English sense, that, with a bay-leaf of Greek and a pinch of Irish to keep it sweet. He was the ne'er-do-well son of an old miller, so they say, who ground for nothing for the poor. So that's once upon a time too! But there, ma'am, I'm fatiguing you …'

‘Please, please go on,' I pleaded hurriedly. ‘What's that curious rounded stone rather apart from the others, with the ivy, a little up the hill?' We had resumed our seats on the hard varnished bench, as happy as lovebirds on a perch. My old gentleman evidently enjoyed being questioned.

‘What, Fanny's? That's Fanny Meadows's, died of a consumption, poor lass, 1762 – May 1762:

His aged, faded eyes, blue as a raven's, narrowed at me an instant; and the queerest glimpse, almost one of anxiety, came into his face. He raised his head, as if to smile the reminder away, and busily continued. ‘Now come back a little, along this side. A few paces beyond, under the hornbeam, lies Ned Gunn, a notorious poacher in these parts – though the ingrate's forgotten his dog:

‘Not that there would be many to welcome him if he did. And next him lies a curmudgeonly old fellow of the name of Simpson, who lived in that old yellow stone house you may have seen beyond the meadows. He was a kind of caretaker. Many's the time he chased me when I was a lad for trespassing there:

‘And that, my dear young lady, is wisdom at any age; though Simpson himself, mind ye, couldn't mumble at last a word you could understand, having no teeth in his head. And yet another stranger is rotting away under an oblong of oak a pace or two beyond Simpson. I don't mean he was strange to the locality' – he gazed full at me over his spectacles – ‘not at all – I knew him well; though by habit he was a silent close-mouthed man, with a queer dark eye. I mean he was strange to this World. And
he
wrote his own epitaph:

‘Not that they favoured him much on that account! It's a hard soil. And next
him,
with snapdragons shutting their mocking mouths at you out of every crumbling cranny, is Tom Head. A renowed bell-ringer in his day:

‘Now I must tell you there was an old gentleman lived here before my time – and his name is of no consequence – who had a fancy for commemorating those who would otherwise have left scanty remembrances enough behind them. Some I have already made mention of. Here's another. Nearly every village, you must know, my dear young lady, has its half-wit, but not every village graveyard. And where this one's bush is, they call Magpie Corner. Let me see now …' My old gentleman made two or three false starts here; but at last it ran free.

‘But there goes the signal! And we've scarce time for the midget.'

A strange old green porter shuffled out from his den into the sunshine. A distant screech, like the crow of a ghostly pheasant, shrilled faintly out of the distance. I had suddenly grown a little tired; and hated the thought of the journey before me. But my arbitrary old gentleman cared for none of these things.

He gave me his ‘midget' leisurely, academically, tenderly:

He paused an instant, and laid lightly two gloved, mysterious fingers on my arm.

‘She's coming,' he almost whispered. There's her white wool against the blue.' He nodded towards the centipede-like creature creeping over the greenness towards us. ‘We are all mythologists – and goddesses! We can't avoid it and – and' – he leaned closer and clucked the words under the very brim of my hat – ‘it's called Progress. Veil then those dark eyes just once of a morning, ma'am; and have a passing thought for Sam Gilpin. We shall meet again; the unlikeliest like with like. And this must be
quite
the last. Just beside a little stone sill of water in that corner' – once more the iron-ferruled stump was pointed towards the tombs – ‘where the birds come to drink, is the figure of a boy standing there, in cold stone, listening. How many times, I wonder, have I scurried like a rabbit at twilight past his shrine? And yet, no bones there; only a passing reminder:

What do we make of that, eh?'

He sprang up, his round glasses blazing in the sun. ‘Well, well! Smiles be
our
finis, ma'am. And God bless you for your grace and courtesy … Drat the clumsy fellow!'

But it was I who ‘passed on' – into the security of a ‘compartment' filled with two fat commercial-looking gentlemen asleep; a young lady in goggles smoking a cigarette; a haggard mother with a baby and a little boy in velveteen trouserettes and a pale blue bow who was sucking a stick of chocolate, and a schoolboy swinging his shoes, learning geography, and munching apples. A happy human family enough.