The Solitary House (259 page)

“We might be tidier, mightn’t we, sir?” said the cheerful clerk. “But when you’re in a lost corner of a place like this, what are you to do? Why, look here, now—just look at these packing-cases. There they’ve been, for a year or more, ready to go to London—there they are, littering the place—and there they’ll stop as long as the nails hold them together. I’ll tell you what, sir, as I said before, this is not London. We are all asleep here. Bless you,
we
don’t march with the times!”

“What is there in the packing-cases?” I asked.

“Bits of old wood carvings from the pulpit, and panels from the chancel, and images from the organ-loft,” said the clerk. “Portraits of the twelve apostles in wood—and not a whole nose among ’em. All broken, and wormeaten: crumbling to dust at the edges—as brittle as crockery, and as old as the church, if not older.”

“And why were they going to London? To be repaired?”

“That’s it, sir. To be repaired; and where they were past repair, to be copied in sound wood. But, bless you, the money fell short—and there they are, waiting for new subscriptions, and nobody to subscribe. It was all done a year ago, sir. Six gentlemen dined together about it, at the hotel in the new town. They made speeches, and passed resolutions, and put their names down, and printed off thousands of prospectuses. Beautiful prospectuses, sir, all flourished over with Gothic devices in red ink, saying it was a disgrace not to restore the church and repair the famous carvings, and so on. There are the prospectuses that couldn’t be distributed, and the architect’s plans and estimates, and the whole correspondence which set everybody at loggerheads and ended in a dispute, all down together in that
corner, behind the packing-cases. The money dribbled in a little at first—but what can you expect out of London? There was just enough, you know, to pack the broken carvings, and get the estimates, and pay the printer’s bill—and after that, there wasn’t a halfpenny left. We have nowhere else to put them—nobody in the new town cares about accommodating
us
—we’re in a lost corner—and this is an untidy vestry—and who’s to help it?—that’s what I want to know.”

My anxiety to examine the register did not dispose me to offer much encouragement to the old man’s talkativeness. I agreed with him that nobody could help the untidiness of the vestry—and then suggested that we should proceed to our business without more delay.

“Ay, ay, the marriage register,” said the clerk, taking a little bunch of keys from his pocket. “How far do you want to look back, sir?”

Marian had informed me of Sir Percival’s age, at the time when we had spoken together of his marriage engagement with Laura. She had then described him as being forty-five years old. Calculating back from this, and making due allowance for the year that had passed since I had gained my information, I found that he must have been born in eighteen hundred and four.

“I want to begin with the year eighteen hundred and four,” I said.

“Which way after that, sir?” asked the clerk. “Forward to our time, or backwards?”

“Backwards from eighteen hundred and four.”

He opened the door of one of the presses—the press from the side of which the surplices were hanging—and produced a large volume bound in greasy brown leather. I was struck by the insecurity of the place in which the register was kept. The door of the press was warped and
cracked with age; and the lock was of the smallest and commonest kind. I could have forced it easily with my walking-stick.

“Is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the register?” I inquired. “Surely, a book of such importance ought to be protected by a better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?”

“Well, now, that’s curious!” said the clerk, shutting up the book again, just after he had opened it, and smacking his hand cheerfully on the cover. “Those were the very words my old master was always saying, years and years ago, when I was a lad. ‘Why isn’t the register’ (meaning this register here, under my hand)—‘why isn’t it kept in an iron safe?’ If I’ve heard him say that once, I’ve heard him say it a hundred times. He was the solicitor, in those days, sir, who had the appointment of vestry clerk to this church. A fine hearty old gentleman—and the most particular man breathing. As long as he lived, he kept a copy of this book, in his office at Knowlesbury, and had it posted up regular, from time to time, to correspond with the fresh entries here. You would hardly think it, but he had his own appointed days, once or twice, in every quarter, for riding over to this church on his old white pony to check the copy, by the register, with his own eyes and hands. ‘How do I know’ (he used to say)—‘how do I know that the register in this vestry may not be stolen or destroyed? Why isn’t it kept in an iron safe? Why can’t I make other people as careful as I am myself? Some of these days there will be an accident happen—and when the register’s lost, then the parish will find out the value of my copy.’ He used to take his pinch of snuff after that, and look about him as bold as a lord. Ah! the like of him for doing business isn’t easy to find now. You may go to London, and not match him, even
there
. Which year did you say? Eighteen hundred and what?”

“Eighteen hundred and four,” I replied; mentally resolving to give the old man no more opportunities of talking.

The clerk put on his spectacles, and turned over the leaves of the register, carefully wetting his finger and thumb, at every third page. “There it is, sir,” he said, with another cheerful smack on the open volume. “There’s the year you want.”

As I was ignorant of the month in which Sir Percival was born, I began my backward search with the early part of the year. The register-book was of the old fashioned kind; the entries being all made on blank pages, in manuscript, and the divisions which separated them being indicated by ink lines drawn across the page, at the close of each entry.

I reached the beginning of the year eighteen hundred and four, without encountering the marriage; and then travelled back through December, eighteen hundred and three; through November, and October; through——No! not through September also. Under the heading of that month in the year I found the marriage!

I looked carefully at the entry. It was at the bottom of a page, and was, for want of room, compressed into a smaller space than that occupied by the marriages above. The marriage immediately before it was impressed on my attention by the circumstance of the bridegroom’s Christian name being the same as my own. The entry immediately following it (on the top of the next page) was noticeable, in another way, from the large space it occupied; the record, in this case, registering the marriages of two brothers at the same time. The register of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde was in no respect remarkable, except for the narrowness of the space into which it was compressed
at the bottom of the page. The information about his wife, was the usual information given in such cases. She was described, as “Cecilia Jane Elster, of Park-View Cottages, Knowlesbury; only daughter of the late Patrick Elster, Esq., formerly of Bath.”

I noted down these particulars in my pocketbook, feeling, as I did so, both doubtful and disheartened about my next proceedings. The Secret, which I had believed, until this moment, to be within my grasp, seemed now farther from my reach than ever. What suggestions of any mystery unexplained had arisen out of my visit to the vestry? I saw no suggestions anywhere. What progress had I made towards discovering the suspected stain on the reputation of Sir Percival’s mother? The one fact I had ascertained, vindicated her reputation. Fresh doubts, fresh difficulties, fresh delays, began to open before me in interminable prospect. What was I to do next? The one immediate resource left to me, appeared to be this: I might institute inquiries about “Miss Elster, of Knowlesbury,” on the chance of advancing towards my main object, by first discovering the secret of Mrs. Catherick’s contempt for Sir Percival’s mother.

“Have you found what you wanted, sir?” said the clerk, as I closed the register-book.

“Yes,” I replied; “but I have some inquiries still to make. I suppose the clergyman who officiated here in the year eighteen hundred and three is no longer alive?”

“No, no, sir; he was dead three or four years before I came here—and that was as long ago as the year twenty-seven. I got this place, sir,” persisted my talkative old friend, “through the clerk before me leaving it. They say he was driven out of house and home by his wife—and she’s living still, down in the new town there. I don’t know the rights of the story, myself; all I know is, I got the place.
Mr. Wansborough got it for me—the son of my old master that I was telling you of. He’s a free, pleasant gentleman as ever lived; rides to the hounds, keeps his pointers, and all that. He’s vestry-clerk here now, as his father was before him.”

“Did you not tell me your former master lived at Knowlesbury?” I asked, calling to mind the long story about the precise gentleman of the old school, with which my talkative friend had wearied me before he opened the register.

“Yes, to be sure, sir,” replied the clerk. “Old Mr. Wansborough lived at Knowlesbury; and young Mr. Wansborough lives there too.”

“You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father before him. I am not quite sure that I know what a vestry-clerk is.”

“Don’t you indeed, sir?—and you come from London, too! Every parish church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk. The parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I’ve got a deal more learning than most of them—though I don’t boast of it). The vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get; and if there’s any business to be done for the vestry, why there they are to do it. It’s just the same in London. Every parish church there has got its vestry-clerk—and, you may take my word for it, he’s sure to be a lawyer.”

“Then, young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer?”

“Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High-street, Knowlesbury—the old offices that his father had before him. The number of times I’ve swept those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come trotting in on his white pony, looking right and left all down the street, and nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a popular character!—he’d have done in London!”

“How far is it to Knowlesbury from here?”

“A long stretch, sir,” said the clerk, with that exaggerated idea of distances and that vivid perception of difficulties in getting from place to place, peculiar to country people. “Nigh on five mile, I can tell you!”

It was still early in the forenoon. There was plenty of time for a walk to Knowlesbury and back again to Welmingham; and there was no person probably in the town who was fitter to assist my inquiries about the character and position of Sir Percival’s mother, before her marriage, than the local solicitor. I resolved to go at once to Knowlesbury on foot.

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the clerk, as I slipped my little present into his hand. “Are you really going to walk all the way to Knowlesbury and back? Well! you’re strong on your legs, too—and what a blessing that is, isn’t it? There’s the road; you can’t miss it. I wish I was going your way—it’s pleasant to meet with gentlemen from London, in a lost corner like this. One hears the news. Wish you good morning, sir—and thank you kindly, once more.”

As I left the church behind me, I looked back—and there were the two men again, on the road below, with a third in their company:—the short man in black, whom I had traced to the railway the evening before.

The three stood talking together for a little while—then separated. The man in black went away by himself towards Welmingham; the other two remained together, evidently waiting to follow me, as soon as I walked on.

I proceeded on my way, without letting the fellows see that I took any special notice of them. They caused me no conscious irritation of feeling at that moment—on the contrary, they rather revived my sinking hopes. In the surprise of discovering the evidence of the marriage, I had forgotten the inference I had drawn, on first perceiving
the men in the neighbourhood of the vestry. Their reappearance reminded me that Sir Percival had anticipated my visit to Old Welmingham church, as the next result of my interview with Mrs. Catherick—otherwise, he would never have placed his spies there to wait for me. Smoothly and fairly as appearances looked in the vestry, there was something wrong beneath them—there was something in the register-book, for aught I knew, that I had not discovered yet.

“I shall come back,” I thought to myself, as I turned for a farewell look at the tower of the old church. “I shall trouble the cheerful clerk a second time to conquer the perverse lock, and to open the vestry door.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE

IX

O
nce out of sight of the church, I pressed forward briskly on my way to Knowlesbury.

The road was, for the most part, straight and level. Whenever I looked back over it, I saw the two spies, steadily following me. For the greater part of the way, they kept at a safe distance behind. But, once or twice, they quickened their pace, as if with the purpose of overtaking me—then stopped—consulted together and fell back again to their former position. They had some special object
evidently in view; and they seemed to be hesitating, or differing about the best means of accomplishing it. I could not guess exactly what their design might be; but I felt serious doubts of reaching Knowlesbury without some mischance on the way.

I had just entered on a lonely part of the road, with a sharp turn at some distance ahead, and had concluded (calculating by time) that I must now be getting near to the town, when I suddenly heard the steps of the men close behind me.

Before I could look round, one of them (the man by whom I had been followed in London) passed rapidly on my left side, and hustled me with his shoulder. I had been more irritated by the manner in which he and his companion had dogged my steps all the way from Old Welmingham than I was myself aware of; and I unfortunately pushed the fellow away smartly with my open hand. He instantly shouted for help. His companion, the tall man in the gamekeeper’s clothes, sprang to my right side—and the next moment the two scoundrels held me pinioned between them in the middle of the road.