How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand.
My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there is now a gate opening into the churchyard.
It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space, in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic grace or poetic grandeur.
This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths.
“I’ve brought you to look at this tomb,” said the rector, resting his hand upon the rusted railing, “because there is rather a romantic story connected with it — a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye. I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it, — as a leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction.”
I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could tell me.
“I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give you the story, which is simply this:” —
The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him.
“Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth’s death a kind of melancholy came over him,” said the rector. “Whether he was unhappy with his wife, or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are those of the story I am going to tell you.
“It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew’s death, his wife, Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion, and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning and rode away from Dewsdale.
“His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr. Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening, and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up for him.” He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company.
“At ten o’clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having performed a hard day’s work.
“He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution.
“It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in dejection. The lad — being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of country lads — made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept stealthily after his master, who came straight to this churchyard, — indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing.
“On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the stranger and the little coffin had come.
“Before the man departed he assisted to fill up the grave; and when it was filled Matthew Haygarth gave money to both the men — gold it seemed to the lad Andrew, and several pieces to each person. The two men then departed, but Mr. Haygarth still lingered.
“As soon as he fancied himself alone, he knelt down beside the little grave, covered his face with his hands, and either wept or prayed, Andrew Hone could not tell which. If he wept, he wept silently.
“From that night, my sexton said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly. Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close to the little grave.” I thanked Mr. Wendover for his succinct narrative, and apologised for the trouble I had occasioned him.
“Do not speak of the trouble,” he answered kindly; “I am used to telling that story. I have heard it a great many times from poor old Andrew, and I have told it a great many times.”
“The story has rather a legendary tone,” I said; “I should have scarcely thought such a thing possible.”
The rector shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture.
“In our own day,” he replied, “such an occurrence would be almost impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last century — a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly on men obviously unfitted for the holy office — men who were gamblers and drunkards, patrons of cock-pits, and in many cases open and shameless reprobates. In such an age almost anything was possible; and this midnight and unhallowed interment may very well have taken place either with the consent or without the knowledge of the incumbent, who, I am told, bore no high character for piety or morality.”
“And you say there is an entry in the register?”
“Yes, a careless scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the burial-ground attached to the parish church of Spotswold.”
“Then it was a reinterment?”
“Evidently.”
“And is Spotswold in this county?”
“Yes; it is a very small village, about fifty miles from here.”
“And Matthew Haygarth died very soon af
ter this event?”
“He did. He died very suddenly — with an awful suddenness — and died intestate. His widow was left the possessor of great wealth, which increased in the hands of her son John Haygarth, a very prudent and worthy gentleman, and a credit to the Church of which he was a member. He only died very lately, I believe, and must therefore have attained a great age.”
It is quite evident that Mr. Wendover had not seen the advertisement in the Times, and was ignorant of the fact that the accumulated wealth of Haygarths and Caulfields is now waiting a claimant.
I asked permission to see the register containing the entry of the mysterious interment; and after the administration of a shilling to the clerk — a shilling at Dewsdale being equal to half a crown in London — the vestry cupboard was opened by that functionary, and the book I required was produced from a goodly pile of such mouldy brown leather-bound volumes.
The following is a copy of the entry: —
“On Thursday last past, being ye 19 Sep’tr, A.D. 1774, was interr’d ye bodie off onne Matthewe Haygarthe, ag’d foure yeres, remoov’d fromm ye Churcheyarde off St. Marie, under ye hil, Spotswolde, in this Co. Pade forr so doeing, sevven shill.”
After having inspected the register, I asked many further questions, but without eliciting much further information. So I expressed my thanks for the courtesy that had been shown me, and took my departure, not wishing to press the matter so closely as to render myself a nuisance to the worthy Wendover, and bearing in mind that it would be open to me to return at any future time.
And now I ask myself — and I ask the astute Sheldon — what is the meaning of this mysterious burial, and is it likely to have any bearing on the object of our search? These are questions for the consideration of the astute S.
I spent my evening in jotting down the events of the day, in the above free-and-easy fashion for my own guidance, and in a more precise and business-like style for my employer. I posted my letter before ten o’clock, the hour at which the London mail is made up, and then smoked my cigar in the empty streets, overshadowed by gaunt square stacks of building and tall black chimneys; and so back to my inn, where I took a glass of ale and another cigar, and then to bed, as the worthy Pepys might have concluded.
CHAPTER III.
MR. GOODGE’S WISDOM.
Oct. 5th. My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play rouge-et-noir at Forêtdechêne in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, in my dreams last night — that I should meet her afterwards in the little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart, whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday — is only in the nature of dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder.
On referring to Sheldon’s letter I found that the next people to be looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the waiters — a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter of forks and spoons.
“Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice in this town?” I asked him.
He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then gave his poor old head a dejected shake. I felt at once that I should get very little good out of him.
“No,” he murmured despondently, “not that I can call to mind.”
I should like to know what he could call to mind, piteous old meanderer!
“And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose?”
“Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;” whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being’s mind. Figurez donc, mon cher. Qui-que-ce-soit, fifty-five years or so of commercial breakfasts and dinners in such a place as Ullerton! Five-and-fifty years of steaks and chops; five-and-fifty years of ham and eggs, indifferently buttered toasts, and perennial sixes of brandy-and-water! After rambling to and fro with spoons and forks, and while in progress of clearing my table, and dropping the different items of my breakfast equipage, the poor soddened faded face of this dreary wanderer became suddenly illumined with a faint glimmer that was almost the light of reason.
“There were a Brice in Ullerton when I were a lad; I’ve heard father tell on him,” he murmured slowly.
“An attorney?”
“Yes. He were a rare wild one, he were! It was when the Prince of Wales were Regent for his poor old mad father, as the saying is, and folks was wilder like in general in those times, and wore spencers — lawyer Brice wore a plum-coloured one.”
Imagine then again, mon cher, an attorney in a plum-coloured spencer! Who, in these enlightened days, would trust his business to such a practitioner? I perked up considerably, believing that my aged imbecile was going to be of real service to me.
“Yes, he were a rare wild one, he were,” said my ancient friend with excitement. “I can remember him as well as if it was yesterday, at Tiverford races — there was races at Tiverford in those days, and gentlemen jocks. Lawyer Brice rode his roan mare — Queen Charlotte they called her. But after that he went wrong, folks said — speckilated with some money, you see, that he didn’t ought to have touched — and went to America, and died.”
“Died in America, did he? Why the deuce couldn’t he die in Ullerton? I should fancy it was a pleasanter place to die in than it is to live in. And how about his sons?”
“Lawyer Brice’s sons?”
“Yes, of course.”
My imbecile’s lips expanded into a broad grin.
“Lawyer Brice never had no sons,” he exclaimed, with a tone which seemed to express a contemptuous pity for my ignorance; “he never married.”
“Well, well; his brothers. He had brothers, I suppose?”
“Not as I ever heard tell on,” answered my imbecile, relapsing into hopeless inanity.
It was clear that no further help was to be obtained from him. I went to the landlord — a brisk business-like individual of Transatlantic goaheadism. From him I learned that there were no Brices in Ullerton, and never had been within the thirty years of his experience in that town. He gave me an Ullerton directory in confirmation of that fact — a neat little shilling volume, which I begged leave to keep for a quarter of an hour before returning it.
Brice was evidently a failure. I turned to the letter G, and looked up the name of Goodge. Goodge, Jonah, minister of Beulah Chapel, resided at No. 7, Waterhouse-lane — the lane in which I had seen the chapel.
I determined upon waiting on the worthy Goodge. He may be able to enlighten me as to the name of the pastor who preached to the Wesleyan flock in the time of Rebecca Caulfield; and from the descendants of such pastor I may glean some straws and shreds of information. The pious Rebecca would have been likely to confide much to her spiritual director. The early Wesleyans had all the exaltation of the Quietists, and something of the lunatic fervour of the Convulsionists, who kicked and screamed themselves into epilepsy under the influence of the Unigenitus Bull. The pious Rebecca was no doubt an enthusiast.
* * * * *
I found No. 7, Waterhouse-lane. It is a neat little six-roomed house, with preternaturally green palings enclosing about sixty square feet of bright yellow gravel, adorned by a row of whitewashed shells. Some scarlet geraniums bloomed in pots of still more vivid scarlet; and the sight of those bright red blossoms recalled Philip Sheldon’s garden at Bayswater, and that sweet girl by whose side I have walked its trim pathways.
But business is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte’s hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge’s knocker, and presently found myself in conversation with that gentleman.
Whether unordained piety has a
natural tendency to become greasy of aspect, and whether, among the many miracles vouchsafed to the amiable and really great Wesley, he received for his disciples of all time to come the gift of a miraculous straightness and lankiness of hair, I know not; but I do know that every Methodist parson I have had the honour to know has been of one pattern, and that Mr. Goodge is no exception to the rule.
I am bound to record that I found him a very civil person, quite willing to afford me any help in his power, and far more practical and business-like than the rector of Dewsdale.
It seems that the gift of tongues descended on the Goodges during the lifetime of John Wesley himself, and during the earlier part of that teacher’s career. It was a Goodge who preached in the draper’s warehouse, and it was the edifying discourse of a Goodge which developed the piety of Miss Rebecca Caulfield, afterwards Mrs. Haygarth.
“That Goodge was my great-uncle,” said the courteous Jonah, “and there was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I’ve heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, and at his instigation she contributed handsomely to the erection of the chapel in which it is my privilege to preach.”
I felt that I had struck upon a vein of gold. Here was a sharp-witted, middle-aged man — not an ancient mariner, or a meandering imbecile — who could remember the talk of a grandmother who had known Matthew Haygarth’s wife. And this visit to Mr. Goodge was my own idea, not prompted by the far-seeing Sheldon. I felt myself advancing in the insidious arts of a private inquirer.
“I am employed in the prosecution of a business which has a remote relation to the Haygarth family history,” I said; “and if you can afford me any information on that subject I should be extremely obliged.”
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