by John Fowles
A. Of middling height, somewhat stout in the belly. A fair complexion for his age, though somewhat pale. The gaze penetrating, as if he were a fair judge of men. Heavy brows.
Q. Now, sir, if you would be so kind as to guess upon his age.
A. Forty five years are certain. I would guess a lustrum more.
Q. No other distinguishing characters?
A. I marked a wart to one side of his nose. Here.
Q. Put the right nostril. No rings?
A. A wedding band.
Q. Gold?
A. Yes. And plain, if memory serves.
Q. His dress?
A. Of good cloth, but I noticed somewhat worn, as it might be his travelling suit. The wig somewhat in the old style.
Q. The linen clean?
A. Indeed, sir. All as one might expect in a person of such a kind.
Q. I felicitate you on your memory, sit. Now no other peculiarities, no manners you marked especially?
A. He took snuff, sir, and too frequently to my taste. I found it little elegant.
Q. Mr Beckford, you have heard nothing subsequent to the events that is pertinent to them - I should add, beyond what is common knowledge?
A. I have heard idle gossip, it is everywhere. The benighted clowns hereabouts are much given to it.
Q. But nothing from other gentlemen or their families in this neighbourhood?
A. In this parish there is alas only Mr Henry Devereux to whom I may grant the appellation. He was not then here.
Q. He is here now?
A. He is returned a fortnight since to Bath.
Q. But you spoke to him of the matter?
A. I did my best to satisfy his curiosity, sir.
Q. And he seemed as ignorant as one might expect?
A. Quite so.
Q. Gentlemen of your own cloth?
A. I live in a desart, sir, though it pains me to say it. No person of refinement would happily inhabit such a region as this, were he not, as I, forced to it by circumstance. I regret to say that my fellow in the cloth on one side is far more a professor of the hunting of the fox and the like than of his faith. He would sooner have his bells rung for a good main than for divine service. On the other, at Daccombe, is a gentleman who devotes his life to his garden and his glebe and allows his church to look after itself.
Q. Mr Devereux is your patron?
A. No, sir. That is Canon Bullock of Exeter. He holds the prebend, and is my vicar in title.
Q. Of the Chapter?
A. Just so. He visits but once a year, for the tithes. He is old, near seventy years now.
Q. This is a family borough, is it not? Mr Fane and Colonel Mitchell are the members?
A. They are, sir. But they have not honoured us since the last election.
Q. Since two years ago, in short? They were entered unopposed?
A. Indeed, sir.
Q. And they have made no enquiries, concerning the events in question?
A. Neither to me nor to any, that I have knowledge of.
Q. Very well. Enough of that. You had no communication with the three servants?
A. None whatsoever.
Q. Have you knowledge of other travellers in these parts being robbed or murdered - either since or previous to your coming hither?
A. Not in this parish or its neighbours. I have heard tales of a gang of footpads near Minehead some five years past. But I understand all are long since caught and hanged. They came not this far afield.
Q. No highwaymen?
A. There is not rich enough custom for them here. There are scoundrels and pickpockets enough at Bideford, who prey upon the quays. And travelling Irish that are little better. But we are strict on such here who have no passes. They are soon whipped out of the parish.
Q. Have you formed any opinion as to what happened on the first of May?
A. Only that divine retribution was exacted upon gross deceit.
Q. You would say, they were all murdered?
A. I have heard it proposed that the two servants were in league and did murder their masters, then fell out over the booty and the maid, whom the victor took, and then escaped by taking devious ways.
Q. But why should they have waited thus far from London to do the deed? And why should your victor, if he was so cunning as to conceal the first two bodies beyond finding, not conceal the third the same?
A. I cannot tell, sir. Unless it were in the awful haste of his guilt.
Q. You mistake your comprehensive rogue, Mr Beckford. I have had dealings with too many of that brotherhood not to know they are far more concerned for their mortal skins than their eternal souls. A man who should have waited thus long to premeditate his crime ... no hothead, sir. He would not have acted thus.
A. I must bow to your greater experience. I can advance no further possibility.
Q. Never mind, sir. You have assisted me more than you may know. As I informed you in our preliminaries, I am not at liberty to reveal the name of the person at whose behest I prosecute these enquiries. But I will tell you, in the confidence that I may rely on your utmost discretion, that it is the fate of he who called himself Mr Bartholomew that is my concern.
A. I am most sensible of your trust, sir. If I do not violate delicacy, may I ask if the younger gentleman were not of noble family?
Q. I can say no more, Mr Beckford. I act upon the strictest instructions. So far as the world is concerned the person in question is engaged upon a voyage in France and Italy. Such indeed was his declared intention before his departure from London.
A. I must beg leave to admire that you know so little of his companion.
Q. Because with one exception, sir, videlicet the dead man, those who came with him here were not those he had engaged for his supposed voyage. Where he found these, we do not know. Since he was secret in all and hid his own true name, we must suppose he also had them to hide theirs. It is to this that you owe the tedious imposition of my questions. You perceive my task is no small one.
A. I do indeed, Mr Ayscough.
Q. I leave tomorrow to pursue my quarry elsewhere. But I shall greatly esteem it, should you chance to hear of any further information in the affair, that you will at once communicate it to me at Lincoln's Inn. Rest assured that I will see to it that your good offices do not go unnoticed.
A. There is nothing, sir, I would not do to oblige a deceived parent, and especially were he of noble birth.
Q. I shall find the bottom to this, Mr Beckford. I work slow, but I sift small. What heresy is to gentlemen of your cloth, subterfuge and deceit are to those of mine. I will not suffer them in my parish, sir. I'll not rest till all's laid bare.
A. Amen to that, sir. May Heaven concur in granting us both our prayers.
Jurat die tricesimo et uno Jul.
anno supradicto coram me
Henry Ayscough
* * *
Barnstaple, the 4th Augt.
Your Grace,
Would that it were not my unhappy duty to inform Your Grace that my journey west has met with success in the least, but defeat in the greatest matter. Non est inventus. But since it was Yr Grace's most express command that he should be spared nothing of what I might find, I must obey.
The testimonies I enclose for Your Grace's perusal will I doubt not lead him to conclude that of the true person of Mr Bartholomew there can be no room for mistake; and most particularly when it is grounded not solely (which Yr Grace may consider sufficient in itself) upon the portrait entrusted to me, but the particular circumstance of a servant without speech or hearing, moreover according in all other report of appearance and manner. I have not troubled Yr Grace with some several further testimonies I have sought and undertaken, since they but largely repeat what is here sent. Dr Pettigrew, the Coroner, has affirmed all within his cognizance and recollection; and I have spoke also with his clerk, who rode out upon the first report, the doctor (who is aged) being indisposed when it fell.
I must beseech Your Grace (and his august consort, to whom I beg le
ave to present my humblest compliments) not to take the discovery of Thurlow's end at prima facie seeming, that is, as certain proof of some far greater tragedy. Those who would place such burden upon it are ignorant, fearful people, more apt (omne ignotum pro magnifico est) for the most part to see the Devil's hand in all than to weigh with reason. Their hypothesis requires a body, and here we have none; neither the noble person of such interest to Yr Graces, nor those of his three unknown companions on his journey.
More to the purpose I have had searched by two dozen sharpeyed fellows, well-versed in loco and under promise of good reward, all that place where the chest was found. Not a bush, not an inch, was not searched again, and over a much wider extent; idem, where Thurlow was found, and all about, and as closely, may assure Yr Grace that auspicium melioris aevi a blank covert was drawn in every quarter. In all of this Yr Grace may likewise be assured that the discretion he enjoined has been most scrupulously observed. When need hath driven, I have declared myself Mercury to Jupiter, steward to one who reaches far; and given no clew whatsoever as to his most eminent rank. To Dr Pettigrew alone I have told near truth, that this is no common case of disappearance; he is a worthy gentleman, of strictest principle, and may be trusted.
Yr Grace once did me the honour of saying he placed as great trust upon my nose as upon that of his favourite hound; if he will still credit that oracular appendage, it tells me that he whom search both lives and breathes, and shall be found; tho' I cannot deny the purpose of his presence in this county is most difficult I unfold, and I have yet, lacking all scent to it, no opinion thereon. The pretext given, 'tis clear, was ad captandum vulgum, powder I blind other eyes; yet neither can I conceive what might have drawn his Lordship, so contrary to all his tastes and proclivities, into this dull and barbarous western land. There where his footsteps were last seen is not unlike some of Yr Grace's ruder an more bosky dales, tho' less elevated in their heights, and more tree'd than bemoored (save where 'tis pasture for sheep), an unless it be upon a great filthy barren hill named Ex-moo whence the river Exe takes its source, that lies some few miles t the north. All here is at this present the more displeasing for this last month's continued rains, that is said out of living memory, and hath done much damage to hay and growing corn alike, and buildings beside. ('Tis said in sad jest that it matters not so many mills be ruined, for there will be no corn for grindstones, smut and the mildew being in league to take all first.)
The common people are more secret than ours, their language most obscure and uncouth. They know not the pronominal nor its conjugation, speaking of he and she indifferently as her (aitchum non amant), of we as us, all f's grow v's: 'tis a most foul-ravelled Boeotian, the which my clerk hath endeavoured to spare Yr Grace the expression of, for his quicker comprehension. Nor is there person of education at the miserable place where last his Lordship lodged, beyond Mr Beckford. I doubt not, that gentleman would be as high a Tory as ever Sacheverell was, were not all bishops Whigs. He'd turn Mahometan tomorrow, to gain a better living.
I trust Yr Grace will accept my belief that little remains to be discovered in these parts. My further inquisitions both at Bideford and in this town whence I have the honour to address Yr Grace have met no more success than those of Dr Pettigrew. Yet must I now deem it certain his Lordship was here, upon ends unknown. There is none of his Lordship's acquaintance that I inquired upon before proceeding here to account for the pretended uncle and his man. Nor, as Yr Grace will recall, did I then discover suspicion or noise of any clandestine and illicit attachment on his Lordship's part, that might explain the maid. Even were it so, and her outward seeming mask upon a lady, I cannot suppose that the scandal of such an elopement would not by now have been cried about; nor, non obstante such being the case, understand why their flight should not have been straight to Dover or some place more contiguous for France, rather than to these most disconvenient (for the purpose) parts.
In truth I remain at a loss to suggest to Yr Grace what need his Lordship had for these three superadded persons in his train. It is to be presumed that to travel alone with his man had best suited the secrecy of his intent. I can but surmise that he deemed a party of five, in which he played a subordinate part to the supposed uncle, more favourable to throw off pursuit, if such for some reason were feared. 'Tis possible this coming to Devon is no more than a hare's double, if Yr Grace will pardon the expression. Both Bideford and Barnstaple have frequent trade with Wales and Ireland, some also with France, Portugal and Cadiz, this last grown greater since the new peace. I have inquired and no
French-bound ship sailed (though several for Newfoundland and New England, for this is the favoured season) from either place in the first two weeks of May. Yet must I count such round-about to refuge little probable.
Your Grace knows better than I the attachment between his Lordship and Thurlow. I have considered much on this, that is, on the great improbability of such a fond master provoking the ghastly deed; or at the least, it once done, not making enquiry upon the loss. I can account for it but by supposing his Lordship obliged for some reason to turn Thurlow off and to continue his travels alone, and that (it may be) the man in his natural deficiencies imperfectly understood his Lordship's reasons, and so took his life in despair, after his Lordship had departed from him. But I will weary Yr Grace no further with such conjecture.
Your Grace will doubtless mark the testimony of the serving-girl. 'Tis evident that his Lordship brought papers and an instrument of his favoured study upon his journey, an encumbrance little consonant with an elopement or sentimental assignation. I thought therefore also to inquire whether any curiosi of the mathematick or astronomick sciences resided in this neighbourhood. Through Dr Pettigrew's good offices I attended on one such at Barnstaple, Mr Samuel Day, a gentleman of private fortune, and amateur of the natural sciences, concerning which he has communicated with the Royal Society and Sir H. Sloane, among others. But to my particular inquiries he could answer nothing of import; nor could think of any study only to be satisfied by observation in this neighbourhood; nor knew, closer than Bristol, of any other such as he that a London virtuoso might wish to seek out. I fear that there too Yr Grace's servant found himself left in tenebris. Even should such a matter be the primum mobile of his Lordship's journey, I own I cannot conceive why it should, with so harmless a purpose, have been thus conducted.
I did also, likewise upon advice of Dr Pettigrew, call but yesterday upon one Mr Robert Luck, that is master of the grammar school here and accounted a learned scholar, and good gossip besides. 'Twas he who taught the late Mr Gay his letters, of which
he remains inordinate proud, and inordinate blind to all that is seditious in this his ancient pupil's work. He did press upon me a copy of Gay's eclogues, that were imprinted these twenty years past under the title of the Shepherd's Week, and that Mr L. doth maintain to be a most truthful portrait of this northern part of Devon; and likewise was pressed upon me by this rhyming pedagogue a copy of some verses by himself, that is new published by Cave and he says has been noticed in his magazine; both which volumes I dispatch with this for Yr Grace's eyes, should he deign to bend them to such paltry stuff. As to my inquiry, Mr Luck proved ill luck; like in all else, he could say nothing to the point.
Tomorrow I shall for Taunton, and there take coach without delay for London, to prosecute a suspicion I have gained. Yr Grace will, I trust, forgive me for not here and now expatiating upon it, since I am in haste not to delay the expedition of this packet, which I might wish a veritable winged Mercury to bear to Yr Grace's hands, for I know with what expectation it is attended; nor would my respect for Yr Grace dare risk raising hopes upon too small a ground. Should such ground prove larger, it shall at once be communicated. Yr Grace knows me well enough, I trust, to believe that quo fata trahunt, sequamur, and with that every diligence which Yr Grace's past favours have lain as a hallowed duty upon ever his most humble and obedient servant,
Henry Ayscough
Post-scriptum. M
r Luck did impart to me news fresh arrived from London of the most disgraceful verdict at Edinburgh against Captain Porteous, and the riotings of the mob but a week since at Shoreditch, the both which I know will alarm Yr Grace. 'Tis thought here the mobility is consequent upon the Gin Act, that all resent. H.A.
Historical Chronicle July 1736
* * *
THE MAN IN the dove-grey suit and discreetly flowered waistcoat stretched over an incipient belly, with the heavy brows, the wart on the side of his nose, the rather too studiedly imposing carriage, stands with his walking-cane in the doorway of the woodpanelled chamber in Lincoln's Inn. One wall of it is mostly taken up with cased tomes of precedent, rolls and parchments; before the cases stands a tall writing-desk and stool, a sheaf of paper and writing materials neatly laid ready upon it. Opposite gleams a marble mantelpiece on which sits a bust of Cicero. This is flanked by silver candlesticks, not in present use; nor is the fire-grate below. A morning sunlight shafts the room's warm peace from its south-facing windows ... which give, at a little distance, upon a wall of still green leaves. From somewhere outside, since an upper sash is down, there sounds the faint yet melodious voice of a woman crying first pearmains (for it is their season); but in the room, silence.
The very small, frail and bewigged man in black, who reads behind a round table in a far corner of the room does not look up from whatever he reads. The man in the doorway glances round; but whoever conducted him to this point has mysteriously disappeared. He therefore clears his throat, in the practised manner of one who has no phlegm to lose, but a laggard attention to draw. At last the figure at the table looks up. He is evidently a few years his visitor's senior, although physically his marked inferior, of the puny build of a Pope or a Voltaire. The man in the door raises his hat with a hint of a polite flourish, and slightly inclines.
'I have the honour to address Mr Ayscough? Mr Francis Lacy at your command, sir.'
Most strangely the little lawyer does not offer any courtesy in exchange, but merely lays down his papers and leans back a little in his armed and highbacked chair, which almost dwarfs him, and folds his arms; then slightly tilts his head, like a robin alert to prey. There is a quizzical, almost glistening fixity in the gaze of his grey eyes. Mr Francis Lacy shows himself somewhat at a loss at this reception. He assumes a forgetfulness in the man of law, a temporary inability to place, and speaks again.