“It’s so futile, anyway,” Jan said to Donald. ” Why should ghosts always do such meaningless things?”
”It may once have had some meaning to the little man himself,” he answered.
She was silent, thinking of the two figures she had seen in that room. She would never know what meaning they had had for each other, and for her.
They had reached the chapel by now. It had been badly ” restored ” in the nineteenth century, and the plaster, damp with the chapel’s long disuse, was discoloured and unsightly. It was impossible to see it as a whole in the half darkness. The Vicar had told Jan that the family of the Clares had died out by about 1800, when the house was sold with most of its possessions and had frequently changed hands since. She was looking for the name at the beginning of the funny old diary he had lent her, written by some girl who had lived at Chidleigh long ago—a rather dull diary, kept only for a few months; nothing had happened in it, and he had bought it for sixpence at a sale at the house. But there was one thing in it that was strange; a rough drawing of a figure that had a distinct resemblance to Jan herself in her straight coat-frock and leather hat.
It was some time before she found a small marble tablet which informed her that Juliana Daintree, of Crox Hall, youngest child of Robert Clare, Lord Chidleigh, lay buried in Baring churchyard. She had died in 1797, after eighteen years of wedded life, leaving a son and two daughters. It was stated, as in a postscript, that her husband, Richard Fawcett Daintree, Esq., had died the following year, and beneath his name and the dates of his birth and death, this epigram was quoted:—
“She first departed; he for a little try’d
To live without her; lik’d it not, and dy’d.”
“The young lady’s found something to interest her,” said the gardener’s wife.
“One moment,” said Jan. “I’ll follow you in a minute.” She was reading again the inscription beneath Juliana’s name. It was more distinctive than most of the epitaphs.
“ She was
In manners elegant and interesting,
In disposition tender and affectionate,
In temper gentle and amiable,
In religion truly pious,
In life by all beloved,
And in death by all regretted.
She lies buried, not forgotten.
Obiit February 1st, 1797.
Ætatis suæ 35.”
Jan thought of the ending of another epitaph—
“But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,
However rare—rare it be.
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?”
There could be none now left to remember Juliana.
Donald found Jan grave and abstracted after they had left the gardener’s wife. They had secured permission to go through the gardens, as the house was empty, and were now wandering through them in the increasing dusk. This time he was not prevented by pride or shyness from asking her what she was thinking.
She did not answer, but demanded presently, ” Does one live only as long as one is remembered, do you think? I have heard that that is all the immortality one can hope for. And when all who remember you are dead, then the last trace of your spirit also passes away.”
He contested the point. It argued that memory belonged only to the living, and he saw no reason to suppose that.
She stood still, looking round her at the empty house, its darkened windows, at the gardens that already showed their neglect, at the few isolated trees where the drive had been. Even a place like this could be so quickly changed and forgotten. Juliana, who had lived here, had laughed and danced ” till 3 o’ the Clock ” in one of those empty rooms, lay buried and was now forgotten. And so soon would she, too, pass away and be forgotten.
It may be that Donald felt something of that chill sense of loneliness that passed through her, for suddenly he clutched her to him and kissed her again and again with an urgency that was not mere passion but rather fear. When at last he set her down he shook himself and said with the strongest relapse into his native speech that Jan had ever heard in him, ” We are juist twa silly bairrns to be afraid of the dark. I ken weel I’ll remember ye and I’ll no let ye forget.”
He walked on very stiffly after that as though ashamed of his outburst, but kept tight hold of her hand. A thin new moon had risen, and the white roses growing sprawlingly round them shone dimly through the summer dusk. Her hand slipped from Donald’s into his arm and lightly stroked his rough tweed sleeve.
They were walking by a box hedge as tall as themselves at the end of one of the grass terraces. Then they went slowly down the terrace, the moon behind them. Faint shadows stole out before them, and she, looking down at the milky ground, saw that they were the shadows of a hooped skirt and a sword, of a bent head, ribbon at neck, and a head upturned to meet it, under a high-piled tower of hair.
Since
There is none now left To remember her,
My apologies
For the liberties taken in this book Are due only to JULIANA
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © Daphne Barnes and Margaret Stephens 1924
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Still She Wished for Company Page 22