The Woman in White (76 page)

As I moved away from the back of the church, and passed some of
the dismantled cottages in search of a person who might direct me
to the clerk, I saw two men saunter out after me from behind a
wall. The tallest of the two—a stout muscular man in the dress
of a gamekeeper—was a stranger to me. The other was one of the
men who had followed me in London on the day when I left Mr.
Kyrle's office. I had taken particular notice of him at the time;
and I felt sure that I was not mistaken in identifying the fellow
on this occasion.

Neither he nor his companion attempted to speak to me, and both
kept themselves at a respectful distance, but the motive of their
presence in the neighbourhood of the church was plainly apparent.
It was exactly as I had supposed—Sir Percival was already
prepared for me. My visit to Mrs. Catherick had been reported to
him the evening before, and those two men had been placed on the
look-out near the church in anticipation of my appearance at Old
Welmingham. If I had wanted any further proof that my
investigations had taken the right direction at last, the plan now
adopted for watching me would have supplied it.

I walked on away from the church till I reached one of the
inhabited houses, with a patch of kitchen garden attached to it on
which a labourer was at work. He directed me to the clerk's
abode, a cottage at some little distance off, standing by itself
on the outskirts of the forsaken village. The clerk was indoors,
and was just putting on his greatcoat. He was a cheerful,
familiar, loudly-talkative old man, with a very poor opinion (as I
soon discovered) of the place in which he lived, and a happy sense
of superiority to his neighbours in virtue of the great personal
distinction of having once been in London.

"It's well you came so early, sir," said the old man, when I had
mentioned the object of my visit. "I should have been away in ten
minutes more. Parish business, sir, and a goodish long trot
before it's all done for a man at my age. But, bless you, I'm
strong on my legs still! As long as a man don't give at his legs,
there's a deal of work left in him. Don't you think so yourself,
sir?"

He took his keys down while he was talking from a hook behind the
fireplace, and locked his cottage door behind us.

"Nobody at home to keep house for me," said the clerk, with a
cheerful sense of perfect freedom from all family encumbrances.
"My wife's in the churchyard there, and my children are all
married. A wretched place this, isn't it, sir? But the parish is
a large one—every man couldn't get through the business as I do.
It's learning does it, and I've had my share, and a little more.
I can talk the Queen's English (God bless the Queen!), and that's
more than most of the people about here can do. You're from
London, I suppose, sir? I've been in London a matter of five-and-
twenty year ago. What's the news there now, if you please?"

Chattering on in this way, he led me back to the vestry. I looked
about to see if the two spies were still in sight. They were not
visible anywhere. After having discovered my application to the
clerk, they had probably concealed themselves where they could
watch my next proceedings in perfect freedom.

The vestry door was of stout old oak, studded with strong nails,
and the clerk put his large heavy key into the lock with the air
of a man who knew that he had a difficulty to encounter, and who
was not quite certain of creditably conquering it.

"I'm obliged to bring you this way, sir," he said, "because the
door from the vestry to the church is bolted on the vestry side.
We might have got in through the church otherwise. This is a
perverse lock, if ever there was one yet. It's big enough for a
prison-door—it's been hampered over and over again, and it ought
to be changed for a new one. I've mentioned that to the
churchwarden fifty times over at least—he's always saying, 'I'll
see about it'—and he never does see. Ah, It's a sort of lost
corner, this place. Not like London—is it, sir? Bless you, we
are all asleep here! We don't march with the times."

After some twisting and turning of the key, the heavy lock
yielded, and he opened the door.

The vestry was larger than I should have supposed it to be,
judging from the outside only. It was a dim, mouldy, melancholy
old room, with a low, raftered ceiling. Round two sides of it,
the sides nearest to the interior of the church, ran heavy wooden
presses, worm-eaten and gaping with age. Hooked to the inner
corner of one of these presses hung several surplices, all bulging
out at their lower ends in an irreverent-looking bundle of limp
drapery. Below the surplices, on the floor, stood three packing-
cases, with the lids half off, half on, and the straw profusely
bursting out of their cracks and crevices in every direction.
Behind them, in a corner, was a litter of dusty papers, some large
and rolled up like architects' plans, some loosely strung together
on files like bills or letters. The room had once been lighted by
a small side window, but this had been bricked up, and a lantern
skylight was now substituted for it. The atmosphere of the place
was heavy and mouldy, being rendered additionally oppressive by
the closing of the door which led into the church. This door also
was composed of solid oak, and was bolted at the top and bottom on
the vestry side.

"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 down 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 worm-eaten, and crumbling to dust at
the edges. As brittle as crockery, sir, 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.
There the things are, as I said before. 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, to be sure," 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, and that I might
safely start on my search through the register from that date.

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

"Which way after that, sir?" asked the clerk. "Forwards to our
time or backwards away from us?"

"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 the
walking-stick I carried in my hand.

"Is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the register?"
I inquired. "Surely a book of such importance as this 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,
sir? Eighteen hundred and what?"

"Eighteen hundred and four," I replied, mentally resolving to give
the old man no more opportunities of talking, until my examination
of the register was over.

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," said he, 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 pocket-book, 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
the main object of my investigation, 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.