Vintage Vampire Stories (12 page)

As I have said, Margery was a puzzle to everyone, and because a puzzle, the workmen and girls looked on her with suspicion. They resented the close way in which they were kept to their work and the rigid supervision exercised over them. Solomon Davy, the clerk, alone suspected who she was. He called several times to see me, and looked hard at me, with an uneasy manner, and seemed as though he wanted to ask me something, but lacked the courage to do so. Margery is always pleasant to Solomon, she knew the Davys that went before him, but he gives her a wide berth; he never lets her come within arm's reach of him. She feels it, I am sure, by her manner; but she is too good-hearted to remark on it.

I cannot deny that she was goodness and attention itself to me, and that I was fond of her. Just as a mother idolizes her baby that draws all its life and growth from her, so was it with me. I begrudged her none of her youth and beauty; I took a sort of motherly pride in her growth and the development of her charms, and for precisely the same reason—they were all drawn out of me.

One day Margery announced that she intended to marry me, and told me I must be prepared to stir my old stumps and go to church with her. She explained her reason candidly to me. She knew that I had a clear business head, and so she consulted me on the subject, which was flattering, and I should have felt more grateful had I not almost reached a condition past acute feeling. She told me that she would nurse me till I expired in her arms, and then, as my widow, would have Brinsabatch. This would secure her future, for with her renewed youth and with her handsome estate she could always command suitors and secure a second husband, from whom she could extract sufficient life and health to maintain her in the bloom of youth. When he was exhausted and withered up and dead, she could obtain a third, and so on ad infinitum. She objected to being again consigned to mummification in the tower of Brentor Church, and this was the simplest and most straightforward solution to her peculiar difficulties. The plan suggested was feasible, and, from her point of view, admirable. I freely, willingly submitted to her proposal. She exercised no undue compulsion on me; she appealed to my reason, and my reason, as far as it remained, told me that her plan was sensible, and in every way worthy of her. She was a handsome woman, with a fine head of brown hair, and the brightest, wickedest, merriest pair of blue eyes. As for her cheeks—quarantines were nothing to them. A man in the prime of life would be proud to have such a woman as his wife, and her selection of me was, in its way, complimentary, even though I knew I was taken for the sake of Brinsabatch.

So I consented, and she herself took the banns to the clerk. Solomon opened his eyes when she told him her purpose, moved uneasily on his seat, and scratched his head. He hardly knew what to make of it. He came to see me, and looked inquiringly at me, but I had one of my fits of coughing on me. When I was sufficiently recovered to speak, I told Solomon how impatient I was for my wedding-day to arrive, and how kind and excellent a nurse Margery was to me. He went away puzzled, and rubbing his forehead. I made but one stipulation with respect to my wedding, that was, that I should be conveyed to the foot of Brentor in a spring-cart, laid on straw, a thence conveyed up the hill to the altar by four strong men, in a litter, laid upon a featherbed, and with hot bottles at my feet and sides. I was entirely incapable of walking.

This was at the beginning of November. Consequently ten months had elapsed since that fatal Christmas Eve on which I had made the acquaintance of Margery of Quether. So the banns were read on the first Sunday in the month at the afternoon service, there being no service that day in the morning at the little church. The banns were published between George Rosedhu, of Brinsabatch, bachelor, and Margaret Palmer, or Quether, spinster. If anyone knew any just cause or impediment why these two should not me joined together in holy matrimony, they were now to declare it. That was the first time of asking.

A pretty sensation the reading of these banns caused. Farmer Palmer's face turned as mottled as brawn, and Miss Palmer blushed as red as a rose and buried her face in her hymn-book. My old Margery had overshot her mark, as the sequel proved. She had not reckoned with your Margaret, her great, great, great, great grand-niece.

When public worship was concluded, Mr. Palmer and his daughter, instead of directing their steps homeward towards Quether, where tea was awaiting them, walked in the opposite direction, and descended on Brinsabatch, to know of me what was meant by the banns—sober earnest or a silly joke.

Margery was not at home. She always frequented S. Mary Tavy church, because she had a dislike to Brentor; it was associated in her mind with two centuries of chilling and repellant associations. Margery was a regular churchgoer. That was part of her bringing up. In her young days, if anyone missed church, he was fined a shilling, and if he did not take the sacrament, was whipped at the cart-tail. These penalties are no longer exacted; nevertheless, Margery is punctual in her attendance. Such is the force of habit early acquired.

Thus it came about that Farmer Palmer and his daughter arrived at Brinsabatch before Margery had returned from church. I am sorry that my hand is not expert at describing things which I neither saw nor heard accurately. I have no imagination, which is a delusive faculty leading to serious error. Palmer and his daughter were attended by Solomon Davy, who I believe endeavoured to explain the situation to them and told them who Margery really was. I had become so dull of hearing, and so cataracted in eye, that I was unable to understand all that went on, and to follow and take part in the somewhat heated and animated conversation. If, like a modern writer of fiction, I were to give the whole of what was said, with description of the attitudes assumed, the inflections of the voices, and the degrees of colours that mantled the several cheeks, I might make my narrative more acceptable, no doubt, to the vulgar many, but it would lose its value to the appreciative few, who ask for a true record of what I observed.

I believe that Solomon in time made it clear to the dull intellects of the Palmers that the banns were for my marriage with the great, great, great, great-aunt of Margaret, and not with herself. What he said of poor Margery I don't know. I strained my ears to catch what he said, but heard only a buzzing as of bees. I doubt not that he spiced the truth with plenty of falsehood.

Farmer Palmer has a loud voice. I heard him say to his daughter, “Wait here a bit, Margaret, along with George Rosedhu, and bide till t'other Margery arrives; I back one woman against another.”

“Oh, father!” exclaimed the pretty creature, “where are you a-going to?”

“My dear, I shall be back directly. This be Fifth o' November, and bonfire night. The lads be all colleting faggots for a blaze on the moor. I'll fetch ‘em here, and they can have the pleasure o' burning the old witch instead of a man o' straw.”

I held out my hands in terror and deprecation. “You durstn't do it!”

“Why not?” asked the farmer composedly. “Her's a witch and no mistake. Her have sucked you dry of life as an urchin [hedgehog] sucks a cow of milk.”

“But,” protested Solomon, “though that be true enough, what about the laws? I won't say but that it be right and scriptural to burn a witch; for it is written, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' but I reckon it be against the laws.”

“Not at all,” said Palmer. “No man can be had up for burning a person who has no existence.”

“But she has existence,” I remonstrated. “That is the prime cause of her trouble; she has too much of it; she can't die.”

“There is no evidence of her existence,” argued Palmer. “You, Solomon, tell me how far back you registers go in Brentor Church.”

“Back, I reckon, to about 1680.”

“Very well, then they contain no record of her birth and baptism. Now you cannot be hung for killing a person of whose existence there is absolutely no legal evidence. The laws won't touch us if we do burn her.”

“But—but,” I said, crying and snuffling, “she is your own flesh and blood.”

“That may be, but that is no reason against her cremation. My own Margaret stands infinitely nearer to me, and her interests closer to my heart, than the person and welfare of a remote ancestress. As the banns have been called, Brinsabatch shall go to my daughter and to no one else. In three weeks; time Margaret shall be called Mrs. Rosedhu.” He spoke firmly.

“Father, dear father, how can you be so cruel to me?” cried Margaret. “Do y' look what an atomy Mr. Rosedhu has be come to?”

The burly yeoman paid no heed to his daughter's protest, knowing, no doubt, its unreality. He said to me, “Look y' here, George Rosedhu, you've had my daughter's name coupled wi' yours in the church today, and read out before the whole congregation, without axing my leave or hers. I won't have her made game of even by a man o' substance like you, so she shall marry you before December comes, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, Mr. Plamer, sir,” I pleaded, “how can you think to force your daughter into nuptials which must be distasteful to her?”

“Don't you trouble your head about that. Margaret knows whish side her bread is buttered. She can distinguish between clotted cream and skim milk.”

“Besides,” I argued,“I am bound by the most solemn engagements to my Margery. I have promised to settle Brinsabatch on her.”

“You cannot,” shouted the farmer of Quether. “The thing is impossible. You cannot marry a woman who has no existence in the eye of the law. The only Margaret Palmer of Quether of whom the law has cognizance is she who now stands before you. She has been baptized, vaccinated, and confirmed.What more do you want to establish her existence? Whereas, what documentary proof can the other Margery produce that she exists? There is but one Margaret Palmer of Quether in this nineteenth century that's flat.” He slapped the table, and then, with the air of one administering a crushing argument, he added, “Now tell me, is it possible for a man to marry a woman from whom he is removed by from two to three centuries? Answer me that.”

“Put in that bald way,” I said, “it does seem unreasonable; but in these Radical-Galdstone-Chamberlain-Bradlaughian times one does not know where one stands. All the lines of demarcation between the possible and the impossible are wiped out, reason and fact do not jump together.”

“I leave you to digest that question,” answered Palmer triumphantly. He saw I was pushed into a corner. Then he went out, along with Solomon Davy.

I do not think that Margaret objected to be left to meet Margery. I noticed her pluming and bridling like a game-cock before an encounter. She stroked down the folds of her gown, and pursed up her lips, and now and then shot out her tongue from between her lips, as I have seen a wasp test his sting before stabbing me. I was getting uneasy for Margery, and was myself uncomfortable. I said, “Miss Margaret, will you be so good as to pick my up my handkercher; it is lying there on the floor, and I be so cruel bad took with the lumbagie that I can't bend to take it myself.”

She complied with my request somewhat surlily. Then I said, “Would you mind, now, just uncorking that bottle there on the shelf, and putting a drop or two on a lump of sugar, and giving it me. My hands be that shaky O cannot put it in my mouth myself, and I've no teeth to hold it by. The drops be ipecacuahana, and be good for bronchitis.”

“No, I won't do it, you nasty old man.”

“Then, miss, will you rub my spine with hartshorn and oil: you'll find a bottle of the mixture on the sideboard, and a bit of flannel in the cupboard?”

“I will do nothing of the sort,” she said testily.

“You won't, miss? Then please take me up in your arms and carry me to bed. Margery does it. She is very kind and considerate; she begrudges me no trouble, and feeds me out of a spoon.”

“I will do nothing of the sort,” she said again, in short, angry tones and with an air of supreme disgust.

“I am sorry for it,” I said. That was Gospel truth. I knew that when the two women met such a storm of words would rage as would wreck my poor nerves, and I wanted to be in bed and out of it before the hurricane broke loose.

“You'll have to do all this for me,” I said, “when you become Mrs. Rosedhu. A very old person needs just as much attention as a baby. I know that, for I've gone through it myself; I've done the nursing.Why will you not leave me alone, and allow Margery to marry me? She will take care of me; she kisses and fondles me. Will you?”

“You disgusting old scarecrow, certainly not.”

“And atomy—scarecrow and atomy—what next will you call me? Yet you want to marry me!”

“You fool!” said Margaret shortly. “I put up with you for the sake of Brinsabatch.”

“It's the same with Margery,” I said; “but she put it more pleasantly. Her manners are better than yours; but she belongs to the old school—the good old school!” I sighed.

What I said made her angry. She did not like to have comparisons drawn between herself and her remote great aunt, to her own disadvantage.

“I suppose I am to have a voice in the matter,” I went on; “and though I have liked you very much, Margaret, yet I like the other Margery better. One thing in her favour is—she is older than you.”

“You are not going to have her—who has drained life and spirit out of you. D you think I will allow it? Don't you see I bear her a grudge? She has turned the fresh and hale George who courted me into a shrivelled old man. It would have been a pleasure to have young George, it is a penance to have the old one. I owe her that, and I shall scratch her eyes out when we meet.”