Short Stories 1895-1926 (32 page)

The verger had discovered little coherency in these remarks; but he was intent, however, not on receiving but on giving. ‘Certainly, sir,' he agreed. ‘And here, though six and thirty years divide them, another child lies buried; and he was only seven. Not that at such an age he can have known what he would be missing.' Again he spared his visitor's eyesight.

‘Yet you'll notice, sir, solemn-soever a child as he may have been, the stone-cutter has notwithstanding put in here – and here – and here – the usual and common toys of children – a rattle, a nursery trumpet, a top and so forth; pretty no doubt in intention, sir, but still wide of the mark. And
there,
close adjacent,' he rapidly continued, as if to stifle an incipient interruption, ‘a weeping willow, as you see, spreading its stony leaves and branches from summit to base of the complete memorial stone. That's where' – he pointed – ‘
that
one's mother lays, and the child beside her. Not, as I take it, the father, sir. Though why, I cannot tell you. There may have been good reasons; or bad.

‘Widow or not, I always say,
that
is a supplication it's hard to pass entirely unheeded, sir. They lie so near, what remains of them, and yet so seldom in memory's sight.' With no more than a fleeting glance out of his watery grey eye, the verger had led the way on; like a dog on a familiar scent. ‘Now this,' he was explaining, his lean forefinger laid on a tablet flush with the wall, and no more than half the size of a pocket handkerchief, ‘this is our smallest and shortest – a tailor's; though he'd have small trade here now, I fancy, if he came back! Of the name of Hackle, William Hackle. They say he was a one-eyed old man – like his implement, sir.

‘And it couldn't have been put shorter. Next we have Silas Dwight – the memorial only; the remains themselves having been interred outside. Not that that need have been intended for any slight on them, sir. There are many no doubt who would prefer the open. According to our records he was choirmaster here for seventeen years, so the horn spoken of is mainly what they call a figure of speech.' His voice rose a little to do justice to his theme:

‘The days here spoken of, as you may recollect, sir, were those before the church organs, at least in village churches, fine as ours may be. And speaking for myself, though the instrument you see yonder, three manuals, cost us a thumping sum of money, I like the old single fiddles and clarinets better than the yowling and bumbling of the stops and pedals. All depends, of course,' he had lowered his voice into the confidential, ‘on who's handling them; but, no matter who, I never did care much for the clatter – nor for the notion of the lad, neither, cracking his nuts behind her and blowing her up.'

The stranger had rather belatedly met his glance. It was encouragement enough. ‘Now here, sir,' the verger, eager as a schoolboy, had shuffled across to the south aisle again, ‘here, talking of age, we have our Parr. Not, I must warn you, the famous Thomas, who outlived ten kings of England and begot a child, sir, so the story goes, when he was twenty years over his century. Which, I may add, is nothing much to boast of by comparison with some of these old patriarchs mentioned in the Scriptures. No,
our
Parr – William – departed this life three days
short
of his century; a sad vexation, I have no doubt, to his relatives, sir, wishful to be bruiting him abroad. I've heard tell of some old Greek who did the same, but his name escapes me. Well, sir, so much for William Parr. And his lettering's so cut, you'll notice, on his “decent and fair Marble” as I've seen it described, that it's easiest to read sideways, though for my part I could manage it upside down! This is how it goes:

The old verger had once more intoned the lines aloud, since the stranger had remained where he had left him. ‘Outside,' he added, ‘a yard or so beyond this wall, in fact, there is a similar inscription, and one that strikes nearer home; at least to me, sir. I'll show you the stone itself in a few minutes; but this is how that runs:

‘Which is only to declare, sir, that there is more than one way of looking at the same occurrences in life – a point by your leave to which we will return later. In the meantime, sir, if you please, would you step this way?'

Even Mr Phelps had paused a moment to give dramatic effect to his next exhibit. The tomb now before us,' he announced, ‘is reputed, sir, to be the finest specimen of sepulchral art we have. Not only in St Edmund's, but in these parts. And not merely that, neither. The medicos tell me – gentlemen, I mean, learned in such things – that there is not a single bone in the human anatomy missing in this skeleton here – of the finest alabaster. It represents, as you see, the figure of Death, scythe over shoulder, lantern in hand; though, as I've heard say, he can as often manage his private business in the dark. Sir Willoughby Branksome was quondam owner, sir, of the old Manor House beyond the village – a family going back into mediaeval times – and the house was built much about the same period as the roof over our heads.'

The stranger had drawn nearer, and was emptily surveying the ornate details of the tomb.

‘Considering the cost and the sculpture work, I must confess,' remarked the verger, ‘that
that
has a disappointing ring; at least to my ear, sir. Words and effigy don't rightly match. Besides, as you can see for yourself, counting the two rows of them there, he left nine ungrown children behind him, not including the smallest already gone, and holding a skull in her infant hands. Ten, sir, must be a burden to any mother. Quality, or otherwise. And she did well by some of them, too; as you can see by the marbles to either hand – a countess there, and a Lord Admiral here. The truth is, times change. What is common human nature in one age is unbefitting levity in another.' He turned for a word of approval, and so met for an instant the direct leaden lustreless gaze of his companion in the church. ‘Here, for example,' he hastened on, ‘is such doggerel as no chisel would be allowed to cut on sacred walls in these days – a Henry the Eighth in private life. And yet, are we any more conscionable of the
facts
?

‘And that, sir, is a standing example, as I have heard our good Bishop himself declare, of God's plenty!'

Daylight had been steadily draining out of the church, and dusk seeping in. The last hues of the sunset had long since vanished from the stone walls beyond the dog-toothed arcade of the clerestory windows. A small indistinct shape had begun soundlessly flitting to and fro beneath the timbers of the roof overhead. The great church, cold, serene, motionless as if frozen, was preparing itself for the night.

Visitors to it – ignorant, frivolous, inquiring, learned, indifferent, were all in Mr Phelps's daily round. Never had he encountered one so frigid and irresponsive. There hung too about him a vague hint of the earthy; as if he might have slept overnight in a cellar. Was he intelligent enough – that tallow-flat face – to have followed what had been said? Or was perhaps the gentleman a little hard of hearing? Or was he merely humouring his cicerone, passing the time away, until he could get about his own private business? A word or two of inquiry, Mr Phelps was well aware, might at once set him on the right track. Nevertheless he refrained from uttering it. Patience no doubt would at last be its own reward, even if the sands of day were ebbing low.

‘If only, sir,' he remonstrated, with a disarming smile, ‘you had happed in on me a few minutes earlier, I could have shown you our crypt. There's many who visit us solely for that purpose. But it's beyond hours already now, and down there it must be long ago pitch dark. What's more, the rector has a mortal dread of fire.' He held his head sidelong a little, and a childishly naïve and deprecating smile descended into the furrows of his long jaw as he added – ‘both here, and hereafter. Besides, we should have no light left for the churchyard.'

With the faintest indication of a gesture the other seemed to intimate that there was no necessity for haste, that time was of no concern to him, and a church as pleasant a lodging for the night as any. He had sluggishly followed the verger into the bell-chamber under the west tower, glancing up narrowly, as he did so, at the slack ropes looped dangling through the holes in its ceiling.

‘Now here, sir,' said Mr Phelps, coming to a standstill again, ‘is what was in my mind to speak of a moment or two ago. Some four or five summers since, not to put too fine a point on it, there came here a grey-faced, stunted little old brat of a man – and I had my misgivings the moment I set eyes on him – who first listened me out, and then, quite deliberately, sir, told me to my face that all I had been repeating was nothing but
holy
hocum:
his very words. “I don't give that for your old stones and bones,” he said, and spat on the floor. Now in my humble estimation, sir, that man's was the soul of nothing short of a maniac's. He had gone bad, and the devil had entered into him. I gave him a look, sir: I led him to that door, without a word more uttered: and I shook the dust of him from off my feet.

‘That's one side, one extreme of the story. On the other; that we mortals should dread the tomb – that's only natural. And it's when we are nearing the end that what may be called the real takes on another colour, sir. You look at those about you and can't any more so surely rely on what they
are,
if you take me. As once you could. There is so thin a crust, sir, in a manner of speaking, between being awake and asleep – very fast asleep indeed. A sip of a doctor's drug, and not only the lantern goes out but everything it shone on. I had that experience myself not more than a month or two since – only a decayed tooth, sir: outer darkness, and then the awakening. If that
comes
. It is like as if we were treading a flat fall of untrodden snow and suddenly it is thin ice – cat ice, as we used to call it when we were boys – and we are gone. Not, mind you, that the waters of death, however cold they may be, are not – well, the waters of life. Faith is faith. What then do you conjecture must the infidel think of finding statements in stone in a Christian church which are sheer contrary to its own beliefs? Not that I should be repeating this to
every
visitor. That would be neither meet nor proper; besides, few would care. But even in this small parcel of ground around us here we have no fewer than five dimetrically different views on the subject – dimetrically different. Here, for one, is the grave of a child named Blackstone, Timothy Blackstone, who, as we read for ourselves, “was borne a Weakling and lived but to be three years old”. But what is said of him? –

‘The ghost of a
child,
sir, mark you, and a very young child. And no doubt it is his mother who is speaking, or one who is speaking
for
his mother. And yet, poor lamb, he is considered as being still frightened and still forsaken – at evils that were long, long ago all safely over!'