'Why, you haven't got anything in yet about the old church, dearie, and
after that I should write a chapter every day about what you do.'
'But the chapters won't be all the same length then.'
'I shouldn't worry about a thing like that,' said Nannie with her usual
homely common sense, 'because even the General Public knows that some
days are much longer than others. Why the calendar marks the longest
and the shortest, doesn't it.'
'Yes,' I said doubtfully.
'Well, then!' said Nannie.
So I _will_ tell about the old church and "marey Falkner's" chemise.
Archaeologists say that our church is 'a perfect gem.' The walls are
very thick, nearly three feet in some places, and the axe marks are
still visible. The nave and chancel are about 1100. There is a Norman
priest's door on the south side of the church and a perfect Norman arch,
dividing the nave from the chancel. There are _two_ of the consecration
crosses still remaining, and some bits of Saxon work.
There is no tower, but a little shingled wood turret with two bells, one
of which is cracked. The pulpit and the canopy over it are 1628, and
there are some splendid ancient candlesticks of brass. The church has
small Norman lights mixed up with early English ones, and the pews are
all old oak.
Uncle Jasper is simply absorbed in the history of the little place, and
one day he showed me the deeds and some of the old Churchwarden
accounts. I will copy out the one I like best, although he says it is
not sufficiently 'early' to be really interesting.
'ACCOMPT FOR YE YEAR 1685.
L s. d.
Received from ye ffor: Churchwarden 00 10 02
Reed ffrom ye psh on Two Rates .. 01 17 03
----------
Totall Received 02 07 05
----------
to ye house of Correction .. .. 00 12 04
Ffor Bread and wine & at ye Comm 00 07 06
ffor necessarie Repaire of ye Church 00 15 07
ffor Releiving poor passengers .. 00 02 06
----------
Payd out 01 17 11
Rests due to ye psh .. .. 00 09 06
These Accompts were examin'd and Allowe'd by us
FRED SLOCOMBE ROB COCKRAN
WILLIAM COPP ALLIN VELLACOTT
I'm sure they had an awful bother to make the accounts balance, they
must have got so muddled with all those noughts, especially Rob Cockran.
I suppose Tommy Vellacott is a descendant of Allin's, and I've just
remembered that there is an old woman who lives at the last house in the
village and her name is Slocombe. She is thrice widowed and exceedingly
rotund. She says she has only the Almighty to look after her now, and
that all her troubles went innards and turned to fat. She has varicose
veins. These things do link one up with the centuries.
(Father has just looked over my shoulder and says that really, 'after
all the money that has been spent on my education!' But I don't know
what he means. I'm certain varicose is spelled correctly, for I looked
it up in the dictionary.)
It seems that some land and some money were given to the church by
William the First 'for the health of his soul.' (Perhaps he'd been
beastly to Matilda of Flanders and gave it as a kind of penance.)
Father says, 'Oh, no. Probably it was a thank-offering when she died.'
'But,' I said, '_did_ she die first?' Father remarked that he thought
she shuffled off this mortal coil in 1084, but that he couldn't bother
to remember an unimportant little detail like that about a woman!
Apparently it was quite a nice bit of land, sufficiently large and
fertile to supply pasture for '80 romping, roaming, and rollicking
swine.'
Some of the things the tenants had to do were very quaint. How would
the village people like daddy to come down on them now to 'dam the water
to overflow the meadows once a year,' and if they didn't do it make them
pay a halfpenny? Or supposing they got a message that they had 'to fill
two dung carts every two days or pay twopence,' or 'thresh and winnow
white wheat,' and for every two bushels that they didn't do have to pay
'somewhere about three farthings.'
But the thing that fascinates me so is the entry in the accounts about
marey Falkner's chemise. I'll copy it out:--
1792--to pare shoes for Marey Falkner .. 4 6
To shift 16d Ell for marey Falkner .. 2 8
Two pare stockens 16d Do. .. 1 4
To Handkerchief 14d. Do. .. 1 2
Paid for maken Shift .. .. .. 6
and then
1793 for menden marey Falkners shoes 1 6
Oh, she must have been a proud girl when she got that outfit! But I
hope the churchwarden's wife gave her the shift: it seems an
embarrassing present to receive from an Evangelical churchwarden. I
wonder if there was a ribbon round the top of it, and wasn't she a good
girl to make her shoes last out so long? I do hope there was a ribbon.
I've always had such heaps of them; the distribution of life's trimmings
is very unequal; poor little marey Falkner.
The account goes on to say that Dame Crane received two and six for
nursing John Insgridle, but they paid Dame Hollice 8/0 for nursing
Snellings' wife, which seemed dear, unless there was a baby. H. Delva
had to be examined and 'hors and cart to take her thare' cost six bob,
which was a lot, I think. Then the churchwardens seem to have bought a
lock for the church wicket and one Hedgehog, and paid four shillings for
a hat for Richard Helsey. They procured a Polcat and a Stote and a mat
for the 'Cumionion for the minister' and then got another Hedgehog and
'releived a porper' (doesn't it look poverty-struck spelled that way? I
always told father that was the right way to spell relieved), and they
finished up with seventy-two dozen Sparrows at three pence a dozen.
Whatever did they do with such a Zoo?
But the thing I like best of all in the church is the record of a
naughty boy who evidently behaved as disgracefully in the seventeenth
century as my brother does in the twentieth, for very badly carved in
the chancel near our seat is
R. Fotheringham. 1660.
There is a monument, too, to a Margaret Fotheringham on the opposite
wall. She died young. I am so glad she did, for I have always loathed
her, because Aunt Amelia used to tell me I ought to try to follow her
good example. There is a long list of her virtues, and then it says:--
'This monument was erected by her afflicted
father who, when he looks upon this place,
knows that he gazes on an angel's tomb.'
But then, as Ross used to say when we were seven and I was extra
specially fed up with my angelic ancestress, 'I don't suppose she really
was as good and holy as all that, Meg, all men are liars; it says so in
the Bible.'
Monica once said I ought to be proud of such ancient lineage, but I
don't see why. We all go back to Adam.
'Yes,' said Monica, tilting up her chin, 'but it isn't every one that
has written down how they did it.'
Of course I _do_ see that these things _do_ link one up to one's family.
'Just as varicose veins do to the centuries, little 'un,' father
laughed, but he didn't condescend to explain what he meant. He is
sometimes intentionally ambiguous.
*CHAPTER IX*
I fainted the day before yesterday, and I feel anxious about my health.
I have been since I had the 'flu twice last winter. They say the after
effects are worse than the disease. I have delusions: I find centipedes
in my sponge. There was another yesterday, and I felt my condition was
getting serious, so I spoke to Ross about it.
'Lawks, got 'em _again_,' he said, 'would you like a gun to shoot 'em
with?'
I mentioned it to father, but, he, too, seemed to think I only thought I
saw them. I went downstairs and found him mending a riding-whip.
'Do you ever see centipedes walking out of your sponge, father?'
'Never, I'm thankful to say,' he replied, dropping the whip suddenly and
looking at me anxiously. 'But, Meg, what other symptoms have you? Does
your head ache? Do you vomit? Does everything revolve? How many
fingers am I holding up? Am I ever twins?'
'Do be serious, father.'
'I am,' he replied, trying to feel my pulse; 'I think it's frightfully
serious. I shall get Toby to see you to-day and take you up to a
specialist to-morrow. I understand it's frightfully on the increase
amongst women.'
Well, I have heard of people with an _idee fixe_, and if there is such a
thing as an insect fixe I must have it, and pretty badly, too, for
another dropped out just before lunch when I was going to wash my face.
Nannie came in then and said, 'Dearie, why don't you keep your sponge on
the top of your water jug instead of by the window; that's the fourth
centipede I've found in your basin this week.'
She is a comfort.
But to-day I had another kind of delusion, for I went out alone in Uncle
Jasper's woods to gather early primroses. It was in the dusk, just when
the woods were growing dark and filled with mystery. But I'm not
frightened now, for ever since I saw that man in church I love to go out
in that gloaming time and let the 'longing that is not akin to pain'
steal over me.
And then I saw him coming down the little path, and when he drew quite
near he saw me, too, and a startled look came in his eyes and a great
wonder. He stopped a moment and it seemed as if he half held out his
hands to me.
And I? I don't know what I felt save that it seemed again as if I had
met some one I had _known_ before. I dropped my flowers and ran home
with my heart beating. But I knew, of course, he did not _really_ stop.
I _must_ have dreamed the startled wonder of his face, that look of
sudden adoration in his eyes.
Father met me at the entrance of the Park.
'Why, darling! were you frightened in the woods?'
'No,' I said, but I clung to his arm, and he turned autocratic then, and
in his funny way forgot that I am grown up now, and forbade me to go out
alone so late, because he thought that I had had a sudden fright such as
I had when I was little, and the woods grew tulgy, and the trees turned
to fantastic shapes, and strange things rustled in the undergrowth.
Then daddy told me a most amazing piece of news. There has been a
family row at the Manor House, the first I ever remember.
Eustace told his father that he didn't want to go into the army after
all, but that he wished to join the Roman church and be a monk instead.
Imagine that bombshell in an Evangelical parish. Mercifully Aunt Amelia
is not staying here just now. Ross's comments are not really printable.
Uncle Jasper came over to see father about it in a towering temper just
before dinner. I don't know what daddy said to him, but I was in the
garden when he went away and I heard him say,--
'Yes, Anthony, I promise, at least, that it shan't be you over again.
But I will never consent to it, never. A monk! My son!'