IX

I left the house, feeling that Mrs. Catherick had helped me a step

forward, in spite of herself. Before I had reached the turning which

led out of the square, my attention was suddenly aroused by the sound

of a closing door behind me.

I looked round, and saw an undersized man in black on the door-step

of a house, which, as well as I could judge, stood next to Mrs.

Catherick’s place of abode—next to it, on the side nearest to me. The

man did not hesitate a moment about the direction he should take.

He advanced rapidly towards the turning at which I had stopped. I

recognised him as the lawyer’s clerk, who had preceded me in my visit

to Blackwater Park, and who had tried to pick a quarrel with me, when I

asked him if I could see the house.

I waited where I was, to ascertain whether his object was to come to

close quarters and speak on this occasion. To my surprise he passed

on rapidly, without saying a word, without even looking up in my face

as he went by. This was such a complete inversion of the course of

proceeding which I had every reason to expect on his part, that my

curiosity, or rather my suspicion, was aroused, and I determined on my

side to keep him cautiously in view, and to discover what the business

might be in which he was now employed. Without caring whether he saw

me or not, I walked after him. He never looked back, and he led me

straight through the streets to the railway station.

The train was on the point of starting, and two or three passengers who

were late were clustering round the small opening through which the

tickets were issued. I joined them, and distinctly heard the lawyer’s

clerk demand a ticket for the Blackwater station. I satisfied myself

that he had actually left by the train before I came away.

There was only one interpretation that I could place on what I had

just seen and heard. I had unquestionably observed the man leaving a

house which closely adjoined Mrs. Catherick’s residence. He had been

probably placed there, by Sir Percival’s directions, as a lodger,

in anticipation of my inquiries leading me, sooner or later, to

communicate with Mrs. Catherick. He had doubtless seen me go in and

come out, and he had hurried away by the first train to make his report

at Blackwater Park, to which place Sir Percival would naturally betake

himself (knowing what he evidently knew of my movements), in order to

be ready on the spot, if I returned to Hampshire. Before many days were

over, there seemed every likelihood now that he and I might meet.

Whatever result events might be destined to produce, I resolved to

pursue my own course, straight to the end in view, without stopping or

turning aside for Sir Percival or for any one. The great responsibility

which weighed on me heavily in London—the responsibility of so guiding

my slightest actions as to prevent them from leading accidentally to

the discovery of Laura’s place of refuge—was removed, now that I was

in Hampshire. I could go and come as I pleased at Welmingham, and if I

chanced to fail in observing any necessary precautions, the immediate

results, at least, would affect no one but myself.

When I left the station the winter evening was beginning to close in.

There was little hope of continuing my inquiries after dark to any

useful purpose in a neighbourhood that was strange to me. Accordingly,

I made my way to the nearest hotel, and ordered my dinner and my bed.

This done, I wrote to Marian, to tell her that I was safe and well,

and that I had fair prospects of success. I had directed her, on

leaving home, to address the first letter she wrote to me (the letter I

expected to receive the next morning) to “The Post-Office, Welmingham,”

and I now begged her to send her second day’s letter to the same

address.

I could easily receive it by writing to the postmaster if I happened to

be away from the town when it arrived.

The coffee-room of the hotel, as it grew late in the evening, became a

perfect solitude. I was left to reflect on what I had accomplished that

afternoon as uninterruptedly as if the house had been my own. Before

I retired to rest I had attentively thought over my extraordinary

interview with Mrs. Catherick from beginning to end, and had verified

at my leisure the conclusions which I had hastily drawn in the earlier

part of the day.

The vestry of Old Welmingham church was the starting-point from which

my mind slowly worked its way back through all that I had heard Mrs.

Catherick say, and through all I had seen Mrs. Catherick do.

At the time when the neighbourhood of the vestry was first referred

to in my presence by Mrs. Clements, I had thought it the strangest

and most unaccountable of all places for Sir Percival to select for

a clandestine meeting with the clerk’s wife. Influenced by this

impression, and by no other, I had mentioned “the vestry of the church”

before Mrs. Catherick on pure speculation—it represented one of the

minor peculiarities of the story which occurred to me while I was

speaking. I was prepared for her answering me confusedly or angrily,

but the blank terror that seized her when I said the words took me

completely by surprise. I had long before associated Sir Percival’s

Secret with the concealment of a serious crime which Mrs. Catherick

knew of, but I had gone no further than this. Now the woman’s paroxysm

of terror associated the crime, either directly or indirectly, with the

vestry, and convinced me that she had been more than the mere witness

of it—she was also the accomplice, beyond a doubt.

What had been the nature of the crime? Surely there was a contemptible

side to it, as well as a dangerous side, or Mrs. Catherick would not

have repeated my own words, referring to Sir Percival’s rank and power,

with such marked disdain as she had certainly displayed. It was a

contemptible crime then and a dangerous crime, and she had shared in

it, and it was associated with the vestry of the church.

The next consideration to be disposed of led me a step farther from

this point.

Mrs. Catherick’s undisguised contempt for Sir Percival plainly extended

to his mother as well. She had referred with the bitterest sarcasm to

the great family he had descended from—“especially by the mother’s

side.” What did this mean?

There appeared to be only two explanations of it. Either his mother’s

birth had been low, or his mother’s reputation was damaged by some

hidden flaw with which Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival were both

privately acquainted? I could only put the first explanation to the

test by looking at the register of her marriage, and so ascertaining

her maiden name and her parentage as a preliminary to further inquiries.

On the other hand, if the second case supposed were the true one, what

had been the flaw in her reputation? Remembering the account which

Marian had given me of Sir Percival’s father and mother, and of the

suspiciously unsocial secluded life they had both led, I now asked

myself whether it might not be possible that his mother had never been

married at all. Here again the register might, by offering written

evidence of the marriage, prove to me, at any rate, that this doubt had

no foundation in truth. But where was the register to be found? At this

point I took up the conclusions which I had previously formed, and the

same mental process which had discovered the locality of the concealed

crime, now lodged the register also in the vestry of Old Welmingham

church.

These were the results of my interview with Mrs. Catherick—these were

the various considerations, all steadily converging to one point, which

decided the course of my proceedings on the next day.

The morning was cloudy and lowering, but no rain fell. I left my bag at

the hotel to wait there till I called for it, and, after inquiring the

way, set forth on foot for Old Welmingham church.

It was a walk of rather more than two miles, the ground rising slowly

all the way.

On the highest point stood the church—an ancient, weather-beaten

building, with heavy buttresses at its sides, and a clumsy square tower

in front. The vestry at the back was built out from the church, and

seemed to be of the same age. Round the building at intervals appeared

the remains of the village which Mrs. Clements had described to me as

her husband’s place of abode in former years, and which the principal

inhabitants had long since deserted for the new town. Some of the empty

houses had been dismantled to their outer walls, some had been left to

decay with time, and some were still inhabited by persons evidently of

the poorest class. It was a dreary scene, and yet, in the worst aspect

of its ruin, not so dreary as the modern town that I had just left.

Here there was the brown, breezy sweep of surrounding fields for the

eye to repose on—here the trees, leafless as they were, still varied

the monotony of the prospect, and helped the mind to look forward to

summer-time and shade.

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.

“Yes,” I replied, “but I have some inquiries still to make. I suppose

the clergyman who officiated here in the year eighteen hundred and

three is no longer alive?”

“No, no, sir, he was dead three or four years before I came here, and

that was as long ago as the year twenty-seven. I got this place, sir,”

persisted my talkative old friend, “through the clerk before me leaving

it. They say he was driven out of house and home by his wife—and she’s

living still down in the new town there. I don’t know the rights of

the story myself—all I know is I got the place. Mr. Wansborough got

it for me—the son of my old master that I was telling you of. He’s a

free, pleasant gentleman as ever lived—rides to the hounds, keeps his

pointers and all that. He’s vestry-clerk here now as his father was

before him.”

“Did you not tell me your former master lived at Knowlesbury?” I asked,

calling to mind the long story about the precise gentleman of the old

school with which my talkative friend had wearied me before he opened

the register-book.

“Yes, to be sure, sir,” replied the clerk. “Old Mr. Wansborough lived

at Knowlesbury, and young Mr. Wansborough lives there too.”

“You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father before him. I

am not quite sure that I know what a vestry-clerk is.”

“Don’t you indeed, sir?—and you come from London too! Every

parish church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk.

The parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I’ve got a deal

more learning than most of them—though I don’t boast of it). The

vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get, and if

there’s any business to be done for the vestry, why there they are to

do it. It’s just the same in London. Every parish church there has got

its vestry-clerk—and you may take my word for it he’s sure to be a

lawyer.”

“Then young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer, I suppose?”

“Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High Street, Knowlesbury—the old

offices that his father had before him. The number of times I’ve swept

those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come trotting in to

business on his white pony, looking right and left all down the street

and nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a popular character!—he’d

have done in London!”

“How far is it to Knowlesbury from this place?”

“A long stretch, sir,” said the clerk, with that exaggerated idea of

distances, and that vivid perception of difficulties in getting from

place to place, which is peculiar to all country people. “Nigh on five

mile, I can tell you!”

It was still early in the forenoon. There was plenty of time for a walk

to Knowlesbury and back again to Welmingham; and there was no person

probably in the town who was fitter to assist my inquiries about the

character and position of Sir Percival’s mother before her marriage

than the local solicitor. Resolving to go at once to Knowlesbury on

foot, I led the way out of the vestry.

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the clerk, as I slipped my little present

into his hand. “Are you really going to walk all the way to Knowlesbury

and back? Well! you’re strong on your legs, too—and what a blessing

that is, isn’t it? There’s the road, you can’t miss it. I wish I was

going your way—it’s pleasant to meet with gentlemen from London in a

lost corner like this. One hears the news. Wish you good-morning, sir,

and thank you kindly once more.”

We parted. As I left the church behind me I looked back, and there were

the two men again on the road below, with a third in their company,

that third person being the short man in black whom I had traced to the

railway the evening before.

The three stood talking together for a little while, then separated.

The man in black went away by himself towards Welmingham—the other two

remained together, evidently waiting to follow me as soon as I walked

on.

I proceeded on my way without letting the fellows see that I took any

special notice of them. They caused me no conscious irritation of

feeling at that moment—on the contrary, they rather revived my sinking

hopes. In the surprise of discovering the evidence of the marriage, I

had forgotten the inference I had drawn on first perceiving the men in

the neighbourhood of the vestry. Their reappearance reminded me that

Sir Percival had anticipated my visit to Old Welmingham church as the

next result of my interview with Mrs. Catherick—otherwise he would

never have placed his spies there to wait for me. Smoothly and fairly

as appearances looked in the vestry, there was something wrong beneath

them—there was something in the register-book, for aught I knew, that I

had not discovered yet.

X

Once out of sight of the church, I pressed forward briskly on my way to

Knowlesbury.

The road was, for the most part, straight and level. Whenever I looked

back over it I saw the two spies steadily following me. For the greater

part of the way they kept at a safe distance behind. But once or

twice they quickened their pace, as if with the purpose of overtaking

me, then stopped, consulted together, and fell back again to their

former position. They had some special object evidently in view, and

they seemed to be hesitating or differing about the best means of

accomplishing it. I could not guess exactly what their design might

be, but I felt serious doubts of reaching Knowlesbury without some

mischance happening to me on the way. These doubts were realised.

I had just entered on a lonely part of the road, with a sharp turn at

some distance ahead, and had just concluded (calculating by time) that

I must be getting near to the town, when I suddenly heard the steps of

the men close behind me.

Before I could look round, one of them (the man by whom I had been

followed in London) passed rapidly on my left side and hustled me with

his shoulder. I had been more irritated by the manner in which he and

his companion had dogged my steps all the way from Old Welmingham

than I was myself aware of, and I unfortunately pushed the fellow

away smartly with my open hand. He instantly shouted for help. His

companion, the tall man in the gamekeeper’s clothes, sprang to my right

side, and the next moment the two scoundrels held me pinioned between

them in the middle of the road.

The conviction that a trap had been laid for me, and the vexation of

knowing that I had fallen into it, fortunately restrained me from

making my position still worse by an unavailing struggle with two men,

one of whom would, in all probability, have been more than a match for

me single-handed. I repressed the first natural movement by which I had

attempted to shake them off, and looked about to see if there was any

person near to whom I could appeal.

A labourer was at work in an adjoining field who must have witnessed

all that had passed. I called to him to follow us to the town. He

shook his head with stolid obstinacy, and walked away in the direction

of a cottage which stood back from the high-road. At the same time

the men who held me between them declared their intention of charging

me with an assault. I was cool enough and wise enough now to make no

opposition. “Drop your hold of my arms,” I said, “and I will go with

you to the town.” The man in the gamekeeper’s dress roughly refused.

But the shorter man was sharp enough to look to consequences, and not

to let his companion commit himself by unnecessary violence. He made a

sign to the other, and I walked on between them with my arms free.

We reached the turning in the road, and there, close before us, were

the suburbs of Knowlesbury. One of the local policemen was walking

along the path by the roadside. The men at once appealed to him. He

replied that the magistrate was then sitting at the town-hall, and

recommended that we should appear before him immediately.

We went on to the town-hall. The clerk made out a formal summons, and

the charge was preferred against me, with the customary exaggeration

and the customary perversion of the truth on such occasions. The

magistrate (an ill-tempered man, with a sour enjoyment in the exercise

of his own power) inquired if any one on or near the road had witnessed

the assault, and, greatly to my surprise, the complainant admitted the

presence of the labourer in the field. I was enlightened, however,

as to the object of the admission by the magistrate’s next words. He

remanded me at once for the production of the witness, expressing, at

the same time, his willingness to take bail for my reappearance if I

could produce one responsible surety to offer it. If I had been known

in the town he would have liberated me on my own recognisances, but as

I was a total stranger it was necessary that I should find responsible

bail.

The whole object of the stratagem was now disclosed to me. It had

been so managed as to make a remand necessary in a town where I was a

perfect stranger, and where I could not hope to get my liberty on bail.

The remand merely extended over three days, until the next sitting

of the magistrate. But in that time, while I was in confinement,

Sir Percival might use any means he pleased to embarrass my future

proceedings—perhaps to screen himself from detection altogether—without

the slightest fear of any hindrance on my part. At the end of the three

days the charge would, no doubt, be withdrawn, and the attendance of

the witness would be perfectly useless.

My indignation, I may almost say, my despair, at this mischievous check

to all further progress—so base and trifling in itself, and yet so

disheartening and so serious in its probable results—quite unfitted

me at first to reflect on the best means of extricating myself from

the dilemma in which I now stood. I had the folly to call for writing

materials, and to think of privately communicating my real position to

the magistrate. The hopelessness and the imprudence of this proceeding

failed to strike me before I had actually written the opening lines

of the letter. It was not till I had pushed the paper away—not till,

I am ashamed to say, I had almost allowed the vexation of my helpless

position to conquer me—that a course of action suddenly occurred to

my mind, which Sir Percival had probably not anticipated, and which

might set me free again in a few hours. I determined to communicate the

situation in which I was placed to Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge.

I had visited this gentleman’s house, it may be remembered, at the time

of my first inquiries in the Blackwater Park neighbourhood, and I had

presented to him a letter of introduction from Miss Halcombe, in which

she recommended me to his friendly attention in the strongest terms. I

now wrote, referring to this letter, and to what I had previously told

Mr. Dawson of the delicate and dangerous nature of my inquiries. I had

not revealed to him the truth about Laura, having merely described my

errand as being of the utmost importance to private family interests

with which Miss Halcombe was concerned. Using the same caution still, I

now accounted for my presence at Knowlesbury in the same manner, and I

put it to the doctor to say whether the trust reposed in me by a lady

whom he well knew, and the hospitality I had myself received in his

house, justified me or not in asking him to come to my assistance in a

place where I was quite friendless.

I obtained permission to hire a messenger to drive away at once with

my letter in a conveyance which might be used to bring the doctor back

immediately. Oak Lodge was on the Knowlesbury side of Blackwater. The

man declared he could drive there in forty minutes, and could bring Mr.

Dawson back in forty more. I directed him to follow the doctor wherever

he might happen to be, if he was not at home, and then sat down to wait

for the result with all the patience and all the hope that I could

summon to help me.

It was not quite half-past one when the messenger departed. Before

half-past three he returned, and brought the doctor with him. Mr.

Dawson’s kindness, and the delicacy with which he treated his prompt

assistance quite as a matter of course, almost overpowered me. The bail

required was offered, and accepted immediately. Before four o’clock, on

that afternoon, I was shaking hands warmly with the good old doctor—a

free man again—in the streets of Knowlesbury.

Mr. Dawson hospitably invited me to go back with him to Oak Lodge, and

take up my quarters there for the night. I could only reply that my

time was not my own, and I could only ask him to let me pay my visit

in a few days, when I might repeat my thanks, and offer to him all

the explanations which I felt to be only his due, but which I was not

then in a position to make. We parted with friendly assurances on both

sides, and I turned my steps at once to Mr. Wansborough’s office in the

High Street.

Time was now of the last importance.

The news of my being free on bail would reach Sir Percival, to an

absolute certainty, before night. If the next few hours did not put me

in a position to justify his worst fears, and to hold him helpless at

my mercy, I might lose every inch of the ground I had gained, never

to recover it again. The unscrupulous nature of the man, the local

influence he possessed, the desperate peril of exposure with which

my blindfold inquiries threatened him—all warned me to press on to

positive discovery, without the useless waste of a single minute. I had

found time to think while I was waiting for Mr. Dawson’s arrival, and

I had well employed it. Certain portions of the conversation of the

talkative old clerk, which had wearied me at the time, now recurred

to my memory with a new significance, and a suspicion crossed my mind

darkly which had not occurred to me while I was in the vestry. On my

way to Knowlesbury, I had only proposed to apply to Mr. Wansborough for

information on the subject of Sir Percival’s mother. My object now was

to examine the duplicate register of Old Welmingham Church.

Mr. Wansborough was in his office when I inquired for him.

He was a jovial, red-faced, easy-looking man—more like a country squire

than a lawyer—and he seemed to be both surprised and amused by my

application. He had heard of his father’s copy of the register, but

had not even seen it himself. It had never been inquired after, and it

was no doubt in the strong room among other papers that had not been

disturbed since his father’s death. It was a pity (Mr. Wansborough

said) that the old gentleman was not alive to hear his precious copy

asked for at last. He would have ridden his favourite hobby harder than

ever now. How had I come to hear of the copy? was it through anybody in

the town?

I parried the question as well as I could. It was impossible at this

stage of the investigation to be too cautious, and it was just as well

not to let Mr. Wansborough know prematurely that I had already examined

the original register. I described myself, therefore, as pursuing a

family inquiry, to the object of which every possible saving of time

was of great importance. I was anxious to send certain particulars

to London by that day’s post, and one look at the duplicate register

(paying, of course, the necessary fees) might supply what I required,

and save me a further journey to Old Welmingham. I added that, in the

event of my subsequently requiring a copy of the original register, I

should make application to Mr. Wansborough’s office to furnish me with

the document.

After this explanation no objection was made to producing the copy.

A clerk was sent to the strong room, and after some delay returned

with the volume. It was of exactly the same size as the volume in the

vestry, the only difference being that the copy was more smartly bound.

I took it with me to an unoccupied desk. My hands were trembling—my

head was burning hot—I felt the necessity of concealing my agitation

as well as I could from the persons about me in the room, before I

ventured on opening the book.

On the blank page at the beginning, to which I first turned, were

traced some lines in faded ink. They contained these words—

“Copy of the Marriage Register of Welmingham Parish Church. Executed

under my orders, and afterwards compared, entry by entry, with the

original, by myself. (Signed) Robert Wansborough, vestry-clerk.” Below

this note there was a line added, in another handwriting, as follows:

“Extending from the first of January, 1800, to the thirtieth of June,

1815.”

I turned to the month of September, eighteen hundred and three. I found

the marriage of the man whose Christian name was the same as my own.

I found the double register of the marriages of the two brothers. And

between these entries, at the bottom of the page?

Nothing! Not a vestige of the entry which recorded the marriage of Sir

Felix Glyde and Cecilia Jane Elster in the register of the church!

My heart gave a great bound, and throbbed as if it would stifle me.

I looked again—I was afraid to believe the evidence of my own eyes.

No! not a doubt. The marriage was not there. The entries on the copy

occupied exactly the same places on the page as the entries in the

original. The last entry on one page recorded the marriage of the

man with my Christian name. Below it there was a blank space—a space

evidently left because it was too narrow to contain the entry of the

marriages of the two brothers, which in the copy, as in the original,

occupied the top of the next page. That space told the whole story!

There it must have remained in the church register from eighteen

hundred and three (when the marriages had been solemnised and the copy

had been made) to eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when Sir Percival

appeared at Old Welmingham. Here, at Knowlesbury, was the chance of

committing the forgery shown to me in the copy, and there, at Old

Welmingham, was the forgery committed in the register of the church.

My head turned giddy—I held by the desk to keep myself from falling. Of

all the suspicions which had struck me in relation to that desperate

man, not one had been near the truth.

The idea that he was not Sir Percival Glyde at all, that he had no more

claim to the baronetcy and to Blackwater Park than the poorest labourer

who worked on the estate, had never once occurred to my mind. At one

time I had thought he might be Anne Catherick’s father—at another time

I had thought he might have been Anne Catherick’s husband—the offence

of which he was really guilty had been, from first to last, beyond the

widest reach of my imagination.

The paltry means by which the fraud had been effected, the magnitude

and daring of the crime that it represented, the horror of the

consequences involved in its discovery, overwhelmed me. Who could

wonder now at the brute-restlessness of the wretch’s life—at his

desperate alternations between abject duplicity and reckless

violence—at the madness of guilty distrust which had made him imprison

Anne Catherick in the Asylum, and had given him over to the vile

conspiracy against his wife, on the bare suspicion that the one and the

other knew his terrible secret? The disclosure of that secret might,

in past years, have hanged him—might now transport him for life. The

disclosure of that secret, even if the sufferers by his deception

spared him the penalties of the law, would deprive him at one blow of

the name, the rank, the estate, the whole social existence that he had

usurped. This was the Secret, and it was mine! A word from me, and

house, lands, baronetcy, were gone from him for ever—a word from me,

and he was driven out into the world, a nameless, penniless, friendless

outcast! The man’s whole future hung on my lips—and he knew it by this

time as certainly as I did!

That last thought steadied me. Interests far more precious than my own

depended on the caution which must now guide my slightest actions.

There was no possible treachery which Sir Percival might not attempt

against me. In the danger and desperation of his position he would be

staggered by no risks, he would recoil at no crime—he would literally

hesitate at nothing to save himself.

I considered for a minute. My first necessity was to secure positive

evidence in writing of the discovery that I had just made, and in the

event of any personal misadventure happening to me, to place that

evidence beyond Sir Percival’s reach. The copy of the register was sure

to be safe in Mr. Wansborough’s strong room. But the position of the

original in the vestry was, as I had seen with my own eyes, anything

but secure.

In this emergency I resolved to return to the church, to apply again to

the clerk, and to take the necessary extract from the register before

I slept that night. I was not then aware that a legally-certified

copy was necessary, and that no document merely drawn out by myself

could claim the proper importance as a proof. I was not aware of

this, and my determination to keep my present proceedings a secret

prevented me from asking any questions which might have procured the

necessary information. My one anxiety was the anxiety to get back to

Old Welmingham. I made the best excuses I could for the discomposure in

my face and manner which Mr. Wansborough had already noticed, laid the

necessary fee on his table, arranged that I should write to him in a

day or two, and left the office, with my head in a whirl and my blood

throbbing through my veins at fever heat.

It was just getting dark. The idea occurred to me that I might be

followed again and attacked on the high-road.

My walking-stick was a light one, of little or no use for purposes

of defence. I stopped before leaving Knowlesbury and bought a stout

country cudgel, short, and heavy at the head. With this homely weapon,

if any one man tried to stop me I was a match for him. If more than one

attacked me I could trust to my heels. In my school-days I had been a

noted runner, and I had not wanted for practice since in the later time

of my experience in Central America.

I started from the town at a brisk pace, and kept the middle of the

road.

A small misty rain was falling, and it was impossible for the first

half of the way to make sure whether I was followed or not. But at the

last half of my journey, when I supposed myself to be about two miles

from the church, I saw a man run by me in the rain, and then heard

the gate of a field by the roadside shut to sharply. I kept straight

on, with my cudgel ready in my hand, my ears on the alert, and my

eyes straining to see through the mist and the darkness. Before I had

advanced a hundred yards there was a rustling in the hedge on my right,

and three men sprang out into the road.

I drew aside on the instant to the footpath. The two foremost men were

carried beyond me before they could check themselves. The third was as

quick as lightning. He stopped, half turned, and struck at me with his

stick. The blow was aimed at hazard, and was not a severe one. It fell

on my left shoulder. I returned it heavily on his head. He staggered

back and jostled his two companions just as they were both rushing at

me. This circumstance gave me a moment’s start. I slipped by them, and

took to the middle of the road again at the top of my speed.

The two unhurt men pursued me. They were both good runners—the road

was smooth and level, and for the first five minutes or more I was

conscious that I did not gain on them. It was perilous work to run for

long in the darkness. I could barely see the dim black line of the

hedges on either side, and any chance obstacle in the road would have

thrown me down to a certainty. Ere long I felt the ground changing—it

descended from the level at a turn, and then rose again beyond.

Downhill the men rather gained on me, but uphill I began to distance

them. The rapid, regular thump of their feet grew fainter on my ear,

and I calculated by the sound that I was far enough in advance to take

to the fields with a good chance of their passing me in the darkness.

Diverging to the footpath, I made for the first break that I could

guess at, rather than see, in the hedge. It proved to be a closed gate.

I vaulted over, and finding myself in a field, kept across it steadily

with my back to the road. I heard the men pass the gate, still running,

then in a minute more heard one of them call to the other to come back.

It was no matter what they did now, I was out of their sight and out of

their hearing. I kept straight across the field, and when I had reached

the farther extremity of it, waited there for a minute to recover my

breath.

It was impossible to venture back to the road, but I was determined

nevertheless to get to Old Welmingham that evening.

Neither moon nor stars appeared to guide me. I only knew that I had

kept the wind and rain at my back on leaving Knowlesbury, and if I

now kept them at my back still, I might at least be certain of not

advancing altogether in the wrong direction.

Proceeding on this plan, I crossed the country—meeting with no worse

obstacles than hedges, ditches, and thickets, which every now and then

obliged me to alter my course for a little while—until I found myself

on a hill-side, with the ground sloping away steeply before me. I

descended to the bottom of the hollow, squeezed my way through a hedge,

and got out into a lane. Having turned to the right on leaving the

road, I now turned to the left, on the chance of regaining the line

from which I had wandered. After following the muddy windings of the

lane for ten minutes or more, I saw a cottage with a light in one of

the windows. The garden gate was open to the lane, and I went in at

once to inquire my way.

Before I could knock at the door it was suddenly opened, and a man

came running out with a lighted lantern in his hand. He stopped and

held it up at the sight of me. We both started as we saw each other.

My wanderings had led me round the outskirts of the village, and had

brought me out at the lower end of it. I was back at Old Welmingham,

and the man with the lantern was no other than my acquaintance of the

morning, the parish clerk.

His manner appeared to have altered strangely in the interval since I

had last seen him. He looked suspicious and confused—his ruddy cheeks

were deeply flushed—and his first words, when he spoke, were quite

unintelligible to me.

“Where are the keys?” he asked. “Have you taken them?”

“What keys?” I repeated. “I have this moment come from Knowlesbury.

What keys do you mean?”

“The keys of the vestry. Lord save us and help us! what shall I do? The

keys are gone! Do you hear?” cried the old man, shaking the lantern at

me in his agitation, “the keys are gone!”

“How? When? Who can have taken them?”

“I don’t know,” said the clerk, staring about him wildly in the

darkness. “I’ve only just got back. I told you I had a long day’s work

this morning—I locked the door and shut the window down—it’s open now,

the window’s open. Look! somebody has got in there and taken the keys.”

He turned to the casement window to show me that it was wide open.

The door of the lantern came loose from its fastening as he swayed it

round, and the wind blew the candle out instantly.

“Get another light,” I said, “and let us both go to the vestry

together. Quick! quick!”

I hurried him into the house. The treachery that I had every reason to

expect, the treachery that might deprive me of every advantage I had

gained, was at that moment, perhaps, in process of accomplishment. My

impatience to reach the church was so great that I could not remain

inactive in the cottage while the clerk lit the lantern again. I walked

out, down the garden path, into the lane.

Before I had advanced ten paces a man approached me from the direction

leading to the church. He spoke respectfully as we met. I could not see

his face, but judging by his voice only, he was a perfect stranger to

me.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Percival——” he began.