The Drowned Woman
"It ain't much of a homminy," said the host of the George. "I'll not
keep you long over it, gentlemen. There was a handsome young lady, Miss
Mary Feltram o' Cloostedd by name. She was the last o' that family; and
had gone very poor. There's but the walls o' the house left now; grass
growing in the hall, and ivy over the gables; there's no one livin' has
ever hard tell o' smoke out o' they chimblies. It stands on t'other side
o' the lake, on the level wi' a deal o' a'ad trees behint and aside it
at the gap o' the clough, under the pike o' Maiden Fells. Ye may see it
wi' a spyin'-glass from the boatbield at Mardykes Hall."
"I've been there fifty times," said the Doctor.
"Well there was dealin's betwixt the two families; and there's good and
bad in every family; but the Mardykes, in them days, was a wild lot. And
when old Feltram o' Cloostedd died, and the young lady his daughter was
left a ward o' Sir Jasper Mardykes--an ill day for her, poor
lass!--twenty year older than her he was, an' more; and nothin' about
him, they say, to make anyone like or love him, ill-faur'd and little
and dow."
"Dow--that's gloomy," Doctor Torvey instructed the Captain aside.
"But they do say, they has an old blud-stean ring in the family that
has a charm in't; and happen how it might, the poor lass fell in love
wi' him. Some said they was married. Some said it hang'd i' the
bell-ropes, and never had the priest's blessing; but anyhow, married or
no, there was talk enough amang the folk, and out o' doors she would na
budge. And there was two wee barns; and she prayed him hard to confess
the marriage, poor thing! But t'was a bootlese bene, and he would not
allow they should bear his name, but their mother's; he was a hard man,
and hed the bit in his teeth, and went his ain gait. And having tired of
her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved
him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no
more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my
grandfather's father here in the George."
"That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a
descendant of his?" said the Doctor.
"Grandson," observed Mr. Peers, removing his pipe for a moment; "and is
the last of that stock."
"Well, no one could tell where she had gone to. Some said to distant
parts, some said to the madhouse, some one thing, some another; but
neither she nor the barn was ever seen or spoke to by the folk at
Mardykes in life again. There was one Mr. Wigram that lived in them
times down at Moultry, and had sarved, like the Captain here, in the
king's navy in his day; and early of a morning down he comes to the town
for a boat, sayin' he was looking towards Snakes Island through his
spyin'-glass, and he seen a woman about a hundred and fifty yards
outside of it; the Captain here has heard the bearings right enough.
From her hips upwards she was stark and straight out o' the water, and a
baby in her arms. Well, no one else could see it, nor he neither, when
they went down to the boat. But next morning he saw the same thing, and
the boatman saw it too; and they rowed for it, both pulling might and
main; but after a mile or so they could see it no more, and gave over.
The next that saw it was the vicar, I forget his name now--but he was up
the lake to a funeral at Mortlock Church; and coming back with a bit of
a sail up, just passin' Snakes Island, what should they hear on a sudden
but a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood
hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards
away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the
tiller, and came near enough to see her face--blea it was, and drenched
wi' water--and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post,
holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on
them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to
make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side,
the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward,
pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a
yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin'
woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well
knew when they came to think; and knew it was a dobby they saw; and ye
may be sure they didn't spare prayer and blessin', and went on their
course straight before the wind; for neither would a-took the worth o'
all the Mardykes to look sich a freetin' i' the face again. 'Twas seen
another time by market-folk crossin' fra Gyllenstan in the self-same
place; and Snakes Island got a bad neam, and none cared to go nar it
after nightfall."
"Do you know anything of that Feltram that has been with him abroad?"
asked the Doctor.
"They say he's no good at anything--a harmless mafflin; he was a long
gaumless gawky when he went awa," said Richard Turnbull. "The Feltrams
and the Mardykes was sib, ye know; and that made what passed in the
misfortune o' that young lady spoken of all the harder; and this young
man ye speak of is a grandson o' the lad that was put here in care o' my
grandfather."
"_Great_-grandson. His father was grandson," said Mr. Peers; "he held a
commission in the army and died in the West Indies. This Philip Feltram
is the last o' that line--illegitimate, you know, it is held--and the
little that remained of the Feltram property went nearly fourscore years
ago to the Mardykes, and this Philip is maintained by Sir Bale; it is
pleasant, notwithstanding all the stories one hears, gentlemen, that the
only thing we know of him for certain should be so creditable to his
kindness."
"To be sure," acquiesced Mr. Turnbull.
While they talked the horn sounded, and the mail-coach drew up at the
door of the George and Dragon to set down a passenger and his luggage.
Dick Turnbull rose and went out to the hall with careful bustle, and
Doctor Torvey followed as far as the door, which commanded a view of it,
and saw several trunks cased in canvas pitched into the hall, and by
careful Tom and a boy lifted one on top of the other, behind the corner
of the banister. It would have been below the dignity of his cloth to go
out and read the labels on these, or the Doctor would have done
otherwise, so great was his curiosity.