Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  “She is a beautiful woman!” said Helmsley, quietly.

  “You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in Weircombe, — she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent to a stranger. I believe this to be so — I believe, in general, we may take it to be so.”

  And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about Mary — that she was just “a part of the village.” During his slow ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough places in the stony street, — little children ran up to him with the flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected from the drift on the shore — women smiled at him from their open doors and windows — girls called to him the “Good morning!” or “Good-night!” — and by and by he was almost affectionately known as “Old David, who makes baskets up at Miss Deane’s.” One of his favourite haunts was the very end of the “coombe,” which, — sharply cutting down to the shore, — seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force, hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks, which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers, forming a deep blackish-purple pool in which the wash to and fro of pale rose and deep magenta seaweed, flecked with trails of pale grassy green, were like the colours of a stormy sunset reflected in a prism. The sounds made here by the inflowing and outgoing of the waves were curiously musical, — like the thudding of a great organ, with harp melodies floating above the stronger bass, while every now and then a sweet sonorous call, like that of a silver trumpet, swung from the cavernous depths into clear space and echoed high up in the air, dying lingeringly away across the hills. Near this split of the “coombe” stood the very last house at the bottom of the village, built of white stone and neatly thatched, with a garden running to the edge of the mountain stream, which at this point rattled its way down to the sea with that usual tendency to haste exhibited by everything in life and nature when coming to an end. A small square board nailed above the door bore the inscription legibly painted in plain black letters: —

  ABEL TWITT,

  Stone Mason,

  N. B. Good Grave-Work Guaranteed.

  The author of this device, and the owner of the dwelling, was a round, rosy-faced little man, with shrewd sparkling grey eyes, a pleasant smile, and a very sociable manner. He was the great “gossip” of the place; no old woman at a wash-tub or behind a tea-tray ever wagged her tongue more persistently over the concerns of he and she and you and they, than Abel Twitt. He had a leisurely way of talking, — a “slow and silly way” his wife called it, — but he managed to convey a good deal of information concerning everybody and everything, whether right or wrong, in a very few sentences. He was renowned in the village for his wonderful ability in the composition of epitaphs, and by some of his friends he was called “Weircombe’s Pote Lorit.” One of his most celebrated couplets was the following: —

  “This Life while I lived it, was Painful and seldom Victorious,

  I trust in the Lord that the next will be Pleasant and Glorious!”

  Everybody said that no one but Abel Twitt could have thought of such grand words and good rhymes. Abel himself was not altogether without a certain gentle consciousness that in this particular effort he had done well. But he had no literary vanity.

  “It comes nat’ral to me,” — he modestly declared— “It’s a God’s gift which I takes thankful without pride.”

  Helmsley had become very intimate with both Mr. and Mrs. Twitt. In his every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the “coombe” he often took a rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt’s house before climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane’s cottage, and Mrs. Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours. There was no real morbidity of character in Mrs. Twitt; she only had that peculiar turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in almost every trifling occurrence of daily life. A pin on the ground which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant terrible ill-luck to Mrs. Twitt, — if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that there was going to be sickness in the village, — and she always carried in her pocket “a bit of coffin” to keep away the cramp. She also had a limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male or female, she did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, “out on the hills,” and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee: —

  “As this stick rotteth to decay,

  So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!”

  But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to “old David” as she called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with much kindly solicitude. For despite Mr. Bunce’s recommendation that he should “sit quiet,” Helmsley could not bring himself to the passively restful condition of weak and resigned old age. He had too much on his mind for that. He worked patiently every morning at basket-making, in which he was quickly becoming an adept; but in the afternoon he grew restless, and Mary, seeing it was better for him to walk as long as walking was possible to him, let him go out when he fancied it, though always with a little anxiety for him lest he should meet with some accident. In this anxiety, however, all the neighbours took a share, so that he was well watched, and more carefully guarded than he knew, on his way down to the shore and back again, Abel Twitt himself often giving him an arm on the upward climb home.

  “You’ll have to do some of that for me soon!” said Helmsley on one of these occasions, pointing up with his stick at the board over Twitt’s door, which said “Good Grave-Work Guaranteed:”

  Twitt rolled his eyes slowly up in the direction indicated, smiled, and rolled them down again.

  “So I will, — so I will!” he replied cheerfully— “An I’ll charge ye nothin’ either. I’ll make ye as pretty a little stone as iver ye saw — what’ll last too! — ay, last till th’ Almighty comes a’ tearin’ down in clouds o’ glory. A stone well bedded in, ye unnerstan’? — one as’ll stay upright — no slop work. An’ if ye can’t think of a hepitaph for yerself I’ll write one for ye — there now! Bible texes is goin’ out o’ fashion — it’s best to ‘ave somethin’ orig’nal — an’ for originality I don’t think I can be beat in these parts. I’ll do ye yer hepitaph with pleasure!”

  “That will be kind!” And Helmsley smiled a little sadly— “What will you say of me when I’m gone?”

  Twitt looked at him thoughtfully, with his head very much on one side.

  “Well, ye see, I don’t know yer history,” — he said— “But I considers ye ‘armless an’ unfortunate. I’d ‘ave to make it out in my own mind like. Now Timbs, the grocer an’ ‘aberdashery man, when ’is wife died, he wouldn’t let me ‘ave my own way about the moniment at all. ‘Put ‘er down,’ sez ’e— ‘Put ‘er down as the Dearly-Beloved Wife of Samuel Timbs.’ ‘Now, Timbs,’ sez I— ‘don’t ye go foolin’ with ‘ell-fire! Ye know she wor’nt yer
Dearly Beloved, forbye that she used to throw wet dish-clouts at yer ‘ed, screechin’ at ye for all she was wuth, an’ there ain’t no Dearly Beloved in that. Why do ye want to put a lie on a stone for the Lord to read?’ But ’e was as obst’nate as pigs. ‘Dish-clouts or no dish-clouts,’ sez ’e, ‘I’ll ‘ave ‘er fixed up proper as my Dearly-Beloved Wife for sight o’ parson an’ neighbours.’ ‘Ah, Sam!’ sez I— ‘I’ve got ye! It’s for parson an’ neighbours ye want the hepitaph, an’ not for the Lord at all! Well, I’ll do it if so be yer wish it, but I won’t take the ‘sponsibility of it at the Day o’ Judgment.’ ‘I don’t want ye to’ — sez ’e, quite peart. ‘I’ll take it myself.’ An’ if ye’ll believe me, David, ’e sits down an’ writes me what ’e calls a ‘Memo’ of what ’e wants put on the grave stone, an’ it’s the biggest whopper I’ve iver seen out o’ the noospapers. I’ve got it ’ere—” And, referring to a much worn and battered old leather pocket-book, Twitt drew from it a soiled piece of paper, and read as follows —

  Here lies

  All that is Mortal

  of

  CATHERINE TIMBS

  The Dearly Beloved Wife

  of

  Samuel Timbs of Weircombe.

  She Died

  At the Early Age of Forty-Nine

  Full of Virtues and Excellencies

  Which those who knew Her

  Deeply Deplore

  and

  NOW is in Heaven.

  “And the only true thing about that hepitaph,” — continued Twitt, folding up the paper again and returning it to its former receptacle,— “is the words ‘Here Lies.’”

  Helmsley laughed, and Twitt laughed with him.

  “Some folks ‘as the curiousest ways o’ wantin’ theirselves remembered arter they’re gone” — he went on— “An’ others seems as if they don’t care for no mem’ry at all ‘cept in the ‘arts o’ their friends. Now there was Tom o’ the Gleam, a kind o’ gypsy rover in these parts, ’im as murdered a lord down at Blue Anchor this very year’s July — —”

  Helmsley drew a quick breath.

  “I know!” he said— “I was there!”

  “So I’ve ‘eerd say,” — responded Twitt sympathetically— “An’ an awsome sight it must a’ bin for ye! Mary Deane told us as ‘ow ye’d bin ravin’ about Tom — an’ m’appen likely it give ye a turn towards yer long sickness.”

  “I was there,” — said Helmsley, shuddering at the recollection— “I had stopped on the road to try and get a cheap night’s lodging at the very inn where the murder took place — but — but there were two murders that day, and the first one was the worst!”

  “That’s what I said at the time, an’ that’s what I’ve allus thought!” — declared Twitt— “Why that little ‘Kiddie’ child o’ Tom’s was the playfullest, prettiest little rogue ye’d see in a hundred mile or more! ‘Oldin’ out a posy o’ flowers to a motor-car, poor little innercent! It might as well ‘ave ‘eld out flowers to the devil! — though my own opinion is as the devil ‘imself wouldn’t ‘a ridden down a child. But a motorin’ lord o’ these days is neither man nor beast nor devil,— ‘e’s a somethin’ altogether onhuman — onhuman out an’ out, — a thing wi’ goggles over his eyes an’ no ‘art in his body, which we aint iver seen in this poor old world afore. Thanks be to the Lord no motors can ever come into Weircombe, — they tears round an’ round by another road, an’ we neither sees, ‘ears, nor smells ’em, for which I often sez to my wife— ‘O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with gladness an’ come before His presence with a song!’ An’ she ups an’ sez— ‘Don’t be blaspheemous, Twitt, — I’ll tell parson’ — an’ I sez— ‘Tell ’im, old ‘ooman, if ye likes!’ An’ when she tells ’im, ’e smiles nice an’ kind, an’ sez— ‘It’s quite lawful, Mrs. Twitt, to quote Scriptural thanksgiving on all necessary occasions!’ E’s a good little chap, our parson, but ‘e’s that weak on his chest an’ ailing that ‘e’s goin’ away this year to Madeira for rest and warm — an’ a blessid old Timp’rance raskill’s coming to take dooty in ’is place. Ah! — none of us Weircombe folk ‘ill be very reg’lar church-goers while Mr. Arbroath’s here.”

  Helmsley started slightly.

  “Arbroath? I’ve seen that man.”

  ‘Ave ye? Well, ye ‘aven’t seen no beauty!” And Twitt gave vent to a chuckling laugh—”’E’ll be startin’ ’is ‘Igh Jink purcessions an’ vestiments in our plain little church up yonder, an’ by the Lord, ‘e’ll ‘ave to purcess an’ vestiment by ‘isself, for Weircombe wont ‘elp ’im. We aint none of us ‘Igh Jink folks.”

  “Is that your name for High Church?” asked Helmsley, amused.

  “It is so, an’ a very good name it be,” declared Twitt, stoutly— “For if all the bobbins’ an’ scrapins’ an’ crosses an’ banners aint a sort o’ jinkin’ Lord Mayor’s show, then what be they? It’s fair oaffish to bob to the east as them ‘Igh Jinkers does, for we aint never told in the Gospels that th’ Almighty ‘olds that partikler quarter o’ the wind as a place o’ residence. The Lord’s everywhere, — east, west, north, south, — why he’s with us at this very minute!” — and Twitt raised his eyes piously to the heavens— “He’s ‘elpin’ you an’ me to draw the breath through our lungs — for if He didn’t ‘elp, we couldn’t do it, that’s certain. An’ if He makes the sun to rise in the east, He makes it to sink in the west, an’ there’s no choice either way, an’ we sez our prayers simple both times o’ day, not to the sun at all, but to the Maker o’ the sun, an’ of everything else as we sees. No, no! — no ‘Igh Jinks for me! — I don’t want to bow to no East when I sees the Lord’s no more east than He’s west, an’ no more in either place than He is here, close to me an’ doin’ more for me than I could iver do for myself. ‘Igh Jinks is unchristin, — as unchristin as cremation, an’ nothin’s more unchristin than that!”

  “Why, what makes you think so?” asked Helmsley, surprised.

  “What makes me think so?” And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of reproachful dignity— “Now, old David, don’t go for to say as you don’t think so too?”

  “Cremation unchristian? Well, I can’t say I’ve ever thought of it in that light, — it’s supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the dead — —”

  “Gettin’ rid of the dead!” — echoed Twitt, almost scornfully— “That’s what ye can never do! They’se everywhere, all about us, if we only had strong eyes enough to see ’em. An’ cremation aint Christin. I’ll tell ye for why,” — here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly on Helmsley’s chest to give weight to his words— “Look y’ere! Supposin’ our Lord’s body ‘ad been cremated, where would us all a’ bin? Where would a’ bin our ‘sure an’ certain ‘ope’ o’ the resurrection?”

  Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment’s thought restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied: —

  “Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a tomb.”

  “Out of a hurn?” demanded Twitt, persistently— “If our Lord’s body ‘ad bin burnt an’ put in a hurn, an’ the hurn ‘ad bin took into the ‘ouse o’ Pontis Pilate, an’ sealed, an’ kept till now? Eh? What d’ye say to that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn’t a bin no savin’ grace o’ Christ’anity at all! An’ that’s why I sez cremation is unchristin, — it’s blaspheemous an’ ‘eethen. For our Lord plainly said to ’is disciples arter he came out o’ the tomb— ‘Behold my hands and my feet, — handle me and see,’ — an’ to the doubtin’ Thomas He said— ‘Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.’ David, you mark my words! — them as ‘as their bodies burnt in crematorums is just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an’ they ‘opes to burn all the blackness o’ theirselves into nothingness an’ never to rise no more, ‘cos they’se afraid! Th
ey don’t want to be laid in good old mother earth, which is the warm forcin’ place o’ the Lord for raisin’ up ‘uman souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an’ all other things which do give Him grateful praise an’ thanksgivin’! They gits theirselves burnt to ashes ‘cos they don’t want to be raised up, — they’se never praised the Lord ’ere, an’ they wouldn’t know ‘ow to do it there! But, mercy me!” concluded Twitt ruminatingly,— “I’ve seen orful queer things bred out of ashes! — beetles an’ sich like reptiles, — an’ I wouldn’t much care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a liar!”

  Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious, — such quaint propositions as this old stonemason put forward on the subject of cremation were utterly novel to his experience. And while he yet stood under the little porch of Twitt’s cottage, there came shivering up through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.

  “Tide’s comin’ in,” — said Twitt, after listening a minute or two— “An’ that minds me o’ what I was goin’ to tell ye about Tom o’ the Gleam. After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an’ claimed the bodies o’ Tom an’ ’is Kiddie, — an’ they was buried accordin’ to Tom’s own wish, which it seems ‘e’d told one of ’is gypsy pals to see as was carried out whenever an’ wheresoever ’e died. An’ what sort of a buryin’d’ye think ’e ‘ad?”

  Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.

  “’Twas out there,” — and Twitt pointed with one hand to the shining expanse of the ocean— “The gypsies put ’im an’ is Kiddie in a basket coffin which they made theirselves, an’ covered it all over wi’ garlands o’ flowers an’ green boughs, an’ then fastened four great lumps o’ lead to the four corners, an’ rowed it out in a boat to about four or five miles from the shore, right near to the place where the moon at full ‘makes a hole in the middle o’ the sea,’ as the children sez, and there they dropped it into the water. Then they sang a funeral song — an’ by the Lord! — the sound o’ that song crept into yer veins an’ made yer blood run cold!— ’twas enough to break a man’s ‘art, let alone a woman’s, to ‘ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin’ a farewell to the man an’ the child in the sea, — an’ the song floated up an’ about, ’ere an’ there an’ everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey onnards, an’ at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an’ eerie that the people got out o’ their beds, shiverin’, an’ opened their windows to listen, an’ when they listened they all fell a cryin’ like children. An’ it’s no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and died his bad death, is shut up for good, an’ the people as kept it gone away — no one couldn’t stay there arter that. Ay, ay!” and Twitt sighed profoundly— “Poor wild ne’er-do-weel Tom! He lies deep down enough now with the waves flowin’ over ’im an’ ’is little ‘Kiddie’ clasped tight in ’is arms. For they never separated ’em, — death ‘ad locked ’em up too fast together for that. An’ they’re sleepin’ peaceful, — an’ there they’ll sleep till — till ‘the sea gives up its dead.’”