it’s got about. i wouldn’t have had it happen for the world; but mr. wilkins has got to know that i write stories. he told me the other evening that he was going to buy my book, and he hoped i’d write my name in it.
“what book?” i said, going very red.
“why, your ‘memoirs,’ ma’am,” he said. “my daughter up in london, that i went to see last week—she’s a great reader, and i do believe that she has read everything, ancient and modern—and we were having a lot of conversation about you, and i was saying what a nice lady you were, and about your husband being a sailor, and one or two things i dropped made her prick up her ears, and she asked me a lot of questions, and presently she said, ‘father, what’s mrs. beckett’s christian name?’ well, of course i knew what it was, through your having written it in the visitors’ book, as you remember, when you asked me to write mine too, when it was new, and you wanted to take it up for ‘mr. and mrs. smith’ to put their names in. so i said, ‘mrs. beckett’s christian name, my dear, is mary jane.’
“‘i thought so,’ said my daughter.
“of course i asked her why she should think your name was mary jane, ma’am, and then she said, ‘she’s a celebrated authoress. she’s written a book all about us (my daughter is in domestic service), and it’s the truest book i ever read about servants. it’s her “memoirs” and all about the places she lived in, and the people she lived with. she said in the book she was going to marry harry and have a country inn.{113}’
“‘harry’s the landlord’s name, right enough,’ i said; and from one or two things my daughter told me were in that book, ma’am, i’m sure i have the honour of addressing the talented authoress.”
i blushed more than ever when mr. wilkins said that, and i felt very uncomfortable. i never thought it would get about that i wrote books, and i felt that if it was known it might injure our business, as folks wouldn’t like to come and stay at an hotel, if they thought the landlady was studying their characters to make stories about them for print. i saw it was no good denying it, so i put a bold face on the matter, and i said, “mr. wilkins, it is quite true; but i want you to give me your promise you won’t say a word of what you have found out to anybody else.”
“good gracious, ma’am!” said mr. wilkins. “why should you hide your candle under a bushel? it’s a great thing to be a writing lady nowadays.”
“yes: but i’m not a lady, mr. wilkins,” i said, “and i’ve my husband’s business to attend to, and i don’t want the people about here to know me as anything else but the landlady of the ‘stretford arms.’”
i explained to him as well as i could why it wasn’t advisable for me to be known as an authoress, especially an authoress who wrote about what she saw, and put real live people in her books; and, after a little talk, mr. wilkins said he saw what i meant, and he thought i was right, and he gave me his word of honour he wouldn’t breathe my secret to a soul.
after that, of course, i was obliged to take him a good deal into my confidence, and as once or twice he had seen me writing, it was no good my denying that i was at work on more “memoirs,” and he very soon jumped to the conclusion that it was our inn and its customers, and the people in the place, that i was writing about. then he asked me point-blank if he was in, and i said, “yes, mr. wilkins; you are.”
bless the little man, you should have seen him when he heard that. he positively glowed all over his face, and begged and prayed of me to let him see what i’d written about him. i said he should one day, that i’d only just{114} put down some notes at present, and that they weren’t in shape yet.
after that, he was on at me whenever he got a chance about my new “memoirs.” “i can give you a lot of things to put in,” he said, “because i’ve lived here man and boy, and there isn’t a soul whose history i don’t know. when are you going to publish ’em, ma’am?”
“oh,” i said, “not yet. it wouldn’t do while we’re here. a nice time i should have of it, if the people here got hold of the book, and came and asked me how i dared put them in!”
“but you aren’t going to leave here?”
“not yet, of course; but i hope we shall have a better house some day. if we make this a good business we shall sell it, and buy another—a real hotel, perhaps, with waiters in evening dress, and all that sort of thing; but there’s plenty of time to think about that.”
poor little mr. wilkins! certainly he couldn’t have taken more interest in my new work if he’d been writing it himself; and i really believe he did think he was what they call collaborating; for, after a time, whenever he brought me a bit of information, he would say, “won’t that do for our ‘memoirs’?”
our “memoirs!” it made me a little cold to him at first, because i have an authoress’s feelings; but i saw he didn’t mean any harm, and i soon forgave him, and we were the best of friends. i will acknowledge here that he was of very great service to me; and having been the parish clerk so many years, and his father before him, and having an old-established little business in the place, he had many opportunities of knowing things which i couldn’t have found out. i can say what i like of him. now, because the old gentleman, at the time i am writing, is far, far away, and isn’t likely to see or hear of my book. but i must not anticipate. i shall tell you his story by-and-by in its proper place, as it happened long after this.
he certainly kept his word, and never told anybody of what he’d found out, and nobody here ever said anything to me about my “memoirs,” except one person, and when that one person said it, it took my breath away more than mr. wilkins did.{115}
i must tell you about that now, or else i shall forget it. it shows the danger of expressing your opinions too freely in a book.
we were always changing our cooks—in fact, cooks were our great difficulty; and female cooks in hotels generally are a difficulty, and even harder to manage than cooks in private families.
the one i had the most trouble with was a aged" target="_blank">middle-aged woman, who came from london, very highly recommended from her last place. she was capital at first—punctual, clean, and as good with her vegetables as she was with the joints and pastry, and that was a great thing, for some english cooks think vegetables are beneath their notice and ought to be left to the kitchenmaid; but i am very strong on vegetables in plain english cooking—especially in an hotel. i know from our customers, who have travelled about, that the vegetables are the weak points in most hotels, and potatoes and cabbage will be served with an expensive dinner that would be a disgrace to a cookshop.
a gentleman told me one day, after he’d had his dinner, when i’d cooked the vegetables myself, that he’d been travelling about the country, and it was the first time he’d eaten a well-cooked potato since he’d left home. he said vegetables were murdered as a rule, and were so badly served, that the waiter didn’t even give them their names, but called them “veg” (pronounced vedge). i’ve heard that said myself at a restaurant in london where harry took me to dinner, so i know it’s true. “veg on five,” said our waiter. that was for the boy to put vegetables on table no. 5. then another waiter put his head into the lift and shouted, “now, then, look sharp with the veg, there!”
yes, and “veg” was the word for what we got. three nasty, half-boiled, diseased-looking potatoes, that had been out of the saucepan half an hour if they had been a minute, and a dab of cabbage—“dab” is the only word—and the cabbage was tasteless, sodden stuff, floating in water; and not a particle of salt had that cabbage or potato seen.
that was a lesson to me, because i felt what i didn’t like i couldn’t expect our customers to like. so i said to{116} myself, “no veg at the ‘stretford arms,’ mary jane; you’ll give your customers good sound, honest vegetables, cooked well, with as much care as the meat or the pastry or the pudding.”
i’ve wandered a little bit, i know, but i can’t help it. i do feel so strongly on the shameful treatment of vegetables by the ordinary english cook. now, to come back to the cook i was telling you about. she went on beautifully for a month, and i thought i’d got a treasure; and then she went and fell in love with a young fellow in the village—a very decent young fellow, but a bit too fond of gallivanting. he was a good-looking chap, and the girls encouraged him, as they will do, for i’ve noticed that if a man’s at all decent-looking there are always plenty of girls ready to encourage him to be a flirt. he fell in love with our cook—at any rate, he walked out with her once or twice, and then she told me they were engaged.
unfortunately, he left off his work at seven every evening, and when our cook couldn’t go out with him, i dare say he wasn’t particular if he laughed and joked with the other young women of the place, who could get out.
cook got to hear of something of the sort, and it made her dreadfully jealous, and she was always coming to me and saying, “oh, please, ma’am, we aren’t very busy this evening; can i just run out and get a piece of ribbon?” or, “oh, if you please, ma’am, could you spare me for ten minutes this evening?” and if i couldn’t let her go she’d be careless and ill-tempered, and work herself up into quite a rage—of course, fancying that her young man was “up to his larks,” as the kitchenmaid used to call it, when she chaffed poor cook about it.
i let her go out as often as i could when we were slack; but when we were busy, and there were late dinners to cook, and meat teas and early suppers, it wasn’t possible, and i had to be firm, and say no.
one evening, when we’d let the best sitting-room to a london lady and gentleman, and they’d ordered dinner at seven, cook came to me about ten minutes to, and said, “please, ma’am, everything’s all ready, and mary can dish up and see to the rest, if you’ll let me go out. i won’t be long.{117}”
“no,” i said; “i really can’t, cook. i’m expecting people by the next train, and they’ll very likely want something cooked at once.”
“oh, ma’am, do, please; it’s very particular.”
“nonsense, cook,” i said; “you’ve been out twice this week. you only want to see your young man, and i can’t have it. you’re making yourself ridiculous over him, and neglecting your work. go back to the kitchen at once.”
“oh, then, you won’t let me go?” she said, turning fiery red.
“no. i’ve told you so.”
“oh, that’s it, is it?” she said. “that’s your fellow-feeling for servants, is it? but it ain’t the sort of stuff you put in your ‘memoirs.’”
“my what?” i gasped.
“your ‘memoirs’! oh, you know what i mean, miss mary jane buffham. you’re a nice one to stick up for the poor servants, you are! why don’t you practise what you preach?”
i never was so insulted in my life. it was all my work to prevent myself taking that woman by the shoulders and shaking her—the idea of her daring to throw my “memoirs” in my face—my own servant, too!
but i kept my temper, and i said quietly, “cook, you forget yourself.”
“no, i don’t,” she said, with an exasperating leer. “it’s you that forget yourself. you’re a missus now, but you weren’t always, and when you weren’t, you could reckon missuses up as well as anybody.”
“go out of the room directly,” i said.
“oh, i’m a-going! you can give me notice if you like. i’m sick of your twopenny-halfpenny public-house. i’ve always lived with gentlefolk before, and been treated as such.”
“go out of the room!” i shouted, stamping my foot; “and go out of the house.”
“yes, i will. i’ll go now, this very minute; but i want a month’s money.”
“you sha’n’t have a penny more than’s due to you, you impudent hussy!” i said. “there!” and i banged{118} her wages up to date down on the table; “there’s your money. now go and pack your box and be off, or i shall have you turned out.”
she took the money, counted it, and then threw it on the table.
“i want a month’s money or a month’s notice,” she said.
“then you’ll have to get it,” i said. “be off, or i’ll send for a policeman.”
“oh!—hadn’t you better send for the one who used to cuddle you in the kitchen, while your other chap was away at sea?”
i did lose my temper at that. it was more than human flesh and blood could bear. i gave a little scream, and then i ran at her, took her by the shoulders, and ran her right out of the room, and banged the door in her face and locked it. and then i fell back into a chair; and if i hadn’t cried i should have had hysterics.
harry was just outside when i turned cook out, and she began at him. he saw how the land lay, and he made short work of her, though she kept going on about me all the time. he made her pack and be off within a quarter of an hour; and i had to go into the kitchen, hot and crying and excited as i was, and the kitchenmaid and i had to dish up the dinner, and do all the rest of the cooking that evening.
when i had five minutes i went upstairs and bathed my face and put myself tidy; but i had such a dreadful splitting headache, i could hardly see out of my eyes.
when i came down again, harry was in the parlour smoking his pipe and staring at the ceiling, and he didn’t look very good-tempered.
“oh, that wretched woman,” i said; “she’s upset everything.”
harry didn’t speak.
“harry,” i said, “haven’t you anything to say? aren’t you sorry for me to have been so upset?”
“oh yes,” he said, “i’m sorry; but i wish that d——d policeman was at jericho!”
that cat!—that ever i should call her so—to go and drag that policeman off the cover of my book and throw him at harry, and all because i wouldn’t let her go and{119} see her young man before she’d cooked the best sitting-room’s dinner!
it was a blow to me to have what i’d said in my book thrown in my face by my own servant. after that i felt inclined to ask a girl before i engaged her if she’d read my “memoirs,” and if she said she had, to say, “then you won’t suit me,” because that book puts wrong notions into girls’ heads. if ever there’s a second edition, there’s one or two things about servants in it that i shall certainly alter. and every bit about that policeman will come out. i made up my mind to that long ago.
writing about the cook who threw my “memoirs” in my face, and the rage she put me in, has quite put poor mr. wilkins’s nose out of joint. i told you how he was always bringing me things to put in my “memoirs” of the village and our inn. lots of the things he came to me full of were no use at all, and i had to tell him so. he seemed to think a book was a sort of dust-bin, into which you shot any rubbish you picked up. but, of course, people who are not authors don’t understand these things—they don’t know that everybody isn’t interested in just what interests them.
but one evening, he came in looking very important, and he had a very, very old gentleman with him—a white-haired, apple-faced old fellow, all wrinkles, who looked like a picture i’ve seen somewhere of a very old man. the gentleman who painted it was a foreigner, i think. i know it was in an illustrated paper, and said, “an old man’s head,” by some name i couldn’t pronounce, and i’m sure i couldn’t spell from memory.
when mr. wilkins brought him in he walked with a stick, being a bit bent and feeble; and mr. wilkins took his hand, and led him to the fire, and everybody made way for him.
“i’ve brought you a new customer, mrs. beckett,” said mr. wilkins, with a look which was as much as to say, “here’s something for our ‘memoirs.’”
i nodded to the new old gentleman, and said i hoped he was well, and what would he take.
he said he’d take a hot rum-and-water, and i had it brought, and he settled down comfortably in the arm-chair.{120}
“are you all right, gaffer?” said mr. wilkins.
“yes, thank’e,” said the old man, in a piping sort of voice. “i’m all right, muster wilkins. it’s the fust time i’ve been here for many a year, though; old place be altered surely.”
“my old friend is a very celebrated man, mrs. beckett,” said mr. wilkins. “he doesn’t live here now, but he’s come to stay with his daughter who does, and i’ve brought him out along with me this evening, and i’ve promised to see him safe home again, haven’t i, gaffer?”
“yes, you have, muster wilkins.”
“this is old gaffer gabbitas, ma’am, as you may have heard of. he was pretty well known about these parts once, weren’t you, gaffer?”
“yes, yes; a long time ago. there wasn’t many betterer known than tom gabbitas, as i was called afore i got old and folks took to callin’ me gaffer. dear me, how it do bring back old times to be sitting here! but it’s all changed, all changed. it’s ten year since i left the village, muster wilkins, and went to live in london along o’ my son.”
“ay, and you were an old man then, gaffer. why, you must be a hundred nearly!”
“no, no, muster wilkins, though i hope to be, for—thank the lord!—i’ve all my faculties still; but i ain’t so old as that. i’m only ninety, come next michaelmas day.”
“only ninety.” it almost made me smile to hear the old gentleman talk like that; but he certainly was a wonderful old fellow for his age, for he could see and hear, and he seemed to be pretty strong generally, only a bit feeble when he walked.
“and how many years is it since the murder, gaffer?” said mr. wilkins.
i pricked up my ears at that. murder! so this old gentleman had something to do with a murder. i understood why mr. wilkins had brought him, and why he kept looking across at me, as much as to say, “i’ve got something for you this time, ma’am, and no mistake.”
“fifty year since the murder,” said the gaffer. “quite fifty year; and twenty since they found poor muster crunock’s body.{121}”
“fancy that, ma’am!” exclaimed mr. wilkins. “a murder was committed here—two murders—fifty years ago, and one body wasn’t found till thirty years after.”
“here!” i exclaimed, “not here in this house. you don’t mean to say there was a murder at the ‘stretford arms’?”
“no—here—in this village! the murder was at curnock’s farm, two miles from here—the second murder—but gaffer’ll tell you all about it; he was in it, weren’t you, gaffer?”
“yes, yes; i was in it—i was in it.”
i couldn’t help shuddering. it made me creepy to look at that venerable old man and think that he’d been in a murder.
it took mr. wilkins a long time to get the story out of the old gentleman, and it took the old gentleman longer to tell it, for he kept wandering, and he would leave off and go into a lot of outside matters to make himself remember whether a day was a monday or a tuesday, when it didn’t matter which it was. you know the sort of thing; but when he had finished his story i was bound to confess it was a very wonderful thing, and it was all true, for mr. wilkins borrowed the old newspaper that the gaffer had kept, and showed it me there.
fifty years ago, it seemed, in the village next ours—the village where curnock’s farm was—there was a terrible trouble about the tithes. the parson was disliked by the people, especially the farmers, and some of the farmers wouldn’t pay the tithes at all, and stirred the people up against him, and as far as i could make out, ned curnock, a young farmer in the neighbourhood, was the ringleader; so the parson got the law of him, and had a lot of his goods seized and taken away to pay the tithes.
he was fearfully mad about that, and swore he’d be revenged. at that time tom gabbitas was a labourer on the farm, and an old servant, for he was forty then.
ned curnock and another man—a young fellow, the son of a farmer—went out one night to waylay the parson, who had been to the squire’s house to a party, and had to ride home through a dark lane. they said they’d give him a jolly good hiding, and that was all they meant to{122} do. the only man who knew they’d gone, and what their errand was, was tom gabbitas, for he heard them talking it over, they not knowing he was near them, it being dark at the time.
about ten o’clock they went out, with two big sticks, and about eleven o’clock they came back. ned curnock was as white as death, and his clothes were all over blood. tom met them, and they confided in him and told him what had happened, making him take an awful oath he’d never reveal a word to any living soul that could harm either of them.
it seems they’d met the parson, and pulled him off his horse, and begun to thrash him, when he had pulled out a pistol to shoot them. they got it from him, and somehow or other it went off and shot the parson, and they ran away; but they said they were sure he was killed, and it was a murder job.
tom gabbitas ran off to the place to get help, and when he got there he found other people there too. the parson was just dead; but he’d had time to say that he’d been murdered by two men, and he’d recognized one of them as ned curnock.
tom only stopped to hear that, and bolted back and told his master, who was terribly frightened, and said he should be hanged, and how was he to escape? the young fellow who was with him said, “you must hide till the coast’s clear. where can you hide? they’ll think you’ve run away.”
so they thought it out, and curnock remembered that in his barn there was a trapdoor which opened on to a kind of cellar in the ground. so he went to the barn, and opened the trap, and got in, and they strewed things about over the top, so that the trap would be hidden. it was agreed that tom gabbitas was to take him food and drink there twice a day, which he could do, because he could go into the barn about his work without suspicion.
the other young man went home quietly, saying he was safe, as nobody but gabbitas and curnock knew he was in it, and they wouldn’t blab.
the people and the police came to the farm that night, but tom said his master had gone out and hadn’t come in.{123} the farm was searched and watched all night and all the next day, and then everybody said that ned curnock had got clear away. rewards were offered, and the description of curnock was sent all over england; but, of course, he was never found, and at last he was forgotten.
but something awful had happened in the meantime. tom took his master food all right the first day, going cautiously into the barn, and, when nobody was about, lifting the trap. his master would put his head up then, and take the food, and ask, “what news?” the third night, when everybody was sure curnock had gone, the other young fellow came to see about some things of his curnock had bought, he said, and hadn’t settled for; but, of course, it was to get into the barn and see curnock.
he went, and tom took the dark lantern and went first, and when they were in they lifted the trap. curnock was tired of being there, and he said escape was hopeless, and he should go and give himself up and make a clean breast of it.
“no,” said the other fellow, “don’t do that; you shall escape, and get clean away this very night. i’ll come to you at midnight and tell you how.”
then tom and this young fellow went back into the house, where there was only an old female servant—curnock being a bachelor—and the young fellow gave tom money, and told him he’d better rise early in the morning and walk to the nearest town, and take the stage-coach and go to london, and wait for his master at a place he was told of.
tom went, and three days after, instead of his master, the young fellow came. “it’s all right, tom,” he said; “mr curnock’s got clear away and gone to america. i’m going to buy his farm and send the money out to him.”
“what am i going to do?” said tom.
“oh, you can come back, and work on my farm. there’s always a job for you there, and i’ll give you and your wife a cottage on my place.”
tom wondered then why he had been sent to london; but he supposed they had altered their plans afterwards, as he was to have met his master in london and helped him in some way.{124}
when he got back, all his things had been moved to the cottage at the other farm, which was three miles away, and he worked on that farm for thirty years. and his new master carried on both; but he never went to the old farm again.
all these years, whenever anybody spoke of ned curnock, it was always said he’d got away to america, and was living there.
after thirty years, the other farmer, who had lived a bachelor all his life, died, and then the farm was sold again. a stranger took it, and when he came he began a lot of alteration. among other places altered was the barn, which was pulled down for a new building to be put up in its place. and when they cleared it out, and began pulling it down, they came on the trapdoor.
the flooring was taken up, of course, and underneath—in the cellar—was found the skeleton of a man.
it was the skeleton of ned curnock.
for thirty years the dead man had been there, and it was proved that he had been murdered. he was identified by many things—among others by a peculiar ring, which was on the bony finger still, the hands having been clutched together in death. how they proved he had been murdered was by the skull. the doctor proved he had been struck on the head with a chopper, which had split the skull open.
tom gabbitas came forward then, and told all he knew; and there is no doubt ned curnock was murdered the night tom went away. his accomplice went to the trap, and, instead of helping his friend to escape, killed him as he put his head out, fearing that he would be caught if he went away, and would tell the truth, and so get his accomplice hanged as well.
tom gabbitas was charged with being an accessory after the fact of the parson’s murder—that’s how mr. wilkins puts it, i think—but it was so long ago, and tom was so respected by everybody, and it was proved that he’d thought the parson was accidentally killed in a struggle and no murder was meant, and after he’d been remanded a lot of times he was sentenced to a short imprisonment, which was to date from the time he was{125} locked up; so he was set free and came back to the village, where he was quite a hero and had to tell the story to everybody, and to lots of people who weren’t born when it all happened.
when the story was done i looked at old gaffer gabbitas, aged eighty-nine, sitting there, and it seemed so strange to be looking at a man who’d been mixed up in two murders and could talk of them now as calmly and as quietly as if they were nothing at all.
when you get very old you are like that, i’m told. i asked the gaffer a lot of questions, and he answered me quite nicely, and was as clear about everything as if it was yesterday.
but fancy him living in the village for thirty years, and never suspecting that the master he thought was in america was lying in his own barn, murdered, all that time, and him being servant to the man who was his murderer!
and the man who did the murder! fancy him living in the place, too, and growing old there, with the body of his victim on his premises, and going about his business quietly, and living his life like everybody else! i wonder if he ever passed that barn at night! i wonder if he didn’t often start out of his sleep and think that all was going to be found out. the more you think of these things, the more wonderful they are. what awful secrets some of the easy-going, comfortable-looking people we meet every day must be carrying about locked up in their breasts, hidden from everybody, just as ned curnock’s dead body lay hidden away for thirty years in his own barn.
mr. wilkins, when it was time to go, took the gaffer’s arm, and said he’d see him to his door, and the old gentleman shook hands with me, and said he should come and see us again. he’d had many a glass in the old place when it was only a little inn, he said; and as he was going out he said, “wonderful changes—wonderful changes in the old place, surely.”
mr. wilkins came back a minute, and he whispered to me, “well, are you glad i brought old gaffer gabbitas to see you?{126}”
“yes,” i said; “certainly. his story is part of the story of the place. but it’s very dreadful. i shall dream of skeletons in a barn all night long.”
and so i did, and i woke up with a scream, lying on my back, and harry said, “good heavens! what’s the matter?”
“oh, it’s the skeleton in the barn!” i said. i knew i should dream of it, and i didn’t go to sleep again for an hour, but kept thinking of old gaffer gabbitas and the two murders he’d been mixed up in and seemed none the worse for.
two murders, and both in our village! thank goodness they were such a long time ago. murders aren’t the sort of things you care to be too common in a place you’ve got to live in. harry said he should go and have a look at curnock’s farm, as it was still called, in the morning, and he asked me if i’d come with him.
i said, “oh, please talk of something else, or not a wink shall i have this night.” i couldn’t get to sleep. i counted sheep, but there was a skeleton among them. i watched the waving corn, and a skeleton looked at me out of the middle of it. i looked at the sea-waves rolling along, but a skeleton floated——
* * * * *
“oh, harry, let me send for a doctor!”
“nonsense!”
“it isn’t nonsense. why, your hands are cut dreadfully—it’s most dangerous—it turns to lock-jaw sometimes! ‘only a scratch?’ it’s a cut—a deep, deep, deep cut. oh, how could you be so careless? i told you you’d burst a bottle some day—driving the corks in like that. you should always look to see they’re not too full. it’s a mercy you weren’t killed on the spot.{127}”
