Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

Volume Three – Chapter Twelve

Queer Bric-à-Brac

Stepping over the threshold, the young waterman is warmly received by his older brother of the oar, and blushingly by the girl, whose cheeks are already of a high colour, caught from the fire over which she has been stooping.

Old Joe, seated in the chimney corner, in a huge wicker chair of his own construction, motions Jack to another opposite, leaving the space in front clear for Amy to carry on her culinary operations. There are still a few touches to be added – a sauce to be concocted – before the supper can be served; and she is concocting it.

Host and guest converse without heeding her, chiefly on topics relating to the bore of the river, about which old Joe is an oracle. As the other, too, has spent all his days on Vaga’s banks; but there have been more of them, and he longer resident in that particular neighbourhood. It is too early to enter upon subjects of a more serious nature, though a word now and then slips in about the late occurrence at Llangorren, still wrapped in mystery. If they bring shadows over the brow of the old boatman, these pass off, as he surveys the table which his niece has tastefully decorated with fruits and late autumn flowers. It reminds him of many a pleasant Christmas night in the grand servants’ hall at the Court, under holly and mistletoe, besides bowls of steaming punch and dishes of blazing snapdragon.

His guest knows something of that same hall; but cares not to recall its memories. Better likes he the bright room he is now seated in. Within the radiant circle of its fire, and the other pleasant surroundings, he is for the time cheerful – almost himself again. His mother told him it was not good to be for ever grieving – not righteous, but sinful. And now, as he watches the graceful creature moving about, actively engaged – and all on his account – he begins to think there may be truth in what she said. At all events his grief is more bearable than it has been for long days past. Not that he is untrue to the memory of Mary Morgan. Far from it. His feelings are but natural, inevitable. With that fair presence flitting before his eyes, he would not be man if it failed in some way to impress him.

But his feelings for Amy Preece do not go beyond the bounds of respectful admiration. Still is it an admiration that may become warmer, gathering strength as time goes on. It even does somewhat on this same night; for, in truth the girl’s beauty is a thing which cannot be glanced at without a wish to gaze upon it again. And she possesses something more than beauty – a gift not quite so rare, but perhaps as much prized by Jack Wingate – modesty. He has noted her shy, almost timid mien, ere now; for it is not the first time he has been in her company – contrasted it with the bold advances made to him by her former fellow-servant at the Court – Clarisse. And now, again, he observes the same bearing, as she moves about through that cheery place, in the light of glowing coals – best from the Forest of Dean.

And he thinks of it while seated at the supper table; she at its head, vis-à-vis to her uncle, and distributing the viands. These are no damper to his admiration of her, since the dishes she has prepared are of the daintiest. He has not been accustomed to eat such a meal, for his mother could not cook it; while, as already said, Amy is something of an artiste de cuisine. An excellent wife she would make, all things considered; and possibly at a later period, Jack Wingate might catch himself so reflecting. But not now; not to-night. Such a thought is not in his mind; could not be, with that sadder thought still overshadowing.

The conversation at the table is mostly between the uncle and himself, the niece only now and then putting in a word; and the subjects are still of a general character, in the main relating to boats and their management.

It continues so till the supper things have been cleared off; and in their place appear a decanter of spirits, a basin of lump sugar, and a jug of hot water, with a couple of tumblers containing spoons. Amy knows her uncle’s weakness – which is a whisky toddy before going to bed; for it is the “barley bree” that sparkles in the decanter; and also aware that to-night he will indulge in more than one, she sets the kettle on its trivet against the bars of the grate.

As the hour has now waxed late, and the host is evidently longing for a more confidential chat with his guest, she asks if there is anything more likely to be wanted.

Answered in the negative, she bids both “Good night,” withdraws to the little chamber so prettily decorated for her, and goes to her bed.

But not immediately to fall asleep. Instead she lies awake thinking of Jack Wingate, whose voice, like a distant murmur, she can now and then hear. The French femme de chambre would have had her cheek at the keyhole, to catch what he might say. Not so the young English girl, brought up in a very different school; and if she lies awake, it is from no prying curiosity, but kept so by a nobler sentiment.

On the instant of her withdrawal, old Joe, who has been some time showing in a fidget for it, hitches his chair closer to the table, desiring his guest to do the same; and the whisky punches having been already prepared, they also bring their glasses together.

“Yer good health, Jack.”

“Same to yerself, Joe.”

After this exchange the ex-Charon, no longer constrained by the presence of a third party, launches out into a dialogue altogether different from that hitherto held between them – the subject being the late tenant of the house in which they are hobnobbing.

“Queer sort o’ chap, that Coracle Dick! an’t he, Jack?”

“Course he be. But why do ye ask? You knowed him afore, well enough.”

“Not so well’s now. He never comed about the Court, ’ceptin’ once when fetched there – afore the old Squire on a poachin’ case. Lor! what a change! He now head keeper o’ the estate.”

“Ye say ye know him better than ye did? Ha’ ye larned anythin’ ’bout him o’ late?”

“That hae I; an’ a goodish deal too. More’n one thing as seems kewrous.”

“If ye don’t object tellin’ me, I’d like to hear what they be.”

“Well, one are, that Dick Dempsey ha’ been in the practice of somethin’ besides poachin’.”

“That an’t no news to me, I ha’ long suspected him o’ doin’s worse than that.”

“Amongst them did ye include forgin’?”

“No; because I never thought o’ it. But I believe him to be capable o’ it, or anything else. What makes ye think he a’ been a forger?”

“Well, I won’t say forger, for he mayn’t a made the things. But for sure he ha’ been engaged in passin’ them off.”

“Passin’ what off!”

“Them!” rejoins Joe, drawing a little canvas bag out of his pocket, and spilling its contents upon the table – over a score of coins to all appearance half-crown pieces.

“Counterfeits – every one o’ ’em!” he adds, as the other sits staring at them in surprise.

“Where did you find them?” asks Jack.

“In the corner o’ an old cubbord. Furbishin’ up the place, I comed across them – besides a goodish grist o’ other kewrosities. What would ye think o’ my predecessor here bein’ a burglar as well as smasher?”

“I wouldn’t think that noways strange neyther. As I’ve sayed already, I b’lieve Dick Dempsey to be a man who’d not mind takin’ a hand at any mortal thing, howsomever bad. Burglary, or even worse, if it wor made worth his while. But what led ye to think he ha’ been also in the housebreaking line?”

“These!” answers the old boatman, producing another and larger bag, the more ponderous contents of which he spills out on the floor, not the table; as he does so exclaiming, “Theere be a lot o’ oddities! A complete set o’ burglar’s tools – far as I can understand them.”

And so are they, jemmies, cold chisels, skeleton keys – in short, every implement of the cracksman’s calling.

“And ye found them in the cubbert too?”

“No, not there, nor yet inside; but on the premises. The big bag, wi’ its contents, wor crammed up into a hole in the rocks – the clift at the back o’ the house.”

“Odd, all o’ it! An’ the oddest his leavin’ such things behind – to tell the tale o’ his guilty doin’s; I suppose bein’ full o’ his new fortunes, he’s forgot all about them.”

“But ye han’t waited for me to gie the whole o’ the cat’logue. There be somethin’ more to come.”

“What more?” asks the young waterman, suprisedly, and with renewed interest.

“A thing as seems kewrouser than all the rest. I can draw conclusions from the counterfeet coins, an’ the house-breakin’ implements; but the other beats me dead down, an’ I don’t know what to make o’t. Maybe you can tell. I foun’ it stuck up the same hole in the rocks, wi’ a stone in front exact fittin’ to an’ fillin’ its mouth.”

While speaking, he draws open a chest, and takes from it a bundle of some white stuff – apparently linen – loosely rolled. Unfolding, and holding it up to the light, he adds: —

“Theer be the eydentical article!”

No wonder he thought the thing strange, found where he had found it. For it is a shroud! White, with a cross and two letters in red stitched upon that part which, were it upon a body, both cross and lettering would lie over the breast!

“O God!” cries Jack Wingate, as his eyes rest upon the symbol. “That’s the shroud Mary Morgan wor buried in! I can swear to ’t. I seed her mother stitch on that cross an’ them letters – the ineetials o’ her name. An’ I seed it on herself in the coffin ’fore’t wor closed. Heaven o’ mercy! what do it mean?”

Amy Preece, lying awake in her bed, hears Jack Wingate’s voice excitedly exclaiming, and wonders what that means. But she is not told; nor learns she aught of a conversation which succeeds in more subdued tone; prolonged to a much later hour – even into morning. For before the two men part they mature a plan for ascertaining why that ghostly thing is still above ground instead of in the grave, where the body it covered is coldly sleeping!

Volume Three – Chapter Thirteen

A Brace of Body-Snatchers

What with the high hills that shut in the valley of the Wye, and the hanging woods that clothe their steep slopes, the nights there are often so dark as to justify the familiar saying, “You couldn’t see your hand before you.” I have been out on some, when a white kerchief held within three feet of the eye was absolutely invisible; and it required a skilful Jehu, with best patent lamps, to keep carriage wheels upon the causeway of the road.