Chapter 7
Concerning Various Happenings and in which Aunt Agatha Hears a Different Tune
Fashionable London would have been exceedingly surprised had it been able to see what was going on in the kitchen of the Ship Inn at Dymchurch at half past seven in the morning of November the thirteenth; for my Lord Cullingford was breakfasting in a style unheard of in polite society. Seated at the far end of the long, scrubbed table, he was doing full justice to an enormous plate of sizzling bacon and crisp fried eggs, while a thick chunk of farm-house bread, lavishly spread with creamy butter, rested against a foaming tankard. His immediate neighbours were a boot-boy and a comely chambermaid, while grouped round the table were various members of the Ship Inn Staff — some serving-wenches, an ostler, two milkmaids and a cowman, all presided over by an apple-faced cook. The reason for this unorthodox behaviour being that his lordship, having sat for some time on the sea-wall and watched to his great satisfaction the tiny pieces of paper that had comprised the I O U vanish with the receding tide, had become a trifle chilled. He was also not a little tired and very hungry, so finding the front door of the inn still on the chain, he had wandered round through the coach yard in the hopes of seeing someone who might let him in. A most appetizing smell of frying breakfast emboldened him to look through an open window, which caused the aforesaid gathering to rise from their places and stand awkwardly gaping at the peevish coxcomb they had served the night before. This morning, however, he might have been a different gentleman, so changed he was, for in a most natural, unaffected manner he asked if he might join them, and suiting the request to the action, he stepped through the window without further ado.
It was about the time when Lord Cullingford was attacking his sixth hunk of bread and butter that Mrs. Honeyballs was walking through the village on the way to her morning work at the Vicarage. Although she had never been out of Dymchurch in her life she had a habit of conveying to any passer-by that she was a complete stranger, greeting each building as though she had never seen it before. And in order that there should be no mistake she would enumerate aloud in great surprise the names of all the shops she passed, and the people that she saw. So if you followed Mrs. Honeyballs along the street you might hear this curious little sing-song catechism. ‘Ah, lovely morning — isn’t it a nice place — there’s the Church, just see the steeple. Quested, the pastry-cook. ’Morning, Mrs. Hargreaves. There’s Missus Phipps. Oh — sweeping out the Bonnet Shop; doesn’t look so well again. Hope it’s not the megrims. Searly, the butcher — see he’s selling oxtails. Mr. Mipps’ Coffin Shop. Wonder who the next’ll be. Mrs. Wooley’s bad again. Now what’s around the corner?’ She knew perfectly well what was round the corner for she had asked and answered that question for the past twenty years, and she was just about to say, ‘Ah, there’s the dear Vicarage. Privilege to work there,’ when the words stuck in her throat, for on rounding the corner she saw something that was not in her itinerary — in fact, this time Mrs. Honeyballs was really surprised — in truth she was terrified — and flinging her apron over her head and hitching up her voluminous petticoats, she ran screaming at the top of her voice for the Vicarage. What Mrs. Honeyballs saw would have surprised anyone — in fact it would have terrified most people, for hanging from the public gibbet, slowly revolving in the morning sun which glistened and on its protruding eyeballs, was the body of a man. A grizzly object indeed to meet on one’s way to work, and a morbid group of horrified villagers were already in the Court House Square gaping from a safe distance, though one or two, bolder than the rest, were attempting to decipher the roughly scrawled warning stuck to the corpse’s chest; while high above their heads, from the fastness of the rookery, the churchyard carrion in grim confabulation cawed out their greedy tocsin. The babblement below grew from spellbound whisperings to loud commotion as the message ran from mouth to mouth.
‘A WARNING TO ALL TRAITORS ON THE MARSH.’ No doubt who wrote it either, for underneath so all could understand, a crude but vivid drawing of a Scarecrow.
It was fortunate for Mrs. Honeyballs that her lifelong study of every nook and cranny in the village stood her in good stead, or hampered by her apron she would most certainly have come to grief. As it was, with the instinct of a homing pigeon she was able to travel thus blindfold at an incredible speed, finally coming to rest outside the Vicarage back door, where she was able to gasp, ‘Thank goodness, here’s the back door — never thought I’d get here,’ as she took the protective covering from her head, and decorously straightened herself before entering the ‘privilege to work there’. Upon entering, however, she promptly bumped into Mr. Mipps, who was coming out, and this sent her into a paroxysm of the trembles.
‘Oh, Mr. Mipps,’ she cried, throwing her arms about him and well-nigh suffocating the bewildered little Sexton, ‘never so pleased to see you. Oh, what a fright I had. Never thought I’d get here. Comin’ round the corner, thought I’d see the usual — but hangin’ in the Court Yard — glad it didn’t chase me. Can I have a brandy?’
From the hidden regions of her capacious bosom, the muffled voice of the Sexton plaintively appealed to be ‘let go of’, and extricating himself with difficulty, gasped out in his turn, ‘Careful now, don’t be so print.1 Too early for canoodlin’. Can you ’ave a brandy? Phew! Need one myself after all that. ’Ere you are then. Take a nip and tell me why you’ve got the dawthers,’ and producing a heavy flask from an inside pocket, he handed it to the grateful housekeeper.
Mrs. Honeyballs took a generous pull, sighed loudly, and sat down. She then prepared to enjoy and freshly horrify herself with a description of what she had seen, but was disappointed when Mr. Mipps, dismissing the subject, remarked ‘Oh, thought you’d seen something ’orrid. What’s a corpse before breakfast? Undertakers ’as to live, don’t they? He’ll be buried in the parish, and them Lords of the Level allows me a god price. ’Ave to flip round there and measure him up after I’ve cleaned out the font for the christening. Funny
— I was only sayin’ yesterday that while waitin’ for old Mrs Wooley to make up her mind I could do with another corpse with brass ’andles.’ At which Mrs. Honeyballs, somewhat disgruntled, seized mop and bucket and set to work, noisily relieving her frustrated feelings, until Mr. Mipps was forced to tell her to ’ush her bucket as the poor dear Vicar, after his long journey, didn’t ought to be disturbed. Leaving her, certainly hushed though still resentful, he took himself off to the church, making mental notes while passing the cause of Mrs. Honeyballs’ discomfiture as to the length and type of coffin it might need. Thus happily engaged upon his funereal but lucrative speculation, he started to clean out the font.
His enthusiasm, however, was not shared by the Squire of Dymchurch, who, irritated by ‘a confounded babble goin’ on beneath his bedroom window so early in the mornin’, damme’ — pulled back the curtains to see the cause of it. The sight of half the village ‘gawpin’’ at a corpse he hadn’t convicted hanging from his official gibbet threw him into one of his before-breakfast rages, which, this morning, however, was perfectly justifiable.
Sir Antony Cobtree, though taking his position as Chief Magistrate and Leveller of Marsh Scotts very seriously, at heart preferred the more pleasant occupation of a country squire, to wit, his horses and his dogs; and indeed his favourite pastime was followin’ hounds. So upon recollecting that he had promised himself a day’s relaxation away from his extra duties as a family man, for ‘them prattlin’ women’ were getting on his nerves ‘in the most deuced fashion’, he was deeply chagrined that an uncalled intrudin’ corpse would necessitate his presence in that ‘stinkin’ Court Room’ to preside over an Inquiry, thereby ‘ruinin’ a good day’s sport, damme’.