II
It was not to be expected that Mr Davidson should escape being taken through the principal rooms of the Court, in spite of the fact that the house was entirely out of commission. Pictures, carpets, curtains, furniture, were all covered up or put away, as old Mr Avery had said; and the admiration which our friend was very ready to bestow had to be lavished on the proportions of the rooms, and on the one painted ceiling, upon which an artist who had fled from London in the plague-year had depicted the Triumph of Loyalty and Defeat of Sedition. In this Mr Davidson could show an unfeigned interest. The portraits of Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, Peters, and the rest, writhing in carefully devised torments, were evidently the part of the design to which most pains had been devoted.
“That were the old Lady Sadleir had that paintin’ done, same as the one what put up the Chapel. They say she were the first that went up to London to dance on Oliver Cromwell’s grave.” So said Mr Avery, and continued musingly, “Well, I suppose she got some satisfaction to her mind, but I don’t know as I should want to pay the fare to London and back just for that; and my son-in-law, he say the same; he say he don’t know as he should have cared to pay all that money only for that. I was tellin’ the gentleman as we came along in the train, Mary, what your ’Arry says about this Gregory singin’ down at Stanford here. We ’ad a bit of a laugh over that, sir, didn’t us?”
“Yes, to be sure we did; ha! ha!” Once again Mr Davidson strove to do justice to the pleasantry of the keeper. “But,” he said, “if Mrs Porter can show me the Chapel, I think it should be now, for the days aren’t long, and I want to get back to Longbridge before it falls quite dark.”
Even if Brockstone Court has not been illustrated in Rural Life (and I think it has not), I do not propose to point out its excellences here; but of the Chapel a word must be said. It stands about a hundred yards from the house, and has its own little graveyard and trees about it. It is a stone building about seventy feet long, and in the Gothic style, as that style was understood in the middle of the seventeenth century. On the whole it resembles some of the Oxford college chapels as much as anything, save that it has a distinct chancel, like a parish church, and a fanciful domed bell-turret at the south-west angle.
When the west door was thrown open, Mr Davidson could not repress an exclamation of pleased surprise at the completeness and richness of the interior. Screen-work, pulpit, seating, and glass—all were of the same period; and as he advanced into the nave and sighted the organ-case with its gold-embossed pipes in the western gallery, his cup of satisfaction was filled. The glass in the nave windows was chiefly armorial; and in the chancel were figure-subjects, of the kind that may be seen at Abbey Dore, of Lord Scudamore’s work.
But this is not an archæological review.
While Mr Davidson was still busy examining the remains of the organ (attributed to one of the Dallams, I believe), old Mr Avery had stumped up into the chancel and was lifting the dust-cloths from the blue-velvet cushions of the stall-desks. Evidently it was here that the family sat.
Mr Davidson heard him say in a rather hushed tone of surprise, “Why, Mary, here’s all the books open agin!”
The reply was in a voice that sounded peevish rather than surprised. “Tt-tt-tt, well, there, I never!”
Mrs Porter went over to where her father was standing, and they continued talking in a lower key. Mr Davidson saw plainly that something not quite in the common run was under discussion; so he came down the gallery stairs and joined them. There was no sign of disorder in the chancel any more than in the rest of the Chapel, which was beautifully clean; but the eight folio Prayer-Books on the cushions of the stall-desks were indubitably open.
Mrs Porter was inclined to be fretful over it. “Whoever can it be as does it?” she said: “for there’s no key but mine, nor yet door but the one we came in by, and the winders is barred, every one of ’em; I don’t like it, father, that I don’t.”
“What is it, Mrs Porter? Anything wrong?” said Mr Davidson.
“No, sir, nothing reely wrong, only these books. Every time, pretty near, that I come in to do up the place, I shuts ’em and spreads the cloths over ’em to keep off the dust, ever since Mr Clark spoke about it, when I first come; and yet there they are again, and always the same page—and as I says, whoever it can be as does it with the door and winders shut; and as I says, it makes anyone feel queer comin’ in here alone, as I ’ave to do, not as I’m given that way myself, not to be frightened easy, I mean to say; and there’s not a rat in the place—not as no rat wouldn’t trouble to do a thing like that, do you think, sir?”
“Hardly, I should say; but it sounds very queer. Are they always open at the same place, did you say?”
“Always the same place, sir, one of the psalms it is, and I didn’t particular notice it the first time or two, till I see a little red line of printing, and it’s always caught my eye since.”
Mr Davidson walked along the stalls and looked at the open books. Sure enough, they all stood at the same page; Psalm cix., and at the head of it, just between the number and the Deus laudum, was a rubric, “For the 25th day of April.” Without pretending to minute knowledge of the history of the Book of Common Prayer, he knew enough to be sure that this was a very odd and wholly unauthorized addition to its text; and though he remembered that April 25 is St Mark’s Day, he could not imagine what appropriateness this very savage psalm could have to that festival. With slight misgivings he ventured to turn over the leaves to examine the title-page, and knowing the need for particular accuracy in these matters, he devoted some ten minutes to making a line-for-line transcript of it. The date was 1653; the printer called himself Anthony Cadman. He turned to the list of proper psalms for certain days; yes, added to it was that same inexplicable entry: For the 25th day of April: the 109th Psalm. An expert would no doubt have thought of many other points to inquire into, but this antiquary, as I have said, was no expert. He took stock, however, of the binding—a handsome one of tooled blue leather, bearing the arms that figured in several of the nave windows in various combinations.
“How often,” he said at last to Mrs Porter, “have you found these books lying open like this?”
“Reely I couldn’t say, sir, but it’s a great many times now. Do you recollect, father, me telling you about it the first time I noticed it?”
“That I do, my dear; you was in a rare taking, and I don’t so much wonder at it; that was five year ago I was paying you a visit at Michaelmas time, and you come in at tea-time, and says you, ‘Father, there’s the books laying open under the cloths agin;’ and I didn’t know what my daughter was speakin’ about, you see, sir, and I says, ‘Books?’ just like that, I says; and then it all came out. But as Harry says,—that’s my son-in-law, sir,—‘whoever it can be,’ he says, ‘as does it, because there ain’t only the one door, and we keeps the key locked up,’ he says, ‘and the winders is barred, every one on ’em. Well,’ he says, ‘I lay once I could catch ’em at it, they wouldn’t do it a second time,’ he says. And no more they wouldn’t, I don’t believe, sir. Well, that was five year ago, and it’s been happenin’ constant ever since by your account, my dear. Young Mr Clark, he don’t seem to think much to it; but then he don’t live here, you see, and ’tisn’t his business to come and clean up here of a dark afternoon, is it?”
“I suppose you never notice anything else odd when you are at work here, Mrs Porter?” said Mr Davidson.
“No, sir, I do not,” said Mrs Porter, “and it’s a funny thing to me I don’t, with the feeling I have as there’s someone settin’ here—no, it’s the other side, just within the screen—and lookin’ at me all the time I’m dustin’ in the gallery and pews. But I never yet see nothin’ worse than myself, as the sayin’ goes, and I kindly hope I never may.”