“In that chest,” gasped the traveller, “I saw a corpse!”
There was a pause. Slowly—for the mind of an agriculturist takes time to act—the bridegroom arrived at a satisfactory explanation. His face remained for three minutes clouded with thought, as he opened and explored the various chambers of memory. At length a gleam of satisfaction illumed his countenance, and he broke into a laugh and an explanation at once. “Lor’, you needn’t trouble yourself: its only my first wife as died last Christmas. You see, the moors were covered with snow, and the land frozen, so we couldn’t take her to be buried at Camelford, and accordingly we salted her in till the thaw shu’d come; and I’m darned if I hadn’t forgotten all about her, and the old gal’s never been buried yet.”
“So, you see,” Mr. Hawker would say, when telling the story, “in Cornwall we do things differently from elsewhere. It is on record that the second wife is wedded before the first wife is buried.”
There is a Devonshire version of this story told of Dartmoor; but it wants the point of the Cornish tale.
The Rev. W. Valentine, vicar of Whixley in Yorkshire, bought Chapel House, in the parish, in the October of 1863, and, having obtained two years’ leave of absence from the Bishop of Ripon, came there into residence. He brought with him, as governess to his children, a young Polish lady, Miss Kuczynski. Her father had been a Polish noble, educated at the Jesuit University of Wilna, who, having been mixed up with one of the periodical revolts against Russian domination, had been obliged to fly his native country and take refuge in England. He received a pension from the British Government, and office under the Master of the Rolls. He married a Miss Newton, and by her had two children, Stanislaus and Pauline.
On the death of Count Kuczynski, his widow married a Mr. Stevens, an American merchant. He lost greatly by the war between the Northern and Southern States, and Miss Kuczynski was obliged to enter the family of an English clergyman as governess to his children.
Mr. Hawker, as vicar of the parish in which Chapel stands, made the acquaintance of this lady of birth and education. A sunbeam shone into his dark, troubled life, and lighted it with hope. He was married to her in December, 1864, “by a concurrence of events manifestly providential,” he wrote to a dear friend. “Her first position was in the family of Mr. Valentine, who so recently arrived in my parish of Morwenstow. There I saw and understood her character; but it was not her graceful person and winning demeanour that so impressed me, as her strong intellect, high principle and similitude of tastes with my own. She won my people before she won me; and it was a saying among my simple-hearted parishioners: ‘Oh, if Miss Kuczynski would but be mistress at vicarage!’ Her friends, as was natural, objected to the marriage; but I went to town, saw them, and returned hither Pauline’s husband.”
His marriage had a good effect on him immediately. He for a time gave up opium-eating. His spirits rose, and he seemed to be entirely, supremely happy.
In November, 1865, he was given a daughter, to be the light and joy of his eyes. He says in a letter dated 30th Nov., 1865:—
The kind interest you have taken in us induces me to think that you may be glad to hear, that, just before midnight on Monday, I was given a daughter—a fair and gentle child, who has not up to this time uttered a single peevish sound. As is very natural, I think her one of the loveliest infants I ever took in my arms. Both child and mother are going on very well, and the happiness which the event has brought to my house is indeed a blessing. The baby’s name is to be Morwenna Pauline.