Mat walked round to the other side of the church. Here the graves were thicker than ever; for here the poor were buried. He went on slowly through them, with his eyes fixed on the ground, towards some trees which marked the limits of the churchyard; looking out for a place to begin his search in, where the graves might be comparatively few, and where his head might not get confused at the outset. Such a place he found at last, in a damp corner under the trees. About this spot the thin grass languished; the mud distilled into tiny water-pools; and the brambles, briars, and dead leaves lay thickly and foully between a few ragged turf-mounds. Could they have laid her here? Could this be the last refuge to which Mary ran after she fled from home?
A few of the mounds had stained moldering tomb-stones at their heads. He looked at these first; and finding only strange names on them, turned next to the mounds marked out by cross-boards of wood. At one of the graves the cross-board had been torn, or had rotted away, from its upright supports, and lay on the ground weather-stained and split, but still faintly showing that it had once had a few letters cut in it. He examined this board to begin with, and was trying to make out what the letters were, when the sound of some one approaching disturbed him. He looked up, and saw a woman walking slowly towards the place where he was standing.
It was Mrs. Peckover herself! She had taken a prescription for her sick brother to the chemist’s—had bought him one or two little things he wanted in the High Street—and had now, before resuming her place at his bedside, stolen a few minutes to go and look at the grave of Madonna’s mother. It was many, many years since Mrs. Peckover had last paid a visit to Bangbury churchyard.
She stopped and hesitated when she first caught sight of Mat; but, after a moment or two, not being a woman easily baulked in anything when she had once undertaken to do it, continued to advance, and never paused for the second time until she had come close to the grave by which Mat stood, and was looking him steadily in the face, exactly across it.
He was the first to speak. “Do you know whose grave this is?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Peckover, glancing indignantly at the broken board and the mud and brambles all about it. “Yes, sir, I do know; and, what’s more, I know that it’s a disgrace to the parish. Money has been paid twice over to keep it decent; and look what a state it’s left in!”
“I asked you whose grave it was,” repeated Mat, impatiently.
“A poor, unfortunate, forsaken creature’s, who’s gone to Heaven if ever an afflicted, repenting woman went there yet!” answered Mrs. Peckover, warmly.
“Forsaken? Afflicted? A woman, too?” Mat repeated to himself, thoughtfully.
“Yes, forsaken and afflicted,” cried Mrs. Peckover, overhearing him. “Don’t you say no ill of her, whoever you are. She shan’t be spoken unkindly of in my hearing, poor soul!”