The Post-Girl. Edward Charles Booth
saw. The girl seems to have a soul. Who is she? And where does she come from?"
Father Mostyn's brows converged upon the pipe-bowl in the hollow of his knee, and his cassock swelled to a long breath of mystery. "Who is she? and where does she come from? ... Those are the questions. À priori, I 'm afraid there 's nothing to answer them. So far, it seems to have been Heaven's wise purpose to reveal her as a beautiful mystery; an incarnate testimony to the teaching of Holy Church—if only Ullbrig knew the meaning of the word testimony. She came to Ullbrig, in the first place, with her mother, as quite a little girl, and lodged with friend Morland at the Post Office. I believe there was some intention on her mother's part of founding a small preparatory school in combination with poultry farming at the time. Yes, poor woman, I rather fear that was her intention. She seemed to think it would yield them both a livelihood, and give Pamela the benefit of new-laid eggs; but she died suddenly, the very day after Tankard had agreed to let her the cottage down Whivvle Lane at four and sixpence a week—being three shillings the rent of the cottage, and eighteenpence because she was a lady. Ha! that 's the way with us. To try and do you one; do your father one; do your mother one; do your sister one; do your brother one; but particularly do one to them that speak softly with you, and his reverence the Vicar. Him do half a dozen if you can, being an ecclesiast, and so difficult to do." He wiped the smile off his mouth with one ruminative stroke of his sleek fingers—you might almost suppose he had palmed it, and slipped it up his sleeve, so quickly did it come away. "She died suddenly, poor woman, before I could get to her. Cardiac hæmorrhage, commonly, and not always incorrectly, called a broken heart. No doubt about it. They sent for me three times, but it happened most grievously that I had tricycled off to Whivvle that day to inquire into a little matter concerning the nefarious sale of glebe straw—(I 'm afraid I shall have to be going there again before so long; the practice shows signs of revival)—and she was dead when I got back. We buried her round by the east window, where the grass turns over the slope towards the north wall. You can just see the top of the stone from the roadway." He indicated its approximate position with a benedictory cast of the signet hand. "After paying all funeral expenses, it was found that there remained a small balance of some thirty pounds odd—evidently the tail-end of their resources—in virtue whereof, friend Morland's heart was moved to take Pam to his bosom, and give her a granddaughter's place in the family circle. Thirty pounds, you see, goes a long way in Ullbrig, where we grow almost everything for ourselves except beer and tobacco. One mouth more or less to feed makes hardly any appreciable difference."
"But were there no relatives?" the Spawer suggested.
Father Mostyn shook his head significantly.
"And you were n't able to trace the mother's movements before she came to Ullbrig?"
"No further than Hunmouth." His Reverence tried the edge of the Spawer's interest with a keen eye through drawn lashes, as though it were a razor he was stropping. "Following up a theory of mine, we traced her as far as Hunmouth. But for that, if we 'd taken friend Morland's advice, we should have lost her altogether. As I predicted, we found she 'd been living for some time in small lodgings there.... There was some question of music teaching, I believe."
"Music teaching?" The Spawer leaned on the interrogative with all the weight of commiserative despair.
"I rather gathered so. She gave lessons to the landlady's daughter, I fancy, in return for the use of the piano, and she had a blind boy studying with her for a while. His family thought of making him a church organist, but unfortunately for all parties concerned, the boy's father failed. Yes, failed rather suddenly, poor man, and cast quite a gloom over the musical outlook. Then Pamela seems to have acquired diphtheria from a sewer opening directly under the bedroom window, and had a narrow squeak for it; and after that her terrified mother fled the town with her, and brought her into the country. There 's no danger of sewers in the country, you see. We have n't such things; we know better."
"And that's what brought them to Ullbrig?" asked the Spawer.
"That's what brought them to Ullbrig. What brought them to Hunmouth is still a matter for conjecture. I called upon the doctor subsequently who attended Pam there, but he could give me no information about them, beyond the fact that his bill had been paid before they left."
"I should have thought, though," said the Spawer, tipping his lips with golden Benedictine, and sending the bouquet reflectively through his nostrils, "that she would have left letters—or something of the sort—behind her, which might have been followed up."
"One would have thought so, naturally. But no; not a single piece of manuscript among all her possessions."
"That," said the Spawer, "looks awfully much as though they 'd been purposely destroyed."
Father Mostyn's lips tightened significantly, and he nodded his head with sagacious indulgence for the tolerable work of a novice.
"Moreover, in such books as belonged to her the flyleaf was invariably missing. Torn bodily out. Not a doubt about it."
"To remove traces of her identity?"
The Vicar slipped his forefinger into the pipe-bowl and gave the tobacco a quick, conclusive squeeze. "Unquestionably."
"But for what reason, do you think?"
His Reverence sat back luxuriously in the arm-chair, with fingers outspread tip to tip over the convex outline of his cassock, and legs crossed reposefully for the better enjoyment of his own discourse. "In the first place, she was a lady. Not a doubt about it. No mere professional man's daughter, brought up amid the varying circumstances incidental to professional society, and trained to consider her father's interests in all her actions—(the little professional discipline of conduct always shows)—but a woman of birth and position. Belonging to a good old military family, I should say, judging by her bearing, with a fine, sleek living or two in its gift for the benefit of the younger branch. Depend upon it. She would come of the elder branch, though, and I should take her to be an only daughter. There would be no sons. Unfortunately, a painful indisposition of a lumbaginous nature prevented my extending her more than the ordinary parochial courtesy at the first, and she died within a fortnight of her arrival. Otherwise, doubtless she would have sought to tell me her circumstances in giving the customary intimation of a desire to benefit by the blessed Sacraments of the Church—but there 's no mistaking the evidence." He recapitulated it over his fingers. "She was the daughter of a wealthy military man, a widower, who had possibly distinguished himself in the Indian service (most likely a major-general and K.C.B.), living on a beautiful estate somewhere down south—say Surrey or the Hampshire Downs."
"Could n't you have advertised in some of the southern papers?" suggested the Spawer.
"Precisely. We advertised for some time, and to some considerable extent, in such of them as would be likely to come under the General's notice—but without success. Indeed, none was to be expected. Men of the General's station in life don't trouble to read advertisements, much less answer them—and if, in this case, he 's read it, it would n't have changed his attitude towards a discarded daughter or induced a reply. Therefore, to continue advertising would have been merely to throw good money after bad.... Ha! Consequently the next step in our investigations is to decide what could be responsible for her detachment from these attractive surroundings, and her subsequent lapse into penurious neglect. It could n't have been the failure of her father's fortune. A catastrophe of this sort would n't have cut her off completely from the family and a few, at least, of her necessarily large circle of friends. Some of her clerical half-cousins, too, would have come forward to her assistance, depend upon it. But even supposing the probabilities to be otherwise, then there would be still less reason for her voluntary self-excision. Though under these circumstances, one might understand her never referring to her family connection, it 's inconceivable to suppose that she should have gone to any particular trouble to conceal traces of the fact. To have done so would have been a work of supererogation, besides running counter to all our priestly experience of the human heart and its workings. No. In the resolute attempt to cut herself off from her family the priestly eye perceives the acting hand of pride. Not a doubt about it. Pride did her. The pride of love. No mistaking it. The headstrong pride of love. Faith removes mountains, but love climbs over 'em, at all costs. Depend upon it, she 'd