feel as if I might have prevented it; and yet I have been over and over it in my mind and I can’t see where I was wrong. But my duty is to the house now, and I shall never leave it; but I will ask you, sir, to try and find a thought of pity in your heart for
A few hours later Mr Vyvyan called to see me; he was a very different person to the Vyvyan that had showed himself to me in Holborn.
I could not talk much with him but I could see that he had some understanding of the case. He asked me no questions, but he told me a few details. He said that they had decided at the inquest that he had fallen from the terrace. But the doctor, who was attending me, seems to have said to Mr Vyvyan that a fall it must have been, but a fall of an almost inconceivable character. “And what is more,” the old doctor had added, “the man was neither in pain nor agitation of mind when he died.” The face was absolutely peaceful and tranquil; and the doctor’s theory was that he had died from some sudden seizure before the fall.
And so I held my tongue. One thing I did: it was to have a little slab put over the body of my friend – a simple slab with name and date – and I ventured to add one line, because I have no doubt in my own mind that Basil was suddenly delivered, though not from death. He had, I supposed, gone too far upon the dark path, and he could not, I think, have freed himself from the spell; and so the cord was loosed, but loosed in mercy – and so I made them add the words:
“And in their hands they shall bear thee up.”
I must add one further word. About a year after the events above recorded I received a letter from Mr Vyvyan, which I give without further comment.
ST SIBBY, Dec, 18, 189–.
“DEAR MR WARD,
“I wish to tell you that our friend Mrs Hall died a few days ago. She was a very good woman, one of the few that are chosen. I was much with her in her last days, and she told me a strange thing, which I cannot bring myself to repeat to you. But she sent you a message which she repeated several times, which she said you would understand. It is simply this: ‘Tell Mr Ward I have prevailed.’ I may add that I have no doubt of the truth of her words, and you will know to what I am alluding.
“The day after she died there was a fire at Treheale: Mr Hall was absolutely distracted with grief at the loss of his wife, and I do not know quite what happened. But it was impossible to save the house; all that is left of it is a mass of charred ruins, with a few walls standing up. Nothing was saved, not even a picture. There is a wholly inadequate insurance, and I believe it is not intended to rebuild the house.
“I hope you will bear us in mind; though I know you so little, I shall always feel that we have a common experience which will hold us together. You will try and visit us some day when the memory of what took place is less painful to you. The grass is now green on your poor friend’s grave; and I will only add that you will have a warm welcome here. I am just moving into the Rectory, as my old Rector died a fortnight ago, and I have accepted the living. God bless you, dear Mr Ward.
“Yours very sincerely,
“JAMES VYVYAN.”
The Richpins
E. G. Swain
Location: Stoneground, East Anglia.
Time: December, 1912.
Eyewitness Description:
Author: Edmund Gill Swain (1861–1938) was Chaplain at King’s College, Cambridge and like M. R. James drawn to the rich vein of antiquarian and supernatural lore in East Anglia. In his capacity as Reverend Canon and proctor at the University, he had ample opportunity to study the ghostly tradition of the eerie wastes of The Fens where several of his best stories are located. “The Richpins” is set near Yarmouth and there are strong similarities between this tale with its Napoleonic echoes and my own “Peyton House Ghost,” set in nearby Suffolk, which I wrote about in the companion volume,
Something of the general character of Stoneground and its people has been indicated by stray allusions in the previous narratives. We must here add that of its present population only a small part is native, the remainder having been attracted during the recent prosperous days of brickmaking, from the nearer parts of East Anglia and the Midlands. The visitor to Stoneground now finds little more than the signs of an unlovely industry, and of the hasty and inadequate housing of the people it has drawn together. Nothing in the place pleases him more than the excellent train-service which makes it easy to get away. He seldom desires a long acquaintance either with Stoneground or its people.
The impression so made upon the average visitor is, however, unjust, as first impressions often are. The few who have made further acquaintance with Stoneground have soon learned to distinguish between the permanent and the accidental features of the place, and have been astonished by nothing so much as by the unexpected evidence of French influence. Amongst the household treasures of the old inhabitants are invariably found French knick-knacks: there are pieces of French furniture in what is called “the room” of many houses. A certain ten-acre field is called the “Frenchman’s meadow.” Upon the voters’ lists hanging at the church door are to be found French names, often corrupted; and boys who run about the streets can be heard shrieking to each other such names as Bunnum, Dangibow, Planchey, and so on.
Mr Batchel himself is possessed of many curious little articles of French handiwork – boxes deftly covered with split straws, arranged ingeniously in patterns; models of the guillotine, built of carved meat-bones, and various other pieces of handiwork, amongst them an accurate road-map of the country between Stoneground and Yarmouth, drawn upon a fly-leaf torn from some book, and bearing upon the other side the name of Jules Richepin. The latter had been picked up, according to a pencilled-note written across one corner, by a shepherd, in the year 1811.
The explanation of this French influence is simple enough. Within five miles of Stoneground a large barracks had been erected for the custody of French prisoners during the war with Bonaparte. Many thousands were confined there during the years 1808–14. The prisoners were allowed to sell what articles they could make in the barracks; and many of them, upon their release, settled in the neighbourhood, where their descendants remain. There is little curiosity amongst these descendants about their origin. The events of a century ago seem to them as remote as the Deluge, and as immaterial. To Thomas Richpin, a weakly man who blew the organ in church, Mr Batchel shewed the map. Richpin, with a broad, black-haired skull and a narrow chin which grew a little pointed beard, had always a foreign look about him: Mr Batchel thought it more than possible that he might be descended from the owner of the book, and told him as much upon shewing him the fly-leaf. Thomas, however, was content to observe that “his name hadn’t got no E,” and shewed no further interest in the matter. His interest in it, before we have done with him, will have become very large.
For the growing boys of Stoneground, with whom he was on generally friendly terms, Mr Batchel formed
