A Maggot - John Fowles (13 page)

A. I must bow to your greater experience. I can
advance no further possibility.

Q. Never mind, sir. You have assisted me more than
you may know. As I informed you in our preliminaries, I am not at
liberty to reveal the name of the person at whose behest I prosecute
these enquiries. But I will tell you, in the confidence that I may
rely on your utmost discretion, that it is the fate of he who called
himself Mr Bartholomew that is my concern.

A. I am most sensible of your trust, sir. If I do not
violate delicacy, may I ask if the younger gentleman were not of
noble family?

Q. I can say no more, Mr Beckford. I act upon the
strictest instructions. So far as the world is concerned the person
in question is engaged upon a voyage in France and Italy. Such indeed
was his declared intention before his departure from London.

A. I must beg leave to admire that you know so little
of his companion.

Q. Because with one exception, sir, videlicet the
dead man, those who came with him here were not those he had engaged
for his supposed voyage. Where he found these, we do not know. Since
he was secret in all and hid his own true name, we must suppose he
also had them to hide theirs. It is to this that you owe the tedious
imposition of my questions. You perceive my task is no small one.

A. I do indeed, Mr Ayscough.

Q. I leave tomorrow to pursue my quarry elsewhere.
But I shall greatly esteem it, should you chance to hear of any
further information in the affair, that you will at once communicate
it to me at Lincoln's Inn. Rest assured that I will see to it that
your good offices do not go unnoticed.

A. There is nothing, sir, I would not do to oblige a
deceived parent, and especially were he of noble birth.

Q. I shall find the bottom to this, Mr Beckford. I
work slow, but I sift small. What heresy is to gentlemen of your
cloth, subterfuge and deceit are to those of mine. I will not suffer
them in my parish, sir. I'll not rest till all's laid bare.

A. Amen to that, sir. May Heaven concur in granting
us both our prayers.
 

Jurat die tricesimo et uno Jul.
anno
supradicto coram me

Henry Ayscough

* * *

Barnstaple, the 4th Augt.

Your Grace,

Would that it were not my unhappy duty to inform Your
Grace that my journey west has met with success in the least, but
defeat in the greatest matter. Non est inventus. But since it was Yr
Grace's most express command that he should be spared nothing of what
I might find, I must obey.

The testimonies I enclose for Your Grace's perusal
will I doubt not lead him to conclude that of the true person of Mr
Bartholomew there can be no room for mistake; and most particularly
when it is grounded not solely (which Yr Grace may consider
sufficient in itself) upon the portrait entrusted to me, but the
particular circumstance of a servant without speech or hearing,
moreover according in all other report of appearance and manner. I
have not troubled Yr Grace with some several further testimonies I
have sought and undertaken, since they but largely repeat what is
here sent. Dr Pettigrew, the Coroner, has affirmed all within his
cognizance and recollection; and I have spoke also with his clerk,
who rode out upon the first report, the doctor (who is aged) being
indisposed when it fell.

I must beseech Your Grace (and his august consort, to
whom I beg leave to present my humblest compliments) not to take the
discovery of Thurlow's end at prima facie seeming, that is, as
certain proof of some far greater tragedy. Those who would place such
burden upon it are ignorant, fearful people, more apt (omne ignotum
pro magnifico est) for the most part to see the Devil's hand in all
than to weigh with reason. Their hypothesis requires a body, and here
we have none; neither the noble person of such interest to Yr Graces,
nor those of his three unknown companions on his journey.

More to the purpose I have had searched by two dozen
sharpeyed fellows, well-versed in loco and under promise of good
reward, all that place where the chest was found. Not a bush, not an
inch, was not searched again, and over a much wider extent; idem,
where Thurlow was found, and all about, and as closely, may assure Yr
Grace that auspicium melioris aevi a blank covert was drawn in every
quarter. In all of this Yr Grace may likewise be assured that the
discretion he enjoined has been most scrupulously observed. When need
hath driven, I have declared myself Mercury to Jupiter, steward to
one who reaches far; and given no clew whatsoever as to his most
eminent rank. To Dr Pettigrew alone I have told near truth, that this
is no common case of disappearance; he is a worthy gentleman, of
strictest principle, and may be trusted.

Yr Grace once did me the honour of saying he placed
as great trust upon my nose as upon that of his favourite hound; if
he will still credit that oracular appendage, it tells me that he
whom search both lives and breathes, and shall be found; tho' I
cannot deny the purpose of his presence in this county is most
difficult I unfold, and I have yet, lacking all scent to it, no
opinion thereon. The pretext given, 'tis clear, was ad captandum
vulgum, powder I blind other eyes; yet neither can I conceive what
might have drawn his Lordship, so contrary to all his tastes and
proclivities, into this dull and barbarous western land. There where
his footsteps were last seen is not unlike some of Yr Grace's ruder
an more bosky dales, tho' less elevated in their heights, and more
tree'd than bemoored (save where 'tis pasture for sheep), an unless
it be upon a great filthy barren hill named Ex-moo whence the river
Exe takes its source, that lies some few miles t the north. All here
is at this present the more displeasing for this last month's
continued rains, that is said out of living memory, and hath done
much damage to hay and growing corn alike, and buildings beside.
('Tis said in sad jest that it matters not so many mills be ruined,
for there will be no corn for grindstones, smut and the mildew being
in league to take all first.)

The common people are more secret than ours, their
language most obscure and uncouth. They know not the pronominal nor
its conjugation, speaking of he and she indifferently as her (aitchum
non amant), of we as us, all f's grow v's: 'tis a most foul-ravelled
Boeotian, the which my clerk hath endeavoured to spare Yr Grace the
expression of, for his quicker comprehension. Nor is there person of
education at the miserable place where last his Lordship lodged,
beyond Mr Beckford. I doubt not, that gentleman would be as high a
Tory as ever Sacheverell was, were not all bishops Whigs. He'd turn
Mahometan tomorrow, to gain a better living.

I trust Yr Grace will accept my belief that little
remains to be discovered in these parts. My further inquisitions both
at Bideford and in this town whence I have the honour to address Yr
Grace have met no more success than those of Dr Pettigrew. Yet must I
now deem it certain his Lordship was here, upon ends unknown. There
is none of his Lordship's acquaintance that I inquired upon before
proceeding here to account for the pretended uncle and his man. Nor,
as Yr Grace will recall, did I then discover suspicion or noise of
any clandestine and illicit attachment on his Lordship's part, that
might explain the maid. Even were it so, and her outward seeming mask
upon a lady, I cannot suppose that the scandal of such an elopement
would not by now have been cried about; nor, non obstante such being
the case, understand why their flight should not have been straight
to Dover or some place more contiguous for France, rather than to
these most disconvenient (for the purpose) parts.

In truth I remain at a loss to suggest to Yr Grace
what need his Lordship had for these three superadded persons in his
train. It is to be presumed that to travel alone with his man had
best suited the secrecy of his intent. I can but surmise that he
deemed a party of five, in which he played a subordinate part to the
supposed uncle, more favourable to throw off pursuit, if such for
some reason were feared. 'Tis possible this coming to Devon is no
more than a hare's double, if Yr Grace will pardon the expression.
Both Bideford and Barnstaple have frequent trade with Wales and
Ireland, some also with France, Portugal and Cadiz, this last grown
greater since the new peace. I have inquired and no

French-bound ship sailed (though several for
Newfoundland and New England, for this is the favoured season) from
either place in the first two weeks of May. Yet must I count such
round-about to refuge little probable.

Your Grace knows better than I the attachment between
his Lordship and Thurlow. I have considered much on this, that is, on
the great improbability of such a fond master provoking the ghastly
deed; or at the least, it once done, not making enquiry upon the
loss. I can account for it but by supposing his Lordship obliged for
some reason to turn Thurlow off and to continue his travels alone,
and that (it may be) the man in his natural deficiencies imperfectly
understood his Lordship's reasons, and so took his life in despair,
after his Lordship had departed from him. But I will weary Yr Grace
no further with such conjecture.

Your Grace will doubtless mark the testimony of the
serving-girl. 'Tis evident that his Lordship brought papers and an
instrument of his favoured study upon his journey, an encumbrance
little consonant with an elopement or sentimental assignation. I
thought therefore also to inquire whether any curiosi of the
mathematick or astronomick sciences resided in this neighbourhood.
Through Dr Pettigrew's good offices I attended on one such at
Barnstaple, Mr Samuel Day, a gentleman of private fortune, and
amateur of the natural sciences, concerning which he has communicated
with the Royal Society and Sir H. Sloane, among others. But to my
particular inquiries he could answer nothing of import; nor could
think of any study only to be satisfied by observation in this
neighbourhood; nor knew, closer than Bristol, of any other such as he
that a London virtuoso might wish to seek out. I fear that there too
Yr Grace's servant found himself left in tenebris. Even should such a
matter be the primum mobile of his Lordship's journey, I own I cannot
conceive why it should, with so harmless a purpose, have been thus
conducted.

I did also, likewise upon advice of Dr Pettigrew,
call but yesterday upon one Mr Robert Luck, that is master of the
grammar school here and accounted a learned scholar, and good gossip
besides. 'Twas he who taught the late Mr Gay his letters, of which

he remains inordinate proud, and inordinate blind to
all that is seditious in this his ancient pupil's work. He did press
upon me a copy of Gay's eclogues, that were imprinted these twenty
years past under the title of the Shepherd's Week, and that Mr L.
doth maintain to be a most truthful portrait of this northern part of
Devon; and likewise was pressed upon me by this rhyming pedagogue a
copy of some verses by himself, that is new published by Cave and he
says has been noticed in his magazine; both which volumes I dispatch
with this for Yr Grace's eyes, should he deign to bend them to such
paltry stuff. As to my inquiry, Mr Luck proved ill luck; like in all
else, he could say nothing to the point.

Tomorrow I shall for Taunton, and there take coach
without delay for London, to prosecute a suspicion I have gained. Yr
Grace will, I trust, forgive me for not here and now expatiating upon
it, since I am in haste not to delay the expedition of this packet,
which I might wish a veritable winged Mercury to bear to Yr Grace's
hands, for I know with what expectation it is attended; nor would my
respect for Yr Grace dare risk raising hopes upon too small a ground.
Should such ground prove larger, it shall at once be communicated. Yr
Grace knows me well enough, I trust, to believe that quo fata
trahunt, sequamur, and with that every diligence which Yr Grace's
past favours have lain as a hallowed duty upon ever his most humble
and obedient servant,

Henry Ayscough

Post-scriptum. Mr Luck did impart to me news fresh
arrived from London of the most disgraceful verdict at Edinburgh
against Captain Porteous, and the riotings of the mob but a week
since at Shoreditch, the both which I know will alarm Yr Grace. 'Tis
thought here the mobility is consequent upon the Gin Act, that all
resent. H.A.

Historical
Chronicle July 1736

* * *

THE MAN IN the dove-grey suit and discreetly flowered
waistcoat stretched over an incipient belly, with the heavy brows,
the wart on the side of his nose, the rather too studiedly imposing
carriage, stands with his walking-cane in the doorway of the
woodpanelled chamber in Lincoln's Inn. One wall of it is mostly taken
up with cased tomes of precedent, rolls and parchments; before the
cases stands a tall writing-desk and stool, a sheaf of paper and
writing materials neatly laid ready upon it. Opposite gleams a marble
mantelpiece on which sits a bust of Cicero. This is flanked by silver
candlesticks, not in present use; nor is the fire-grate below. A
morning sunlight shafts the room's warm peace from its south-facing
windows ... which give, at a little distance, upon a wall of still
green leaves. From somewhere outside, since an upper sash is down,
there sounds the faint yet melodious voice of a woman crying first
pearmains (for it is their season); but in the room, silence.