Have His Carcase

wouldn’t be about in that meadow much, no, nor yet the men, on account of it’s lying a long way from the rest of his land (interminable historical detail dealing with the distribution of tenancies and glebe round about that district, in which Harriet became completely lost), nor they wouldn’t need to, not to water the horses, on account of the stream (lengthy and rather disputatious account, to which Jem contributed, of the original course of the stream in Jem’s grandfather’s time, before Mr Grenfell made the pond over to Drake’s Spinney), and it wasn’t Mr Newcombe neither that see the mare running wild Friday morning, but Bessie Turvey’s youngest, and he came and told Jem’s uncle George and him and another of them got her in and tarrible lame she were, but Mr Newcombe, he did ought to have mended that gap before (prolonged recital of humorous anecdote, ending ‘and lord! how Old Parson did laugh, to be zhure!).’

After which, the explorers drove back in state to Wilvercombe, to hear that the body had not turned up yet, but that Inspector Umpelty had a pretty good idea where it might be. And dinner. And dancing. And so to bed.

Chapter XVII. The Evidence Of The Money

‘O ho! here’s royal booty, on my soul:

A draught of ducats!’

— Fragment

Wednesday 24 June

FAITHFUL to her self-imposed duty, Harriet next morning sought out Mrs Weldon. It was not altogether easy to get rid of Henry, whose filial affection seemed positively to tie him to his mother’s apron-strings. A happy thought made Harriet suggest that she and Mrs Weldon might go and see what the Resplendent could do for them in the way of a Turkish bath. This was checkmate for Henry. He took himself off, murmuring that he would go and have a haircut.

In the mood of relaxation and confidence that follows on being parboiled, it was easy enough to pump Mrs Weldon. A little diplomacy was needed, so as not to betray the ulterior object of the inquiry, but no detective could have had a more unsuspecting victim. The matter proved to be very much as Harriet had supposed.

Mrs Weldon was the only daughter of a wealthy brewer, who had left her a very considerable fortune in her own right. Her parents having died when she was a child, she had been brought up by a strict Noncomformist aunt in the little town of St Ives in Huntingdonshire. She had been courted by a certain George Weldon, a prosperous farmer owning a considerable property at Leamhurst in the Isle of Ely, and had married him at eighteen, chiefly in order to get away from the aunt. That rigid lady had not altogether opposed the marriage, which was reasonably suitable, though not brilliant; but she had shown sufficient business ability to insist that her niece’s money should be tied up in such a manner that Weldon could not touch the capital. Weldon, to do him justice, had made no objection to this. He seemed to have been, a perfectly honest, sober and industrious man, farming his land thriftily and well and having, so far as Harriet could make out, no drawbacks beyond a certain lack of imagination in matrimonial matters.

Henry was the only child of the marriage, and had been brought up from the beginning with the idea that he was to follow in his father’s footsteps, and here again, Weldon senior took a very proper view of the matter. He would not have the boy brought up in idleness, or to ideas beyond his proper’ station in life. He was a farmer’s son, and a farmer he should be, though, Mrs Weldon herself had often pleaded that the boy should be brought up to one of the professions. But old Weldon was adamant, and indeed Mrs Weldon was obliged to admit that he had very likely been right after all. Henry showed no special aptitude for, anything but the open-air life of the farm; the trouble was that he. did not apply himself even to that as well, as he should have done, and was inclined to run after girls and race-meetings, leaving his work to be done by his father and the farmhands. Already, before the elder Weldon’s death, there had been a good deal of antagonism between Henry and his mother, and this became intensified later on.