It was a well-rounded and comely face, with shrewd eyes and a sensitive mouth. The face of a man of affairs, and a good fellow, with just that saving touch of sensuality about it which makes an expression human and lovable. Underneath was printed -
SAMUEL PEPYS Erected by public subscription 1883.
'Oh, isn't he nice?' said Maude.
'He's not a bad-looking chap, is he?'
'I don't believe that man ever could have struck his wife or kicked the maid.'
'That's calling him a liar.'
'Oh dear, I forgot that he said so himself. Then I suppose he must have done it. What a pity it seems.'
'Cheer up! We must say what the old heathen lady said when they read the gospels to her.'
'What did she say?'
'She said, "Well, it was a long time ago, and we'll hope that it wasn't true!"'
'O Frank, how can you tell such stories in a church. Do you really suppose that Mr. Pepys is in that wall?'
'I presume that the monument marks the grave.'
'There's a little bit of plaster loose. Do you think I might take it?'
'It isn't quite the thing.'
'But it can't matter, and it isn't wrong, and we are quite alone.' She picked off the little flake of plaster, and her heart sprang into her mouth as she did so, for there came an indignant snort from her very elbow, and there was a queer little smoke-dried, black-dressed person who seemed to have risen, like the Eastern genii or a modern genius, in a single instant. A pair of black list slippers explained the silence of his approach.
'Put that back, young lady,' said he severely.
Poor Maude held out her guilty relic on the palm of her hand. 'I am so sorry,' said she. 'I am afraid I cannot put it back.'
'We'll 'ave the 'ole church picked to pieces at this rate,' said the clerk. 'You shouldn't 'ave done it, and it was very wrong.' He snorted and shook his head.
'It's of no consequence,' said Frank. 'The plaster was hanging, and must have fallen in any case. Don't make a fuss about a trifle.'
The clerk looked at the young gentleman and saw defiance in one of his eyes and half a crown in the other.
'Well, well!' he grumbled. 'It shows as the young lady takes an interest, and that's more than most. Why, sir, if you'll believe me, there's not one in a hundred that comes to this church that ever 'eard of Pepys. "Pepys!" says they. "'Oo's Pepys?" "The Diarist," says I. "Diarist!" says they, "wot's a Diarist?" I could sit down sometimes an' cry. But maybe, miss, you thought as you were picking that plaster off 'is grave?'
'Yes, I thought so.'
The clerk chuckled.
'Well, it ain't so. I'll tell you where 'e really lies, if you'll promise you won't pick another chunk off that. Well, then, it's there--beside the communion. I saw 'im lyin' there with these very eyes, and 'is wife in the coffin beneath 'im.'
'You saw him?'
'Yes, sir, I saw 'im, an' that's more than any livin' man could say, for there were only four of us, and the other three are as dead as Pepys by now.'
'Oh do tell us about it!' cried Maude.
'Well, it was like this, miss. We 'ad to examine to see 'ow much room there was down there, and so we came upon them.'
'And what did you see?'
'Well, miss, 'is coffin lay above, and 'is wife's below, as might be expected, seeing that she died thirty years or so before 'im. The coffins was very much broken, an' we could see 'im as clear us I can see you. When we first looked in I saw 'im lying quite plain--a short thick figure of a man--with 'is 'ands across 'is chest. And then, just as we looked at 'im, 'e crumbled in, as you might say, across 'is breast bone, an' just quietly settled down into a 'uddle of dust. It's a way they 'as when the fresh air strikes 'em. An' she the same, an' 'is dust just fell through the chinks o' the wood and mixed itself with 'ers.'
'O Frank!' Maude's ready tears sprang to her eyes. She put her hand upon her husband's and was surprised to find how cold it was. Women never realise that the male sex is the more sensitive. He had not said, 'O Maude!' because he could not.