The Perfect World: A romance of strange people and strange places

An English summer! The birds sang merrily, and the trees bowed their heads, keeping time with the melody. The breeze whispered its accompaniment, and all the glades and woods were happy.

Marshfielden was, perhaps, one of the prettiest villages in Derbyshire. Nestling among the peaks of that lovely county, its surroundings were most picturesque. Its straggling street, for it had but one, was unspoiled by tripper or tourist, for its charms were unknown to the outside world. The road was cobbled, and boasted of no pavement, and long gardens, shining with marigolds and nasturtiums, reached down to each side of it, forming frames to the pretty, irregular little cottages with their gables and latticed windows.

The little church at the top of the street finished the picture. It was very tiny, holding only about one hundred and fifty people; but with its ivy-covered towers, and picturesque little graveyard, the vicar was a lucky man to have charge of such a place. Unmarried and friendless he had come to Marshfielden forty years before, and had lodged with Mrs. Skeet, the cobbler’s wife. Still he remained, having grown old in the service of his people.

It was a well-known fact, that “our vicar” as Mr. Winthrop was called, had during all that time never left the precincts of the parish. Children had grown up and gone away married; old people had died; but still Mr. Winthrop went on in his kind, fatherly manner, advising those who sought the benefit of his wisdom, helping those who needed his aid, and still living in the little rooms he had rented when first he came to Marshfielden, a stranger.

Marshfielden was about seven miles off the main road. As they would have to reach it by narrow lanes and rutted roads, motorists never came its way, and it retained its old-world simplicity.

Two miles to the south was a coal mine, in which most of the villagers toiled. It was quite an unimportant one, and not very deep, but it gave employment to all the natives who needed work. Strange as it seems, however, by an unwritten law, not one of the villagers entered Marshfielden in his collier dirt or collier garb. Every one of the men changed his clothes at “Grimland” as the mine district was called, and washed away the coal dust and dirt; so in the evening, when they made their way in a body to their homes, they returned as fresh and clean as they had left them in the morning.

It was, therefore, an ideal place to live in and as old Mr. Winthrop walked down the uneven street, his eyes dimmed and his thoughts were tender as he acknowledged first one, then another of his flock.

He stopped at the gate of a pretty, white cottage with a well kept garden full of sweet-smelling flowers, and greeted the woman who stood at the gate.

She was quite young and pretty, and maternal love and pride glowed in her face as she gently crooned over the sleeping babe at her breast.

“And how’s Jimmy, Mrs. Slater?” he asked.

“Very well indeed, sir, thank you.”

“And you—how are you feeling?”

“Quite all right again, now, sir.”

“That’s right. And your husband?”

“Yes, sir, he’s had a rise at the mine.”

Mr. Winthrop smiled and was about to pass on, when he noticed an underlying current of excitement in the woman’s manner. He looked at her curiously.

“What is the matter, Mrs. Slater?” he asked.

“Have you heard the news, sir?”

“No. What news?”

“I be agoin’ to have lodgers.”

“Really?”

“Well I heard only last night, sir. Bill—he came home and said as ’ow Mr. Dickson, the manager at the mine, had heard from Sir John Forsyth—”

“The new owner of Grimland?” queried Mr. Winthrop.

“Yes, sir. Well, he said as ’ow Sir John wanted both his nephews to go to the mine and learn the practical working of it—and Mr. Dickson was to find them rooms near by.”

“Well?”

“Well, Mr. Dickson knows as ’ow my ’ome is clean—” and Mrs. Slater looked around her little cottage with an air of pride.

“And ’e asks Bill if I would take them.”

“And so you are going to?”

The woman looked round her fearfully. “I’ve a spare bedroom, sir, which I’ve cleaned up, and they can have my parlour. But fancy, sir, two strangers in Marshfielden!”

“It will liven things up,” remarked the vicar “we’ve never had strangers to live here since I came—now over forty years ago.”

“No, sir, nor before that,” went on the woman in a low tone. “My grandmother used to speak of two ladies who came to Marshfielden when she was a little girl. Artists they were, and strangers. The clergyman’s wife put them up—and—and—”

“Yes?” urged Mr. Winthrop gently.

“Well, sir, they were both found dead one day, stiff and cold, sir, outside the ruins of the Priory. They had been painting, and their easels were left standing—but they were dead.”

“What has that to do with the case?” asked the vicar with a little smile.

“Don’t you see, sir,” she went on quickly, the same half-scared look coming into her eyes, “that was the ‘Curse’ that caused those mishaps, and I am afraid the ‘Curse’ will be on the two young gentlemen, too.”

“Nonsense,” laughed Mr. Winthrop, “You don’t really believe that the ‘Marshfielden Curse’ as you people call it, had anything to do with the deaths of those two lady artists that occurred over fifty years ago?”

“Indeed I do, sir,” averred the woman. “Why ever since the Priory was dismantled by Henry the Eighth, the ‘Curse’ has been on this place. That wasn’t the only case, sir. There are records of many others—but that was the last.”

“Let me see,” began the vicar, “It’s so long since I even heard it mentioned, that I’ve forgotten what it was.”

The woman’s face contracted as if she was afraid of something, she knew not what, but of something mystic, intangible, uncanny—and she repeated slowly:

When the eighth Henry fair Marshfielden’s monastery took, Its priory as a palace, its vast income to his privy purse,— The outcast prior solemnly, by candle, bell and book Upon this place for ever laid this interdict and curse: