CHINA
FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT,
JUNE 3, 1938
The Story of Sarah Fletcher
B
HE tragedy of Sarah Fletcher,
To tragedy of Stranthenticat
ed English ghost stories, will ap- peal to those romanticists who, in these days of modernity, possess the courage to acknow- ledge that they are still in love with love.
from the jewelled windows across the church. I listened to the tragedy of a broken heart.
"In the last years of the eigh- teenth century," said Mr. Poyntz, "Sarah Fletcher, and her hus- band, Captain Fletcher (one of the Fletchers of Saltoun), lived at Clifton Hampden-not far from here. Captain Fletcher was in the Navy, and, following the popular traditions of the sea, he was not only inconstant but un- faithful. He actually proposed marriage to
wealthy heiress living woman
distance
The beginning and the end are two graves: the dead beneath are as the poles apart. One of them
Dorchester sleeps in
Abbey Church, the other in a village churchyard in the grey-green breast of the South Downs. The country vicar and the never met in life, and their senti. mental association represents the spiritual side of a romance which brought comfort to 2 gentle ghost, to whom rest and happi- ness were denied.
а
a
some
away, and he was on the point of committing bigamy when Mrs. Fletcher, warned at the last mo- ment, had only just time to reach the church to stop the ceremony,
"It is not difficult to imagine In the summer of 1913 I rented the scene which followed. Cap-
cottage on
of tain Fletcher ran backwater
away, made the Thames, not far from Dor- chester, and one idle afternoon I ancient Abbey went into the Church. As I walked down the centre aisle my attention Was riveted by a plain slab, with this amazing inscription:
Reader!
If thou hast a heart famed for Tenderness and Pity, Contem- plate this Spot, In which are de-
for London, and sailed for the East Indies. The unwedded-bride returned home
her with parents, and Sarah Fletcher drove back to Clifton Hampden and hanged herself in her bed- room, fastening her pocket-hand- kerchief to a piece of cord, which she fixed to the curtain rod of her
posited the Remains of are de A
Lady, whose artless Beauty, In- nocence of Mind, and Gentle Manners, once obtained her the Love and Esteem of all who knew her: But when nerves were too delicately spun to bear the rude Shakes and Jostlings which we meet with in this transitory World, Nature gave way. She sunk and died, a Martyr to Ex- cessive Sensibility.
Mrs. Sarah Fletcher, wife of Captain Fletcher, departed this life at the Village of Clifton on the 7th of June, 1799, in the 29th year of her age.
May her soul meet that Peace, in Heaven, which this earth denied her.
**
was
í
* ** Who
Sarah Fletcher? What was her story? As if in an- swer to my question the dust of a hundred odd years blew against my face.
"Are you interested in our my- sterious epitaph ?"
Turning in the direction of the voice, I saw someone who might easily have been the living coun- .
Short Story
terpart of the Black Bishop of Polchester Cathedral. “My name is Poyntz," said the Black-Bishop. "and I am the Vicar of Dorches-. ter: I wonder whether you would care to hear how Sarah Fletcher died?"
"As the epitaph saya-a Martyr. to Excessive Sensibility 7"
it was a private school for boys, kept by his parents. "I'll write to him at once," said my friend, "and he can get in touch with you in London in the meantime use a little tact, and try to get a glimpse of the house for your- self."
I took Mr.
Poyntz's advice, but I must confess I was disappointed when I first saw the solid uninteresting Georgian mansion, three storeys in height, with a flat-leaded roof, whence previous occupiers had looked down upon the country through a network of trees.
* **
Once admitted, the sense of familiarity with the dead became intensified, and, as I waited for someone to take me to the matron, I distinctly saw a woman wear- ing a black cloak looking at me in the shadows of a passage way. Her white face and anguished eyes
crowned with a
curls tangle of auburn
inter- twined with a coloured ribbon. Then "it" disappeared, and, feel- ing a thorough fraud, I inter- viewed the matron as one solely interested in the welfare of girls.
were
A Real Life Ghost Story
bedstead. A pitiful story, isn't it?"
"Yes-a very pitiful story-but where did she live? I am 'drawn' to Sarah Fletcher, it's just as if I'd always known her. I felt this when I saw her grave."
"The house has always had the reputation of being haunted," said Mr. Poyntz, "but, as it is now some kind of an institution, per- haps poor Sarah's ghost no longer revisits it. However, I will ask the owner of the property to al- low you to look over-the-place, and, at the same time, he may be able to give you further parti- culars about Sarah Fletcher."
During the rest of that day, and most of the ensuing ones, I was obsessed with Sarah Fletch- er. I asked myself what had be- come of the innermost flame that burns when all else is ashes. Surely it existed somewhere to- day. I knew I had not heard the end of the story, even when the Black Bishop told me that we were up against a dead wall, as
By Maude M.C. Ffoulkes
the owner of the house dis- approved of my · supernatural・ yearnings, and refused to help me to investigate the forgotten tragedy. Mr. Poyntz was frankly angry at what he called "chur lishness"-then-an idea struck him, and he exclaimed:
"The very thing! Why didn't it “Yes, and no, ... Sarah Flet- strike me before? I had complete- cher took her own life, but let'sly forgotten Edward: Crake." He sit down, and I will tell you, the whole story?
So, sitting in one of the ancient pewa,
with the afternoon sun- light sending arrows of lights
explained that a friend of his, the Rev. Edward Crake, now East- Vicar of Javington, near bourne, had-lived for many years
in Sarah Fletcher's house, when
not ghosts. But although I put forth various "feelers," I could
get no informe about the
supernatural:
"Yes". there were noises- but there were always noises in old houses.”
"Wasn't there some story about the place?"
"Yes, she seemed to remember, something." However, brightly, "one has so much to do, that local gossip doesn't possess any inter- est for me."
After the front-door-closed-be- hind me, I stood in the old car- riage-way down which Sarah Fletcher had driven in haste on the morning when she discovered her husband's infidelity, and down which she was carried to her last resting place in Dor-. chester Abbey Church. It was a strangely deserted environment, although to-day youth pulsated inside the house of so many sor- rows. All around me was the bitter scent of evergreens, and no flowers flaunted their beauty against the burning blue of an August sky. Here existed one of those pyschic mysteries that nei- ther science nor religion are able to explain.
***
*
I described my impressions to Mr. Poyntz. "Do you believe in ghosta?” I said..
was in the first stages of mortal illness.
Back in London, I waited in patience for news from Jeving- ton. Mr. Crake suggested lunch in town. "Afterwards we can dis- cuss the matter which interests us both so deeply." In this way I discovered
about. the truth Sarah Fletcher, and heard the between story of the romance the Quick and the Dead.
1
On the surface my new friend was the typical country parson, a quiet, unassuming man, pos- sessed of a certain personality, although he was the last person whom one would have suspected of indulging in flights of senti- mental imagination. I discovered, however, that Mr. Crake did not imagine things, he merely de- scribed what he had seen, and felt to be true. As we sat in my drawing-room at Berkeley Cot- vicar's tage I listened to the story.
"My father was a schoolmas- · ter," said Mr. Crake, "and when I was ten years old his school outgrew the accommodation of the house in which we lived.. So a friend, the non-resident lessee of a large house some eight miles away made him, an offer of the house at Clifton Hampden at the surprisingly low rental of twenty pounds, a year.
"Owing to its eerie reputation the property had been neglected for years: the gardens were a wilderness, the stables and out- buildings in a ruinous condition, and the approach a damp, muddy lane often flooded in winter. The house in itself was sound, its walls were very thick, and my father took possession in the face of assertions on every side that we should not stop there more than six months.
"Seven years passed, and I had arrived-at-the-impressionäble-age of seventeen. I was a healthy normal boy, and, as my father had strictly forbidden any gossip likely to prejudice the school, I knew nothing about the tragedy of Sarah Fletcher, until the night when she made her presence. known, and let me frankly con- fess it-I fell in love with her. I have been blest in my marriage, Mrs. Ffoulkes, no man more so, but the memory of the other re- mains in the secret chamber of where it will exist my heart till I die just as Sarah's per-. sonality will never leave the place where she lived out her life.
...
"One moonlight night I lay awake in my bedroom, which opened out of a large room known as The Lower Room, when I heard steps, which awakened sub- conscious recollections, descend- "My answer shall be that ofing the stairs. The door opened, Mme. du Deffand-No; but I am, afraid of them. However, Ed- ward Crake is unshaken in the reality of his supernatural ex- periences and what he does not know about Sarah Fletcher is not worth knowing."...
.
A week afterwards I gave up the tenancy of my cottage, and said good-bye to the genial Black Bishop. Little did I think when he wished me well, and blessed me in my undertakings, that I should not meet him again on this side of Eternity. Even then he
and the unseen walker entered- hesitated, and went out again. lay curious, and speculative, un- til the sound of the church clock striking three set the air aquiver but, as I heard nothing more, turned over and went to sleep. "The next night the same thing happened, and I felt there must be something uncommon about these footsteps, so I determined to lie in bed with my door open. on the following night and see for myself what or who came (Continued on Page 6)