THE MYSTERY OF MRS. VEAL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1336, 13 January 1912, Page 9

THE MYSTERY OF MRS. VEAL.

_ Every critic (before Mr. Aitken wroto in 1905) spoke of "A Relation of the Apparition of . Mrs. Veal" as do I'ce's masterpiece in tho art of making tho false seem true, by minute, strokes of. realism and by the introduction of seeming blurs and discrepancies in the narrative. His pamphlet about Mrs. Veal is of 170(1. The register, of the Church of St. Mary's, Dover, records tlio burial of Mrs. Veal on September 10, 1705. Slio had died, says the narrative, on September 7 at Dover, and she appeared to and held a long conversation with her friend Mrs. Bargravo on September S at Canterbury. Mrs. (or rather Miss) Veal was a real person. All' the people in the story were actual human beings, as Mr. Aitkcn's researches demonstrate.

Sir Leslie Stephen delighted in showing that thero was no evidence for the story in the pamphlet, which is told in the first person by a lady.unnamed whodmew Mrs. Bargrave, tho percipient, very intimately. Now, as the people were all actual, de I'oe could not have tho im-, .pudenco to introduce'' oil the characters into a sheer invention of his own. It was possiblo for him, when he had heard tho story, to invent his narrator, the anonymous lady, a friend of Mrs. Bargrave.But I, am not certain that ho himself wrote the wliolo of the storv as it stands. I am not certain that he did not obtain a written narrative by Mrs. Bargrave's l'riend. One reason for deeming this possible is that the story is so very ill told, with digressions and. harkings back, in the manner of irfany ftomen. that one can hardly understand it. Of courso de I'oe may have told his tale so ill to encourage the belief that it was written by a woman unfamiliar with tho pen. On the other hand, ho would have bettered his market had he made the tale easilv intelligible. He say 3 that the paper '"was sent by ft Justice of the Peace at Maidstone to his friend in London, as it is hero worded," and that it is "attested" by a kinswoman of the Justice', a near neighbour and old friend of Mrs Bargrave, who has heard the story from that lady's lips. The woman who "attests" seems to bo the woman who writes the narrative and who has known Mrs. Bargrave for-fifteen or sixteen years.' This would be good evidence that Mrs. lia"gravo told tho story. Rut to that fact we have first-hand, though unsigned, testimony. Mr. Aitken found, in a printed copy of the. tale, dated about 1710, in the British Museum, a long written note in Latin. The writer says that ho interviewed -Mrs, Bargrave on May "1 17].] that slio admitted the truth of the'story) and merely made two'or three corrections in detail, which the annotato'r gives. Tor example, Mrs. Bargravo added Iho naino of a book to those about which slio and Mrs. Veal talked in tho printed narrative; and also added that they spoke of tho persecution of tho Dissenters under Charles 11, Mrs. Veal making a remark, not in the pamphlet, on the virtue of toleration. Unless we call tins Latin note a forgery, Mrs. Bargravo ceitainly told and stood bv her storv of her adventure with the ghost of Mrs. veal., Do l-'oo seems to have added little, if anything, to the narrative scut to London by a Justice of tho Peace -at Maidstone, except perhaps' tho first four lines: "This thin<j is so rare in all its circumstances, ana on so good authority, that my reading and conversation has not given mo anything like it. It is fit to gratify tho most ingenious and serious inquirer." nere the editor stops, and the narrator goes on to describe Mrs. Bargrave, "to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death," a£ "my intimate friend.' Perhaps the last seven lines of tho picce, and some others ill a literary style, are also by the editor, who, having got good "copy," let it stand with all its defects.

It is, in narrative work, an error to begin by saying that some of Mrs. Veal's brother's friends try to laugh tho tale away, before we know what the tale is.

Mrs. Veal was in 1705 a maiden of thirty, who was subject to fits, when her conversation abruptly lost its tenor. Sho kept her brother's house at Dover. Mrs. Bargravc and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, an unprnsperous kind of youth it was. When Mrs. Veal's brother got a place in tho Custom House at Dover (ho l'oso high in that service by 1719), the intimacy of tho ladies ceased! Mrs. Veal was neglectful of her old friend, and for two years and'a half they never met. In September, 1705, Mrs. Bargravo had been absent from Dover for a year, and for tho last two months had lived in Canterbury in her own house. Here, I!I; about 11.-15 a.in. on Septemljcr 8, 1705, Mrs. Bargravo was seated in an armchair sewing. There carno a knock at her door; sho roso and admitted Mrs. Veal "in a riding habit." . Though amazed, anil though sho had cause of offence, Mrs. Bargrave tried to kiss her friend, who evaded the caress. Sho was going on a journey, she said, and had "given her brother tho slip." She also said that her sister and brother-in-law were just come from. London to see her at Dover, yet here sho was in Canterbury. Mrs. Bargravo was amazed, not knowing that Mrs. Veal had died on the previous day, and that her sislcr and brother-in-law had arrived at Dover when she was "in the deid thraw." Mrs. Veal apologised very prettily for having dropped Mrs. Margrave, and (hey talked of old "Sunday books" and old times, Mrs. Veal speaking with much unction ami eloquence. When her fits came on sho was apt to make slranL'e escapes from her previous lino of talk, and now Mrs. thought that a lit v.'as imminent, for Mrs. Veal suddenly asked her lo v-rite to her brother ah:>ul presents of rings to friends, a purse of gold in her cabinet, and a rift of iwo broad pieces to her cousin, lliss

Watson. Mrs. Bargravo took precautions in c;;sp of a fit, and pretended to praiso her gown. 1 fad .she a gown under a riding luibit 1' A'ot to, from another source we learn tliat sho wore "a silk riding-gown." ilrs. Veal said that it was "a scoured silk newly made up." At her request 11 rs. fiat-grave went to bring her daughter from a neighbouring house, ami, returning, met llrs. Veal going out into the street. She said she was going, to her cousin, Mrs. Watson (really her aunt), where sho hopwl again to see Jlrs. Bargravo. Next day (Sunday, September 9) Mrs. Bargravo had a cold and did not leave tho house. On Monday, September 10, sho sent her maid to tho Watsons, who had seen nothing of Mrs. Vcaf. Mrs. liargravo then herself waited on tho Watsons, when Captain Watson, coming in, said that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, "and her escutcheons were making." Why were they making at Canterbury? They were, for Mrs. Bargravo walked to the maker's house and iountl him at work on them. Jlrs. Veal was buried at Dover on this day, September 10; why wore her escutcheons Using made on the same day— at Canterbury? However that is to ba explained, Mrs. Bargrave now told all her story to tho Watsons—tliey, too, are real pMplo—when, at the mention of tho scoured silk, Jlrs. Watson said she had helped Mrs. Veal to tnako it, and only she and Mrs. Veal knew that it was scoured.

The narrator, in a womanly way, now doubles back on her narrative. Sho had forgotten to say that Jlrs. Bargravo offered to Jlrs. Veal the refreshment of tea, which was accepted, and then, like the proffered kiss, was "waived." Yet Jlrs. .Bargravo handled the sleeve of the scoured silk gown _ which Jlrs. Veal wore. It seemed material enough. Moreover, it is added that Jlrs. Veal told Mrs. Bargravo a secret—"Old Mr. iireton" gave her ton pounds annually. This gentleman, Jlr. Aitkcn finds, was Jlr. Robert Breton, of Tho Elms, Dover, who died in 170b; he was not old, but older than his son, then a lad of seventeen. Probably wo have here a talo of love, unreciprocated but beneficent. Jloreover. Jlrs. Ba.rgravie, as soon as Jlrs. Veal loft her on ikptembei 8, went nml told a neighbour of hei pleasant conversation with her long absent friend. Jlr. Veal, of the Custom House, did not like the affair—he did not like making presents of rings ami of two broad piecco —and said that Jlrs. Bargravo had been "crazed" by. the brutality of her husband, and that Jlrs. Veal's purse of gold was not in her cabinet but in a comb-box. Tho ghost of an epileptic lady may have forgotten that circumstance; ami Mrs. Bargrave may have known about Mrs. Breton and the ten pounds. The scoured silk gown is more puzzling So are tho escutcheons. I'ossibly Canterbury, as a cathedral town, had a maker of thoso commodities, while Dover had none. ■ _ It is quite plain that do Foe did not invent the tale; quite plain that Jlvs. bargravo told it and adhered to it. Wo can go no further; Mrs. Bargravo, as aha remarked, got nothing but trouble out of it. \\as it tv caso of a deferred tetepatliic impression from the dying Jlrs Veal?— Andrew Lang, in the "Morning Post.