DEATH REVEALS SECRET.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17585, 26 March 1929, Page 7

DEATH REVEALS SECRET.

"BACHELOR FARMER.'' HARRIED HAN FOR MANY YEARS By the death of an old farmer in a Herefordshire village a romantic secret has been brought to light. Always regarded bv bis neighbours as a confirmed bachelor, Mr. John Davies, 84. of Harden Court, near Hereford, had actually been married 33 years when ho died. His wife was formerly Hiss Jenkins and sho went mto his service as housekeeper 37 years ago, when he was about 25 years of age. About four years later Mr. Davies proposed marriage, but where the ceremonv was performed is even now a secret. Mr. Davies never gave a hint of the fact that his housekeeper who was still known as Mis s Jenkins was, in reality, his wife. Whenever he referred to her he always spoke of her as. his housekeeper, and whenever Miss Jenkins addressed her husband she always called him Mr. Davies. They had lived' in the larger house bv themselves without a servant. The first hint of a mystery was given on the day of Mr. Davies' death, when Miss Jenkins told a neighbour who was called in that there would be a surprise for everybody to talk about the next day. When* her husband's relatives arrived she produced the marriage certificate. So far as the inhabitants generally were concerned the surprise did not come until the'day of the funeral, when a wreath "from his sorrowing wife" led to much speculation, and gradually the story of the secret wedding became known. Explaining why the marriage > was not made public the widow remarked, 'Ton know what village cant is. We did not want any of it, so our marriage 30 years ago remained a secret, and I was content to remain Miss Jenkins to people outside. lam not going to say where the wedding took place, because it has got nothing to do with anybody. There was a private reason why we did not let the marriage be known, but that is a matter entirely between ourselves. We lived happily together. We have gone our own way and left other people to go theirs.""'

Mrs. Davies added*"that Mr. Davies had always made it plain that he did not wish the marriage to lemain a secret for ever. "Whatever you do," ho had said to her, "don't let things go on so that you will be buried under a wrong name." She denied that she was the executrix under the Avill, adding that two nephews of Mr. Davies were the executors. Provision had been made for her, but she would gain nothing financially by dis_closing the fact tha she was Mrs. Davies. "We have spent our time quietly," she remarked, ' "and the fact that we have not made a fuss about it is no business of anybody else."