Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
Also I told her that although after her varied experiences in the past, life at Fulcombe, if we could ever get there, might be a little monotonous, still it would not be entirely devoid of interest." "You mean Christmas decorations and that sort of thing?" "Yes, and choir treats and entertaining Deputations and attending other Church activities." "Well, and what did she say, Bastin?"
It went straight to the point, saying that he, Bastin, had seen in a Church paper that the last incumbent had resigned the living of Fulcombe which was in my gift. He would therefore be obliged if I would give it to him as the place he was at in Yorkshire did not suit his wife's health. Here I may state that afterwards I learned that what did not suit Mrs. Bastin was the organist, who was pretty.
Good-bye for a little while; only for a little while, my own, my own!" Then she died. And for a time I too seemed to die, but could not. I buried her and the child here at Fulcombe; or rather I buried their ashes since I could not endure that her beloved body should see corruption.
Now as it happened the man who succeeded my father as vicar of Fulcombe was given a better living and went away shortly after I had purchased the place and with it the advowson. Just at this time also I received a letter written in the large, sprawling hand of Bastin from whom I had not heard for years.
To make the most of it and to be sure that it remained, I invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per cent which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value. Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to think no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the Fulcombe property.
I pointed out that, owing to its popularity amongst seaside visitors, the neighbourhood of Fulcombe was a rising one, and that although there were doctors in it, there was no really first-class surgeon for miles. Now Bickley was a first-class surgeon, having held very high hospital appointments, and indeed still holding them. Why, I asked, should he not come and set up here on his own?
Such is Fulcombe where I live, though for obvious reasons I do not give it its real name. Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place with which our family is said to have some rather vague hereditary connection.
Yet it became engrained in me, as do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate.
"They might be numbered under water as well as above it," muttered Bickley, "and I feel sure that on your own showing, you would be as valuable dead as alive." "What I seem to feel," went on Bastin, "is that I have work to my hand here. Also, the locum tenens at Fulcombe no doubt runs the parish as well as I could. Indeed I consider him a better man for the place than I am.
Finally he informed me that as he had to christen a sick baby five miles away on a certain moor and it was too wet for him to ride his bicycle, he must stop. And he stopped. There was, however, a P.S. to the letter, which ran as follows: "Someone told me that you were dead a few years ago, and of course it may be another man of the same name who owns Fulcombe.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking