B008O6ZWTG EBOK

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “Ah!” said the Dean with relief. “I shall be glad to have your opinion on this point. That somewhat pompous individual who visited us from London was a heart specialist, I believe. How long have I got? Three months? Four months? I have much work on hand of one sort or another and should like specific information.”

  “I cannot tell you, Mr. Dean.”

  “Are you hedging, Jenkins?”

  “No. You are seriously ill. How long you will live will depend on how faithfully you carry out my instructions.”

  “Which are?”

  “The diet I have already given you. Plenty of rest. The avoidance of all undue exertion. No hills, no country walks such as I understand you attempted on the day of that thunderstorm. Mental and emotional strain should also be avoided. If you fight such another battle for the demolition of the North Gate slums as you fought before, it will kill you.”

  “Would you consider it advisable that I should tender my resignation as Dean of this Cathedral city?” asked the Dean mildly.

  A curious panic rose in Doctor Jenkins. He fought it down and replied slowly, “Speaking as your doctor I should say, yes, most certainly you should. Speaking as a man I would like to say that it is hard to imagine the city without you.”

  He had dropped his voice and the Dean was not quite sure he had heard aright. Could he have heard that? “Thank you, Doctor Jenkins,” he said. “I am much obliged to you for your advice.”

  “And you will take it, I trust. It is advice not lightly given.”

  “Much obliged. There is just one further point. You will remember that at the commencement of this illness I had your promise that you would make light of it to Mrs. Ayscough. I hope you will continue to do so. You know her delicacy. She must be spared all anxiety.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. I trust Mrs. Jenkins is well?”

  “I am glad to say she is in tolerable health. I will call again tomorrow, Mr. Dean.” He looked meaningly at the papers on the counterpane. “And I shall hope to find you reading Boswell.”

  “At what time will you call tomorrow?” asked the Dean.

  “At about the same time.”

  “I am much obliged to you for the information,” said the Dean suavely. “Much obliged. Good day.”

  When he was alone he remained for some while as quietly relaxed as even Doctor Jenkins could have wished. He was so still within the shadows of his four-poster that he might have been carved out of wood. His first reaction was the same joy that he had felt when he had been taken ill upon the steps. Was it a sin in him that he should feel so thankful? He hoped not. Old people were surely allowed to be glad if they could get to the end in a manner that would not impose too great a burden upon others. Only God knew how he had dreaded being a burden to Elaine. If he could get the building scheme well started and see Albert Lee going around the villages with his spanking pony and cart, if he could see all the children happy and Isaac possessed of a faith in God as strong as his own, and if he could just get his book finished, he would feel his work was done. There would be no more for him to do. Then he checked himself, for such a manner of thought was a presumptuous bargaining with God. Who was he that he should think himself necessary to any piece of work, to any living soul, even for a short while? Surely by this time he knew his own worthlessness. Looking back upon his life he could see no good thing that he had done, and apart from Mary Montague and, for the moment, little Bella, he could think of no one whose love he had won, not even the love of his own wife.

  Elaine. Elaine. He said her name over and over to himself. He was incapable of self-pity but the thankfulness that he had felt began slowly to pass into grief. For he must leave Elaine. He grieved not for her sake, his loss would be for her pure gain, but for his own. Never again to rest his mortal eyes upon her beauty or hear her voice. Not to see her stitching at her embroidery beside the fire, walking among the roses in her garden, not again touch her hair on her cheek. She had been both the grief and the glory of his life and gladly in the life beyond death would he have still endured the grief if he could have kept the glory. “God is my glory,” he whispered to himself. But here again there was sorrow. He was going empty-handed to his God. He had no sheaves to bring with him. Nothing. He had failed his God as miserably as he had failed Elaine. That was the bitterness of death. He was motionless for perhaps an hour in his bed and toward the end he wept.

  He was aware of a shadowy figure standing beside him. It was Garland. “I did not ring,” he snapped, for Garland had startled him.

  “It’s been a long time, sir,” said Garland. “It is your custom to ring as soon as Doctor Jenkins leaves you.”

  “I dozed, no doubt,” said the Dean. “My apologies. Garland. I must get up at once. I must not keep Mrs. Ayscough waiting.”

  She came daily to sit with him when he was installed in his armchair by the window. She was careful to come just twenty minutes before luncheon, for the ringing of the gong provided her with a natural and easy means of escape. She hated illness. Above all she hated it in Adam because it intensified her physical shrinking from him. And in this illness of his, the first serious one he had had in their married life, she had been astonished by a strange, wild, bitter sorrow. Why must he always spare her, indulge her, deceive her? He had been near death, she knew, yet the knowledge of it had been kept from her. Throughout his illness he had struggled in her presence to hide every symptom that might distress her, and even now that he was better he told her nothing of what he had suffered, was perhaps still suffering. He had often tried to talk to her of things beyond her comprehension but she could not remember that in all their married life he had ever confided any trouble to her; not even to the extent of telling her that he had a headache. Not yet ready to hate herself, she almost hated him. Long ago he should have done some sort of violence to her, taken hold of her and shaken her into some semblance of a wife. Now it was too late.

  Or was it not yet too late? Sitting beside him at the sunny window with her embroidery in her lap, she wondered, if she wooed him now, would he at last confide in her? He had never refused her anything. She dropped her work and put her hand on his, lying on the arm of his chair.

  “How do you feel today, Adam?”

  “Very well, my dear, thank you.”

  “Did Doctor Jenkins give you a good report?”

  “Excellent,” said the Dean heartily. He expected, her wifely duty done, that she would withdraw her hand, but instead she held his a little more closely.

  “The illness has left no weakness behind it? If there’s anything of that sort I want you to tell me.”

  “There is no cause for anxiety, my dear. I am doing excellently.”

  The answer came with the ease of long habit and though he returned the pressure of her hand he seemed not aware that she was pleading with him. But she was aware, perhaps through the physical touch, perhaps because this new sorrow had made her more sensitive, that death had laid a hand on the body of her husband. She caught her breath sharply, as though its hand was laid also on her own breast.

  “Please, Adam,” she pleaded, “please.”

  “What is it, my dear?” He looked at her, smiling indulgently. “What can I do for you?”

  She realized he was expecting her to ask for new sofa cushions, or fresh upholstery for the drawing-room chairs. The pressure on her breast felt like a band of iron. The gong rang and Adam raised her hand and kissed it. “Your luncheon, my dear. Tell me another time what it is that you require.”

  She left the room proudly. She would not ask again.

  3.

  A few days later, Garland, passing through the hall, heard a peculiar knocking on the front door. Callers were not in the habit of knocking; an imposing bell pull was displayed in a prominent place. The knocking was rather low down on the door, insistent and imperious. Garland was reminded of the knocking of a woodpecker but was nevertheless astonished, when he opened the door, to find himself confronting a green and yellow par
rot on the wing. It got him on the knee and it needed all his years of training to suppress a yelp. But he had the presence of mind to grip the parrot, lest it attack again, and found himself engaged in a tug of war. He was gripping the parrot end of a minute green umbrella, and clinging to the ferrule end was a small girl in a large bonnet. Bending down to try to see the face within the bonnet Garland relaxed his grip upon the parrot. It was immediately pulled from his grasp and the child marched past him into the hall.

  “I wish to see the man,” she said.

  Her head was tipped back now as she looked up into Garland’s face and he recognized the round pink countenance and yellow curls of Bella Havelock.

  “You’ve run away from your nurse, Miss Bella,” he said reprovingly.

  “I have come to see the man,” said Bella.

  “If you mean the Dean, Miss Bella, he has been ill and is not yet sufficiently recovered to see visitors.”

  “He’s down,” said Bella.

  Garland regretted that he had let this fact be known throughout the city only yesterday. What was he to do now? He hesitated and was lost. Bella’s pelisse and bonnet today were cherry-red trimmed with beaver, a midwinter outfit which she found oppressive in the warm Deanery. She took off the bonnet and handed it to Garland. Then she kicked off her galoshes and tugged at the buttons of her pelisse. “Undo it,” she commanded.

  “Another day would be better, Miss Bella,” said Garland feebly, but as he spoke he found himself mechanically undoing buttons. “Another day,” he repeated, bending to retrieve a minute galosh from under an oak chest. But when he had straightened himself he saw Bella speeding off down the corridor in her white muslin frock, the umbrella brandished in one hand. He gave chase but it was too late. Though she had never been in the Deanery before, her woman’s intuition led her straight to the study door. Dropping the umbrella she stood on tiptoe and grasped the round brass handle with both hands, turned it and pushed the door open. Then she grabbed the umbrella again and marched in. Garland found the door pushed vigorously shut in his face but nevertheless he opened it again and followed her.

  “Sir,” he panted, “I beg pardon. I tried to stop the young lady, sir, I did indeed, but—”

  He paused, shocked and horrified by what he saw. Bella was sitting upon the Dean’s knee with the umbrella up. From beneath its silken beech-green shade she looked out triumphantly at Garland, her blue eyes sparkling and her yellow head a froth of dancing curls. Or so it seemed to Garland. Though it was a gray bleak day he thought confusedly of kingcups growing in a water meadow and white washing on a green hedge, some forgotten scene from his own childhood. The Dean, a west-country man, was remembering the first primroses in a Somersetshire wood. The Dean smiled at him and hardly knowing what he was doing he returned the smile, standing stupidly by the door. He was very tired. The past weeks had told on him considerably.

  “There is no need for you to distress yourself, Garland,” said the Dean. “I shall be much obliged if you will ask Cook if there is a sugar biscuit in the house. A glass of milk, perhaps. She will know what would be suitable. I am much honored by this visit but I think someone should take a message to Worship Street lest there should be anxiety on Miss Bella’s account. But make it clear, Garland, that I am honored, much honored.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Garland, and closed the door behind him. Bella put the umbrella down and showed the Dean her new shoes, which were tied with cherry-colored ribbon. Then sitting very upright on his knee she gazed round the big book-lined room, the biggest room she had ever been in. She was a little awed and the Dean marveled at the courage of the small creature in coming to see him.

  “Did you run from your nurse?” he asked her. “Were you not frightened, my dear, to come alone?”

  Bella shook her head. “I runned all the way from the Porta,” she said. “And I knocked on the door with my umbrella.” She felt in her little hanging pocket and brought out a small heart-shaped comfit. “For you,” she said, holding it up. The Dean thanked her courteously and ate it. It tasted of peppermint, which of all things he disliked, but he could not disappoint her. He knew it was a great treasure and that she was not parting with it lightly.

  “Thank you, my dear, for your letter,” he said, and putting finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket he brought out a scrap of pink notepaper on which she had inscribed, with anguished labor, a few words of thanks for the umbrella. The words had obviously been dictated by a higher power, whose hand had perhaps guided Bella’s, but the blots and rows of kisses at the foot of the page were Bella’s own. “You see I have it safely. I was much honored to receive it.”

  “I writed you another letter,” said Bella, “on blue paper. Grandma didn’t tell me what to say. I writed it myself. But it fell in the fire.”

  The Dean felt a pang of keen disappointment. “What did you say, Bella?” he asked.

  “I told you about my cuckoo clock,” said Bella after some thought. “It caught a mouse at three o’clock. Cuckoo did. I told you Nurse had new garters. Red ones. I put kisses. That was all.”

  It was enough, thought the Dean. Even the report of such a letter was enough to ensure his bliss. Yet his heart ached that a work of so much labor and difficulty should have perished in the flames. And a labor surely of love. Could it be possible that the child’s affection had not been only the thing of a moment that he had thought it? That children could love with extraordinary suddenness he had discovered in Isaac’s shop. Could they also love enduringly? It seemed to him that Bella’s love had already endured, for to a child the short period of time that had elapsed since they had last been together must have seemed an aeon. He could remember from his own childhood how vast a period of time had been covered by a summer’s day. The sense of worthlessness, of failure, was eased a little as he held her on his knee. He wished humbly that she would kiss him again but he did not expect it. She was not, he fancied, very free with her kisses.

  “Will you come with me one day to see an old lady called Miss Montague?” he asked her.

  “Has she a cat?” asked Bella.

  “I believe so,” he said. “I believe Miss Montague is never without a cat. Yes, I distinctly remember a cat.”

  “Kittens?” asked Bella.

  “I do not recollect kittens when I last waited upon Miss Montague,” said the Dean anxiously, for he feared a kittenless Miss Montague would not appeal to Bella. “But I trust so.”

  “White kittens,” said Bella. “I’ve a new petticoat.”

  She lifted the hem of her dress and both heads were bent in admiration of its glory when Garland entered with a round silver tray scarcely bigger than a water-lily leaf. Cook had known what would be suitable. On a small plate, with rosebuds on it, lay an equally small queen cake iced in pink. In a rosebud cup with a gold handle was some warm sugary milk. Having assured himself with a quick glance that the Dean was none the worse for Bella, Garland placed this on the desk, piled cushions on a chair and lifted her to their summit. His movements as he turned to go were not as precise as usual. The Dean was aware of a slight hesitancy.

  “Wait, Garland,” he said. “Then you can take the tray away.”

  Garland waited. He was a bachelor, having been jilted in youth by a barmaid who had eloped with a sergeant major in the marines. Devotion to the Dean had largely filled the gap, but watching a young thing eat a sugar cake is one of the major pleasures of life. Bella wriggled herself forward on the cushions and lifted her chin imperiously. For a moment both men were at a loss, then with the inspiration of genius Garland took out his clean handkerchief and tucked it into her frock. “She’s accustomed to a bib, sir,” he explained sotto voce to the Dean.

  Bella ate like a mouse, her small sharp teeth demolishing the sugar cake very daintily but with an almost inexorable concentration. It disappeared without pause. Then Garland stirred the milk for her with a little apostle teaspoon and that went in and down almost, it seemed, in one intake. For a moment or two the rosebud cup rema
ined in an upside-down position over Bella’s nose, then she replaced it in the saucer and rescued the last remnants of sugar from the bottom with the little spoon. When there was no more she sighed deeply and permitted Garland to wipe her mouth. Lifted down she ran instantly back to the Dean and laid her hand on his knee.

  “Does your watch tick like Grandpa’s?” she demanded.

  The Dean had been wondering if he might show her his watch. It was almost as though in her affection for him she had read his thoughts. He took it out and held it to her ear beneath her curls. Then he opened the pair cases that she might see the wreath of flowers about the face. Neither of them heard Garland leave the room or noticed when ten minutes later he came in again.

  “There’s a little man inside!” Bella was exclaiming. “It’s the little fairy man from the shop!”

  “No, Bella,” said the Dean, peering through his eyeglasses. “I think not. This man carries away the sin of the world. . . . What is it, Garland?”

  “Miss Bella’s nurse, sir. She offers her apologies. She turned her back only for a moment, she assures me, to speak to Miss Montague’s Sarah who was cleaning the letter box. Miss Bella, sir, is very quick upon her feet.”

  “My compliments to Nurse,” said the Dean. “And I beg she will not distress herself. Miss Bella’s visit has been a source of great happiness to me. Could it be repeated at any time I should count it an honor. Must she go now?”

  “I think so, sir. Nurse is waiting in the hall with Miss Bella’s bonnet and pelisse.”

  “Bella, my dear, we must say good-by,” said the Dean sadly.

  “No,” said Bella, and climbed back upon his knee. He felt that sense of increasing weight, of adherence, that he had experienced before, and looked anxiously at Garland.

  “Now, Miss Bella,” said Garland.

  Bella ignored him, stretched out her hand and grabbed the Dean’s gold pencil from his desk.

  “Perhaps we should call Nurse?” suggested the Dean.

  “I doubt if it would do much good, sir,” said Garland gloomily. “Come along now, Miss Bella.”