'Adam?'
'Speak, James.' 1 shall never love again.' We cannot always choose.' 'I shall never love again.'
'Nothing stays, brother. And never is a poor word.'
When she died, your wife. What did you do? Adam?'
'I ran mad.'
'And have you loved since then?'
'It is Hke the rain, brother. You cannot always be out of it.'
He waits, faintly appalled to find he is recovering, that he does not have the character to die of grief, that the life in him is too stubborn.
And he waits for her, whom dreams have assured him will come. The architect. The subtle witch. He looks for her from his window, day after day, until an evening in March when he is certain of her presence. A group of men, foreigners, are standing near the steps leading up to the hospital gardens. They are admiring the hospital, pointing out its features with their gloved hands. Fragments of their voices drift up on the blustery air. Then they move and he sees her, stood behind them in a dark dress with a red scarf at her neck. He does not wave to her. She will know that he has seen her. She waits ten minutes, still as a tree, then walks off towards Finsbury.
She is there again the next day. How she tests him! Does she not understand that it is too soon? That he has not the strength? That he is not yet well? Yet he trusts her, more than he trusts himself She has come for him. He must go. The certainty of it is a reUef. He goes to Wagner and begs an interview with the Physician. The interview is granted. Three days later, early, Wagner comes to collect him from the cell, and James limps behind him through doors noisily unlocked by Wagner's keys. Stone gives way to carpet, darkness to light. The air loses its stink of incontinence, smelling instead of wax and cooked meats and sea coal. On a table by an open window is a vase of daffodils. James can barely pass them: exemplars of all beauty, all perfection. Wagner calls to him, not unkindly. Calls as if he has often seen men in James's state, stunned by flowers.
A door, broad and brilliantly polished. Wagner knocks. They are summoned. The Physician, his pendulous face topped with a velvet cap, vermillion, gazes at them from behind his desk. A secretary sits at a smaller desk deeper in the room, his arms in cotton covers to protect his sleeves from the ink. In front of the Physician is an open newspaper and next to it a half-empty glass of claret, a plate of queen cakes, and a cup from which drifts a rich perfume of coffee. He says to Wagner: 'What does he want?'
'Begging your pardon, sir,' says the keeper, 'but he wishes to leave the hospital.'
'Leave?'
'Ay, sir. That is what he has told me.'
The Physician stares at James. For a moment James meets his eyes, then he looks down. He is afraid that his legs will begin to shake.
'Does he consider himself recovered?' asks the Physician, looking from James to Wagner. Now Wagner looks at James. Standing here among these men who mean him no good, James does not feel recovered at all. He is afraid that somehow he will betray himself, that he will say some mad thing; that he will start to sing or to slobber or he will fall on to his knees shrieking. He knows he must find his voice. The silence in the room is already dangerously extended.
'Yes,' he says. The sound of his own voice, almost aggressively loud, breaks the spell. He looks up.
'What does he mean?' says the Physician. 'What does he mean by "yes"? You wish to be gone. Dyer?'
Yes,' says James.
'Well, sir,' says the Physician, taking another cake, 'and what will you do with yourself should I see fit to discharge you? Speak up.'
James says: 'I shall live quietly. I shall be no man's enemy.'
'And how will you live? How shall you eat?'
James glances at the secretary. He says: 'I can read and write. I might use a pen . . .'
The Physician laughs, slaps the table, twists in his seat. Thear that, Price? He wants to be a secretary. A clerk! Tell me, is that suitable employment for a former lunatic?' To James he says: 'Where will you go?'
'I have a sister,' says James, surprising himself with his answer. In Somerset.'
You think she will be glad to see you, eh? Her mad brother? You intend to walk there?'
'Yes, sir.'
There is a long pause while the Physician eats his cake. James looks down again at the carpet. There is a particular pattern on the carpet, a blue and red arabesque, which he can barely take his eyes from. He knows that his destiny is being decided.
'Mr Price,' says the Physician, 'have the patient sign for his discharge. If he is to be a secretary he should be able to sign his own name.'
Price beckons James to his desk, opens a ledger, turns it around and offers a pen. He taps the page at the place where James must sign.
The Physician has taken up his newspaper again. He says: 'You are released. Take no strong liquor. Avoid all excitement. Women in particular. Other than a sister, of course. A sister is acceptable.'
James tries to speak but cannot. He feels exhausted, as if during the entire interview he had been holding over his head something as large and heavy as the Physician's desk. His fingertips are sweating. He knows that if he does not leave the room immediately it may still elude him, this questionable gift of freedom.
Wagner plucks his elbow, leads him out, then takes him by a private staircase to a door at the side of the hospital. There are no goodbyes to Adam, to the Collins brothers, to Asquini. Wagner
grins at him, as if it has all been a sly joke in which they were both required to play their parts. James looks round at the light, steps outside. Is this what he wants? Are not the familiar horrors of the hospital preferable to the unknown ones of the world outside? The urge to hide is very strong; to creep into the shadows, to bolt up a tree.
The door closes behind him. He flinches as he hears the turning of the key. He closes his eyes for a moment, concentrates, then walks very slowly across the formal gardens - once the woods outside of Athens. He half expects, half hopes, to hear a voice recalling him, but no one calls. He steps through a smaller gate at the side of the main gate, closes it carefully behind him and goes, faster now, almost running, towards the woman who is waiting in the white dust of the road to rescue him a second time.
SEVENTH
'Kyrie, eleison.' 'Christe, eleison! 'Kyrie, eleison.'
The words scatter like bats into the shadows of the arches. Simon Tupper breaks into a fit of coughing. George Pace in the pew behind slaps the round of the old man's back. The fit subsides.
'The Lord be with you'
''And with thy spirit!
'Let us pray!
It is the usual Easter Sunday congregation, swaying gently now upon the keels of their knees. Lady Hallam is there, of course, lovely in a gown of yellows and golds. His Lordship is in London; politics or whoring or both. Behind Lady Hallam is Dido, hair - not all of it her own - piled on to her head with pins and grease and Spanish combs. The Reverend thinks: At night she must sleep with it in a wire cage, as if it were a beast. A pretty fan she carries today; gold stars on a sky of ultramarine. Fashionable; practical too in this weather. Warm in the church today. The old ones will be asleep before long.
'Almighty God who through thine only begotten son Jesus Christ hast overcome death and opened the gates of everlasting life . . .'
301
In the balance sheet of the Reverend's fortunes there is for the moment a slight surplus upon the credit side. True, he remains obstinately constipated, and true, he rowed unpleasantly with Dido last evening over some detail of household expenses. Not their usual sparring. Things best unsaid had been spoken on both sides and the Reverend went to his bed with a heavy conscience, tossing and turning until at last he climbed into the cold of his room, found a pen, and scratched an apology, slipping it under his sister's door, noting as he did so that she had a light in her room. And true, he finds himself this Easter without his faith again, one of those occasional fallings-away that used so to trouble him but which now worry him less than the constipation. God plays hide-and-seek with him. Experience ha
s taught him that he will find a way back, that it is better to lie still upon the surface of the waters than thrash about in a panic.
To set against these he has the following: his good-tempered cow, Ruby, has calved. Pace came in with news of it at breakfast-time, his hands still slick with the birthing of it. They had all gone out then - the Reverend, Dido, Mrs Cole and Tabitha -to the stable where the animal had been brought the day before. A glorious sight! The cow's expanse of tongue licking the calf, and the calf itself, trembling, delicately stunned by its passage into the air . . .
Then there is his garden, ignited by the season, the red earth seeping flowers, blossom crowding on to his fruit trees, petals cupping showers of rain. The previous Sunday he caught Sam dipping the point of his tongue into the blossom cups. It had looked so odd at first, a boy on tiptoe with his tongue in a flower. Later, when Sam had gone, he was tempted to do it himself. He was afraid, however, afraid of being seen.
'Almighty God, Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things. Judge of all men: we acknowledge and bewail our manifold
sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, must grievously have committed . . .'
In the midst of the words he has a clear mental image of the excellent Mrs Cole in her jacket of fragrant steam, working her knives, her spit, her fire. Today, he thinks - the thought like a triumphant blast on the trumpet - we have a pig's face! A pig's face, a knuckle of veal, and asparagus from Mr Askew's asparagus bed . . .
'Grant us therefore gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body . . .'
What old bread this is. Trust there shall be no surprises. Blessed are the weevils.
''The Lord be with you'
''And with thy spirit!
''Lift up your hearts!
''We lift them unto the Lord!
The light, dusty streams ending in coloured spangles on the stone floor, fails suddenly with the passing of a cloud. The Reverend loses sight of the rear of the nave but is dimly aware of the door opening and swiftly closing, of the presence of a figure in the aisle. He recites the Lord's Prayer. Then: ''The peace of God be always with you!
'And with thy Spirit!
Lady Hallam plucks at her gown, rises, approaches the rail. Dido is a little behind her, then Astick with Sophie, his peevish daughter. Behind Sophie, Dr Thorne, adjusting the crotch of his breeches.
The cloud departs. Light unfurls the length of the aisle, and as the Reverend breaks the bread for Lady Hallam, he sees who it is who has entered the church, knows her immediately, yet distrusts himself, sure that it cannot be her, not here, not here in his church. She who belongs irrevocably elsewhere.
A gentle clearing of the throat. He looks down. Lady Hallam
raises her eyebrows, not unkindly. For the space of three beats of his heart, he is lost, cannot at all remember where he is, what he is about. Then he lays the bread in her cupped hands.
''The body of our Lord, Jesus Christ . . .'
With her eyes Dido asks: Who is she? He leans down by her ear, whispers: 'Her name is Mary. A foreigner. Sit with her.'
Others also question him with their eyes. Thome grins as if there were something intrinsically lewd in the advent of a strange woman. The service acquires a new vigour. Conjecture and counter-conjecture are threaded from pew to pew through the forms of prayer, behind the din of bad singing. Necks, not very discreetly, swivel to view this unlikely intruder. The Reverend hears, quite distinctly, the word 'gypsy'.
''The peace of God that passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God . . .'
At last the door is thrown open. Richer air reaches the Reverend as he drinks off the remaining wine. Were it possible he should like to pour himself another, though it is poor stuff as wine. He wipes the lip of the goblet with a cloth and walks, swiftly, down the aisle, vestments billowing behind him. To Mary he gives a long look, a quick nod. To Dido he says: 1 shall be back as soon as I may. Will you stay here?'
Dido asks: 'Can she understand us?'
Both look at Mary, who is gazing without much interest at St George slaying the dragon in the east window. It is as if she comprehends there must be some to-do, some wonder, that only afterwards will they do what she wants of them.
'Mayhap,' says the Reverend. 'You might try some questions.'
A movement of yellow by the door catches his eye. He turns, goes. Dido looks at the side of Mary's face, the high cheekbones, the eyes the colour of soaked wood. She does not feel alarmed by her. Oddly, she finds her presence reassuring.
In the churchyard, a dozen parishioners tarry by the path, reading famiUar names off crooked gravestones. Now and then they look towards the door of the church. Lady Hallam smiles a welcome at the Reverend, remarks on the size of the congregation.
'One more than I had expected,' says the Reverend.
*Why, yes, indeed,' says Lady Hallam, as if she has all but forgotten the incident. Thorne comes up. He and the Reverend shake hands.
Tine service, Reverend.'
The Reverend nods, mutters his thanks. That grin again. Thorne, receiving a cool glance from Lady Hallam, goes off, swinging his cane like a cat twitching its tail.
'I wonder', says the Reverend softly, 'if you can possibly guess who she is?'
'Oh, I think that I may. We spied each other as I came out. What eyes she has! Quite as you described her in your letter from - where was it now - Riga?'
'Riga it may have been. I confess, Lady Hallam, I have never been more surprised by anything in my life, though I believe she has a talent for surprises.'
'She will require a great deal of explaining.' A broad smile; amused and sympathetic. 'Your best course may be to explain nothing at all. You know that you and your sister may count on me for every assistance.'
'I know it. You are very kind to me. To us.'
'I am your friend. Now I shall go, and seek to draw the curious after me. Call on me soon.' She offers her hand, he takes it; one, two . . . That elusive third second.
'Well, Mary,' says the Reverend. 'You have given us quite a shock.' Mary reaches into the pocket of her apron, takes out some manner of rolled leaf and pops it into her mouth, chews it like a quid of tobacco.
'Mary, do you know anything of Dr Dyer? Do you know his whereabouts?'
She stands and walks slowly out of the church. The Reverend moves as if to call her back. Dido touches his arm, says: 'She means us to follow her . . .'
They walk behind her along the path between clumps of daffodils, through the wicket-gate, along the lane by the churchyard wall and round the jammed and broken skeleton of a gate - a trellis now for weeds - into the orchard. The land here belongs to Makins, a widower, his sons gone to stretch their legs in the world, one halfwit daughter at home. Here the apples either rot or are taken by children. On summer evenings the place is visited by courting couples. Sometimes the Reverend hears their sighs on his way home from Vespers.
The grasses drag at Dido's skirts. A court of flies starts up angrily from a human turd. There is a sound of bees, a smell of wild garlic. For a moment they lose sight of Mary as she weaves between the crooked aisles, through the blue shadows, through cloudbursts of blossom. It would, thinks the Reverend, be quite her manner to disappear like a rabbit into a hole. But they find her, standing under a tree somewhat larger than the others, one hand, one finger pointing upward into the head of the tree, like a figure in an allegorical painting. Dido and the Reverend look up. A man's shoes, a man's legs, a grey shirt. A face, very thin, very white, garnished with the shapeless, peppery grizzle of a beard.
'Dr Dyer!' calls the Reverend. 'This is as happy as it is unexpected. I was afraid . . . that is, I had no news of you. Are you well, sir? Will you come down? The branches there are rather slender.'
The face looks down. The transformation is remarkable, ghastly. What manner of sickness does this to a man?
Says Dido: 'This is Dr D
yer?'
'Ay,' says the Reverend softly. 'What remains of him. Dr Dyer!
It is I, the Reverend Lestrade. Sure you have not forgotten me? Do you require some assistance?'
A voice, but barely the right side of sound, drops from the roof of the tree.
'. . . the finch . . . the sparrow and the lark . . . the plain song cuckoo grey . . . w^hose note ... a man doth mark . . . and dare not answ^er . . . nay . . .'
Says Dido: 'Is it a song?'
'. . . the ousel cock, so black of hue . . . with orange tawny bill . . . the throstle with his note so true . . .'
The Reverend catches sight of two young faces peeping round a trunk. One he knows for the sexton's boy, Sam Clarke.
'Sam! Here, child. Come, I am not angry with you.'
The boy comes, looking from the Reverend to the tree, from the tree to Mary.
'Are you a fast runner, Sam?'
'Middlin'.'
'Well, middling must do. Get to Caxton's place. You shall find George Pace there. Tell him to bring the ladder that is in the vestry here to the orchard. Tell him I wish for it now and not when he has finished his porter. Wait! Do not make a great kerfuffle, and do not say what you have seen. We do not require an audience. Go now.' They watch him race away, his feet clearing the points of grass. Mary squats by the roots of the tree. Says Dido: 'I am afraid he will fall. He shall kill himself for certain if he does. Could you not climb up to him, Julius?'
The Reverend says: 'Pray have the sense you were born with, Diddy. Even supposing I were able to reach him, what would it serve to have the pair of us trapped there. Are you not afraid for my neck?'
'You were a very neat climber of trees once.'
'Ay, once. Thirty years since. I remember you, sis, climbing that great elm at the back of Father's place.'
'I did too,' says Dido. 'But when girls become women they lose the freedom of their bodies. Custom requires it.'
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