Beddoes watched without any modesty while his friend folded himself around and against the woman in the doorway. Their embrace was in itself so without shame that it never occurred to him to turn away his eyes. Instead, he smiled dazedly, and then crawled with stiff joints from the car and carried the two suitcases up the path.
“Beddoes—Sally.” Mac kept his arms for a minute around his wife, and then the three of them laughed and scrambled into the narrow darkness of the hallway, which smelled, like narrow dark hallways of English literature, of wet woollens and cabbage.
Soon Beddoes was alone in his room, which smelled faintly like the hall and had one window looking across and through some yews into the stoniness of the church wall. It was a cheery cubbyhole, with a high narrow bed and a small fireplace twinkling with polished brass fittings, and an armchair drawn up, cramped but comfortable, between the fire and the dresser. There was chintz all over everything, just as it should be in the vicar’s guest room of a village in—yes, Beddoes assured himself happily—in the heart of England. He opened his bag, yawned, and stood looking down into its familiar tidiness, its sterile order of a salesman’s allotted shirts and ties and razor blades, with the cabinet photograph of his wife on top.
Beddoes’ mind filled, suddenly and completely, with his first real sight of Sarah MacLaren. Now there, he thought helplessly. Now there! Ripe and beautiful, her voice like warm honey … He shook his head. Then, as he listened to new sounds in the tight little house, his thoughts swerved toward normal nothingness again.
There was a subdued tussling and giggling outside his door, and a kind of whispering, as if two or three children were in the midst of some secret. A voice said, “The water’s hot for your bath, sir.”
“All right. Thanks!” Beddoes felt like adding jovially, “O.K., you kids. No more fooling around out there, either!” He pulled open the door to speak to them, but they had gone. He felt foolish, and stood rather crossly for a minute, certain the next door hid his watchers. The hall was too dim to see whether there was a crack open. He laughed self-consciously, and went back into his room. A bath at eleven-thirty in the morning was nonsense anyway. He soon flapped obediently down the hall to the bathroom, though. It was a bleak barn, probably once meant for beds and now draftily occupied by an ancient oak flush toilet on a raised platform, a shabby armchair with a huge towel draped over it, and the tub. It was of green tin, and enormous. The geyser heater above it hissed and let occasional blobs of soot drop into the water. For some reason, the whole place was delightful.
With the good hot water running slowly into the tub, Beddoes lay back and felt like Leviathan awash. It was damn nice of Mrs. Mac to think of this for him. Funny he hadn’t seen the children. But hey! Whose children? That wasn’t a thing people kept quiet about. Certainly there had been giggling and tussling outside the door before one of them said, “The water’s hot for your bath, sir.” Beddoes sat up in the tub. He suddenly felt chilly. Had he heard a voice say that? Or had he just thought so?
He dried himself hurriedly and, not waiting with his usual tidiness to wipe the tub, flapped back to his room. He closed his door firmly, forcing himself not to look back at the other closed doors in the dark hall, and went straight to the bottom of his suitcase for his flask of good bourbon. He lifted the bottle with practiced courtesy to his wavy image in the mirror, took a firm pull, and shuddered pleasurably. Never take baths so early in the day, he decided; steam gets in the brain.
He dressed quickly, strapped on his watch and found that it marked past noon, started downstairs, and then remembered the tub. But in the bathroom it was as neat—and almost as cold—as if he had not sloshed about in it a few minutes before. Damned efficient maid, he thought wryly, even if she runs off tittering. Rather to his surprise—for he was a moderate man—he took another ceremonious swig from his flask, and then descended almost gaily into the increasing cabbaginess of the vicarage.
And true enough, there was cabbage for lunch, or dinner, or whatever the badly cooked meal was called. Beddoes hated the stuff, but this noon, for some reason, it tasted very good. Perhaps it was the way it lay all higgledy-piggledy with onions and carrots in the big bowl of stew, or perhaps it was the bottle of ale that he drank with it—or the bourbon he had drunk before. Probably, though, it was because he was eating it with the MacLarens.
He had never been with two people like them. Everything they said sounded musical to his enchanted ears. When they looked at each other, which was often, their eyes darkened and widened with an almost audible protestation of love. They seemed wrapped around with bliss, so that the whole stuffy little dining room was transfigured. He felt a part of their passion, just as he had when he first saw them melt into each other in the doorway, and the fact that he now found himself in love for the only time in his life, and with Sarah MacLaren, was a part of the whole. He did not feel disturbed, only a little dizzy. He ate solidly of the watery, ill-cooked stew, and clicked glasses now and then with Mac, and spooned his way in a kind of happy vertigo through a tough apple tart with some clotted cream that had waited on the sideboard.
“Agatha made it,” Sarah said, laughing softly and looking sideways at her husband from her long brown eyes.
“Then no wonder it’s so … That is, my dear Sally, you must admit it’s pretty dreadful.” MacLaren stared at the glutinous pile on his plate.
“Yes,” she said placidly. “That’s why I got the cream. I thought it might help. But you know Agatha’s so anxious.…”
“Of course, darling. It’s just that I do love decent tarts.”
“Yes, I know. Mr. Beddoes, Perry’s really rather a humbug. He idealizes himself as the simple parish priest, but often he has to pretend dreadfully hard that he’s having supper at the Café de Paris in order to stand it. And, of course, I’m a rotten cook.”
“Rotten, my dear. But Agatha’s worse.” Mac pushed back his chair. “Let’s get out of here before I begin to idealize myself as a peppery old colonel and call for my digestive powders.”
Beddoes looked with some faint worry at Sarah, expecting that she might seem unhappy, but she smiled at him and pushed her hair from her forehead gently with her plump hands. “I thought Mr. Beddoes might like to watch me show off with my Turkish coffeepot,” she said vaguely. “I told Agatha, so everything’s ready for it in the parlor. Now, Perry,” she exclaimed, laughing so that her cheeks shook up and down, “you know very well that she can boil water!”
Beddoes followed them across the hall and into a surprisingly comfortable room, somewhat cluttered with small tables but with all Mac’s books at one end in a kind of study, and a big couch in front of the fire, so that it seemed intimate and pleasant. It looks lived in, he decided with serene banality.
“Milk, too,” Sarah added, after she had stuffed a pillow with absent-minded hospitality behind Beddoes on the couch and seated herself in front of her low coffee table. “Agatha boils milk well, too.”
“Yes, that she does, darling. Where in hell’s my pipe? Any mail while I was gone?” Mac rummaged about on the top of his desk, humming gently; then he wandered back to the hearth and folded himself into a big chair.
The fire burned with clear flame in its grate, so different from the fireplaces at home, and Beddoes stuck his feet as far toward it as he dared without appearing oafish, and managed to wiggle Sarah’s well-meant pillow into a less uncomfortable spot. He watched her tenderly as she sat, completely absorbed with the various boilings and fussings and spoonings of her coffee routine. She was beautiful and, he decided, very much like a little fat hen at the moment. He started to ask, “Who’s this Agatha?” but, instead, said mildly, “I heard the children in the hall this morning.”
There was complete silence.
Beddoes did not realize it for a few seconds, and then he sat up straighter and looked miserably at the MacLarens. They did not notice him, but seemed as if they were talking silently to each other. Finally, Mac sighed and shook his head a little, and Sarah poured
three cups of coffee almost nervously, and Beddoes said, “What did I—”
“Yes, quite,” Mac interrupted him firmly. “And Beddoes old boy, I was hoping for a couple of rounds with you this afternoon—there’s a decent little course near here—but I see a note saying that old Mrs. Timpkins has ‘come over worse, sudden-like,’ as she says.”
“Again? That old silly! Mrs. Timpkins is always coming over worse when we have visitors.” Sarah frowned, and then went on brightly, “How’s the coffee? I think it’s delicious!”
“I do, too,” Beddoes said. It was strange and awful, but he echoed quite sincerely that it was delicious.
“Delicious, darling. You get better all the time. When you’re an old lady, you can wear a veil—or several might be better, good thick ones—and you can make coffee in a seraglio or a big French restaurant. Don’t you think so, Beddoes?”
Beddoes giggled shrilly, and then before he could help it he yawned an enormous, engulfing, noisy yawn. He was sickly embarrassed and put down his cup, trembling, blinking his wet eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Please excuse me. It—”
“It come over you worse, sudden-like,” Sarah said. “I know. It’s just as well Perry can’t drag you around the golf course. Perry, you go comfort old Mrs. Timpkins—she’s in love with you, not the Church—and Mr. Beddoes and I will curl up on the couch. That is, he’ll curl up for a nap, and I’ll sit here and mend every damned sock in the whole house!” She took one last sip of coffee, licked her full lower lip delicately, murmured “Delicious!” again, and withdrew into a kind of trance, like a cat.
Beddoes saw Mac kiss her forehead and then the back of her neck, and tiptoe out of the room. But almost before he put his feet up onto the soft couch he was asleep, with Sarah MacLaren’s image, like a brown butterfly, behind his peaceful eyelids.
When he wakened, it was to the sound of coal embers falling whisperingly from the grate under the weight of fresh fuel. Someone was poking the fire. But when he opened his eyes, almost at once, Sarah sat quietly across the hearth from him, and the coals burned all by themselves in the odd little iron basket. He lay looking at her, and in spite of a strong sense of bewilderment he was very content. His eyes felt as fresh as a child’s and, indeed, his whole body tingled and cooled as if a gentle wind blew privately over it from some other world. He had never felt so alive. He lay easily within his skin, and if anyone had told him that he looked the same as ever—an average man—he would not have understood.
He gazed calmly at Sarah and thought without pain of his love for her. It was strange, of course, but in some way quite natural that he should have waited so long to fall so utterly in love with any woman, let alone with this chubby little hen of a creature. What would his wife think of her? Sarah’s hair was long and unstylish and seemed to slip out of its pins pretty easily, and her knitted dress had a definite and matronly bag behind. He smiled and stirred, and veiled his eyes as she looked up quickly at him from her darning. He wanted not to talk for a few minutes longer. It seemed to him that he had talked all his life and never said anything until today—and at that he could not remember what it was that he had said. Perhaps nothing. But he felt potentially able to say, to utter at last, some of the thoughts that all his years had been lying like eggs in a nest, ready for this hatching. What they would be he did not know and certainly did not care. It was enough to realize that they were there.
He must have dozed again, because he woke to hear Sarah scolding, in a muted, exasperated voice. “No, Tom! You’ve been very good today, and I’m proud of you, and indeed you’ve managed beautifully with the others. But no!”
Beddoes watched her poking her needle against the sock she darned, frowning and clucking as she did it.
My love is a madwoman, he thought, and asked quietly, “Who are you talking to, Mrs. MacLaren?”
“Tom’s pestering me to play the gramophone,” she said, and then dropped her mending and put both hands against her lips. Her eyes stared at him. They no longer looked placid or merry or mysteriously deep, but round as plums with consternation. Finally, she put down her hands and folded the mending carefully into the basket and then came over and sat on the floor beside Beddoes.
He lay absolutely still, not fearful at all but listening as if every pore in his skin were a little ear.
“Go away now, Tom,” Sarah said clearly. “That’s a good soul.” She waited a minute, and then started to talk, in a rather strained way at first and then almost eagerly. “I told Perry we’d have to explain to you. You’re a friend, or I suppose we’d never have let you come at all. These last few months, we’ve been so absorbed in this job that we’ve rather forgotten how strange it may look to people who don’t know about it. Of course, here in Askhaven everyone understands. Everyone knows Perry for the dear godly man he is. He is a man of God, you know, Mr. Beddoes. He could be a bishop if he wished—a good bishop. But I’ve no ambition for him—and I’d be such a ninny as a bishop’s wife! And Askhaven is his whole life. Mine, too.”
Beddoes held out a cigarette to her, and she lit it for herself and then said, “They really seem to like me, too. Vicars’ wives are often disliked. Of course, I do most of the things I’m supposed to—Girls’ Friendly, and Guild, and those ghastly boxes for the missions. And I visit. That helps Perry. I’m really a very good vicar’s wife, now I think of it.” She leaned sensuously against the couch, and let the smoke curl up her cheekbones from her slackened fine lips.
“What about Tom?” Beddoes asked it softly, as if afraid to scare her away—or into plain friendliness again.
“Oh, Tom.” She looked vaguely at him, and then shook herself. “Yes, Tom. Well—it’s rather hard to start. I do hope he is not listening. He’s so terribly sensitive lately. You see, it’s getting time for him to leave us, and he doesn’t want to. But of course Perry says he must. Oh dear! Mr. Beddoes—Mr. Beddoes, Tom is …” Sarah looked earnestly at him, as if she was praying that it was all right to hurt him in some way or frighten him, and without even knowing that he did it he took one of her hands. She smiled at him. “Tom is a lost soul. There are a lot of them, everywhere. When they’re really lost, completely, hopelessly, they’re usually what people call ghosts. They’re terribly unhappy, Mr. Beddoes, and they do mischievous things, or bad things. It’s a kind of rage they’re in. They haunt people. It’s wretched. The two at Mrs. Protheroe’s—Perry feels so depressed about them that he’s almost ill, Mr. Beddoes. Poor darling. You see, Mrs. Protheroe called him because she knows how he is helping, and of course she has to support herself and run the inn alone, and the two … They were a man and woman in about 1620 who owned the Queen’s Head and sent all the decent women who stopped there to London, doped, for the sailors. These two horrible souls have come back, and they are driving away all the trade. They just lie in that bed, which isn’t really there, of course, and …” Sarah shuddered, and threw her cigarette into the grate.
Beddoes closed his eyes for a moment. He felt nauseated and cold, remembering the waves of hatred that had risen from the blue-canopied high couch last night, and hearing his own voice heavy with prayer against the impossible whirring of the electric clock upon the wall. “Yes, those were damned souls,” he said at last, and looked at Sarah.
“Well, Perry will try again. And he has helped many, you know. Agatha is one of the best. She came to us! Usually Perry discovers where there is trouble and goes and rescues the poor tormented thing and brings it here. But Agatha came by herself, and asked to stay. Of course, she’s more like a guest, you know. It’s a queer mess. We hardly feel that we can ask her about herself. But she’s never been sly, like some of the others, and she’s getting clearer all the time. She insists she was a cook! She’ll soon leave us, too. You see, they grow clearer as they find themselves. Some of them, even if you can’t see them, you know they’re tiny and hideous, more like ideas than things—ideas of pain, perhaps. And then as they find themselves they grow straighter and clearer until they’re almost like chi
ldren, but with old minds, of course. I can see Agatha lately. Today, when she wanted so much to make the tart, she was there, Mr. Beddoes—so little and sincere that I knew she’d be honest about it. It was a terrible tart, but it was a tart. Some of them, even when they promise to be good, do naughty things, and might use salt instead of sugar. Or rat poison. Or drain cleanser …”
“My God!” Beddoes looked angrily at her. “You’re in danger, then!”
“Of course. It’s risky business, really. But we must do it. You could tell, couldn’t you, the dreadful suffering of those two at Mrs. Protheroe’s, caught as they were in their own evil? And Perry can save them. He has had worse. He’ll bring them here, and gradually—I think it’s probably my quiet nature, and of course I’m patient when eggs get broken because I often break eggs myself—gradually they begin to be less cruel and twisted, and I give them little jobs to do. In fact, they can become very helpful. I don’t hire anyone at all now.” She smiled at him.
He could see her only dimly against the soft glow of the fire, but her eyes looked sure and steady into his. He gave her another cigarette and then said fretfully, “But I don’t like your being in danger. I don’t like it.”
“There isn’t much, really. And of course Tom is here.”
“Yes. What about Tom?”
Sarah watched smoke rise from her cigarette toward the chimney, and then she laughed. “It’s really simple, you know. He’s been with us several months now—almost since Perry began this. But every time Perry tells him it is nearly time to go, Tom breaks something, or pretends to be naughty, and then we have to start all over again. At least, he means us to. And of course I have to be stern with myself, because really I wish he could stay forever. I depend on him—too much, I know. He should have a real home, one he could run correctly. Number One Boy. But he’s wonderful with the others. I told him this afternoon about the silliness outside your door. I think it must have been Lady Donfellows and the Negro girl, Odessa. They’ve only been here a few weeks. They’re not bad at all, just idiotic—completely zany. Nitwits. They got lost before they died, and then fluttered around wondering what was wrong with everybody else—for centuries, probably. I told Tom. He felt rather badly. But he’ll keep them in order. I’m sure of him.”
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