You must comfort yourself with the thought that I am not quite alone in my difficulties here. Yesterday I went to see Dean Bennett who seems to understand more of my trouble than I thought, though he does not know the whole of it by any means. He and his wife have been most kind and sympathetic towards me. I do not deserve it. ‘Mrs Dean’, as we call her, whom he calls ‘Lizzie’ is a lively, active little woman with a very imperious manner at times. But the Dean is more than a match for her. If she exceeds what he understands to be the natural prerogatives of her sex, he will simply say ‘No, Lizzie!’ and, lo, she desists! I think she reveres him as she reveres no-one else in the entire world, not even His Grace, the Bishop. I do not suppose that theirs is a great love, as ours is, my dearest, but it is a good one: ‘ ’twill serve’.
From the diary of Dean Bennett
Palm Sunday 1st April 1882
Charlie and Cyprian are back from Temple Grove School for Easter. I have high hopes of a Winchester scholarship for Cyprian; Charlie’s intellectual gifts are not, alas, of a high order, but he tells me that he has a great aptitude for cricket. Canon Simms dined again with us this evening. He is much improved, thanks to Lizzie’s regime, less pale and gaunt, and though he will never, I think, be lively company, he is pleasant enough. He started to tell the boys about some old customs and superstitions of the county, and appears to be quite the antiquary. He was talking about a custom that prevailed at Morton Abbas when I said that we would be passing that way tomorrow, for I was taking the boys in the dogcart to see the Bishop at Morton Episcopi a few miles farther on. At this he looked up at me very startled and anxious and said: ‘Really? Is that wise?’ I thought this somewhat impertinent, but I let it pass, calmly telling him that His Grace had kindly expressed a particular desire to meet my boys. I could be wrong but it seemed to me that, at this moment, a look passed between Simms and Lizzie, almost as though they knew something that I did not. Lizzie then said: ‘It is quite all right. I am accompanying them to Morton Episcopi.’ ‘Indeed you are not, Lizzie dear,’ said I. ‘His Grace did not extend the invitation to you as well.’ ‘Nevertheless, Monty dearest, I am coming,’ said Lizzie. I was so taken aback by the firmness of her tone that I could find no words to gainsay her. The moment had passed for objection and so, I suppose she is coming with us to Morton Episcopi. No doubt she has her reasons: it is most odd.
From a letter of Canon Simms to Miss Agnes Taitt, Easter Saturday, 8th April 1882
Shortly I must go in to choir practice for the Easter Sunday Service, but before that I must put down these words. God knows, you are the only one who will understand. I am not mad, but I may be going mad. There is a difference, you know! I am being taken to a place, I do not know what it is, or where it is, but I think it is possibly Hell. But not there yet! Only you can help me. Hear me out. We had our Good Friday service in the Cathedral, and the Bishop was there. Bishops, as you know, only attend their cathedral services as a rule on special occasions. It was a long service. Archdeacon Bourne spoke on the Seven Last Words from the Cross. At the end of it all I think we were all exhausted. In the vestry afterwards I saw young Damer, one of the trebles, crying in a corner. I went to put a fatherly arm around him but he shook me off quite violently. He is a dark-eyed, serious boy, eleven years old, and reminds me of the lad I was at his age. I asked him what was the matter but he would only say that the Bishop had been watching him all through the service. I am sure that this was an exaggeration, but I knew what the boy meant. On the rare occasions when the Bishop does look at you, it is not easily forgotten: that sidelong glance, sly and, somehow, greedy.
Later I had to go back to the Cathedral to fetch some music from the organ loft that I had left. It was deserted and gloomy in the fading light. I remember how I made as much noise as possible walking over the flagstones and tramping up to the loft, just to keep myself company.
The music was not there, and then I remembered that I had left it in my stall. The Silence was gathering all the while and the more noise I made the more it seemed to hold me in its grip, in its great soft cold hands. I came down from the loft and went to my stall where I found the music. I had noticed in passing that the cross which is covered by a bag of purple cloth from Good Friday till Easter Sunday morning, had gone from the High Altar. I wondered about this: could it have been stolen? And, if it had been stolen, should I report the fact? As I was leaving my stall with the music I looked up again at the altar to ensure that I had not been mistaken. Upon the altar stood a man, naked, a beautiful young man with long legs, his arms outstretched palms outward, such as you see in the old crucifixes of Christ Pantocrator, but not clothed or crowned. He was utterly naked and, though well-proportioned appeared to be only three and a half or four foot high. I am having a vision. The eyes are looking through me; sweat glistens on his chest. I am waiting for him to speak. He says to me: ‘I too am resurrected, though not as one but as many.’ Then his face becomes contorted and he shrieks aloud as his glistening belly begins to swell. It bursts with a great roar and out of its red and mangled fissure pours a great host that fills the cathedral: flies and flying things that buzz and soldiers with dead metal faces, and men and half men and singing, whining heads with wings for ears. That is what I saw and you may call me mad. I say I am not; I am just going mad. Read this and pity me. I fled the Cathedral and staggered back the few hundred yards to my rooms in the Close. I sat up half the night waiting for my head to fall off or for the crowd to come for me. Maybe if I hold myself very still I can survive long enough for you to catch me in your arms.
From the diary of the Very Reverend Montague Sykes Bennett, Dean of Morchester
Easter Saturday 8th April 1882
Canon Simms collapsed on the steps of the altar after choir practice today. He was taken to his lodgings in a state of semi-consciousness. I have sent over my man Fisher to look after him as best he can. Dr Pendlebury was summoned but he could do no more than utter some rigmarole about ‘brain fever’ and ‘neurasthenia’ and prescribe a tonic.
Easter Monday, 10th April 1882
I heard this morning from my friend Ames that Mr Rossetti, the poet and painter died yesterday. I sincerely trust that the creator of The Blessed Damozel made a better death on that sacred day than he made a life. Providence had decreed him many prodigious gifts.
In the afternoon went to Morton Episcopi to the Bishop’s where he holds his Easter Monday gathering for the cathedral clergy and choir. It was a bright and cloudless day and His Grace was in high good humour. There was fruit cup, and tea for the ladies, and all manner of delicacies to eat. The Bishop was very convivial and gracious with everyone and had a particular word with all the boys for whom there were games on the lawn. Bishop Hartley, like many a confirmed bachelor, is full of queer eccentricities and fancies. He can carry off the grave side of his office with great dignity, but he has a sportive, at times an almost childlike disposition. He is a great collector, having inherited the wealth wherewith to indulge himself, and one of the rooms in his Palace is devoted to an exhibition of ancient classical statuary, some of it not altogether decent. (This he excused to me by saying that they were the product of his voyages through Italy and Greece in his youth.) In another he has amassed a most remarkable collection of painted lead model soldiers, no doubt in honour of the military side of his family. He has them laid out in dioramas to illustrate some of the notable battles of this century. Throughout the afternoon he was forever inviting the choir boys, often singly, occasionally in pairs, into the room to view ‘my military scenes’, as he put it. I am afraid that what with all the games, the fruit cup (which was unconscionably potent), the food and other novelties many of the boys became thoroughly over tired by the end of the proceedings. I saw one being led away in tears by Mrs Fogle, the Precentor’s wife, and two of them were violently sick into His Grace’s fish pond.
On our return from Morton my man Fisher came to me in great distress saying to me that Canon Simms had disappeared from his lodgings. I made
enquiries, but no clue as to his whereabouts could be ascertained. In addition, Lizzie has scolded me for allowing Charlie and Cyprian to have too much fruit cup. I replied, rather too sharply I am afraid, that if she had spent more time looking after her sons and less tattling over the teacups with Mrs Fogle, the boys might be in a less disordered state. A most exhausting and unsatisfactory day.
Tuesday, 11th April 1882
A gusty day of rain and oppression. No news yet of Canon Simms. Truly the bard was right when he said: ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.’ This morning I heard of the most dreadful tragedy: the drowning of one of our choirboys, young Damer, in the Orr. He was found floating in some reed beds yesterday evening and would appear to have been dead for about six hours. No foul play is suspected, but accident, I fear, is equally improbable: his pockets were full of stones.
Wednesday, 12th April 1882
A wire from Birchington-on-Sea that Canon Simms is found, but in a most dreadful state. He is in good hands though, being looked after by his intended Miss Taitt who lives with her father, Professor Taitt at Birchington. No doubt that was why he had fled there. He was found in a boarding house on the sea front having attempted, it would appear, to take his own life by a most extraordinary method. He had swallowed one, or possibly several—the wire was too terse to be entirely clear about this matter—lead model soldiers. He has made some sort of recovery, but I fear his internal organs will be irreparably damaged, and the poisoning from the lead must take its toll. I would have gone at once to Birchington had not an even more dreadful occurrence intervened.
At about noon I was called upon at the Deanery by Mr and Mrs Wilkins together with their son Joseph who is a cathedral chorister. They begged for a private interview with me to which I consented and they came into my study, leaving young Wilkins on a chair outside my study door. They then proceeded to tell me the most shocking story about the Bishop and their son. I might have dismissed them angrily and at once, were it not for the fact that Wilkins is a most respectable man. He owns the draper’s in Milsom Street, has served on the Town Council and he and his wife are regular in their attendance at divine service in the Cathedral. Naturally the allegations had originated from young Joseph, but Mrs Wilkins told me that she had seen physical evidence on the boy which supported his claims. I summoned Joseph into my study and interviewed him minutely. He answered all my questions carefully and without equivocation. He is a somewhat slow-witted youth, but this makes it all the more certain that he has fabricated nothing. I am quite sure that he was perfectly truthful. What he told me has darkened my outlook on life in a way that nothing hitherto has ever done. Mr and Mrs Wilkins then began to suggest that responsibility for the tragic death of young Damer can also be laid at the Bishop’s door. This I angrily dismissed as mere supposition. I am afraid I may have been rather too harsh with them on this point, but, I must admit, I was not wholly in command of myself by this time.
As soon as the interview was over I summoned the dogcart and set off for Morton Episcopi. His Grace was taking a post-prandial nap when I arrived and seemed reluctant to have me admitted, but I forced myself into his presence.
I cannot possibly bring myself to give the full details of that interview. It is too inexpressibly painful to me. It would appear that His Grace is utterly lost to all decent feeling, let alone a consciousness of the peril to his immortal soul. He made very little effort to deny the allegations, but instead asked if the silence of the Wilkins family might be bought with money. I replied indignantly that I had with difficulty persuaded them not to put the whole matter before the proper authorities, and that it was only on condition of His Grace’s immediate resignation from the See that they had agreed to relent. He replied in high choler that it was ‘devilish presumptuous’, but whether he meant of me or of Mr and Mrs Wilkins I could not tell. The subject of young Damer was broached—I forget whether it was the Bishop or I who brought it up—and he assured me that there had been nothing in his conduct towards that boy with which he could reproach himself. He spoke so earnestly that I was forced to take him at his word. He said that ill health, due to the pressure of his labours and responsibilities, would have forced him to ‘lay down’ his ‘burden’ (as he put it) very soon in any case, and that he would write his letters of resignation that very evening.
Bishop Hartley then said that if I could keep all quiet and stop idle tongues wagging he would speak to certain people that he knew about the suitability of my elevation to the See of Morchester. He reminded me that his brother, Sir Herbert, was in the Cabinet and spoke very warmly of my abilities. I replied that I had no personal ambitions whatsoever, but that it was in the greater interests of God’s Church that this matter should be handled with the utmost discretion. Hartley nodded several times, then looked at me with that sidelong glance of his and smiled in a way that I did not care for at all. With that I left him.
On my return from Morton Episcopi I asked Lizzie whether she had learned anything about Hartley’s conduct from her conversations with Mrs Fogle. She replied that she had and I asked her severely why she had not informed me about such a grave matter. She replied: ‘Because, Monty dear, you would only have told me that I had no business listening to malicious gossip.’ I am forced to acknowledge that there may be some justice in her remark.
Letter to the Very Reverend Montague Sykes Bennett, Dean of Morchester
Manor Lodge, Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, Friday April 28th 1882
Dear Dean Bennett,
I received your message of condolence by wire this morning, for which I thank you. You will find in this packet such of the letters I received from Alfred as may throw light on the mystery that surrounds his terrible end. I do not wish them returned, for they are too painful to me; you may dispose of them as you deem fit. You and I are the only persons, I think, who concerned ourselves with him at the last. Both his parents are dead and his Uncle who was largely instrumental in his upbringing, is in India. I have notified him of the tragedy.
This much you already know: that I found Alfred in a boarding house here in a most dreadful state and prevailed upon my father to let me look after him at home. My father is not a man without compassion but he was very reluctant to admit Alfred to Manor Lodge. However, in the end he submitted with a good grace, knowing perhaps that poor Alfred’s stay would not be a long one.
And so it proved. I nursed my darling with devoted care, but it was clear, almost from the outset, that he had not long to live. Moreover, and it pains me to write it, I think that, despite everything, he did not wish to continue in this world. Some heavy burden of guilt was weighing upon Alfred’s soul, but with what cause I could not ascertain. Several times he said: ‘I had eyes, but could not see. I had visions, but would not speak.’ Much of his talk was delirious and as time went on the lucid intervals grew rarer.
Last Saturday morning, it was his last Saturday, my father came into the room where he was. My father rarely visited Alfred and was uneasy in his company when he did, but on this occasion he was too preoccupied to be awkward. He said that he had just had news from one of his academic colleagues that Mr Charles Darwin had died on the Wednesday (the 19th of this month). At this Alfred, who had been in a torpor, became very agitated. He addressed my father directly, saying: ‘Where is the enemy now?’ My father, taken aback, laughed, rather harshly I thought, then rapidly left the room to cover his embarrassment.
It was shortly after this that my poor Alfred took a decided turn for the worse. Despite my father’s earnest objections Alfred and I were united through a special licence by a good man in holy orders on the Monday. The ceremony took place in Alfred’s room. On his insistence and at great personal cost he rose from his bed and was dressed for this occasion. He had to return to bed soon afterwards and I was with him almost without interruption until the end. Our union seemed to afford him great consolation and he ceased to fret, but by Wednesday morning his condition was beyond all hope. I was holding his hand as m
y beloved husband took the final journey, in tranquillity at last, from this world to the next.
I understand from my father that your name is being spoken of in the highest quarters as a candidate for the now vacant See of Morchester. In the midst of all these distressing events, that at least, to all those who know you, and who care for the good name of the Church of England, is encouraging news. May I extend to you and to your wife Elizabeth my most heartfelt good wishes.
I remain yours very sincerely,
Agnes Simms
BASKERVILLE’S MIDGETS
They say that the theatrical landlady is dead. Perhaps they are right, because even in the days when I regularly went on tour she was a dying breed. I am not much given to thespian nostalgia so I shed few tears at her departure, but there may be another reason for my lack of sentiment.
There was a time when almost anyone who was doing a week at the Queen’s Theatre, Westport would stay with Mrs Ruby Baker at ‘Stage Door’, which is what she called her many-roomed boarding house in Harbour Street. It was cheap; it was easygoing; you were only five minutes away from the theatre, and you could have your breakfast as late as ten in the morning.
When I first went there in the mid 1970s it was still a thriving concern, but one could tell that it had seen better days. The walls of the dining room were adorned with signed photographs in frames of the theatrical and vaudeville celebrities who had stayed there. But they were more than a decade old. These days the ‘stars’ went to a hotel; it was only the also-rans like me who lodged at ‘Stage Door’.
Everyone used to say that Ruby was ‘a character’, one of those ambiguous terms which generally just means odd, sometimes self-consciously so. When I first knew Ruby, she was in her sixties, a big, blowsy bottle blond with a cigarette end perpetually drooping from the corner of her mouth. I used to watch her anxiously as she carried in the plates of eggs and bacon—and baked beans, whether you liked them or not—into the dining room of a morning. The ash from her cigarette always threatened to fall onto our breakfasts, but somehow it never did. A fellow actor once informed me that she used to put a needle down the middle of her cigarette so that the ash would maintain its precarious hold, and thus tantalise her guests, but I suspect this was a myth. There were many tales about Ruby, most of which were also told of other theatre landladies, so probably had no truth in them; but the story of Ruby and the Baskerville Midgets is unique to her, and I can vouch for it.
The Ballet of Dr Caligari Page 8
