This hitch in the order of an all-important ceremony was too much for my aunt. Her sniffling became frankly a wail, and nothing that we could do or say, which was precious little, availed to persuade her that for her dear Essie’s funeral to be kept waiting at the cemetery gates was nothing worse than a painful and absurd accident. To her it was a shameful thing, though she could not or would not explain why. There followed fifteen minutes of agony for us all. In a frenzy I put my head boldly, and (as my aunt insisted) irreverently, out of the window; and at sight of Mr Jarnders and other familiar Little Bethelites stepping from their carriages I knew whose obsequies it was that were delaying us.
At last we were in motion again, and the dreary business of the day went on. I will not hurt myself further by recalling moments—so vivid and unreal—that I wish only to forget. In one point, and one only, I had been able to please myself in the funeral arrangements; for it was Tom Latitude, no other, who conducted the service in that squat little cemetery chapel, and Tom Latitude who, at the graveside, when the last ritual words had been said, snatched me out of the pit by speaking, as the Quakers say, to my condition. For, as I turned to follow the Claybrooks to the waiting carriage, an arm was slipped in mine. I knew it was Mr Latitude’s, but I was in tears and dared not look at him.
‘You’re glad that’s over, I’m sure,’ he said cheerfully. I did not answer, and after a pause he added: ‘You can forget about all that part of it now, as soon as you like. It’s rather an ugly thing, a funeral. And not very Christian.’
I found a voice to say: ‘It’s beastly.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Rather beastly in a way. Now those words about the resurrection you heard me say. You remember: we therefore commit her body to the grave in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection. That almost makes you think that she herself is in the grave, doesn’t it? But of course that’s nonsense. It wasn’t your mother that we buried. It was only the clothes she wore, the house she lived in. You know that, I’m sure.’
‘But where,’ I asked, ‘where is she herself, now?’
‘The spirit shall return to God who gave it,’ said Mr Latitude; and, though I had never heard the Bible quoted with less parade of piety, the words jarred on me. The man was a parson after all, and, like the rest of them, I thought bitterly, must hide behind his formulæ.
‘I don’t believe there is a God,’ I announced defiantly. ‘And if there were I should hate him for killing my mother.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘it’s not quite that kind of God I’m talking about.’
I had hardly expected to shock him by my outburst, yet was not prepared for quite so calm a reception of it. He did not debate the question, but went off on a line of his own, talking of beauty and goodness, and offering me not a creed—though he seemed to think it that—but a sentiment. It was, I have no doubt, a very excellent sentiment, and, though it did not begin to answer my questions, it served the more immediate purpose of distracting me from grief. And now, having reached the cemetery gates where my uncle and aunt were waiting for me, I plucked up courage to speak to him of Calamy, and to ask him to come home with us. For I had faith in Tom Latitude, if not in his God; and I had persuaded myself that he, if anyone, could win Calamy from the dream in which he was imprisoned.
Calamy had been left at home, the kindly Mr Wiccombe having consented to keep him company; and in the shop, which was filled with tobacco smoke from Mr Wiccombe’s pipe, we found them sitting in silence together.
Not very hopefully I went and stood within two feet of where Calamy sat. ‘Mr. Latitude has come to see you, Dad.’
‘Well, Claud,’ said Calamy. My heart leapt with joy that he recognized me. Was Aunt Bertha’s prediction already fulfilled? But the sharp look he gave me was anything but reassuring. ‘You’re a clever boy, aren’t you? You think you’ve put her away. But you haven’t: I’ve got her. I’ve got her here.’ He tapped his forehead with slow deliberation, and the gesture frightened me as nothing else in his behaviour had done.
Chapter XIX
My darkest hour was now past, and there were happy days ahead. But this I could not know as we sat over our teacups, we four, sadly debating the problem of Calamy. The phrase he had used about ‘putting away’, and the tapping of the forehead that accompanied it, had by their accidental aptness to his own situation all too clearly defined my unspoken terror for him. That terror, that vile possibility, could no longer be ignored.
But if it could not be ignored it could be kept a secret from the others for so long as they remained blind to it. I myself would not utter a revealing or suggestive word. As though I held a watching brief for this man who had been more than a father to me, I listened warily to all that my elders said. I was waiting to hear one of them voice this secret thought of mine, that I might indignantly deny it; I gathered myself ready to oppose with all my small power any suggestion they might make that involved bringing a doctor on the scene. For I was resolved to have no strangers meddling with Calamy. Let his mind be as disordered as it might—that was his misfortune and mine, and we would deal with it as best we could, together. But there must be no doctors; and, above all, no talk of ‘putting away’. The world at large, as I saw it, was our enemy, faithless and malicious. Given its chance it would smile and smile and turn the key on him in triumph. The thought of physical danger hardly entered my head; for I could not conceive it possible that I should ever be afraid of Calamy.
‘Claud thinks it’s nothing but want of sleep,’ remarked Uncle Claybrook, after some half hour’s desultory and dismal conversation. ‘Don’t you, my boy?’
‘Yes,’ I said eagerly. ‘I don’t believe he’s slept a wink ever since Mother died. You can see it by his eyes. They’re so bright and dark and staring.’
‘That’s true,’ said Mr Latitude, nodding reflectively.
‘I didn’t sleep a lot myself,’ I added, anxious to consolidate the ground I had won. ‘I often went into his bedroom at night, and he was always awake, always.’
‘Well, the best thing to do, to my way of thinking,’ said Aunt Bertha rather defiantly, ‘is to send for the doctor at once, instead of sitting here talking.’
‘That’ll only make him worse.’ My words came breathlessly. ‘Besides,’ I added, recklessly lying, ‘the only doctor there is lives at Farringay, and I don’t suppose he’s at home now.’
‘Why shouldn’t he be?’ asked my uncle mildly. He drew out his watch. ‘It’s only half-past four.’
‘And that’s the doctor that came to Mother,’ I urged desperately. ‘And we can’t possibly have him.’
‘Why not, dearie?’ asked my aunt. ‘Isn’t he a nice man?’
‘O Lord!’ I cried rudely. ‘If you can’t see why not, it’s no good talking to you.’
‘Steady, lad, steady!’ said my uncle. ‘That’s not the way to speak to your aunt. Now is it?’
Mr Latitude intervened, and though he was by far the youngest of these three counsellors of mine, and though he had no air of claiming authority for himself, there was something in his presence, his candid inquiring eyes and glowing white hair, that weighed his lightest word with the suggestion of a profound and almost celestial wisdom. ‘Claud has had a very bad time, we must remember. But we all want to do our best—don’t we, Claud? And do you know,’ he said, turning to my aunt, ‘I can’t help feeling, Mrs Claybrook, that his idea is the right one. To be awake so long, and to be awake in hell—I doubt if any of our minds could bear a strain like that.’
My aunt shrugged her shoulders. ‘If it’s sleep poor Bob needs, I should have thought the doctor was the best person to make sure of it for him,’ she remarked stubbornly. ‘But I’m only a simple woman.’
‘Couldn’t we get a doctor’s prescription?’ hinted my uncle, with a glance almost of apology in my direction.
‘Not without having the doctor to see him,’ I countered.
‘And that might be unwise at this stage,’ murmured Mr Latitude.
I could
have worshipped the man: he, a stranger to the family, was the only one who could read my mind.
‘You know,’ he said, after a pause, ‘for my part I’m old-fashioned enough to believe in prayer.’
His smile was curiously attractive, in spite of its hint of professionalism. In my new ardour of hope I was ready to believe even in miracles. If any man on earth could command the angelic powers, that man, I thought, was my hero Tom Latitude. And from that moment, by tacit consent of the rest of us, Mr Latitude seemed to be in charge of our affairs. It was he who suggested that I should coax Calamy to go to his bedroom: indeed, that I should put him to bed and make him comfortable in anticipation of a long night of sleep; and soon after six o’clock had struck I set about that delicate task. All this time we had forgotten the heroic Mr Wiccombe, whom I found, solid as a rock and quite unperturbed, sitting in the dark shop with Calamy, precisely as we had left him two hours before. My aunt had provided him with tea on a tray, but he had declined to be relieved from his post, saying: ‘You good people run along and talk it over. Mr Calamy and me are getting along famous together.’ An exaggeration this, for I doubt whether our devoted neighbour had succeeded in getting from Calamy, during all those hours, a single recognition of his existence.
Mr Wiccombe, however, was indulging in the luxury of a remark at the very moment of my entry. ‘Of course you’ve got her, Mr. Calamy. There’s no two opinions about that … Hullo, here’s young Claud.’ In as natural a voice as my trembling heart would allow me, I told Calamy that it was bedtime, and wouldn’t he like to come upstairs? He stared at me vaguely, as if with an effort to remember; and his speech was inconsequent and scanty. But, to my inexpressible relief, he offered no resistance when, I taking one arm, and Mr. Wiccombe the other, we urged him to his feet and led him out of the room. Like a lamb he came with us up the stairs; but at the stairhead he paused, seeming disposed to go no further. ‘Come along, old man,’ said Mr Wiccombe heartily. ‘You’ve still got her. She’s waiting for you yonder, in the bedroom.’ Whether Calamy heard and understood this tale I cannot tell; but he suffered himself to be persuaded, and within half a minute we had him in the bedroom, sitting like a dazed child on the bed, with me pulling off his trousers.
As soon as he was in bed Mr Wiccombe slipped from the room. Having lit the candle that stood in its stick on the chest of drawers, I pulled down the window-blind to shut out the daylight. Calamy sat up and glared past me at his dream. ‘They’re all dead but us, Essie. Never seen so many corpses in my life. And they talk too: that’s another thing.’ My heart sank to something like despair, but at this moment Mr Latitude joined us, followed by Uncle Claybrook bearing a glass of hot milk, in which, as he told me later (‘But don’t tell the parson—he’s a grand fellow!’), were dissolved fifteen grains of aspirin which he had himself just fetched from Farringay. (‘Not that I’ve anything against prayer, my boy. You mustn’t think that. But I like to be on the safe side.’)
‘Here’s a drop of grog for you, Bobbie,’ said my uncle, looming large and shadowy in the candlelight.
For an appreciable moment, magnified by my anxiety to an age of agony, Calamy would pay no heed at all to the glass that was held out to him. But Mr Latitude, with one arm supporting the patient’s shoulders, with the other approached the glass to his lips. And presently—music to my ears—came the sound of swallowing. ‘Just another drop,’ said Mr Latitude. ‘No more? Very well. Now lie down and go to sleep, there’s a good soul.’ The tension of Calamy’s body relaxed: Mr Latitude gently lowered him to the pillow. ‘And now sleep,’ said that musical voice, dropping to a soft note. ‘Go to sleep … sleep. You know me, don’t you? I’m Tom Latitude. You used to come and hear me preach, you and Claud, so he tells me. Well, never mind. Don’t worry—just close your eyes.’ The eyes of Calamy, dark and piercing, stared relentlessly up at him. ‘Listen,’ said Mr Latitude, bending still nearer as if to confide a secret to him. ‘If you close your eyes you’ll see her more clearly. Just as she was. Just as she is. Try now. Try.’ The eyes closed. Mr Latitude, with delicate fingers, began stroking Calamy’s forehead; and his voice sank to the merest murmur. ‘Go to sleep. Go to sleep. And in the morning … go to sleep, go to sleep … you’ll be yourself again … and this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.’
The murmuring died away. Calamy, one arm flung across the pillow, was sleeping like a child. And we three, hardly daring to breathe, stood looking down on him, and wondering what measure of our hopes morning would bring us.
To
Harry and Winifred Roberts
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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The Quick and the Dead Page 11
