“Daphne,” said my aunt, after the question “Why is he so angry with me?” had been repeated for the fourteenth or fifteenth time, and voicing a thought which had also occurred to me, but had seemed a little heartless to express, “Daphne dear, don’t you think he may just have been a little irritated by your ringing so often at his doorbell when perhaps he didn’t want to be disturbed? He has to take the midnight service tonight, you know.”
“But he must have known it was me,” said Daphne pitifully.
“Well, yes—” said my aunt, with a note of dubiety in her voice.
“And he must have known it was only because I cared about him, and wanted to make sure he was all right.”
“Even so—” said my aunt, causing Daphne to burst into further floods of tears.
Although we all knew how unlike him it was to be unkind to anyone, it did not, I think, occur to any of us that his outburst might be a symptom of any physical illness. Reg, I need hardly say, invited Daphne to join us for lunch, and afterwards at long last persuaded her to return home, without making any further attempt to get in touch with Maurice. She would see him, said Reg, in the normal course of events, at lunch here on Christmas Day; by which time, if she did nothing further to remind him of it, he might well entirely have forgotten his vexation with her.
Thereafter the day passed peacefully until about half past ten, when Griselda and Ricky came round to be fortified for the midnight service with mince pies and mulled wine. When we had all consumed enough of these to be sure that our strength did not fail us, we trooped out into the churchyard and walked across to St. Ethel’s, which was looking very much at its best, ethereal and almost luminous in the bright moonlight.
We saw Maurice for a few moments on the way into church, but with no time for any proper conversation. We were all, I think, rather worried about how ill he looked—grey and gaunt and hollow eyed, much worse than he had the day before. There was a medicinal sort of smell about him, as of mothballs—I suppose from whatever he was taking for his cold—and he was trembling slightly as if he had a fever.
“Oh Maurice,” said my aunt, “you ought to be at home in bed.”
As a seasoned churchgoer, you will not wish me to describe the service in detail, save to the extent that it appeared in any way to depart from what is usual on such occasions. I would ask you to remember that St. Ethel’s, though small, is considered by the discerning to be an unusually fine example of early Norman architecture; that my aunt had been responsible for the decorations and the arrangement of the crib, which were therefore unusually charming; and that the choir, having practised the carols, I am reliably informed, with exceptional assiduity for the past six weeks, may be presumed to have sung them with unusual sweetness. Subject to that, I think I am safe in saying that everything proceeded in a perfectly usual manner until Maurice, in his long white robe, entered the pulpit to address the congregation.
He began by telling us that we had gathered to celebrate the birth of a child—a divine child, who would bring new hope to the world and salvation for our sins. This seemed to be thought an unexceptionable opening, and in accordance with what the congregation expected. From there he went on to speak of various references in pre-Christian writers which had from time to time been interpreted as prophecies of that event, with particular reference to the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, commonly known on that account as the Messianic Eclogue. This too the congregation seemed to find not unreasonable, no doubt feeling that an event which has been foretold by prophets must be of much greater significance than one merely recorded by historians.
“But we must beware of false prophets,” said Maurice, with great solemnity, and the congregation seemed to become slightly uneasy.
He paused for a few moments, as if puzzled at what he had said and uncertain how to proceed further, but then began to explain, with wonderful lucidity, the historical background to the composition of the fourth Eclogue, establishing conclusively that it was intended to refer to the prospective first child of the marriage between Mark Anthony and Octavia, rather than to the Christian Saviour. It was a very learned explanation, but perhaps a little on the long side for so late an hour on an evening of festivity: I became aware of the rustlings and shufflings which are the sign of a dissatisfied audience.
Then he warned us again, with even greater fervour than before, to beware of false prophets, and the uneasiness became palpable. Ricky, in a rather too audible whisper, asked if my aunt thought that Maurice “had taken a drop too much.” She shook her head and shushed him, but looked more anxious than ever.
It evidently occurred to Maurice at this stage that he might be thought to be accusing Virgil of being a false prophet, and the idea seemed to cause him much agitation and anguish. He had not, he said, at all intended to suggest that Virgil was a false prophet. There were false prophets and we must beware of them, but Virgil was not of their number—Virgil was a true prophet. If he had said anything to imply otherwise, then he was very sorry for it, and must ask us to excuse him for misleading us, as he had been rather ill. Virgil was a true prophet, and a great poet, perhaps the greatest who had ever lived, and we must never doubt that he was divinely inspired.
It became clear to me that this was not at all a usual way for the Vicar to address his congregation—not, at any rate, at St. Ethel’s. Several people had half risen from their places as if contemplating some kind of intervention.
And then, his arms raised high and spread wide in their loose white sleeves, Maurice began to read aloud from the fourth Eclogue—or rather to recite, since it was clear that he knew the lines by heart. His voice now lost all trace of hoarseness and the syllables rolled out clear and resonant into the church, filling the vaulted roof with their thunderous grandeur and reaching their majestic climax in the lines “Aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo.
There was for a few moments an absolute silence. He stepped down from the pulpit; stood for a moment facing us, looking down the aisle towards the main doorway; seemed to stagger; and lay prostrate, his arms still spread wide, looking like a huge white bird that has been shot down in flight across the sky.
Someone must have done something very efficient; an ambulance arrived in less than five minutes. To make sure that Maurice was promptly attended to when he arrived at the hospital, my aunt went with him in the ambulance.
It was the sound of the siren, I suppose, that made Daphne aware of something being wrong. Just as the ambulance was leaving she came running across the churchyard from the Rectory, already distraught and wild-eyed, wanting to know what had happened, and saying “It’s Maurice, isn’t it? Something awful has happened to Maurice.” It would have been prudent, or so it seemed to me, to describe what had occurred in the least dramatic terms possible. Others, however, evidently did not share this opinion: she received a number of answers calculated to confirm her in the impression that Maurice was not merely ill but dying, if not already dead. These, as you may imagine, did not have a soothing effect.
Since she was wearing only her nightdress and a slightly moth-eaten woollen cardigan, it seemed likely that if she stayed out for long the next catastrophe would be her catching pneumonia. Eventually, however, Griselda and I persuaded her to come back here and wait for news and have some hot soup to warm her up.
We did our best to calm her down, but with little success. She continued to moan and sob and pummel herself with her fists, saying how terrible it was that Maurice was ill and she was not with him. She seemed to feel that someone should have sent for her to go with him in the ambulance: we ought to have known, she said, that she would want to be with him.
Reg arrived home a little after one in the morning. Ricky had driven to the hospital to collect her, stopping on the way to pick up various things that he thought Maurice might need, such as a pair of pyjamas. Ricky being Ricky, the package of essentials had included a bottle of whiskey.
By now almost convinced by Daphne’s lamentations that Maurice was on the point of deat
h, Griselda and I were disproportionately relieved to hear that the doctors did not agree. Although they were not quite sure what exactly was wrong with him—they said that it was probably some kind of virus—they thought that it would have been relatively harmless if his general health had been better. The real problem, they said, was that he was desperately malnourished: poor Maurice, I told you that he looked like a skeleton. They had attached him to some sort of plastic tube, designed to save him the trouble of eating, and hoped that he would soon show signs of improvement.
It was still some considerable time before any of us actually went to bed. Daphne apparently assumed that all other arrangements for Christmas Day were automatically cancelled and that my aunt would drive her over to the hospital first thing in the morning: when Reg explained to her that it would not be right to cancel a lunch for twelve guests on account of the illness of one, and that therefore she did not intend to visit Maurice again until the afternoon, there ensued a longer and more tearful argument than I have energy to relate. At long last, however, Daphne went home, with Griselda and me to escort her on her way and each other on the way back.
On my return, I found that Reg had poured herself a generous measure of whiskey and had laid out the cards for a rather complicated form of patience. These things indicated to me, on the basis of past experience, that there was some element in the situation which she found problematic.
“I think I ought to tell you,” she said, having poured me a similar quantity of whiskey, “that I am not going to drive Daphne to the hospital tomorrow. Neither in the morning nor in the afternoon nor at any other time. Maurice doesn’t want to see her—I don’t know why, but he doesn’t. And the doctors say he mustn’t be upset.”
I asked, rather foolishly, whether she was sure that she had understood him correctly.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Quite sure, he said it several times. He was conscious, you see, by the time I left him, and able to talk a little, though he couldn’t manage much more than a whisper. And one of the things he kept saying was, ‘Please, Reg, don’t let Daphne come here.’ So of course I said I wouldn’t. But I didn’t want to tell Daphne about it tonight, when she’s already in such a state.”
I asked what else he had said.
“He kept saying,” said Reg, “that he wished he could see Derek again.”
She resumed her game of patience and I went rather anxiously to bed.
In the morning, however, she was in a much more cheerful mood, having already telephoned the hospital to find out how Maurice was: they had told her that he had spent a comfortable night and was as well as could be expected. Quite what this means I am never entirely sure—after all, there are circumstances in which one might be expected to be very ill indeed—but my aunt seemed sufficiently reassured to hum “Good King Wenceslas” while making the toast.
By nine o’clock Daphne was again on the doorstep, in what I now regard as her customary state of agitation: there were things at the Vicarage of which Maurice would have urgent need; only she knew what they were and where to find them; she had no way of getting in; she didn’t know what to do. When my aunt admitted to having Maurice’s keys, nothing would satisfy her but an immediate expedition.
Preparations for lunch were accordingly suspended while we all went across to the Vicarage to look for Maurice’s favourite dressing gown and Maurice’s favourite slippers. Not to speak of his favourite soap, his favourite toothpaste, his favourite cough mixture and his favourite paper handkerchiefs. It was essential, you understand, that each item taken should be the favourite in its category. Thus, instead of being content with the pair of blue slippers beside his bed, we were obliged to spend half an hour searching for a pair of green slippers which she believed him to be more deeply attached to and which turned out to be at the very back of the bathroom cupboard. Similarly with most of the other items, none of which seemed actually to be where Daphne had thought it was.
By the time we had found everything she considered immediately indispensable to his well-being and packed it safely in the boot of Reg’s car, the arrangements for lunch were a little behind schedule.
Griselda, in the meantime, had ridden over to the hospital on her bicycle, laden with books and bottles of burgundy, and also, after stopping on the way to give Christmas greetings to Mrs. Tyrrell, with large quantities of gingerbread and homemade chocolate cake. She had found him, however, in no condition to enjoy either food or conversation—still attached to the tube and not allowed to eat anything.
Of lunch I shall say nothing, though it would have been in other circumstances a meal to be remembered in song and legend. Not only Maurice’s illness, however, but the presence of Daphne, unkempt and red-eyed, still wearing her moth-eaten cardigan, silent and palpably resentful, detracted from the gaiety of the proceedings.
It was only when lunch was over and all the guests had left that my aunt told Daphne that Maurice did not want to see her.
It had of course been foreseeable that she would be upset. What I had not foreseen—though perhaps my aunt had—was that she would still insist, if possible with even greater vehemence, on being taken to the hospital.
Reg said that she would not take her. Daphne, in tears and rage, said that she must, she had promised. Reg denied having promised; Daphne continued to assert that she had.
“Daphne,” said my aunt eventually, “there is no point in arguing. Maurice is my friend and he is ill and he does not want to see you—if I had given you such a promise, I should not dream of keeping it. Julia will give you some tea.”
After which she walked briskly out to her car and drove away, leaving Daphne, although all too briefly, lost for words.
For half an hour or so I remained the vicarious object of furious and tearful reproaches, all on the theme that Daphne had never thought my aunt the kind of person who would break her promise. I made tea, however, as it seemed to me I had been instructed to do, and after she had drunk some of it she became slightly calmer and asked me to lend her the money for a taxi. I told her, untruthfully and with a degree of moral cowardice I am ashamed to admit to, that I had run out of money. She said she did not believe me. Becoming slightly braver, I said that even if I had the money I would not lend it to her. She said that I was a horrible person and she hated me and would never speak to me again. After this, I am afraid to my enormous relief, she marched out of the house.
Since it is Christmas Day, there are of course no trains or buses and I doubt whether anyone else will lend her the money for a taxi. It seems reasonable to hope, therefore, that she will not find any means of reaching the hospital today; what happens tomorrow is another question.
Christmas evening
I am no longer despondent. Perhaps it is not, after all, so unfestive a Christmas as I thought. Last night, it seems, after I had gone to bed, my aunt sat up finishing her game of patience and considering whether she should try to get in touch with Derek Arkwright. Though she didn’t have the name or address of his friend in London, she still had in her address book the telephone number which Maurice had given her last summer, for the place where he and Derek were staying in the south of France. She had no idea whether anyone would be there who knew where Derek was, or indeed knew him at all, at any rate by the same name that she did; but she decided, having brought her patience to a successful conclusion, that at least the attempt should be made.
She rang this morning, before I was even awake. To her astonishment it was Derek himself who answered; to her even greater astonishment he said he would come at once.
“He wasn’t sure what flight he could get on Christmas Day, but he said he hoped he could be in Worthing by five and he would go straight to the hospital. I didn’t dare tell Maurice when I saw him this afternoon, in case he didn’t come after all. Poor Maurice, he was looking so fragile, I almost didn’t believe he’d get better. I just sat by his bed and did some sewing and wished that Derek would come. And then he did. And Maurice said, ‘Oh, Derek, I’m so sorry,’ and Dere
k said ‘So I should think, silly old thing,’ and kissed him. So then I thought I’d come home.”
And almost straightaway, it seems, Maurice began to get better. When my aunt rang the hospital a few minutes ago, they said he was well enough to be taken off the plastic tube and be given some proper food. Derek’s staying there overnight, of course.
We have been having a glass of champagne to celebrate and are feeling quite festive, after all.
26th December
I hardly know now whether to send this—poor Maurice died early this morning.
Julia
15
AT THIS JUNCTURE, dear reader, you have, if I may say so, the advantage of me. You cannot have imagined me, I hope, so careless of the proper duty of an historian as to burden you with documents irrelevant to the subject of my narrative: you have therefore assumed, during your perusal of this exchange of letters, that there was some significant connection between the events related in them; you have drawn inferences which seem to you too obvious to be overlooked. Having had no grounds, however, for relying on the same premise, I would ask you not to judge me too severely for my slowness in arriving at the same conclusions.
Moreover, I first read these letters merely by way of diversion, while waiting in the Corkscrew for my friends on a cold evening in early February; I had no reason to subject them to the searching gaze of Scholarship, as evidence of something sinister and perhaps still dangerous. It is right to say, however, that even if I had studied them with the utmost care and at once reached all those conclusions which could correctly have been drawn, I would still not have known enough to prevent another death.
Julia arrived pink nosed and shivering, having dressed with incurable optimism in expectation of spring, and purchased a bottle of burgundy as a precaution against pneumonia.
“I’m sorry to see,” I said, “that your Christmas holiday came to such an unhappy end. Did you stay long in Sussex after Maurice’s death?”
The Sibyl in Her Grave Page 18
