In the end he shouted: ‘Job in the time of his tribulation said: “If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.”’
Silence fell. Mr Pearce said: ‘I believe a glass of canary will be helpful to me, my boy.’
It was poured. It was drunk.
Mr Pearce said: ‘You’re a parson, my boy. You’re in holy orders. The bishop has laid hands on you. So you ought to know. If anyone does, that is. Eh? Eh? What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ossie.
‘Ah, well, I suppose that’s about what anyone would say confronted with such a question. All the same, d’you know, I’d be interested. Do you believe what you teach, parson? D’you believe in an after-life? My daughter does. Oh, yes. She’s a Methody and considers that it is only important to repent here and now and all the rest will be added to you after you die. That’s fundamentally what the Bible teaches, isn’t it, no regarding which particular branch of religion you swing from. Repent and you’ll live again.’
Ossie said: ‘Thou has hold of me by Thy right hand. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in Heaven but Thee? My flesh and my heart faileth. But God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.’
‘You dropped your voice,’ said Nat Pearce, Notary and Commissioner for Oaths. ‘Tis unusual in you, my boy; you’ve one of those voices that carry. But I don’t supposition that what you have had to say is quite in my particular field. Maybe you’ll find a fox, but taint the same one! D’you know, I would wish to repent if I could believe there were something to it, for I’ve not been so well behaved these last few years. Tis pressure of circumstance that has been at the bottom of it all.’
Ossie moved reluctantly to the chair and lowered himself into it. ‘St James says: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life.”’
‘Eh? Yes, that’s very well.’ Mr Pearce raised a swollen mulberry of a hand and scratched among the ruffles on his chest. ‘But I haven’t altogether endured temptation, my boy. I have yielded, here and there, and that is the point, ain’t it. I’m not at all easy in my mind, and I don’t fancy passing on to meet my Maker with a burdened conscience. I’m terrible uneasy. You truly believe there is such a Being, do you? You believe these tales of hell-fire and eternal damnation? Upon my soul I don’t know what to think.’
‘God is eternal,’ said Ossie. ‘God is omnipresent. God is the supreme judge. There can be no turning away. If you go down into the nethermost parts of Hell He is there also. There is no escaping Him. Is it the sins of your youth that trouble you now?’
‘Youth? Whose youth? Mine? Nay, nay. Did I sin then? Maybe. If so, I have forgot. I have forgot what they were. Nay, my boy, tis the sins of age that trouble me. Those of the past ten years.’
Ossie took out a handkerchief and breathed into it. ‘What sins can you have in mind, Mr Pearce? Gluttony? Sloth? Concupiscence? I detected you once, I believe, cheating at whist.’
Mr Pearce had his hand behind his ear. ‘What? Oh, that. If it had only been at whist, my boy . . . If only at whist. . .’
‘Then pray what is wrong? I haven’t all day to listen.’
Mr Pearce coughed, trying to clear the phlegm gathering in his throat. ‘I have – from time to time, my boy, indulged in a little speculation. It seemed harmless enough. There was money to be made, d’you know – in India – in Italy – in some of our burgeoning industries. It is difficult for a country solicitor to accumulate wealth, though all his life he attends on it. Alas, in the main, my little speculations were unfortunate. It is chiefly the war. Italy was over-run. Madras was seized for the French. Some of our English industries have failed for lack of outlet, with all Europe closed against them. So, money was lost instead of made. Eh? Eh? I say money was lost instead of made.’
‘So you are less well off,’ Ossie said, never one to jump quickly at another’s meaning. ‘What is there to that?’
‘Alas,’ said Mr Pearce. ‘I have to tell you, my boy, that – that some of the money I speculated with was not. . . well, not my own.’
IV
Half an hour later the Reverend Mr Whitworth, having offered what contemptuous comfort he could to his ailing and contrite friend, went into the stables of the Red Lion Inn to pick up his horse; but there, feeling the impulsive need of further refreshment to sustain him before his ride home, he waved the ostler away and stooped through the gloomy passage that led to one of the parlours and ordered a pint of porter. So little light came from the latticed windows after the brightness outside that it was not for some seconds that he recognized the man sitting at a table near him.
He at once got up and moved to the other table. ‘Dr Behenna. May I join you?’
‘Certainly, sir. I’m at your service.’ Behenna was a man of forty-two, the principal surgeon of the town, authoritative, stocky and well dressed. Many a simple man would have trembled at the sight of these two together, for between them they encompassed all that anyone could know of the body and the soul. On the whole Behenna was the greater feared, for his denunciations and judgments were the more immediate. Hell-fire was at least at one remove.
Behenna was drinking porter too, and for a few minutes their conversation was casual: neither man was accustomed to lowering his voice, and two corn merchants were at another table and well within earshot. Behenna began to inveigh against the spread of apothecaries in the town who, without any qualifications except a board over their shops, saw fit to prescribe for all and every ailment man was heir to.
‘Look at this,’ he said, spreading a broadsheet on the table. ‘This is what they distribute and advertise, sir. “Dr Rymer’s Cardiac Tincture and Analeptic Pills”, “Roberts’s Medicated Vegetable Water for Scrofulous Wounds. For the Evil Leprosy, Pimpled Paces, Flushing, and all Morbid Affections”, “Dr Smyth’s Specific Drops for Weakness of the Natural Functions. In tin or flint bottles, according to size”. What are we coming to, Mr Whitworth, that the surgeons of the town should be expected to suffer such quacks and medical jockeys in their midst?’
‘Indeed,’ said Ossie, fingering the broadsheet indifferently. ‘Indeed.’ The corn merchants were about to go.
‘It would be a good subject for the pulpit,’ said Dr Behenna, brushing a fleck of porter from the front of his brown velvet jacket. ‘They should be denounced by the church, and in no uncertain terms. It is become a scandal.’
‘Indeed,’ said Mr Whitworth again. ‘I think I could do something along that line. Not Whitsunday, when it would be inappropriate, but within a few weeks perhaps.’
‘That would be very obliging of you, sir, for many of the common people - most of the common people – are gullible to a degree, and few can distinguish between a skilled physician who has devoted all his years to the study of human suffering and an ignorant charlatan who will sell them a bottle of coloured water and call it the elixir of life.’
‘It so happens,’ Ossie said, as the corn merchants left and no one else entered, ‘it so happens that I would welcome the benefit of your advice – on another matter – a matter which I did broach with you once before but to which you returned no altogether positive answer.’
The surgeon sniffed at the top of his gold-banded cane. The end of his last sentence had been talked down by Mr Whitworth beginning his, and Dr Behenna, not accustomed to being overborne in this way, was slow to change tack.
‘What subject is that?’
‘My wife,’ said Ossie.
There was considerable conversation going on in the main taproom, but this room was a little backwater. Indeed there was a quality of liquidity about the light, for the flawed and discoloured panes in the windows cast deceptive colorations on table and bench and chair, on mugs and glasses, on hands and clothes and facial expressions so that they were at once muted and inscrutable.
/>
‘She is unwell again?’
‘I think she is well enough of body, Dr Behenna, but far from well of mind. I have marked a noted deterioration in her general behaviour.’
‘How, sir? In what way?’
‘She has periods of profound melancholy when she will speak to no one, not even the children. Then she has spasms of savage excitement, when I tremble as to what she may do next. I have noticed a marked decline in her mental powers.’
‘Indeed? It’s less than four weeks since I visited her. I must call again shortly.’
Ossie took a deep draught of porter. ‘You know the problems that I face, as a responsible minister of the church. You know how I spoke to you at Christmas. I cannot see how the situation can go on very much longer as it is.’ He dabbed his mouth with a large linen handkerchief.
‘I know, Mr Whitworth. But you must appreciate what I told you then. Even supposing you were able to get Mrs Whitworth committed to an asylum, the treatment is nil. The inmates are sometimes chained. When they will not eat they are forcibly fed – and then not infrequently choke to death. I do not believe your wife would long survive.’
Ossie contemplated this agreeable thought for a moment. ‘It is always considered, it is well understood,’ he said, ‘that insanity is a visitation of judgment upon the wicked. No good man, no good woman is so visited. You will remember how Christ drove out the evil spirits.’
Dr Behenna coughed. ‘But there are degrees of visitation, and one hesitates to think of Mrs Whitworth as being possessed by an evil spirit.’
‘I don’t know what else. I don’t know what else. Since Christmas, however,’ said Ossie, ‘I have been giving thought to another course that may be open. A compromise course. There are in fact in Cornwall one or two private madhouses where the less seriously afflicted are taken in. There is one I have been in touch with at St Neot. Such a recourse would not need the sanction of a court; Mrs Whitworth could be conveyed there privately and kept there privately – in comfort. Fed and looked after by persons competent to fulfil such duties. Taken away from the strain of life in a busy vicarage. Given the constant and full medical care that she so obviously needs.’
Behenna looked at his companion.
‘I would hardly have thought such places afford – hm – quite what you say. But there it is. It would cost you money, of course.’
Ossie bowed his head. ‘That I would have to face.’
‘And in a sense deprive you of a helpmeet, Mr Whitworth. Although I appreciate the problems that you have to face—’
‘Great problems. I am a man, with all a man’s natural needs. It is not good that a man should suffer deprivations of the kind I am forced to suffer. You, of all people, must know it is detrimental to his health and well-being.’
‘Possibly—’
‘There can be no “possibly” about it, Dr Behenna. It is the gravest possible hazard to his physical and mental equilibrium—’
‘It could so be argued. What I was about to say was that I understand Mrs Whitworth fulfils most of her household duties adequately. And this, if she were put away, you would altogether lose. You could not re-marry.’
‘Certainly not. The marriage bond is sacred and indissoluble. No, no . . . I should be forced to engage a housekeeper.’
The two men looked at each other, and then Behenna bent his head to his drink.
‘A housekeeper . . .’
‘Yes. Why not? After all, I understand that you employ one, Dr Behenna.’
The doctor put down his tankard. He wondered where Mr Whitworth had heard of his private arrangements. Of course nothing was private in a small town.
‘Well, yes, I do.’
Two drunken men, arms twined, tried to get in through the door but failed. After some stumbling and argument they backed out, not encouraged by the stare of the clergyman sitting at one of the tables.
Behenna shrugged. ‘Well, my dear sir, who am I to say more on this subject? As Mrs Whitworth’s husband you are entitled to have her sent away if you wish. I doubt if anyone could object. I suppose she has a mother living? . . . But you have the prior right . . .’
Ossie frowned. ‘Dr Behenna, I am in holy orders, and therefore my position is somewhat delicate – more delicate, that is, than if I were an ordinary common member of the secular community. It is not a matter of having the agreement of her relatives that concerns me, but of obtaining the sanction of my bishop. Or if not the sanction, then at least the sympathy. If I took this grave step of having my wife put away; and I do not question that it is a grave step – she might very well be incarcerated for life – I should be reluctant to have the matter brought to his notice if the decision had been taken solely on my own initiative. The opinion of the surgeon attending on my wife would therefore be of the utmost value and importance. That is why I request it.’
There was silence for a minute or two.
‘Ecclesiastes,’ said Osborne, finishing his drink. ‘Chapter 38, verses one and following, I believe it is. I have never used a passage from the Apocrypha as my text, but no one I am sure would object. “Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him, for the Lord hath created him.” Something of that sort. It would be very suitable, in that context, to bring up the subject of the true as distinct from the false physician. Don’t you think?’
Dr Behenna twisted one of the brass buttons on his coat. ‘Your wife has never shown any positive signs of violence, has she?’
‘She has repeatedly threatened the life of our son. I told you. Isn’t that enough?’
‘It is certainly a very grave sign. Though such threats could well be empty.’
‘How can one tell?’ said Ossie. ‘Does one have to wait until the dastardly crime has been committed? And upon an innocent, defenceless child? I never have a moment’s peace.’
Behenna finished his own drink. ‘I understand how you feel, Mr Whitworth. I’ll come to see Mrs Whitworth again. Would Tuesday be convenient?’
Chapter Five
I
News reached Cornwall that week of a raid that had been carried out on Bruges. Locks, it was reported, had been totally destroyed in the port, the canal and basin drained dry, buildings had been blown up, invasion barges destroyed. Weak behind her defensive moat, England could still make the effective gesture of defiance. The young cleric, Sydney Smith, declared that he now considered war between the English and the French no longer a temporary quarrel but the expression of a natural antipathy between the races such as existed between the weasel and the rat. He did not specify which in his view was which.
In February the Directory had instructed General Buonaparte to inspect the invasion fleet with the hope that he might lead it against England, but, having observed Hoche’s failure of the year before, and, being aware of what had happened to the combined fleets of Spain and Holland when they met the British last year, Buonaparte had turned it down as too much of a gambler’s throw. Instead he had gone south again, no one in England for a while knew where. But just before Ross left London, news had come in that the General was in Marseilles assembling a fleet and an army.
Now, a secret report reached England that a great fleet had left Marseilles with the General on board, that the fleet consisted of 180 ships and that it carried 1,000 guns, 700 horses, and 17,000 of France’s best troops. It so happened that the recently promoted and recently knighted Admiral Nelson was in command of a fleet which had been sent to the Mediterranean last autumn even though invasion fears were then at their height, a bold, indeed rash, move which had been opposed by the admirals but decided on by Lord Spencer at the Admiralty, who over-ruled them. It could now be a fortunate decision, always supposing that the two forces should encounter each other somewhere in the wide reaches of the Mediterranean. A frigate had been dispatched to tell the admiral of the enemy’s move.
This information, while it allayed some immediate fears of invasion in Cornwall, did not remove them; for Hoche was still somewhe
re about, and France had the forces to mount two expeditions at the same time. While he was in London Ross had been to observe the preparations to meet an invader in Sussex and Kent. If the French landed drastic measures would at once be taken there to remove or destroy anything they might capture. Ross felt that in Cornwall not enough preparations of this sort had been made and set himself to put his point of view to the local Volunteers and Vigilantes.
In June a council of another sort was held – this in the Warleggan family. Nicholas, George’s father, had been in indifferent health for some time and spent more and more time at his country seat. As a consequence the management and direction of Warleggan interests had fallen wholly to George. His uncle Cary was immersed in day-to-day administration and took a greater active part in the affairs of the business: George usually decided policy.
It was a grey, warm, damp day when Truro, lying among its rivers and its mists, was at its most enervating, that Nicholas chose to limp into the main office of the bank and try to pick up the reins he had dropped a year ago. George gave him an account of what had been happening while Cary, sweating thinly under his skullcap, provided details and extra figures if Nicholas wanted them.
Presently Nicholas, staring at the great ledger in front of him, said: ‘You’ve been making heavy personal drawings, George. Eighteen thousand pounds in the last three weeks. May we know what enterprise you are favouring?’
George smiled: ‘Not so much an enterprise, Father, as an investment for the future. My future.’
Cary hunched his shiny coat round himself and said: ‘Very dubious investment, Nicholas. Very dubious indeed. An investment in self-aggrandisement, if one may venture to put it that way.’
George looked at his uncle dispassionately, as if seeing him without any sense of blood relationship. ‘I have been buying property, Father. In St Michael. A few houses. A few farms. A posting house.’
‘Derelict,’ said Cary. ‘Tumbledown.’
‘Not altogether.’
‘But this very large sum . . .?’