‘but I was afraid you’d think it was the last straw if I couldn’t cope.’
When the doctor returned he ordered her sternly to stay in bed. Afterwards he told me that she had probably made matters worse by ignoring all the signs that she had caught Norman’s influenza.
But Grace did not have influenza. She had caught a chill after being soaked on a shopping expedition – it could never have happened in Devon where the village shop stood next door to our cottage – and now she was suffering from pneumonia.
At eleven o’clock that night she began to have difficulty with her breathing. On arrival the doctor took one look at her and said: ‘She must go to hospital at once.’ He made no attempt to summon an ambulance. He drove us to the hospital at Keswick in his own car. I remember thinking what a blessing it was that Christian was old enough to be left in charge at the cottage.
Soon after she was admitted to hospital she became delirious and the pneumonia was finally diagnosed. I telephoned her sister Winifred in Manchester. To my great relief she at once offered to come to my rescue. I was unable to leave the hospital, and although Christian was capable of taking charge of four children for a short time I could hardly leave him without assistance for more than twenty-four hours.
The day passed. Winifred arrived and could barely bring herself to leave the hospital. I had to remind her sharply that if she wanted to help her sister she should attend to the children. Winifred cried but left. More time passed. The sympathetic nurses offered me cups of tea but I could hardly drink. Eating proved quite impossible.
For some time Grace was unconscious but in the evening when the sun was setting far away in the other world beyond the hospital walls, she opened her eyes and said clearly: ‘I can’t go on. But I must. She’d never care for the children.’
For a long moment I was so appalled, so overpowered by my guilt and my shame that I was unable to speak. Then leaning forward I clumsily clasped her hands as if I could somehow infuse her with strength, and stammered: ‘You mustn’t say such things. You mustn’t even think them. I love you and no one else but you and you’re going to live.’
She died a minute later.
‘Passion may be dangerous, but for all that it is the driving-force of life …’
CHARLES E. RAVEN
Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, 1932–1950 A Wanderer’s Way
I
Instinctively I knew that my best chance of maintaining an immaculate self-control was to organize the chaotic aftermath of the tragedy with the efficiency of the born administrator. I dealt with the hospital personnel. I made the necessary urgent telephone calls. I drew up a list of the other essential matters which required my attention. I prepared a short speech to deliver to my children and memorized it; I even bought extra handkerchiefs to mop up all the tears.
After dealing with the children I dealt with the local vicar who called in performance of his Christian duty, and I dealt with Winifred who by this time was well-nigh prostrated by her shock and grief. Having drafted the notices for The Times and the Daily Telegraph I wrote the innumerable necessary letters and decided which of Grace’s favourite hymns should be included in the funeral service. I was ceaselessly active. Sleep was shunned as far as possible because I was afraid of what might happen when I could no longer control my thoughts. From past experience I knew that if one wanted to preserve one’s sanity in adverse circumstances one had to ring down the metaphorical curtain in one’s mind in order to hide the horrors which had taken place onstage, and how could one be sure of keeping the curtain down once sleep had impaired one’s ability to play the stage manager?
After a while I realized that the curtain was trying to rise even when I was fully conscious, and I became engaged in a deadly struggle to keep it in place. It tried to rise when Christian stammered: ‘How could God have allowed such a dreadful thing to happen?’ and although I embarked on an answer I found I was unable to complete it as I would have wished. I did manage to say: ‘In a world where nothing bad ever happened we’d be mere puppets smiling at the end of manipulated strings,’ but then the curtain began to rise in earnest and I could not speak of the great freedom to be, to love and, inevitably, to suffer which made us not unfeeling puppets but human beings forever vulnerable to tragedy. Instead all I could say was: ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ as I struggled to nail my curtain to the ground.
But no sooner was the curtain back in place than Winifred was exclaiming in a burst of detestable feminine emotion: ‘Neville, you don’t deserve this – you were such a devoted husband, and everyone always said what a wonderful example you and Grace were of a truly Christian marriage!’
Once more the curtain started to rise and once more I managed to grab the hem before it could sail out of reach. I said woodenly: ‘Tragedy’s so difficult to discuss, isn’t it? Better not to try,’ and with a mighty effort of will I heaved the curtain down, but I was to have no respite. The curtain was developing a sinister life of its own.
‘Are you sure Mummy’s happy with Jesus?’ said Primrose. ‘No matter how nice Jesus is, I think she’d be happier with us,’ and a second later my nurse Tabitha was saying in 1909: ‘Your Pa’s gone to heaven to be with Jesus.’ Then in my memory I heard Willy cry outraged: ‘How dare he!’ while Emily asked: ‘When will Jesus let us have him back?’ A world had ended then and a world had ended now, the new tragedy eliding with all my most terrible memories as the curtain began to go up and up and up … But I hung on to the hem with my last ounce of strength and doggedly refused to let go.
The funeral service was held at St Martin’s-in-Cripplegate before the private interment at the cemetery, and when the Bishop himself offered to help I was spared the task of finding another clergyman to take the service I would have been unable to conduct. The ancient church, originally founded for the benefit of the workmen who were building the Cathedral, was packed with mourners, and the small graveyard too overflowed with those wishing to pay their respects.
The Bishop was superb. Dr Ottershaw had his episcopal shortcomings; as his Archdeacon I knew them better than anyone, but he was a good, decent man, and in his goodness and his decency his Christian message of hope lightened the darkness which must always surround the mystery of suffering. There were no sentimental clichés from Dr Ottershaw, only profound religious truths expressed with exquisite simplicity, and I felt not only relieved but grateful that my children were at last able to hear the message which my fear of emotional breakdown had prevented me from giving them.
It occurred to me that my disciple would have soaked at least one handkerchief as she listened to the Bishop, but of course I could not allow myself to think of Dido.
I glimpsed her before the service and she spoke to me afterwards, but only the briefest of conversations was possible. After the exchange of greetings she merely said: ‘I’ll write, I promise. I was too upset to write before,’ and as she disappeared I saw her eyes shone with tears. Perhaps she was merely feeling emotional in the wake of Dr Ottershaw’s address, but perhaps too she was temporarily overcome with all manner of ambiguous feelings.
After the concluding rites in the cemetery I continued to deal with everyone who required my attention until at last, much later, I found myself alone with my brother and sister in the vicarage kitchen as my curtain once more tried to rise. I was struggling fiercely with the hem but to my terror I realized it was sliding out of my
