Ingenious pain Andrew Miller (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📖

now, gently does it . . . steady, steady - keep the ladder still, George! Now then . . . good, sir, that's the way . . . so . . . and ... so ... ah ... a little more . . . now . . . there . , . Help me, George, damn your eyes. So . . . another step . . . and ... we have him . . . thank God.'

'Bravo, brother!'

The Reverend claims his wig, slaps it on, silently congratulating himself. James Dyer crouches, panting in the grass by Mary's knees. Out of the tree the full extent of his alteration becomes apparent. To the Reverend he looks like the survivor of a shipwreck, one who has escaped with his life, but barely, barely. The Reverend gets on his knees beside him. Pace was right about the lice.

'Can you walk, sir? We have a conveyance by the church. A very short step from here.'

At the house there is a small party to meet them. Mr Astick and his daughter, over for dinner; Sam, who has cut through the fields ahead of the cart and broadcast the news; and Mrs Cole with Tabitha, the pair looking anxiously out from the kitchen door.

Astick comes up and takes the horse's head, then goes to the back of the cart to help down the ladies.

'This is Dr Dyer,' says the Reverend. Astick looks up. The man he sees in the cart reminds him of the prisoners he saw after the Battle of Plessy in '57. Men whose beards seemed to sprout straight from their skulls. Eyes too big for their heads, seeing things invisible to fatter men.

'He's verminous,' whispers the Reverend as Astick reaches up to lift James down from the high seat of the cart.

'Never mind that,' says Astick. He is a powerful man, swings James down easily.

'Mrs Cole,' says the Reverend, 'is the room next to mine fit for use?'

'Lor', there's no bed made up, and as for airing . . .'

'Airing is not of the first, Mrs Cole. Tabitha, get some sheets upon the bed, quick as you like. Mrs Cole, can you make a little of your beef tea, or' - seeing the objection forming on her lips - 'any of your most nourishing beverages that may be quickly prepared. Where is Mary?' They see her sat with her back against the vv^all of the barn, head lowered, sniffed at by a cat.

Says Dido: 'Poor woman. She is quite done up. Miss Astick and I shall attend to her.'

'Oh my,' says Miss Astick, seventeen, 'I never looked after a stranger before.'

The Reverend and Mr Astick move the sick man up the stairs between them, gain the room where Tabitha is setting up a breeze with the sheets, and sit the doctor down on a dusty seat beside the fireplace.

'That beard must come off,' says Astick, 'and all the hair elsewhere. If you bring me a razor. Reverend, I shall see to it myself. And hot water. Look! On your sleeve . . . Allow me . . .' Astick destroys the insect between finger and thumb. Fine, thinks the Reverend, fetching the razor from his room, how the unexpected shows the character of a man. What a good soldier Astick must have been, a good Christian soldier. Glad to call him friend.

They strip their patient, bundle his clothes to be burnt, shave him like a corpse. He is as white as one, as white and as yellow. James gazes up at the ceiling as they work above him. His breathing is rapid, feeble. Sam is sent running again, this time to Dr Thome's. There are lice in James's eyebrows. They shave the eyebrows, crack the lice.

Mrs Cole comes in with the tea. The Reverend takes it from her at the door. He blows on its surface and seeks to spoon some

between the frayed skin of James's lips, but it spills over the sick man's chin. He says: 1 believe I never fed a man before.'

'Nonsense,' says Astick. 'You fed the vv^hole church this morning, Reverend. Bread and w^ine.'

'True, sir. But this is devilish hard to do. The stuff goes everywhere but his mouth.'

'Raise his head a little. There now. We must not drown him in broth.'

'Aha! He took some that time. And swallowed it down. This will be as new blood to you, Doctor.'

James drinks, spoonful by spoonful, half a cup. A heat spreads inside of him. For the first time in days he becomes aware that he has a body. He is not entirely pleased to remember it. When did he last eat? Mary fed him some manner of roots in the New Forest. Then in Salisbury, an orange from the market, crushed upon one side, and some bread. Nothing since then, nothing but greenstuff from the hedgerows. With enormous effort, as though rolling a stone off his chest, he turns in the bed. Who is that man there? He shouts: 'Mary!'

Says Astick: 'I believe he said something. Say again, sir.'

'Mary.'

'Mary?'

'Ay,' says the Reverend, 'the woman he came with.'

'She is his wife?'

'His companion. Or so I believe. Easy there. Doctor. She shall come directly. My sister and Miss Astick are setting her up. You have come a long way, I think.'

James says: 'A long way, a long way . . .' He is uncertain now if he is speaking aloud or only to himself. He thinks: It would not be so bad to die here. This is journey's end perhaps. Lolling his head to one side, he sees the Reverend Lestrade and Mr Astick stripped to the waist and facing each other as if about to wrestle. Up flies Astick's arm. 'Got one!' he cries. 'Well done, sir,' says

the Reverend. 1 have not been so verminous since I was last in France.'

James, moon-bald, floats in the subterranean rivers of fever and exhaustion. Thome comes twice, makes his observations, standing a yard from the bed, and leaves a box of Dover's Powders, a