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 death, 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.
