'You shall dig your grave vv^ith your teeth, brother.'
'As you won't eat, sister, I must eat for two. When will you want us. Doctor?'
'When it is convenient to yourselves.'
'Then I shall rob you at Loo first and you shall have it back in blood later,' the Reverend says.
Even Dido laughs at this. A strange excited laugh.
He is in the parlour, reading, when Tabitha is sent to fetch him. He has read the same passage out oi Roderick Random four or five times - Roderick making up to the decrepit Miss Sparkle - but has taken in neither the comedy nor the cruelty of the scene. He has been thinking what excuses he might make, even now, and listening to the rumble of the Reverend's footfall in the room overhead. On the card table by the fire, laid by the cards of his last, losing hand, is a neat tortoiseshell case containing the lancets. It belongs to the Reverend, belonged to his father before him. James does not know what became of his own set. In someone else's pocket now.
Tabitha enters the parlour. 'Miss Lestrade is ready for you to go to 'er now.'
'Miss Lestrade?'
In 'er room, sir.' She points vaguely upwards.
He asks: 'What have you there?'
She walks over and hands it to him: a tin-glazed, earthenware bowl. 'Reverend said to give it you.'
'Thank you, Tabitha.'
James takes the bowl, the tortoiseshell case, and mounts the stairs, turning left and stopping to knock lightly at the first door on the right.
Dido Lestrade is sat by the table at the window of her room. She has changed her dress since dinner and wears now a gown of pale primrose and a quilted white petticoat. Her face is illumined by the afternoon light, a painter's light. She is, James believes, near the same age as himself. Her eyes are good, very human, but she has plucked her eyebrows to damnation.
He has never been in the room before. He is aware that it is on display for him and that he should admire it. He glances round, notes the Chelsea porcelain, the peacock-feather fans, the petit-point screen, the lacquered commode, the bed-hanging of Indian cotton, decorated with the Tree of Life. Endless frills and knickery-knackery; all in a room older than the church, a chamber better suited to blocks of solid, rustic furniture, the sort of stuff, sepulchral and stinking precisely of time, that stands about the rest of the house. Here is Dido's protest, her discreet rebellion: a Bath boudoir in the belly of North Devon. It moves him, and in some obscure way he would like to comfort her. He is aware that there is a gesture somewhere in the lexicon of such things that would convey his sentiments exactly, but he cannot find it. He says, more gruffly than he meant: 'You have a cloth for your arm?'
She has it ready on the table, a silk scarf, thickly dyed. Her gown is short-sleeved, but James draws it further up before he ties the scarf. He is aware of being physically closer to her than he has
ever been. Aware of her scent, the texture of her skin. The blue and white at the crook of her elbow is affectirfg. 'Not too tight?' he asks.
She is looking away from him, shakes her head. He takes the case from out of his waistcoat pocket, pulls off the lid, chooses one of the little blades, draws it out, drops it, fumbles for it on the Turkey carpet, retrieves it, clears his throat, takes her arm - cool beneath his grip - spies out a vein, positions the bowl, pricks the vein and watches the blood slope off her arm into the bowl. When he has collected, he guesses, six ounces, he presses his thumb over the wound, removes the scarf, breathes. A ball of wool serves as a plug. She folds her arm and holds it across her breast, like flowers or a sickly pet. Tm sure Dr Thorne takes twice that,' she says, looking into the bowl.
It is more use to you in than out.'
'My father thought bleeding the greatest boon for pragmatic women.'
'And was your mother like that?'
'She was thought to be. As, in turn, I am too.'
'I have never thought of you so,' says James, very nearly scrupulous.
'I believe you have not.'
'How do you feel?'
'Pure well, thank you.'
*I shall be with your brother should you need me.'
The Reverend is gazing out of his window; a view over the garden, the rising fields, the woods. He greets James without turning. He is in sombre mood, suddenly sober after the sport, the good cheer of the morning. Out with the dogs, the first hour, he felt he was revisiting his youth, his body a robust, powerful implement, pleasing to use, and even in the thrill of the chase, his mind had retained a delicious coolness, a brightness he strained for
uselessly on other occasions . . . Well, he must be grateful for it, for his hour.
James, to whom the Reverend, in a fit of confidence, once confessed that he versified - though not all the port in Christendom could have induced him to say what kind of verse, still less to whom it was addressed - now asks, by way of having something to say, and subtly impressed by the Reverend's aura of melancholy, if he is turning lines in his head. The Reverend, pricked by embarrassment, answers hastily: 'No, indeed. Not that. The Muse deserts me like everything else - hair, teeth, breath. No, I was thinking of ... of putting some wheat and turnips in the little field. What do you think of it? Did you not say one time that you grew up upon the land? I'm sure you did.'
'I made no study of it. My knowledge of turnips is that I like them roasted if I like them at all.'
The Reverend says: 'I wish I knew a
