'I thought rather I would play king of the kitchen. We had some fine singing there last year.'
'Whatever you wish.'
It is to be with Mary, of course, but the offer has been made. It is a pity, muses the Reverend, starting to grin, that James does not show more interest in Dido. They would make an interesting pair, but the little foreign woman has him, great, deep cables connecting them. Never seen them touch, though. Are they carnal?
He peers into the bowl in James's hand. 'I see you've done her, then. My sister.'
'I had meant to empty it,' says James, flushing. 'I cannot imagine how I failed to do so. Forgive me.'
'Peace, Doctor. After all, it is the same stuff as animates me - though mine is a less watery soup than hers. Now, sir, I'd be
grateful to you if you would open a vessel here,' He taps his right temple. 'Thome's done it before now and I feel it would relieve me. Greatly.'
James stares at him, looking for a sign to know if he is quite serious. He says: 'The blood circulates about the entire body. To take it from one place is to take it from another.'
'That, I grant you, may be the theory, yet I experience a surfeit, a plethora, quite local to the head.'
'It would be dangerous. Unnecessarily so.'
'Nay, man, not to one of your accomplishments.'
*You confuse me . . . with my former self.'
'Come, come now. I'll sit here still as a wall.' To prove it he takes up position upon a stool, as stiff and unmoving as if he were sitting for his likeness. Thinks James: I shall refuse. Then: why should I not do it? I could have done it before in a blindfold. The devil take us both. I shall do it.
He lays a large handkerchief upon the Reverend's shoulder, selects a lancet and leans close to the side of the Reverend's head, examining the skin beneath the stubbled, grey-blond hair. Free for an instant from all hesitation, he lodges the tip of the lancet, feels the involuntary flinch, absorbs it, digs deeper. He is aware of the noise of rapid breathing; imagines it to be the Reverend's, then realises that it is his own. A trail of blood snails over the Reverend's jowls. The Reverend speaks through his teeth: 'Deeper, Doctor, deeper.'
And something goes wrong; wrong as in a dream where the steady flow of images erupts without warning into something elemental and hideous that sends the sleeper fleeing out of sleep. A spasm - as though his hand had been touched with electricity; a spastic contraction of the muscles, God knows. Instantly, the whole side of the Reverend's face is a sheet of blood. The lancet falls, also the bowl, splashing the Reverend's shirt with blood. The Reverend groans, yaws like a stricken ship, clutches his head. He says, his
voice very calm: 'Help me, James.' And James runs out. Out of the Reverend's room and into his own. Seconds pass, minutes perhaps, before he can find the courage to return; minutes of staring furiously at his coat hanging from a nail on the back of the door. Then he snatches up all the linen he can see - a shirt, a nightcap, a square he uses to dry his face - and runs back, like the lover in a farce, to the Reverend's room.
The Reverend is on his bed, a hand pressed to the wound. James drops to his knees at the side of the bed, gently lifts the Reverend's hand. Such is the effusion of blood he cannot at first make out the wound. He wipes, makes a compress with the square and fixes it with the nightcap. He hurries to the top of the stairs, shouts: 'Tabitha!'
Her face, dusted with flour, appears in the stairwell. He sends her for hot water, hot water and claret. His chest is heaving as if he had run full pelt up the lane. Dido comes on to the landing, still holding her folded arm, staring at James in amazement. What is it?' she asks. 'Are you hurt?'
He gapes at her, cannot answer, and runs back into the room, leaning over the prostrate Reverend as if sheltering him from rain. Dido follows, issues little cries of alarm, glares angrily at her brother. 'Christ, brother . . , has he shot himself?' There is a noise, ominous at first, a liquid wheezing in the Reverend's throat. 'Is he dying?' asks Dido, all natural colour gone from her face, but for the moment her manner admirably composed.
'Not dying,' says James. He knows that sound better than most. He says: 'I believe he is laughing.'
Out of the curled man on the bed comes a reedy voice, hugely amused: '"Has he shot himself"! . . . oh, very good . . . very good, sister . . .'
A minute later and Tabitha arrives with the tray, the wine, the water. Mrs Cole is behind her, alarmed at Tabitha's description of the doctor waving his arms like a lunatic at the top of the stairs.
What they see is the Reverend sitting on the edge of the bed, pale but grinning, his head swathed in a bloody nightcap, Dido sitting beside him, her mouth shut tight as a mussel, and the doctor, of whom all those stories just might be true, sat on the other side of the Reverend, sobbing like a child.
'How is supper coming, Mrs Cole?' asks the Reverend. What heroics! Yes, sir, the afternoon has been an unexpected success.
The two of them go out for wood, a man and a boy, under the November moon. The man, somewhat stooped, limps from an affliction of his right leg, his head bobbing like a swimmer's. The
