‘Thank you, sir,’ said the old lady, ‘it will be very much appreciated by all of us, I do assure you.’
After she had gone, the Reverend Freemantle set about rummaging for all the things he would need for a private Eucharist. He would have to pick up some of it from the church vestry. He found his little leather case with its chalice, paten and cruet of wine, and then sat down at his desk and scrawled a list — Abbreviated order, Bible, prayer book, oil? Two small candles, matches, small crucifix, little table? White linen cloth? Purificator, chalice, host, water jug, stole.
He underlined the things that they would surely have at Sir Edward’s house, and decided that he would take his cassock and surplice, as the dying man was quite High Church by inclination. His daughter came in, and said, ‘Strange, wasn’t she?’
‘Strange? Who?’
‘That woman. She looked as if she dressed in stuff from a play. That lacy white collar thing, it was almost a ruff. And her hair all tied up like that, it must take hours. And that funny little hat with the silver-mounted claw. She actually had hatpins.’
‘She was all in black, wasn’t she? I thought she was just an old widow.’
‘Widows don’t wear black any more, Daddy. Honestly, where have you been all these years?’
‘Don’t they?’
‘No, Daddy, they don’t.’
‘Oh dear. Well, as you often like to point out, I am just an old fossil, aren’t I? I don’t really notice what people are wearing these days anyway. You get Polly Wantage in plus fours, and sometimes when you call in on the General, he’s not wearing anything at all, and you wear skirts hardly wider than a belt. Anyway, tell your mother I’ve had to go out. Sir Edward’s ill, and apparently it’s very bad.’
‘Oh how awful,’ she said, putting her hand to her mouth.
After an anxious search for his car keys that eventually involved the entire population of the house, he finally got into his maroon Singer Gazelle and drove up the hill to the church. He parked next to the disused lime kiln, retrieved the great key from the tomb of Piers de Mandeville, let himself into the church and raided the vestry. He realised that he was panting from the exertion of all this hurrying and worrying, and he started to sweat about the head. He crammed all he needed into a carpet bag, and strode back out to his car, harmlessly forgetting that he had left the key in the door of the church, where he would find it upon his return.
He drove back down the hill, tooting his horn as was customary at the bend, and turned right along Notwithstanding Road, past the pound and the Glebe House where the legendary Girt Pike had been caught by young Robert. He drove by the hedging and ditching man, who was contemplating a small blue-and-white enamelled saucepan that he had just unearthed from the ditch, and headed towards the golf course. Miss Agatha Feakes hurtled by in a pink cloche hat, waving cheerily, with a piebald billy goat gazing out lugubriously from the back seat of her 1927 Swift convertible. Many of the houses had Christmas-tree lights twinkling in their windows, and the Rector felt a twinge of sadness at the idea that anyone should be about to die at Christmas.
He turned into the driveway of the Rawcutts’ house, parked on the gravel sweep before the front door, gathered up his paraphernalia and knocked anxiously. There was a frantic barking and then the door was opened by Sir Edward himself.
‘Edward!’ exclaimed the priest.
‘Godfrey, what a pleasant surprise! Are you coming in? Is it too early for the holy ones to drink sherry? I’ve just poured one for Gemma.’
The Reverend Freemantle was thunderstruck and embarrassed.
‘What’s the matter, Godfrey? Anyone’d think you’d seen a ghost.’
‘You’re all right then?’
‘All right? Of course I’m all right. As you see. In the pink.’
‘I was told you were dying!’
‘Dying, Godfrey? I just played two sets of squash with my eldest. Damn near beat him too.’
‘Well, I’m so pleased. I was informed that you were dying and asking for communion!’
‘Really? A prankster? You should have telephoned and saved yourself the trouble of coming up.’
‘It was an old lady. She came and asked me to get here as quickly as possible.’
‘An old lady? Really? Which one?’
‘Well, to be honest, Edward, I can’t remember her name. I know I’ve seen her before.’
‘Not in the congregation?’
‘Well, I don’t think so. Edward, I’m so pleased you’re all right. I was going to phone you anyway because I hadn’t seen you at communion for a couple of weeks. I was beginning to get worried.’
‘Nice of you to be concerned, but I thought it would be fun to go to one in Chiddingfold, and the week after I tried out Peasmarsh.’
‘Fun? Really, Edward, the Eucharist is supposed to be a very solemn thing. You can’t go round doing it for fun.’
‘Isn’t it supposed to be fun?’ asked Sir Edward. ‘I’ve always enjoyed it tremendously. It’s such an improbable joy to have a God who actually enjoins the drinking of wine. It’s so wonderfully reasonable. Such a pity that communion wine seems to be made of treacle. Still, one can always go home and have the profane stuff for lunch.’
The two men looked at each other, and then Sir Edward said, ‘Well, as you’ve come all this way to give me communion, why don’t you give it to me anyway?’
‘Really?’
‘Well, why not? I’ll try not to enjoy it. I will be most solemn, Godfrey, quite fantastically solemn, I promise.’
‘I’ve done Communion for the Sick in someone’s house before, but not an ordinary one.’
‘First time for everything! Go on, Godfrey, be a sport. We can do it in the study, and then Gemma will give you crumpets dripping with butter.’
‘Anything for Gemma’s crumpets,’ said the Rector.
‘Let’s not do the whole caboodle, though,’ said Sir Edward. ‘I know the Ten Commandments already. We’ll do the prayer for the Queen, and the creed, of course, and you can do one or two sentences, if that’s in order, and then the exhortation, and then you can do the business.’
The Rector was amused. ‘What, no general confession?’
‘No point, old boy. Haven’t done anything worth confessing for ages. Awfully dull. Don’t want to waste the Lord’s time listening to anything pointless, do we?’
‘Sorry, Edward, I think you’ll have to confess. We’re not allowed to miss that out, I’m afraid.’
The two men went into Sir Edward’s study. He cleared his desk, and the Rector unpacked his carpet bag and laid everything out on it, covering it first with the clean white linen cloth. He looked around at all the leather-bound books in their glass-fronted cabinets, and wondered whether Sir Edward had read many of them. He suspected that they had all belonged to Sir Edward’s father. Sir Edward dropped a cushion on to the floor by the desk, and knelt upon it. He clasped his hands together, closed his eyes and bowed his head. The priest watched him praying, his lips moving silently, and not for the last time was a little ashamed at the fact that so many of his flock really did seem to have a stronger, simpler and purer faith than he did himself. Sir Edward opened his eyes, blinked and said, ‘Righto, Godfrey, let’s do the prayer for the Queen.’
It all went very well, though it was mildly disconcerting for the Rector to be giving communion to someone who knew the service even better than he did himself; Sir Edward was quite obviously reciting the sonorous words of the Book of Common Prayer to himself as they were being read. He grew positively excited when being delivered the bread and wine, and afterwards recited the Lord’s Prayer with gusto. He accepted the blessing with sighs of satisfaction and pleasure, so much so that the priest thought it almost indecent.