Mrs Midnight and Other Stories (18 page)

Friday 29th May 1885

Last night as I lay in bed I had a most disagreeable dream, or was it a dream? I felt in the darkness a cold cheek pressed against mine, and then a whole face. Though my eyes were closed, I knew it to be that of a very young child; it was so silky and yielding. Then a pair of cold wet child’s lips were kissing mine. I dared not open my eyes, but something forced me to look and when I did I saw it was indeed the face of a child, so close to mine that almost every part of it was touching me, cold and moist. In spite of the darkness I could somehow see the eyes which were faintly luminescent. They had black pupils but no irises; the rest of the eye consisting in some greyish substance that swirled like sea-foam. Then another child’s face was pressing against mine, and another and another until I was close to suffocating. I tried to shake myself free of them and found myself, awake, fighting for breath and clutching a damp pillow to my face. The room was silent and a silver blade of moonlight shone in through a gap in the curtains, unnaturally bright. Then I remembered again. It was a full moon.

This afternoon we went again to see Miss Southern. Usually Father Devereux goes alone, but occasionally I accompany him and we discuss the progress that is being made in the campaign to release her. I do not care for these visits because I am so comprehensively ignored by Miss Southern. Every ounce of her attention is concentrated on Father Devereux. It would be wrong to say that she charms him, because there is nothing of what is usually regarded as charming about her manner. She is direct, simple and she defers to everything he says. If I were a cynic I would say that it is her complete surrender that captivates him.

The conversation between them revolved around the same monotonous subjects, parish affairs, church politics and the petition for her release. At the end of the interview, however, something unusual happened. Father Devereux had risen and gone with me to the door of the interview room, but Miss Southern, instead of remaining seated at the table as she normally did, rose and followed us. Something urgent was pressing on her mind.

She said: ‘Father, do you believe, like the Roman Catholics, that unbaptised babies go to Hell?’

‘My dear, the Romans believe no such thing! There is a doctrine which stipulates that the innocent who die unbaptised go into a state of what is called “limbo” which is generally regarded as a happy state, but not one of beatific vision. You will find it in Dante, of course, the Fourth Canto of the Inferno, but that is no guarantee of orthodoxy. I do not believe that either the Church of Rome or of England has pronounced
ex cathedra
, as it were, on this issue; so I think we may safely leave it in the realm of uncertainty and speculation. Why do you ask, my dear?’

‘I do not think that the twins I killed were baptised.’

‘But how can you know?’

‘My stepmother was a Nonconformist. She did not believe in infant baptism.’

‘Then the fault was hers. You cannot reproach yourself for that.’

‘But the thought that I may have committed two young innocents to eternal torment is intolerable!’

‘In the first place, my dear, you have done no such thing. The infinite compassion of God would not permit it. Secondly, none of us can hold ourselves responsible for all the unintended consequences of our acts, good or ill. Do you still pray, as I instructed you?’

‘Oh, yes, Father!’

‘I thought so. And did this thought occur to you while you were praying or in an idle moment?’

‘In an idle moment, father.’

‘Then it is of the Devil, my child. You must dismiss it from your mind.’

Miss Southern suddenly knelt down before Father Devereux, seized his right hand and kissed the ring on his third finger. It is a magnificent cabochon emerald in a plain gold setting, probably very ancient, and one of Father Devereux’s few concessions to personal display. They remained in this position, he standing, she kneeling before him, for some moments as if posing for a photographer. There were tears in his eyes, and in hers as well. I, for some reason, remained unmoved.

Thursday 4th June 1885

It was darkly overcast this morning as I went to give early communion. I entered the cool dim space of St Simeon’s as the clock was chiming six, conscious that in a few moments I needed to be on my knees before the altar. Still I lingered in the darkness of a side aisle. I was possessed by the strong feeling that someone else was in the church. I do not call myself psychic, but I have always known when a church is empty or not.

Even on a gloomy morning there is some light in the chancel, coming from the great windows and reflected off the rich gilding of altar screen and church furnishing.

I saw that a figure was kneeling on the chancel steps in front of the brass altar rail. At first it seemed no more than a shadow, then it began to acquire more substance. It appeared to be female and wore a dress in some kind of coarse fabric. As I approached it rose and made off in the direction of the Lady Chapel where it was lost to view. I called after the figure but my strong instinct was not to pursue it and know for certain if it had been an illusion or not. It was shock enough to find that someone had tied a length of scarlet ribbon around the altar rail.

At breakfast Father Devereux was in good spirits, but I noticed that, when he began to talk about the campaign to release Miss Southern, Mrs Price, who had been in attendance, very deliberately turned and left the room. The flow of Father Devereux’s conversation went on uninterrupted and I have no idea if he had noticed or not.

Tuesday 28th July 1885

Father Devereux seems unperturbed by the mounting campaign against the release of Miss Southern. I notice, though, that he spends much time in his study. During the day I had happened upon a letter in
The
Times
which eloquently supported his cause, but had had no opportunity to show it to him till late that evening. We had both been out on parish business all day. As I came in to the hall that night, I saw that the door of his study was half open. I had the newspaper in my hand and wishing to show it to him immediately, I entered without waiting for him to respond to my knock.

The room was lit by a single oil lamp beside the chair in which Father Devereux was sitting. If his eyes had not been wide open I would have said he was asleep. His whole pose suggested the strange awkwardness of trance or catatonia. I could not see his face very well because something was obscuring it, something like a shadow but not a shadow. It was more as if a dark veil or a net of fine mesh had been cast over him. There was a figure of sorts standing beside him, not unlike the figure I had seen praying in St Simeon’s, and more than once since then. Whenever I looked directly at it it faded, but when I looked away I could see it out of the corner of my eye more distinctly.

I coughed loudly and said: ‘Father!’

Slowly, as Father Devereux roused himself, the figure dissipated into the surrounding air, so that only a vague miasma remained, like a faint cloud of soot above his head. Then this too vanished.

‘Ah! My dear man!’ said Father Devereux; then, after a penetrating glance, ‘you saw her?’ I nodded. ‘And you have seen her before, no doubt. In the church perhaps?’ Again I nodded. ‘And you know who it is?’

‘Miss Southern?’

‘Yes. Bilocation—the ability for a living person to be present in two places at once—is a charism of the saints, you know.’

‘Are you saying that Alice Southern is a saint?’

‘With God all things are possible. I cannot say anything for certain. I can only witness to what I have seen, as can you. She has been a great consolation to me. Every time I go to Hurst and talk to Alice as her spiritual counsellor—I cannot reveal the details of these conversations, of course, as I regard them as being under the seal of the confessional—I am astonished by the depth of her prayer life. It would not surprise me if these miracles did not follow from her extraordinary spirituality.’

I remained silent.

‘Of course,’ added Father Devereux, ‘I would urge you to say nothing of this to anyone else. If this came within reach of the popular press we would be dismissed as madmen.’

‘We can all be a little mad at times,’ I said and left the room.

In the hall, I found Mrs Price, standing as still as a funerary statue in the half-darkness.

‘Father, I want to show you something,’ she said. She then led me up to the top of the house where the servants’ bedrooms are. She opened the door of one of them, but would not let me enter. It has a sloping ceiling and a small window. Its furniture consists of a bed, a bentwood chair, a wash stand and a wardrobe, nothing more. I felt obscurely ashamed.

‘This room has not been occupied since Violet the chambermaid left us,’ said Mrs Price.

‘But why are you showing it to me?’

‘Look at the floor at the end of the bed.’

In the dust on the bare deal boards I noticed the imprint of four tiny naked feet. It was as if two small children had stood at the end of the bed, facing its occupant. But there were no other footmarks in the room. I shut the door.

‘What do you expect me to do about it, Mrs Price?’ I asked, but the old harlot only stared at me with her wintry blue eyes.

Wednesday 26th August 1885

The campaign for Alice Southern’s release seems to have gone in our favour and yesterday we presented our petition for clemency, together with letters from many eminent men and women to Mr Harcourt, the Home Secretary. A response has been promised us within a month or so. I went with Father Devereux to see Miss Southern at Hurst and the two seemed to be bursting with hope. She even favoured me with an attempted smile when Father Devereux told her how I had solicited the aid of my uncle, the Bishop.

We returned to a restless house. Of late we have had a rather rapid turnover of servants under Mrs Price. They give no reason for their departure; Father Devereux’s treatment of them has always been exemplary, and their wages are higher than most. Perhaps they object to his championship of Miss Southern, but they have never said so. Perhaps they have yielded to pressures from outside.

Last night (another full moon!) I dreamed vividly that two round, faintly luminous objects appeared at the end of my bed. Slowly they resolved themselves into the heads of very young children with curly golden hair and soft fat cheeks. The heads sprouted wings, like the heads of those cherubs on the sacristy mosaic and began to fly about the room with increasing speed. Like birds accidentally trapped in an enclosed space they started to bang into things and, as they did so, they let out sharp cries of pain or little sobs of anguish. I was now desperate to let them escape, so I rose and opened the windows and doors to my room, but they would not go. They were too frantic and senseless to find their way out. I began to rage at them, and as I did so I was coming out of my dream. I woke to find myself standing in my night-shirt in front of the open bedroom window.

This Rectory feels like a battleground.

Friday 23rd October 1885

Finally this morning the letter came. We knew it at once from its thick paper and its seals. Mr Harcourt had responded at length and it was at first difficult to know which way his verdict was to go. He had given this ‘due and ample consideration’ and on the other hand ‘recognised the weight’ of that argument. Father Devereux skipped to the last page of the letter where the Home secretary’s meaning was finally made clear.

He had ‘in the light of all the submissions made to him come to the reluctant conclusion that he could not possibly countenance an early release for the Prisoner, nor offer any lively hope that, even after her minimum sentence of twenty-five years had been served, there was a prospect of liberty, and he feels sure that future Home Secretaries of whatever political complexion will take the same view.’

When he had read out this passage to me, Father Devereux passed his hand wearily over his eyes and said: ‘I should have known. There are no votes in compassion,’

Then, in a more lively tone, he said: ‘We must inform Miss Southern immediately.’ I questioned the wisdom of this, but he said that to do otherwise would be cruel. It would be disrespectful not to acquaint her with the situation exactly as it was.

‘Miss Southern is a remarkable lady. She will show her courage and the strength she has gained through her years of meditation and prayer. We have nothing to fear from her. The sooner we begin the fight again for her release, the better.’

Nothing would dissuade him and so that afternoon we set off for Hurst by carriage.

I think Alice Southern knew what the news was as soon as we entered the room, and Father Devereux realised that this was no time for fine speeches. He merely handed her the letter and sat down, while she stood in the full light of the bay window and read every word of it. I was watching her face for any change of expression, or flicker of pain, but there was nothing. Her self-control appeared to be extraordinary, monstrous even. Finally she turned from the window and let the three foolscap pages fall onto the table in front of her.

After a silence Father Devereux said: ‘We must not resign all hope, my dear. In the blood of redemption, there is always hope.’

Miss Southern stared at him for a moment with a kind of incredulity; then she began to laugh. When it started it was no more than a series of breathy convulsions that shook her like a shudder, but, as it built, it became louder and more violent, until her whole body writhed and the noises that came out of her were like screams of agony. Her vehemence increased until I thought she would collapse, but her strength seemed undiminished. Two wardresses entered and tried without success to restrain her. They were followed presently by several male orderlies with a straitjacket, and by them she was at last subdued and carried away, still cackling and shaking uncontrollably. I looked at Father Devereux who was white with dismay.

We drove back to the Rectory in silence where Mrs Price greeted us with one of her rare smiles. Violet, our chambermaid, had returned to the fold.