Daphne du Maurier - Not After Midnight & Other Stories

'There's something going on at the far end of this courtyard,' said Robin. 'Look, Grandfather, quite a big queue. Shall we join them? It looks like some sort of excavation.'

'Pool of Bethesda,' replied the Colonel. 'They've done a lot of work there since my day. I doubt if there's much to see. Part of the city drain.'

But Robin was already running ahead to join the queue. His attention had been drawn to a screaming child, carried in the arms of her father, who was pushing his way to the head of the queue.

'What on earth are they doing with that child?' asked Kate Foster.

Babcock had been glancing at his notes again. 'The site of the old sheep market. You remember Chapter 5 of St John's Gospel, Mrs Foster, and the Pool of Bethesda, where the infirm waited to be healed, and how the angel came at certain times to trouble the water? Our Lord healed the man who had been lame for thirty-eight years.' He turned to the Colonel. 'I think we should just take a look at it.'

'Come along, then, follow me,' said the Colonel, 'but I warn you, it's only part of the old sewer system. We had trouble with it in '48.'

Miss Dean was still standing outside the church of St Anne. She felt confused by all the chatter and bustle. What did the Rev. Babcock mean by saying they would be walking several feet above where Our Lord had trodden? The church here was very beautiful, no doubt, but the Colonel said even this had been built on the foundations of an earlier one, which in its turn had been erected over the simple dwelling of St Joachim and St Anne. Was she to understand that the parents of Our Lady had lived underground? In that curious sort of grotto they had visited before coming out of the church? She had hoped to be inspired by it, but instead she was disenchanted. She had always had such a happy picture of St Joachim and St Anne living in a pleasant whitewashed house with flowers growing in a small garden, and their blessed daughter learning to sew by her mother's side. There had been a calendar once with just such a painting upon it; she had treasured it for years until Dora took it off the wall and threw it away.

She looked around her, trying to conjure up the garden that no longer existed, but there were too many people present, none of them behaving with the slightest reverence, and one young woman was actually sucking an orange and giving pieces to the small child trailing at her skirt, then scattering the peel on the ground. Oh dear, sighed Miss Dean, how Our Lady would have hated litter….

The pressure was intense around the steps descending to the Pool of Bethesda, and an official was standing with his hand on the rail, directing the people to go down one by one. The little girl in her father's arms was screaming louder than ever.

'Why is she making such a fuss?' asked Robin.

'I don't think she wants to go to the Pool,' replied Babcock in some hesitation. He averted his eyes. The child was obviously spastic, and the father, with his anxious wife by his side, was apparently intent upon dipping her in the Pool, hoping for a miracle.

'I think,' said the Colonel, sizing up the situation, 'we'd be well advised to push on to the Praetorium before the crowds get worse.'

'No, wait a minute,' said Robin. 'I want to see what happens to the little girl.'

He leant over the rail and stared down into the Pool with interest. It was certainly not much of a place, the water dark and rather slimy, the steps slippery-looking too. Grandfather must be right, and it formed part of the city drain. The man who had been lame for thirty-eight years was lucky when Jesus came along and healed him instantly, rather than waiting for someone to lift him into the Pool. Perhaps Jesus realised the water was bad. There they go, he said to himself, as the father, ignoring the child's terrified screams, slowly descended the steps. Freeing one hand, he dipped it in the pool and sloshed the water three times over his daughter, wetting her face, her neck, her arms. Then, smiling in triumph at the curious watchers above, he ascended the steps to safety, his wife smiling with him, mopping the child's face with a towel. The child herself, bewildered, distraught, rolled her frightened eyes over the heads of the crowd. Robin waited to see if the father would put her down, cured. Nothing happened, though. She began screaming again, and the father, making soothing sounds, bore her away from the top of the steps and was lost in the crowd.

Robin turned to the Rev. Babcock. 'No luck, I'm afraid. There wasn't a miracle. I didn't really think there would be, but of course you never know.'

The rest of the little party had moved away, embarrassed, distressed, unwilling witnesses of what appeared to be an excess of faith. All but Miss Dean, who, still standing before the church of St Anne, had seen nothing of the incident. Robin ran towards her.

'Miss Dean,' he called, 'you haven't seen the Pool of Bethesda.' 'The Pool of Bethesda?'

'Yes, you know. It comes in St John. The pool where the Angel troubled the water and the lame man was healed. Except that Jesus healed him, not the pool.'

'Yes, of course,' said Miss Dean. 'I remember well. The poor fellow had no one to carry him down, and he used to wait day after day.'

'Well,' said Robin proudly, 'it's over there. I've just seen a little girl carried down to it. But she wasn't cured.'

The Pool of Bethesda…. What a strange and curious coincidence. She had turned to that very chapter in the Gospel the night before on returning to the hotel, and the whole scene was vivid in her recollection. It had made her think of Lourdes, of all the poor sick people who travelled there every year, and some of them indeed were cured, doctors and priests were quite confounded, there was never a medical explanation. Of course some came back without being cured, but then it could be that they did not have sufficient faith.

'Oh, Robin,' she said, 'I would like to see it. Will you show it me?'

'Well,' he replied, 'actually it's a bit disappointing. Grandfather says it's a drain. He remembers it in '48. And the rest of us are going on to the Praetorium where Jesus was scourged by the soldiers.'

'I don't think I could bear to go there,' said Miss Dean, 'especially if it's underground, like everything else.'

Robin, intent upon the next adventure, was not going to waste time showing the Pool of Bethesda to Miss Dean.

'The pool is over there,' he said. 'There's a man who stands at the top of the steps. See you later.'

His grandmother was waving to him in the distance. Lady Althea was impatient to meet her friends at the Dome of the Rock.

'Do go back and tell Miss Dean to hurry up, Robin,' she called. 'She doesn't want to see the Praetorium,' he replied.

'Neither do I,' said his grandmother. 'I'm meeting the Chase-boroughs instead. Miss Dean will really have to take care of herself. Darling, you had better run ahead and join Grandfather. He's just passing under the archway now.'

Everything was so disorganised owing to Babcock's lack of experience that it was a case of each one for himself, she decided. If Miss Dean failed to join up with the rest of the party, she could always go and sit in the hotel bus that was parked just round the corner outside St Stephen's Gate. If the crowds were too impossible, the Chaseboroughs might invite herself and Phil and Robin back to lunch at the King David Hotel. She watched Robin until he had caught up with his grandfather, and the pair of them were lost in the throng of sightseers and pilgrims, then she followed the sign pointing towards the Dome of the Rock.

'Via Dolorosa… the Way of the Cross…'

The Colonel pushed ahead, ignoring the eager guides. The street was very narrow, flanked by high walls, the walls themselves spanned by archways covered in vine-leaves. Walking was difficult, indeed impossible. Some of the pilgrims were already on their knees.