Daphne du Maurier - Not After Midnight & Other Stories

'If you take my advice,' she said shortly, 'you'll start your family right away. We waited, with the result we've had no children. Oh yes, I tried everything. Opening the fallopian tubes, the lot. It didn't work. The doctors told me they thought Jim was probably sterile, but he wouldn't take a test. Now, of course, it's all too late. I'm plumb in the middle of change of life.'

Jill did not know what to say. Everything Kate Foster told her made her feel more guilty.

'I'm so sorry,' she said.

'No use being sorry. I've got to put up with it. Be thankful you're young, and have all your life before you. Sometimes I feel there's absolutely nothing left, and that Jim wouldn't give a damn if I died tomorrow.'

To Kate's dismay, Jill Smith suddenly burst into tears. 'What on earth's wrong?' Kate asked.

Jill shook her head. She couldn't speak. How could she explain the wave of guilt, of remorse, that was sweeping over her?

'Please forgive me,' she said. 'The thing is, I don't feel very well. I've been tired and out of sorts all day.'

'Got the curse?'

'No… No… It's just that sometimes I wonder if Bob really loves me, if we're suited. Nothing seems to go right with us.'

Oh, what was she saying, and as if Kate Foster could possibly care anyway?

'You probably married too young,' said her companion. 'I did too. Everyone marries too young. I often think single women have a far better time.'

What was the use, though? She had been married to Jim for over twenty years, and despite all the anxiety and stress he caused her she could never consider parting from him. She loved him, he depended upon her. If he became ill he would look to her before anyone else.

'I hope he's all right,' she said suddenly.

Jill looked up from blowing her nose. Did she mean Bob, or Jim?

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'Jim hates crowds, always has done, that's why as soon as I saw the mob of pilgrims in that narrow street I wanted him to come with me to the Mosque area, where I knew it would be quieter, but he would go tearing off with you in the opposite direction. Jim panics in crowds. Gets claustrophobia.'

'I didn't realise,' said Jill, 'he never said…'

Perhaps Bob also panicked in crowds. Perhaps Bob, and Jim too, were at this moment trying to fight their way out of that terrible mass of people, those clamouring street-vendors, those chanting pilgrims.

She looked around her at the silent garden, at the scattered shrubs somebody had planted, at the dreary little empty tomb. Even the official had moved out of sight, leaving them alone.

'It's no use staying here,' she said. 'They'll never come.'

'I know,' said Kate, tut what are we to do? Where can we go?'

The thought of plunging back into the hated city was appalling, but there was no alternative. On, on, searching the faces of the passers-by for their husbands and never finding them, always coming upon strangers, people who did not know, did not care.

Miss Dean waited until the stream of visitors to the church of St Anne and to the Pool of Bethesda had cleared, and then she walked very slowly towards the entrance to the pool and the flight of steps descending to it. A strange and rather wonderful idea had come into her head. She had been hurt, deeply hurt, by what she had overheard the night before. A thorn in the flesh. Jill Smith had told Mr Foster that Father had said to her mother that she, Mary Dean, was a thorn in his flesh. Had pursued him for years. It was a lie, of course. Father would never say such a thing. Mrs Smith had told a deliberate lie. Nevertheless, the fact that such a thing could be said, that possibly stories were told about her all over Little Bletford, had given her so much pain and distress that she had hardly slept. And to have overheard this above the Garden of Gethsemane of all places….

Then that dear little Robin, who seemed to be the only one in the party who ever read his Gospel, had explained to her that she was standing close to the Pool of Bethesda itself, and that a child had already been carried down to the pool to be cured of some disease. Well, perhaps the cure was not instantaneous, perhaps it would take some hours, or even days, for the miracle to show. Miss Dean had no disease, she was perfectly healthy, and strong. But if she could fill her small eau-de-cologne bottle with some of the water from the pool, and take it back with her to Little Bletford, and give it to Father to put in the holy water stoup in the entrance of the church, he would be overcome by her thought, by her gesture of faith. She could picture his expression when she handed the bottle to him. 'Father, I have brought you water from the Pool of Bethesda.' 'Oh, Miss Dean, what a tender, wonderful thing to have done!'

The trouble was, it might be forbidden by the authorities to take water from the pool, whoever the authorities were, but the man standing near the entrance doubtless represented them. Therefore-and it was in a good cause, a holy cause-she would wait until he had moved away, and would then descend the steps and fill the little bottle with water. Deceitful, perhaps, but deceitful in the name of the Lord.

Miss Dean bided her time, and presently-and the Lord must have been on her side-the man moved a short distance away towards a group of people who were obviously questioning him about some excavations further on. This must be her chance.

She moved gingerly towards the steps, placed her hand carefully on the handrail and began to descend. Robin was right in a sense. It did look rather like a drain, but there was plenty of water, and it was in a deep sort of chasm, and after what the Rev. Babcock had told them about everything being underground then there was no doubt about this being the genuine place. She felt truly inspired. Nobody descending to the pool but herself. She reached the slab at the bottom of the steps, and glancing above her, to make quite sure nobody had followed and she was not observed, she took out her handkerchief, knelt upon it, and emptied the eau-de-cologne on to the stone beside her. It seemed rather a waste, but in a way it was a kind of offering.

She leant over the pool and allowed the water to flow into the bottle. Then she stood up and replaced the cork, but as she did so her foot slipped on the damp stone slab, and the bottle fell out of her hand into the water. She gave a little cry of dismay and tried to retrieve it, but already it was out of reach, and she herself was falling, falling, into the dank, deep waters of the pool.

'Oh, dear Lord,' she called. 'Oh, dear Lord, help me!'

Thrusting outwards with her arms she tried to reach the slippery wet slab on which she had stood, but the water was entering her open mouth, was choking her, and there was nothing and no one around her but the stagnant water, and the great high walls, and the patch of blue sky above her head.

The Rev. Babcock had been almost as moved by the pavement floor below the Ecce Homo convent as the Colonel, although his reason was less personal. He too saw a man being scourged, guarded by soldiers, but it was happening two thousand years ago, and the man who was suffering was God. It made him feel utterly unworthy, and at the same time privileged, to have stood on hallowed ground. He wished he could in some way prove himself, and leaving the Praetorium, and watching the stream of pilgrims proceed slowly up the Via Dolorosa, halting at successive Stations of the Cross, he knew that no gesture of his, now or in the future, could atone for what had happened in that First Century A.D. He could only bow his head and follow, with equal humility, those pilgrims who went before.

'Oh Lord,' he prayed, let me drink the cup that you have drunk, let me share your suffering.'

He felt someone pluck him by the arm. It was the Colonel. Will you carry on?' he asked. I'm going to take my wife back to the hotel. She's had a slight accident.'