The quiet tone, the anxious, honest old face were moving.
Myra sighed and settled back in her chair. “Sit down then, and tell me.”
It took some time for Myra to comprehend what Nanny was trying to say—not that the old woman rambled, but she was earnest and slow as she tried to give the whole picture of Richard’s boyhood. It began with the death of his mother when he was two years old and should have been too small to miss her, and yet it seemed as though he did.
The other servants told her that the baby had used many words, even short sentences before his mother died, but when she came he didn’t talk at all, nor for months afterwards. He didn’t cry either, he didn’t smile, he drank his milk and ate his porridge mechanically like those “wee dollies that jair-rk when ye tug on a string.” The other servants thought him silly-witted; Sir Charles, who looked into the nursery once a day, “verra grim, he was, the auld maister,” said the boy must be subnormal and ought to be taken to a London doctor, which intent Nanny had always fiercely resisted. She loved her charge, and never doubted that he would come right in time.
“An’ he did, your grace. The whilst he was three ye never saw a brighter bairn for-r his years. Kenned a’ his letters, and made up tales to tell himsel’, he’d lairnt to smile too, though never-r romping and feckless like most bairns.”
Myra glanced at her wrist watch. This standard tale of a lonely motherless child, a cold withdrawn father, seemed hardly pertinent. Though, no doubt, a psychoanalyst could make much of it. But Nanny continued tenaciously. Myra half-listening received the impression of a little boy who both talked and walked in his sleep, who seemed convinced that he had lived another life before this one, who sometimes insisted that his name was “Stephen” and that Stephen had been very wicked in the past. He had always seemed both ashamed and afraid of “Stephen.” And only Nanny knew about this phase. Anyway, the nightmares and the fancies had stopped after she had sent to her shepherd brother in Argyll and got Richard a collie pup named Jock.
“’Twas the making o’ Maister Dick, that dog, your grace.”
“It was?” said Myra, suddenly realizing that dogs were unaccountably lacking in this English country house.
“Aye.” Nanny read her thought. “There’s nae dog here today. When Jock was shot, Maister Dick could never-r bear another-r near him. He’s like that. And he never mentioned Jock again, for he loved that dog wi’ all his hear-rt, an’ he felt that whatever he loved came to a bad end.”
“The dog was shot?” said Myra with some horror. “Whatever for?”
“Sir Charles thought it had r-rabies.” She twisted her plump hands on her gray poplin lap. “He didna wait to mak’ sure, nor told the lad why, at the time.”
Myra swallowed. “Well, I suppose one can’t take chances with rabies, but I can see how dreadful it was for Richard. How old was he?”
“Twelve, your grace, the year-r everything happened to him.”
“What else?”
“Sir Charles wed that brassy slut, and that woman tur-rned the old man altogether agin his son. He’d no been a tender-r faither before, though Maister Dick kept trying to please him, and times they’d fish together, ramble o’er the Doons. After
she
got hold o’ him, Sir Charles was brutal. He couldna bear the sight o’ Maister Dick, he’d sneer at him an’ call him crazy.”
“But surely Richard went to school? He must have got away from all this during term.”
Nanny shook her head. “Sir Charles didna bother-r wi’ schooling. Until afterwards . . . The vicar at Saint Andrew’s tutored the lad.”
Myra frowned. She clearly saw the pattern, a pathetically neglected childhood, the incomprehensible deaths of a mother and a dog, and their effects on a sensitive little boy. She even realized that Celia’s sudden illness might present so great a threat that Richard was driven to escape. But then, Richard must be really mental, which she found hard to believe.
“And after all,” she said aloud, “Richard’s not to blame for the blows he’s had.”
Nanny stood up, she looked squarely at Myra. “That’s the whole matter of it, your grace. He thinks he
is.
And so do I. ’Tis fra the past. When he lived before at Medfield. When he was Stephen. ’Tis i’ the Marsdon Chronicle.”
“
Really,
Mrs. Cameron,” said Myra, so astounded that she laughed. “Has Mrs. Taylor or Doctor Akananda been corrupting you? You’re too sensible to believe in reincarnation!”
Nanny stiffened and spoke with dignity. “I dinna ken the wor-rd. I’ve spoke to nobody o’ this, nor would now, save that Sir Richard is acting as he did near twenty year-rs agone.” Her voice dropped, she added in a whisper, “I fear for him so, come nightfall, that’s when it happened afore.”
“What did?” Myra forced herself to ask.
The old woman raised her head and gazed unseeing at the farm ledgers stacked on the study shelves. “We broke in just in time . . .” she said dully. “He was hanging ther-re fra the auld gas fixture.”
Myra’s green eyes widened; she blinked. She tamped out her cigarette. There was silence during which she dimly heard the ticking of the hall clock, the cooing of the birds from Medfield’s dovecote.
“How frightful . . .” she said, “but Mrs. Cameron, that was long ago. Sir Richard isn’t a miserable child any more, he’s grown up and married, and though his wife may be ill, that can’t be too serious, there’s no parallel at all, I’m afraid you’ve gone nervy, but you really mustn’t imagine . . .”
She stopped as Nanny sighed and let her hands fall open in a despairing little gesture. “’T was the curtain cords afore, your grace, they be still ther-re.” Again a flat convincing statement.
Myra shivered, then spoke sharply, “Well, what do you want
me
to do? If you’re so worried get Dodge and the gardener to break in the door.”
“I wouldna want them to guess—the sairvants—canna ye see that?”
Most reluctantly, Myra did see that. She did not believe that the situation was nearly as dramatic as the old nurse thought. She had the inborn British distaste for interference in anyone’s private life, nevertheless . . .
“You want me to speak to Sir Richard,” she said. “To see what’s up!”
Nanny surprised her. “No, your grace, ’twould do n’good. I want ye to telephone the hospital and summon the Heendu gentleman, he’s the pairson to help us. They’d no listen to me.”
Myra saw the truth of this. A duchess might cut through the barrage of hospital red tape, as a nanny certainly could not—yet the urgency, the explanations—how embarrassing if Nanny’s fears were imaginary, but the steady piteous gaze touched her.
“Very well,” she said, reaching for the telephone on Richard’s desk. “Where’s the number?”
In Celia’s hospital room a hushed and anxious group stood around the flat white bed where the unconscious girl lay in her motionless trance. The blood-pressure cuff was on her arm; both doctors, Foster and Akananda, watched for the appearance of the throbbing mercury on the gauge, but it showed only a feeble flicker at the bottom. Foster, frowning heavily, pressed his stethoscope harder against the ribs below the small left breast.
“I fear she’s going . . .” he said to Akananda, removing the ear tubes. “You try again.”
Lily, at the foot of the bed, gave a sobbing gasp.
The matron and another nurse glanced at each other, then up at a glass jar of glucose which dripped into Celia’s left arm vein. There had been hope a few minutes earlier in the operating theatre. She had responded to the inhalation of oxygen, accompanied by slow, monotonous commands from the foreign doctor. “Relax, Celia. Relax. Let your arms go. Let them go limp. Shut your eyes. Relax. Go limp.”
After five minutes the patient had suddenly obeyed. She shivered once, then the clutching rigid hands had fallen forward, the eyelids shut. They had been able to lower the now flaccid arms, and both nurses, hardened as they were to unpleasant sights, had been greatly relieved at the disappearance of that ghastly popeyed stare. But, they shared Dr. Foster’s conviction that the patient was dying. The mercury on the blood-pressure gauge now stopped quivering altogether. It was evident that neither doctor was sure of any heartbeat.
“Get the mother out of here,” Dr. Foster barked, and to Akananda he added, “Cardiac arrest—we might massage. Damn it, there’s not a decent heart man short of London, and
I’ve
never tried it.”
The matron, silent except for a rustle of starched apron, gently shoved Lily through the door and shut it.
Akananda shook his head. “Heart massage means breaking ribs,” he said. “Great danger of puncture, and it won’t help. She will
not
die, at least, now. She’ll remain like this.”
“You blasted fool,” cried Foster. “What the hell do
you
know about it!”
“I have,” said Akananda quietly, “seen several cases of suspended animation in India, some Yogis can do it at will. In old-fashioned Western medical terms, this is a form of catalepsy.”
“Indeed.” Foster’s irritation subsided. “Sorry I blew up, but I’m only an overworked G.P. and I’ve never seen anything like this. If she does recover, what about brain damage? And what the devil do we do with the young woman in the meantime?”
“I don’t know the prognosis,” said Akananda sighing. “We must get a neuropsychiatrist down. I recommend Sir Arthur Moore, and he should be summoned at once. As to Lady Marsdon, we can only keep her warm, and perhaps try cortisone. Sir Arthur may have other ideas.”
“Yes.” Foster was relieved. Fellow seemed sound enough, anyway, nothing more to be done at the moment, except get on to Arthur Moore, then get himself back to surgery where he was long overdue.
When Foster and the matron had left, Akananda put his thin bronze hand gently on Celia’s forehead, which was cold and moist. The remaining nurse stared suspiciously.
Akananda shut his eyes and concentrated on receiving some impression from Celia’s brain. At first he felt nothing but a dense, velvety blackness.
“Celia Marsdon,” said Akananda silently, “where are you now?”
He waited, while enfolding himself with her in the dead blackness, until he suddenly felt a tingle in his hand. The tingle ran up his arm, and a scene, tiny and sharp as a stage setting viewed through the wrong end of binoculars, slid into his mind. He saw a hilltop, crowned by greenery, chestnuts, oak; he saw the distinctive shape of their leaves, and beneath them, the glossy dark green of holly. There was a gray, mossy stone wall encircling the trees, and the ruins of a chapel against the wall. He knew it was a chapel because of the lancet windowframes and the rugged stone cross over the portal. A thatched wooden hut was attached to the chapel’s south wall, its door hung slack on leather hinges. Two figures stood just outside on the trampled grass. One was a monk in black robes; there was a knotted scourge around his waist, and his head was bent to show a round shaven tonsure of short dark hair around the circular patch. The monk’s arms were around a girl in a blue skirt and laced bodice. The girl’s curling, tumbling yellow hair fell to her hips, except where some strands shone golden over the monk’s black cloth sleeves. The two were frozen still as a colored photograph; unlike a photograph the little scene vibrated with emotion—a frenzied longing and desperation. Then the scene disappeared.
“Doctor!” repeated the young nurse, as she had already done twice.
The Hindu opened his eyes to see a pert, disapproving face under a starched white coif. “Yes, what is it, Nurse?” he said.
“There’s a phone call from Medfield, the Duchess of Drewton wants to speak to you.”
Akananda nodded, slowly composing himself. “Very well, where’s the telephone—at the desk? Don’t touch or disturb her, will you?” He indicated Celia.
The nurse gave him a scornful look. “No fear,” she said. “Touching
her
will be the undertaker’s job next.”
Akananda spoke on the telephone with Myra, then found Lily Taylor waiting miserably in the hall.
“I’m going back to Medfield for a bit,” he said. “Poor lady,” he exclaimed as he saw her face. “Come back with me and take some rest. There’s nothing to do for your daughter at present.” He hesitated, but knowing that of all the people involved in the crisis, Lily alone would partially understand, he added, “I think that Lady Marsdon, due to some great shock, has been jerked back into the past,
her
past life, and Sir Richard’s, and for that matter, yours and mine. It was
then
that the violent emotions and actions were initiated, those which are inexorably showing their results today.”
Lily clutched his arm. “But how can we
stop
it? Celia’s dying. Oh, God, I don’t understand . . .” She covered her face with her hands.
“We must stop it, or at least, with divine mercy we may stop it.” He spoke with more assurance than he felt. For now, according to the Duchess’s phone call, Sir Richard, too . . . He put his arm around Lily, and hurried her to the car.
Myra awaited them on Medfield’s doorstep; Nanny just behind her.
“I’m so relieved to see you, Doctor Akananda,” Myra spoke fervently. During the last half hour she had come to share the old Scotswoman’s anxiety, and also her odd faith in the Hindu. “Richard’s still locked in. I went to the schoolroom door myself. There’s no sound. Do hurry!”
Akananda inclined his head. “But I must be alone. Will you all please wait downstairs.” He indicated the drawing room, where there was a murmur of subdued voices. Myra put her arm around Lily, who was swaying. Akananda mounted the great staircase to his bedroom, while Nanny respectfully and stubbornly followed him three steps behind. She waited by the closed door while the Hindu, inside, purified his mind for the struggle. He chanted very low, words from the
Athrava-Veda
.
“As day and night are not afraid, nor ever suffer loss or harm, Even so my spirit, Fear not thou . . . As what hath been and what shall be fear not, nor suffer loss or harm, Even so, my spirit, fear not thou.”
Akananda waited until the quiet English bedroom dissolved around him into golden-white light—the illumination of compassionate wisdom—as he raised his arms with touching palms in the universal gesture of prayer. He arose and opened his bedroom door. He nodded without surprise at Nanny’s eager expectant face.