And Now Good-bye Read Online Free Page A

always outrageously flippant about death. The other clergy in
the town did not care for that, or for him either, but Freemantle found it an
oddly bearable trait. He half-smiled, nodded, and passed through the open
door into the front parlour which had never, he supposed, been used except
for funerals, weddings, Christmas and other exceptional occasions. The fender
was crowded with huge brass fire-irons that gleamed through the shadows as he
passed to the narrow steep staircase beyond. A woman, doubtless a neighbour,
called to him to come up. He obeyed, feeling his way in almost complete
darkness, and was at last manoeuvred into a very small, hot, and dimly-lit
bedroom.
    Miss Monks was the oldest member of his chapel; she had belonged to it
ever since its opening in 1860. She had regularly attended services twice
every Sunday until quite recently; she had given generously to all chapel
funds and charities; nor, during her prime, had she ever shirked personal
duties. But that was only one side of the picture. For over four
decades—ever since most people could remember—she had constituted
herself a sort of super-authority to which all chapel questions must in the
last resort be submitted. She had waged bitter and incessant warfare against
anything and everything new, different, or experimental, and it was hardly an
exaggeration to say that she had driven several parsons out of the town, and
at least one into a home for the victims of mental breakdown. Of Freemantle
himself she had misgivings, but they were weaker ones; and this was partly
because she was getting old, partly because he was tactful, and partly
(though neither she nor he realised or would have admitted it) because she
was attracted by his face.
    His eyes, accustoming themselves to the dimness, observed the shrivelled
cheeks and piercing eyes that confronted him from the head of the bed.
“Good morning, Miss Monks,” he began, stooping slightly. His
greeting, rather huskily spoken, filled the room with its deep resonant
tones—he had a magnificent voice (Ringwood had once
said—“It’s so damned easy to listen to you talk that one
sometimes doesn’t bother what it is you’re
saying”—and he had never felt quite the same about his own words
after that). The neighbour passed him a chair and whispered loudly in his
ear: “Doctor says she won’t last out the day.”
    “Ah,” he answered vaguely, seating himself at the bedside and
gazing at the subject of this despairing prophecy. He was, he was aware, a
little terrified by Miss Monks. He was just wondering whether she were fully
or only partly conscious when she startled him by croaking suddenly:
“Very poor attendances there must have been at chapel yesterday, Mr.
Freemantle.”
    “Yes,” he admitted, fidgetting under her glance. “The
weather, you know, was most unfortunate. I suppose one really can’t
expect people to turn out in thick fog.”
    “In my young days people wouldn’t have let that keep them at
home on a Sunday.”
    It was her favourite theme, and he gave her the cue she wanted. “Ah,
Miss Monks, I’m afraid this is a slacker generation
altogether.”
    She talked for a few minutes as she enjoyed talking, and as he knew she
enjoyed talking. The conversation touched upon the question of Sunday games
in the parks (soon to come before the Borough Council again), and the
forthcoming service on Armistice Day. She was, of course, a bitter opponent
of Sunday games, and as for the Armistice Day affair, she had doubts as to
the wisdom of those so-called ‘undenominational’ ceremonies, at
which parsons of all creeds appeared together on a single platform.
“Safer to keep ourselves to ourselves,” she declared, with a
tightening of wrinkled lips.
    After a time talking seemed to tire her, and Howat was just beginning to
think he might decently take his leave when she whispered, with a kind of
sinister pride: “Doctor says I won’t