Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [61]
Elizabeth and Frances like to sit at the back. Bright coloured light drips through the windows. Today the sermon is on Gethsemane. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me.
Her pale hand and her friend's brown-spotted one lie together on the pew. What, could ye not watch with me one hour? She steals a look at Frances, her serious profile, the drag of the skin around her eyes. The church is full of people, but for Elizabeth the world has narrowed to one face.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, hut the flesh is weak.
If Elizabeth feels up to it, she argues with her Creator. Her illness, she tells Him, is none of her making. But this is only partly true, and she knows it. True, in Elizabeth's lungs there is a sickness like a dreadful guest who sits and sits and will not leave. But in her heart squats the sickness that will not let her eat, will not let her live. Not long, at any rate. No longer than this companionship will be permitted to last; no longer than she may wake every morning to the soft nape of Frances's neck.
Her favourite part of the day is when they linger after the service and read the memorial tablets.
Thro' painful suff'rings, tranquil to the last,
Thy lips no murmurs, no repinings passed...
Some are in the shape of urns, bulging like stomachs from the wall; others are fallen columns.
In testimony of regard to the memory
of a pearl beyond price,
this monument is erected
by her much afflicted husband.
One tablet is meant to be a curtain; the marble ripples beneath the letters.
A woman truly amiable ...
translated into another world...
"This one lived to the age of ninety-two," marvels Frances.
Elizabeth leans over her friend's shoulder. Their cheeks are not an inch apart. What she has never explained to Frances is that she is choosing phrases for her own inscription.
...though sudden to her friends yet not to her,
as appears by these verses
found in her closet after her decease...
No, Elizabeth has written nothing worth marble. Her verses are thin leaden things. Nothing to leave behind her, then. Only a share in a much-divided heart.
...but to none could her merits be so well known
as to her affectionate friend,
who considered her as her support,
her comfort and advisor...
"Here comes Mr. Lampton," Kisses Frances in her ear, "and we've still not called on his mother."
...whose grief must he as lasting as breath...
But how lasting is that? Elizabeth leans on a pew, wheezing. Darkness comes and goes about her eyes.
"My dear? Are you ill?" asks Frances.
...who henceforth can look to no happiness
but in the hope of reunion
with the dear departed in a happier world.
That is the thought Elizabeth clings to. The other world, the only real world, when she and Frances will have outrun time. When need and guilt and incomprehension will have fallen away like hairs from a brush. Where the two friends may stroll forever between soft green trees.
They dine at three. How sweet, the press of a worried hand on one's wrist. But eating seems inconceivable. Elizabeth's mouth will only open the width of a finger, and the beef smells of blood. She has the impression that wine drains through her as the rain through peat; that food is too slippery to glue itself to her bones. If her friend bullies her to eat, tears begin to collect in her plate.
"Oh my dear, my dear!"
The ladies sip port to celebrate the anniversary of their meeting. They forget to write to Sherry and the children. Elizabeth feels a terrible delight.
At five they go to the theatre, or to Harrison's Rooms. Lady Cholmondley complains about the servants. "The very teeth in one's head aren't safe, if one sleeps with one's mouth open!" Every table has a literary lady or two. There sits Mrs. Scott, a little pockmarked authoress who lives at Batheaston with a female friend. It is said her