Nearer My God To Thee

©1994 Martin Wixted

As she entered the waiting room, she was just in time to spot Diva Plaistow being ushered into the inner office. The intimate matters which Doctor Dobbie was often called upon to attend to among the middle-aged ladies of Tilling prompted Elizabeth to respect Diva's privacy. After all, they were such good friends (when on speaking terms) that she was certain she could later find out from Diva just what ailment had bothered her. She picked up a magazine and busied herself with the latest dress fashions. She was imagining how outlandish Diva would look in some of the more extravagant Paris outfits (not that Diva could afford them), when the inner door once again opened and she heard the most curious exchange.

"Are you quite certain?" Diva asked in a stricken voice.

"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Plaistow. A month, perhaps less."

Elizabeth peered around her magazine in time to see Diva straighten herself up as if shouldering a terrific burden, and she slowly left the office. The interpretation of this brief exchange could admit of several possibilities and Elizabeth took h upon herself to believe the most obvious. In fact, she was so certain of it, she informed Doctor Dobbie that her earache was quite gone (in fact, it still hurt rather much) and she dashed out of the doctor's office and up the hill to the High Street. Elizabeth was prepared to forego her own comfort where public interest was concerned, and while she (excepting the principle parties) still had sole possession of this bombshell

Elizabeth spotted little Evie Bartlett emerging from the Stationer's and made a beeline for her.

"Evie! You won't believe what I heard! Never in a million years!"

"Whatever is the matter?" Evie asked.

Elizabeth announced her declaration with all the weight of a member of parliament. "Diva! Dead!"

Evie frowned, looked at Elizabeth in puzzlement, and pointed past her down the street. "But Diva's right over there, just entering her house. What are you talking about?"

"Not yet,," Elizabeth hurriedly explained. "But  Doctor Dobbie gave her a month at most."

"No!" cried Evie. "When? Where?"

"In his office. She came out and I just managed to catch the end of the conversation."

Evie sadly shook her head. "How did she look?"

"I didn't get to see very much. 1 didn't want to intrude upon her grief."

"Quite right," Evie agreed, managing to hide her disappointment.

They both stood there for a few moments, trying to absorb this terrible news. There had never been a death among their intimate circle of friends in Tilling. Of course, Major Benjamin Flint's old golf partner Captain Puffin had drowned in his soup one Christmas, but it had been a sudden passing, and not the sort which could be made much of. Perhaps partly because no one had ever made much of Captain Puffin.

For the remainder of the day, any previous topics of discussion met the same fate as the Dodo bird, as the circle of those sworn to secrecy expanded in ripples ever outward from Elizabeth. Never had this quaint little town called Tilling been host to such a celebrity. As the news traveled, the participants began singing Diva's praises. And even the avant-garde painter Irene Coles, who once called Diva a foul-mouthed old widow, was finally convinced, and returned home to begin a new painting to commemorate the impending departure.

Major Benjy heard about it from Evie as he returned from golfing that afternoon, and removed his cap with a rather unsteady hand for a moment of sincere respect.

After a good night’s wrestle with the facts (of which there were precious few), the following morning was devoted to clustering in the High Street and sharing learned conjectures as to the exact nature of Diva's illness.

Irene tapped out her pipe on the sole of her shoe and busied herself with the task of refilling it. Having been asked by Evie to render an opinion (so that it could be dismissed and gotten out of the way early), she addressed Evie, "Probably the old girl is suffering from a digestive problem. All those nougat chocolates she eats, you know."

Evie looked at Irene incredulously, shaking her head. "Certainly not. Whooping cough is more likely."

"Wud that it’d be such a simple thing," Reverend Kenneth Bartlett, the padre of Tilling and Evie's husband, countered. "I am of the opinion it must be something more serious. Some sort of blood disorder 'tis more likely. We can only hope the end won't be too painful."

There was a hoot from the Wyse's Royce as it crawled toward them, and Mr. Wyse rolled down his window. "Is it all too true about Mrs. Plaistow?" Mr. Wyse asked in a stricken voice.

"Aye," the padre said. "T'wud appear so. An impending demise."

For herself, Elizabeth spent an inordinate amount of time in the High Street, bumping into friends who appeared to have developed the same fascination with store front displays and scenic views from the Belvedere platform. Whenever Diva would appear for her morning marketing, naturally no one would dream of being obvious about examining her for the most minute signs of debilitation. Instead, they wore fixed smiles and greeted her warmly as they each went about popping into shops they had just vacated, or examining the vegetable stand as if each piece of fruit were a golden apple of the Hesperides. Whispered conversations followed in Diva's wake, but they were subtle enough that she was generally oblivious to them.

These conversations, naturally, did not merely revolve around Diva's impending sainthood. The morning that Evie visited the post office three times in order to purchase three stamps (once each visit), she ran into Elizabeth. Elizabeth had evinced a rather obsessive interest in sketching the front of Wasters, as she had completed this particular sketch and begun it all over again no less than four times.

"Elizabeth," Evie said, "I wonder who will be getting Diva's good tea set."

"Well, who does she have as the beneficiary of her will?" Elizabeth asked between dabs at the paper.

"No idea,," Evie admitted.

"So find that out, and you'll have your answer," Elizabeth replied, a bit more sharply than Evie thought was absolutely necessary.

"I was only wondering out loud, Elizabeth."

"Suit yourself," Elizabeth said, and reapplied her brush to the pastel blue of the sky.

“Well!" Evie huffed, and strode off.

Elizabeth smiled to herself. She was glad her brusque manner expelled the Mouse, as she was determined to have the sidewalk outside of Wasters all to herself. Thhe chance of being distracted and missing Diva's morning entrance was thereby considerably lessened.

“Hullo, Elizabeth."

"Diva dear!" Elizabeth excllaimed, putting down her brush and tthinking to herself that it was about time that Diva appeared, as she hadn't been spending all this time sketching merely for the practice. "How are you?"

Diva set her teeth on edge. "Just fine, Elizabeth. I do wish people would stop asking me." And with that, Diva spun on her heels and abruptly walked across to Twemlow's and entered that grocer's establishment.

Elizabeth set her mouth into a thin line. Well, that did not go as she had planned. Hardly a conversation at all with her best friend. But perhaps because of Tilling's constant verbal concern for Diva's health, Diva was tiring of all this attention, and had been subsisting on banal conversations with the local tradesmen. For herself, Elizabeth would make certain that her own last words would not be, "Any artichokes, Mr. Twemlow?" Actually, as she considered it for the hundredth time, it once more struck Elizabeth as rather mean that Diva had not seen fit to confide in her. After all, Elizabeth was convinced that she could be just as sympathetic as the next person -- and being the receptacle of Diva's secret would have elevated herself above everyone else who only knew of the pronouncement, not the diagnosis.

It was really unfortunate that this was happening to Diva, she who possessed one of the best analytical minds in Tilling. It would have been very helpful to have enlisted the aid of that insightful brain in determining the basis for this mystery.

Elizabeth was momentarily switched off this pleasant train of thought by Diva's re-emergence into the High Street. Perhaps the contents of her basket might offer a clue as to her ailment, but Diva moved too fast for Elizabeth to even consider tripping her, and she disappeared into the greengrocer's up the street.

Elizabeth looked up to see the Royce pull up beside her and Mrs. Wyse rolled down her window. "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Wyse. Any news?"

Susan piped up, "Well we were discussing who might be getting Diva's wardrobe once... well, you know."

"Oh, dear. Such material concerns," Elizabeth said loftily, perturbed that everyone seemed to be a step ahead of  her in this whole affair. She thought quickly. "Naturally, being her best friend, I suppose that I should - "

"Yes, exactly what we thought," agreed Mr. Wyse. "Both of you are so close in size."

Elizabeth sucked in her breath between clenched teeth. "Certainly not as close as all that. Most of her clothes would have to be taken in, surely. Quite a bit, in fact"

"Oh, why, of course. Naturally. Good morning," Mr. Wyse said, turning bright red and motioning the chauffeur to proceed on to the shops.

Elizabeth tore her fourth sketch to pieces. It had been a sour morning so far, and there were no signs of it improving. She assembled her painting implements, folded her stool, and trudged slowly back home.

The padre had wrestled with himself for a long, agonizing week. One of his parishioners was in distress, and it was clearly his duty to help alleviate that distress in whatever small way he might. To succor and to comfort was what Kenneth Bartlett had long ago determined his role was as parish priest to the town, a position he took quite seriously. The spiritual well-being of Tilling was his responsibility (at least for those residents who did not attend the Roman Catholic church down the street). Thus it was clear to him where his task lay. Unfortunately, what was also clear to him was that poor Diva had elected (so far) not to confide in him her terrible news. While the sanctity of the confessional was absolute, he occasionally wondered if it worked the other way round: was he permitted to base a spiritual visit on news he had received during the morning marketing?

The padre ambled off on his delicate mission after Sunday lunch. Evie had splurged and bribed him with dressed crab, but it did not induce him to request Evie's presence as a spiritual aide. He felt quite capable of shouldering whatever burden Diva felt up to unloading upon him. In fact, he rather looked forward to it.

"Gud day, Mistress Plaistow."

Diva looked up from her open window. She had been darning and welcomed an interruption. "Hullo, padre. Time for a chat?"

"Aye! Just the thing I was hoping' for."

The padre ascended the stairs and was ushered into Diva's sitting room. He stood rubbing the nap of his hat the wrong way until Diva asked him to sit.

"Chat away! I've hardly heard any news for a week now," Diva began, (That's because it's all about you,” the padre thought to himself), "so you must fill me in. Tell me: what news, padre?"

The padre took a deep breath. This was going to be more difficult than he had imagined, and in his agitated state he dropped all traces of regional dialects, "1 have been privy to a delicate issue concerning yourself, Mrs. Plaistow. Now, while I don't wish to pry, I do want to let you know that, when your time comes, II am here for you."

Diva looked at him incredulously. "What on earth are you talking about?"

The padre continued, "the issue which you discussed with your physician the other week. I - I don't wish to betray your confidence, but 1 did want you to know that I am available for whatever ministrations you may request."

Diva stared at him. "Such as?"

"Well, Penance if you feel it is required. Extreme unction, naturally. And -"

"It sounds like you think I'm dying!" Diva exclaimed, dropping her sewing onto the window seat beside her.

"Now, Mrs. Plaistow, you have a right to be upset. I wasn't even certain if I should visit you in your distress or not — these issues are such an intimate matter - but there is little use for you to feign ignorance in the matter. I shall certainly tell no one else of your predicament, and naturally this conversation is between you, myself, and God -"

Diva stood. "But I'm not dying, padre! Honestly! Whatever gave you that ludicrous idea?"

Diva's straightforwardness and absolute sincerity gave the padre pause. It was beginning to look as if Elizabeth might have made a mistake.

"Er, at Doctor Dobbie's office. He gave you a month to live."

Diva laughed and collapsed back into the window seat. "A month to live? Certainly not! I have a skin rash on my elbow that the Doctor says will take a month to clear up if 1 keep applying ointment. This is the silliest thing I've ever heard."

Dawn seemed to break over Diva's countenance. 'That explains it! Everyone's been acting very strange this past week. I didn't know what to make of it. Oh, how ridiculous!" She paused further, then began laughing again. "Don't tell me: it was Elizabeth! I saw her in the waiting room that day. Poor Elizabeth, always getting hold of the wrong end of the stick! Padre, you must promise to inform anyone who asks that I'm not dying."

The padre, embarrassed and flustered, instantly agreed. He burst forth into the High Street, and would even have considered ringing the church bells had he thought of it..

This intelligence spread faster than Diva's rumored demise had done, but with the opposite effect. Whereas the news of Diva's original prognosis had spread like a wildfire after a particularly dry summer, the announcement that Diva was going to remain among the living doused that fervor like a wind changing course and blowing back upon the wildfire and thus extinguishing it. To the perceptive inhabitant (and all the members of Tilling Society were, of necessity, perceptive) a kind of malaise was noted spreading through the town. When all was said and done, the depressing truth had to be faced: the town found itself at the tail end of the most exciting event which had never happened.

Some might say that having Diva almost die was practically as exciting as if she had actually done so, but Elizabeth was not of that school. Diva had tricked them out of a spectacle which they had all (in varying degrees) been looking forward to, and resentment over this began burning bright. It was not that anyone wished that Diva would actually have passed away, per se, >but once promised such a unique experience, and only to see it come to such an abrupt and ignoble end, everyone naturally felt that he had been cheated.

Despite these feelings of ill-will, the following morning marketing found everyone very amused by Diva, and rather curt with Elizabeth. For her part. Elizabeth was determined simply to wait out this particular fiasco. Surely something else would come along and take everyone's mind off her really quite honest mistake. She paused at the greengrocer's and bent over to examine the lettuce. As she did, her ear began to ache.

Email Contact: mikeoak840 (At-Sign) gmail.com