A Perfect Spy

Remember them, Tom. Jack, you’ll think I’m mad, but those stars, however fatuous, are a crucial piece of operational intelligence, for they lend a first image to Rick’s unquenchable conviction of his destiny, and it didn’t stop with Rick either; how could it, for what is a prophet’s son but himself a prophecy, even if nobody on God’s earth ever discovers what either one of them is prophesying? Makepeace, like all great preachers, must do without a final curtain or applause. Nevertheless, quite audibly in the silence — I have witnesses who swear to it — Rick is heard to whisper “beautiful” twice over. Makepeace Watermaster hears it too — slurs his big feet and pauses on the pulpit steps, blinking round him as if somebody has called him a rude name. Makepeace sits down, the organ strikes up “what purpose burns within our hearts?” Makepeace stands again, unsure where to put his ridiculously tiny backside. The hymn is sung to its dreary end. Night School Boys, with Rick star-struck at their centre, process down the aisle and in a practised drill movement fan out to their appointed posts. Rick, smart as paint today and every Sunday, proffers the collecting plate to the Watermaster ladies, his blue eyes glistening with divine intelligence. How much will they give? How quickly? The silence lends tension to these massive questions. First comes Lady Nell, who keeps him waiting while she pecks in her handbag and curses, but Rick is all forbearance, all love, all stars today, and each lady regardless of age or beauty receives the benefit of his thrilled and saintly smile. But where daft Nell simpers at him and tries to muss his slicked hair and pull it forward over his broad, Christian brow, my little Dot is looking nowhere but at the ground, still praying, praying even while she stands, and Rick has actually to touch her forearm with his finger in order to alert her to his Godlike nearness. I can feel his touch now upon my own arm, and it sends a healer’s charge through me of weak-kneed loathing and devotion. The boys line up before the Lord’s table, the minister accepts the offerings, says a perfunctory blessing, then orders everyone but the Appeal Committee to leave at once and quietly. The unforeseen Circumstances are about to begin, and with them the first great trial of Richard T. Pym — the first of many, it is true, but this is the one that really whetted his appetite for Judgment.

* * *

I have seen him a hundred times as he stood that morning. Rick alone, brooding at the doorway of a crowded room. Rick his father’s son, the glory of a great heritage creasing on his brow. Rick waiting, like Napoleon before the battle, for Destiny to sound the trumpets for his assault. He never made a lazy entrance in his life, he never fluffed his timing or his impact. Whatever you had in mind till then, you could forget it: the topic of the day had just walked in. So it is in the Tabernacle on this rainy sabbath, while God’s wind booms in the pine rafters high above and the disconsolate huddle of humanity in the front pews waits awkwardly for Rick. But stars, we know, are like ideals and elusive. Heads begin to crane, chairs creak. Still no Rick. The Night School Boys, already in the dock, moisten their lips, tip nervously at their ties. Rickie’s done a bunk. Rickie can’t face the music. The deacon in his brown suit hobbles with an artisan’s mysterious discomfort towards the vestry where Rick may have hidden. Then a thump. Round whips every head to the sound, till they stare straight back down the aisle at the great west door, which has been opened from outside by a mysterious hand. Silhouetted against the grey sea clouds of adversity, Rick T. Pym, until now David Livingstone’s natural heir if ever we knew one, gravely bows to his judges and his Maker, closes the great door behind him, and all but vanishes once more against its blackness.

“Message from old Mrs. Harmann for you, Mr. Philpott.” Philpott being the name of the minister. The voice being Rick’s and everyone as usual remarking its beauty, rallying to it, loving it, scared and drawn by its unflinching self-assurance.

“Oh yes then?” says Philpott, very alarmed to be addressed so calmly from so far away. Philpott is a Welshman too.

“She’d be glad of a lift to Exeter General to see her husband before his operation tomorrow, Mr. Philpott,” says Rick with just the tiniest note of a reproach. “She doesn’t seem to think he’ll pull through. If it’s any bother to you I’m sure one of us can take care of her, can’t we, Syd?”

Syd Lemon is a cockney whose father not long ago came south for his arthritis and in Syd’s view will shortly die of boredom instead. Syd is Rick’s best-loved lieutenant, a small, punchy fighter with the townie’s nimbleness and twinkle, and Syd is Syd for ever to me, even now, and the nearest I ever came to a confessor, excluding Poppy.

“Sit with her all night if we have to,” Syd affirms with strenuous rectitude. “All next day too, won’t we, Rickie?”