The Wench Is Dead

Lewis took a large bunch of white seedless grapes (£2.50 a pound) from his carrier-bag. 'I thought – we thought, the missus and me – we thought you'd enjoy them, sir.'

He was gone; and Morse knew, within a second of his going, that he would not be forgiving himself easily for such monumental ingratitude. But the damage was done: nescit vox missa reverti.

The bell rang two minutes later, and Christine came across to Morse's bed as she left, and handed him six large photocopied sheets.

'I hope this is what you wanted.'

'I'm ever so grateful. It's – it's a pity we didn't have a chance to… '

'I understand. I do understand,' she said. 'And you will let me know if I can do anything else?'

'Look… perhaps if we-'

'Come along now, please!' The Charge Nurse's voice sounded to Morse almost as imperious as Nessie's as she walked quickly around the beds.

I’m so grateful,' said Morse. 'I really am! As I say it's… '

'Yes,' said Christine softly.

'Will you be in tomorrow?' asked Morse quickly.

‘No – not tomorrow. We've got some librarians coming from California-'

'Come along now, please?

Mrs Green, Sergeant Lewis, Christine Greenaway – now all of them gone; and already the medicine-trolley had been wheeled into the ward, and the nurses were starting out on yet another circuit of measurements and medicaments.

And Morse felt sick at heart.

It was at 9.20 p.m. that he finally settled back against his piled pillows to glance quickly through the photocopied material Christine had found for him. And soon he was deeply and happily engrossed – his temporary despondency departing on the instant.

Chapter Fourteen

Being in the land of the living was itself the survivor's privilege, for so many of one's peers – one's brothers and sisters – had already fallen by the wayside, having died at birth, at infancy or childhood

(Roy & Dorothy Porter, In Sickness and in Health)

The documents which Morse now handled were just the thing (he had little doubt) for satisfying the original-source-material philosophy which was just then swamping the GCSE and A-level syllabuses. And for Morse, whose School Certificate in History (Credit) had demanded little more than semi-familiarity with the earliest models of seed-drills and similar agricultural adjuncts of the late eighteenth century, the reading of them was fascinating. Particularly poignant, as it appeared to Morse, was the Foreword to the Insurance Guide and Hand-Book 1860 (bless the girl! – she'd even got the exact year) where the anonymous author stated his own determination to soldier along in 'this vale of tears’ for as long as decently possible:

'Thus it is that all our efforts are forever required, not to surpass what we may call the biblical "par" for life – that famous "three-score years and ten" – but to come reasonably near to attaining it at all. For it is only by continuous vigilance and energy in the work for self preservation that the appointed average can be brought into view; and with good fortune and good sense (and God's grace) be achieved."

It was interesting to find the Almighty in parenthesis, even in 1860, and Morse felt he would like to have known the author. Yet when that same author went on to assert that 'mortality had decreased by two-fifths between 1720 and 1820', Morse began to wonder what earth such a bafflingly unscientific – indeed, quite sensational statement might mean. What did seem immediately clear, as he read through the small print, that people during those years were begi

As he lay back in the pillows and thought of the circumstances besetting the luckless Joa

Nessie was nowhere to be seen: the desk was empty.

He'd just had a nasty little dream. He'd been playing cricket in his early days at Grammar School; and when it came to his turn to bat, he couldn't find his boots… and then when he did find them the laces kept snapping; and he was verging on a tearful despair – when he'd awoken. It might have been Mrs Green talking about her chiropody? Or was it Lewis, perhaps, who'd brought the card from the cobblers? Or neither of them? Was it not more likely to have been a young woman in 1859 who'd shouted, with her particular brand of terrified despair, 'What have you done with my shoes?'

He looked around again: the desk was still empty.

Surely he wasn't likely to imperil the well-being of the ward if he turned on his angle-lamp? Especially if focused directly into a small pool of light on his own pillows? No! Reading a book wasn't going to hurt anyone and the sick man had had his light on all the time.

Pushing in the button switch, he turned on his own light, with no reaction from anyone; and still no sign of Nessie.

Part Three of Murder on the Oxford Canal was close to hand; but Morse was reluctant to finish that too quickly. He remembered when he'd first read Bleak House (still to his mind the greatest novel in the English language) he'd deliberately decelerated his reading as the final pages grew thi