Author’s Notes: Eddie’s Funeral
Eddie’s funeral service back home in England in Chapter 6 of The Four Bells is set at fictitious St. Martin’s parish. My description of St. Martin’s was inspired by an image that has stuck with me since my wife Sue and I took our first trip to England quite a few years back.
Actually, that trip was our first big trip out of the U.S. and across the pond, and our plan was to see everything we could pack into a week. Our “red-eye” dropped us at Heathrow at 6 a.m. one morning, and once I took the wheel I thanked God it was so early. A stick shift—driving on the wrong side—the only thing that saved us was hardly anyone was on the road and I’d dump the clutch so the car jerked to a stop before someone could hit us.
After a few great days in London, the plan was to check out the Curtis ancestral homelands in Cornwall, taking in the sights of the South of England along the way. But no one told us those thick highway road lines marked with an “A” on a map are nothing like zipping across Interstate 80 at 70 miles per hour! Two lanes, through villages and towns, and plenty of rounders mean a nice long drive.
We stopped in Dover, to see the white cliffs. ‘That’s only by boat, lad,’ I was told, ‘but there’s a path up top where you might catch a glimpse.’ Already well behind schedule, we passed on the boat and took a look from the top, and this picture was taken by Sue dangling over the cliff as I held on tight:
We zipped on past the sights in Sussex, Brighton, Southampton, and eventually made Stonehenge where we slowed down to take another fly by picture:
Then it was a whirlwind tour through the Salisbury Cathedral and a quick skim of the Magna Carta, and now we’re hopelessly behind schedule. We popped into a pub in Exeter to ask the quickest way to Plymouth. ‘That way,’ the bar keep points, and off we go through the Moors. Now our families have agrarian roots, and we’ve traveled our fair share of country roads in the great Midwest, but no road does desolate like the one through the Moors! We ran into nothing except for flocks of sheep that spread out over the road and don’t give a fig if you’re in a hurry:
Finally, we went on through Devon and into Cornwall, the homeland of my ancestors who according to family lore made quite a number of unexplained sea trips in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (not on one of Her Majesty’s Ships). Accordingly, we stopped to see where family business might well have been done, at a smuggler’s cove like this one:
After a tasty pasty or two, we set off to explore the family’s church roots. Here is the image that inspired St. Martin’s—the churchyard at Breage Parish, near Helston:
On a misty, gloomy afternoon, Sue and I wandered the paths of Breage’s churchyard among weathered tombstones, and explored inside the church which was built in late medieval times. Many years later, as I wrote the scene of Eddie’s funeral, it was as if my characters were walking up the pathway to Breage church, like Sue and I did.
During our visit, we struck up a conversation with Breage’s friendly sexton, and he told me Curtis’s are still around.
‘Oh they are! How would I find them?” I asked.
He pointed at the pub across the church yard. ‘Come ‘round ‘bout six. Last stool on the right.’
I was truly home!
Excerpt from THE FOUR BELLS by Brodie Curtis
Maddy followed her Mum and Dad on the gravel path to St. Martin’s parish church, through cemetery grounds jutted with headstones laid so long ago that names of the departed had mostly weathered-away. She and her parents were dressed all in black in a way that seemed to blend perfectly with the grey stone walls of St. Martin’s and the sun-less sky.
They entered the nave through an archway positioned meekly under a row of grand ten foot arched windows set the length of the church. The Vicar greeted them in the porch and mourners began to arrive; first family like Uncle Georgie, Aunt Bea, and Cousin Rose; then parishioners like Mr. and Mrs. Samson, Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs, and Mrs. Allis. A receiving line took shape: Mum and Dad took condolences, then passed the mourner to Maddy.
Maddy watched her Mum and Dad receive Al’s mother. They lingered with her, and Mum held Al’s mother’s hands with a tenderness Maddy hadn’t felt from either of her parents since the O.H.M.S. telegram arrived. She began to understand why the distance had widened between her and Mum and Dad. The loss of a child formed a bond only parents felt.
When Maddy and her parents settled in the first row of pews, the Vicar stepped to the lectern and opened his Holy Bible. He wore a dark suit over a wool vest and his clerical collar, and stood in the open center of St. Martin’s iconostasis, well-known for its array of painted saints displayed in rectangular frames of ornate woodwork.
Maddy couldn’t deny that the church-full of mourners and solemn memorial service gave Eddie due respect, yet she found herself numb to the funeral liturgy’s words of solace. The Vicar caught her attention when he spoke of Nietzsche’s proclamation that ‘might makes right,’ and asserted that there can’t be peace until the army of God crushes the Germans. He told the congregation that Eddie had entered the kingdom of heaven as God’s soldier. She rathered Eddie had stayed on earth, and wished that one of the many saints over the Vicar’s shoulder had protected him. Like St. Francis of Assisi, who went to see Sultan for the Crusaders.
After the service, she waited patiently outside St. Martin’s for her parents to receive final condolences. A tall boy with a youthful look approached. He was thin and wiry, dressed in a black suit that dropped straight down from his shoulders as if they were a coat-hanger, with sandy-blond hair a bit unkempt even though he’d taken great care with his comb to find the part. She guessed he was only a year or two older than her.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Maddy.”
“Thank you. Do I know you?”
“Oh, sorry. Perhaps we haven’t met. My name is Quentin Cropper. Our fathers have business. I knew your brother Eddie, and he was always very kind to me.”
Quentin took Maddy’s black-gloved hands in a momentary gesture of support. He had a sincerity, yet a gentleness to his voice that seemed to call attention to her feelings of loss in a way no one else had. He took his hands away and walked off, and she felt a faint sense of emptiness.
After the memorial service, mourning settled over the Beane house like a fog. Dad set off for work early each day, and seemed to return later each evening. Maddy sat with her Mum for hours on end. They took tea twice a day, with few words passing between them, because little was left to say. The routine passed each day with unbearable, monotonous gloom, and Maddy’s private thoughts often turned to Al. She prayed with all her spirit for him to recover and return to her. Two weeks later, Maddy sat at the table in the front room, writing her fourth letter to him.
Lassingwood
22 June 1915
Dearest Al,
I trust and hope each day finds you stronger my
Dear. I happened on a soldier in uniform at the
market. He was on crutches, and I asked if he had
been to the base hospital in Boulogne. He said he
had not, but was of the opinion that the very best
doctors had been sent there. I am certain you
are getting the care you need, and can come
home soon. Know with all my heart that I stand
ready
She heard a knock on the front door and put her pen down.
“Quentin! This is quite a surprise.”
“Hello Maddy.” Quentin held out a brown portfolio. “I have some papers for your father.”
“Oh. Thank you. I’ll see that he gets them. Would you like to come in?”
“That is very kind,” Quentin said, “but I can’t stay. I also have something for you. I thought you might like to have this pair of Eddie’s gloves.”
“My, what a surprise.” Maddy recognized the black, heavy cloth pair Eddie had worn, and holding them helped her remember him. “How did you come to have these?”
“The winter before Eddie left I stood on the platform in Oxford on a very cold day waiting on the Lassingwood train. I was underdressed and shivering. Eddie came off the train to Oxford and ran into me. When he saw me rubbing my hands together, he insisted I wear his gloves. Anyway, I always intended to return them. You see, I opened a drawer the other day and there they were. I realised I hadn’t, and thought you might like to have them.”
“Thank you. This is very kind of you.”
He turned to leave and, on impulse, she gave him a hug. He broke the embrace, rather awkwardly, and went on his way.