ON THE WAY HOME Belinda decided to call at the vicarage to see Agatha. Harriet, calculating that the curate would probably not be there, went home to make some sardine eggs for supper, as it was Emily’s evening out.
Belinda found Agatha sitting in the drawing-room, mending the Archdeacon’s socks. It was a gloomy, un-homely kind of room, though Belinda could never quite decide why she did not like it. The electric light was too dim or the chair covers too drab or perhaps it was just that Agatha was there and that behind her was a bookcase, where, behind glass, was a complete set of the publications of the Early English Text Society. Belinda noticed rather sadly that the crimson socks Henry had bought in Vienna were not among the pile on Agatha’s sewing table. But how stupid of me, she thought, socks don’t last thirty years, and how could a man in Henry’s position wear crimson socks! The ones Belinda noticed tonight were of the most sober archidiaconal colours. She wanted to say, ‘Oh, Agatha, let me help you,’ but thought better of it. Agatha might consider it a reflection on her darning, and certainly would not care to be reminded that Belinda had darned socks for Henry before she had ever set eyes on him. ‘Never interfere between husband and wife’, as Belinda remembered her dear mother telling her, and one could not be too careful, even about an apparently trivial thing like a sock.
Agatha seemed pleased to see her and they began to talk of parish matters. There would be a great deal to do when Agatha went away, indeed, she was beginning to wonder whether it would be possible to go after all.
Belinda reflected on the truth of the saying that husbands and wives grow to be like each other, for it might almost have been Henry talking. So badly in need of a holiday, and yet who could be left in charge of the Mothers’ Union and there was that rather delicate affair of the altar brasses and the unpleasantness between Miss Jenner and Miss Beard … listening to her Belinda began to feel very gloomy indeed. It seemed almost as if Agatha had decided not to go.
‘I’m sure I should be very willing to do what I could,’ she said doubtfully, aware that she was not a mother and was far too much of a moral coward to deal satisfactorily with even the slightest unpleasantness. ‘I often go into Miss Jenner’s shop to buy knitting wool,’ she added, ‘perhaps I could say a word.…’
To Belinda’s surprise, Agatha seemed grateful for her offer of help and they found themselves talking about Mr. Donne and what a great asset he was to the parish, after which it was the most natural thing in the world for Belinda to ask after the Archdeacon.
Agatha smiled indulgently. He was well, considering everything, she said.
Considering what? Belinda wondered, and ventured to remark that men were really much more difficult to please than women, who bore their burdens without complaining.
Agatha nodded and sighed. There was a short pause during which Agatha seemed to be intent on finding a piece of wool to match the sock she was mending. Belinda took up the Church Times and began glancing idly through the advertisements. A priest’s cloak for sale, 44-inch chest—clerical evening dress, tall, slim build, never worn—she paused, wondering what story, sad or dramatic, lay behind those words. She had just turned to the back pages and was wondering whether Harriet would care to spend part of their summer holiday at a Bright Christian Guest House at Bognor, when the door opened and the Archdeacon came in.
He kissed Agatha in a hasty, husbandly way, which rather surprised Belinda, who had not thought that any outward signs of affection ever passed between them. Perhaps it distressed her a little, too, but he seemed so genuinely pleased to see her that she soon recovered and was listening happily to his account of how he had spent the afternoon, visiting a deathbed and then going on to see the old people in the workhouse.
‘These humble people remind me of Gray’s Elegy,’ he said affectedly with his head on one side.
Neither Belinda nor Agatha had heard his conversation with Harriet, so that they listened with respectful interest while he quoted the appropriate verse. Nor were they in a hurry to be gone, as Harriet had been, and so did not say ‘Oh, quite’ when he had finished but enlarged intelligently on the charming theme. Agatha Was reminded of Piers Plowman, Belinda of the poetry of Crabbe, which she could not remember very exactly, but she felt she had to be reminded of something out of self-defence, for Agatha had got a First and knew all about Piers Plowman. Indeed, she seemed about to quote from it and would probably have done so had not the Archdeacon suddenly been reminded of Wordsworth and some suitable lines in The Excursion. Then he began to read from The Prelude. Belinda thought Agatha looked rather bored and fidgety, but she herself was delighted and lived happily in the past until the entry of Mr. Donne brought her back into the present.
‘Your sister brought me some delicious plums this afternoon,’ he said, addressing Belinda, ‘and some homemade cake and jelly. I’m afraid I’m getting quite spoilt.’
The Archdeacon looked envious. The plums in their garden hadn’t done particularly well this year and Agatha was always too busy with parochial work to make jelly or cakes or even to ask the cook to make them.
‘Ah, well, you won’t always be a curate,’ said Belinda indulgently.
‘That doesn’t follow at all,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘Look at Plowman and all the gifts he gets. I suppose it has something to do with celibacy.’
Agatha smiled complacently. ‘Well, dear, people know that you are not in need of these things,’ she said.
‘I will bring you some of the plums tomorrow,’ said the curate nobly.
‘Now, you see, I have given Donne a chance to be unselfish,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘so good comes out of everything.’
Belinda was silent, wondering if by any chance there were any plums left and whether she would have the courage to bring the Archdeacon a pot of the blackberry jelly which she herself had made a week or two ago. Perhaps when Agatha went away … a cake, too, perhaps with coffee icing and filling and chopped nuts on the top, or a really rich fruit cake.…
‘We really must do something about the Harvest Festival,’ said the Archdeacon wearily. ‘I suppose I shall have to get Plowman to preach. A pity Canon Harvey is such a difficult man, he’s really a better preacher.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Agatha nodded sympathetically.
Belinda did not join in the conversation. She remembered that the Archdeacon and Canon Harvey had a long-standing quarrel about the use of Songs of Praise in church, which the latter considered ‘savoured of Pantheism in many instances’. They had had a heated correspondence about it in the local paper.
‘Of course Plowman knows a good deal about the technical side of farming,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘That is some advantage.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the curate earnestly. ‘He believes that digging is a kind of worship and that we get nearer to God by digging. At least, it may not be exactly that,’ he stammered in confusion, ‘but of course one does feel that the countryman is nearer God, in a way.’
‘Nature’s cathedral,’ retorted the Archdeacon scornfully. ‘One sees what you mean, of course.’
‘I think Mr. Donne was remembering the Latin colere, which has the double meaning of dig and worship, as in cult and agriculture,’ said Agatha helpfully. ‘You explained it so well in your sermon about the spiritual meaning of harvest time,’ she added, turning to her husband. ‘It would be nice to hear that again.’
The Archdeacon nodded and looked pleased. ‘Yes, I think that may be the solution,’ he said. ‘I felt at the time that it was perhaps too subtle for some of the congregation.’
Belinda was silent with admiration. What a splendid wife Agatha was! She could never have dealt with him half so cleverly herself, she thought humbly. She remembered the sermon, of course, but it had been so obscure, that even she had been forced to abandon all efforts to understand it.
‘Oh, Mrs. Hoccleve,’ burst out the curate eagerly, ‘I nearly forgot to tell you, I had a pair of hand-knitted socks from Olivia Berridge. Wasn’t it nice of her?’
‘Yes, she mentioned you the last time I heard from her,’ said Agatha thoughtfully, and then began to explain to Belinda that Olivia Berridge was a niece of hers whom Mr. Donne had met when he was an undergraduate.
‘We both used to sing in the Bach Choir,’ explained the curate, making the acquaintance sound respectable, even dull, Belinda thought.
‘She’s a very clever girl,’ Agatha went on, ‘and she’s doing some really excellent work on certain doubtful readings in The Owl and The Nightingale.’ She sighed, and looked down at the sock she was mending. ‘I envy her that opportunity.’
‘Well, my dear, there is no reason why you shouldn’t get down to something like that yourself,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I am sure you have more time to spare than I have.’
‘I do so admire people who do obscure research,’ said Belinda. ‘I’m sure I wish I could.’
‘Of course I have done a good deal of work on Middle English texts myself in the past,’ said Agatha, smiling.
‘Now, Agatha, Belinda does not wish to be forced to admire you,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘After all, academic research is not everything. We must remember George Herbert’s lines:
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine,
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.
‘Yes, they are comforting,’ Belinda agreed. ‘And yet,’ she went on unhappily, ‘I don’t sweep rooms, Emily does that. The things I do seem rather useless, but I suppose it could be applied to any action of everyday life, really.’
‘Oh, certainly, Miss Bede,’ said Mr. Donne, with curately heartiness. ‘We cannot all have the same gifts,’ he added, with what Belinda felt was an insufferably patronizing air.
‘Olivia is a very forceful young woman,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘and rather a bluestocking in appearance. What do you think, Donne?’
‘Well, I can’t say that I’ve really noticed,’ said the curate. ‘I mean, it’s what a person is that matters most, isn’t it?’
‘Ah, yes, the clergy at any rate should feel that,’ said the Archdeacon sardonically. ‘It might be an idea for one of your sermons, Donne. You could take the lilies of the field text and work it out quite simply. I’m not sure that I won’t take it myself, though. It might be a way of reaching the evening congregations, they like something of that kind. Never waste your erudite quotations on them, they don’t appreciate or understand them.’
The curate murmured something about not really knowing any erudite quotations, at which the Archdeacon nodded and looked satisfied.
Agatha rolled up the last pair of socks, and there was a pleasant silence, during which Belinda became rather sentimental as she contemplated the cosy domestic scene. Agatha, surrounded by the socks and her affectionate husband, dear Agatha, almost; it was very seldom that Belinda was able to think of her like that. We really ought to love one another, she thought warmly, it was a pity it was often so difficult. But as she walked home, her thoughts took a more definite and interesting turn. She began to wonder if perhaps Mr. Donne loved Olivia Berridge. By the time she had reached her own house, however, she had decided that the whole idea was so upsetting that it could not possibly be so. In any case, he would not have the chance of seeing her very often, and a few pairs of socks through the post could not really do very much.