THE NEXT DAY BELINDA had a letter from Dr. Nicholas Parnell, a friend of her undergraduate days and the Librarian of her old University Library. He wrote of the successful tour which Mr. Mold, the deputy Librarian, had made in Africa. ‘He has penetrated the thickest jungles,’ wrote Dr Parnell, ‘where no white man, and certainly no deputy Librarian, has ever set foot before. The native chiefs have been remarkably generous with their gifts and Mold has collected some five thousand pounds, much of it in the form of precious stones and other rareties. I suspect that a great many of them have not the slightest idea to what they are contributing, but, where Ignorance is bliss …’
Belinda sighed. Dear Nicholas was really quite obsessed with the Library and its extensions. She wished he would remember that the two things which bound them together were the memory of their undergraduate days and our greater English poets. She turned to the end of the letter, where she found more cheering news. The Librarian thought he might be able to come and spend a few days with the Archdeacon while Agatha was away. Perhaps Mr. Mold would come too. ‘The Library can safely be left in charge of old Mr. Lydgate,’ he concluded. ‘He is a little wandering now and is continually worrying about and pronunciation of the Russian “l”. However, his duties will be light.’
How nice it would be to see dear Nicholas again, thought Belinda, eating her scrambled egg and feeling happy and proud that she, a middle-aged country spinster, should number famous librarians among her friends. At least, the Library was famous, she emended. Dear Nicholas had rather sunk into obscurity since his scholarly publications of twenty years ago, and now that he had definitely abandoned all intellectual pursuits, she assumed that no more in that line was to be expected from him. Still, Floreat Bibliotheca, and she was sure that under his guidance it would. And, what was perhaps even more important, the Library would be adequately heated and the material comfort of the readers considered. For who can produce a really scholarly work when he is sitting shivering in a too heavy overcoat, struggling all the time against the temptation to go out and get himself a warming cup of coffee?
The same afternoon Belinda went into the village to do a little shopping. She had to give an order at the grocer’s and the butcher’s, and, if there was time, she would go and choose some wool to make Ricardo Bianco a nice warm pair of socks. She wondered if he had tried taking calcium tablets for his chilblains; they were supposed to be very good.
She entered the wool shop, kept by Miss Jenner, who was also a Sunday School teacher. She always liked going to Miss Jenner’s as the attractive display of different wools fired her imagination. Harriet would look splendid in a jumper of that coral pink. It would be a good idea for a Christmas present, although it was impossible to keep anything secret from Harriet owing to her insatiable curiosity. And here was an admirable clerical grey. Such nice soft wool too … would she ever dare to knit a pullover for the Archdeacon? It would have to be done surreptitiously and before Agatha came back. She might send it anonymously, or give it to him casually, as if it had been left over from the Christmas charity parcel. Surely that would be quite seemly, unless of course it might appear rather ill-mannered?
‘This is a lovely clerical grey,’ said Miss Jenner, as if sensing her thoughts. ‘I’ve sold quite a lot of this to various ladies round here—especially in Father Plowman’s parish. I was saying to the traveller only the other day that I knew this would be a popular line. He even suggested I might knit him a pullover’—she laughed shrilly—‘the idea of it!’
Belinda smiled. She could well imagine the scene. Miss Jenner was so silly with the travellers that it was quite embarrassing to be in the shop when one of them arrived. Still, poor thing, Belinda thought, the warm tide of easy sentimentality rising up within her, it was probably the only bit of excitement in her drab life. She was getting on now, and with her sharp, foxy face and prominent teeth had obviously never been pretty. Living over the shop with her old mother must be very dull. And perhaps we are all silly over something or somebody without knowing it; perhaps her own behaviour with the Archdeacon was no less silly than Miss Jenner’s with the travellers. It was rather a disquieting thought, especially when Miss Jenner, with a smirk on her face, began to tell her that eight ounces was the amount of wool that ladies usually bought.
‘It will go very well with my Harris tweed costume,’ said Belinda firmly. ‘I think I will have nine ounces, in case I decide to make long sleeves.’ After all, she might make a jumper for herself, now that she came to think of it she was certain that she would, either that or something else equally safe and dull. When we grow older we lack the fine courage of youth, and even an ordinary task like making a pullover for somebody we love or used to love seems too dangerous to be undertaken. Then Agatha might get to hear of it; that was something else to be considered. Her long, thin fingers might pick at it critically and detect a mistake in the ribbing at the Vee neck; there was often some difficulty there. Agatha was not much of a knitter herself, but she would have an unfailing eye for Belinda’s little mistakes. And then the pullover might be too small, or the neck opening too tight, so that he wouldn’t be able to get his head through it. Belinda went hot and cold, imagining her humiliation. She would have to practise on Harriet, whose head was fully as big as the Archdeacon’s. And yet, in a way, it would be better if Harriet didn’t know about it, she might so easily blurt out something … Obviously the enterprise was too fraught with dangers to be attempted and Belinda determined to think no more about it. God moves in a mysterious way, she thought, without irreverence. It was wonderful how He did, even in small things. No doubt she would know what to do with the wool as time went on.
This afternoon Belinda had naturally hoped that she might meet the Archdeacon, but it was now nearly tea-time, and although she had been through the main street and all the most likely side streets, Fate had not brought them together. She decided that there was nothing for it but to go home; after all, there would be many more opportunities.
But when she had got as far as the church, she saw a familiar figure wandering about among the tomb-stones, with his hands clasped behind his back and an expression of melancholy on his face. It was, of course, the Archdeacon. But what was he doing in the churchyard when it was nearly tea-time? Belinda wondered. This would hardly be a suitable time to interrupt his meditations by telling him that she had had a letter from Nicholas Parnell and that she did hope they would both come to supper when he came to stay. She began to walk rather more slowly, uncertain what to do. She looked in her shopping basket to see if she had forgotten anything. She remembered now that the careful list she had made was lying on top of the bureau in the dining-room, so she could hardly expect to check things very satisfactorily. There was no reason why she should not hurry home to tea.
‘These yew trees are remarkably fine,’ said a voice quite close to her, ‘they must be hundreds of years old.’
Belinda looked up from her basket. The Archdeacon had now come to the wall.
‘Oh, good afternoon,’ she said, hoping that he had not noticed her obvious reluctance to go home. ‘You quite startled me. I didn’t see you,’ she added, hoping that she might be forgiven or at least not found out, in this obvious lie.
The Archdeacon smiled. ‘I was thinking out my sermon for Sunday,’ he said. ‘I find the atmosphere so helpful. Looking at these tombs, I am reminded of my own mortality.’
Belinda contemplated a design of cherubs’ heads with a worn inscription underneath it. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said, hoping that the gentle melancholy of her tone would make amends for her trite reply.
‘I have lately been reading Young’s Night Thoughts,’ went on the Archdeacon, in his pulpit voice. ‘There are some magnificent lines in it that I had forgotten.’
Belinda waited. She doubted now whether it would be possible to be back for tea at four o’clock. She could hardly break away when the Archdeacon was about to deliver an address on the mortality of man.
He began to quote:
We take no note of time
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright
It is the knell of my departed hours…
‘I thought of those lines when I heard the clock strike just now,’ he explained.
‘It must be wonderful, and unusual too, to think of time like that,’ said Belinda shyly, realizing that when she heard the clock strike her thoughts were on a much lower level. She suspected that even dear Henry was guilty of more mundane thoughts occasionally. At four o’clock in the afternoon, surely the most saintly person would think rather of tea than of his departed hours? She stood silent, looking into her basket.
‘Not that Young was a great theologian, or even a great poet,’ the Archdeacon went on hastily. ‘Much of the Night Thoughts consists of platitudes expressed in that over-elaborate and turgid style, which the minor eighteenth-century poets mistakenly associated with Milton.’
‘Oh, yes, the style is certainly rather flowery,’ said Belinda, doing the best she could, for she was beginning to be uneasily conscious of Harriet waiting for her tea, the hot scones getting cold and Miss Beard, that excellent church worker and indefatigable gossip, passing by on the other side of the road.
‘That may be, but I do find in it a little of the wonder and awe which is generally supposed to be absent from the literature of that age.’ The Archdeacon stood looking at Belinda with his head on one side, as if he expected her to agree with him.
But Belinda said nothing, for she was thinking how handsome he still was. His long pointed nose only added to the general distinction of his features. There was quite a long pause until the clock struck a quarter-past four.
‘Tea,’ said the Archdeacon, suddenly human once more. ‘I’m all by myself,’ he said rather pathetically. ‘Won’t you come and share my solitary meal? I don’t know if there will be any cake,’ he added doubtfully.
Belinda started. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, drawing back a little, and then remembering her manners, she added: ‘Thank you very much but Harriet will be expecting me.’ She did not dare to invite him to share their undoubtedly more appetizing meal and almost smiled when she pictured what Harriet’s reaction would be were she to bring him home unexpectedly. All the same it would have been very nice to have had tea with him, she thought regretfully, quite like old times. Perhaps he would ask her again, though it was the kind of spontaneous invitation that comes perhaps only once in a lifetime. ‘You must come to tea with us some time,’ she said, doing her best to assume a light, social manner. ‘I will ask Harriet what is the best day, though,’ she added hastily, ‘I expect you are very busy.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he sighed, ‘nobody can possibly know how busy.’
‘Then I mustn’t keep you any longer,’ said Belinda, moving away.
‘Well, the tombs are always with us,’ he replied enigmatically, raising his hat with a sweeping gesture.
Belinda could think of nothing to say to this, so she smiled and walked home very quickly. As she had expected, Harriet was waiting impatiently in the drawing-room. The tea was already in, and the hot scones stood in a little covered dish in the fireplace.
‘Oh, Belinda, when will you learn to be punctual,’ she said, in a despairing voice.
‘I’m so sorry, dear,’ said Belinda humbly. ‘I should have been here by four, but I met the Archdeacon.’ She looked about her rather helplessly for a place to put her coat. ‘I’m sorry you waited tea for me.’
‘Well, I was rather hungry,’ said Harriet nobly, ‘but having to wait will make me enjoy it all the more. What meat did you order?’
‘Mutton,’ said Belinda absently.
‘But we haven’t any red-currant jelly,’ said Harriet. ‘One of us will have to go out tomorrow morning and get some. Mutton’s so uninteresting without it.’
Belinda sat down by the fire and began to pour out the tea.
‘Where did you see the Archdeacon?’ asked Harriet.
‘In the churchyard,’ said Belinda. ‘He was walking about among the tombs.’
Harriet snorted.
‘But, Harriet,’ Belinda leaned forward eagerly, ‘he asked me to go to tea with him, but of course I couldn’t very well have gone.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Harriet. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t want to.’
‘No, it wasn’t exactly that,’ said Belinda slowly. ‘I didn’t really mind one way or the other,’ she lied, ‘but I knew you would be expecting me back and I thought you might wonder where I was. And then Florrie and the cook might have thought it funny if I went there the minute Agatha was out of the house. You know how servants gossip, especially in a small place like this. I don’t want to be silly in any way, of course there would have been nothing in it, but I decided it would be better if I didn’t go.’ She put the rest of her scone into her mouth with an air of finality.
Harriet was obviously disappointed. ‘I do wish you’d gone,’ she lamented. ‘So little of interest happens here and one may as well make the most of life. Besides, dear,’ she added gently, ‘I don’t think anybody would be likely to gossip about you in that old tweed coat.’
‘No, you’re quite right. I suppose it will have to go to Mrs. Ramage next time she comes.’ She got up and rang the bell for Emily to clear away the tea things. When she was going out with the tray, Emily turned to Harriet rather nervously and said, ‘Excuse me, m’m, but would you mind if I just slip out to the post?’
Oh, no, Emily,’ said Harriet firmly, ‘there’s no need for that. I shall be writing some letters myself, so I can take yours as well. There is plenty for you to do here.’
Emily went out of the room with a sulky expression on her face, and was heard to bang the tray rather heavily on the table in the passage.
‘She only wants to go and gossip with the vicarage Florrie,’ said Harriet, triumphant at having frustrated her. ‘And we can’t have that, can we?’ she said turning to Belinda for support.
But Belinda was not listening. She was wondering what they would have talked about if she had gone to tea, or rather what Henry would have talked about. It had started to rain outside, and the soft patter of the rain in the leaves, combined with the rapidly falling darkness, made her feel pleasantly melancholy. She wondered if Henry were looking at the twilight, missing Agatha, she thought dutifully, or even regretting that she had not stayed to tea. It would have been nice to go … Belinda put down her knitting and sat dreaming. Of course there was a certain pleasure in not doing something; it was impossible that one’s high expectations should be disappointed by the reality. To Belinda’s imaginative but contented mind this seemed a happy state, with no emptiness or bitterness about it. She was fortunate in needing very little to make her happy.
She was still sitting idly with her knitting in her lap, when the front door-bell rang, and Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall were shown into the room.
‘We were just passing and thought we’d drop in,’ Edith explained.
They stood in the doorway, a tall drooping figure and a short stout one, both wearing mackintoshes, and that wet-weather headgear so unbecoming to middle-aged ladies and so incongruously known as a ‘pixie hood’.
‘Do take off your wet things,’ said Belinda rousing herself.
‘You had better stay to supper,’ said Harriet rather too bluntly. ‘It won’t be very much but we shall be having it soon.’
Why yes, it will be a good chance to repay the baked beans, thought Belinda. She wondered whether they ought perhaps to open a tin of tongue and get Emily to make a potato salad. Or would a macaroni cheese be better? With some bottled fruit and coffee to follow that should really be enough.
‘I think I’ll just go and tell Emily about supper,’ she said.
‘Oh, please don’t trouble to make any difference for us,’ said Connie. ‘Bread and cheese or whatever you’re having will do for us, won’t it, Edith?’
Edith gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Well, I must say that I should like to feel an effort was being made, even if only a small one,’ she said in a jocular tone. ‘I think we all like to feel that.’
‘But we only came to see you,’ said Connie. Her eyes brightened a little and she said in a low voice, ‘We think we have a piece of news.’
‘News? What kind of news?’ asked Harriet rather sharply.
‘We have heard that Mr. Donne is engaged,’ said Edith, in a loud triumphant tone.
‘To a niece of Mrs. Hoccleve’s, a Miss Berry,’ chimed in Connie.
‘Miss Berridge, I think, if it’s the niece who’s doing research,’ said Belinda, looking rather fearfully at her sister.
‘Oh, I don’t think that can be true,’ declared Harriet indignantly. ‘She has made him a pair of socks, but I don’t think there is anything more than that between them.’
‘Miss Prior told us,’ persisted Edith, ‘and she is usually very accurate. She has been a good deal at the vicarage lately, getting Mrs. Hoccleve’s clothes ready to go away. She may very well have heard something.’
‘But Miss Berridge is some years older than Mr. Donne,’ said Harriet, equally persistent. ‘It would be a most unsuitable marriage. Besides,’ she added, her tone taking on a note of disgust, ‘she’s doing some research or something like that, isn’t she, Belinda.’
‘Yes, on some doubtful reading in The Owl and the Nightingale. It doesn’t seem a very good training for a wife,’ said Belinda uncertainly, thinking of Agatha and her inability to darn. ‘Still, if she has knitted him a pair of socks perhaps she is not entirely lacking in the feminine arts.’
Edith gave a snort. ‘I believe some of these old poems are very coarse, so she may not be such a blue stocking as we think.’
There was a short silence during which the front-door bell rang again and Mr. Donne was shown into the room carrying a bundle of parish magazines.
‘Miss Jenner couldn’t manage to deliver them this month,’ he explained, ‘so I am doing it.’
‘Just the person we wanted to see,’ said Harriet. ‘Now, you can surely tell us. Is it true that you are engaged to be married?’ The words rang out as a challenge.
‘I—engaged?’ Mr. Donne made a kind of bleating noise and a movement with his arms which scattered the parish magazines all over the floor. ‘It’s certainly the first I’ve heard of it,’ he went on, recovering something of his usual manner. ‘Who is the fortunate lady?’
‘Miss Berridge,’ said Edith Liversidge firmly.
‘Miss Berridge?’ he echoed in a puzzled tone. ‘Well, of course, she’s a very good sort, and I like her very much …’ he hesitated, perhaps feeling that he was being ungallant.
‘But you think of her more as an elder sister, I expect,’ prompted Harriet with determination.
‘Well, yes, I suppose I do,’ he agreed gratefully. ‘Anyway she’s much too clever to look at anyone like me.’
‘Is she beautiful?’ persisted Edith.
‘Well, not exactly beautiful,’ he said, looking embarrassed, ‘but very nice and so kind.’
Ah, had she been more beauteous and less kind,
She might have found me of another mind.
thought Belinda, but decided it might be better not to quote the lines.
‘Well, that’s that,’ said Harriet. ‘There is no truth in the rumour. Isn’t it amazing how people will gossip?’
‘I never thought there was,’ said Connie to Belinda. ‘I think Mr. Donne will marry some pretty young thing.’ She sighed and her eyes bulged sentimentally.
‘I may not get married at all,’ said Mr. Donne almost defiantly. ‘Many clergymen do not.’
‘No, a single curate is in many ways more suitable,’ said Belinda thoughtfully. ‘More in the tradition, if you see what I mean. And then of course there’s the celibacy of the clergy isn’t there?’ she added quickly.
‘Is there?’ said Edith scornfully. ‘I thought St. Paul said it was better to marry than burn.’
‘Well, it is hardly a question of that,’ said Belinda in a confused way. ‘I mean, of burning. One would hardly expect it to be.’ She felt rather annoyed with Edith, who must surely know less than anybody about what St. Paul had said, for introducing this unsuitable aspect of the question.
Fortunately, Harriet, who had disappeared from the room while she was speaking, now came back with the news that supper was ready.
‘You will stay, won’t you, Mr. Donne?’ she asked, turning to him with a beaming smile. ‘I’m afraid it won’t be much of a meal …’ she waved her hands deprecatingly.
Edith Liversidge moved into the dining-room with a confident step. They would all benefit from Mr. Donne’s presence, she knew, and noted with sardonic approval that there was a large bowl of fruit salad on the table and a jug of cream as well as a choice of cold meats.
Oh dear, thought Belinda, recognizing tomorrow’s luncheon, surely the tin of tongue would have been enough?
‘Let’s all have a glass of sherry,’ said Harriet, going over to the sideboard, where a decanter and glasses had been set out on a tray. ‘After all, we might have been going to drink to Mr. Donne’s engagement.’