by Barbara Pym
'Yes. Do you remember the funny guide book we found - "the Via de Posillipo, recently ampliated"?'
'Of course, and the name meaning "pause of every sorrow".'
'And the caves in the Via Chiatamone where some citizens went for pastimes that ended in scandal,' I laughed.
Rodney sighed. 'Those were good days, weren't they?' he said. 'Perhaps better than we shall ever know again.'
'Well, we were young then. But life is supposed to get better as one grows older - even married life,' I added, not consciously cynical.
'Wilmet, I'm afraid it may not have been like that for you this last year or two. I've often wondered ...' Rodney hesitated and looked down intently at the patience which I had laid out on the table. 'This summer particularly,' he went on.
I could feel embarrassment creeping over me, and I wondered what he was going to say next. Could it be that he had noticed something of my ridiculous so quickly nipped in the bud infatuation for Piers and was going to have it out with me? Nervously I took a card from one of my long lines, only to find that the intricate move I had planned was now blocked by another card I had failed to notice.
'This summer?' I asked, to gain time.
'Yes. Do you remember hearing me talk about a woman principal in our department?'
'Yes - with cotton stockings,' I laughed quickly, with a mixture of relief and curiosity as to what could be coming next.
'I believe I did mention Eleanor's cotton stockings,' Rodney smiled, 'rather unkind of me, really. But do you also remember that she had a friend?'
'Even a woman civil servant can have a friend,' I mocked. 'What's so remarkable about that?'
'Don't you remember my telling you that I had met her?'
'Oh yes, Miss Bates - I remember now. And her christian name was Patience.'
'No - Prudence, actually,' said Rodney. 'I took her out to dinner once or twice,' he added casually. 'That evening when you heard about Bason stealing the Fabergé egg, and another time later on when Mary Beamish came to stay.'
My hands stopped moving the cards about. So he had taken Miss Bates out to dinner. At the time when I had been occupied with foolish thoughts of Piers, my husband had been taking the attractive friend of a woman civil servant out to dinner.
'I see,' I said stiffly.
'Darling, it was no more than that,' said Rodney, his manner becoming almost agitated. 'I can't think why I didn't tell you at the time - it was stupid of me.'
'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'Why should you have told me? After all, I've had lunch with Harry and Piers several times, but I doubt if I've always remembered to tell you.'
'Lunch, yes. But dinner is rather different somehow.'
'Well, if you insist, perhaps it is. Was she nice, Miss Bates?'
'In a way. The funny thing is she reminded me of you. Sitting there on that little Regency sofa thing, rather cool and distant-'
'Where was the Regency sofa? In her flat?'
'Yes. She has a nice little place near Regent's Park,' said Rodney seriously.
'How uncomfortable,' I said coolly.
'Regency furniture isn't exactly cosy.' Rodney's mouth began to twitch, and suddenly we had both dissolved into helpless laughter, so that an elderly woman coming into the lounge to retrieve the knitting she had left there before dinner, retreated quickly and with a look of alarm on her face.
'What a funny place to choose to tell me such a thing,' I said weakly. 'And I have told you about Harry and Piers, so now all is revealed.'
But after I had stopped laughing I began to think that perhaps it wasn't so funny after all. I had always regarded Rodney as the kind of man who would never look at another woman. The fact that he could - and had indeed done so - ought to teach me something about myself, even if I was not yet quite sure what it was.
Chapter Twenty-three
'Are you robing, Father?' I heard one clergyman ask another, as we filed into the suburban church where Marius Lovejoy Ransome was to be instituted and inducted as vicar that afternoon.
'Rather!' came the enthusiastic answer from his colleague. And I saw that they were both carrying small suitcases, from which I imagined crushed cottas being taken out.
There were rather a lot of us, for two coachloads of friends and wellwishers had come from St Luke's, as well as Mr Coleman's Husky-full; and we began to fill up the front of the church, conscious that we were usurping the places of many of the regular members of the congregation but not worrying overmuch about it. Indeed, shortly after I had taken my place beside Miss Prideaux, and was kneeling to say a prayer, I became aware of a little whispering group at the end of the row, and when I sat up two ladies squeezed their way past us and then sat looking around them suspiciously, like animals in unfamiliar surroundings.
'I do love an induction,' whispered Miss Prideaux, as sentimentally as if she were talking of a wedding. 'And Father Ransome's first parish, too - such a great occasion.'
'Yes, let's hope he stays here a long time,' I said. Then wondered if I should have said that, for it was not after all quite like a wedding, in which one hopes that the parties will stay together for many years, even for ever.
The church was not beautiful, but I was glad to detect a faint smell of incense in it. I began studying the rows of clergy already seated and trying to pick out any that I knew. I wondered if Marius's poor friend Edwin Sainsbury, now a shabby Roman Catholic layman no doubt, was hidden away somewhere at the back of the church - or would he not be allowed to attend such a service? It would be bitter for him to watch his friend, all doubts now resolved, being inducted into this flourishing suburban parish with its comfortable looking modern vicarage and endless 'opportunities', as the religious papers called them. I could not see him anywhere, and then I remembered that he might still be tramping on Exmoor, thinking things out in the autumnal mists.
I noticed Mary sitting quite near us, looking already like a vicar's wife in her grey coat and rather too sensible hat. I had decided that the occasion called for something a little gay, and was wearing an emerald green feather cap with my black suit.
'Look!' Miss Prideaux plucked at my elbow. They're bringing him in.'
'The churchwardens shall conduct the Vicar-Designate to a seat in the Nave, near to the entrance to the Chancel,' I read in my service paper; and Marius, looking very handsome and serious, came in, towering over the two rather dumpy churchwardens who led him to his seat. Then we began to sing a psalm, and the Bishop and more clergy came in. When we reached the stage where the new vicar was led to various parts of the church and promised to do all kinds of things, the Lord being his helper, I found myself wondering whether Marius would not find it all rather too exhausting. But perhaps with a good wife and a comfortable home, not forgetting the embarrassment of old Mrs Beamish's money, he would struggle through somehow.
The Bishop's address was short and to the point. He told his congregation that last week he had inducted a priest as vicar of a very beautiful old church in the diocese. The church we were in this afternoon was not beautiful, but we must not think that beauty was everything. It was not nothing - he certainly would not go so far as to say that - but it was not so very much, not nearly so important as people imagined.
At this point my thoughts wandered, and I found myself thinking that Marius's looks made up for the shortcomings of the church; though the Bishop could hardly make this point, it might well be that it was not lost on the congregation.
Soon we were singing very heartily the hymn 'The Church of God a kingdom is', and then the service was over and we were moving with politely controlled impatience to the hall where tea was to be served.
Mary came running up to me through the crowds, full of her usual eagerness and enthusiasm.
'Wilmet, how lovely to see you! I'm so glad you were able to come. And so many of our friends from St Luke's, too. Two coachloads. We never imagined ...'
'How pleased Father Thames looks,' I said, 'in spite of everything. He must see that it was all for t
he best.'
'Yes, I think he has come round to the idea of Marius being married. He sent us a very pretty piece of china as a wedding present - Dresden or something, you know, like those bits he has in his study.'
'Did your furniture come out of the depository all right?' I asked.
'Yes, of course - everything was in excellent condition.'
'I suppose it would be,' I said thoughtfully, for I was remembering my walk past the depository with Piers, and our wild imaginings - the dramatic decay, the baroque horror of it all. It would not be like that in reality, and perhaps it was just as well.
'And you're really happy?' I asked Mary, unnecessarily, for her face was radiant.
'Oh Wilmet, life is perfect now! I've everything that I could possibly want. I keep thinking that it's like a glass of blessings - life, I mean,' she smiled.
'That comes from a poem by George Herbert, doesn't it?' I said.
'When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by...'
'But don't forget that other line,' said Marius's charming languid voice, 'how, when all the other blessings had been bestowed, rest lay in the bottom of the glass. That's so very appropriate for a harassed suburban vicar. What an afternoon! I'm simply exhausted.'
'I like to think of you as a harassed suburban vicar,' I mocked. 'And you'll have to read the Thirty-Nine Articles on Sunday, won't you?' I added unkindly.
'Goodness, yes. I suppose there's no escaping it. I wonder if my voice will hold out?'
'I think you can divide them between morning and evening, can't you?' said Mary practically. 'Ah, tea is coming. How lovely!'
A beaming woman, wearing pince-nez, and a rather unusual hat trimmed with fur animals' tails, came up to us with a tray of tea. I saw Mrs Greenhill, who had also been given a cup, tasting it suspiciously, either fearing it might be poisoned or merely comparing it with her own brew.
'Not Lapsang, I'm afraid, or even Earl Grey,' said Marius in a low voice. 'But luckily, unlike Father Thames, I am able to take Indian tea. Did he ever tell you that? Over forty years a priest and not able to take Indian tea!'
'Yes, indeed he did,' I began. But seeing that the new vicar and his wife were being approached by a rather important looking lady in a purple hat and musquash cape, I tactfully moved away and found myself beside Mr Coleman who, in spite of our shared experience of the Fabergé egg, I still found difficult to talk to.
'What did you think of the church?' I asked hopefully.
'Quite nice, Mrs Forsyth,' he said. 'I was agreeably surprised, really. Rather cramped for a High Mass, but I daresay they manage all right with a bit of manoeuvring. I was just talking to the M.C. here.'
'I suppose you were able to compare notes.'
'Yes, and he told me a piece of news.'
'A piece of news?'
'Apparently they've discovered fungus on the wall in the choir vestry,' Mr Coleman's blue eyes gleamed.
'Fungus?' I said uncertainly. 'You mean toadstools and that sort of thing?'
'Yes, that's it. Of course it's very interesting. It's nearly always a sign of dry rot.'
'Oh dear,' I said conventionally. And then it occurred to me that here was something for Marius to tackle, and a use for some of Mrs Beamish's money. It would make a man of him, as they said.
'Fascinating thing, dry rot,' continued Mr Coleman.
I wondered if he made a hobby of its study, so enthusiastic did he seem. How full his life must be!
'It is Mrs Forsyth, isn't it?' said a rather booming man's voice, and I turned to see a tall man in an expensive looking overcoat at my side. I recognized him as one of Mary's brothers, the one who had run after me on that January afternoon of Mrs Beamish's funeral and tried to make me persuade Mary not to enter the convent.
'This is a very different occasion from the last one on which we met,' he went on.
'It's a much pleasanter one,' I agreed. 'It looks a very friendly parish, and I'm sure Mary and Marius are going to be very happy here.'
'So I was right after all,' chuckled Gerald Beamish, 'and they talk about woman's intuition! It didn't take me long to see which way the wind was blowing. Mary was keen on this fellow, but he had ideas about celibacy and all that kind of thing, as these young parsons sometimes do have; so off she goes into a convent and he very soon realizes he's missed the boat. Quite a clever move of Mary's that - I'd never have thought her capable of such cunning. It only shows we should never underestimate women, doesn't it?'
'Men should never do that,' I agreed. 'But of course that wasn't the reason why Mary went into the convent. She was really convinced that it was the best life for her.'
'But a good looking husband's even better, eh?' he chuckled, stuffing a last bit of cake into his mouth. 'Well, I've had enough of this bun fight now - only came to see Mary, really - family support and all that, you know. I suppose one can slip away quite easily?'
'Oh, yes, I think so,' I said. 'I shall have to stay a little longer because we all came from St Luke's in a coach.'
Soon after this the party - for I suppose that was what it was - began to break up. I said good-bye to Mary and she asked me to go over to tea one day the following week. She and Marius came out into the road as we took our places in the coach, and waved to us as we started off on what seemed the long journey back through tree-lined suburban roads, past ugly new-looking shops and little houses, the sight of which filled me with despair. Ahead of us Mr Coleman's grey Husky shot like an arrow from a bow and had soon left us far behind.
'Quite a nice tea,' I heard Mrs Greenhill say to her friend Mrs Spooner.
'Yes; they've not got much in the way of conveniences in that church hall, though,' said Mrs Spooner. 'No proper sink, really, or I didn't see one.'
'How do they manage the washing up then?' asked Mrs Greenhill. That must be awkward, with no proper sink.'
Here was another use for Mrs Beamish's money, I thought. Soon, what with the car and the dry rot and the sink, there would be none left, and Mary and Marius would be suitably poor.
But Mary would be happy whether they had money or not. I turned over in my mind her description of life as being a glass of blessings, and that naturally led me to think about myself. I had as much as Mary had - there was no reason why my own life should not be a glass of blessings too. Perhaps it always had been without my realizing it.
The coach drew up outside St Luke's church hall.
'Well well,' said Father Bode, smiling his toothy smile. 'All very satisfactory, I think. Ransome should do well there.'
I turned into the street where our new flat was, and where I knew Rodney would be waiting for me. We were to have dinner with Sybil and Arnold that evening. It seemed a happy and suitable ending to a good day.
Table of Contents
Title page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
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