After several months’ slow, careful, and to the Vicar maddeningly exciting work, Professor Lancelot had brought to light two square feet of what might have been a patterned border, and a figure, apparently standing on its head, which was variously identified as Lucifer, Fulke de Pomfret who had impounded some of the Abbey pigs in revenge for alleged depredations on his lady’s herb garden, and Bishop Wyckens who had made himself extremely unpopular with the Abbey about the matter of some waste land over at Starveacres. However, all these differences of opinion were drowned and forgotten in Professor Lancelot’s supreme discovery that the fragment of border might almost with certainty be attributed to Nicholas de Hogpen, an extremely prolific artist practically none of whose work was known. Others supported the view that the work should stand to the credit of an unknown monk whose work in Northumberland was described in an imperfect MS which the owner, Mr Amery P. Otis of Brookline, Mass., would not allow anyone to see. The correspondence on this subject, beginning in the Journal of the Society of Barsetshire Archaeologists, had overflowed into the Sunday Times and Observer, causing several correspondents to write to the Editor about yellow-backed tits who had nested near mural paintings, or the fact that their great-great-grandfather had as a child sat on the knee of a very old man whose grandfather said he remembered someone who said he had heard of the Reformation. The Vicar read every word of correspondence and pasted all the cuttings into an album, as also a photograph from the Daily Spectrum with the caption ‘Rector of Pomfret Madrigal says Mural Paintings unique’, and an inset called The Rev. Milker.
Since these eventful doings the paintings had gradually receded into the walls and were now invisible except to the eye of faith, which could often be found in the tourist season, guide book in hand, twisting itself almost upside down in its efforts to make out the inverted figure.
The July morning was now very hot. The little churchyard, on a slope facing the south, was shimmering with heat, and the flowers in the jam jars and Canadian salmon tins on the poorer graves were already wilting. In spite of her shady hat and her parasol of a most becoming shade of pink, Mrs Brandon was glad to get into the coolness of the little church. She slipped into a pew, knelt for a moment, and then emerged, apparently spiritually much refreshed.
‘What do you say, darling, when you do that?’ asked Francis. ‘I’ve often wondered.’
Mrs Brandon looked guilty.
‘I never quite know,’ she said. ‘I try to concentrate, but the only way I can concentrate is to hold my breath very hard, and that stops me thinking. And when I shut my eyes I see all sorts of spokes and fireworks. I always mean to ask to be nicer and kinder, but things like Rose wanting to change her afternoon out, or Aunt Sissie’s letter, come into my mind at once. But I did have one very good idea, which was that if Rose changes her afternoon we could have the picnic that day and kill two birds with one stone.’
‘People have been excommunicated for less than that,’ said Francis. ‘Pull yourself together, darling; here comes Mr Miller.’
Mr Miller, in the cassock and biretta that were the joy of his life and that no one grudged him, came up.
‘Good morning, good morning,’ he said, not so much in a spirit of vain repetition as in double greeting.
‘I always feel I ought to ask you to bless me,’ said Mrs Brandon taking his hand and looking up at him.
‘My dear lady!’ said Mr Miller, much embarrassed, and only just stopping himself saying, ‘It is rather you who should bless me.’
‘Come off it, Mamma,’ said Francis kindly but firmly. ‘Don’t you know my mamma well enough yet, Mr Miller, to realise that she is a prey to saying what she thinks most effective?’
‘I don’t think you ought to talk like that in church, Francis,’ said his mother severely. ‘Come along, the altar is waiting for us.’
At this Francis exploded in a reverent guffaw and handed the basket of flowers to the Vicar, saying that he would fill the watering can at the tap in the churchyard and bring it in. So Mr Miller found himself alone with Mrs Brandon and an armful of flowers, and didn’t know if he ought to stay with her or visit the poor, who were always kind to him but at the same time gave him the impression that they had just stopped a deeply absorbing conversation, probably about himself, and were only waiting till his back was turned to continue it. Mr Miller was about Mrs Brandon’s age and having never met anyone that he felt like marrying had romantic views on celibacy. His richer parishioners liked him and he dined out a good deal, while the poorer part of his flock accepted him with good-humoured tolerance and always put off the christenings till he had come back from his yearly holiday. Funerals unfortunately could not so be postponed, though it was considered distinctly bad taste in Old Turpin, Mrs Brandon’s gardener’s uncle, to have died four days before the Vicar’s return, in particularly hot weather. Weddings were also postponed so that the contracting parties could have the benefit of their own priest, but since the sexton’s daughter had produced a fine pair of twins owing to her insistence on waiting to celebrate the nuptials till Mr Miller came back from Switzerland, he had been very firm on the subject.
As was inevitable, he was romantically in love with Mrs Brandon, but luckily for his own peace of mind he did not recognise the symptoms which he mistook for respect and admiration, though why these respectable qualities should make one give at the knees and become damp in the hands, he did not inquire.
Now Francis came back with the watering can and the vestry waste-paper basket for the dead flowers, and Mrs Brandon arranged sheaves of gladioli to her own satisfaction. All three walked down the church together and emerged blinking into the hot noonday glare. Mrs Brandon slowly put up her parasol, looking so angelic that Francis felt obliged to ask his mother what she was thinking about.
‘I was wondering,’ said she, ‘if one ought to bring a watering can into the church. Wouldn’t it look better to bring the vases outside and fill them at the tap?’
‘My mother is the most truthful woman I know,’ said Francis to Mr Miller, ‘except when she isn’t.’
Mr Miller wanted to say that Mrs Brandon’s touch would sanctify even a watering can and that Francis ought not to speak lightly of such a thing as Truth, but was overcome by nervousness and said nothing. Francis said, Well, they must be getting along, and Mr Miller was inspired by desperation to ask them into the Vicarage to look at the new wallpaper in his study. Accordingly they walked through the little gate into the Vicarage garden and up by the yew hedge to the sixteenth-century stone Vicarage which was basking in the sun. The new wallpaper, which turned out to be that part of the wall where the damp patch used to be, freshly distempered, was duly admired.
‘One does feel,’ said Mrs Brandon, sinking elegantly into a very comfortable leather armchair, ‘that this house needs a woman.’
Francis, alarmed by his mother’s fresh outburst of truthfulness, made gestures behind Mr Miller’s back, designed to convey to his mother that the Vicar’s cassock and biretta made such a suggestion very unbecoming. Mr Miller felt that if Mrs Brandon were always sitting in that chair on a hot summer morning in the subdued light that filtered through the outside blinds, holding the broken head of a white gladiolus in her gloved hand, the parish would be much easier to manage.
‘It really needs a good housekeeper,’ said Mrs Brandon, continuing the train of her own thoughts. ‘Turpin’s Hettie is a nice girl, but she is much too kind to insects. She has never killed a spider in her life. Look!’
And she pointed the gladiolus accusingly at a corner where a fat spider was dealing with a daddy-long-legs.
‘Oh dear!’ said Mr Miller, in despair.
‘I’ll hoick her down,’ said Francis, looking round for something that would reach the ceiling. ‘Can I take one of your oars, Mr Miller?’
Without waiting for permission he took down from the wall the oar with which Mr Miller had stroked Lazarus to victory in Eights Week, and made a pat at the spider. The spider was dislodged, but with great pres
ence of mind clung to the end of the blade with all her arms and legs.
‘Get off,’ said Francis, waving the oar. ‘Help, Mr Miller, she is laying hold with her hands or whatever it says. It’s more in your line than mine.’
On hearing this suggestion of clerical interference the spider ran down the oar in a threatening way. Mr Miller flapped feebly at her with his biretta, which caused her, or so Francis subsequently asserted, to bare her fangs and snarl. Mrs Brandon got up and enveloped the spider in her handkerchief, which she then threw out of the window into the heliotrope.
‘Thank you, darling,’ said Francis, putting the oar back on the wall. ‘It takes a woman to fight a woman.’
‘I wonder why spiders should be female?’ said Mr Miller, so overwrought by his narrow escape that he hardly knew what he was saying.
‘I suppose it’s because they eat their husbands,’ said Mrs Brandon.
‘Mamma darling, don’t,’ said Francis, ‘not in the Vicarage,’ thus completing Mr Miller’s confusion.
‘Please rescue my handkerchief, Francis,’ said Mrs Brandon, ‘only see that the spider has really gone.’
Francis leant his long form over the window sill, picked up the handkerchief, shook it and returned it to his mother. Mr Miller, who had had a wild thought of keeping the handkerchief for himself, realised that his chance was lost.
‘It smells so deliciously of heliotrope now,’ said Mrs Brandon, holding it to her face. This delightful gesture gave a little comfort to her host, who would be able to reflect that his flowers had furnished the scent that pleased his guest.
Just as the goodbyes were getting under way, the study door opened and a dark young man of poetic and pale appearance came in, and seeing company began to back out.
‘Wait a moment, Hilary,’ said Mr Miller. ‘Mrs Brandon, this is Mr Grant who is reading with me. He only arrived last night. And this is Francis Brandon, Hilary Grant.’
Further handshaking took place and it seemed that the visit had really come to an end, when on the doorstep Mrs Brandon suddenly stopped.
‘I was thinking,’ she said, ‘that it would be so nice, Mr Miller, if you would dine with us next Wednesday. It will only be a kind of cold meal, but if you care to come we’d love to have you. And would Mr Grant perhaps come too?’
Mr Miller accepted for himself and his pupil and the Brandons went away.
‘Really, Mamma,’ Francis expostulated, ‘I didn’t think you had it in you to be so mean!’
‘I know quite well what you are hinting,’ said his mother, with distant dignity. ‘But it isn’t my fault if Rose changes her afternoon out, and I have been meaning to ask Mr Miller for some time, and it isn’t as if being a clergyman made one not able to eat cold supper. And now I must answer Aunt Sissie’s letter. I cannot think how it is that one never has time to do anything.’
‘Because you never have anything to do, darling,’ said Francis. ‘You take yourself in, but you can’t take in your tall, handsome son. Come along or we shall be late for lunch and Rose will lower.’
2
Brandon Abbey
In spite of Delia’s mild sulks the picnic was put off till Friday and Miss Brandon’s invitation, or command, obeyed. The weather remained set fair and as the Brandon family got into the car at twelve o’clock, Francis puffed loudly and said it was worse than a third-class railway carriage that had been standing in a siding. The road to Brandon Abbey was through some of the loveliest scenery in Barsetshire. Leaving Pomfret Madrigal it went through Little Misfit, with a glimpse of the hideous pinnacles of Pomfret Towers in the distance, and then followed for several miles the winding course of the Rising, among water meadows that looked greener than ever in contrast with the sun-parched country. At the Mellings Arms there was a choice of ways. One went through Barchester, the other, marked as a second-class road, went up and over the downs, as straight as the Romans had built it, skirted Rushwater by the beech avenue and so by the Fever Hospital to Brandon Abbey.
As the Mellings Arms came in sight, Mrs Brandon leant forward and tapped on the glass. Francis, who was by the chauffeur, slid the window back and poked his face through.
‘Tell Curwen, darling, that we’ll go by the downs,’ said Mrs Brandon.
Her clear voice carried well and Curwen’s back visibly took offence. Francis exchanged a few words with him and turned back to his mother and sister.
‘He says there’s a bad patch near the top and he doesn’t think the springs will stand up to it,’ he said.
Mrs Brandon made a face of resignation.
‘Don’t let that stop us,’ said Francis. ‘I’m all for the downs myself, aren’t you, Delia?’
‘Rather,’ said Delia. ‘We might see the place where the motor char-à-banc was on fire last week.’
Francis shut the window and spoke to Curwen again. That harbinger of misfortune listened with a stony face and turned the motor’s head towards the downs. To Delia’s great pleasure the burnt-out corpse of the motor char-à-banc was still by the roadside, and Curwen so far unbent as to inform his mistress, via her son, that there was one of the bodies burnt so bad they couldn’t identify it, after which he devoted his attention to driving with quite maddening care over the stony patches, wincing at each little jolt as if a pin had been stuck into him.
At twenty minutes past one the gloomy lodge of Brandon Abbey was reached. Miss Brandon always kept her gates shut to mark her disapproval of things in general, and as the lodge-keeper was deaf and usually working in his back garden, Curwen had to get out and go and find him, which he did with the gloomy satisfaction of a prophet whose warnings have been disregarded. Another five minutes’ driving down the gloomy avenue which wound its way downwards to the hole in which the house was situated, brought them to the front door.
‘Welcome to the abode of joy,’ said Francis, politely opening the door of the car for his mother and sister. ‘I’ll ring the front door bell, but I don’t suppose anyone will come. No wonder Aunt Sissie spends her time in bed. I would if I lived here.’
Certainly Brandon Abbey was not an encouraging place.
The house, a striking example of Scotch baronial, spouting pepper-pot turrets at every angle, had been built in the sixties by Miss Brandon’s father, an extremely wealthy jute merchant, on the site of a ruined religious house. The locality though favourable for stewponds and contemplation was damp and gloomy in the extreme. Mushrooms sprouted freely in the cellars, damp spread in patches on the bedroom walls, the flooring of the servants’ hall was from time to time lifted by unknown fungoid growths. The trees which Mr Brandon had planted far too thickly and far too near the house had thriven unchecked, and screened the house from all but the direct rays of the midday summer sun, which then made the servants’ bedrooms under a lead roof intolerably hot. On the mossy stones of the terrace the peacocks walked up and down, believing according to the fashion of their kind that everyone was admiring the tail feathers which they had moulted some time ago.
‘Nightmare Abbey,’ said Francis, after they had waited some time, and rang the bell again. Even as he rang it and said the words, the door was opened by Miss Brandon’s permanently disapproving butler, who said Miss Brandon was very sorry she couldn’t come down to luncheon, but would like to see Mrs Brandon afterwards. He then showed the family into the drawing-room and left them to meditate till lunch was ready.
‘Bother,’ said Delia, after hunting in her bag, ‘I’ve left my looking-glass at home.’
She looked round for one, but on the walls, thickly hung with the real masterpieces, the blatant fakes, and, incredibly, the china plates in red velvet frames that Mr Brandon’s catholic and personal taste had bought, there was not a mirror to be seen.
‘Try the overmantel or what not,’ suggested Francis, pointing to the fireplace, above which towered a massive, yet fanciful superstructure of fretwork. Shelves with ball and fringe edgings, turned pillars, Moorish arches, Gothic niches were among the least of its glories, while here and t
here were inserted round or diamond-shaped mirrors, hand-painted with sprays of plum blossom, forget-me-not, and other natural products.
By standing on tiptoe on the heavy marble fender Delia could just see her face among some painted bulrushes, and behind it a reflection of the room. In the reflection she saw the door open and a young man come in. Excited by the unexpected apparition she hastily put away her powder puff, turned, knocked down the polished steel fire irons with a frightful crash and stood transfixed with shame. To her great surprise the young man took no notice of the noise, but stood gazing at her mother who was apparently half asleep. Francis was the first to recognise the newcomer as Mr Miller’s pupil, and though surprised to see him here, had enough presence of mind to say, ‘Hullo, Grant.’
The Brandons: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Page 3