That They Might Lovely Be

by David Matthews

  ‘It must be Delia. Delia must be his mother. Otherwise where is her baby?’

  ‘Delia Simmonds is the mother of Geoffrey’s child?’

  ‘She stayed with him in Ipswich, after he was released. Where else could her baby be?’

  ‘So it was true. I knew she had been there, but they lied to me.’

  Lady Margery let Anstace go and turned away from her, crossing to the escritoire on the other side of the room. Her breath now broke from Anstace in great shudders. And then she wept. She wept for her husband, for her friend, for the boy and for what she had had twisted out of her. Gradually, her sobs subsided and she regained a sense of where she was and what had happened.

  She could hardly reconcile the shift which had just occurred from stilted conversation to vicious interrogation. This elegant boudoir had been replaced by a place of torture, some oubliette dripping with fetid water, rank with noxious vapours. How fragile is civilization, she thought, that a lady from ‘the best of families’ can drag me to this so rapidly!

  Lady Margery did not turn around. Instead, she appeared to be rifling through old letters.

  ‘Leave me,’ she said. ‘I doubt we shall speak of this again. I am … sorry. But I had to know. You had to tell me. And you did. For that, for that alone, I am grateful. Leave.’

  Anstace wished she could leave with a sense of relief from having a truth laid bare but her overriding feeling was desolation. There was nothing more to say. She would make her way back to the South Lodge and let the silence of the day close around her and settle her, in time, to a reconciliation if not an understanding.

  Easter Sunday, 20 April 1930

  Edward Jackman, the rector, had been aware, as soon as he stood on the chancel steps at the beginning of the service of Holy Communion that Easter morning, that the congregation was unusually restless. He had noticed that the choristers, robing in the vestry, had been rather overexcited but he had put that down to the promise of chocolate eggs and nervousness over singing the new responses and the Easter anthem. And Hoyle had soon had them in check and processing in behind the crucifer, with due decorum.

  Whilst the epistle was being read, the Rector swiveled around in his stall and took a moment to cast his eye over the assembled parishioners. He noted, with some relief, that neither the Simmonds family nor Mrs. Cordingley appeared to be present. That, of course, was not out of the ordinary for the Simmondses were most irregular churchgoers and Mrs. Cordingley usually confined her attendance to the occasional Evensong when numbers would be low and she could slip quietly away. If the main protagonists in this ill-timed drama were absent, surely he should have little difficulty in wresting the worshippers’ roving attention around to the Word. It was nearly time for him to preach.

  He had talked at some length to his silly wife about the ridiculous business and imagined he had instilled some sense into her, dissuading her from contacting The Gazette or doing anything else extravagant. He was, therefore, irritated to see that she now seemed to have adopted the attitude of some blasted visionary. Instead of listening to his sermon, she seemed to be aflutter in an abstracted sort of way, as if she were a pythoness newly wakened from her trance. Clare Furnival was sitting next to her in her pew, being an uncharacteristically solicitous companion, patting her hand from time to time and stroking her arm whilst Hetty gazed with troubled rapture into the middle distance. Next to them, he noticed that Furnival seemed to be enjoying the whole affair. The Rector could just imagine him saying, ‘Women’s business, Rector. Women’s business remains a complete mystery to me although I’m a medical man. It’s all hormonal.’

  Jackman rather wished he had sought the doctor’s opinion on the likelihood of the unfortunate Simmonds boy actually having found his tongue? What was the medical view? Should something be inserted, he suddenly wondered, in his Easter sermon? Could it be possible that the boy was now able to speak through some ‘unexplained’ occurrence or had he simply snapped out of a mood of sullen, self-imposed silence? He was suddenly seized by a cold dread that he had completely misread the situation. This may not be, after all, a minor diversion from the humdrum life of the village, but a nascent sensation which he needed to acknowledge. The Resurrection, familiar story that it was, could not compete. The Rector was not an ex tempore speaker. He was terrified that now he would have to preach off the cuff for, if he ignored this Bertie Simmonds business, no one would listen to a word he was saying. It was for this that they had come to church and, if they did not get what they wanted— it might even come to this—they would boo him from his own pulpit.

  By the time he delivered his homily, he had convinced himself that every upturned face in the congregation was thirsty not for the Easter message (neatly remodelled from last year’s sermon) but for a draught of sensationalism. His throat constricted but he persevered.

  ‘Today is the day that gives Christians, the world over, the right to look forward to everlasting life, that spells out to us the defeat of Death, that proclaims the ultimate ascendancy of Good (with Faith) over Evil…’

  Edward Jackman had an effective delivery when he could prepare what he had to say. His sermons were written out in full, word for word, annotated with his own system indicating where to pause, when to drop his voice and when to build to a crescendo. He knew when to let his voice quiver with emotion and when to employ a touch of satire. But he could not preach spontaneously. He found himself becoming angry. The congregation had assumed, at first, that the conventional references to Easter were to be a preamble to a discourse on their own local miracle. As he continued to preach, and it became increasingly clear that this was not likely to be the case, they started to get restless and mutter. He decided to cut short what he had prepared.

  ‘And the chains of death are broken forever; the prisoner’s shackles fall away…’

  He stepped down from the pulpit and knew that the murmuring he heard was less that of an appreciative audience, who knew they had had a homiletic treat, than that of a disgruntled mob cheated of what they had come to hear. They had wanted him to recast the resurrection of the Lord as a metaphor for the loosening of Bertie Simmons’s tongue!

  Furious, the Rector felt he would be in his rights to deny the whole congregation communion. Were any of them in the right frame of mind to receive the body and blood of Christ? They may have chosen to disregard what he had to say but he was not impotent. There were spiritual powers invested in him which he could wield as he chose.

  He moved through the well-worn service.

  ‘Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbour.… We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the rememberance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable…’

  Gradually, his sense of outrage began to subside. Hetty, who had to shoulder responsibility for much of this business, was merely a foolish woman. Was she really guilty of anything more than an excess of enthusiasm? Misdirected, certainly. Touched by hysteria, undoubtedly. Self-indulgent, most likely. Blasphemous, probably not. He would not over-react. He would not take any dramatic action this morning on the steps of the sanctuary. There were few things more likely to play into the hands of the sensationalist press or those bent on exploiting the incident for their own indecent ends. If necessary, he would speak to the Bishop on Monday.

  So he went through the routines of consecration. The familiarity of the narrative and the sacred privacy which he was able to conjure in front of the altar, with his back to the congregation, served to soothe him further. He could do this without thinking, allowing himself space to order his own thoughts. Seeds of self-questioning were sown and he wondered whether he had not been seriously remiss in failing to call in person on the Simmonds family and ask after the boy. He had allowed his dislike of the schoolmaster to nudge him toward a careless passivity. Well, he would correct this omission without delay.

  The communion dispensed, the hymns sung, he drew the service to
a close. ‘And grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the honour and glory of thy Name…’

  Nothing of his personal discomfort, at having fallen short of the standards he ought to expect of himself, communicated itself to his parishioners. They were disappointed; that was all. Given what had happened in their village, they had felt entitled to hear something particularly pertinent, applied precisely to themselves. As the members of the congregation filed past him at the south door, none lingered longer than the time it took to exchange the most cursory of greetings. Only Lady Margery (two gloved fingers extended to him in greeting) detained him and begged him to call on her before luncheon.

  ‘And be sure to bring Mrs. Jackman. I should so like to speak with her.’

  The weight she gave to the request underlined, without any lingering doubt, that he had been in serious error in neglecting to draw the incident (‘Hetty’s Miracle,’ as he found himself referring to it) under the shadow of the Church of England. If Lady Margery were taking an interest and saw fit to talk to him about it, then it was perfectly clear that he needed to form an opinion and marshall a plan without delay.

  The Rector and his wife called on Lady Margery around noon and were immediately subjected to a monologue which wove its way so confidently through candid confession and pointed accusation that Mr. Jackman fancied she must have rehearsed it.

  After the briefest of greetings compatible with good manners, Lady Margery largely ignored Mrs. Jackman whilst she told the Rector most pointedly that she had acquired an especial respect for the Church during the war years, before he had arrived in the village, when she had needed to ally herself to as many respectable lobbies as possible to weather the scandal of her son’s behaviour. The Reverend Dacre, the former rector, had been thoroughly patrician, despite originating from Leeds, and it had been largely due to his unstinting support that she had chosen to publicize her own true patriotism by sponsoring the west window at St Matthew’s. On Dacre’s retirement, he—the Reverend Jackman— had stepped into the living and her ladyship’s automatic regard. And he had done nothing yet (she was pleased to confirm) to disappoint her; she was sure he would prove himself her loyal friend and ally. Her request to him to call on her that Easter morning was, therefore, something of a challenge. Would he indeed prove true? She was prepared to give him every opportunity.

  Jackman listened to her, quite at a loss as to how best to respond. He was awkwardly aware that they had not even been invited to sit but, her preamble over, she fluttered her hand at the chairs to her side as if to imply that such formalities were beneath her attention. His wife, who had begun to fidget nervously as Lady Margery’s speech drew to its conclusion, chose a seat well to the side, sitting just beyond his vision. He sat on the edge of a wing-backed armchair upholstered in tapestry so long ago the colours had faded to a uniform, sandy colour. The distance between him and Lady Margery seemed to be increased by an enormous number of silver photograph frames, ranged haphazardly like decadent monoliths on a chenille-draped occasional table. They struck him as symbols of the many obstacles he would have to overcome before he could ever hope to find himself in close alliance with his patron. He looked at her, aware that if old age had reduced her stature, it had also concentrated her energies.

  Is she a goblin, wondered Edward Jackman, or a starling, sharp-billed and beady-eyed? There is something rather viciously alert about her as she pushes on with her purpose, still with no time for pleasantries.

  ‘I’m sure village rumours reach you in your sanctum as surely as they reach me in mine. You have heard the wild tales that are circulating, Rector? That my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Cordingley, has miraculously cured the young Simmonds boy of his dumbness. I understand, Mrs. Jackman’ — she seemed to notice the Rector’s wife for the first time—’the rumours originated with you.’

  ‘Not rumours, Lady Margery, I assure you. Quite, quite the truth. I was actually there.’

  The Rector interrupted his wife.

  ‘I am painfully aware of the extent to which what my wife heard has appealed to the popular imagination. Perhaps I should intervene. During Holy Communion this morning, I regret—’

  ‘I’m sure. But what are we to do, Rector?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘I find the whole business … but no, let us look at it from where you must stand. Do you not find such stories an affront to your calling? To do nothing surely is to condone.’

  He was grateful for the opportunity to engage in some rational debate and, forgetting the doubts which had begun to trouble him, fell back with relief on his original opinions.

  ‘My wife knows my view. I make no apology to her when I say that I do not heed flighty, ill-informed talk of miracles. What need has the Lord to work miracles in the twentieth century? I should be giving weight and authority to such talk if I took it seriously. And so would you, Lady Margery.’

  ‘But surely it is blasphemy.’

  ‘Foolishness,’ he replied, risking an agitated rebuttal from his wife.

  ‘You allow it?’

  ‘I don’t concern myself with every folly acted out within the parish. I have not thought it necessary to speak with either Mrs. Cordingley or the Simmonds boy. I will not stoop to the level of the credulous, intent on transfiguring an idiot—’

  ‘Rector! You have no need to play the orator here.’

  ‘Humph!’

  ‘My sentiments, I do assure you. I am just concerned that if we … if you do nothing but merely wait and see, we may wait too long and see too much.’

  The Rector stared at Lady Margery. Something was going on behind the tiny black eyes. The corner of her thin, red mouth worked involuntarily. There was more afoot than he had gathered.

  ‘Lady Margery, what else is there? I do hope you can be candid with me.’

  Had he presumed? Was it a miscalculation to ask for her confidence? But she chose not to be affronted. Indeed, she was at pains to explain that it was not a question of failing to be candid, she merely had a feeling … call it the folly of an old woman’s intuition.

  She was a poor actress. The little shrugs of the shoulder and the tinny, self-deprecating laugh failed to convince him that she was being frank. As she spread her thin fingers in what she intended to be a gesture of weakness, he saw the bone beneath the skin, clawlike and predatory. And her black, bird’s eyes remained cruelly attentive.

  ‘Lady Margery, if I am to take a hand in this business—and I absolutely recognise that I now must—I need to know if there are any possible ramifications, shall we say, that may arise. Your whole manner—you will forgive me for saying so—suggests that there is more to the affair than, at present, I am aware. And I am not a man who will act impetuously. I must have the clearest idea of where my actions will take me or, indeed, anyone else.’

  ‘Must you? I am not used to being coerced, Mr. Jackman!’

  ‘Nor I, Lady Margery…’ He found himself growing rather annoyed. He was also beginning to feel the need of a glass of sherry-wine before luncheon.

  ‘It was not my intention to make you angry, Rector. Pray do not behave as though it were.’

  ‘What is your intention, may I ask?’

  ‘To know yours.’ He said nothing and she decided to continue. ‘To avoid notoriety. To prevent scandal.’

  ‘Why should there be scandal? If we approach these events from the right direction, I can see nothing scandalous. Indeed, some lasting good may have been done to the boy—albeit by unconventional means.’

  ‘I hope you are right, of course. And I can see that to come at it from the right direction, as you put it, is key. Perhaps there is nothing for it but to tell you everything. But first, if I may … Mrs. Jackman, please tell me what you know of Bertie Simmonds’ singing.’

  It did not take Hetty Jackman long to recount her Miracle for Lady Margery who would only give her leave to relate that which she had personally experienced. As she had only heard the singing for a couple of verses of the
hymn and had not even ascertained beyond any shadow of doubt that it had been Bertie and not Mrs. Cordingley who had been singing, there was little to hold Lady Margery’s attention. She would not allow Mrs. Jackman to relate any of her ‘feelings’ or ‘sensitivities’ and the Rector was glad. Hearing his wife tell her story to an objective audience made him realise how incredibly slight her experience had been. It was not exactly a fabrication—he had no doubt that the boy had been singing—but the whole episode had been so overlaid with her own fancies, scepticism was the inevitable response. He was certain that Lady Margery would hold back from divulging anything of importance if his wife were still present. The more he observed Lady Margery and registered her impatience with ‘Hetty’s Miracle’, the more he was convinced that there was something else, tangled with it, which was of greater significance to her. It would never emerge if Hetty were listening. He therefore contrived to have Hetty sent away, back to the Rectory.

  With Mrs. Jackman gone, Lady Margery evidently agreed that their conversation could take on a different tone. She remembered her decanters and suggested the Rector join her in a whisky and soda. Would he mix them? The pregnant silence whilst he stood at the sideboard preparing their drinks, reminded him of the confessional. Whilst he had no doubt that Lady Margery would be able to hold his eye through the most brazen lie; she was not used to confession. She needed fortifying. He knew a frisson of excitement.

  ‘I said earlier that I did not want scandal.’ Lady Margery accepted her glass and he took his seat again. ‘Scandal to the family name, I mean.’

  ‘Through Mrs. Cordingley? I must say I think that unlikely.’

  Lady Margery did not reply immediately.

  ‘I’m not surprised you say so. But then you have been fewer than ten years in this parish and you do not know the invidious circumstances that brought her to be my near relation.’

  He decided to play this conversation as if he were indeed in the confessional, where the office required him to listen, letting the penitent lead themselves out of the maze of guilt. He expected that, at first, what she would tell him would only hover around the truth, circling with a natural reluctance to confront it. Eventually, however, he would force a full exposure and not allow any elegantly veiled hints to conceal the naked matter. The truth must be stripped bare. Nothing less could be a precursor to whatever absolution might be possible.