Mr. Beluncle: A Novel (Modern Library Classics)

by V. S. Pritchett

  One of its high and jocose whistling notes came out of the organ-symbol of the Colonel's imperfect understanding of the teachings of the Purification-prolonging itself while he sought the cause, and did not stop until he crushed it with a chord. The congregation rose and now Henry Beluncle saw the Misses Phibbs, three of them, apart from their father, sitting on the far side of the hall. The eldest one turned boldly round, looking for Henry, and then whispered to the dark one, who looked round, too; and this one whispered to Mary, who did not turn, but one of her shoulders moved nervously and was higher than the other for the rest of the service.

  The warm hour crawled by. The services of the Purification were eventless. The Scriptures were read; the works of the divinely inspired Mrs Parkinson were read. Her prose ground on, knocked into restful nullity by abstract nouns and remarkable alliterations; the word “infinite” tolled like a bell. George Beluncle, guessing the makes of the cars that whined past, woke up to find the service over and people everywhere talking and laughing.

  Two of the Phibbs girls walked down the side of the hall to stare at Henry who had fallen in love with their sister, silently to flirt with him and to look defiantly at Mr Beluncle, who had not hidden his opinion that earthly love was a general error and that earthly love between a Beluncle and a Phibbs was a crime. Mr Phibbs was a friend of the heretical Miss Wix, whose weekly battles with Lady Roads were dividing the Purifiers; Mr Beluncle was a Roadsite. Mary Phibbs, blushing to the neck and even to her hands, was standing as near to Henry as she dared and talking to Miss Dykes, the crippled sister of Mrs Truslove, who was wheeled to the meeting every Sunday.

  Henry and Mary Phibbs smiled secretly to each other across the body of the cripple and he knew that the cripple was watching them.

  The fair hair of Mary Phibbs was crisp and in her long, young, unformed face her small eyes moved coquettishly after being still for so long in church. The colour of yesterday's sun was on her skin. She looked possessively at Henry and moved her lips to remind him of their kisses and then looked away. Henry glanced to see if his father was looking, but listened to the soft, flat voice of the girl, so slow, domestic, so maddening to him and yet so melting to his heart!

  He said to her when they were out of earshot of the cripple.

  “Not this afternoon.”

  And he wanted to add: “You do not understand my difficulties.”

  “Oh, Henry, why?” said the girl.

  Henry nodded to his father.

  “Why are you afraid of him?” said the girl, putting on an obstinate look.

  Henry looked nervously again, but his father was talking to Lady Roads. They would be talking about business, for Mr Beluncle thought that any conversation unconcerned with money was unspiritual.

  “I am not afraid,” said Henry. “It is my home, you do not know what it is like and how they quarrel.”

  “I am sorry for you, Henry,” the girl said tenderly. “Dadda is sorry, too. It is very wrong.”

  Pride danced into Henry Beluncle's eyes: he was proud of the family quarrels of the Beluneles, the continual mind-sharpening, heart-deadening warfare. He would have liked to begin, for example, by breaking Mary Phibbs of the love of the happiness of her family, a happiness he could only despise.

  Henry Beluncle made an excuse to walk away from Mary Phibbs. In the very moment that his back was turned upon her, one of his imaginary pictures of her clicked into position in his heart, which throbbed quickly as he turned her into a beauty. He looked back but she had already hurried out of the building with her sisters and the young children she always gathered about her. The rest of the day he would try not to think of her as sitting in the small, camphor-smelling parlour of her house, where the walnut piano twanged and the torn music lay on the chairs, while one sister played and the other one sang ballads like Parted, Friend 0' Mine and Sea Fever; but would work on some other scene for their love. In mid air seemed the happiest. There like two spirits they met and ran through the literature of love. The sensations of loving would pass over him, wave after lacy wave, as if he were lying in the shallow salt water of the sea's edge, and he wished he could pass the rest of the day alone in the helplessness of their continual touch.

  The cripple sat on her wheeled chair at the back of the hall. She was a woman of thirty-nine. Her eyes were brilliant like a young girl's at a dance and she was eager for attention. A Sunday morning service and the mid-week meetings of the Purification were the two social moments of her life and she behaved with all the variableness of mood of a fanatical and adept hostess who interrupts conversations, attracts people to herself, and is always, after the first sentences, looking beyond the person she is talking to in case anything better is being missed. Miss Dykes was one of the best-dressed women in the congregation. She liked to wear small, high-heeled shoes on her useless feet, and she had a dozen pairs of shoes at home. Mrs Truslove, her sister, criticised this expense, but the cripple said with petulance that one day the Purification would heal her and she would walk. She must be ready then to live the years that she had wasted since she was thirteen years old. It was natural to receive these words with kindness and sadness and to think of her as a child. Miss Dykes had smooth grey hair brushed up from a high forehead, and a long sallow face. Her long, grey eyes cut into it and she seemed to belong to the grave and hard race of fairies, whose brilliance does not decline, who carry youth about like a copy that is truer than the original. She seemed stronger and longer lasting than human beings are.

  “It was a beautiful service,” said the humble Miss More, who had had her hair cropped after the 1914 War, so that the oppression of being a woman should not come between herself and God. “It was a great joy, such peace.”

  “Yes,” said the fashionable cripple, studying and then dismissing the thick tweed coat and skirt which Miss More wore as a kind of marching uniform. “But I wanted to cry out”—and into the word “wanted” Miss Dykes put a yearning that darkened her eyes-” 'Awake thou that sleepest. Arise from the dead.'”

  Miss More blinked stolidly and her shoulders rounded with shame. Yes, it was true: she must arise from the dead. She must do more for others.

  “Can I wheel you out?” she asked timidly, for she was a strong, broad woman and she thought that, without too much pride, she would offer her strength.

  “Out!” said the cripple. “I'm not going yet. There are hundreds of people I haven't seen. Why is Miss Wix talking to Mr Phibbs? The atmosphere in this church is wrong; that is why I do not get my healing. They hold me back.”

  “It is wrong,” said Miss More, and she felt “I must be wrong.” She prayed slowly to correct this and the cripple saw that Miss More's broad face looked dazed.

  “Awake, dear,” said the cripple severely, “awake.”

  “This afternoon,” thought Miss More, “I must make a special effort. She is right. I have become a burden to the Truth.”

  Miss More did not know how to leave; she knew only how to be replaced and Mr Beluncle now replaced her. He had wandered without noticing towards the cripple, whom he did not want to see.

  “Your boy,” snapped the cripple, “has picked the plainest ofthePhibbses.”

  Mr Beluncle smiled cheerfully at the smell of war.

  “I am not aware,” he said, “that my boy is in a situation to pick any girl-to use your expression. He has all his work cut out reflecting the Divine Mind. We all of us have. And,” Mr Beluncle smiled, “without wishing to suggest anything personal I came to this meeting to hear the Truth voiced and not to hear the false evidence of the material senses. Pardon my correction.”

  The cripple's eyes hardened and became like precious stones, brilliant with hatred.

  “You are shelling my position,” she said.

  It was common for Miss Dykes to see herself as a military problem. On days when she was melancholy she would speak of Error putting down a barrage and advancing upon her. Or she would accuse Miss Wix of undermining her lines. She would speak of beating off the ene
my attack all day. Then, like a storm dying away, the batde would vanish and her nature changed.

  “Your mistake-just a loving word in season,” said Beluncle, “in a brotherly way.”

  “You are not my brother, nor my brother-in-law,” said the cripple, without rancour, for the cripple liked to make insinuations about Beluncle's relations with her sister, in order to enjoy the effect of them upon him. She said such things archly, with the licence of the ingenue.

  Beluncle boiled up red and then opened his mouth, showed a row of teeth, and smiled knowingly.

  “What's bitten you today?” he said. “Your tongue is your problem.”

  “Mr Beluncle and I are old friends,” the cripple insinuated to Lady Roads, who approached again. “He comes to see me every day.”

  Now she had exhausted the company. It was Miss Dykes's faith that if she fulfilled the letter and the spirit of Mrs Parkinson's teachings, she would one day rise up and walk. She believed this might happen in the middle of the prayers of the meeting and had often imagined the scene, how she would cry out her gratitude aloud, how at once she would be surrounded by the awe of people, some kneeling, some standing in doubt, and how God would speak through her lips. She wept when she thought of this. For her, there was no doubt that this would happen, and many, seeing her faith, were rebuked by the sight of it. Some truly longed for the miracle to occur; others were afraid of it; but many of the Purifiers had begun to resent the presence at their meetings of one with whom their religion had failed, for it made a bad impression on newcomers to the church. Others, the followers of Miss Wix, had no belief in the healing of Miss Dykes because she was, notoriously, treated by Lady Roads and they commonly said that if the miracle did occur it would not be the work of God, but an exercise of witchcraft, the result of hypnotism, Antichrist and wicked magic, which Lady Roads was known by them to practise.

  “I have never met your wife,” said Lady Roads, who enormously enjoyed the disputes she created in the church, to Mr Belunde. “You always promise to bring her, but she does not come. She is not here this morning, is she?”

  “No, she is not,” said Beluncle.

  “I shall call on her. I shall drop in unexpectedly,” said Lady Roads in a masterful way.

  “My wife,” said Beluncle, resisting witchcraft, “is a peculiar woman. She is a recluse. She likes to be alone with her family.”

  “I don't believe it,” said Lady Roads. “You are hiding her. I shall break in. I shall probably break in this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon would be inconvenient,” said Beluncle, who saw himself putting the aristocracy in their place.

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” barked Lady Roads in her loud, man's voice. “I shall come round to catch you off your guard.”

  Now she was among her congregation, Lady Roads walked about smiling widely and laughing, as if she were going to eat them one by one, enjoying the way she frightened them. At the back of her mind was the thought, “These are all suburban middle-class people; they are all afraid of me.”

  When she went, Beiuncle called quietly to his sons:

  “George, Henry, come here.”

  They stood beside him and he looked at them with rage.

  “What d'you mean by keeping me waiting like this?” he muttered to them. “You are unkind. You ought to be home helping your mother. You know we have no servants and yet you allow your mother to slave for you all day long; because of you she cannot leave the house. You think because you are here among people who keep servants that you are better than your mother, but let me tell you, you are not.”

  They marched out of the church, passing Mr Phibbs at the door. As a Stationmaster he took up this post by nature, looking sardonically at each member of the congregation, conveying clearly to them that they were passengers. “Today,” he conveyed, “you are children of God. Tomorrow you will be season-ticket holders.” Mr Beiuncle would have passed him with a nod, but Mr Phibbs stood lazily in front of him in a familiar way. Mr Phibbs had a reddish moustache, a large soft thing, lying over his large, blabbing mouth, a moustache which might have been grown (and perhaps by some unfair means) to win a prize.

  “How many understood what they heard this morning, Beiuncle?” said Mr Phibbs, in his “mere” voice. “How many?”

  “Understanding is a privilege,” said Mr Beiuncle. Mr Phibbs slowly studied the backs of the Beluncles from their necks to their heels as they walked away.

  “There's a man whose coat needs a brush. What d'you know about the Phibbses?” said Beiuncle sharply to his sons.

  “The Phibbses?” said Henry innocently.

  “Do I have to spell it?” said Beiuncle.

  George turned his head to smile secretly.

  “You seem to be thick with them,” said Beiuncle. “They are not the class of people I would expect you to be thick with.”

  “I have seen them once or twice,” said Henry.

  “Not those girls, I hope,” said Beluncle, marching faster. “Don't misunderstand me, when I use the word 'common', we are all children of God, but some just don't seem to have solved their problems.”

  “What problems?” said Henry coldly.

  “Now it's no use you thinking yourself superior,” said Beluncle. “You know what I mean. If you think you're superior you'd better get out, that's all there is to that.”

  Mr Beluncle's pace was fast. He suddenly said: “I can tell you one thing: I married too young. You might say from a mortal point of view, I was seemingly caught. If I had my life over again I wouldn't do the same. I think, by the way, I shall change my church. There's a better Purification meeting at Merford, nicer people, larger, freer. I can't breathe in that place.”

  To Mr Beluncle and Henry the promises of the day had already failed, and as they approached their house both father and son saw it with dismay. Only George Beluncle was happy. He had gone faithfully with his father; he did not like or understand the service; the Scriptures were a meaningless tyranny and Mrs Parkinson's words passed over his head; all he asked was that presently his father would forget the strange trigonometry of his religion and notice his devotion and that it would please him. A consoling certainty that he could protect his father from the extravagances of his religion made George content.

  “Open the gate, George,” said Beluncle.

  George ran ahead and opened the high, heavy wooden gate which distinguished his house from all the others in the road. It opened on what George called The Drive, but which was only a short path ten yards long going to the front door of the house.

  “Shut the gate, George. Shut it right up. Now put up the bar,” said Beluncle.

  This was an extraordinary order and George hesitated.

  “Do as I tell you,” said Beluncle. “Help him, Henry. And bolt it.” The heavy iron bar was lifted, the bolts were sent home.

  “I don't want Lady Roads bursting in here while we're at home. I don't want,” said Beluncle, “people sticking their noses in to see how we Kve. If you hear anyone at the gate you are not to go to it.”

  Then, when the gate was barred, the Beluncles advanced to the smell of their lunch.

  IX

  Meals were sacred to the Beluncles and Mr Beluncle regarded them as spiritual occasions. The more one ate, the more one was filled with Goodness. Eating was a blameless passion which annihilated the unprofitable ones. Once or twice Ethel Beluncle had blasphemously ruined the sacred Sunday meal by starting a quarrel, crying out as she planked the joint on the table, “Get your other woman to cook. I won't touch it,” and leaving the room in hysterics. When Ethel Beluncle wished to be outrageous she ruined a meal. But this did not often happen. Most of their Sunday meals began awkwardly. Everyone knew that unpleasant topics might “come up”, everyone did his best to talk about the food before them all, in order to prevent this happening. Indeed, that was the only safe thing to talk about and Beluncle himself responded to it. To carve a large joint was Mr Beluncle's joy. He changed his glasses first, in order to see it better. He s
tood up and sharpened his knife austerely, looking at the joint with the pity of the artist for his subject. Then he shook his head sadly.

  “I don't know, I'm sure,” he said.

  “It seems a shame,” he said, smiling across to his wife.

  “Well,” he said, “I suppose we must.”

  The family smiled upon him.

  “I can't think what you're all waiting for,” he said. And then, in went the fork and he began to carve, his face going hot with pleasure.

  “Pass this to your grandmother,” he said.

  For it was generally appreciated that she was the one most likely to “bring up” unwanted topics and that to feed her quickly was the best way of keeping them down.

  “That” said Leslie, the youngest, who was allowed to express the real feelings of the family, “that,” he said, “should keep her quiet.”

  Beluncle carved away with the energy of a conductor working his orchestra through a piece of music. Murmurs of “Is it tender?” from Ethel, “Is it cooked enough?” were taken up by Beluncle in musical fashion with exclamations of mock despair, “I'm spoiling the look of this,” and at last “Now it's poor father's turn.” Eagerly vegetables were passed to Mr Beluncle, in the hope that he, too, like his mother, would forget his store of unhappy subjects. If he could be kept eating, if they all could be kept eating, virtue would be preserved. “For God's sake,” Henry, the adolescent, prayed, “let us overeat.” Only Ethel would not eat much, indeed as her husband grew larger and blander so she became leaner-or so it seemed-but, perhaps, she could be made to smile and even to laugh. If Leslie could be provoked to impertinence then the feast would pass off without harm. The eyes, even Mr Beluncle's, often turned to him.

  For a while the normal conversation of the Beluncles was practised. “It's nicely done,” said Beluncle.

  “Is it nicely done?” asked Ethel. “I always have trouble with that oven. I had the dampers in and still it did not seem to heat up, not to say 'eat,” said Ethel.

  “Heat,” said Leslie.