Author: Barbara Pym
Category: Humorous
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Belinda nodded sympathetically, but she could see Harriet looking scornful and so began talking quickly about the Harvest Festival and the decorations which were to be done the next day.
‘We must have more corn this year,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘Corn is an essential part of harvest, perhaps the most important part of all.’
‘Ah, yes, bread is the staff of life,’ said Harriet solemnly. ‘But we mustn’t forget the other fruits of the earth. Ricardo Bianco has some very fine marrows and pumpkins, and bigger things really show up better.’
‘The church always looks very nice,’ said Belinda, fearing they were going to have an argument.
‘Yes, there are always plenty of willing helpers,’ said the Archdeacon complacently.
‘I do hope there won’t be any unpleasantness this year,’ said Belinda, her face clouding. ‘Last year there was the embarrassment of Miss Prior, if you remember.’
‘The Embarrassment of Miss Prior,’ said the Archdeacon, savouring the words. ‘It sounds almost naughty, but I fear it was not. I cannot recall the circumstances.’
‘Oh, I remember,’ said Harriet. ‘When Miss Prior came to decorate it was found that somebody else had already done the lectern and she’s always done it for the last twenty years or more.’
‘Yes, poor little soul,’ said Belinda reminiscently, ‘she was rather late. She had been finishing some curtains for Lady Clara Boulding – you know, those heavy maroon velvet ones in her morning-room – and she was nearly crying. She does so enjoy doing the lectern and making a bunch of grapes hang down from the bird’s mouth. Of course the only disadvantage is that they do distract the Sunday School children’s attention so; last year they were very much inclined to giggle – Miss Jenner and Miss Smiley had a very difficult time with them.’
‘If only they would try to teach them that it is perfectly right and fitting that we should bring the fruits of the earth into God’s House at Harvest Time,’ said the Archdeacon rather peevishly.
‘But children don’t understand things like that,’ said Belinda, ‘and in any case young people are so prone to giggle. I can remember I was.’
Harriet chortled reminiscently at some schoolgirl joke, but would not reveal it when asked.
Eventually the Archdeacon stood up to go and Belinda was about to hurry to the kitchen to start preparing the risotto, when Harriet pointed towards the Archdeacon’s left foot and exclaimed loudly, ‘Oh, you’ve got a hole in your sock!’
‘Damn,’ said the Archdeacon firmly and unmistakably. ‘I suppose it was too much to hope that my clothes would be left in order.’
‘I expect Agatha doesn’t like darning,’ said Harriet tactlessly. ‘I’m not at all fond of it myself, so I can sympathize.’
‘Oh, but a sock is liable to go into a hole at any time,’ said Belinda hastily. ‘It doesn’t look a very big one. Perhaps it could be cobbled together …’ she was already rummaging in her work basket for some wool of the right shade. ‘I’m afraid this grey is rather too light,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think it will show very much.’
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ said the Archdeacon impatiently. ‘What a fuss it all is over such a trifling matter.’
Belinda smiled as she threaded her needle. Dear Henry, he was so inconsistent, but perhaps a hole in a sock was hardly as important as moths in a suit. ‘I think it would be best if you put your foot up on this little chair,’ she said, ‘then I can get at your heel to mend the sock.’
The Archdeacon submitted himself to her ministrations with rather an ill will, and there was one anxious moment when Belinda inadvertantly pricked him with the needle and it seemed as if he would lose his temper.
Harriet did her best to divert him with conversation and eventually he recovered his good humour and began to ask her the origin of her elusive quotation about the Apes of Brazil. He thought that it might be Elizabethan, it reminded him of that poem with the lines about making Tullia’s ape a marmoset and Leda’s goose a swan.
‘I don’t remember anything about the Apes of Brazil,’ said Belinda anxiously, for the darning of the sock was an all-engrossing occupation.
‘Do you mean what I said that afternoon we met in the village?’ asked Harriet. ‘That’s not a quotation, that’s natural history.’ She laughed delightedly.
The Archdeacon seemed surprised and Harriet began to explain.
‘It’s quite simple, really,’ she said. ‘When the Apes of Brazil beat their chests with their hands or paws, or whatever apes have, you can hear the sound two miles away.’
‘Oh, Harriet,’ said Belinda, as if reproving a child, ‘surely not two miles? You must be mistaken.’
‘Two miles,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘Father Plowman told me.’
The Archdeacon laughed scornfully at this.
‘It was at Lady Clara Boulding’s house,’ said Harriet indignantly. ‘We were having a most interesting conversation, I can’t remember now what it was about.’
‘I cannot imagine what the subject of it can have been,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘and I did not know that Plowman had ever been in Brazil.’
‘You said something about sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo,’ said Harriet, ‘so I naturally thought of the Apes of Brazil.’
‘I think the minds of the metaphysical poets must have worked something like that,’ said Belinda thoughtfully. ‘Donne and Abraham Cowley, perhaps.’
‘Cowley was a very stupid man,’ said the Archdeacon shortly. ‘I cannot understand the revival of interest in his works.’
‘I think the hole is mended now,’ said Belinda. ‘It doesn’t look so bad now; of course the wool is just a little too light.’
‘My dear Belinda, you have done it quite exquisitely,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I must take care to be passing your house every time I have a hole in my sock.’
Belinda smiled and went quite pink with pleasure and confusion. She went with him to the front door and then returned to the dining-room where Harriet had collapsed heavily into a chair and was fanning herself with the parish magazine.
‘Thank goodness, he’s gone,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know how Agatha manages to put up with him all the time. No wonder she’s gone away.’
‘Harriet, do speak more quietly,’ said Belinda in an agitated whisper, for Emily had just come into the room to lay the table. ‘I must go and start the risotto,’ she said and went into the kitchen, where she walked aimlessly about in circles trying to assemble all the ingredients she needed. For somehow it was difficult to concentrate. The mending of the sock had been an upsetting and unnerving experience, and even when she had made the risotto she did not feel any pleasure at the thought of eating it.
‘Nearly twenty past one!’ said Harriet, as they sat down to their meal. ‘The Archdeacon has delayed everything. I suppose he imagined Emily would be cooking.’
‘I don’t suppose he thought about it at all, men don’t as a rule,’ said Belinda, ‘they just expect meals to appear on the table and they do.’
‘Of course Emily usually does cook,’ went on Harriet, ‘it’s only that she can’t manage foreign dishes.’ She took a liberal second helping of risotto. ‘This is really delicious.’
‘It was Ricardo’s recipe,’ said Belinda absently.
‘We really must go and get some more blackberries soon,’ said Harriet. ‘Although in October the devil will be in them. You know what the country people say.’
Belinda smiled.
‘Mr Donne is very fond of blackberry jelly,’ said Harriet. ‘Apparently he very much enjoyed the apple jelly I took him. He said he really preferred it for breakfast – instead of marmalade, you know.’
‘I wonder what it would be like to be turned into a pillar of salt?’ said Belinda surprisingly, in a far-away voice.
‘Belinda!’ Harriet exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Whatever made you think of that? Potiphar’s wife, wasn’t it, in the Old Testament somewhere?’
‘I think it was Lot’s w
ife,’ said Belinda, ‘but I can’t remember why. I should imagine it would be very restful,’ she went on, ‘to have no feelings or emotions. Or perhaps,’ she continued thoughtfully, ‘it would have been simpler to have been born like Milton’s first wife, an image of earth and phlegm.’
‘Oh, Belinda, don’t be disgusting!’ said Harriet briskly. ‘And do pass the cheese. You are hopelessly inattentive. When Mr Donne was here the other night you never passed him anything. If it hadn’t been for me he would have starved.’
Belinda came back to everyday life again. How many curates would starve and die were it not for the Harriets of this world, she thought. ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she said. ‘I must try not to be so absent-minded. Today has been rather trying, hasn’t it really – too much happening.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Harriet. ‘Agatha going and the Archdeacon coming. Who knows what he may be up to now that she’s gone?’
‘Oh, Harriet, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,’ said Belinda. ‘It’s really most unsuitable. And besides,’ she went on, half to herself, ‘what could he be up to when you come to think of it?’ Her voice trailed off rather sadly, but she rose from the table briskly enough and spent the afternoon doing some useful work in the garden.
CHAPTER EIGHT
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 the 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 teatime, 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 tombstones, 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.