Author: Barbara Pym
Category: Humorous
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‘Are you sure you’re thinking of the same one?’ suggested Belinda timidly. ‘You’ve known so many …’
But Harriet indignantly denied the possibility of such a mistake. ‘And anyway,’ she went on stoutly, to justify herself in case of a possible disappointment, ‘you can’t judge a person by his face.’
‘No, of course not,’ Belinda agreed. ‘I’m sure he’s an excellent man,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Have you ever heard of the Guild of St Agnes, by the way?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Harriet. ‘There’s the Society of St Monica, but that’s for widows, I believe.’
‘You mean you have to be a widow?’ said Belinda. ‘I think it could hardly be that.’
‘I know,’ said Edith suddenly, ‘it does work among Fallen Women – Connie’s patroness was the President I believe. They used to have teas and sales of work in the house in Belgrave Square.’
‘So that’s it,’ said Belinda, who hardly knew what advice she could give to a Fallen Woman, let alone what kind of splendid work she could have done. She explained the connection and they all laughed very heartily.
When they had finished tea Edith suddenly began doing a Balkan folk dance which encouraged Harriet to give a very ludicrous imitation of Mr Mold’s proposal. But as Belinda laughed she found herself almost wishing that Harriet were even now Mrs Nathaniel Mold. Then at least there could be no danger of having the Bishop of Mbawawa for a brother-in-law.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was the morning after the Bishop’s arrival and there was a feeling of suppressed excitement in the air. At the Misses Bede’s house the morning passed in the usual way until just before luncheon, when the front-door bell rang. Before Belinda and Harriet could begin to guess who it was, Emily had announced the Archdeacon.
It was at once evident that he was in a good temper, which Belinda thought rather surprising, although there was a certain relish in disliking somebody, she supposed, which might account for it.
‘I hope the Bishop is well?’ she ventured.
‘Oh, tolerably well, I think,’ said the Archdeacon, rubbing his hands in front of the fire. ‘I believe he did not sleep very well, but our spare bed is notoriously uncomfortable.’
‘We could easily have him here,’ said Harriet, ‘our spare bed has a new mattress and is really most comfortable. I have tried it myself.’
‘That is kind of you,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘but the clergy are used to discomfort. They even enjoy it, you know.’
Belinda looked at him doubtfully, but he appeared to be quite serious.
‘I hope you are writing to poor Nathaniel Mold,’ he said, seeing that Harriet was seated at the writing-desk.
‘Oh, no,’ said Harriet, thinking it rather interfering of the Archdeacon. ‘That is all finished. I was writing to Gorringes’ for a new winter dressing-gown.’
‘Well, they say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,’ declared the Archdeacon.
‘I’m not sure that I understand your meaning there,’ said Harriet coyly. ‘What do you mean by two in the bush?’
‘Why, Ricardo and the Bishop,’ said the Archdeacon slyly.
Belinda felt inclined to add that poor Ricardo was almost as good as in the hand, but she said nothing as she thought the conversation rather unbecoming. It would have been quite another matter if Edith or Connie had been there instead of the Archdeacon, but for somebody of Harriet’s age to discuss her suitors with the vicar of the parish seemed to Belinda hardly the thing.
‘But I haven’t seen the Bishop for over thirty years,’ protested Harriet, enjoying herself very much.
‘Then you will see him tonight,’ said the Archdeacon.
‘Tonight?’ echoed the sisters incredulously, as if it were the most unlikely thing in the world.
‘Yes, I came to see you about it. The Bishop is giving a lantern lecture with slides, and I wanted to know if you would be good enough to work the lantern,’ said the Archdeacon, turning to Harriet.
‘Why, I should love to,’ said Harriet, for she had an unexpected genius for working the lantern and had done it for many years now.
‘It should be an unusual experience,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘to renew your acquaintance with the Bishop over a slide put in upside down.’
Harriet went off into a peal of delighted laughter.
‘What’s the lecture to be about?’ asked Belinda, thinking that somebody ought to show an intelligent interest in it.
‘Oh, his natives I believe,’ said the Archdeacon rather scornfully. ‘Songs and dances and that kind of thing!’
‘It should be very interesting,’ ventured Belinda.
‘And amusing too,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘The Bishop was practising this morning.’
‘The songs or the dances?’ asked Harriet.
‘Oh, the songs, as far as I could hear. I daresay it will not be possible to demonstrate the dances.’
‘I hope not,’ said Belinda rather indignantly, for from what one heard about these native dances it did not seem as if they were the sort of thing that could properly be performed in a parish hall.
Moved by a sudden impulse of friendliness, Harriet asked the Archdeacon if he would stay to luncheon. ‘We’re having pheasant,’ she added temptingly.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid Agatha will be expecting me. Otherwise nothing could have given me greater pleasure.’
‘Yes, that’s the worst of having a wife,’ said Harriet jovially.
‘It is really much wiser for a man to stay single,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘and then it doesn’t matter if he’s late for lunch.’
After he had gone Harriet remarked that if he had been single now, he might have discovered that there were even greater advantages, but she soon changed the subject, and began asking Belinda’s opinion about her hair. Should she leave the back in a neat roll or comb it out into fluffy curls?
Belinda gave some sort of an answer, as she realized that Harriet was determined to have the fluffy curls, and wondered whether she herself should wear her blue marocain or an old wool dress. The parish hall was inclined to be draughty and she had no particular wish to impress the Bishop. On the other hand, the Archdeacon would certainly be there and she did not wish to appear dowdy before him. It was a difficult problem. Harriet had already decided that she would wear her brown velvet, and possibly her fur cape, though working the lantern she would probably be warm enough without it.
Emily was also going to the lecture with the vicarage Florrie, who had given her a most glowing account of the Bishop. He had apparently given her some very pretty African beads and a wooden comb, carved by one of his native converts.
‘Putting silly ideas into her head,’ Harriet had said to Belinda after hearing this. ‘Theo ought to be careful,’ she said ominously.
The lecture was to begin at eight o’clock, but Harriet insisted that they should be in good time as she had all sorts of things to do in connection with the lantern, which was inclined to be temperamental.
‘And you will want to get a good seat,’ she said.
‘Oh, not particularly,’ said Belinda. ‘I don’t suppose the hall will be very full and all the chairs are equally hard.’
The problem of where to sit was settled by their meeting Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall at the door of the hall.
‘Let’s go somewhere at the back, where we can have a good laugh,’ said Edith.
Belinda agreed that she would also like to sit somewhere at the back, although she did not give any such crude reason for her preference. Poor Miss Aspinall would have liked to sit nearer the front, in case Lady Clara Boulding should be there, but she knew it was no use saying so, and sat meekly on Belinda’s other side, glancing hopefully back at the door when anybody came in. Harriet was looking very important, perched up on a table, manipulating the lantern and trying out some specimen slides. Canterbury cathedral, a field with cows, and the head and shoulders of a bearded clergyman followed one anot
her in quick succession: the lantern was obviously working well.
The hall began to fill up until there were very few vacant seats and the Bishop could be seen threading his way among the chairs towards Harriet, carrying a box of lantern slides. Belinda craned forward eagerly, yet as unconcernedly as she could, to witness their reunion after so many years. Edith Liversidge did the same and even went so far as to stand up for a better view.
‘How many years did you say it was?’ she inquired.
‘I can’t remember exactly, but I think it must be nearly thirty,’ said Belinda in a more subdued tone of voice, for she did not want Miss Beard and Miss Smiley, who were sitting in front of them with a group of fellow teachers, to hear all their conversation. Things half heard were apt to be wickedly exaggerated and Miss Beard, in spite of being an excellent Sunday school teacher, was very much inclined to gossip.
‘What a long time!’ breathed Connie. ‘There is something very wonderful in meeting a friend again after many years.’
‘That rather depends,’ said Edith brusquely. ‘I can think of some I’d much rather not meet.’
‘I suppose in that case you would hardly call them friends,’ said Belinda. ‘Although one doesn’t really know what a person is going to be like after thirty years.’
Harriet’s position on the table made it necessary for the Bishop to gaze up at her. She bent graciously and extended her hand as if to take his, but received instead the box of lantern slides. Belinda was indignant. How rude and casual of him! she thought. How like a bishop! she went on and then stopped, realizing the injustice of this generalization. For she was certain that Willie Amery or Oliver Opobo and Calabar would not have behaved like this. Theodore Grote was cold, a cold fish as she remembered their dear mother calling him. Legless, unloving, infamously chaste, she thought detachedly, remembering Ricardo’s goldfish, and was then ashamed of herself for thinking of it. There could be no excuse, for Leigh Hunt was not even one of our greater poets. Still, there was something fishlike about Bishop Grote. Fish and sheep. Was that possible?
‘I do wish I knew what they were saying,’ said Connie, ‘though of course it’s the most unpardonable curiosity. Meetings like this ought to be really sacred.’
‘He’s obviously just saying something about the slides,’ said Edith. ‘Connie is much too romantic. I suppose she thinks he ought to be quoting poetry.’
‘Well, he might,’ said Belinda, ‘if he were that sort of a person, which I doubt. He didn’t even shake hands, otherwise he might have quoted that nice line of Cleveland’s, where he describes a lady’s hand tender as ’twere a jelly gloved … I always like that, but somehow it doesn’t apply to peoples’ hands now.’
Edith looked down complacently at her own fingers, gnarled and stained. ‘Not in the country,’ she said, ‘though Connie’s always fussing about hers, rubbing them with lotion and all that sort of nonsense. I always tell her that nobody’s likely to want to hold her hand now, so why bother.’
Belinda thought this rather unkind and sympathized with Connie. It wasn’t exactly that one hoped to have one’s hand held…
‘Look, there’s the Archdeacon and Father Plowman,’ said Connie. ‘I suppose it must be going to begin.’
‘I imagine one can smoke here?’ said Edith, producing a squashed paper packet of Woodbines and offering it to Belinda.
‘No, thank you,’ said Belinda. She felt that it would be unbecoming for her to smoke, though it seemed right that Edith should do so. Anything that she did seemed to be in character. Her appearance tonight in a homespun skirt with white blouse and Albanian embroidered waistcoat made Belinda feel dowdy and insignificant, one of the many thousand respectable middle-aged spinsters, the backbones or busybodies of countless parishes throughout the country.
The Archdeacon had mounted the platform and was introducing the Bishop in a short and almost gracious speech.
‘I, for one, am eagerly looking forward to hearing more about this fascinating country and its people,’ he said. ‘Many of us will envy Bishop Grote his unique opportunities. It may even be that I too shall feel the urge to labour in a foreign field,’ he concluded, with what Belinda could only think was sarcasm, for nothing more unlikely could be imagined.
The audience settled down on the hard chairs. Belinda noticed that Agatha was wearing a becoming new dress, dark green, with little pleated ruffles at the shoulders and neck. From the best houses, she thought, with sad resignation.
‘The climate of Mbawawa is temperate and the soil very fertile,’ began the Bishop, waving his pointer vaguely in the air.
The first slide appeared. It showed a seascape with some kind of tropical palms in the foreground. Belinda had seen the same type of picture on the covers of dance tunes about the South Sea Islands.
‘When I say temperate,’ went on the Bishop, ‘I dare say many of you might find it rather hot.’ He paused and tapped his pointer vigorously on the floor.
There appeared in rapid succession several pictures of handsome natives, dressed in bunches of leaves and garlands of flowers. Some members of the audience were inclined to giggle at these, but the Bishop hastily explained that the pictures were of the natives as they used to be.
‘We have since introduced a form of European dress which is far more in keeping with Christian ideas of morality,’ he said. Another slide followed, showing the natives clad in this way. ‘I should like to add here,’ he went on, ‘that we are often very much in need of garments for our people and should welcome gifts of clothing or material – light cotton materials, of course, nothing elaborate or costly.’
It would be typical of the perfidy of human nature, thought Belinda indignantly, if the church workers fell so much in love with the Bishop that they forgot about all the other more deserving charities such as the Clothe-Our-Children League and the Society for helping the Poor in Pimlico to which they were accustomed to contribute. She could already notice in the half darkness the beaming looks of approval on their faces, as they nodded and smiled to each other, planning working parties and schemes to raise money. Of course the Mbawawa were a deserving cause, she supposed, but were they not happier in their leaves and flowers? Naturally one wished them to have the benefits of Christianity; it was rather difficult to see where one should draw the line. They could hardly appear at a service in a dress of leaves, she reflected, when she herself felt that a short-sleeved dress was unsuitable. But need they wear those shapeless cotton garments? Perhaps the architecture of the church had something to do with it: one’s style of dress ought to be somehow in keeping … her thoughts wandered on against a background of bleating Bishop’s voice. He had somehow got on to the subject of music.
‘The language is well suited to singing,’ he declared. ‘It is soft and pleasing, vowels and liquid sounds predominating. You may be interested to hear that the alphabet contains only eighteen letters,’ he went on, ‘and I think that if you saw it written you would hardly call it an alphabet at all. Such an odd collection of letters with long tails and squiggles! You see, the Mbawawa had never written their language down until a few years ago, when missionaries attempted it. Then some clever people in London, experts in African languages, made up this alphabet, and I think nobody was more surprised than the Mbawawa themselves!’ The Bishop laughed heartily and wiped his brow. ‘But I haven’t come here tonight to tell you about the alphabet. I think we can safely leave that to the clever people in London,’ he added, with what Belinda felt was insufferable patronage, considering the distinction of his audience, which contained at least four University graduates, five, if one counted Father Plowman’s failed B.A.
‘Their chief musical instrument is the Mhamha, M-H-A-M-H-A,’ he spelled the word out and one of the Sunday school teachers could be seen fumbling in her handbag for pencil and paper. There now followed another slide of grinning natives holding musical instruments.
‘I dare say some of you would like to hear what the language sounds like,’ said the Bishop, ‘so I
am going to sing a few verses of a song which the Mbawawa adapt to many occasions, birth, marriage, death, all the great events in this mortal life have their own form of it.’ He paused, as if wondering which was most suited to a gathering in a parish hall. ‘Let me try and give you a gay marriage song,’ he said. ‘Imagine yourselves taking part in a Mbawawa wedding.’
‘I do not feel myself equal to that,’ whispered Edith to Belinda. ‘Death would have been a better choice, or even birth.’
The voice of the Bishop rang out through the hall in song. Many handkerchiefs were taken out hastily, especially among the younger members of the audience, for the noise which filled the hall was quite unexpected. Even Belinda, who had heard the Bishop sing as a curate, was a little unprepared. And yet perhaps the Mbawawa did have voices like that and it was wrong to feel that one wanted to laugh. Belinda glanced at Harriet to see how she was reacting. As far as it was possible to see, she was displaying remarkable self-control, for she was very prone to giggle, and appeared to be gazing at the Bishop with rapt attention. Most of the audience were stirring uneasily. Even Agatha was smiling a little, but she managed to make it look as if she were not really amused, but pleased and approving, which was quite another matter.
At last the noise stopped, and some people relieved their feelings by clapping.
‘The song has many more verses,’ explained the Bishop. ‘Indeed, if the singer is particularly gifted he can go on almost indefinitely; I have known the marriage song go on all night, but I fear I should find the hall empty if I attempted that.’
During the laughter which followed he tapped his pointer on the floor and another slide clicked into place.
‘Now this is another characteristic musical instrument. It is called the Hmwoq, spelled H-M-W-O-Q.’
Everyone looked with interest at the curiously shaped object which had now appeared on the screen. It was certainly a very peculiar shape and there was more giggling from the back of the hall. It could hardly be what it seemed to be, thought Belinda doubtfully, though one knew that among primitive peoples one might find almost anything. The anthropologist who went among them must go with an open mind…