Some Tame Gazelle (17 page)

‘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…

The Bishop turned towards the screen and prodded it uncertainly. Then he advanced towards the edge of the platform and said in a loud clear voice, ‘I think that slide is upside down.’

Everyone turned to look at Harriet, who was not in the least embarrassed at having such attention drawn to her. Indeed, Belinda could not be absolutely sure that her sister had not purposely put the slide in upside down.

‘I am
so
sorry, My Lord Bishop,’ Harriet’s voice rang clearly through the hall. ‘How
stupid
of me,’ she said, smiling most charmingly into the darkness.

The Bishop responded graciously enough by saying that he feared
he
was too stupid to explain the picture unless it were the right way up, and his explanation was very confused even, when the slide was correctly shown. Leaving it rather hurriedly, he produced a large sea shell from an inner pocket and applied it to his lips.

By this time his hearers knew more or less what to expect, so that they were able to bear the strange sounds which came out of the shell with more composure. The noise seemed to be a hollower and more resonant version of the Bishop’s own singing voice.

‘Wonderful how he does it, isn’t it?’ whispered Father Plowman to Agatha Hoccleve, who could not but agree that it was indeed most wonderful.

‘This instrument is used particularly in agricultural rites,’ explained the Bishop, ‘where the ceremony of propitiating the earth goddess is carried out.’

‘Phallic,’ murmured Edith, nodding her head. ‘Quite the usual thing.’

Fortunately the Sunday school teachers did not know the word, thought Belinda, or they would most certainly have turned round. It was rather like Edith to show off her smattering of anthropological knowledge, she felt, particularly if it were something rather embarrassing.

After the music came more slides of wedding and funeral scenes, and finally one of the Bishop himself in gaiters and leafy garlands, at which everyone clapped vigorously. It was a relief to be able to let off steam, for much laughter had been bottled up. But the climax came when he turned his back on the audience, fumbled in a suitcase and reappeared facing them in a huge painted wooden mask, with hinged beak, large round eyes and hanging raffia mane, which completely covered his head and shoulders. This brought the house down and there was laughter and clapping from the front seats, stamping and whistling from the back benches.

All that followed was inevitably an anticlimax. The Bishop went on to give a list of rather stray facts which he might have got out of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. He mentioned that they tattooed little, that the native chiefs sometimes weighed as much as one hundred and eighty pounds, and that although infanticide was prevalent, cannibalism was almost unknown. They lived chiefly on yams and millet, but rats and mice were also eaten. Beer was brewed from guinea corn; fire was made from a paste of salt, pepper and lizard dung.

‘And in conclusion,’ he added, ‘for the benefit of any anthropologists who may be listening to me, I may as well state that the basic social unit is an exogamous patrilineal kindred or extended family or even clan. I don’t think we need worry overmuch about that.’

Hearty laughter greeted these remarks. There was no anthropologist in the audience.

Father Plowman mounted the platform and began to propose a vote of thanks.

‘I for one shall never forget this fascinating lecture,’ he said. ‘I am sure that after tonight there will be many who will be eager to visit this beautiful country and see all these wonders for themselves.’

‘Putting ideas into their heads,’ muttered Edith, and she was not far wrong, for one of the Sunday school teachers was even at that moment toying with the idea of asking the Bishop whether he could find a place for her in his Mission, and even Miss Aspinall was wondering whether it might not be possible to go out there to teach the gentler arts.

‘Truly the wonders of this world are without number. Let us thank God for His goodness to us,’ concluded Father Plowman, and everyone agreed that it was a most fitting end to the evening.

It was a little spoilt by the Archdeacon rising to his feet and saying that he was sure everyone would wish him to thank Miss Harriet Bede for her admirable working of the lantern, without which the lecture would not have been half so enjoyable. Of course it was right that she should be thanked, but several people felt that Father Plowman’s words should have been the last. Only Belinda was pleased, both because of his acknowledgment of her sister and because no evening was complete for her which did not include a few words from the Archdeacon.

‘So like him, that kind thought,’ she said to Edith, ‘remembering Harriet when the Bishop never said a word, nor Father Plowman for that matter. I knew the Archdeacon wouldn’t forget.’

‘Oh, I expect he just wanted to be different,’ said Edith, struggling into her mannish navy blue overcoat. ‘What happens now?’

‘I think we go home,’ said Belinda, ‘but I dare say Harriet will go and have refreshments at the vicarage with the Bishop. They’ll probably have coffee and sandwiches or something light.’

‘Oh, I hate standing about balancing a cup and plate and making conversation,’ said Edith. ‘Come along, Connie,’ she called, turning round, ‘we’re going home.’

But Connie, with a hasty gathering up of bits and pieces and a fluttering of grey draperies, had hurried towards the front of the hall, where she could be seen among the little cluster of people waiting to shake hands with the Bishop.

‘Don’t make her come away,’ pleaded Belinda. ‘She would probably like to go to the vicarage with the others.’

‘Well, come and take pot luck with me,’ said Edith roughly. ‘Just coffee and baked beans – you know our kind of supper.’

‘That will be lovely,’ murmured Belinda.

At the door of Edith’s cottage a big, shaggy dog came bounding towards them, his muddy paws scrabbling against their coats and stockings, and inside the living-room, for it could hardly be called a drawing-room, everything was so primitive and comfortless that Belinda felt really sympathetic towards poor Connie. After Belgrave Square too … Her harp, shrouded in a holland cover, seemed out of place in the untidy room with its smell of dog and cigarette smoke.

Belinda stood uncertainly on the threshold of the little kitchen, watching Edith cutting bread and scooping the beans out of their tin into a saucepan.

‘Hand me that ash tray, will you?’ said Edith, but not before Belinda had seen a grey wedge of ash drop into the beans. ‘Drat it,’ she said. ‘Too late. Hope you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not,’ said Belinda nobly, remembering Miss Prior and the caterpillar. Perhaps there was something after all in being a gentlewoman.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When Belinda awoke next morning, she decided that she did not feel very well. She was not sure whether this was because of the ash in the baked beans, the half-empty bottle of Empire port that Edith had found in the back of a cupboard or the damp walk home, in rather thin shoes. She was inclined to think it must be the last, for what else could have given her such an unromantic, snivelling cold?

‘Oh, dear,’ said Harriet, sitting down heavily on Belinda’s bed, ‘the Bishop was coming to tea and I suppose I shall have to put him off if you’re going to be ill.’

‘Why?’ asked Belinda stupidly.

‘Well, really, what would people think?’

‘They needn’t know I’m in bed, and after all, it’s only a matter of time,’ said Belinda, who was in no mood to humour her sister’s coy scruples.

‘Yes, perhaps it is,’ agreed Harriet, but rather doubtfully. ‘He asked particularly if you would be here, though.’

‘Did he? Well, we certainly can’t have tea in my bedroom,’ said Belinda plaintively.

‘No, of course not,’ Harriet agreed. ‘Now are you sure you couldn’t fancy a little sausage?’ she said brightly. ‘Emily will have cooked enough for both of us.’

Belinda did not think she fancied anything at all, but was persuaded to try some weak tea and a piece of toast. And would Harriet be very kind and bring her the
Oxford Book of Victorian Verse
? She might feel like reading later on.

Harriet went downstairs and came back with a tray and the book.

‘Isn’t it rather heavy to read in bed?’ she ventured. ‘I’ve brought you something smaller as well. Here’s the Fourth Book of Virgil. I know you like the part about Dido and Aeneas. It’s such a nice thin little book.’

‘Oh, Harriet, how kind. But it’s all in Latin, and you know I can’t read it.’

‘Never mind, dear,’ said Harriet soothingly. ‘I shouldn’t read at all, if I were you. Just try and rest.’

‘I can’t think how I caught this cold,’ said Belinda.

‘I’ll go and get you some whisky from the Crownwheel and Pinion,’ declared Harriet. ‘I shall go as soon as it’s open.’

‘Oh, Harriet, don’t go
there
,’ said Belinda, rather concerned. ‘I’m sure you could get some at Abbot’s, and anyway I don’t think I really need it. If I stay in bed and keep warm I’m sure to be better in a day or two. Hot lemon is really a much nicer drink.’

‘You never know when you may need whisky,’ said Harriet mysteriously. ‘It’s just as well to have it in the house.’

‘I seem to remember a recipe in
Tried
Favourites – a sort of substitute for whisky,’ said Belinda. ‘I dare say it would be quite easy to make.’

‘I think our guests would hardly thank us if we offered them that,’ said Harriet.

‘Our guests?’ Belinda sank back weakly on to her pillows, unable to face the idea of guests who needed to be entertained with whisky. ‘I think I’ll just rest until lunch-time,’ she said. ‘I dare say I shan’t read after all.’

So Harriet left her and went out to do the shopping. She met several people and told each one about her sister’s indisposition, making little or much of it according to the status of her hearer. To the Archdeacon she gave the most exact details, thinking that somehow he ought to be possessed of all the facts.

‘She had weak tea and dry toast for breakfast,’ said Harriet confidentially, ‘and then she asked for the
Oxford Book of Victorian Verse
.’

‘She called for madder music and for stronger wine,’ said the Archdeacon, but Harriet was not familiar with our great Victorian poets and so the quotation passed over her head.

She pointed out rather sharply that strong wine was the last thing that should be given to an invalid, although a little brandy might be helpful in cases of biliousness.

‘But of course Belinda isn’t bilious,’ she said hastily. ‘Nothing like that.’

‘Poor Belinda, I am really extremely sorry. Do tell her how very sorry I am. I only wish I could go and see her.’

‘Oh, she’s not at all seriously ill,’ said Harriet. ‘Just a little chill. I’m sure it would alarm people if you were seen going to the house. People always think the worst when they see a clergyman.’

‘Dear me, I hardly know how to take that,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I should have liked to think that we brought comfort to the sick.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose you do, in a way,’ said Harriet, who was finding it difficult to convey that it all depended on the clergyman.

‘I must look out some books for her to read,’ said the Archdeacon.

‘Thank you very much, but she really has plenty to read.’

‘All the same, there might be something she’d like,’ persisted the Archdeacon. ‘I sometimes wish that I could afford to be ill so that I could read some of the things I normally never have time for.’

Harriet looked contemptuous but said nothing. ‘I must be going now,’ she said at last. ‘I still have quite a lot of shopping to do.’

On her return she found that Belinda had been to sleep and felt a little better.

‘I saw the Archdeacon,’ said Harriet triumphantly. ‘He seemed quite concerned to hear that you were ill and almost suggested coming to see you, but I soon nipped that in the bud.’

Belinda gathered her faded pink bed-jacket more closely round her shoulders. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t have him coming to see me,’ she said. ‘Not without warning, anyway.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Harriet pompously, ‘it is, or should be, customary for a clergyman to visit the sick in his parish. But perhaps that’s only for the poor people really, to see if they have all they want and so on.’

‘Yes, I suppose I have everything I want,’ said Belinda rather sadly.

‘Naturally if you were seriously ill or dying it would be another matter,’ went on Harriet reassuringly.

‘But I’m not,’ said Belinda regretfully, thinking of Henry reading
Samson Agonistes
to her on her death-bed.

After lunch she settled down to her own thoughts. Harriet had brought up a light novel from the circulating library and this lay with the
Oxford Book of Victorian Verse
on the eiderdown. But Belinda did not feel like reading. She was quite enjoying her illness now that she felt a little better and could allow her thoughts to wander at random in the past and future without the consciousness that she ought to be more profitably employed. She had no doubt that there would soon be another proposal of marriage in the drawing-room, perhaps even this afternoon, although she judged the Bishop to be a more prudent man than Mr Mold. He had certainly not behaved very cordially to Harriet at the lecture, but Belinda was sure that he would not be able to hold out long against her charms. Nor had Harriet seemed as enthusiastic as might have been expected. Could it be that she had found him less attractive than she anticipated, or was it the very depth of her feeling that kept her from speaking of it? Belinda puzzled over this for some time and then fell to thinking of her own life.

There was very little new to be said or thought about it, she decided. She had loved dear Henry for so many years now that she no longer thought of her love as a hopeless passion. Indeed, Belinda felt that no spinster of her age and respectability could possibly have such a thing for an archdeacon. The fierce flame had died down, but the fire was still glowing brightly.

My very ashes in their urn,

Shall like a hallowed lamp for ever burn
…

How much more one appreciated our great literature if one loved, thought Belinda, especially if the love were unrequited! She touched the books affectionately but made no effort to read either of them. As Harriet had said, the
Oxford Book of Victorian Verse
was rather heavy to hold, and many of the poems in it were uncomfortably sentimental for afternoon reading.

Suddenly there was a noise in the hall. Belinda sat up in bed and listened. At first she thought it must be the Bishop arriving rather too early for tea, but then she realized that it was a woman’s voice. It sounded almost like Agatha’s. She crouched under the bedclothes and began to wonder whether she had a temperature after all and ought not to see people. It was surely not normal to have a sudden longing to hide under the bedclothes when one heard the vicar’s wife in the hall, even if one did love her husband better than she did?

Belinda sat up bravely and took out her hand-mirror. She knew that she looked most unattractive and thought what a good thing it was that she was not seriously ill or dying. Her hair was out of curl, her cheeks were pale and her nose needed powdering. She would not have liked Henry to see her like this, even on her death-bed.

Agatha was all too soon in the room, saying, ‘Poor Belinda, I was so sorry when Henry told me you were ill. I thought I’d come and see how you were.’

Belinda, who was trying to smuggle the hand-mirror out of sight, murmured that it was very kind of Agatha and that she was feeling much better.

‘And now,’ said Agatha, rather too briskly, ‘what has been the matter with you?’

‘Oh, I think I must have caught a slight chill,’ said Belinda vaguely. ‘Perhaps I was sitting in a draught at the Bishop’s lecture,’ she ventured, feeling ashamed of not knowing exactly what was the matter with her and why. ‘The lecture was most interesting, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes, fascinating,’ said Agatha. ‘The Bishop is such a dear man, so kind and amusing.’

He must be especially pleasant to Agatha, thought Belinda, who had not formed at all that impression of him. Indeed Agatha was quite animated when she spoke of him and even looked a little flushed.

‘He asked where you were last night after the lecture,’ she went on. ‘We had quite a little gathering at the vicarage, you know.’

‘I thought you would probably have enough people there without me,’ said Belinda weakly, feeling as she so often did with Agatha that she had somehow done the wrong thing. ‘I went to supper with Edith Liversidge. I’m surprised that he should have remembered me at all.’

‘Well, of course it is a bishop’s duty to remember people,’ said Agatha. ‘My father had a wonderful memory for names and faces.’

‘Yes, I suppose they meet so many people,’ said Belinda, feeling rather damped. Not that she wanted the Bishop to remember her particularly, but it was like Agatha to take away any illusions she might have cherished.

‘It’s some years since you last met, isn’t it?’ said Agatha conversationally.

‘Oh, yes, about thirty years, I think. We none of us grow any younger, do we?
Timor mortis conturbat me
,’ murmured Belinda, staring straight in front of her.

Agatha looked at her sharply. Sometimes she wondered whether Belinda was quite all there. She said such odd things.

There was a short pause, but before it had time to become awkward a hearty voice was heard outside the door and Edith Liversidge strode into the room, followed by Connie Aspinall. Their arms were full of books and parcels.

‘I must be going now,’ said Agatha, who disliked Edith. ‘Too many visitors at once will tire you.’

Belinda thanked her for her kindness, but was quite relieved to be left alone with Edith and Connie.

‘We’ve brought you some books,’ said Edith. ‘And Connie’s made you a sponge cake. You know I’m no hand at that kind of thing.’

‘Oh, how kind…’

‘I thought you might like to see some copies of
The Gentlewoman
,’ said Connie. ‘There’s a picture of Lady Grudge’s daughter in one of them.’

‘How interesting, I shall look forward to reading them,’ said Belinda. ‘You must point her out to me.’

At this moment the front-door bell rang. ‘That must be the Bishop arriving,’ said Belinda.

‘The Bishop?’ asked Edith, rather surprised.

‘Yes, he is coming to tea today.’

‘Does he know you’re ill or is he expecting to see both of you?’

‘Oh, I’m supposed to be there too, but I suddenly woke up ill,’ said Belinda pathetically. ‘So Harriet will have to entertain him alone.’

‘Alone?’ said Edith. ‘I don’t think he’ll like that.’

‘Why ever not?’ asked Belinda, rather worried. Life was quite difficult enough without Edith making disturbing suggestions. Harriet was going to marry the Bishop and Belinda would be left in her old age to die a lonely death, or with nobody but a paid companion to cheer her last hours. Surely that was enough? She had been trying to prepare herself for the worst and did not wish to be unsettled.

Meanwhile Edith expounded her ideas of what a bishop would think quite proper. ‘I don’t think Harriet will get him,’ she said bluntly.

Belinda had been thinking the same thing not so long ago, but now she was inclined to disagree. After all, dear Edith had had little or no experience of bishops, although poor John had been a very good man in his way.

‘I think he has successfully avoided so many women in his life that not even Harriet will be able to catch him,’ she went on. ‘I know his sort.’

Belinda thought this rather a vulgar way of putting it, though it could hardly be denied that it was what Harriet intended to do.

‘I believe women can do almost anything if they are really desperate,’ she ventured. ‘In one of Lyly’s plays,
Endimion
, I think …’

‘But I don’t think Harriet is really desperate,’ Edith interrupted. ‘Do you?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Belinda plaintively. ‘I think I should like a drink of barley water. It’s on the little table.’

‘Oh, let me get it for you,’ said Connie, coming forward with a glass and a copy of
The Gentlewoman
in her hand. ‘This is Lady Joan Grudge,’ she said eagerly, indicating a group of people enjoying a joke at a race meeting.

‘Yes, she’s very pretty, isn’t she,’ murmured Belinda, and was then informed that she had been looking at the wrong girl, for nobody could call Lady Joan pretty. ‘Such a nice expression,’ she emended. ‘She looks very jolly.’

‘Yes, she is a
very
sweet girl…’

Downstairs Harriet had just made the discovery that Bishop Grote never ate anything for his tea.

Now this was exceedingly awkward, for how can any real contact be established between two persons when one is eating and the other merely watching? For some minutes Harriet did not know what to do. Her recollections of the Bishop as a curate had included cream buns and hot buttered toast, with licking of fingers. Eventually she had to resort to the kind of arch scolding, which was really more suitable for very young curates than for bishops.