Some Tame Gazelle (21 page)

At last she remembered the ravioli, and was almost glad of an excuse to stop thinking about these disturbing matters. She paused for a moment by the looking-glass and studied her wispy hair, flushed face smeared with flour and faded blue overall. Looking like that one could not feel even a romantic figure whose lover had died.

The sound of raised, almost angry, voices came from behind the closed door of the dining-room. It was a clash of wills between Harriet and Mrs Ramage, but Harriet would win in the end. It was known that the Misses Bede had ‘good’ things – though hardly of the same standard as Mrs Hoccleve – and Mrs Ramage would be unwilling to leave without buying them.

Belinda went quietly back to the kitchen and sat down. She wished Harriet would come, so that she could tell her all about it. After all, she supposed, it was something to have been considered worthy to be the wife of a bishop, even if only a colonial one. There was something rather sad about the kitchen now. It was beginning to get dark, and the greyish mass of dough on the table reminded Belinda of the unfinished ravioli. Twenty minutes more kneading, and perhaps it would be of the consistency of the finest chamois leather.

The trivial round, the common task
– did it furnish
quite
all we needed to ask? Had Keble
really
understood? Sometimes one almost doubted it. Belinda imagined him writing the lines in a Gothic study, panelled in pitch-pine and well dusted that morning by an efficient servant. Not at all the same thing as standing at the sink with aching back and hands plunged into the washing-up water.

‘Three pounds, fifteen and six!’ Harriet came triumphant into the kitchen, waving the notes in her hand. ‘She was pleased with your green dress, but she wondered how you could ever have worn it. “Not at all Miss Bede’s colour”, she said.’

‘No, I begin to wonder now myself how I could ever have worn it,’ said Belinda. ‘Perhaps it is hardly surprising that Bishop Grote does not think me fair to outward view, though I think I was wearing my blue marocain that evening at the vicarage, and I always think I look quite nice in that.’

‘Oh, was it Theo who called just now?’ asked Harriet. ‘What did he want?’

‘He wanted me to be his wife,’ said Belinda, enjoying the dramatic simplicity of her announcement.

‘
No!
’ Harriet’s surprise was a little uncomplimentary, but her joy and relief at having her sister spared to her more than made up for it. ‘What a pity you and Agatha can’t change, though,’ she lamented. ‘But of course he can’t really care for her very much or he wouldn’t have asked you, would he?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Belinda, who was beginning to think that she did not understand anything any more. ‘Anyway I don’t suppose Agatha really cares for him. I ought not to have told you what she said.’ She felt that she could not tell even Harriet about the socks and was glad when she left the subject and came out with a piece of news of her own. Mrs Ramage, in the intervals of bargaining, had told her that she had heard that Mr Donne had been offered a ‘post’ at his old University – chaplain in the college or something like that.

‘How suitable,’ said Belinda, ‘but of course it will mean him leaving here, won’t it?’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Harriet casually. ‘But don’t you see, we shall get a new curate? The Archdeacon will never be able to manage by himself.’

‘No, of course not,’ agreed Belinda fervently, ‘he couldn’t possibly manage by himself. He will certainly have to get a new curate.’

‘This is really a place for a young man,’ said Harriet.

‘Well, I don’t know. A young man might want more scope, a more active parish with young people. Something in the East End of London, perhaps,’ Belinda suggested. ‘I should think this curacy might very well suit an older man.’

‘Oh, I can’t imagine that,’ said Harriet in disgust. ‘And anyway, curates are nearly always young.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Belinda, feeling that she ought to help her sister to face up to the problem from every possible angle. ‘Sometimes a man in middle life suddenly feels called upon to take Holy Orders. I always feel it must be so awkward and upsetting for his family.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Harriet’s face clouded. ‘I do hope it won’t be anyone like that.’

‘I’m not saying it will be, but it
could
be,’ said Belinda. ‘I think the Archdeacon would prefer a young man, though.’

‘Yes, working with the Archdeacon must be a great experience,’ said Harriet obscurely. ‘A young man of good family, just ordained, that’s what we really want. Do you suppose the Archdeacon will advertise in the
Church Times
?’

‘He could hardly advertise for somebody of good family,’ said Belinda smiling.

‘They sometimes say “genuine Catholic” or “prayer-book Catholic”,’ mused Harriet, ‘but of course we should hardly want that here.’

‘Oh, Harriet,
look!
’ Belinda held up the sheet of ravioli she had been rolling.

‘But, Belinda, it’s just like a piece of leather. I’m sure that can’t be right,’ protested Harriet.

‘It is,’ said Belinda joyfully, ‘it’s even finer than the finest chamois leather.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The next few weeks were entirely taken up with preparations for the curate’s wedding. It may be said without exaggeration that it was the only topic of conversation in the village at this time, and many a church worker’s dingy life had been brightened by the silver and white invitation card, which was prominently displayed on many mantelpieces. The marriage of their dear Mr Donne was something in which all could share, for had he not at some time or another been to meals at all their houses? Many were the chickens which had been stuffed and roasted or boiled and smothered in white sauce in his honour.

One afternoon, a few days before the wedding, there was a gathering at the parish hall, the object of which was to make a presentation to Mr Donne and his fiancée. Miss Berridge was to stay at the vicarage and be married from there, as her parents were dead and Mrs Hoccleve, perhaps because of her niece’s substantial contribution to Middle English studies, had always been particularly fond of her.

There was great excitement in the hall for nobody had yet seen Miss Berridge, though Edith Liversidge had caught a glimpse of her coming from the station the previous evening. As it had been a very dark night she had not been able to give a satisfactory description, except to say that she had been wearing a fur coat, a dark, rather bushy fur, musquash, she thought, and that she was very tall, perhaps taller than Mr Donne, who was only of middle height for a man.

‘Taller than he is,’ said Harriet in a disgusted tone, as they sat waiting for the proceedings to begin. ‘What a pity! I always think it looks so bad.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Belinda, ‘but of course it can’t be helped. I mean, there are other things more important.’

‘Tall women always droop,’ said Edith sharply. ‘I’m always telling Connie to hold herself up. It never had any effect until Bishop Grote said something about liking tall women – she’s been better since then.’

‘Did he say that?’ asked Belinda, interested. ‘I didn’t think he really minded what people looked like – or expected much from people of our age, anyway.’

‘Bishops ought not to mind or expect,’ said Edith, ‘but I suppose they’re human. Besides, don’t forget all those native women …’ she paused darkly. ‘He was describing their costume or lack of it when he came to tea with us the other day. Poor Connie was quite embarrassed.’

‘Well, he’s gone now,’ said Belinda comfortably, ‘and he’ll probably be quite glad to be back among those dear, good fellows.’

‘Agatha was sorry to see him go,’ said Harriet. ‘That was obvious.
Ah, quotiens illum doluit properare Calypso
– Ah, how many times did Calypso grieve at his hastening.’

‘Connie was sorry too,’ said Edith. ‘If it hadn’t been that she was due for her annual visit to Belgrave Square she would have been very low.’

‘I do hope she will be back in time for Mr Donne’s presentation,’ said Harriet, ‘she wouldn’t want to miss his speech, I’m sure.’

‘Her train is due in at a quarter to three, so I suppose she should be here for most of it – in at the death, you know.’

‘Poor Mr Donne,’ sighed Harriet, ‘one almost feels that it
is
a death.’

At this moment there was a stir among the rows of waiting women, and the door on to the platform opened. Agatha Hoccleve, in a black tailored costume of good cut, came in, followed by a tall, pleasant-looking woman in the early or middle thirties, in a blue tweed costume of rather less good cut. She had a pale, rather long face and wore spectacles. Her hair was neatly arranged at the back of her head, though this was rather difficult to see as her navy felt hat was pulled down at a sensible angle.

Long, English gentlewoman’s feet, thought Belinda noticing her shoes and good, heavy silk stockings.

Miss Berridge was followed by Mr Donne, looking rather sheepish, Father Plowman, whose parish had wished to join in the presentation, and, finally, the Archdeacon, smiling sardonically and bearing in his arms a large square object shrouded in a cloth which he placed on a small table at one side of the platform.

‘She
is
taller than he is,’ whispered Harriet, ‘and she looks much older. What a pity! She’s rather plain, too, isn’t she? Why doesn’t she use lipstick?’

‘Ladies and Gentlemen …’ Agatha Hoccleve’s clear voice rang out. She was a confident public speaker and this afternoon’s audience of parish women with a few churchwardens and choirmen held no terrors for her. ‘It gives me great pleasure to introduce my niece, Miss Berridge, soon to be Mrs Donne, to you all. I only wish she were going to stay longer with us, but we must not – I am sure we do not – grudge her to Mr Donne and I am equally sure that he’ – she gave a sideways glance to where the curate was sitting looking down at his shoes – ‘will not grudge
us
the opportunity of getting to know her while she is here. Of course
I
know her already,’ she added with a little laugh, and sat down amid the mild clapping which followed.

By this time the Archdeacon had got up and moved over to the side of the platform where the shrouded object stood and seemed about to uncover it, but he was prevented by an agitated gesture from Father Plowman. The situation was saved by Agatha stepping forward and saying in a loud voice, ‘Before the Archdeacon makes the presentation, I think Mr Plowman has something to say.

‘
Father
Plowman,’ giggled Harriet.

‘Yes, indeed I have,’ said that clergyman with a grateful glance at Agatha and a rather baleful one at the Archdeacon. ‘My parishioners and I felt that we could not let this opportunity pass without adding our good wishes and our widow’s mite, as it were, towards this gift. I think we shall not soon forget Father Donne’s gifts to
us
. I mean,’ he added, sensing a faint bewilderment among his hearers, ‘his Sunday evening sermons. I can see him now, walking across the fields in the evening sunshine, his cassock and surplice over his arm …’ Mr Donne himself now looked a little startled as Father Plowman’s church was some seven or eight miles away and he had always gone over on his bicycle … ‘pausing perhaps to drink in the beauty of our old church seen in that gracious evening light, pondering his message to us that evening, the
gift
he was bringing us.’ Father Plowman paused, a little overcome by his eloquence. ‘May he, with the help of Miss Berridge, go on from strength to strength, as I am sure he will.
From glory to glory advancing, we praise Thee, O Lord
.’ He bowed his head. ‘And now a prayer,
Prevent us O Lord in all our doings
…’

The obvious prayer, of course, thought Belinda, who had noted with anxiety the expression of irritation on the Archdeacon’s face. Perhaps Father Plowman ought not to have said a prayer at all – it should have been left to the last speaker – the Archdeacon – who was now advancing once more towards the shrouded object.

As if in deliberate contrast, he adopted a more ominous tone, and dwelt, not so much on the parish’s loss, though he did mention that Mr Donne’s going would mean a great deal of extra work for
him
, as on the difficulties that Mr Donne might be expected to encounter in his new life. ‘The University is a stony and barren soil,’ he declared in a warning tone, ‘one might almost say that the labourers are too many for the scanty harvest that is to be reaped there. The undergraduates are as in Anthony à Wood’s day, much given over to drinking and gaming and vain brutish pleasures.’ He looked as if he were warming to his subject, and Belinda began to fear that he might quote other and more unsuitable passages from that crabbed antiquary, but after a short pause he left the subject and went on. ‘It is to be hoped that Mr Donne may succeed where others have failed. Indeed, with the help of Miss Berridge’ – he gave her a most charming smile – one feels that he may. I am certain too that with her considerable linguistic gift, she will be a great help to him if ever he feels called upon to labour in the Mission Field.’

There was a visible stir in the audience at these words and some indignant whispering.

From Greenland’s icy mountains

From India’s coral strand
…

‘It is not so very long since we were singing Bishop Heber’s fine hymn in
our
fine old church.’ The Archdeacon paused as if to let the significance of his words sink in and then began to fumble with the cloth which shrouded the square object.

‘Isn’t it the table cloth out of the morning-room at the vicarage?’ whispered Harriet. ‘How unsuitable!’

We take no note of time but from its loss.

To give it then a tongue is wise in man
…

The Archdeacon paused – ‘Edward Young, the eighteenth-century poet and divine wrote those words nearly two hundred years ago. Not a
great
poet, you may say, no, one would hardly call him that, but I think his words are still true today. That is why we are giving this chiming clock to Mr Donne and Miss Berridge as a wedding present.’ He flung aside the cloth with a dramatic gesture that Belinda thought very fine, if a little too theatrical for the occasion. ‘May it do something to ease the burdens they will be called upon to bear in their new life.’

‘I should think Mr Donne’s burdens will be infinitely lighter in his new life than they have been here,’ murmured Edith, ‘but I suppose the Archdeacon cannot bear to think of anybody without some kind of burden.’

‘Well, we know that life is never without them,’ said Belinda loyally. ‘It is perhaps just as well to remember that. And even if we appear to have none we really
ought
to have …’ her voice trailed off obscurely, for Miss Berridge had come forward and was making a speech of thanks. Her voice was clear and ringing, as if she were used to giving lectures or addressing meetings. What an excellent clergyman’s wife she would make with this splendid gift!

‘Edgar and I are simply delighted …’ there was comfort in the words, as if she were protecting Mr Donne in a sensible tweed coat or even woollen underwear. It was obvious that she would take care of him, not letting him cast a clout too soon. She would probably help with his sermons too, and embellish them with quotations rarer than her husband, with his Third Class in Theology, could be expected to know. A helpmeet indeed.

‘Rather
toothy
when she smiles, isn’t she,’ whispered Harriet. ‘I wonder what
he
will say.’

Mr Donne’s speech was very short. ‘Olivia has said exactly what I would have said,’ he began. Here again the use of Christian names gave a cosy, intimate feeling. Agatha and Father Plowman were smiling and even the Archdeacon was looking benevolent.

Mr Donne concluded on a serious note. ‘I think we shall both remember what the Archdeacon has said about the burdens we may have to bear in our new life. I hope we may not be found wanting at the testing time. And now, let us pray…’

Belinda wondered whether he would be able to think of another suitable prayer when Father Plowman had rather unfairly used the obvious one already. But she had to admit that his choice was an admirable one.
Lord, we pray Thee that Thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works
… She bowed her head and could see out of the corner of her eye Miss Prior and Miss Jenner, creeping in through a side door carrying a tea-urn. When they realized that a prayer was being said, they stood stiffly with the urn, like children playing a game of ‘statues’.

The prayer ended, and after a decent pause Miss Berridge and Mr Donne – or Olivia and Edgar as they had now become in the minds of their hearers – came down from the platform and moved among the audience, shaking hands and chatting.

Belinda found herself talking to Miss Berridge and offering her a cake from a plate which seemed to have got into her hand. She felt a glow of warm friendliness towards her, perhaps because of her rather plain, good-humoured face, her sensible felt hat, her not particularly well-cut tweed suit and her low-heeled shoes. Nothing from the ‘best houses’ here – all was as it should be in a clergyman’s wife.

‘Where will you live?’ Belinda asked. ‘I suppose suitable accommodation is provided for married chaplains even in a place that is in other ways as old-fashioned as our University.’

‘Oh, we’ve already taken a very nice house, rather Gothic in style, but I think it will be comfortable and it has a large garden,’ said Olivia. ‘And Edgar will have rooms in college as well, of course. I hope you and your sister will come and see us when we are settled in. Edgar tells me you have been so good to him.’

Belinda managed to stop herself saying, ‘Oh, it was really Harriet, my sister, she dotes on curates,’ and asked instead whether it was decided who should come in place of Mr Donne. ‘Will he be a young man or an older one who needs the quiet and country air of a little place like this?’ she asked.

‘Both, in a way,’ said Olivia. ‘He
is
young, but he has recently been ill – I think you’ll like him very much. I believe he’s a Balliol man and he’s certainly very handsome, dark and rather Italian-looking, really. Edgar looks quite plain beside him.’ She laughed affectionately. ‘Anyway, you’ll see him at our wedding.’

‘How splendid! My sister will be delighted,’ said Belinda with unguarded enthusiasm. ‘She has such a respect for Balliol men,’ she added hastily.

‘Yes, it still maintains its great tradition of scholarship,’ agreed Olivia. ‘I had an idea that Archdeacon Hoccleve was a Balliol man.’

‘No, he isn’t, as a matter of fact,’ said Belinda, ‘but he is a very fine preacher. His knowledge of English literature is quite remarkable for a clergyman.’

‘His sermons are full of quotations,’ said Harriet bluntly. ‘I consider Mr Donne a
much
better preacher.’

‘I think that English Literature and Theology can be very happily combined,’ said Olivia gracefully. ‘I daresay I shall find myself encouraging Edgar to write more literary sermons.’