Some Tame Gazelle (9 page)

Emily went out of the room with a sulky expression on her face, and was heard to bang the tray rather heavily on the table in the passage.

‘She only wants to go and gossip with the vicarage Florrie,’ said Harriet, triumphant at having frustrated her. ‘And we can’t have that, can we?’ she said turning to Belinda for support.

But Belinda was not listening. She was wondering what they would have talked about if she
had
gone to tea, or rather what Henry would have talked about. It had started to rain outside, and the soft patter of the rain in the leaves, combined with the rapidly falling darkness, made her feel pleasantly melancholy. She wondered if Henry were looking at the twilight, missing Agatha, she thought dutifully, or even regretting that she had not stayed to tea. It
would
have been nice to go … Belinda put down her knitting and sat dreaming. Of course there was a certain pleasure in not doing something; it was impossible that one’s high expectations should be disappointed by the reality. To Belinda’s imaginative but contented mind this seemed a happy state, with no emptiness or bitterness about it. She was fortunate in needing very little to make her happy.

She was still sitting idly with her knitting in her lap, when the front door-bell rang, and Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall were shown into the room.

‘We were just passing and thought we’d drop in,’ Edith explained.

They stood in the doorway, a tall drooping figure and a short stout one, both wearing mackintoshes, and that wet-weather headgear so unbecoming to middle-aged ladies and so incongruously known as a ‘pixie hood’.

‘Do take off your wet things,’ said Belinda rousing herself.

‘You had better stay to supper,’ said Harriet rather too bluntly. ‘It won’t be very much but we shall be having it soon.’

Why yes, it will be a good chance to repay the baked beans, thought Belinda. She wondered whether they ought perhaps to open a tin of tongue and get Emily to make a potato salad. Or would a macaroni cheese be better? With some bottled fruit and coffee to follow that should really be enough.

‘I think I’ll just go and tell Emily about supper,’ she said.

‘Oh, please don’t trouble to make any difference for us,’ said Connie. ‘Bread and cheese or whatever you’re having will do for us, won’t it, Edith?’

Edith gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Well, I must say that I should like to feel an effort was being made, even if only a small one,’ she said in a jocular tone. ‘I think we all like to feel that.’

‘But we only came to see you,’ said Connie. Her eyes brightened a little and she said in a low voice, ‘We think we have a piece of news.’

‘News? What kind of news?’ asked Harriet rather sharply.

‘We have heard that Mr Donne is engaged,’ said Edith, in a loud triumphant tone.

‘To a niece of Mrs Hoccleve’s, a Miss Berry,’ chimed in Connie.

‘Miss Berridge, I think, if it’s the niece who’s doing research,’ said Belinda, looking rather fearfully at her sister.

‘Oh, I don’t think that can be true,’ declared Harriet indignantly. ‘She has made him a pair of socks, but I don’t think there is anything more than that between them.’

‘Miss Prior told us,’ persisted Edith, ‘and she is usually very accurate. She has been a good deal at the vicarage lately, getting Mrs Hoccleve’s clothes ready to go away. She may very well have heard something.’

‘But Miss Berridge is some years older than Mr Donne,’ said Harriet, equally persistent. ‘It would be a most unsuitable marriage. Besides,’ she added, her tone taking on a note of disgust, ‘she’s doing some research or something like that, isn’t she, Belinda.’

‘Yes, on some doubtful reading in
The Owl and the Nightingale
. It doesn’t seem a very good training for a wife,’ said Belinda uncertainly, thinking of Agatha and her inability to darn. ‘Still, if she has knitted him a pair of socks perhaps she is not entirely lacking in the feminine arts.’

Edith gave a snort. ‘I believe some of these old poems are very
coarse
, so she may not be such a bluestocking as we think.’

There was a short silence during which the front-door bell rang again and Mr Donne was shown into the room carrying a bundle of parish magazines.

‘Miss Jenner couldn’t manage to deliver them this month,’ he explained, ‘so I am doing it.’

‘Just the person we wanted to see,’ said Harriet. ‘Now,
you
can surely tell us. Is it true that you are engaged to be married?’ The words rang out as a challenge.

‘I – engaged?’ Mr Donne made a kind of bleating noise and a movement with his arms which scattered the parish magazines all over the floor. ‘It’s certainly the first I’ve heard of it,’ he went on, recovering something of his usual manner. ‘Who is the fortunate lady?’

‘Miss Berridge,’ said Edith Liversidge firmly.

‘Miss Berridge?’ he echoed in a puzzled tone. ‘Well, of course, she’s a very good sort, and I like her very much …’ he hesitated, perhaps feeling that he was being ungallant.

‘But you think of her more as an elder sister, I expect,’ prompted Harriet with determination.

‘Well, yes, I suppose I do,’ he agreed gratefully. ‘Anyway she’s much too clever to look at anyone like me.’

‘Is she beautiful?’ persisted Edith.

‘Well, not exactly
beautiful
,’ he said, looking embarrassed, ‘but very nice and so kind.’

Ah, had she been more beauteous and less kind,

She might have found me of another mind.

thought Belinda, but decided it might be better not to quote the lines.

‘Well, that’s that,’ said Harriet. ‘There is no truth in the rumour. Isn’t it amazing how people will gossip?’

‘I never thought there was,’ said Connie to Belinda. ‘I think Mr Donne will marry some pretty
young
thing.’ She sighed and her eyes bulged sentimentally.

‘I may not get married at all,’ said Mr Donne almost defiantly. ‘Many clergymen do not.’

‘No, a single curate is in many ways more suitable,’ said Belinda thoughtfully. ‘More in the tradition, if you see what I mean. And then of course there’s the celibacy of the clergy isn’t there?’ she added quickly.

‘Is there?’ said Edith scornfully. ‘I thought St Paul said it was better to marry than burn.’

‘Well, it is hardly a question of that,’ said Belinda in a confused way. ‘I mean, of burning. One would hardly expect it to be.’ She felt rather annoyed with Edith, who must surely know less than anybody about what St Paul had said, for introducing this unsuitable aspect of the question.

Fortunately, Harriet, who had disappeared from the room while she was speaking, now came back with the news that supper was ready.

‘You will stay, won’t you, Mr Donne?’ she asked, turning to him with a beaming smile. ‘I’m afraid it won’t be much of a meal …’ she waved her hands deprecatingly.

Edith Liversidge moved into the dining-room with a confident step. They would all benefit from Mr Donne’s presence, she knew, and noted with sardonic approval that there was a large bowl of fruit salad on the table and a jug of cream as well as a choice of cold meats.

Oh dear, thought Belinda, recognizing tomorrow’s luncheon, surely the tin of tongue would have been enough?

‘Let’s all have a glass of sherry,’ said Harriet, going over to the sideboard, where a decanter and glasses had been set out on a tray. ‘After all, we
might
have been going to drink to Mr Donne’s engagement.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘I suppose they really
have
come,’ said Harriet doubtfully. ‘Emily is usually quite accurate in her information and she had this from the vicarage Florrie, who ought to know if anyone does. She told her that two gentlemen had arrived to stay at the vicarage last night, but of course we have no proof that it is Dr Parnell and Mr Mold. It might be two clergymen coming to see the Archdeacon about something.’

‘Yes, I suppose it might be,’ said Belinda, ‘but somehow clergymen
don’t
come to see him about things, do they? I don’t know why.’

‘They came by night,’ declared Harriet, ‘like Nicodemus. Isn’t Mr Mold called Nicodemus?’

‘Oh,
no
, Harriet, his name is Nathaniel.’

‘Nathaniel Mold,’ said Harriet, trying it. ‘Nat Mold. I think that sounds rather common, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, we shall just call him Mr Mold,’ said Belinda, ‘so I don’t think we need worry. I believe Nicholas always calls him Nathaniel. He hates abbreviations.’ She got up from the table and went to the window. ‘It seems quite a nice morning after all that heavy rain,’ she said. ‘I think I shall go out into the village a little later on. I expect Nicholas will be taking a stroll and I am so looking forward to seeing him. Perhaps we shall meet.’

‘I won’t come with you,’ said Harriet nobly. ‘After all, he is really your friend, not mine, and I expect you will have a lot to talk about.’ Privately, Harriet thought him rather a boring little man, but she hoped for great things from Mr Mold, who was reputed to be something of a ‘one for the ladies’. This piece of information had also been gleaned from the vicarage Florrie, but Harriet had thought it wiser not to tell her sister. She wondered how Florrie, a plain, lumpish girl, had managed to find it out in so short a time.

Belinda was fortunate enough to come face to face with Dr Parnell before she had gone very far, and as they were just outside the Old Refectory, a tea shop run by gentlewomen, it seemed a good idea to go inside and have a cup of coffee. Dear Nicholas looked rather cold and peevish, she thought, wondering if he had had an adequate breakfast at the vicarage.

‘I don’t suppose you are really in need of anything,’ she said, as they sat down, ‘but morning coffee is a pleasant, idle habit, I always think.’

‘Good morning, Miss Bede.’ Mrs Wilton, a pleasant-faced woman with rather prominent teeth, and wearing a smock patterned with a herbaceous border, stood before them. She stared at Dr Parnell with frank interest and then at Belinda. Nicholas Parnell was small and bearded and did not somehow look the kind of person one would marry, Belinda realized. All the same, she felt proud of his distinction and could not resist introducing him to Mrs Wilton, who was, after all, a canon’s widow.

‘Oh, the
Library
,’ said Mrs Wilton in a reverent tone. ‘My husband used to read there when he was an undergraduate. I’ve heard so much about it.’

‘Of course we have central heating there now,’ said Dr Parnell. ‘There have been great improvements in the last ten years or so. We also have a Ladies’ Cloakroom in the main building now,’ he added, his voice rising to a clear, ringing tone. ‘That is a very great convenience.’ He chuckled into his beard as Mrs Wilton went away to fetch their coffee. ‘I do not approve of this hushed and reverent attitude towards our great Library. After all, it is a place for human beings, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ said Belinda doubtfully, for she was remembering some of the strange people who used to work there in her undergraduate days, many of whom could hardly have been called human beings if one were to judge by their looks.

‘These are excellent cakes,’ said Dr Parnell, eating heartily, ‘although I had such a late breakfast that I can hardly do them justice. I must say I was surprised that dear Henry was not up before me. I had quite expected that there would be a Daily Celebration. Now that I come to think of it, I distinctly remember seeing ‘D’ against the church in
Mowbray’s Guide
. I hope I shall not have to write and correct them.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Belinda, always anxious to defend the Archdeacon. ‘There is always a Daily Celebration but I expect Mr Donne – he’s the curate – would be taking it. Probably Henry thought it would be more courteous to breakfast with you on your first morning here.’

‘Ah, Belinda, I see you have not changed. We did not breakfast until half past nine, so your argument falls to pieces. I left poor Henry in the churchyard, as I came out just now. He said the tombs put him in mind of his own mortality.’

‘And did he quote Young’s
Night Thoughts
to you?’ asked Belinda, suddenly disloyal.

‘Indeed, he did. I left him because he was so tiresomely melancholy. And then he has been trying to make me subscribe to some fund for the church roof,’ said Dr Parnell.

… but perforated sore,

And drill’d in holes the solid oak is found

By worms voracious, eating through and through …

he quoted solemnly, so that Belinda could hardly help smiling, although she knew it was very naughty of her. As they walked out of the Old Refectory towards the church she tried to remember what it was that Father Plowman had told her about the death-watch beetle and its habits, as if to make amends for her lapse. But before she had got very far, they had reached the churchyard wall and Belinda could see that the Archdeacon was sitting in his favourite seat under the yew trees. She felt a faint irritation to see him sitting there in the middle of the morning when so many people, women mostly, were going about their household duties and shopping. She supposed that men would be working too, but somehow their work seemed less important and exhausting.

‘What is he doing in the churchyard, I wonder?’ she asked Dr Parnell, but she did not really expect him to be able to tell her. The Archdeacon’s affected eighteenth-century melancholy failed to charm her this morning.

‘I think he’s meditating on his sermon for Sunday morning,’ said Dr Parnell. ‘I understand that it is to be something rather out of the ordinary.’

When the Archdeacon saw them he smiled benevolently, but at the same time condescendingly. It was as if he were letting them see how fortunate they were to be able to stroll in the village on a fine October morning, while he was condemned to sit among the tombs thinking out his sermon.

‘Isn’t that seat rather
damp?
’ inquired Belinda sharply. ‘We had some very heavy rain during the night, and you know how easily you catch cold.’ She felt that as Agatha was so many miles away she was justified in adopting this almost wifely tone towards him.

He looked up irritably; Belinda had spoilt the romance of his environment. It was just the kind of remark that Agatha would make and, now that he came to think of it, he supposed the seat
was
rather damp. He felt a distinct chill striking up through his bones and began to wonder if he were perhaps catching cold. He would never have noticed it if Belinda had not put the idea into his head. He rose rather ungraciously and came towards them.

‘It seems impossible to find peace and quiet anywhere,’ he remarked. ‘I had settled down in my study after breakfast when the girl came in with the vacuum cleaner and drove me into the churchyard. Now I am interrupted again.’

Belinda smiled at this picture. ‘I’m sorry if we have disturbed you,’ she said. ‘I think we should really have walked past if you had not got up and come to us.’

‘That would have been most unfriendly,’ said the Archdeacon unreasonably. ‘Besides, it is not every day that we have visitors. We should really make some effort to entertain them.’

‘Belinda has been doing her best,’ said Dr Parnell. ‘She has given me an excellent cup of coffee and introduced me to a charming lady who showed great reverence when the Library was mentioned. It is really rather gratifying. I should be delighted to show her round,’ he added. ‘She would find every convenience. The next thing will be to have some kind of a restaurant where readers can take luncheon or tea together. Do you know,’ – he tapped his walking stick on the ground – ‘I have had to have notices printed requesting readers not to
eat
in the Library? One would hardly have thought it possible.’

During this time an idea had been taking shape in Belinda’s mind, and it was one which she knew her sister would approve. The talk about eating had made her think how nice it would be if they had a little supper party on Sunday evening. So, with unusual boldness, she issued the invitation, though she realized that her own rather timid way did not compare with Harriet’s careless joviality. ‘If you have no other engagement on Sunday evening,’ she began, ‘I was wondering if perhaps … I mean, would you care to come to supper at our house after Evensong? And Mr Mold too, of course.’

‘That would be delightful,’ said Dr Parnell. ‘One feels somehow that Sunday evening should be spent
away
from a vicarage if at all possible.’

‘Sunday is always a heavy day for me,’ said the Archdeacon ‘and this Sunday will be particularly so. I intend to preach myself both morning and evening. These people are so sunk in lethargy that they do not know their own wickedness.’

Belinda looked a little startled. ‘I know,’ she said inadequately. ‘I mean, one is.’ All the same it was uncomfortable to be reminded of one’s sinfulness in the middle of a bright morning.

‘Sloth and lethargy,’ said Dr Parnell, with relish. ‘But I take it you will accept Belinda’s invitation, I know Nathaniel will want to.’

‘I shall come if I possibly can,’ said the Archdeacon, passing his hand over his eyes with a gesture of weariness, ‘but it may be that I shall be completely exhausted by the evening.’

‘But you will need a meal,’ said Dr Parnell, ‘and I expect Belinda will want to know the numbers. It makes some difference with the catering, the arrangement of the table and that kind of thing.’

‘Ah, yes, I do not understand these mysteries,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I think you can take it that I shall come,’ he added, turning to Belinda with almost a smile.

‘You would hardly believe what I found Henry doing when we arrived last night,’ said Dr Parnell, in an easy, conversational tone.

Belinda, who was of a credulous nature, refrained from making a guess.

‘Playing Patience on the floor of his study,’ he went on. ‘A complicated variety called Double Emperor.’

‘Patience is a very intelligent relaxation,’ said Belinda, her usual loyalty coming to the rescue. ‘You don’t realize how hard Henry works. I mean,’ she added obscurely, ‘there are things to do in a country parish that people don’t know about unless they live in one. Your work in the Library has its fixed hours, but a clergyman is at everybody’s beck and call.’ Of course, she reflected sadly, people would never dare to trouble the Archdeacon with their worries; they would go hurrying along Jubilee Terrace to Mr Donne. Still, the smile that Henry gave her made her realize that being a little untruthful sometimes had its compensations.

The church clock struck half past twelve.

‘Ah, lunch-time,’ said the Archdeacon, and the party broke up to return to their respective houses.

When Belinda got home she found Harriet in a state of great excitement.

‘Oh, Belinda,’ she said, in a loud voice, ‘he really is
charming
.’

As Emily was at this moment bringing in the meat, Belinda waited until they were settled at the table before she made any further inquiries.

‘Harriet, I wish you
wouldn’t
talk in front of Emily,’ she began, but her own curiosity prevented her from saying any more. ‘Who’s charming?’ she asked.

‘Why, Mr Mold,’ declared Harriet with enthusiasm. ‘I saw him this morning.’ Should she tell Belinda that she had seen him coming out of the Crownwheel and Pinion? she wondered. Better not, perhaps, and yet it would spoil the story to leave out such a piece of information.

‘But, Harriet, how could you have seen him?’ asked Belinda rather impatiently. ‘I understood from Nicholas that he was tired and was spending the morning in bed.’

‘Well, he must have got up because I saw him in the street,’ said Harriet defiantly. She wished Belinda would not always behave quite so much like an elder sister. She decided that she would not tell her story in full. ‘I spoke to him,’ she declared.

Belinda was incredulous. ‘But, Harriet, you don’t
know
him,’ she said.

‘Oh, of course he didn’t realize who I was,’ she explained. ‘I met him coming out of the Crownwheel and Pinion, and he asked me the way to the Post Office; and as I happened to be going along to buy some stamps, we walked there together.’ She paused, triumphant.

Belinda put down her knife and fork in astonishment. The Crownwheel and Pinion in the morning! Surely Harriet had been mistaken? It sounded as if she had been ‘picked up’ by some commercial traveller. Most distasteful.

‘I don’t think it can have been Mr Mold,’ she declared, looking very worried. ‘After all, I’ve only met him once many years ago and you’ve never met him. I don’t think it can have been him,’ she repeated, with a puzzled frown on her face.

‘It
was
Mr Mold,’ said Harriet patiently. ‘He said he was a stranger here, and that he had arrived last night and was staying at the vicarage.’

‘Oh, well, if he said that …’ Belinda had to admit that it probably had been Mr Mold. But for a deputy librarian to go to the Crownwheel and Pinion in the morning … surely it was unthinkable! And yet perhaps it was not so surprising, when one came to consider it, for after all Mr Mold was not quite … He had started his career in the Library as a boy fetching books for readers, and although one didn’t want to be snobbish and his ability had undoubtedly brought him to a distinguished position, it was certainly true that lack of breeding showed itself. Belinda could not help wishing that it had not been Harriet who had seen Mr Mold. She would be sure to tell people and the whole situation was so embarrassing. She wondered if Nicholas knew, because really he was to blame for bringing such a man to the village.