The Bad Samaritan (6 page)

“Hello Stephen,” Rosemary said.

“Here they all are,” said Paul, coming through and handing over a small pile of heavy books. “I couldn't be happier about handing them over. You'll make a much better job of it than I could ever do.”

“Nonsense, you've done a wonderful job,” said Stephen Mills, hardly bothering to put conviction in his voice. “Now, I'll make myself scarce. You two will have a lot to talk about, and I'll only be intruding if I stay for coffee.”

Which you have not been offered, Rosemary thought, and your mentioning it is your way of drawing attention to the omission. When Paul came in from showing him out she said:

“The church mouse handing over to the church rat.”

“The Rotary Club has nothing to do with the Church,” said Paul pedantically. “I will admit that Stephen would not have been my first choice as treasurer, but h—”

“But he offered. Of course he did.”

“Don't make too much of it. I don't think for a moment he'll do anything improper.”

“Nor do I. Too many shrewd financial brains among the Rotarians. But he'll milk the job for all it's worth as far as contacts and mutual favours are concerned.”

“True. But enough of Dark Satanic.”

“More than.”

“Is it good to be home? Would you like a nightcap?”

“It's lovely! Do you mean an alcoholic one?” Paul nodded. “Is there any red wine open?”

“There is. I cooked for myself last night and compensated for the awfulness of it with a glass or two.” He went to the kitchen
and came back with a half-full bottle. As he was pouring her a glass he said casually, “Situation still as it was?”

“Oh yes. I don't think there's much point in talking about that, Paul, if you don't mind. It is as it is, and if it changes it does, but it won't be through anything we've done . . . . I met Selena Meadowes on the train from York.”

“Brightly sparkling as ever?”

“At least.”

“Did she say something that worried you?”

“Isn't marriage dreadful?” said Rosemary, sipping her wine. “Each partner is the nearest thing to a thought policeman there is . . . . Not worried, exactly, but she did make me think. Apparently Florrie Harridance is spreading it around that since I'm now an unbeliever I shouldn't play any part in parish affairs or any of the groups and activities.”

“I'm sure Selena has got it wrong.”

“I don't think so.”

“Florrie's a very silly woman if she's saying that kind of thing. People don't take kindly to witch hunts these days.”

Rosemary thought that over seriously.

“
Most
people . . . . And actually I'm not even sure that that is true. Witch hunts are what the tabloid press is based on.”

“St Saviour's isn't a tabloid parish.”

“Don't you believe it! The
Sunday Times
delivered, and the
People
bought surreptitiously while walking the dog. Anyway, the
Sunday Times
is just a tabloid for the upper-middle classes.”

“Would it worry you, taking a back seat?”

“I think what she wants is to push me out of the car. No, not at all. Or not much. I'd been thinking anyway about what I might do, and I was coming to the conclusion that the Open University was made for people like me, whose children have left home. But something in me really dislikes being pushed.”

“Good for you.”

“And I don't like the thought of the spirit of Florrie Harridance taking over the parish either.”

“Don't make a bogey-woman of her, Rosemary.”

“I don't need to. She's done that herself.”

Paul swerved from the subject.

“So you'll fight. I think that's excellent. You'll try and stay on as vice-chair of the Mothers' Union.”

“It's not just offices like that. I'm not mad about the Mothers' Union. They always remind me of a line in a song we used to sing at school: ‘They laugh, and are glad, and are
terrible
.' But I am going to resist her, generally. I am going to try to get across what a mean, restrictive, vengeful sort of attitude hers is. Not to say self-promotional.”

“Good for you.”

“I'm not sure
how
I'm going to fight her. It will be difficult to oppose her without saying precisely what I think of her, which would make things difficult for you.”

“Turning the other cheek is excellent advice, you know.”

Rosemary smiled at him. He didn't give up.

“You'd have to say that,” she said.

“No, I mean it. If you prefer to put it in worldly terms, it's a wonderful
ploy
. It puts the other person so wonderfully in the wrong and gets sympathy immediately on to your side.”

“How Machiavellian of you, Paul. I've never thought of you as that before. You may be right, but turning the other cheek is not something Christians often do, is it? I've never seen such a bellicose lot, in general, or such dirty fighters.”

“It's not unusual, is it, for people not to live up to their religion? It happens in all of the faiths. Christians haven't realised yet that returning good for evil, as well as being right, is an extremely clever move. If you stay meek and mild while Florrie
Harridance gets more and more dogmatic and extreme, you'll soon have everyone on your side.”

“It's a thought,” said Rosemary. “I'll consider it.”

But she didn't tell Paul that, if turning the other cheek was to be her strategy, she had made a very bad start on the train that day.

R
osemary had always seen it as her job as vicar's wife to provide a practical backup to her husband's ministry. Paul went round to see the sick and the dying, providing them with spiritual comfort and a shoulder to cry on. Rosemary dropped in on the same people to make sure they had home helps, meals on wheels and plenty of reading matter. The young mothers mostly ran their own groups in the church hall or the vestry, but Rosemary went along to them now and then and was always in the background willing to give advice when problems arose. They seldom did, because the young mothers were too busy for the rumour-mongering and backbiting that the older members of the congregation went in for. Thus, her role was practical, and she tried to avoid involvement with any of the parish groups or diocesan bodies. Those were the sorts of activity she found boring and shouldered with reluctance.

Nevertheless she was vice-chair of the local Mothers' Union branch, and she was on the various committees that arranged such parish events as the harvest festival, fetes and bring-and-buy sales. They were positions she would have relinquished very
readily if it had not been Florrie Harridance who was trying to shoulder her off. She kept in the forefront of her mind a mental picture of Florrie, with her bustle, her bulk and her endless steam-kettle monologue, as she went about her business as Paul's pastoral adjunct.

She called next morning on Violet Gumbold, a Mothers' Union stalwart, though her children, like Rosemary's, were grown up and had moved away. Mrs Gumbold had broken her leg on the day Rosemary went to Scarborough, and as her husband was a commercial traveller and away much of the time, she needed all the help from the parish that she could get.

Rosemary took away a list of shopping basics Violet needed and three library books to change, repressing the feeling that Stephen King and Robert B. Parker were not the sickbed reading she would have chosen. When she came back Violet Gumbold had hobbled round to make tea and biscuits. Together they sat down comfortably over them.

“Did you enjoy Scarborough?” Rosemary was asked.

“Yes, I did. Lots of fresh, clean air and good walks.”

“They say you're going through a sort of . . . crisis.”

“You could say that. Do you mind if we don't talk about it, Violet? I seem to have done nothing but talk it over with Paul and others in the family.”

“I'm sorry, Rosemary. I should have thought. Will this make any . . . any difference?”

“I really don't know. If people want me to
withdraw
, then there are plenty of things I could do.”

“Oh no, Rosemary, nobody wants
that
.” Rosemary waited for her to say what they did want, and Violet began to flounder and go rather red. “You do the parish work so wonderfully well we couldn't possibly manage without you. We'd all be at sea . . . . Mrs Harridance came round the other day.”

“That was nice of her, to come and help,” said Rosemary, meekly and maliciously.

“She didn't actually h—. Well, but while she was here she said she thought, since you had lost your faith, maybe you shouldn't stay on as vice-chair in the Mothers' Union, and the way she put it it did seem . . .”

Mrs Gumbold's attitude appeared to be akin to saying it was all right for her to muck out the stables so long as she didn't try to ride the horses. She was not the strongest brain in the parish, though Rosemary had always found her well-meaning. She just said, “I'll leave that entirely up to the members. I wouldn't dream of staying on if that wasn't what they wanted.”

Mrs Gumbold looked relieved, as if she had in some way done her duty, or done what she had been told.

“Oh well—that's all right then. I'm sure . . . Mrs Harridance was talking about the chairmanship as well.”

“Of the Mothers' Union? Yes, she rang me about that.”

“I believe Mrs Munson is adamant that this time she
will
go.”

“She's done a wonderful job over the years. I'm sure everyone will understand.”

“And if it goes by hard work then Mrs Harridance has worked like a Trojan too, and you could say . . .”

She faded into silence and looked at Rosemary. Once again Rosemary had the sense that she had said what she had been told to say. She also had the feeling that Violet Gumbold didn't actually like Mrs Harridance any more than she did.

“We're so lucky in the Mothers' Union, aren't we?” Rosemary said brightly, feeling herself an awful hypocrite. “There's so many who are willing to work hard for us. There's Mrs Macauley, and there's Mrs Bannerman, who can never do enough, and—”

“Oh, do you think Mrs Bannerman could be the chairwoman of the Mothers' Union? That would be nice—she's such a pleasant
person, and very efficient.” Mrs Gumbold frowned, uncertainly. “But she's not an educated woman.”

“I don't see what that's got to do with it,” Rosemary said briskly. “What we need is someone hard-working and capable, and she certainly is that. So is Mrs Harridance, of
course
, but she's hardly an educated person either.”

“No . . . . Do have another biscuit, Rosemary.”

That conversation was the first of several Rosemary was to have over the next few days. She never brought up the subject of her loss of faith or her position in the parish, but when it came up she always expressed herself quite happy to abide by the views of the majority. She suspected that her apparent determination not to put up a fight meant that many resolved to put up a fight for her. She became quite certain Mrs Harridance wanted her off the committee because she knew her opinion of her. She accordingly never wavered from her expressed belief that Mrs Harridance would make an
excellent
chairwoman, and that they were lucky to have so many hard workers who would all do a splendid job if they were to think of putting up for the chairwoman's position.

“I do think a real election is often a good idea,” said Mrs Munson, the retiring chair. “Rather than its just going to someone by default.”

“It does clear the air,” Rosemary agreed.

Such conversations were always conducted with the utmost meekness (which was a bit of a strain). They did seem to Rosemary after a time to be bearing fruit. Her antennae were keenly attuned to the niceties of parish opinion, she having been among these people for the last twelve years, and when she saw people talking together in muted tones she could tell from their stance and the way they looked at her whether they were on her side or against her. She rather thought that by and large they were on her side. It occurred to her that Mrs Harridance, for all her appearance
of steamrolling forward and never hearing a word anyone else said, also had antennae that were at least sensitive enough to get the same message. If they were, she suspected that she might be getting a social call from her.

It came when she had been home a little more than a week. She saw Florrie approaching from the direction of the park, her ample figure wrapped in a bright blue coat, with a large, flowery hat covering her tight curls. Her somewhat protuberant eyes had the glint of purpose in them, but then they always did. Florrie had something of the purposive air of an outsize rodent.

Rosemary did not rush down to let her in, but waited till she heard the doorbell, then walked down to her visitor in a leisurely fashion.

“Rosemary, you do look well.”

“Thank you, Florrie.”

“People have been saying you did, but we don't run into each other like we used to, with you not coming to church.”

“No, we don't,” said Rosemary neutrally.

“It's a pity, that. Means you're bound to be a bit out of touch.”

She had taken off her hat and come through to the living room, where she sat down determinedly on the sofa. Rosemary did not offer her coffee or tea because Florrie always refused them (they interfered with her monologues). Rosemary sat opposite her in the big armchair, wondering which cheek was the other one that she ought to turn.

“Because naturally we've all been thinking about you and your position, Rosemary—in a Christian spirit, of course . . .” She stared at Rosemary, as if daring her to object, or to laugh. “Because of course we all hope you'll be back with us
fully
before long, I mean in
spirit
as well, but really what we do feel is that the Mothers' Union is a
church
group, a
Christian
group. So we understand your still wanting to be part of it, but on the other hand . . .”