A Glass of Blessings

by Barbara Pym

  Julian Malory was a dark, rather good looking man in his late forties. There was something about him that reminded me a little of our own Father Ransome, though perhaps it was nothing more subtle than the angle of his biretta. While he was preaching I found myself wondering whether he was married or not, until I remembered Miss Prideaux having said that he lived with his sister.

  The procession round the church with lighted candles reminded me of a scene from an Italian opera - Tosca, I suppose. There was something daring and Romish about the whole thing which added to one's enjoyment. It should have been followed, I felt, by a reception in some magnificent palazzo, where we would drink splendid Italian wines with names like Asti Spumante, Lachryma Christi and Soave di Verona. That it seemed to go equally well with the tea and sandwiches and cakes in the church hall was perhaps a tribute to the true catholicity of the Church of England.

  'So beautiful, all those candles,' said Miss Prideaux, as we found ourselves standing together in the crush waiting to get into the hall, 'but rather dangerous. I am always so afraid of fire, and Sir Denbigh's candle was burning dangerously low.'

  'Now, Augusta, that remark might be taken in more ways than one,' said Sir Denbigh, with his hollow, diplomat's laugh.

  'I do want to have a word with Father Malory,' said Miss Prideaux. 'I thought his sermon was splendid, so very much to the point. I suppose I could hardly tell him that in so many words.'

  'He would not mind if you implied that other clergy seldom do preach to the point,' said Sir Denbigh. 'He seems to be surrounded at the moment. I wonder if everybody is telling him that.'

  'I think clergymen always are surrounded at functions like these,' I said.

  'Yes,' Sir Denbigh agreed. 'It makes one wonder whether it would really be proper to admit women to Holy Orders. Is it likely that a woman would be surrounded by men at a parish gathering and would it be seemly if she were?'

  'I suppose one visualizes rather plain-looking middle-aged and elderly women taking Orders,' said Miss Prideaux.

  'Surrounded by men of the same type or perhaps not surrounded at all?' said Sir Denbigh. 'Yes, I see your point - perhaps it would be like that. What do you think, Miss Beamish?'

  'Oh, I don't think women should be admitted to Holy Orders,' said Mary. 'Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but it wouldn't seem right to me. Now, Sir Denbigh, I'm going to get you and Miss Prideaux some tea. You sit and wait here and Wilmet and I will bring it to you.'

  'I might have taken Orders,' said Sir Denbigh regretfully. 'One often hears of an elderly man retiring into the church - particularly an army man - but I don't think I should have been able to manage the singing.'

  Mary and I pushed our way as gently as we could through the crowds to the table where the refreshments were. Mrs Greenhill, looking quietly triumphant, was dispensing tea assisted by Mrs Spooner. Mr Bason stood near them, a scornful expression on his face.

  'He's imagining how much better he could have done it,' I whispered to Mary. I still felt a slight awkwardness on meeting him, but his jaunty wave to me indicated that he felt none himself which was all to the good. After all, it was he who had stolen the egg, not me.

  'A good thing Sir Denbigh likes it stewed,' he whispered to me, as I passed with a cup of tea in my hand, 'though it beats me why somebody who must have passed his life in the highest circles should have such taste.'

  After we had taken tea and cakes to Sir Denbigh and Miss Prideaux, I found myself standing next to Mr Coleman, whose smile was rather more embarrassed than Mr Bason's had been.

  'I just wanted to tell you that it was all right about the egg,' I said, lowering my voice. 'I daresay you heard? Mr Bason put it back where it belonged.'

  'I'm glad to hear it, Mrs Forsyth - that is a relief. I hope Father Thames will keep it locked up in future.'

  'I hope the Husky is well?' I asked, feeling rather foolish.

  'Yes, thank you, Mrs Forsyth.' His tone grew warmer. 'You'd hardly know where that scratch had been now. I didn't have to have the whole side resprayed after all. Eddie Fowler - he was thurifer tonight - works in a garage and he fixed it for me.'

  'I'm so glad,' I said. 'You must be tired after all your exertions in the Sanctuary this evening. Everything seemed to go very well. And such a lot of strangers here, too.'

  'Yes, this kind of service is very popular,' said Mr Coleman, rather in the manner of a salesman recommending some particular line of goods. 'I think some people come to see the procession; it's really something of a spectacle.'

  If only I had had the courage to ask Piers, and perhaps even Keith, to come this evening, I thought. They might have enjoyed it. And what a beautiful acolyte Keith would make! And yet his world was probably too far removed from that of the church to make it feasible. It was both exciting and frightening to think how many different worlds I knew - or perhaps 'had knowledge of' would be a more accurate way of putting it. I could not say that I really knew the worlds of Piers and Keith, or even of Mr Coleman and his Husky if it came to that. It seemed as if the Church should be the place where all worlds could meet, and looking around me I saw that in a sense this was so. If people remained outside it was our - even my - duty to try to bring them in.

  'Won't you have a sandwich before they all go?' A voice at my side interrupted my noble thoughts.

  It was Father Ransome.

  'I'm afraid our guests have taken the best of the food,' he said. 'I suppose we ought to feel gratified.'

  'They do seem to be tucking in,' I said, looking over to a corner where a stout woman in a grey uniform, presumably a sort of deaconess, sat crouched with two other ladies over a large plate of sandwiches. 'I suppose they feel less shy among strangers.'

  'Sister Blatt wouldn't be shy anywhere,' said Mary. 'She's a splendid person and such a great help to Father Malory, I believe.'

  'Is his parish a particularly difficult one?' I asked.

  'Not more than most,' said Father Ransome, a little jealously, I thought. There is a rowdy element; of course, as there must inevitably be wherever one tries to bring in the young people,' he added in a professional tone. 'Poor Edwin had a good deal of trouble with that sort of thing.'

  'That's your friend who became a Roman Catholic, isn't it?' asked Mary.

  'Yes. Poor Edwin, that was a great blow to me.'

  'What is he doing now?' I asked.

  'He's gone to Somerset for a holiday. He will take long walks over Exmoor and try to think out his future,' said Father Ransome seriously.

  I wondered, though luckily I did not ask, whether he would be taking out a packed lunch every day; for I had remembered Professor Root and his sister and her friend who had apparently been doing this for ten years.

  'That may bring him some peace and consolation,' said Mary. The country is so very lovely in that part of the world.'

  'It will be a change from London,' said Father Ransome tritely.

  'Where was he received?' Mary asked.

  'At Westminster Cathedral, which seems a little less sinister than Farm Street, don't you think?' said Father Ransome, recovering his usual manner. 'I met him afterwards and - oh dear, it was so difficult to decide what to do!' He wrung his hands as if reliving the embarrassment of the occasion. 'One couldn't very well suggest the pictures, and yet the idea of going back to the vicarage to pack up his things was somehow too depressing.'

  'What did you do?' I asked.

  'Well, in the end we went and had tea at some rather ghastly help-yourself place. We had egg and chips, I remember.'

  'It seems difficult to suggest a suitable meal for such an occasion,' I said.

  'Yes, life has to go on, and I suppose a cup of tea does make it seem to be doing that more than anything,' said Father Ransome.

  'Couldn't the Romans have welcomed him with a party, or at least some kind of refreshment?' I suggested.

  'They've been coming so thick and fast lately - the converts, I mean - I suppose they couldn't welcome each one individually.'

  He was i
nterrupted by a banging on the floor, and I saw that Father Thames had mounted the platform. He looked very distinguished in a caped cassock, the waist encircled by a wide band of moiré silk.

  'My friends,' he began, 'how very glad I am to see so many of you here this evening. As some of you know, I am shortly leaving for a holiday in Italy. There seems something a little unsuitable, does there not, about a clergyman going for a holiday in Italy in these difficult days? When we hear about such a thing perhaps we remember our Barchester Towers - the older ones among us, that is.' He seemed to be looking at Sir Denbigh Grote and Miss Prideaux as he said this, perhaps feeling that they alone were old enough to remember a century ago or literate enough to have read Trollope. 'We think of Canon Vesey Stanhope and his villa on the shores of Lake Como - or was it Maggiore? Not Garda, I think - I forget the details. As I was saying, we remember that, and it might be thought that there was a parallel there.' Father Thames paused for laughter, which came a little uncertainly, though one elderly choirman clapped his hands and guffawed perhaps too heartily for such a gathering. Father Thames held up his hand and went on, 'But, and this will surprise you, who can say that there might not be something in it after all?' His hearers were now mystified and awaited his next words with considerable interest. 'I am an old man,' he went on. 'Oh yes, you may protest and say that you have seen older priests carrying out their duties perfectly capably - indeed Father Fosdick, who has sometimes assisted us here at holiday times, is nearly ninety, and a great joy it has always been to have him with us - but I have passed my threescore years and ten, and it may be that the time has come for me to make way for a younger man. It may be.' He paused impressively, then went on in a more confidential tone, 'I was talking to the Bishop at luncheon the other day - he knows full well the rigours of this parish. Now you know, most of you, that I have friends - kind friends they are - near Siena whom I visit every year for rest and refreshment, to enable me to carry on, as it were. Well,' - there was another impressive pause – 'what do you think? A villa has fallen vacant there! Da affittare! A small villa with just four bedrooms and a delightful garden - the Villa Cenerentola. What a delightful name that is, and perhaps not altogether inappropriate.'

  Mary sighed and turned to me. 'What is he talking about?'

  'He plans to retire in the autumn,' whispered Father Ransome.

  'Cenerentola - Cinderella, isn't it,' said Miss Prideaux. 'I don't see how that is at all appropriate.'

  The speech went on for some time longer, and at its conclusion it was felt that tea was needed again. I saw Mrs Greenhill come hurrying in with more cakes, while Father Bode staggered under the weight of the urn.

  'What a good man he is, helping Mrs Greenhill like that,' said Mary. 'I do hope he will get the living here. It would be a very popular choice.'

  'Do you think so?' said Mr Bason spitefully. 'I'm afraid the clergy house would become a very dreary place if Father Bode was vicar. He has no taste at all.'

  I remembered his room and saw what Mr Bason meant. His exquisite continental cooking would be wasted on Father Bode and there would be no Fabergé eggs lying around. And yet would it not perhaps be more suitable if the clergy house did become more dreary than it was at present? Didn't one really prefer to think of the clergy eating plain food and cod on Fridays?

  'I expect there will be some changes when Father Thames goes,' said Mary, as we walked home.

  'Yes, I shouldn't be at all surprised if Mr Bason found himself out of a job,' I said, 'and then the worry of finding him something suitable will begin all over again. How would you like to have him as cook at the retreat house?'

  Mary looked doubtful.

  'No, it wouldn't do,' I said. 'You couldn't very well get a reputation for excellent cooking, though I suppose there might be no harm in it. But now, in a way, I feel responsible for Mr Bason.'

  'Yes, I can understand that,' said Mary, 'and in a strange way I feel responsible for Marius.'

  'You don't think he is still toying with the idea of Rome?'

  'No. I think he has been put off it by being with his friend at the time when he went over,' said Mary thoughtfully.

  The embarrassment and the dreadful tea, I thought, and the prospect of those long walks over Exmoor.

  'I feel,' Mary went on, 'that Marius talks rather lightly about these things, perhaps too flippantly in a way, but how does one know what he is feeling!'

  'One never knows what men are feeling,' I said rather brutally. 'Have you fallen in love with him?'

  'Oh, no! That would never do,' Mary sounded genuinely shocked.

  'Perhaps not. But it might happen,' I said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I had not liked to probe any more deeply into Mary's feelings for Marius Ransome and we had not discussed the subject again when she left our house. It seemed such a hopeless and hackneyed situation - dowdy parish worker in love with handsome celibate priest - and I hoped she would not brood too much over it. Her new position in the retreat house seemed to me to be very little better than that in the convent, for neither, place would be likely to provide the kind of company that might take her out of herself. The trouble was that there were so few eligible men of the right age to whom one could introduce her. Sir Denbigh Grote was obviously much too old, and rather Miss Prideaux's property, one felt, and Mr Coleman was too taken up with his Husky and not quite suitable socially. Piers was not to be considered at all, even had he been the kind of man who might marry.

  I was able to smile now when I remembered my extravagant dreams about him only a few weeks ago; but when I went to spend a weekend with Rowena and Harry I found that I was self-conscious about mentioning him, though I knew that we should discuss him in the way that we invariably did.

  As it happened, Rowena raised the subject quite naturally.

  'We had Piers here last weekend,' she said, 'with his friend Keith. I gather you went to tea with them and that the whole thing was a great success.'

  I should not have described it quite like that myself, but that was obviously how it was to be.

  'Yes, I saw the flat at last,' I said.

  'What did you think of Keith?'

  'Oh, rather a nice little thing,' I said warily.

  'He's certainly an improvement on some of Piers's friends,' said Rowena.

  'I think I'd expected somebody older and - well - different,' I said. 'I'd somehow imagined that he lived with a colleague from the press.'

  Rowena burst into laughter, which made me feel that I had been rather naive in my imaginings. 'Poor Piers,' she said, 'it would be a bit much to expect him to live with the kind of people we saw in that dreary place. I liked Keith very much, and he was so helpful in the house.'

  'Did Harry like him?'

  'He didn't quite know what to make of him. Of course we didn't tell him about Keith being a model and posing for knitting patterns - I thought it better not, though goodness knows lots of most respectable-looking men seem to do that. All those solid pipe-smoking types -'

  'In double knitting wool,' I giggled. 'Yes, I'd noticed that too, but I didn't tell Rodney, either.'

  'No, much better not, I think. Men are so narrow-minded and catty,' said Rowena. 'But it was all right about Keith working in the coffee bar - you see the daughter of a man Harry knows does that. It's rather a chic kind of job, though perhaps not very manly, and I think Harry is beginning to realize that men needn't necessarily always do manly jobs.' She smiled. 'He travels up in the train every day with this man whose daughter works in a coffee bar. He comes from Oxted, so it seems very much all right, really.'

  Later that evening as we sat in the garden having drinks, I caught Harry looking at me with a kind of doggy devotion in his eyes. I leaned back in my chair, well satisfied, both with my drink in such pleasant surroundings and with his devotion. It seemed like a balm to heal the little wound inflicted by Piers's unkindness. I might be incapable of loving my fellow human beings in a dreary general way, but I could inspire love in others. This pict
ure of myself was not at all unpleasing to me. I began imagining future luncheons in town, the great joints of meat being wheeled up to the table in an unending procession, the chefs standing deferentially with carving implements poised ... a smile twitched the corners of my mouth.

  'Wilmet, you're getting tiddly,' said Rowena enviously. 'Did Harry give you one of his specials?'

  'Just the same as I gave you, darling,' said Harry virtuously. 'But you're being slow - drink up!'

  Rowena drank with steady concentration and soon we were all very merry. Rodney joined us later in the evening; and we had two days of perfect weather, and could almost have imagined ourselves back in Italy in our carefree youth at the end of the war.

  When we returned to London I rang up Keith and asked him to come and have tea with me.

  I had arranged a bowl of sweet peas on the table in the window, and the dress I wore, a romantically blurred wild silk print, seemed to harmonize with their colours.

  As he came into the room I experienced again the curious painful sensation I had felt on seeing him in the grocer's. His clean white shirt and black velvet jacket showed that he, too, had been anxious to look his best.

  'I love those dark purply ones,' he said, going over to the bowl of sweet peas. 'Purple's rather a sad colour, isn't it?'

  'Yes,'I said feebly.

  'Well, Wilmet, this is nice of you,' he said, in a rather carefully social tone. 'Piers told me you had a lovely home, and now I can see for myself.'

  He sat down on the edge of a chair, and I began to wonder what on earth we were going to talk about once we had exhausted the beauties of my home. Rhoda brought the tea in, and it occurred to me that she must be wondering too.

  When I had poured out, and Keith had admired the silver teapot and the cups and saucers, he said in a cosy confidential voice, 'I believe we're going to be great friends, Wilmet. I think you're very nice - and very attractive, too, if you'll excuse my mentioning it?'

  'Thank you,' I murmured, but either my tone was wrong or irony was wasted on him. I wondered what I should do or say now that this new relationship had been established between us. But as it turned out I did not have to exert myself at all, for Keith now began to open his heart to me, to tell me his life history from the early days in Leicester up to the present moment. The little flat voice went relentlessly on, hardly allowing me even a formal murmur of sympathy or astonishment.