by Frank Baker
‘Tut! All these absurd restrictions–! Why do you not have a notice forbidding one to use this ridiculous throne? Unless you are cleaning those notices too–come, come,my good fellow–perhaps–ah, I see we understand one another!’
We heard the jingling of money. Baker came sauntering in and pushed his way up decani side to his place.
‘Tipped old Meakins half a dollar,’ he said.
‘We shall have to get the Doctor’s permission,’ I heard Meakins say. I saw him take her arm and lead her gently round to the north transept.
Baker turned and spoke to me gravely.
‘Did you make that hat, sir?’
‘You turn round!’ I snapped. ‘And give out the music, you brat!’
‘Really, sir!’ said Baker.
A moment later the Doctor came into choir; he looked very irritable. ‘Huntley,’ he called. I left my seat and went down to him with a sinking heart.
‘This–er, lady friend of yours–she wishes to come into choir for the practice. Of course, you understand–’
‘But, Doctor,’ I began, ‘she is not –’
‘–you understand we can’t start a precedent like that. For years I’ve been fighting to keep people out of choir while the practice is on. Go and tell her, if you please. Of course she’s at liberty to wait in the nave.’
Anger mounted in me. I suppose because I loathe being made to look ridiculous. As I marched out on to the dais, I heard Collins say, ‘Mr Huntley didn’t half look furious, didn’t he?’
I stamped across to her.
‘Miss Hargreaves,’ I said, ‘nobody is allowed into choir during the practice. Dr Carless says you may wait in the nave.’
For a moment she said nothing; only looked at me reproachfully. I turned my head away.
‘What have I done,’ she said, ‘to deserve such treatment from you?’ Her voice rose; I felt that every ear in the choir was straining to hear her. ‘What have I done? If you knew what trouble I had been through lately’–her voice broke–‘Agatha–gone!’ She buried her face in her hands for a moment; her shoulders shook. ‘Dr Pepusch suffering from psittacosis,’ she continued. ‘And now–I return to my beloved Cornford, expecting to be greeted by my old friend, and–’
The choir had started on ‘O, where shall wisdom be found,’ by Boyce; I was supposed to be singing in the verse.
‘I’ll see you presently,’ I muttered, avoiding looking at her directly. It was no good. The moment she turned that heart-rending expression on me, I knew I was beaten.
The practice was misery. I generally never make mistakes (I’m an utter fool, but I’m not an utter fool at music), but that evening there were two tricky bars in Boyce’s anthem which for the life of me I could not get right. Carless kept running along the loft like a trapped and angry beast, shouting down at me: ‘Whatever is wrong with you, Huntley? Take it again.’ I would take it again, and again take it the wrong way. ‘Stop! Stop!’ The Doctor clapped. And when the Doctor clapped it didn’t mean applause either. For the sixth time he jammed his white face through the brick-coloured curtains.
‘Wadge, you take it!’ he snapped.
It was dreadful. I had never been disgraced like this before. The boys, heartless creatures, turned and looked at me with a new sort of interest. Baker wrote something on a bit of paper and passed it down to that lout Tonkin at the bottom of decani; Tonkin burst into laughter. ‘Silence, boys!’ cried Carless. I looked down the darkening nave as Wadge went on with the solo I ought to have been singing. One lonely, forlorn-looking figure was sitting in the front seats, apparently writing something in a note-book. The practice dragged endlessly on; still that lonely figure sat in the empty nave.
The Precentor said the Grace; the boys rushed from their stalls as though unchained from a prison. The men went out. Slowly I wandered towards the gates with Archie.
‘Now, Norman,’ said Archie, ‘take a pinch of snuff and go to it.’ He offered me his little black box, but I pushed it aside. What’s the use of snuff when you’re in trouble?
‘I can’t face her,’ I groaned. For she had risen now and was slowly coming up the dais steps. ‘Archie,’ I begged, ‘tell her I’ve got an appointment. Say I’m ill. Anything. I shall slip out by the north door.’
Quickly I went up towards the reredos and thus out into the retrochoir. But luck was against me that evening. I saw Meakins disappearing along the south aisle, jingling his keys; he had locked the north door, the little door near the Lady Chapel. To run after him now would probably mean meeting Miss Hargreaves and Archie in the transept. Yet if I stayed up here, I might be locked in for the night.
Unable to make up my mind about anything, I sat down on a seat near Cardinal Beauvais’ Chantry. My eyes wandered to his opulent figure, lying stretched out in his magnificent red hat, a green ring, like an eye that sees all things, watching me from his finger. He’d have sent her to hell-fire, that’s what he’d have done; sent her to hell-fire as a witch and thought nothing more about it. Nowadays one couldn’t even arrest her. She could wear a hat like a wedding-cake, lounge about in the Bishop’s Throne, and there was nothing you could do about it. If that throne had been the Cardinal’s, she wouldn’t get away with it so easily.
It was getting dark. One by one I heard the boys and the lay-clerks slam the south door. In a few minutes Meakins would be locking up. I couldn’t stay here all night. Already that damned Cardinal was beginning to make me twitch. They said he came out from his chantry at night. I could believe it. I could fancy he was studying me, knowing that I was caught up in some vast spiritual problem utterly beyond me, and amusedly wondering what I would make of it.
I went to the aisle gate, peering down the steps to see if anyone were there. Not a soul. Except for the footsteps of Meakins far away at the end of the nave, all was quiet. Perhaps Archie had been able to get rid of her. Slowly I walked down the steps, pausing and listening and looking. I passed the Saxon kings; the tomb of Thomas Weelkes. I was in the south transept. I had only to skim round Bishop Creighton’s tomb and I should be out by the little south door.
Suddenly I remembered my hat in the vestry. It was rather a special hat: green, with a nice tilt to it, a Bing Boys air and a feather in the band. I was going round to see Marjorie that evening. I knew I wasn’t in her good books and that hat would help me. The sort of hat Churchill wouldn’t mind having.
Well–all I can say, vanity gets its right reward.
Miss Hargreaves was kneeling on the floor in the vestry, studying the lettering on the tomb of Jacob Burton, the fisherman and naturalist.
She rose slowly to her feet.
‘Fishing,’ she observed, ‘must, in those days, have been such a noble pastime.’
There was a long and awful silence. I breathed heavily. I knew we were heading for a crisis.
‘Grosvenor,’ she added, ‘was fond of trout. Cooked with a little orange-juice, it was his opinion that no fish could be more succulent.’
‘This is no time for talking of fishes,’ I said.
She sighed. ‘They are very soothing creatures,’ she remarked. ‘Very bloodless.’ She sat down by the table and toyed with a pencil hanging on the chain round her neck. ‘I once wrote a few lines that would seem to be appropriate to this moment.’
‘I haven’t time for poetry,’ I warned her. Neither I had.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I would not pretend that my poor lines were poetry. Mere verse. Nothing more. They ran like this:
‘I talk to them of candlesticks and pears,
Of clothes lines, postal orders, wheelback chairs,
Of plants (in pots), of pans, e’en polar bears–
To hide my woe.’
‘Yes, very nice,’ I began. ‘But–’
She held up her hand. ‘Wait. There is more.
‘They talk to me of coal and china tea,
Of politicians, fonts and kedgeree,
Of saucers, sheets, hemp and the honey-bee–
’Tis better
so.’
‘That’s all very well,’ I said.
Suddenly this pensive manner changed. She rose and wrung her hands. She started to talk passionately.
‘I come back after having buried poor Agatha. I look forward to meeting my dearest, my oldest friend again. What does he do? What does he do? He ignores me. Nay–more! He is actually rude to me! Norman–I can bear much. But not this–not this!’
‘The time has come,’ I said sternly, ‘to get things straight.’
‘Explain, I beg you!’
‘Why’–I burst out the words–‘do you follow me about like this? I don’t know you. I never did know you. I never met you before in my life.’
‘Stop! Stop!’ She tottered forward and clutched on to a chair for support. ‘Not know me–never met me–how can you, how can you say these wicked, wicked things? Much have I travelled in the realms of gold but never suffered such a bruise as this!’
Her voice rose and echoed in the silent building. Far away I heard Meakins locking the west doors; then his footsteps along the nave.
‘Do you’–she tapped her stick menacingly on Burton’s grave–‘do you deny that you wrote to me while I was at Hereford? Dare you deny that?’
I gulped. ‘No. I can’t deny that. But all I can tell you is that I never knew of your existence before I wrote. I wish you’d put that whistle down.’ She was shaking a little silver whistle at me; it lived on her chain with the pencil and the lorgnettes.
She stared at me. ‘Tell me frankly. Is your mind wandering, my dear boy? Or perhaps I have offended you in some way. Tell me quite frankly. Is it my–hat?’
‘Well, it is pretty awful!’ I mumbled.
‘I wore it for you, too!’ Tears came into her eyes. ‘I thought that you, with your love of the bizarre, would appreciate it.’
‘Don’t cry. For heaven’s sake, don’t cry!’
‘I did not know it was a bishop’s throne! There is no notice. I went to the first seat I saw. Heaven forbid, Heaven forbid, Norman, that I should in any way make myself conspicuous.’
This wouldn’t do. We were getting away from the point. I was determined, once and for all, to make her see the truth.
‘I don’t care about your hat,’ I cried untruthfully, ‘or your sitting in the Bishop’s Throne. I don’t care what you do–so long as you don’t drag me into it. That letter I wrote to you from Lusk–it was a joke, Miss Hargreaves; nothing more than a joke. It may have been a mean joke, and I’m sorry for it. We’ve never met before. You know perfectly well that–’
Her sticks clattered to the floor. I stopped, suddenly appalled at the effect my words had had on her. She had almost collapsed. Clutching the table for support, her head was lolling from side to side, her mouth open as though she wanted to speak and had no power to do so. It was terrible to see her like that. I rushed towards her and helped her gently into a chair. Weakly, she sat down, her fingers fumbling at a service list on the table and twisting it up into a ball.
‘A joke,’ she muttered, ‘a joke –’
Shrilly, almost hysterically, she laughed. It was a laugh that made me go dead inside so contemptuous, so ironical, yet so pitifully forced.
‘Don’t–don’t, Miss Hargreaves!’ I begged. ‘I’m sorry for what I said. Awfully sorry.’
A deathly silence fell over us. She sat there with a fixed stare, looking at the crumpled-up service paper in her hand.
Meakins would, of course, choose that particular moment to come into the vestry. ‘Well, I never!’ he said. ‘Her again!’
‘You shut up!’ I hissed. ‘Can’t you see she’s ill?’
Still she said nothing at all; did not move an inch.
‘Well, I’m just locking up,’ said Meakins, taking off his gown.
‘Miss Hargreaves,’ I said gently, ‘we must go.’
‘Water water’she whispered in a funny, sad, faraway little voice.
I filled a glass from the carafe on the table and handed it to her. For the first time she saw Meakins. A slow, bewildered smile broke over her face.
‘Is that you, Archer?’ she murmured.
‘Wandering,’ said Meakins, tapping his head unkindly.
‘You hold your tongue!’ I hissed again.
She was looking at me as though she had never seen me before. As though she had never seen me before.
‘Where am I?’ she murmured. And, looking at me as though struggling to remember, ‘Who–are you?’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘I’m Norman Huntley. You know me, Miss Hargreaves?’
The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I had said. Escape had been offered to me; I had rejected it. To this day I always believe that if I had not told her my name then; if I had been hard and denied all knowledge of her–she would never have troubled me again. Without my realizing it, the opportunity had been put into my hands; and I had thrown it away.
It was no good now. The moment she heard my name the bright expression came into her eyes; the old unquenchable spirit was returning.
‘Norman!’ she cried. ‘Norman’–then, suddenly with a burst of recognition–‘oh, my dear, dear boy! My head is throbbing so! Oh, for a cup of tea!’
‘Poor lady!’ said Meakins, no doubt remembering her half-crown. ‘Poor lady! You’d better help her home, Mr Huntley. You can see how she depends on you.’
Yes, one could see that; one did not need to be reminded of that.
‘Come along,’ I said to her. ‘You–you’d better take my arm.’
She rose slowly and came towards me. ‘Thank you, dear. I feel better now. Forgive me. I am an old woman. I get confused. It is the music in my brain; there is always music in my brain. How strong your arm is, dear! Where should I be–where should I be–without the life you put into me?’
‘I’d very much like to know,’ I said grimly.
We went out by the south door and walked slowly along the Cloisters towards the Close.
‘The beautiful autumn air,’ she explained. ‘What power it has to revive one!’ We came out into the Close. ‘This exquisite September sun,’ she murmured. ‘Ah, Michael, Michael! What fire you pour upon the old!’ She was as light as a leaf on my arm. ‘You know poor Agatha has gone?’ she said.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said lamely.
‘Ah, me! A lovely soul! So simple! So faithful to me! I have no friends left, Norman except you. Remember that, dear: always remember that.’
‘All right,’ I muttered. Did she realize that it wouldn’t be long before I had no friends left except her?
Suddenly she came out of this contemplative mood.
‘And now,’ she said briskly, ‘let us meet your dear parents. I called upon your father at the shop on my way to Evensong. What a truly charming man! One can easily see, dear, where you get your brains from. Such taste such a flow of eloquence! He asked me to come and have tea with you and your mother. Shall we walk or take a cab? Is it far? Yes? Yes? Don’t walk quite so fast, dear; and speak up, I beg you; I am a little hard of hearing in one ear, I cannot remember which. Look at the rooks! Oh, that I might flee away and be at rest!’
‘It would be nice,’ I said.
‘How often have I longed for it! But, alas, we are called into the world by the power of the Creator and must needs play our appointed part before the time comes for departure.’
We passed the Dean and Archdeacon Cutler. They stared at us for a moment, then hurriedly resumed their conversation.
‘A beautiful evening!’ observed Miss Hargreaves, as we passed.
The Archdeacon frowned at her.
‘No, of course’–he went on talking to the Dean–‘we can’t use the funds for–’
‘The fire of Michael is upon us all,’ remarked Miss Hargreaves to everybody in general.
‘What–what? Michael? Oh, yes–yes. I suppose so.’
We passed on. ‘Who on earth is that woman?’ I heard the Archdeacon mutter. ‘Relation of Huntley’s?’
The Dean laughed. ‘I real
ly don’t know. But I thought she made quite a passable bishop, didn’t you?’
I heard them both laugh. Then we came to the north gate and Miss Hargreaves stopped by the trunk of a large elm that had just been felled.
‘Let us sit down for a moment,’ she suggested.
‘You’ll catch cold,’ I said.
‘Fiddlesticks! Colds are not caught; they are begged.’ She sat down and beckoned me to sit beside her. In the distance I could see the Dean and the Archdeacon looking at us. ‘Ah the autumn leaves,’ she exclaimed, ‘spinning earthwards, to their common home! Ah me, life is strange! Would–you care to hear my triolet on the leaves?’
‘Later,’ I said.
‘No, here. I would like the leaves to hear it too. A simple little thought, but expressed, I tell myself, not unworthily. Thought cannot be new, Norman; it is the expression that matters.’
She rested her chin in one of her hands, gazed dreamily at the leaves, and declaimed:
‘Sweet little leaves so brown and thin,
Sycamore, beech, oak, elm and lime;
Soon will your year again begin,
Sweet little leaves so brown and thin.
Sycamore, beech, oak, elm and lime,
Victims of winter, weather and time–
Sweet little leaves so brown and thin,
Sycamore, beech, oak, elm and lime.’
We took a taxi home. Apart from the fact that she was very tired, I really couldn’t bear walking down the High Street with that hat. As we came to number 38 I saw mother and father sitting at the tea-table. Jim wasn’t there, for which I was glad.
I unlocked the door and ushered Miss Hargreaves in. Owing, perhaps, to her interminable stream of talk, a curious stupefied feeling had overcome me. I didn’t much care about anything. Let it happen, I thought; whatever it is, let it happen. I don’t care.
