by Barbara Pym
‘Oh, there will be supper,’ said Jane in a firm tone, ‘and there may be coffee. I suppose we could give Mr. Lomax tea, though it wouldn’t be quite the usual thing. I wonder if we are well-bred enough or eccentric enough to carry off an unusual thing like that, giving tea after a meal rather than coffee? I wouldn’t like him to think that we were condescending to him in any way because his church is not as ancient as ours.’
‘Of course coffee does tend to keep people awake,’ said Nicholas rather inconsequentially.
‘Lying awake at night thinking out a sermon,’ said Jane; ‘that might not be such a bad thing.’
‘What are we having for supper?’ asked iier husband.
‘Flora is in the kitchen unpacking some of the china. We could open a tin,’ added Jane, as if this were a most unusual procedure, which it most certainly was not. ‘Indeed, I think we shall probably have to, but I know we’ve got some coffee somewhere if only we can find it in time. Will he be bringing Mrs. Lomax with him?’
‘No, he is not married as far as I know,’ said Nicholas vaguely, ‘though it is some time since we’ve met. Our conversation yesterday was mostly about parish matters. I remember at Oxford he rather tended towards celibacy.’
‘I dare say he was a spectacled young man with a bad complexion,’ said Jane. ‘He may have thought there was not much hope for him, so he became High Church.’
‘Well, my dear, there are usually deeper reasons,’ said Nicholas, smiling. ‘Not all High Church clergymen are plain-looking.’
‘Nor all Moderate ones, darling,’ said Jane warmly, for her husband’s eyes were still blue and he had kept his figure.
They were in the room which was to be Nicholas’s study, sitting in the middle of a litter of books which Jane was arranging haphazardly in the shelves.
‘These are all theology,’ she said, when Nicholas suggested that it might be better if he did them; ‘as long as nothing unsuitable-looking appears among these dim bindings I don’t see that the arrangement really matters. Nobody could possibly want to read them. You’re sure you wouldn’t rather have the room upstairs for your study? It looks over the garden and might be quieter.’
‘No, I think this room is the best for me. It seems somehow unsuitable for a clergyman’s study to be upstairs,’ said Nicholas, and then, before Jane could enlarge upon the idea with her vivid fancy, he added hastily, ‘I shall have my desk in the window — it is sometimes an advantage to be able to see people coming.’
‘Then you must have a net curtain across the window,’ said Jane, ‘otherwise you will lose your advantage if they can see you too. But at the moment it seems as if nobody will ever come to see us… .’ She looked out over the laurels to the green-painted gate. ‘You would think they’d come out of curiosity, if for no nobler reason.’ She turned back to arranging the books.
‘But there is somebody coming,’ exclaimed Nicholas in a rather agitated voice. ‘A lady, or perhaps a woman, in a straw hat with a bird on it, and she is carrying a bloodstained bundle.’
Jane hurried to the window. ‘Why, that’s Mrs. Glaze. It must be! She is to do for us. I quite forgot — you know how indifferent I am to domestic arrangements. I hadn’t realised she was coming tonight.’ She ran out into the hall and flung open the front door before Mrs. Glaze had even mounted the steps.
‘Good evening, Mrs. Glaze. How kind of you to come to us on our first evening here!’ Jane cried out.
‘Well, madam, it was arranged, Mrs. Pritchard said you would want me to.’
‘Ah, yes; she and Mr. Pritchard were so kind…
‘Canon Pritchard,’ Mrs. Glaze corrected her gently, entering the house.
‘Yes, of course; he is that now. Canon Pritchard, called to a higher sphere.’ Jane stood uncertainly in the hall, wondering if perhaps such words were found only on tombstones or in parish magazine obituary notices, and were hardly suitable to be used about their predecessor, who was still very much alive.
‘Well, if you will excuse me, madam —‘ Mrs. Glaze made as if to pass.
‘Oh, certainly!’ Jane stood aside, for she had hardly yet grasped where the kitchen was and in any case it was a part of the house in which she took little interest. ‘I don’t know what we are going to have for supper.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Mrs. Glaze, raising her bloodstained bundle and thrusting it towards Jane. ‘I’ve got some liver for you.’
‘How wonderful! How did you manage that?’
‘Well, madam, my nephew happens to be a butcher, and one of the sidesmen at the Parish Church too. I warned him when you would be coming and naturally he wanted to see that you had a good supper. He loves his work, madam. He’s as happy as a sandboy when the Christmas poultry comes in — looks forward to it all the year round. Of course, he can’t take the same pride in it that he used to, not every day, that is — meat has never been at such a low ebb as it is now, what with everything having to go through the Government; it’s no wonder the butchers can’t go on grinding out the ration, is it madam?’
‘No, indeed, one does wonder how they grind it out,’ said Jane fervently. ‘My husband is so fond of liver. But what about vegetables?’
‘Why, in the garden, madam,’ said Mrs. Glaze in a surprised tone.
‘Of course — “well-stocked garden”. We didn’t have much of a garden in London,’ said Jane apologetically.
By this time they had reached the kitchen, which was at the end of a long stone passage. Flora was just putting away the last of the china. She had not inherited her mother’s vagueness and looked very much like her father, tall and slim with blue eyes and dark smooth hair. She was eighteen and looking forward to going up to Oxford in the autumn.
‘This is my daughter Flora,’ said Jane. ‘She’s been putting away the china.’
‘Well now, isn’t that kind,’ said Mrs. Glaze; ‘that’s saved me a lot of work. And I see she’s even got the vegetables; I can start getting supper right away. Then you will be ready for Father Lomax when he comes for coffee.’
It was almost soothing that she should know so much about one’s life, Jane thought. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do hope he will be able to tell us something about the parish and what we should know about everybody. You see, we are like people coming into the cinema in the middle of a film,’ she went on, losing consciousness of her audience. ‘We do not know what, if anything, has gone before, or at the best we have a bald and garbled synopsis whispered to us by somebody on his way out; that’s Canon Pritchard, of course.’
‘Mother,’ said Flora a little desperately, ‘shall I put out the coffee cups on the silver tray?’
‘Yes, darling, by all means.’
‘Oh well,’ said Mrs. Glaze in an easy tone that promised much, ‘I’ve lived in this parish all my life. If Mr. Meadows, our curate, had been still here, he’d have been a great help to the vicar. But of course he left when Canon Pritchard did. He was married just before he went.’
‘Married? Oh, how nice. Was his wife from this village?’
‘No, madam. He was engaged when he came to us.’ Mrs. Glaze turned her back and busied herself at the sink. A certain flatness in her tone roused Jane from her own thoughts and caused her to look up. Engaged when he came to them. Oh, but that was bad! Bad of the Bishop to send them a curate already engaged. It was a wonder the ladies of the parish hadn’t torn him to pieces. A married man would have been preferable to an engaged one, for a curate’s wife was often a dim, manageable sort of woman, whereas a fiancée, especially an absent one, has an aura of mystery, even of glamour about her. Who else is there? she wanted to ask. Tell me all about everybody. But she couldn’t put it as bluntly as that even though Mrs. Glaze was obviously ready to do her part.
‘Has Mr. Lomax a curate?’ she asked at last.
‘Father Lomax, he calls himself,’ corrected Mrs. Glaze; ‘but of course he isn’t married. There’s no woman sets foot in that vicarage, except Mrs. Eade to clean, and the ladies of his paris
h, of course. No, madam, Father Lomax hasn’t got a curate. Not more than twenty or so go to his church. You see, madam, it’s the form of service. Romish practices, you know what I mean. Though I must say he’s got Mrs. Lyall going there and that’s something. But we’ve still got Mr. Edward,’ her voice softened and she looked up from her vegetables, a smile on her face, ‘and that’s as it should be, isn’t it, madam?’
‘Mr. Edward?’ echoed Jane hopefully, for there was much here that she did not understand.
‘Yes, Mr. Edward Lyall, our Member of Parliament, such a nice young man. Of course his father was Member before him and his grandfather, oh, we couldn’t have anybody but a Lyall as our Member. They’ve always lived at the Towers as long as anybody can remember and always come to the Parish Church, except this Mrs. Lyall, that is. Some vicar in Kensington, London, got hold of her, madam, ten years ago she started going to Father Lomax’s, but Mr. Edward’s always come to the Parish Church.’
‘Does he read the Lessons sometimes?’ asked Jane. ‘It seems right for a Member of Parliament to read the Lessons in his constituency.’
‘Oh, yes, madam; when he’s here he does. But of course there’s Mr. Oliver too, he reads the Lessons sometimes, though Mr. Mortlake and his friends, oh, they don’t like it, madam, but no doubt you’ll be hearing about that. And they do say that Mr. Fabian Driver would like to do it. Oh, he’d fancy himself standing up there looking like a lion above the bird, but we haven’t come to that yet. Have you got a flour-dredger, Miss Flora? I’ll just be flouring the liver.’
Mr. Mortlake and His Friends … A Lion above the Bird …but these are the titles of new novels still in their bright paper jackets, thought Jane with delight. And they are here in this parish, all this richness.
‘Mother, I think we’d better have supper as soon as we can,’ said Flora firmly, ‘wasn’t Mr. Lomax invited for half-past eight? “We don’t want him to arrive and find us in the middle of our supper, do we?’
‘No, darling, especially as he may not have had liver.’
‘He won’t have done, madam. I can tell you that,’ said Mrs. Glaze. ‘Mrs. Eade didn’t get any this week — she does all his shopping for him. Of course, my nephew shares out the offal on a fair basis, madam, but everybody can’t have it every time. Father Lomax will have had his liver last time,’ she concluded firmly. ‘And he will have it next time,’ she added on a note of hope.
‘Which won’t be much consolation to him now,’ said Jane, ‘so he had better not see us eating it. Like meat offered to idols,’ she went on. ‘You will remember that St. Paul had no objection to the faithful eating it, but pointed out that it might prove a stumbling block to the weaker brethren — not that Father Lomax would be that, of course.’
‘In fact, Mother, the whole comparison is pointless,’ said Flora, ‘as our liver won’t have been offered to idols.’
‘No; but people in these days do rather tend to worship meat for its own sake,’ said Jane, as they sat down to supper. ‘When people go abroad for a holiday they seem to bring back with them such a memory of meat.’
‘This certainly looks very good,’ said Nicholas, putting on his spectacles to see better what he was about to eat. ‘Mrs. Glaze seems to be an excellent cook. Pritchard spoke very highly of her. Of course, I believe they had a resident maid as well.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane; ‘somebody handing the vegetables, holding the dish rather too low. I remember that when we lunched with them. Quite unnecessary, I thought it.’
The Clevelands were still at the supper table when the front door bell rang, and a man’s voice was heard in the hall.
Mrs, Glaze appeared at the door.
I’ve put him in the drawing-room, madam,’ she announced. ‘I’ll be bringing the coffee directly.’
‘I’m afraid our drawing-room can hardly be compared with Mrs. Pritchard’s,’ said Flora. ‘Mr. Lomax is probably noticing that.’
‘Oh, but it looks “lived in”,’ said Jane, ‘which is supposed to be a good thing. I thought Mrs. Pritchard’s a little too well-furnished — those excessively rich velvet curtains and all that Crown Derby in the corner cupboard, it was a little overwhelming.’
‘Shall I come in too, Mother?’ asked Flora.
‘Of course, darling. After all, it’s really a social occasion, isn’t it?’ She stood up and brushed some crumbs from her lap, glancing at her dress in a doubtful way as she did so. ‘I really meant to have changed into something more worthy, but perhaps he will understand and make allowances. I don’t suppose he is anything of a ladies’ man.’
Flora, who had changed her dress and tidied her hair, made no comment. She knew her mother well enough by now to realise that Mr. Lomax’s understanding and making allowances really mattered very little to her.
When the drawing-room door was opened, Father Lomax was discovered standing with his back to the fireplace, whose emptiness was not even decently filled in with a screen or vase of leaves or dried grasses.
He was not at all the ascetic type of clergyman, and Flora felt a rush of disappointment at the first sight of him, fair and ruddy-complexioned, with the build of an athlete. She liked men to be dark, but in any case he was old, a contemporary of her father’s, and therefore uninteresting and profitless.
‘Well, Father Lomax,’ said Jane pleasantly as she poured the coffee, ‘it is very good of you to come along, especially as I suppose we are rivals, really.’
‘Yes, you might say that,’ Father Lomax agreed, ‘but I expect your husband and I can come to some amicable arrangement not to poach on each other’s preserves. After all, we were up at Oxford together, you know. I’ve been here several years and can probably tell him quite a lot about the parish. We neighbouring clergy get to know things about other parishes — a word or a hint here and there, a casual remark in the public-house, things have a way of getting around.’
‘One hopes there isn’t really anything to get around,’ said Jane, ‘or at least not in public-houses.’
‘Oh, Lomax means the general way things go,’ said Nicholas vaguely. ‘Numbers of congregations, personalities and so forth.’
‘Ah, personalities,’ said Jane; ‘that’s really what one wants to know about.’
But Father Lomax did not take the hint and began reminiscing with Nicholas about college days in what seemed to Jane a very boring way. He then recalled how Nicholas’s father had opposed his ordination and had even called round to see the Principal of their college to register a protest.
‘You were never able to bring him round to your way of thinking?’ he asked Nicholas.
‘No, I’m afraid not. He died without believing in anything, I’m afraid.’
‘I suppose old atheists seem less wicked and dangefrous than young ones,’ said Jane. ‘One feels that there is something of the ancient Greeks in them.’
Father Lomax, who evidently thought no such thing, let the subject drop and then somehow he and Nicholas were talking about parish matters, parochial church council meetings, Sunday school teachers and visiting preachers. Jane lay back in her chair lost in thought, wondering about Mr. Mortlake and his friends. Flora got up and quietly refilled the coffee cups, offering a plate of biscuits to Father Lomax. But he refused them with an absent-minded wave of the hand. Meat offered to idols, thought Flora scornfully, taking a biscuit herself and eating it. Then, as nobody seemed to be taking any notice of her, she ate another and another until the clock struck ten, and her mother, oblivious of their guest, stood up, stretching her arms and yawning.
‘Young Francis Oliver rather fancies himself at reading the Lessons,’ Father Lomax was saying, ‘and there may be trouble in that quarter from Mr. Mortlake. I have heard that the atmosphere at the last P.C.C. meeting was very strained.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said Nicholas, who was a mild, good-tempered person and never saw why any atmosphere should be strained, ‘we shall have to try and change that.’
‘Both Oliver and Mortlake are extremely stubborn,’
said Father Lomax with satisfaction. ‘My own Council are very different — I never have any trouble.’
‘Well, I don’t see why either of them should read the Lessons,’ said Nicholas.
‘Ah, but during the war, when Canon Pritchard had no curate, the custom grew up.’
‘Couldn’t Mr. Fabian Drover read the lessons?’ asked Jane innocently.
‘You mean Driver?’ asked Father Lomax. ‘Oh, I hardly think that would be suitable. He isn’t what one would call a churchman, you know. He occasionally goes to Evensong, I believe. He has even been to my church once or twice.’
‘People always seem to like Evensong, don’t they?’— said Jane. ‘I mean, it seems more attractive to them than the other services. The old Ancient and Modern hymns especially seem to have an appeal to something very deep in all of us—I don’t exactly know what you would call it.’
Neither Nicholas nor Father Lomax had any ready answer to this, and as they had been standing in the open doorway for some time Father Lomax finally edged his way down the steps and disappeared into the darkness.
‘A fine, upstanding man, isn’t he?’ said Nicholas absently. He was evidently thinking that perhaps they might have a round of golf together on Mondays.
Chapter Three
ON SATURDAY MORNING Jane crept quietly into the church to have a good look at it. It had been so full of people at the induction service — the Bishop, robed clergy and inquisitive parishioners — that she had hardly been able to form any idea of what it was like, except that it was old. Dear Nicholas, he would no longer have to say to visitors in his gentle, apologetic tones, almost as if it were his own fault, I’m afraid our church was built in 1883,’ as in the suburban parish they had just left. For here were ancient stones, wall tablets and carved bosses in the roof, and in one corner the great canopied tomb of the Lyall family — a knight and his lady with a little dog at their feet.
Jane moved quietly about the church, reading inscriptions on wall and floor, noticing, without realising its significance, the well-cleaned brass. She was just standing in front of the lectern, almost dazzled by the fine brilliance of the bird’s head, when she heard footsteps behind her and the sound of women’s voices, talking in rather low, reverent tones, but nonetheless with the authority of those who have the right to talk in church. One voice seemed louder than the other — indeed, when she had listened for a minute or two, Jane decided that the owner of the louder voice was somehow in a superior position to that of the softer one.
