“Arthur and I have spoken often about that moment in the Passion Play and the Resurrection. It was not his moment of conversion to Christianity but he did admit that he felt a great sense relief at the moment of our Lord’s Resurrection. The belief in the Resurrection, being so fundamental to Christianity, Arthur’s reaction gave me great comfort. He once explained his thoughts on the possibility of a heaven and an afterlife. He said he had reduced the argument in his mind to a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. He had been comfortable with ‘no’ for most of his adult life but on contemplating our final demise and knowing my absolute belief in heaven and the resurrection, made him question his argument many times. He said he had one recurring and extremely disturbing dream of a vision of Heaven, it being a vast maze of unmarked, seemingly endless roads with large signs saying, ‘No entry to non-Christians’ and him walking past the end of each road, looking down, not knowing whether I was at the end of one waiting for him.”
She told me they had been married for just over a year and said she had never been happier in her life, and had found complete forgiveness in her heart for her mother and prayed that her mother was at peace in heaven.
She told me that she expected this would be her last visit to Wimbledon Village. She and Arthur had come up from Tisbury to make arrangements for the sale of the house and its contents. They had visited her solicitor and asked him to make all the necessary arrangements for sale of the house and its contents, explaining to him that they had no wish to come back to Wimbledon or to be involved in the sale of the house and had asked him if he could kindly deal with everything for them. She related to me how it was a strange, but not an unpleasant feeling, walking through Wimbledon Village arm in arm with Arthur. Firstly to the solicitors and then to fulfill a mutual wish to visit St. Mary’s Church, where she especially wanted to place flowers on her father’s grave. “Arthur wished to sit on the bench under the old yew tree where we fell in love.” She then opened her handbag to show me a sprig of lavender which she said Arthur had picked just as he had done all those years ago. She said she was so pleased that I had accepted the silver tray with all the memories contained in it and listened to her story. At that moment the doorbell rang. Looking at her watch, she said, “Right on time that will be Arthur, you must meet him.” Arthur was just as she had described him. He warmly shook my hand telling me how pleased Amelia had been when I said I would be pleased to accept the silver tray.
“Do you realise how long we’ve been sitting here?” She asked. ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘most of the day; but I feel privileged and moved listening to your story’. As I took my leave of them I said, ‘May I thank you, Mrs. Arthur Halfpenny, for the silver tray’. I could see the delight in her face by addressing her as Mrs. Arthur Halfpenny. We shook hands and I wished them well. We were never to meet again but about a year later I received a letter from her with the sad news that Arthur had died. She said it was not unexpected and that she was getting wonderful support from her daughter. She made the observation in the letter that, in most relationships, people meet and get engaged, usually for a short period, then marry for the rest of their lives. In her case she felt that it was different, her marriage, although of short duration in this world, would restart when she was together again with Arthur in the next life. She quoted with some license the words that Shakespeare gave Cleopatra, ‘I have immortal longings in me; methinks I hear my Husband call’.
Some months later I received a letter from Arthur’s daughter Amelia giving me the sad news of the death of her step-mother. She also told me that they rest together in consecrated ground, this being the last wish of her father. She also enclosed a newspaper cutting from The Daily Telegraph. Recording the passing of: ‘Mrs. Arthur Halfpenny née Stevenson, loving wife and Mother’.
A Child of the Cloth Page 5
