A Child of the Cloth (2 page)

“I suppose, you would not believe that love did touch me once. It was the spring of 1939 and I was just nineteen years old. My father was then the Rector at St. Mary's and my whole life seemed complete, revolving around the church, teaching Sunday School, and arranging flowers in the church, and visiting the sick of the parish. I felt totally content until one fateful day when I met a young man at St. Mary's Church. His name was Arthur Halfpenny.

“He was not part of the congregation, he was employed by a firm of organ builders. I can still remember the firm's name, Messrs. Rushworth and Dreaper from Liverpool. They were employed in renovating and re-tuning the organ under the ever-watchful eye of our organist, Mr. Noon. Work on the organ had been long overdue, and only been made possible by a generous legacy from a long-time worshipper at the church,” Miss Stevenson took a delicate sip from her coffee cup before continuing. “The story behind the legacy, as related to me by my father, was that this particular parishioner had always wished to hear a performance of John Steiner's
The Crucifixion
at St. Mary's Church my father had told him that it would not be possible, as the organ needed extensive renovation and some parts did not work at all.

“A considerable amount of money needed to be spent on it and there was more pressing work outstanding on the church which would have to take preference. This conversation had been forgotten until my father was informed by a firm of local solicitors that the church had been left a considerable legacy, by a past parishioner but with the absolute stipulation that the money could only be used for work on the organ, and that there must be, within one year of the work being completed, a performance of
The Crucifixion.

“I found it extremely interesting to go to the church each day to see the progress being made in putting life back into the old organ. The man in charge of the work looked more like a journeyman plumber, with an unlit hand-rolled cigarette gripped tightly between his teeth, than a man gifted with the ability to put new life into this magnificent instrument. He would appear between the great pipes of the organ, his face covered in dust, calling out to the young man sitting at the organ console: ‘Give me diapason sixteen, three second notes from E on the upper manual if you please!'

“This is my first memory of Arthur Halfpenny. The first time I ever spoke to him was not, I suppose, an ideal place to start a conversation. I had gone into the church graveyard to place flowers on grandfather's grave. I would often go there, sit quietly, completely alone and talk to my grandfather. This particular day I indulged in a little silliness. After my talk, I started to sing the old folk song ‘Widdecombe Fair', which had been so dear to him. I was startled and somewhat embarrassed when I heard a polite cough behind me. What I had not observed was Arthur Halfpenny sitting with his back to one of the large tombstones reading a book of verse. He got to his feet, removing his hat and offering me an apology for intruding upon my grief. Before I could speak, he was gone but I must admit I felt instant warmth envelop my whole body; it was not like a childish blush you hope will disappear quickly but was totally different. The feeling was so overwhelming and so pleasurable; I tried to retain the emotion, trying desperately not to let it go.

“I had never before felt such a warm emotion in my life. That night my sleep was greatly disturbed because my mind was so troubled. I really did not understand such emotions. I sat late into the night with my Bible but found no answer there. The desire to experience the feeling again was so strong; I could not wait to return to the church. The next day, as soon as I was able, without making it too obvious, I returned to the church. As I stood in the church porch listening to the organ being tuned, a parishioner left the church in a hurry complaining to me as she passed, ‘what an awful cacophony'.

“To me the sound was sublime; to hear this magnificent instrument coming back to full life again was so thrilling. I tried to enter the church as quietly as I could, attempting to close the large oak door without making any noise but the old willful spring lock would have none of it and it shot home with a resounding crack, like a shot from a gun which echoed round the church seeming never to end. It had coincided with a moment of silence from the organ and gained everyone's attention. I could not stop myself looking up to the organ console and into the mirrors set above it. The face that looked back to me from the mirror, with smiling eyes, overwhelmed me and created the same warm wonderful emotion I had experienced in the graveyard. I did not know how to explain it then, but I know now. It is a look that only lovers recognise.

“The silence was broken when a loud insistent shout came from somewhere high up in the organ loft, ‘Have you fallen asleep?' I left the church feeling so embarrassed that I had brought such attention to myself. I went home and up to my bedroom, feigning a slight headache. I closed the curtains of my room and lay on my bed in the semi darkness trying to make some sense of my feelings. I knew nothing of life and especially men. Silly as it might sound, I'd never thought I had a need to know. I decided the best thing for me would be to stay away from the church, but this was easier said than done, as my whole life revolved around the church. Other strong forces played heavily upon my mind. I went back to the church with a resolve that I would make no acknowledgement of the young man.

“As I walked into the church, which was unusually silent, the tuner was there bending over large drawings of the organ which were spread over the top of the grand piano and talking to Mr. Noon, the organist, addressing him by his Christian name, Archie. This took me by surprise, as I had never heard anybody addressing Mr. Noon as Archie. He was one of those people in life that you never realised had a Christian name. As I walked past the organ tuner, he acknowledged me and said, ‘You will have a peaceful day Miss, my assistant will not be in today, evidently he is not well'.

“That was the last thing I expected to hear. I politely acknowledged him with a smile and left the church, seeking the solitude of the bench under the under the old yew tree in the church yard. I pushed my way through the overgrown beds of lavender whose strong perfume rose and made my head swim. I slowly gained my composure telling myself, this is pure nonsense and saying out loud, ‘I don't even know his name', then behind me, a quiet voice said, ‘It's Arthur, Arthur Halfpenny'. His voice was soft, with just a hint of the West Country. He asked me if he might sit on the bench and before I could reply he was sitting next to me, smiling. It was strange how I felt instantly at ease with him. Even the smell of his tobacco seemed to please me. He smiled and said, ‘You have the advantage of me, you know my name but I do not know yours'.

“I had to stop myself quickly from saying, ‘Miss Stevenson', as a young man had never asked me my Christian name before. ‘My name is Amelia,' I said, ‘I am the Rector's daughter'. We talked about the first time we met and my singing of ‘Widdecombe Fair'. He said it was the first time that he had heard it sung by someone that wasn't from the West Country, being extremely careful to be polite about my voice. He said he would love to teach me how to sing it as it is sung in the West Country.

“Conversation was so easy with him I did not realise how long we had been sitting talking and how late in the afternoon it was until I heard the sound of the bell for Evensong. We met regularly, if somewhat secretly in the churchyard as my parents would have frowned on my being friendly with a working-class man He quite understood this and chose to ignore it. At first he told me little of his background, apart from the fact that he was born and spent his childhood in a town called Tisbury in the West Country. I asked Arthur whether it was his ambition to become an organ builder. He said he had come upon this job by sheer chance. Having come from Tisbury, without any real idea of what he wanted to do in life, he decided to look for some form of temporary work. Looking through the local newspapers' positions vacant column, he saw a small advertisement: ‘Wanted. Young man to assist organ tuner, experience not necessary but must have some knowledge of music.' On telephoning he said he was surprised that the job was offered instantly but on the understanding that he could start work the following day, he said he was a little apprehensive as he had no experience of organs and his only knowledge of music was from playing the clarinet. He said Mr. Frampton was a man of few words but friendly to him.

“He said he had asked him what happened to his predecessor, he was told it was not a happy association and that he'd had to dismiss him because of gross dishonesty, evidently he had been left alone in a church where they had been working, the church was empty, he was sitting up at the organ consul and observed an elderly lady entering the church. Just as she was leaving, she placed a five pound note in the collection box marked ‘Vicars Stipend' but leaving the edge of the bank note protruding from the box. Seeing the bank note, the temptation was too much for him, feeling aggrieved by his own lack of money he took the bank note. What he did not know was that he had been observed by the Sexton who reported the matter immediately.

“He had a singular ability to keep off the subject of religion. I had never seen him attend a service at the church and assumed that he must be of the other faith, a Catholic. We had never so much as touched each other; I had never even held his hand.

“I came alive that summer sitting on the wooden bench under the old yew tree in the churchyard with Arthur reading the romantic poetry of Keats and Shelley to me. I found it so easy to fall in love. One day, he gathered lavender from the bushes and gave it to me and when I got home, I placed the lavender between the pages of my Bible and every time I open my Bible and smell the lavender, Arthur is with me.

“The first time that he touched me, it could either have been by accident or design. It did not matter as it was not unwelcome on my part. I was arranging flowers on the altar when I accidentally dropped one to the floor. At that moment, Arthur appeared next to me, bending down. We were both on our knees, collecting the fallen flower; it seemed the most natural thing in the world as we both instantly moved closer to each other. My heart was pounding and then, as gently as a butterfly's wings, our lips briefly touched.

“He gently helped me to my feet saying ‘Amelia please forgive me. I feel so ashamed, I've shamed us both'. My mind could hardly comprehend his words. Shamed, ashamed of what? My mind started to work quickly searching the Bible. The word ‘shame' jumped straight out of the Bible at me. Was this the shame of the original sin of Eve? Or that of the fallen woman. My mind was full of disquiet. I told Arthur that I felt no shame, nor should he. There can be no shame in being kissed by the man you love. He had difficulty in finding his words and said, ‘It is not the kiss, Amelia it is the place, we are standing before this altar, where your father worships his God, to us it is a beautiful first kiss, to your father, blasphemy'.

“As you can well imagine, that loving first kiss was not the last kiss of that long summer. We would walk hand in hand through Lovers Walk on Wimbledon common in the early evenings and lay innocently together in the long grass to be serenaded by an exaltation of larks high in the sky above us, with Arthur reading to me Shelley's ‘Ode to a Skylark'. I can still hear Arthur in my mind with the soft beauty of his voice added to Shelley's words, it was so moving and memorable.” She then started to recite the opening lines of the poem:

As she finished speaking she looked pale and thoughtful and then quietly said, “I have tried so many times to read that particular poem in my times of loneliness but I only found cold comfort in the words without Arthur to read them to me. When possible, we would spend whole days together travelling into London, visiting art galleries. I was often delighted by his knowledge of art and artists. We would stand before paintings by the great masters and he would explain in great detail the inner meanings. He saw imagery in paintings that I had been totally unaware of, even though I had looked at the paintings many times before. On one occasion we went to Hampstead to visit Wentworth Place, the home of the poet Keats. It had just been opened to the public; our visit coincided with an exhibition of paintings chronicling his life and that of his fellow poets and their lovers. One painting that we were both instantly drawn to was of Shelley and Mary Godwin seated together with her prayer book by her side in the old St. Pancras Churchyard titled,
The Lovers Seat
by William Powell Frith, an eminent Victorian artist. Arthur said that it was a painting that reminded him so much of us sitting on the bench under the old yew tree in St Mary's churchyard. Arthur kindly purchased a postcard copy of the painting for me and he wrote on the back of the postcard: