A Glass of Blessings (21 page)

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 picture 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.

I began to feel a little drowsy—I may even actually have closed my eyes—but really it was better to keep them open, for only by resting them on the beauty of Keith’s face could I forget that he was really rather a bore. Yet the recognition of this fact was a kind of solace, for it made him much less alarming and glamorous, and seemed to bring Piers’s world nearer to my own, where people seldom looked like Keith but were often as boring.

‘And then you decided to learn French?’ I heard myself saying.

‘Yes, and
that
was how I met Piers. Then I had a row with my landlady. At least it wasn’t me, really. There were two other boys sharing the flat with me—they were in the ballet, but resting at the time—Tony and Ray their names were. Well, one night we had a party and Tony threw an ornament out of the window. Actually it was a big blue and gold vase with a picture of a Grecian lady on it—you know how excitable stage people are,’ he added primly. ‘Anyway, the landlady thought it was me that did it though I was always
very
quiet, but I didn’t trouble to vindicate myself because I knew that Piers was on his own and had a spare room—he’d had some domestic upset too—so I went there. And Wilmet—the
mess
in that place!’ He lowered his voice confidentially. That woman in the basement was
supposed
to keep it clean, but she never went
near.
You remember that big table in Piers’s room?’

‘Vaguely,’ I said.

‘Well, I wrote my name in the dust on that’

‘Fancy that’ I said cosily.

‘There was plenty for me to do
there.
I really don’t know how Piers ever managed without me. Do you know, the kitchen was so full of empty bottles you could hardly open the door properly?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes! And he never used to make his bed. Some days he didn’t even cover it up. And he wasn’t getting proper food, either Do you know, Wilmet -‘ the dark eyes looked so seriously into mine that I wondered what horror was going to be revealed next—‘he hadn’t even got a
teapot!’

‘Goodness! How did he make tea, then?’

‘He didn’t—he
never made tea!
Just fancy!’

‘Well, one doesn’t really associate Piers with drinking tea,’ I said.

‘He drinks it now,’ said Keith, in such a governessy tone that I began to feel almost sorry for Piers.

‘I expect you’ve been very good for him,’ I said. ‘I always think there’s something pathetic about undomesticated men living on their own, and Piers is rather difficult to help.’

‘Oh, he’s a difficult person altogether,’ said Keith, with understandable complacency. ‘But you mustn’t take too much notice of what he says, Wilmet. He can be very unkind sometimes, but he doesn’t really mean it.’

I was extremely embarrassed, and a little annoyed, too, for this could only mean that Piers had told Keith what he had said to me in our last conversation.

‘I never mind what he says,’ I said quickly, anxious to keep my end up.

‘I’m glad to hear it, Wilmet, because really it
was
a nasty thing to say.’

‘Did you know what he said?’ I asked.

‘Did I know?’ Keith seemed surprised. ‘But of course. Piers doesn’t really think you’re unlovable, you know, and
I
certainly don’t.’

I was too astonished to point out that Piers hadn’t exactly said that, or even to make any other kind of comment, but perhaps astonishment was not a bad note on which to end our tea party, for Keith had now risen to his feet and was saying that he really must be going because he liked to be in when Piers got home from the press.

‘Wilmet, I
have
enjoyed myself,’ he said, fingering the curtains and turning them back to see if they were lined. I saw him give a little nod of approval when he discovered that they were.

‘I do hope you will come to my coffee bar one evening, if you ever go to such places.’

‘Yes, I should be interested to see it. What’s its name?’

‘It’s quite near you, really—nearly at Marble Arch. It’s called the Cenerentola.’

‘La Cenerentola!’ I exclaimed. ‘What a strange coincidence.’

‘Why—do you know it?’

‘No, but it’s the same name as the villa which our vicar is retiring to in Italy.’

‘Oh well,
we
have Italian décor,’ said Keith.

I remembered thinking what a beautiful acolyte he would make, so I asked him if he ever went to church.

‘No, Wilmet, I’m afraid I never do,’ he said. ‘Church services are so old-fashioned, aren’t they? As a matter of fact, I once knew a boy who went to church. He used to wear a vestment—he looked ever so nice.’

I felt it was hardly worth the trouble to point out that it was only priests who wore vestments. Unless, of course, the friend had been a priest, which seemed unlikely.

‘Of course he was a Catholic,’ Keith went on, ‘very devout.’

I have often noticed that it is only
Roman
Catholics who are spoken of as very devout, just as it seems to be only Romans who are lapsed, but again it seemed useless to argue the point.

‘You see, Wilmet, I don’t believe in God,’ said Keith simply. ‘Good-bye and thank you for a lovely tea. I hope we’ll meet again soon.’

‘Give my love to Piers,’ I said; for now I could send it in the casual meaningless way one did to all and sundry, when it no longer mattered.

Keith tripped away across the square while Sybil and Professor Root approached the house with more measured steps.

‘Who was that beautiful young man who didn’t believe in God?’ asked Sybil.

‘Did you hear him say that?’

‘Yes. We wondered if you had been having a little evangelizing tea party, and were sorry that you had apparently been unsuccessful,’ said Professor Root.

‘Actually he is a friend of Piers’s,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ said Sybil, in a meaningful tone.

I changed the subject, but when we were having dinner she brought it up again.

‘Wilmet has been entertaining a friend of Piers’s to tea,’ she said.

‘Really?’ said Rodney, in a not very interested tone.

‘Yes. I see now the clue to Piers’s lack of success in this world. I believe that he has loved not wisely but too well.’

‘Mother, that’s such a hackneyed quotation, and it really tells one nothing. I suppose we’ve all of us done that in our time, if you come to think of it.’

I looked at Rodney in surprise. He so seldom indulged in these generalizations about love. I saw that he had gone a little pink.

‘Noddy, I think you misunderstand me,’ said Sybil.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I should have thought that Piers’s inability to make a success of his life springs from all sorts of causes—he’s so lazy, for one thing. I believe that Keith has been very good for him, even making him drink tea. And
has
he been so unsuccessful? Not really, you know.’

‘At least he has taught us a little Portuguese,’ said Sybil. ‘I wonder how we shall get on with our speaking.’

‘Are we
all
going to Portugal?’ asked Rodney.

‘That’s really what I wanted to talk about,’ said Sybil, laying down her knife and fork, and glancing over towards Professor Root. He bent lower over his lobster mayonnaise and, like Rodney earlier, seemed to grow a little pink in the face. Or was it my imagination that both men seemed slightly embarrassed this evening?

‘Arnold, will you speak?’ she asked. ‘Or shall I?’

‘We have a piece of news,’ said Professor Root, raising his head. ‘A joyful one, as far as we are concerned, and we hope you will find it agreeable too. I am happy to tell you that Sybil has consented to be my wife.’

I can hardly describe how I felt on hearing this news. My first feeling was that I must have heard wrongly, my second that it was some outrageous joke. Sybil to be Professor Root’s wife! But she was Rodney’s mother and my mother-in-law—how could she ever be anything else?

‘Wilmet is overcome,’ said Sybil kindly. ‘Perhaps she is also astonished and a little shocked to hear that two old people have decided to marry.’

‘It’s such a surprise,’ I stammered.

‘Yes, my dear, I thought it would be,’ said Professor Root. ‘But for many years I have had the deepest regard for your mother-in-law. Of late it has become so deep that, we both felt -‘ he paused and made an expansive gesture with his lobster pick.