A Glass of Blessings (24 page)

‘And I’m going to help you choose curtain materials,’ said Keith, ‘don’t forget?’

‘No, of course I won’t,’ I said.

It seemed impossible to avoid giving Mr Bason a lift in our taxi, and he made us promise to call and see him should we be anywhere near his antique teashop on our holiday.

‘We can easily be not all that near,’ said Rodney, after he had left us. ‘I should think it will be impossible to turn off from the stream of holiday traffic—you know how it is.’

I looked at the closed door of the clergy house and imagined Mr Bason creeping quietly up the stairs, perhaps pausing outside doors to listen for a moment I wondered if any of the clergy would still be up at this late hour, praying or meditating, or just lying awake reading a thriller. It was not the kind of thing one could expect to know.

The next morning I met Father Ransome in the square. It was the first time I had seen him alone since Mary had told me the news of their engagement, so I hastened to offer him my congratulations and best wishes.

He thanked me and sighed heavily.

‘But
what
a business it’s been,’ he said wearily. ‘Father Thames took it badly, as I feared he might.’

I said that I was sorry to hear it.

‘It was a difficult interview, and to make matters worse I knew that Bason was listening outside the door. I hadn’t anticipated an audience so I didn’t really do myself justice. Still, it’s all settled now.’

I began to wonder, as one so often does, whether in spite of his being a clergyman he was really good enough for Mary, but I could hardly ask that question in so many words.

‘You’re very lucky,’ I said. ‘Mary is such a splendid person.’

‘Yes, isn’t she,’ he agreed. ‘She’ll be able to do so much for me. And of course we have both been bruised by life, as it were.’

‘Have you?’ I asked doubtfully, for I couldn’t quite see that this applied to him, unless he had suffered more from his doubts and uncertainties than I had given him credit for.

‘We all have been, come to that, haven’t we?’ he said rather lamely.

‘That’s what life does, of course—bruises one,’ I said, thinking of Piers. ‘One shouldn’t assume that one has a monopoly of suffering.

Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course

With rocks and stones and trees ….’

‘I shouldn’t have thought that of
you
,’ he began almost accusingly.

‘All right then,’ I said, beginning to laugh.

‘Of course it’s a bit embarrassing, Mary being rather well off,’ he said.

‘But just think of all the good you’ll be able to do with the money,’ I said quickly.

‘Yes, we shall, shan’t we?’ he said thankfully. ‘Money need not always be an embarrassment.’

‘When you have a parish of your own you’ll need a car,’ I said. ‘A scooter is all very well for a curate to go visiting on, but a vicar should be more dignified.’

‘People have been so kind,’ he said. ‘Do you know, Coleman even offered to lend me his Husky for the honeymoon?’

‘Could you accept such an offer?’ I asked.

‘I suppose not, in the end. It will be like Abraham and Isaac. I could not ask that sacrifice of our good friend Bill. I think we shall buy a car quite soon. Of course the wedding will be
very
quiet.’

I reflected that the marriage of two people who had almost taken vows of celibacy, as it were, ought not to be a riotous affair, but I managed not to say so.

Chapter Twenty-two

‘I suppose this must be it?’ I said, leaning out of the car window. ‘It’s definitely an antique shop, and I can see people sitting at tables inside.’

‘I can’t park
here,’
said Rodney, in the irritable, slightly agitated tone common to motorists in England in the holiday season. ‘You’d better get out quickly and I’ll join you when I’ve found somewhere to put the car.’

I went in through the low door, and sat down at a small round table in a corner filled with lustre jugs and horse brasses. I noticed that the walls were hung with old prints and engravings, framed in a contemporary style with white frames and coloured mounts; warming-pans, fire-dogs, toby jugs, ships in bottles and other objects of antique and tourist interest were displayed on shelves. I wondered what it was that Queen Mary had often popped in for, or if she had perhaps bought all the better pieces—for such furniture as I saw was not noticeably good.

The other tables were nearly all filled, but the occupants appeared to be talking in whispers as if ashamed of their conversation; and they may have had cause to be, for some were giggling in a rather unseemly way.

‘Should we leave him a tip, do you think?’ I heard one woman ask another.

‘I suppose so,’ tittered her companion, though they might have a box for staff gratuities somewhere—quite a lot of places do now.’

I thought that they were probably talking about Mr Bason, though it was quite likely that all the staff had that rather superior manner which makes one hesitate to leave a little heap of pennies or a sixpence under the plate. I waited with some curiosity for him to appear, which he did very soon from behind a Jacobean chintz curtain, carrying a tray of tea. He did not see me immediately, so I was able to get over the first shock of his appearance and compose my features before greeting him. He had grown a beard—egg-shaped, I suppose one might have called it, to match his face—and was wearing a loose blue smock, corduroy trousers and sandals.

When he saw me and Rodney, who had now joined me, he gave a cry of recognition and pleasure.

‘Wilmet and Rodney—but this is
delightful!’

Now we really have got down to Christian names, I thought, and wondered when I should dare to utter the first ‘Wilfred’ or even ‘Wilf.

‘Now what can I get you?’ he asked.

‘Oh, just tea, thank you,’ I said.

‘Ah, but
which
tea? Shrimp, Lobster, Crab, Devonshire, Carlton or Plain, though I hope you won’t want
that.’

‘Carlton sounds interesting,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

‘Pot of tea, China or Indian, scones, jam and cream, lobster salad and fruit—but the fruit is tinned,’ he added in a low voice.

‘I think that sounds rather too substantial for us,’ said Rodney doubtfully. ‘Could we have a plain lobster tea?’

‘You would be difficult! We don’t really have a
plain
lobster tea, but seeing that it’s
you
…’ he slithered off in his flapping sandals, but was soon back again with our tea.

‘They made me dress up like this,’ he said, indicating his costume. ‘It adds a novelty touch, doesn’t it, and people do seem to be attracted by something unusual.’

‘Was the beard your own idea?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it was, really. I thought my face just needed something, and a beard did seem to provide the finishing touch, as it were.’

‘Splendid!’ said Rodney heartily, his hand going up to his own beardless chin. ‘And you like the work here?’

‘Oh, immensely!’

‘You’ve got some nice things,’ I said, picking up a pink and gold lustre jug from the shelf behind our table.

‘Would you like that?’ asked Mr Bason enthusiastically.

‘Well, it’s probably rather expensive, isn’t it?’

‘But I should like you to have it as a present from me,’ said Mr Bason, pressing the jug into my hands. ‘It is so very much
you
, I feel.’

I threw a doubtful and perhaps appealing glance towards Rodney, who tactfully drew out his notecase and said calmly, That’s very kind of you, Bason, but you’ll never make a living if you’re going to be so generous. I should like to buy it for Wilmet—I insist.’

‘Well, perhaps that
is
a husband’s privilege,’ Mr Bason agreed. ‘Now
do
tell me about those poor things at the clergy house. I suppose Mrs Greenhill’s back there now?’

‘Yes, she agreed to go back—mainly because she’s so devoted to Father Bode. And of course when Father Thames retires in October she’ll have him all to herself, until another priest comes, I suppose.’

‘The poor things,’ Mr Bason sighed. ‘Cod on Fridays, and those
endless
cups of tea.’

‘I met Mrs Greenhill the Friday before we came away and couldn’t resist asking her what she was giving them, and of course it
was
cod! I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, remembering scampi and all the lovely things they had when you were there.’

‘Remembering Scampi’
said Rodney thoughtfully. ‘Surely that ought to be the title of a novel?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘though it might be a little too esoteric for a book about a clergy house. People would never guess, would they?
Cod on Fridays
would be too obvious, on the other hand.’

‘And you are to live even nearer to the clergy house now, I hear,’ Mr Bason went on.

‘How did you know?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I heard,’ said Mr Bason airily, and went away to give the bill to a tableful of ladies who had been trying to attract his attention for some time.

‘I suppose he would always know things that one thought were known only to oneself,’ said Rodney, ‘but in this case it doesn’t really matter.’

Our search for somewhere to live seemed to have brought us closer together than we had been for years, though it had taken us a long time to decide whether it was to be a house or flat, and in town or suburban country. After visiting Mary at the retreat house I had had a hankering for the country, the dim compost heap under the apple trees and the drama of bees swarming at unexpected times. But Rodney could see only the winter mornings, struggling to the Ministry in gumboots over two ploughed fields, wearing a duffle coat with his bowler hat—an abomination, he thought. Then there had been the tempting advertisements—self-contained wings of Georgian rectories in Wiltshire or Hampshire, suburban residences in favoured positions, with tiled cloakrooms and double garages. I think I must have invented the one which advertised ‘disused clergy house—would convert’—so unlikely does it seem now.

In the end we had done something safe and dull, and bought the lease of a flat a stone’s throw from Sybil’s house and a good hundred yards nearer the clergy house than we had been before. I had enjoyed choosing carpets and curtains, and had found Keith a tireless, and sometimes rather tiring, companion. ‘Wilmet,
I
like the lime green. It goes well with antique furniture—sets it off, doesn’t it? These chairs are old-fashioned in a way, but they’re nice—would you say they were antique? …’ I smiled as I remembered him chattering away, at once comic, boring and cosy. I had really grown quite fond of him.

‘Why, if you had a telescope you could see into the clergy house windows,’ said Mr Bason, as we parted at the door of the antique teashop.

‘One feels there will be less to see now,’ I said a little sadly.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Mr Bason confidently. ‘Dash it, there’s another customer—bye-bye!’

‘He
seems all right,’ said Rodney with a sigh, as we walked through the narrow streets to the rather distant place where he had parked the car.

We drove soberly to the Trust House where we had arranged to stay the night, for we were on our way home now. Dinner was a rather silent meal in the great dining-room with its tall windows looking out on to the rainswept main street.

‘Portugal might have been better than this,’ said Rodney. ‘Next year, perhaps … Or even Italy—how would you like that?’

‘I think I should like it very much,’ I said. ‘It would be better to go to the parts we don’t already know. After ten years they might be too sad.’

‘Like these little pictures,’ said Rodney, for we had discovered a little lounge upstairs which nobody else seemed to know about, whose walls were hung with delicate nineteenth- century water-colours of Neapolitan scenes—Posillipo, Vesuvius, Pompeii and Pozzuoli.

‘How did these come to be here?’ he asked.

‘Somebody’s aunt did them, or perhaps they were bought in a lot at some country house sale and regarded as being suitable decorations for a hotel lounge,’ I suggested.

‘In the damp gloom of the west country the traveller is reminded that there is sunshine somewhere,’ said Rodney. ‘And how very different this is from Posillipo!’

‘Yes. Do you remember the funny guide book we found—“the Via de Posillipo, recently ampliated”?’

‘Of course, and the name meaning “pause of every sorrow”.’

‘And the caves in the Via Chiatamone where some citizens went for pastimes that ended in scandal,’ I laughed.

Rodney sighed. ‘Those were good days, weren’t they?’ he said. ‘Perhaps better than we shall ever know again.’

‘Well, we were young then. But life is supposed to get better as one grows older—even married life,’ I added, not consciously cynical.

‘Wilmet, I’m afraid it may not have been like that for you this last year or two. I’ve often wondered …’ Rodney hesitated and looked down intently at the patience which I had laid out on the table. ‘This summer particularly,’ he went on.

I could feel embarrassment creeping over me, and I wondered what he was going to say next. Could it be that he had noticed something of my ridiculous so quickly nipped in the bud infatuation for Piers and was going to have it out with me? Nervously I took a card from one of my long lines, only to find that the intricate move I had planned was now blocked by another card I had failed to notice.

‘This summer?’ I asked, to gain time.

‘Yes. Do you remember hearing me talk about a woman principal in our department?’

‘Yes—with cotton stockings,’ I laughed quickly, with a mixture of relief and curiosity as to what could be coming next.

‘I believe I did mention Eleanor’s cotton stockings,’ Rodney smiled, ‘rather unkind of me, really. But do you also remember that she had a friend?’

‘Even a woman civil servant can have a friend,’ I mocked. ‘What’s so remarkable about that?’

‘Don’t you remember my telling you that I had met her?’

‘Oh yes, Miss Bates—I remember now. And her christian name was Patience.’

‘No—Prudence, actually,’ said Rodney. ‘I took her out to dinner once or twice,’ he added casually. ‘That evening when you heard about Bason stealing the Fabergé egg, and another time later on when Mary Beamish came to stay.’

My hands stopped moving the cards about. So he had taken Miss Bates out to dinner. At the time when I had been occupied with foolish thoughts of Piers, my husband had been taking the attractive friend of a woman civil servant out to dinner.

‘I see,’ I said stiffly.

‘Darling, it was no more than that,’ said Rodney, his manner becoming almost agitated. ‘I can’t think why I didn’t tell you at the time—it was stupid of me.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Why should you have told me? After all, I’ve had lunch with Harry and Piers several times, but I doubt if I’ve always remembered to tell you.’

‘Lunch, yes. But dinner
is
rather different somehow.’

‘Well, if you insist, perhaps it is. Was she nice, Miss Bates?’

‘In a way. The funny thing is she reminded me of you. Sitting there on that little Regency sofa thing, rather cool and distant-‘

‘Where was the Regency sofa? In her flat?’

‘Yes. She has a nice little place near Regent’s Park,’ said Rodney seriously.

‘How uncomfortable,’ I said coolly.

‘Regency furniture isn’t exactly cosy.’ Rodney’s mouth began to twitch, and suddenly we had both dissolved into helpless laughter, so that an elderly woman coming into the lounge to retrieve the knitting she had left there before dinner, retreated quickly and with a look of alarm on her face.

‘What a funny place to choose to tell me such a thing,’ I said weakly. ‘And I have told you about Harry and Piers, so now all is revealed.’

But after I had stopped laughing I began to think that perhaps it wasn’t so funny after all. I had always regarded Rodney as the kind of man who would never look at another woman. The fact that he could—and had indeed done so—ought to teach me something about myself, even if I was not yet quite sure what it was.