A Glass of Blessings (3 page)

I saw them at the stove, anxiously watching the bubbling water; then, watches in hand, lowering the eggs into the saucepan. I wondered if they would know what to do if they cracked. I never did myself.

‘Then I went on to read about the most enjoyable outing the servers had had, ‘greatly assisted by the presence of Mr Coleman and his Husky’. I was just puzzling over these last words, wondering if the Husky was indeed a large polar dog or perhaps a kind of motor car, when I was conscious of somebody standing over me.

‘Good afternoon, Miss—er—Mrs …’ Father Thames, in a splendid cloak clasped at the neck with gilt lions’ heads, hovered over me like a great bird. ‘Do you know,’ he went on, ‘I thought for one moment when I saw you sitting there reading the parish paper that you might be the answer to prayer.’

I flushed for a moment and preened myself, almost as if I had been paid some frivolous compliment at a party.

‘I’ve just been reading about Mrs Greenhill leaving,’ I said. ‘I do hope you’ve got somebody else to keep house for you?’

‘No, alas, not yet. That’s why I was thinking how wonderful it would be if
you
, reading my
cri de cœur
—he paused and gave me a most appealing look. I wondered whether many men, perhaps the clergy especially, went about cajoling or bullying women into being the answer to prayer. I supposed that the technique must often be successful For a moment I even toyed with the idea that I might go and live in the clergy house and look after the priests. Then, of course, I remembered that I was married and could hardly leave Rodney even if I did nothing very much in the way of housekeeping for him. And then again I was obviously much too young to be able to live in the clergy house with two priests without fear of scandal. Why, then, had Father Thames seemed to think that I might be suitable? Perhaps I didn’t look so young after all. The thought was disturbing and I put it from me quickly. It must be that the morning at the Settlement had temporarily aged me.

‘You see, I have my husband to look after,’ I began.

‘Ah yes, women do have husbands,’ he said a little peevishly.

‘It was too much to hope that you would be free. Still, we know God
does
move in a mysterious way, as Cowper tells us. Perhaps one day a stranger might sit here, as you are sitting, reading our parish paper -‘

‘I shall certainly let you know if I hear of anybody likely to be suitable,’ I said, seizing the easy way out ‘After all, one does sometimes come across people who want such work.’ For one wild moment I thought of Piers Longridge—if, as was highly possible, he should lose his job as proof-reader. ‘Would you really consider a male housekeeper?’ I asked.

‘Oh, any sex, any sex,’ said Father Thames, wringing his hands.

As I walked home I found myself wondering why Father Ransome couldn’t live at the clergy house with Father Thames and Father Bode. I was sure there must be plenty of room.

I found Sybil in the morning-room struggling to fold up one of Rodney’s old suits into a manageable parcel.

‘He was rather doubtful when I asked him if it could go,’ I remarked. ‘He does rather like to hang on to these old things, though I’m sure he hasn’t worn that suit for about two years.’

‘We will say nothing,’ said Sybil, folding the brown paper round it. ‘It is such a good clerical grey. Perhaps it will go no farther than the vicarage. And now I suppose I must tidy myself up for Miss Prideaux.’

I did not very much look forward to the tea party, though Miss Prideaux had a curious kind of fascination for me. The words ‘distressed gentlewoman’ always came into my mind when I thought of her, though the expression was not really accurate. She was undoubtedly a gentlewoman, but perhaps reduced circumstances described her position better than any phrase suggesting distress or decay. Indeed, I felt that the word ‘reduced’, with its culinary associations hinting at something that has been concentrated and enriched by the boiling away of unnecessary elements, gave a much truer picture. The rich residue here was the distillation of her vivid memories of life as a governess in Europe in the grand old days. Miss Prideaux appeared to remember only the best parts of her life, so that she was sometimes accused of exaggeration or even of downright lying. ‘Two litres of Chianti
from our own vineyards
was sent up to the schoolroom
every day
,’ I once heard her say; at other times she would hint at remarkable and esoteric knowledge of some historical event, such as what
really
happened at the hunting lodge at Mayerling that winter night in 1883.

In appearance she was small and dry and bent, and this afternoon I noticed that, like the clergyman who might be going to receive Rodney’s old suit, she was wearing a lavender- coloured cardigan which I had sent to St Luke’s last jumble sale. I remembered that it had been nearly new—really too good for a jumble sale—but that I had taken a dislike to the colour.
Vogue
or
Harper’s
had urged us to ‘make it a lavender spring this year’ and I had responded with too much haste and enthusiasm. I could only suppose that one of the organizers of the sale had allowed Miss Prideaux a kind of preview of some of the best things, for I hated to think of her fragile old body being buffeted by the rough jumble sale crowd. Besides, she would have found the whole thing so distasteful—I could not imagine her even entertaining the idea of going there herself.

Miss Prideaux was of the generation which wears a hat in the house for luncheon and tea, and she now came forward to greet us wearing a little black toque to which a bunch of artificial Parma violets had been pinned at a rather rakish angle. Her cheeks were, as usual, very heavily rouged.

Her little drawing-room, as she called it, which was really a bed-sitting-room in the flat of some other people, was cluttered with souvenirs and photographs in silver frames. Some of the photographs were undoubtedly of minor European royalties, but I never quite knew which were royalties and which Miss Prideaux’s own relations; they did not look so very different, except that the royalties were usually adorned with large sprawling signatures.

‘Now we need not wait for Sir Denbigh,’ she said. I will make the tea. I expect it is one of his busy days and he has been delayed.’

‘I suppose we all have our busy days,’ said Sybil, ‘even retired diplomats. What does Sir Denbigh do with his days?’

‘He is writing his memoirs, of course,’ said Miss Prideaux, without irony, ‘and that keeps him rather fully occupied. Then he is vicar’s warden at St Luke’s, you know.’

‘Father Thames seems worried about getting a new housekeeper,’ I said.

‘Yes, poor Oswald,’ said Miss Prideaux. ‘If it isn’t one thing it’s another.’

It always surprised me to hear Father Thames called by his christian name. I wondered if he called Miss Prideaux Augusta.

At that moment I heard the bell ring and shortly afterwards Sir Denbigh Grote came into the room, rubbing his hands together as if it were a cold afternoon. He looked so much like a retired diplomat is generally supposed to look, even to his monocle, that I never thought of him as being the sort of person one needed to describe in any detail. What did seem unusual was his friendship with Miss Prideaux, who in spite of being a gentlewoman had only been a governess in some of the countries where he had served in a much higher capacity. It could only be supposed that retirement, like death, is a kind of leveller; and that social differences had been forgotten in the common pleasure of recalling garden parties at the embassies to celebrate the sovereign’s birthday, and other similar functions which few people would have been capable of discussing at all knowledgeably.

I personally found Sir Denbigh rather dull, and the tea party with its almost ritual sipping of weak China tea and crumbling of shortbread biscuits was something of an ordeal. Fortunately Sybil made a move to go shortly after half past five.

‘Let me see now, Sir Denbigh, were you ever in Lisbon?’ she asked, putting on her gloves. ‘Wilmet and I are thinking of taking Portuguese lessons this winter.’

‘Was I ever in Lisbon?’ Sir Denbigh repeated. ‘Lisboa—ah, yes, but many years ago. The climate is delightful, but the language is very difficult—perhaps too difficult for ladies.’

Miss Prideaux looked a little bored, though in the most gentlewomanly way, so I concluded that she did not know Lisbon.

‘Did you know a family called Longridge?’ I asked Sir Denbigh.

‘I do not recall anyone of that name,’ he began, then added thoughtfully, ‘Longbottom—an unusual name.’

It hardly seemed worth while to correct him, especially as Sybil and I were now in the doorway about to leave.

‘What was that little parcel you dropped on the table as we were going?’ I asked her when we were outside.

‘Just half a pound of coffee and some of those Egyptian cigarettes she likes.’

‘You are full of good works today. First the Settlement, then the poor clergy, and now Miss Prideaux. I wish I could do things like that.’

‘You will one day,’ said Sybil confidently. ‘It is something for one’s old or middle age, not really for youth.’

I reflected that perhaps that very evening an opportunity might occur for me to do something that would give me a glow of virtue, and as it turned out I was not far wrong.

When Rodney came home he seemed to have some worry on his mind. Sybil and I did not generally ask him about his day’s work at the Ministry—I think we had the impression, probably erroneous, that it was too secret to be discussed, or if not too secret too dull, but this time I felt that he wanted to unburden himself, so I said lightly, ‘What’s the matter, darling? Has Miss Pim been temperamental again?’

‘No, not that,’ he said. ‘It’s a man in my department. Really it’s nothing to do with me, but one feels vaguely responsible somehow. He isn’t at all suited to the work—in fact he has been dismissed, and I feel I ought to help him to do something about getting another job, though heaven knows what.’

‘What can he do?’ asked Sybil, practical as always.

‘Well,’ Rodney began doubtfully, ‘I hardly know. Certainly . not what he was engaged to do in the Ministry. He is an Anglo-Catholic and fond of cooking.’ He laughed. There you are—I’m afraid that’s about all I can tell you.’

‘But that sounds rather promising,’ I said, and told him about Father Thames’s appeal for a housekeeper (‘Oh, any sex, any sex!’) and my promise to let him know if I heard of anybody suitable.

‘That
might
be a possibility,’ said Rodney, ‘though it sounds almost too good to be true. Shall I ask him to get in touch with Father Thames—would that be the best thing?’

‘Yes, do. After all, you never know. It might be just the thing.’

‘Somehow I can’t imagine poor Bason being just the thing at any job,’ said Rodney, ‘but, as you say, one never knows.’

‘Bason or Basin—is that his name?’ chuckled Sybil. ‘That might be a good omen. At least it has a domestic sound about it.’

‘How wonderful if it were the answer to all our prayers,’ I said. ‘Father Thames might announce it from the pulpit one Sunday morning. How proud I should feel—as if there were some justification for my life after all!’

Chapter Three

I looked forward to my weekend with Rowena and Harry as I sat in the Green Line bus on Friday afternoon. I had taken care to avoid the rush hour and should be there in time for tea. We travelled through some of the pleasanter suburbs and were soon in the country—tame country, really, though once I caught a glimpse of a mysterious Excalibur-like lake through a gap in some trees, beyond which stood a great house now turned into a country club, with swimming pool and American bar, as the noticeboard proclaimed.

When I got to the right bus stop I saw Rowena waiting with her little pale blue car; presumably Harry had taken the Jaguar to the station or even up to Mincing Lane with him. The three children, Sara, Bertram and Patience, were crowded into the back, their solemn eyes gazing at me in the rather unnerving way of young children.

‘Wilmet, how
lovely!’

I thought we must have made quite a pleasing picture—two tall tweedy young Englishwomen embracing on a Surrey roadside. Rowena was as tall as I, but fair, with blue eyes and a typically English complexion. We had met during the war in Italy where we had both been in the Wrens. We had also met our husbands there, two rather dashing army majors they had been then—and now they were Harry going up to Mincing Lane every day and Rodney working from nine-thirty to six at the Ministry. Both were slightly balder and fatter than they had been in Italy. I liked to think that Rowena and I had changed rather less.

We drove up to the large comfortable house, which was built in Elizabethan style and had the date—1933—carved into a stone over the front door. The gardens were extensive and well laid out. Harry had always wanted a cedar tree on the lawn, as there had been in his old home, but had done the best he could by planting a monkey-puzzle, which was said to be quicker growing. He employed a fulltime gardener and the house was always full of beautiful pot plants. As we came into the hall I admired the early chrysanthemums, primulas and cyclamen.

‘Your usual room, darling,’ Rowena said. ‘Let Sara take your case up for you. She’s been so looking forward to your coming.’

Sara, a plump fair child of nine, seized my case and staggered up the stairs with it. I tried to think of something to say to her, but although she was my godchild there did not seem to be any particular mystical rapport between us. I thought that talking to children was one of those things one shouldn’t have to make any effort about, and my few platitudes seemed to satisfy her and set her off chattering about her own doings which were no more remarkable than those of other children of her age.’

I was glad to be alone in my room, with the view over the garden, well polished mahogany furniture, pink sheets and towels, and a tablet of rose-geranium soap in the washbasin. Rowena always remembered that it was my favourite. The room seemed so very comfortable, somehow even more than my room at home—perhaps because I could be alone in it. I saw that Rowena had put reading matter on the bedside table, glossy magazines, and two new novels in bright jackets.

Tea was ready in the drawing-room. The children had been taken away by the Italian girl who looked after them, and Rowena and I were able to enjoy an uninhibited talk. The room was almost Edwardian in its charming clutter of furniture and objects, for Rowena had inherited her mother’s things and had been unable to bring herself to get rid of any of them, just as her mother before her had kept all her own mother’s things. There was a great deal of china, some of it rather ugly Portuguese ware which she kept for sentimental reasons, mixed up with good Chelsea, Dresden and Meissen pieces. There were many photographs in-silver frames on the grand piano, but they were somehow not like Miss Prideaux’s photographs. There were Rowena’s parents, Piers and Rowena as children, Rowena as a young girl of nineteen—this last taken by a fashionable Mayfair photographer and showing her, for all her tweeds and pearls, in a kind of misty aura—Harry in uniform, and the children in all stages of growth; there was even one of myself in Wren officer’s uniform.

‘Now,’ said Rowena comfortably, ‘what have you been doing? Tell me
all.’

‘Well, not much really,’ I admitted. The days when we had confided our emotional secrets to each other were gone now, or perhaps it was the secrets themselves rather than the days which were gone, I thought rather sadly. ‘I saw Piers at St Luke’s, as I told you when I wrote.
That
was rather surprising.’

‘Yes, poor Piers. I suppose nothing is really surprising about him now. Let’s hope that
this
time…’ Rowena raised her hand and let it fall in a helpless gesture.

‘He seems to have two quite steady jobs,’ I said, ‘proofreading for a very good press and then the evening classes in French and Portuguese.’

‘Well yes, the proof-reading may be all right if he doesn’t get bored with it; but he’s really not much good as a teacher, though he speaks the languages very well. He’s the kind of person who ought to have a steady unearned income.’

‘He might marry money,’ I suggested.

‘Oh,
marriage!
We’ve given up hope long ago. The numbers of eligible girls I’ve tried to put into his path,’ Rowena sighed, ‘awfully dull most of them were, I must admit, but all with money of their own.’

‘Sybil and I are thinking of going to his Portuguese classes—she thought it might be nice to have a holiday in Portugal.’

‘Then perhaps Piers will make an effort with his teaching if people he knows are going to be in the class. Though why you should want to learn the language I can’t imagine.’

‘You know what Sybil is.’

‘Yes, so unlike Harry’s mother who only thinks about household linen and knitting for the children. By the way, I did ask Piers to come this weekend, but he hasn’t even answered my letter.’

‘Perhaps he will turn up unexpectedly.’

‘Yes, that would be just like him. My
dear?
‘ Rowena leaned forward, her blue eyes sparkling, ‘talking of the unexpected,
who
do you think I met in Piccadilly when I was in town last week? Rocky!’

‘Not Rocky
Napier!’

‘Yes, our darling Rocky.’

We paused in a kind of rapturously reminiscent silence, for Rocky Napier had been flag lieutenant to one of the admirals when we were in Italy and each of us had been in love with him for a short time.

‘How extraordinary! What happened?’

‘He asked me to go and have a drink with him, so of course I did, though I was supposed to be meeting Harry’s mother for lunch at Fortnum’s. We went into a bar and had two dry Martinis, and do you know I didn’t feel a
thing!’

‘What, from Rocky or the drink?’

‘From Rocky—wasn’t it sad? And to think of all the agony of that six weeks when I was in love with him!’

‘Was it only six weeks?’

‘Yes, because then I met Harry. That letter I wrote to Rocky—oh dear, I feel quite ashamed now, quoting Donne and all that—“but after one such love can love no more …” Aren’t women
foolish
!’ Rowena’s eyes sparkled even more brightly. I couldn’t help thinking about that letter all the time I was sipping my Martini. Why does one say
sipping
a cocktail? I was positively
gulping
it down!’

‘I don’t suppose Rocky remembered the letter,’ I said, meaning to be consoling rather than catty, but perhaps a little of both.

‘No, that’s a comfort. He must have had so many. Now he lives in the country with that rather formidable wife, and they have a child—just think of it!’

‘Well, you have three.’

‘Yes, I’m very lucky. It’s a pity you haven’t any, Wilmet,’ she added tentatively. ‘Do you mind?’

‘A little, I suppose. It makes one feel rather useless. Still, there’s plenty to occupy my time.’

‘Oh, surely. You would never be idle, you’re so much more intelligent than I am, anyway. Listen, there’s Harry! I heard the car. He’s been longing to see you, but first he’ll go into the dining-room to get his large pink gin, then he’ll come into the room carrying it very carefully.’

Harry did precisely as Rowena had prophesied. He was a tall dark man of thirty-nine, his hair now streaked with grey and his manner more pompous than in the days when I had stood on his shoulders to write my name on the ceiling of an officers’ mess somewhere near Naples.

‘Wilmet, how
very
nice to see you, and looking as beautiful and elegant as ever. You really must bring old Rodney with you next time.’

‘Yes, he’d love to come, but work wouldn’t allow it this weekend.’

‘A shocking life—I don’t know how these civil servants stand it!’

‘How are things in Mincing Lane?’ I asked, unable to keep a hint of mockery out of my tone.

‘Not too bad, thanks. In fact, business is pretty good. But I won’t bore you with details.’

Harry was one of those non-intellectual men who are often more comforting to women than the exciting but tortured intellectuals. He might not have any very interesting conversation for his wife at the end of the day, might indeed quite easily drop off to sleep after dinner, but he was strong and reliable, assuming that he would be the breadwinner and that his wife would of course vote the same way as he did.

Dinner was a very pleasant meal. Rowena was a good cook and would have liked to make exotic dishes, but the tyranny of Harry and the children made it necessary for her to keep to plain wholesome English food.

‘Well, this looks all right,’ said Harry, as a joint of veal was brought to the table. ‘I hope you like veal, Wilmet?’

‘Oh dear, I’d forgotten it was Friday,’ Rowena lamented. ‘Does your high vicar command you to eat fish?’

‘Not really,’ I said, ‘though I daresay he and Father Bode will be abstaining from meat this evening.’ A sudden anxious picture came into my mind—the two priests in the clergy house kitchen, trying to cook fillets of plaice or cod steaks. Perhaps in the end they would have to open a tin of sardines or spaghetti, unless they had decided to dine out. They might even have got a housekeeper by now. How wonderful it would be if Father Thames had interviewed and engaged Mr Bason, and he was even now preparing them a delicious sole véronique! I saw him at the kitchen table, peeling grapes. Of course I had no idea what he looked like—I just saw his fingers, long and sensitive as befitted an Anglo-Catholic fond of cooking, removing the pips. I was smiling to myself at the thought of it so I had to tell Rowena and Harry.

‘It would be much better if all clergymen were married,’ said Harry dogmatically. This new man we’ve got here is proving very troublesome.’

‘Is he married?’

‘Actually he is, but he’s got High Church leanings, though he hasn’t had much opportunity to put them into practice yet.’

‘But High Church services are much the most interesting kind,’ I said rather feebly.

‘That’s what Piers always says,’ said Rowena.

At the mention of her brother, Harry gave an angry snort, so we thought it more prudent to change the subject.

After dinner we had coffee in the drawing-room and watched a television programme. There was a film about the habits of badgers, which showed the creatures rootling about in a kind of twilight in what seemed to be rhododendron bushes. But in reality, as we were told by the commentator, there were lights suspended from the trees because badgers only come out at night and so couldn’t be filmed naturally. There was something melancholy about the creatures in the half darkness, with their long sad faces.

It was not until half way through the entertainment, if such it could be called, that I realized that Harry had edged nearer to me on the sofa and was holding my hand. My main feeling on discovering this was one of irritation. The silly old thing—not unlike a badger himself, I thought; but then I felt flattered and a little guilty. Rowena, who was sitting in a little pool of lamplight by her sewing table, was absorbed in smocking a dress for Patience. She never once glanced at the television screen.

I withdrew my hand gently. Perhaps Harry was not so solid and reliable after all. Had he always rather liked me in Italy? I wondered, smiling to myself in the badgery dusk.

‘Funny thing happened today,’ he said in a rather booming voice. ‘I was having lunch with Smollett and he suggested a dozen oysters. Well, you know what the oyster and I think of each other!’

‘Indeed yes,’ I said, for Harry and I had both been poisoned by oysters, and had many times exchanged cosy reminiscences about our dreadful experiences.

‘Darling,
not
another oyster story,’ said Rowena despairingly. ‘Anyway, I hope you didn’t eat them.’

‘No, of course I remembered in time; but the funny part of it was—the whole point of the story, in fact, as you may remember- that Smollett was with me that
other
time …’ Harry yawned and stretched his arms. ‘What’s this we’re looking at?’ he asked rather irritably. ‘Seems to be all in the dark.’ He leaned forward and moved a knob on the set. The picture now became brighter and full of curious dancing lines. ‘Does anybody want it anyway?’ he asked.

‘You know I never look at it,’ said Rowena placidly..

‘I think I’ve had enough now,’ I said.

‘Early bed tonight, I think,’ said Rowena. ‘We’ve got quite a full programme tomorrow. Shopping in the morning, and we shall have to spend the afternoon getting ready for the party, I suppose.’

‘The party?’

‘Yes, surely I told you? We’re having a cocktail party.’

‘How exciting!’

‘It won’t be that, I’m afraid,’ said Rowena. ‘Just the same old people we owe drinks to, though I suppose they’ll be different to you. Your breakfast will be brought to you in bed, Wilmet. Ours is a terrible meal on Saturdays because we have the children with us. I shan’t inflict that on you.’

I was glad to lie in bed next morning, listening to the sound of the children getting up and Harry shouting to them to be quiet, until a tray of orange juice, coffee and toast was brought to me. I got up at ten o’clock and we all went shopping in the near-by market town. There was an air of leisure about the restaurant of the large shop where we had our morning coffee. The children gambolled and capered with other children on the thick moss green carpet, and the chirping of their high-pitched well bred young voices mingled with the yapping of dogs, mostly poodles, whose tweed-suited owners made feeble efforts to control them.