‘Oh, how kind…’
‘I thought you might like to see some copies of The Gentlewoman,’ said Connie. ‘There’s a picture of Lady Grudge’s daughter in one of them.’
‘How interesting, I shall look forward to reading them,’ said Belinda. ‘You must point her out to me.’
At this moment the front-door bell rang. ‘That must be the Bishop arriving,’ said Belinda.
‘The Bishop?’ asked Edith, rather surprised.
‘Yes, he is coming to tea today.’
‘Does he know you’re ill or is he expecting to see both of you?’
‘Oh, I’m supposed to be there too, but I suddenly woke up ill,’ said Belinda pathetically. ‘So Harriet will have to entertain him alone.’
‘Alone?’ said Edith. ‘I don’t think he’ll like that.’
‘Why ever not?’ asked Belinda, rather worried. Life was quite difficult enough without Edith making disturbing suggestions. Harriet was going to marry the Bishop and Belinda would be left in her old age to die a lonely death, or with nobody but a paid companion to cheer her last hours. Surely that was enough? She had been trying to prepare herself for the worst and did not wish to be unsettled.
Meanwhile Edith expounded her ideas of what a bishop would think quite proper. ‘I don’t think Harriet will get him,’ she said bluntly.
Belinda had been thinking the same thing not so long ago, but now she was inclined to disagree. After all, dear Edith had had little or no experience of bishops, although poor John had been a very good man in his way.
‘I think he has successfully avoided so many women in his life that not even Harriet will be able to catch him,’ she went on. ‘I know his sort.’
Belinda thought this rather a vulgar way of putting it, though it could hardly be denied that it was what Harriet intended to do.
‘I believe women can do almost anything if they are really desperate,’ she ventured. ‘In one of Lyly’s plays, Endimion, I think …’
‘But I don’t think Harriet is really desperate,’ Edith interrupted. ‘Do you?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Belinda plaintively. ‘I think I should like a drink of barley water. It’s on the little table.’
‘Oh, let me get it for you,’ said Connie, coming forward with a glass and a copy of The Gentlewoman in her hand. ‘This is Lady Joan Grudge,’ she said eagerly, indicating a group of people enjoying a joke at a race meeting.
‘Yes, she’s very pretty, isn’t she,’ murmured Belinda, and was then informed that she had been looking at the wrong girl, for nobody could call Lady Joan pretty. ‘Such a nice expression,’ she emended. ‘She looks very jolly.’
‘Yes, she is a very sweet girl…’
Downstairs Harriet had just made the discovery that Bishop Grote never ate anything for his tea.
Now this was exceedingly awkward, for how can any real contact be established between two persons when one is eating and the other merely watching? For some minutes Harriet did not know what to do. Her recollections of the Bishop as a curate had included cream buns and hot buttered toast, with licking of fingers. Eventually she had to resort to the kind of arch scolding, which was really more suitable for very young curates than for bishops.
‘Now, that’s naughty of you,’ she said. ‘I expected you to have a really good appetite. I shall be much too embarrassed to eat alone,’ she added, liberally spreading a piece of buttered toast with strawberry jam.
‘I am really very sorry,’ said the Bishop complacently, but with no intention of changing his habits even to be polite to his hostess. ‘But your sister will be eating something, won’t she?’ he inquired, looking anxiously towards the door for a sign of the elder Miss Bede.
‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ said Harriet airily, ‘poor Belinda is in bed today. She isn’t well.’
The Bishop started and half rose from his chair. ‘Nothing infectious or contagious, I hope?’ he asked, rather too eagerly.
‘No, no,’ Harriet smiled reassuringly, but at the same time a little dangerously, so that the Bishop knew that there was as yet no possibility of escape. ‘Just a slight chill,’ she explained, ‘but one can’t be too careful.’
The Bishop murmured some words of regret but he found it difficult to keep a note of displeasure out of his voice. So might he have rebuked a rebellious African who appeared at Divine Service in his flowery but inadequate native costume. To begin with, he was not sure that he believed this story about Belinda’s illness. People didn’t suddenly become ill like this, he told himself angrily, and Belinda had seemed quite well at the lecture last night. If she were really indisposed why hadn’t Harriet written or sent a message, changing the invitation to another day? She could so easily have done this. That nice maid who had answered the door would have been only too willing to take a message to the vicarage. It was only a few minutes away. Besides, he wanted to see Belinda. He thought her much nicer than Harriet and she had knitted him such a beautiful scarf when he was a curate, however much she might deny it. Harriet must indeed be heartless to leave her sister lying alone and ill upstairs while she entertained guests – the Bishop’s indignation had got the better of his accuracy – in the drawing-room.
Harriet interrupted his thoughts by asking if his tea were too strong.
‘Oh, no, it is very nice, thank you,’ he said quite civilly.
‘Perhaps you would like some more sugar in it?’ she persisted.
‘No, thank you. I never take more than one lump.’
There was a pause while Harriet, who was finding dear Theo not at all as she had imagined, racked her brains for something to say. Surely he had lost some of his charm of manner? she asked herself anxiously. It went without saying that he had once had charm of manner, but what had happened to it now? He did not appear to be enjoying himself at all and was behaving almost as if this visit were a duty rather than a pleasure. She stretched forward and helped herself to another piece of buttered toast. And how extremely irritating this not eating was. It was impolite, too, most impolite.
‘I suppose it was in Africa that you got into the habit of not eating any tea?’ she asked brightly.
‘Oh, no, it was when I was a minor canon,’ he replied seriously. ‘I found that it interfered with Evensong.’
Harriet burst into a peal of laughter. She thought this very funny and stored it up to tell Belinda. But the Bishop’s sheep’s face hardly altered its expression.
‘A minor canon,’ she giggled. ‘Now when you were a deacon I seem to remember you eating crumpets for tea,’ she said, trying to bring back to him the remembrance that he had once been a typically charming curate with endearing human weaknesses. ‘Sic transit gloria mundi,’ she added.
‘I beg your pardon?’ The Bishop’s voice held a note of surprise. He thought Harriet an extremely silly woman and was wondering how soon he could decently get away. It was in vain that Harriet asked him intelligent questions about the flora and fauna of the Mbawawa country and tried to draw him out on the missionaries’ attitude towards polygamy. He seemed disinclined for conversation and at five o’clock got up to go.
As they went out into the hall, Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall came down the stairs from Belinda’s room.
‘Poor Belinda,’ said Connie, ‘I think she seems rather low. I must say I thought her looking not at all well.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Edith. ‘It’s only a chill. She’ll be up and about in a day or two.’
‘I am indeed sorry to hear this,’ said the Bishop. ‘Will you give her my very kindest regards and good wishes for a speedy recovery? In my diocese we have a special song for such an occasion. It is almost entirely on one note.’
The three ladies looked up expectantly.
‘Perhaps I had better not sing it now,’ said the Bishop. ‘It might disturb Miss Belinda. The African temperament is not quite like ours.’
‘Oh, Belinda, he’s so stupid and dull!’ Harriet burst out, when the visitors had gone. ‘He sent you hi
s kindest regards. I don’t think he really believed you were ill until he saw Edith and Connie.’
‘I’m sorry he was such a disappointment,’ said Belinda, ‘but perhaps he will improve on further acquaintance. He is really quite the opposite to Mr Mold, isn’t he? I mean, perhaps he doesn’t have all his goods in the shop window.’
Harriet laughed scornfully and became absorbed in looking at The Gentlewoman.
‘It was kind of Connie to bring these,’ said Belinda. ‘It makes one feel so secure to look at a paper like this.’ She pointed out Lady Joan Grudge, enjoying a joke with friends at a race meeting, a group at a dance held in Eaton Square for somebody’s debutante daughter, a party of titled people at a night club and other comforting unrealities. Lulled in security and contentment, they passed the next half-hour very pleasantly until there was a ring at the front door and the sisters started up in agitation.
‘Oh, dear, I wonder who that is?’ said Harriet, hastily squeezing her feet into the elegant shoes which she had kicked off after the Bishop had gone.
‘I really don’t think I can do with any more visitors tonight,’ said Belinda feebly. ‘What is it, Emily?’ she asked, as the maid appeared in the doorway.
For answer Emily thrust forward a large bundle, shrouded in many sheets of blue tissue paper. ‘Flowers for the invalid, Miss Belinda,’ she said brightly, in a nurse’s tone.
Harriet rushed forward. Nobody ever sent Belinda flowers, but the florist’s label was clearly addressed to Miss Belinda Bede. Harriet unwrapped the tissue paper to reveal a dozen beautiful chrysanthemums, bronze and white.
Belinda’s heart leapt. They were from Henry. Harriet had seen him that morning, so he knew she was ill, but in any case Agatha would probably have told him.
‘There doesn’t seem to be a card with them,’ said Harriet, fumbling with maddening deliberation. ‘Oh, yes, here we are.’ She tossed the little envelope over to Belinda, who tore it open eagerly.
When one has reached Belinda’s age, and even before, one takes these small disappointments calmly. Of course the flowers were not from the Archdeacon, how could they have been? It would have been most unsuitable, unless, of course, Agatha had joined in the gift, Belinda told herself, as she struggled to decipher the unfamiliar handwriting.
‘With best wishes for a speedy recovery – Theodore Mbawawa.’ she read. ‘Oh, Harriet, from the Bishop!’ she sank back weakly on to her pillows. ‘I really don’t think I can bear any more today. Theodore Mbawawa … doesn’t that sound odd … I suppose it’s what he calls himself…’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Belinda did not keep to her bed for very long, and was soon about again. The Bishop stayed on at the vicarage, though it was evident that he and the Archdeacon disliked each other. Agatha, however, seemed to prefer his company to that of her husband, and Belinda could not help noticing the way she beamed at him when beaming was certainly not one of her normal expressions. Perhaps she felt naturally more at ease with bishops, as her father had been one, and it may have been a disappointment to her that her husband was only an archdeacon. Certainly she and Bishop Grote made a very suitable couple, if only because there was something slightly unpleasant about each of them. Belinda began to weave a little fantasy in which they somehow ‘came together’ and the Archdeacon was left alone and in need of comfort. How this was to come about she did not know, as divorce was against her principles and the Archdeacon’s too, she imagined, and she would hardly have wished the Archdeacon to be removed by death and so put beyond the reach of her comfort. It was somehow out of the question, even in a fantasy, that Agatha should die. People like Agatha didn’t die. It might of course be discovered that the marriage of Henry and Agatha had not been legal, but that happened only in the novels of Mrs Henry Wood. And supposing Henry were to be left alone and apparently in need of comfort, and did not turn to Belinda? How was that to be borne? It might well be that he would find Agatha’s absence comfort enough. When she got to this point, Belinda was firm with herself and set to work helping Emily with the mincemeat and Christmas puddings, for it was already December and it was even rumoured that the Bishop was to spend Christmas at the vicarage.
Soon Christmas cards began to arrive and every post brought something.
‘A Happy, Holy Christmass,’ said Harriet, reading from Father Plowman’s card. ‘Very nice wording, and such a pretty picture of the Nativity. I think Christmass is rather nice, Belinda. The Archdeacon’s card is very ordinary, just A Happy Christmas and a Bright New Year, from Agatha and Henry Hoccleve, and no picture at all.’
‘I expect Agatha had them done,’ said Belinda. ‘I imagine Henry would have wanted some quotation, but it was probably cheaper without. Of course Christmass is rather High, isn’t it, I mean, the use of the word mass. It always looks like a mis-spelling to me.’
‘I wonder what Mr Donne’s will be like,’ said Harriet anxiously. ‘I hope he will remember us.’
‘Oh, surely,’ said Belinda, indignant not so much for herself as for her sister and the many delicacies she had prepared for him. ‘He has been here so much.’
‘He might even send a calendar,’ mused Harriet. ‘That’s one degree better than a card.’
‘Yes, one of those with a quotation from Shakespeare or a Great Thought for every day. I always think it’s nice to have one in some convenient place so that you can read it at the beginning of the day. And yet the thoughts they choose are often so depressing, aren’t they, as if Great Thinkers were never cheerful.’
‘Well, Mr Donne’s calendar certainly won’t go there,’ said Harriet, bristling. ‘It shall go in the dining-room, where we can read it at breakfast.’
‘Yes, dear, that’s what I mean.’
But Mr Donne upset their plans by calling round in person with his present, or rather presents, an expensive looking box of chocolates with a coloured picture of Hampton Court on the lid which the sisters felt he could ill afford, and a photograph of himself which he gave to them rather shyly, obviously embarrassed by Harriet’s cries of joy.
‘Oh, how lovely! And how good of you! Belinda, isn’t it good of Mr Donne?’ She thrust the photograph at Belinda; who was rather at a loss, as it looked so exactly like any of the other photographs of curates in Harriet’s collection upstairs that she could hardly think what to say.
‘The lighting is very good,’ she ventured, noticing it on his nose and clerical collar. ‘So often a photograph is spoiled by bad lighting. You look very serious,’ she added, with what was for her a forced note of playfulness. ‘Almost as if you were thinking out a sermon.’
‘Oh, we shall have you for tomorrow morning, shan’t we,’ said Harriet, for the Archdeacon, contrary to his normal practice, had been trying out a course of sermons on the evening congregation, sermons written in so-called ‘simple language’ and full of sentiments to which every bosom might be expected to return an echo, though he had not, of course, mentioned Harriet’s Apes of Brazil. Some of his hearers had found the sermons almost too simple and were even beginning to wonder whether the Archdeacon himself were not returning to his second childhood.
‘Oh, no, Bishop Grote is to preach on Sunday morning,’ said the curate.
‘Well, I suppose he must keep his hand in,’ said Belinda. ‘I expect it will be about Christmas as it’s so near.’
‘Yes, on Tuesday,’ said the curate. ‘I can hardly believe it myself, the weather’s so mild.’
‘They say a green Christmas means a full churchyard,’ declared Harriet with satisfaction. ‘I dare say some old people will be taken.’
‘Taken?’ The curate looked puzzled. ‘Ah, yes, I see. I suppose we must expect that.’
They were silent for a moment, until Belinda, not liking to see his young face clouded over, said, ‘I really can’t think of any old people who are likely to die at the moment. Besides, it’s the weather after Christmas that we have to fear, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes, if it’s mild at Christmas it will be cold afte
rwards,’ agreed Harriet. ‘It makes one feel very anxious.’
Belinda, looking at Harriet’s sturdy figure, could hardly help smiling.
When Sunday came it occurred to Belinda that perhaps the Bishop had his uses after all. For when the Archdeacon came to give out the notices of the Christmas Services it appeared that Bishop Grote and Mr Donne were to take the seven and eight o’clock Celebrations of Holy Communion, while the Archdeacon himself was to preach at Mattins and conduct the Celebration afterwards at twelve, for the benefit of the elderly and lazy. He took the opportunity to say a few words of warning to those who intended to go to Midnight Mass at Father Plowman’s church, dwelling darkly on the dangers they might meet there and pronouncing the word Rome with such horrifying emphasis that many of his hearers were quite alarmed, and those who had thought of doing such a thing began to tell themselves that perhaps the parish church was more convenient after all.
The Bishop’s sermon, when it came, was not particularly suited to the season, being very much like his lecture suitably adapted for the pulpit. He had chosen for his text a verse from the psalms, In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course.
Belinda hoped that Harriet would not be upset by the reference to bridegrooms, but she appeared to be quite unmoved and it was evident that she had very sensibly put away any hopes she might once have had. She even whispered to Belinda that he certainly wasn’t the preacher he used to be, though he still had that same way of gripping the edge of the pulpit when he wished to emphasize a point.
The text seemed to have little reference to the sermon, although the more intelligent of the congregation saw it as referring to the Bishop himself. He was the giant and his course was the Mission Field. Belinda noticed, however, that when he prayed for his flock he gave the impression that they were so entirely heathen that she began to wonder whether dear Theo had done such wonderful work among them after all. What if the whole of his life had been so taken up with avoiding designing spinsters and widows that no other work had been possible? It was an interesting idea and one which she was able to follow up that evening, when she and Harriet were invited to supper at the vicarage.