Some Tame Gazelle (11 page)

Belinda tried hard to follow, but she found this point rather obscure. She was frowning slightly with the effort of concentration. Harriet was looking at the curate, but he had sunk so deeply into his stall that very little of him was visible. By looking out of the corner of her left eye and turning her head slightly, she could see Dr Parnell and Mr Mold. Mr Mold was looking at his watch and Dr Parnell appeared to be smiling at some private joke. Count Bianco, sitting in front of Dr Parnell, had long ago given up any attempt to follow the sermon. A Roman Catholic by upbringing, he still found the service confusing and only attended the Archdeacon’s church because he felt it might bring him nearer to Harriet. This morning she had looked in his direction; she had distinctly turned her head. Could it be that she was looking at
him?

When the Archdeacon reached the eighteenth century, the going was a little easier. Several people smiled at the lines he quoted from Blair’s poem
The Grave
:

When the dread trumpet sounds, the slumb’ring dust,

Not unattentive to the call shall wake,

And ev’ry joint possess its proper place,

With a new elegance of form unknown

To its first state. Nor shall the conscious soul

Mistake his partner
…

Belinda liked this very much, but she was uneasily conscious that the Archdeacon had already been preaching for nearly half an hour, and she began to worry about the beef. It would be roasted to a cinder by now, unless Emily had had the sense to turn down the oven. Harriet did so like it underdone, and they were usually well out of church and sitting down to their meal by half past twelve. And Henry had only got as far as the eighteenth century without yet having mentioned Edward Young, who was sure to be brought into the sermon somehow. She had rather lost the thread of what he was saying now, but suddenly felt herself on safer ground when she heard him mention the
Night Thoughts
. He seemed to be implying that each person listening to him this morning was little better than the unknown Lorenzo, for whose edification the poem had been written. Even Belinda thought the Archdeacon was going a little too far when he likened his congregation to such as ‘
call aloud for ev’ry bauble drivel’d o’er by sense
’. Whatever it might mean it certainly sounded abusive. He concluded his reading from Young by flinging a challenge at them.

… Say dreamers of gay dreams,

How will you weather an eternal night,

Where such expedients fail?

He paused dramatically and the sermon was at an end. There was quite a stir in the congregation, for some of them had been dreaming gay dreams most of the morning, although many of them had given the sermon a chance, and had only allowed their thoughts to wander when it had passed beyond their comprehension. They now fidgeted angrily in bags and pockets for their collect-money. One or two even let the plate pass them, waving it on with an angry gesture.

Belinda soon recovered from her first feeling of shocked surprise. Of course dear Henry had not really meant to insult them. He had obviously been carried away by the fine poetry, and naturally he must have meant to include himself among those he condemned. It had really been one of the finest sermons she had ever heard him preach, she told herself loyally, even if the ending had been rather sudden and unusual. It didn’t do people any harm to hear the truth occasionally. We were all inclined to get too complacent sometimes. She thought rather vaguely of great preachers like Savonarola, Donne and John Wesley. No doubt they had not spared the feelings of their hearers either, but as she was unable to think of anything that any one of them had said, she could not be absolutely sure. As they were singing the last hymn
Ye servants of the Lord
, Belinda tried to think of some intelligent criticisms, for she did not want her praise of dear Henry to be lacking in discernment. He might welcome intelligent criticism, she thought, knowing perfectly well that he would not. Perhaps there had been rather too many literary quotations, and she had the feeling that it was not quite the thing to read bits of Restoration drama in church … but it had certainly been a fine and unusual sermon. She could not help wondering whether he would continue it this evening, going through the Victorians and the modern poets and so bringing it up to date. But that would hardly be suitable for the evening congregation, who, as he had admitted himself, liked simpler stuff.

As they came out of church they passed the time of day with Dr Parnell and Mr Mold, but Belinda hurried Harriet away before they could get involved in conversation. Mr Mold’s manner seemed very free and he had looked almost as if he were going to
wink
at Harriet. Ricardo, who was hovering hopefully by a tombstone, saw her whisked away before he could do more than bow and say good morning. But he comforted himself with the prospect of seeing her that evening.

‘I was sorry not to stop and talk to Ricardo,’ said Belinda, ‘but we are so late as it is.’

‘Yes,’ said Harriet, ‘I expect many people’s Sunday dinner will be ruined. I wonder what they are having at the vicarage?’

‘I think they are having duck,’ said Belinda. ‘At least, I saw one in Hartnell’s on Saturday which was labelled for the vicarage. And of course,’ she said thoughtfully, as she watched her sister carve the over-cooked beef, ‘duck needs to be
very
well done, doesn’t it? It can’t really be cooked too much.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The guests were due to arrive at about eight o’clock, by which time Evensong would be over. Both Belinda and Harriet had of course been much too busy with their preparations to attend it. Belinda had felt very much tempted, indeed, the thought of missing one of the Archdeacon’s sermons was almost unbearable, but she consoled herself with the reflection that looking after his material welfare was just as important as her own spiritual welfare, if such it could be called, and that she was making the sacrifice in a good cause.

A very nice supper had been prepared. It had to be so, for not only must the Archdeacon be pleased, but Harriet had thought the curate needed feeding up as he had been looking especially thin and pale lately. She could only hope it was nothing to do with that Miss Berridge. There were to be cold chickens with ham and tongue and various salads, followed by trifles, jellies, fruit and Stilton cheese. An extra leaf had been put in the dining-room table as, much against Harriet’s will, Belinda had decided to invite Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall. She really thought that five men and two women was a little disproportionate and such a party might give rise to talk. Emily would think it so funny. It was rather an undertaking to have seven people to supper, but as most of the food was cold and could be prepared well in advance there was no reason why everything should not go very well.

Harriet was a little inclined to worry about what they should drink. Mr Mold would be used to living in style, she thought, and would surely expect whisky or gin.

‘But we have a very good sherry,’ said Belinda. ‘I am sure that is quite correct, and there will be the hock and afterwards port.’ Whisky was to Belinda more a medicine than a drink, something one took for a cold with hot milk or lemon. It was not at all suitable for a Sunday evening supper party at which there were to be clergymen and ladies present.

‘We must be sure that the hock
is chilled
enough,’ said Harriet. ‘Not iced, of course that would be a serious error; I shouldn’t like Mr Mold to think that we didn’t know about wine.’

‘Nicholas is a great connoisseur,’ said Belinda. ‘It seems right that a librarian should be, I think. Good wine and old books seem to go together.’

‘And of course the Archdeacon likes a drop,’ said Harriet rather vulgarly. ‘We shall have to watch him. I don’t suppose Agatha lets him have much. Good heavens, it’s nearly seven o’clock. We must go and change.’

Harriet was determined that this evening should see the climax of her elegance and only lamented the fact that she could not wear full evening dress. Still, her new brown velvet would be magnificent with her gold necklace and long ear-rings. Belinda had decided to wear her blue chiffon. Henry had once said that he liked her in pale colours, and although that had been over thirty years ago it was possible that he still might. Her crystal beads and ear-rings went quite well with it, and when she had put on a little rouge the whole effect was rather pleasing. She went into the bathroom where Harriet was splashing about in the bath like a plump porpoise. Her curls were protected by a round cap of green oilskin and the room was filled with the exotic scent of bath salts.

Harriet looked at Belinda critically. ‘Yes, you look very nice,’ she said, ‘but I think I should use some more lipstick if I were you. Artificial light is apt to make one look paler.’

‘Oh, no, Harriet, I don’t think I can use any more,’ said Belinda. ‘I shouldn’t really feel natural if I did.
Thou art not fair for all thy red and white
,’ she quoted vaguely, leaving Harriet to wallow in her bath.

At five minutes to eight Belinda was downstairs in the drawing-room, waiting for somebody to arrive. She was sitting in a chair by the fire with a book on her knee, which she was not reading. It was something by an old friend of Harriet’s – a former curate – Theodore Grote, now Bishop of Mbawawa in Africa. Dear Theo, he had certainly done splendid work among the natives, at least, that was what everyone said, although nobody seemed to know exactly what it was that he had done. Certainly they still
looked
very heathen, grinning away in their leafy dress. But perhaps that was before he converted them. She opened the book with a view to finding out, but she could not settle to reading and walked restlessly round the room, moving the flowers, rearranging the cushions and altering the position of chairs. She brought out a photograph of Nicholas Parnell in his academic robes and put it on the mantelpiece; she also displayed on a small table a little pamphlet he had written about central heating in libraries. It was prettily bound and had a picture of a phoenix on the cover with a Greek inscription underneath it. Something about Prometheus, Harriet had said, for Belinda was like Shakespeare in having little Latin and no Greek.

At eight o’clock the bell rang. Men’s voices were heard in the hall and a minute or two later Emily showed the Archdeacon, Dr Parnell, Mr Mold and the curate into the room. Belinda shook hands with them rather formally. The Archdeacon advanced towards an armchair by the fire and sank down into it rather dramatically, as if exhausted. Dr Parnell took up his own pamphlet and said that he was glad to find somebody who had cut its beautiful pages.

‘I’m afraid you’re hardly a best seller,’ said Mr Mold jovially. ‘Nor even as much ordered in the Library as Rochester’s poems,’ he added.

Belinda frowned and looked embarrassed when the curate asked, with his usual eager interest, what poems those were.

‘I am afraid they are rather
naughty
,’ said Dr Parnell. ‘We have had to lock them away in a special place, together with other books of a similar nature. All the same, they are quite often asked for by our readers.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose people have to study them,’ said Belinda, handing round cigarettes and wondering how she could change the subject.

‘We should not like to think that they ordered them for any other reason,’ said Dr Parnell, chuckling and rubbing his hands in front of the fire.

Belinda was greatly relieved when Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall arrived and she was able to introduce them. She was so afraid that Nicholas and Edith would discover their common interest in sanitary arrangements too soon, that she resolutely kept them apart. It was all very difficult and she wished Harriet would hurry up and come in. Only the curate was making what Belinda considered to be suitable conversation for the awkward interval between arriving and sitting down to eat.

‘Do you know,’ he was saying eagerly, ‘there was quite a
nip
in the air this evening? I shouldn’t be surprised if we had frost.’

‘And the later the frost the harder the winter,’ said a cheerful voice in the background. ‘I do hope you’re all wearing warm underclothes.’

It was Harriet, ready far sooner than Belinda had hoped was possible, looking splendid too, in her brown velvet and gold ornaments.

The curate laughed heartily and assured her that he had his on.

Harriet was in excellent form and soon had everybody laughing, except for the Archdeacon, who went on reclining in the armchair, not speaking.

‘Well, what did you preach about this evening?’ asked Harriet. ‘I haven’t heard any comments on the sermon yet.’

The Archdeacon roused himself. ‘It was a continuation of this morning’s, brought up to date as it were,’ he explained.

‘Oh, it was beautiful,’ gushed Connie Aspinall, ‘I did so enjoy it.’

The Archdeacon looked pleased. ‘I had feared it might be rather too obscure,’ he said. ‘Eliot is not an easy poet.’

Belinda gasped. Eliot! And for the evening congregation! But it must have been magnificent to hear him reading Eliot. ‘Perhaps you will give the sermon again,’ she suggested timidly, ‘for the benefit of those who were not at Evensong.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘perhaps I will.’ He paused. ‘I have been considering giving a course of sermons on Dante,’ he mused. ‘Not of course in the original – Carey’s translation, perhaps.’

‘It would be a fine and unusual subject,’ said Belinda doubtfully.

‘Well, you can count me out,’ said Edith bluntly. ‘I couldn’t make much of the sermon this morning. Too full of quotations, like
Hamlet
.’ She gave her short barking laugh.

‘I think people prefer the more obvious aspects of the Christian teaching,’ said Nicholas regretfully. ‘I mean, I am afraid that they do. Simple sentiments in intelligible prose. A great pity really. I can see how it limits the scope of the more enterprising clergy.’

‘
Sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo
,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘Yes, one appreciates that, and yet, why shouldn’t Eliot express those sentiments?’

‘Do the bosoms of people nowadays return any echo?’ said Mr Mold. ‘One wonders really.’

‘Well, if they do, it certainly isn’t as loud as the echo made by the Apes of Brazil,’ chortled Harriet, and in response to a very pressing appeal by Mr Mold, she began to explain it all over again.

‘Can the sound really be heard two
miles
away?’ said Connie, whose voice held just the same note of rapt awe as when she had praised the Archdeacon’s sermon. ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’

The Archdeacon looked rather annoyed. ‘Oh, it is nothing very unusual,’ he said shortly, so that Belinda began to wonder whether he was about to embark on some tale of his own. But he lapsed into silence again, so that she was forced to continue the conversation with a bright and rather insincere remark about Agatha, and what a pity it was that she was not with them that evening.

‘I had a postcard from her yesterday,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘She says she is getting on quite well speaking Anglo-Saxon and Old High German in the shops.’

‘Ah, well, Agatha is so clever,’ said Belinda, without bitterness. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten all my Anglo-Saxon. But surely the vocabulary is rather limited?’

‘Yes, quite ridiculous,’ said Edith shortly. ‘Like trying to talk Latin in Italy.’

‘Why, Ricardo isn’t here yet,’ said Belinda. ‘What do you say to a glass of sherry while we are waiting?’

‘I say yes,’ said Mr Mold promptly.

‘Yes
please
, Nathaniel,’ Dr Parnell reminded him. ‘We should not like it to be thought that an official of our great Library was lacking in manners.’

‘I feel that I have been lacking in manners for not offering it sooner,’ said Belinda quite sincerely, thus taking upon herself the blame for all the little frictions of the evening. But it was so obvious that women should take the blame, it was both the better and the easier part, and just as she was pouring out the sherry, Ricardo arrived, with such profuse and gallant apologies for being late that everyone was put into a good humour. He was a little encumbered by a magnificent pot of chrysanthemums, which he presented with a ceremonious gesture.

Shortly after this they went into supper, Edith and Harriet followed by Mr Mold and the curate, making for the dining-room with what Belinda considered indecent haste. But even those who followed more slowly moved with confident anticipation. Belinda had taken care to arrange the table so that Harriet should sit between Ricardo and Mr Mold, when she might see how superior dear Ricardo was. Belinda herself sat by the Archdeacon and Dr Parnell, while Miss Liversidge and Miss Aspinall were fitted in where there happened to be spaces.

‘Why, the table is groaning!’ exclaimed Dr Parnell. ‘I like that expression so much, but one is hardly ever justified in using it or even expecting it. Certainly not at Sunday supper.’

Belinda looked pleased. ‘I hope everything will be nice,’ she said. ‘I never see why Sunday supper should be the dreary meal it usually is. I mean,’ she added hastily, remembering that they had had just such a dreary Sunday supper at the vicarage a few weeks ago, ‘that it can sometimes be.’

‘We always have cold meat with beetroot and no potatoes,’ said the Archdeacon, as if reading her thoughts. ‘Nothing could be more unappetizing.’

‘Of course the servants are often out on Sunday evening,’ said the curate, ‘and one likes to feel that they are having an easier time.’

‘I don’t feel that at all,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I like to feel that somebody has taken a little trouble in preparing a meal for me. I think we deserve it after the labour of Sunday.’

‘Especially after that magnificent sermon this morning,’ murmured Belinda loyally, giving him some of the best of the chicken.

‘All that reading must be very tiring,’ said Dr Parnell spitefully.

‘It was some very fine poetry,’ said Ricardo vaguely, for he had not grasped much of the sermon apart from the bare fact that it was supposed to be about the Judgment Day.

‘We certainly thought it magnificent, didn’t we, Harriet?’ said Belinda, turning towards her sister rather urgently. It was tactless of Harriet not to have made any comment. But then she herself was rather to blame for introducing the subject when they had already discussed it once. It was a pity that her loyalty had got the better of her.

‘Oh, splendid,’ said Harriet, rather too enthusiastically. ‘But of course I’m
not
a theologian,’ she added, with a brilliant smile.

Mr Mold laughed at this and so did Dr Parnell, but the Archdeacon looked rather annoyed.

‘Few of us are true theologians,’ said the curate sententiously. ‘But after all, the real knowledge comes from within and not from books.’

Belinda looked at him rather apprehensively. She hoped the wine wasn’t beginning to have its effect on him. White wine wasn’t really intoxicating and he had only had one glass of sherry.

‘That is rather a disconcerting thought,’ said Dr Parnell. ‘You are preaching sedition. I maintain that the true knowledge comes from
books
. It would be a poor prospect for me and for Nathaniel if everybody thought as you do.’

‘Ah, but it is true what Mr Donne says,’ said Ricardo thoughtfully. ‘My dear friend John Akenside used to say that he learned more about the political situation in central Europe in those quiet moments with a glass of wine at a café table than by all his talks with Pribitchevitch’s brother.’