Some Tame Gazelle (8 page)

‘I don’t remember anything about the Apes of Brazil,’ said Belinda anxiously, for the darning of the sock was an all-engrossing occupation.

‘Do you mean what I said that afternoon we met in the village?’ asked Harriet. ‘That’s not a quotation, that’s natural history.’ She laughed delightedly.

The Archdeacon seemed surprised and Harriet began to explain.

‘It’s quite simple, really,’ she said. ‘When the Apes of Brazil beat their chests with their hands or paws, or whatever apes have, you can hear the sound two miles away.’

‘Oh, Harriet,’ said Belinda, as if reproving a child, ‘surely not two
miles
? You must be mistaken.’

‘Two miles,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘Father Plowman told me.’

The Archdeacon laughed scornfully at this.

‘It was at Lady Clara Boulding’s house,’ said Harriet indignantly. ‘We were having a most interesting conversation, I can’t remember now what it was about.’

‘I cannot imagine what the subject of it can have been,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘and I did not know that Plowman had ever been in Brazil.’

‘You said something about sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo,’ said Harriet, ‘so I naturally thought of the Apes of Brazil.’

‘I think the minds of the metaphysical poets must have worked something like that,’ said Belinda thoughtfully. ‘Donne and Abraham Cowley, perhaps.’

‘Cowley was a very stupid man,’ said the Archdeacon shortly. ‘I cannot understand the revival of interest in his works.’

‘I think the hole is mended now,’ said Belinda. ‘It doesn’t look so bad now; of course the wool
is
just a little too light.’

‘My dear Belinda, you have done it quite exquisitely,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘I must take care to be passing your house every time I have a hole in my sock.’

Belinda smiled and went quite pink with pleasure and confusion. She went with him to the front door and then returned to the dining-room where Harriet had collapsed heavily into a chair and was fanning herself with the parish magazine.

‘Thank goodness, he’s gone,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know how Agatha manages to put up with him all the time. No wonder she’s gone away.’

‘Harriet,
do
speak more quietly,’ said Belinda in an agitated whisper, for Emily had just come into the room to lay the table. ‘I must go and start the risotto,’ she said and went into the kitchen, where she walked aimlessly about in circles trying to assemble all the ingredients she needed. For somehow it was difficult to concentrate. The mending of the sock had been an upsetting and unnerving experience, and even when she had made the risotto she did not feel any pleasure at the thought of eating it.

‘Nearly twenty past one!’ said Harriet, as they sat down to their meal. ‘The Archdeacon has delayed everything. I suppose he imagined Emily would be cooking.’

‘I don’t suppose he thought about it at all, men don’t as a rule,’ said Belinda, ‘they just expect meals to appear on the table and they do.’

‘Of course Emily usually does cook,’ went on Harriet, ‘it’s only that she can’t manage foreign dishes.’ She took a liberal second helping of risotto. ‘This is really delicious.’

‘It was Ricardo’s recipe,’ said Belinda absently.

‘We really must go and get some more blackberries soon,’ said Harriet. ‘Although in October the devil will be in them. You know what the country people say.’

Belinda smiled.

‘Mr Donne is very fond of blackberry jelly,’ said Harriet. ‘Apparently he very much enjoyed the apple jelly I took him. He said he really preferred it for breakfast – instead of marmalade, you know.’

‘I wonder what it would be like to be turned into a pillar of salt?’ said Belinda surprisingly, in a far-away voice.

‘Belinda!’ Harriet exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Whatever made you think of that? Potiphar’s wife, wasn’t it, in the Old Testament somewhere?’

‘I think it was Lot’s wife,’ said Belinda, ‘but I can’t remember why. I should imagine it would be very restful,’ she went on, ‘to have no feelings or emotions. Or perhaps,’ she continued thoughtfully, ‘it would have been simpler to have been born like Milton’s first wife, an image of earth and phlegm.’

‘Oh, Belinda, don’t be disgusting!’ said Harriet briskly. ‘And do pass the cheese. You are hopelessly inattentive. When Mr Donne was here the other night you never passed him anything. If it hadn’t been for me he would have
starved
.’

Belinda came back to everyday life again. How many curates would starve and die were it not for the Harriets of this world, she thought. ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she said. ‘I must try not to be so absent-minded. Today has been rather trying, hasn’t it really – too much happening.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Harriet. ‘Agatha going and the Archdeacon coming. Who knows what he may be up to now that she’s gone?’

‘Oh, Harriet, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,’ said Belinda. ‘It’s really most unsuitable. And besides,’ she went on, half to herself, ‘what could he be up to when you come to think of it?’ Her voice trailed off rather sadly, but she rose from the table briskly enough and spent the afternoon doing some useful work in the garden.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day Belinda had a letter from Dr Nicholas Parnell, a friend of her undergraduate days and the Librarian of her old University Library. He wrote of the successful tour which Mr Mold, the deputy Librarian, had made in Africa. ‘He has penetrated the thickest jungles,’ wrote Dr Parnell, ‘where no white man, and certainly no deputy Librarian, has ever set foot before. The native chiefs have been remarkably generous with their gifts and Mold has collected some five thousand pounds, much of it in the form of precious stones and other rareties. I suspect that a great many of them have not the slightest idea to what they are contributing, but, where Ignorance is bliss…’

Belinda sighed. Dear Nicholas was really quite obsessed with the Library and its extensions. She wished he would remember that the two things which bound them together were the memory of their undergraduate days and our greater English poets. She turned to the end of the letter, where she found more cheering news. The Librarian thought he might be able to come and spend a few days with the Archdeacon while Agatha was away. Perhaps Mr Mold would come too. ‘The Library can safely be left in charge of old Mr Lydgate,’ he concluded. ‘He is a little wandering now and is continually worrying about the pronunciation of the Russian “l”. However, his duties will be light.’

How nice it would be to see dear Nicholas again, thought Belinda, eating her scrambled egg and feeling happy and proud that she, a middle-aged country spinster, should number famous librarians among her friends. At least, the Library was famous, she emended. Dear Nicholas had rather sunk into obscurity since his scholarly publications of twenty years ago, and now that he had definitely abandoned all intellectual pursuits, she assumed that no more in that line was to be expected from him. Still,
Floreat Bibliotheca
, and she was sure that under his guidance it would. And, what was perhaps even more important, the Library would be adequately heated and the material comfort of the readers considered. For who can produce a really scholarly work when he is sitting shivering in a too heavy overcoat, struggling all the time against the temptation to go out and get himself a warming cup of coffee?

The same afternoon Belinda went into the village to do a little shopping. She had to give an order at the grocer’s and the butcher’s, and, if there was time, she would go and choose some wool to make Ricardo Bianco a nice warm pair of socks. She wondered if he had tried taking calcium tablets for his chilblains; they were supposed to be very good.

She entered the wool shop, kept by Miss Jenner, who was also a Sunday School teacher. She always liked going to Miss Jenner’s as the attractive display of different wools fired her imagination. Harriet would look splendid in a jumper of that coral pink. It would be a good idea for a Christmas present, although it was impossible to keep anything secret from Harriet owing to her insatiable curiosity. And here was an admirable clerical grey. Such nice soft wool too … would she ever dare to knit a pullover for the Archdeacon? It would have to be done surreptitiously and before Agatha came back. She might send it anonymously, or give it to him casually, as if it had been left over from the Christmas charity parcel. Surely that would be quite seemly, unless of course it might appear rather ill-mannered?

‘This is a lovely clerical grey,’ said Miss Jenner, as if sensing her thoughts. ‘I’ve sold quite a lot of this to various ladies round here – especially in Father Plowman’s parish. I was saying to the traveller only the other day that I knew this would be a popular line. He even suggested I might knit
him
a pullover’ – she laughed shrilly – ‘the idea of it!’

Belinda smiled. She could well imagine the scene. Miss Jenner was so silly with the travellers that it was quite embarrassing to be in the shop when one of them arrived. Still, poor thing, Belinda thought, the warm tide of easy sentimentality rising up within her, it was probably the only bit of excitement in her drab life. She was getting on now, and with her sharp, foxy face and prominent teeth had obviously never been pretty. Living over the shop with her old mother must be very dull. And perhaps we are all silly over something or somebody without knowing it; perhaps her own behaviour with the Archdeacon was no less silly than Miss Jenner’s with the travellers. It was rather a disquieting thought, especially when Miss Jenner, with a smirk on her face, began to tell her that eight ounces was the amount of wool that ladies usually bought.

‘It will go very well with my Harris tweed costume,’ said Belinda firmly. ‘I think I will have
nine
ounces, in case I decide to make long sleeves.’ After all, she
might
make a jumper for herself, now that she came to think of it she was certain that she would, either that or something else equally safe and dull. When we grow older we lack the fine courage of youth, and even an ordinary task like making a pullover for somebody we love or used to love seems too dangerous to be undertaken. Then Agatha might get to hear of it; that was something else to be considered. Her long, thin fingers might pick at it critically and detect a mistake in the ribbing at the Vee neck; there was often some difficulty there. Agatha was not much of a knitter herself, but she would have an unfailing eye for Belinda’s little mistakes. And then the pullover might be too small, or the neck opening too tight, so that he wouldn’t be able to get his head through it. Belinda went hot and cold, imagining her humiliation. She would have to practise on Harriet, whose head was fully as big as the Archdeacon’s. And yet, in a way, it would be better if Harriet didn’t know about it, she might so easily blurt out something … Obviously the enterprise was too fraught with dangers to be attempted and Belinda determined to think no more about it.
God moves in a mysterious way
, she thought, without irreverence. It was wonderful how He did, even in small things. No doubt she would know what to do with the wool as time went on.

This afternoon Belinda had naturally hoped that she might meet the Archdeacon, but it was now nearly teatime, and although she had been through the main street and all the most likely side streets, Fate had not brought them together. She decided that there was nothing for it but to go home; after all, there would be many more opportunities.

But when she had got as far as the church, she saw a familiar figure wandering about among the tombstones, with his hands clasped behind his back and an expression of melancholy on his face. It was, of course, the Archdeacon. But what was he doing in the churchyard when it was nearly tea-time? Belinda wondered. This would hardly be a suitable time to interrupt his meditations by telling him that she had had a letter from Nicholas Parnell and that she did hope they would both come to supper when he came to stay. She began to walk rather more slowly, uncertain what to do. She looked in her shopping basket to see if she had forgotten anything. She remembered now that the careful list she had made was lying on top of the bureau in the dining-room, so she could hardly expect to check things very satisfactorily. There was no reason why she should not hurry home to tea.

‘These yew trees are remarkably fine,’ said a voice quite close to her, ‘they must be hundreds of years old.’

Belinda looked up from her basket. The Archdeacon had now come to the wall.

‘Oh, good afternoon,’ she said, hoping that he had not noticed her obvious reluctance to go home. ‘You quite startled me. I didn’t see you,’ she added, hoping that she might be forgiven or at least not found out, in this obvious lie.

The Archdeacon smiled. ‘I was thinking out my sermon for Sunday,’ he said. ‘I find the atmosphere so helpful. Looking at these tombs, I am reminded of my own mortality.’

Belinda contemplated a design of cherubs’ heads with a worn inscription underneath it. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said, hoping that the gentle melancholy of her tone would make amends for her trite reply.

‘I have lately been reading Young’s
Night Thoughts
,’ went on the Archdeacon, in his pulpit voice. ‘There are some magnificent lines in it that I had forgotten.’

Belinda waited. She doubted now whether it would be possible to be back for tea at four o’clock. She could hardly break away when the Archdeacon was about to deliver an address on the mortality of man.

He began to quote:

We take no note of time

But from its loss. To give it then a tongue

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright

It is the knell of my departed hours
…

‘I thought of those lines when I heard the clock strike just now,’ he explained.

‘It must be wonderful, and unusual too, to think of time like that,’ said Belinda shyly, realizing that when she heard the clock strike her thoughts were on a much lower level. She suspected that even dear Henry was guilty of more mundane thoughts occasionally. At four o’clock in the afternoon, surely the most saintly person would think rather of tea than of his departed hours? She stood silent, looking into her basket.

‘Not that Young was a great theologian, or even a great poet,’ the Archdeacon went on hastily. ‘Much of the
Night Thoughts
consists of platitudes expressed in that over-elaborate and turgid style, which the minor eighteenth-century poets mistakenly associated with Milton.’

‘Oh, yes, the style is certainly rather flowery,’ said Belinda, doing the best she could, for she was beginning to be uneasily conscious of Harriet waiting for her tea, the hot scones getting cold and Miss Beard, that excellent church worker and indefatigable gossip, passing by on the other side of the road.

‘That may be, but I do find in it a little of the wonder and awe which is generally supposed to be absent from the literature of that age.’ The Archdeacon stood looking at Belinda with his head on one side, as if he expected her to agree with him.

But Belinda said nothing, for she was thinking how handsome he still was. His long pointed nose only added to the general distinction of his features. There was quite a long pause until the clock struck a quarter past four.

‘Tea,’ said the Archdeacon, suddenly human once more. ‘I’m all by myself,’ he said rather pathetically. ‘Won’t you come and share my solitary meal? I don’t know if there will be any cake,’ he added doubtfully.

Belinda started. ‘Oh,
no
,’ she said, drawing back a little, and then remembering her manners, she added: ‘Thank you very much but Harriet will be expecting me.’ She did not dare to invite him to share their undoubtedly more appetizing meal and almost smiled when she pictured what Harriet’s reaction would be were she to bring him home unexpectedly. All the same it would have been very nice to have had tea with him, she thought regretfully, quite like old times. Perhaps he would ask her again, though it was the kind of spontaneous invitation that comes perhaps only once in a lifetime. ‘You must come to tea with us some time,’ she said, doing her best to assume a light, social manner. ‘I will ask Harriet what is the best day, though,’ she added hastily, ‘I expect you are very busy.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he sighed, ‘nobody can possibly know how busy.’

‘Then I mustn’t keep you any longer,’ said Belinda, moving away.

‘Well, the tombs are always with us,’ he replied enigmatically, raising his hat with a sweeping gesture.

Belinda could think of nothing to say to this, so she smiled and walked home very quickly. As she had expected, Harriet was waiting impatiently in the drawing-room. The tea was already in, and the hot scones stood in a little covered dish in the fireplace.

‘Oh, Belinda, when
will
you learn to be punctual,’ she said, in a despairing voice.’

‘I’m so sorry, dear,’ said Belinda humbly. ‘I should have been here by four, but I met the Archdeacon.’ She looked about her rather helplessly for a place to put her coat. ‘I’m sorry you waited tea for me.’

‘Well, I was rather hungry,’ said Harriet nobly, ‘but having to wait will make me enjoy it all the more. What meat did you order?’

‘Mutton,’ said Belinda absently.

‘But we haven’t any red-currant jelly,’ said Harriet. ‘One of us will have to go out tomorrow morning and get some. Mutton’s so uninteresting without it.’

Belinda sat down by the fire and began to pour out the tea.

‘Where did you see the Archdeacon?’ asked Harriet.

‘In the churchyard,’ said Belinda. ‘He was walking about among the tombs.’

Harriet snorted.

‘But, Harriet,’ Belinda leaned forward eagerly, ‘he asked me to go to tea with him, but of course I couldn’t very well have gone.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Harriet. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t want to.’

‘No, it wasn’t exactly that,’ said Belinda slowly. ‘I didn’t really mind one way or the other,’ she lied, ‘but I knew you would be expecting me back and I thought you might wonder where I was. And then Florrie and the cook might have thought it funny if I went there the minute Agatha was out of the house. You know how servants gossip, especially in a small place like this. I don’t want to be silly in any way, of course there would have been nothing
in
it, but I decided it would be better if I didn’t go.’ She put the rest of her scone into her mouth with an air of finality.

Harriet was obviously disappointed. ‘I do wish you’d gone,’ she lamented. ‘So little of interest happens here and one may as well make the most of life. Besides, dear,’ she added gently, ‘I don’t think anybody would be likely to gossip about you in that old tweed coat.’

‘No, you’re quite right. I suppose it will have to go to Mrs Ramage next time she comes.’ She got up and rang the bell for Emily to clear away the tea things. When she was going out with the tray, Emily turned to Harriet rather nervously and said, ‘Excuse me, m’m, but would you mind if I just slip out to the post?’

‘Oh, no, Emily,’ said Harriet firmly, ‘there’s no need for that. I shall be writing some letters myself, so I can take yours as well. There is plenty for you to do here.’