In the interval, during which he enjoyed some excellent coffee and cakes, Father Plowman talked to the elder Miss Bede about the death-watch beetle and gave her a short dissertation on its habits. This put Belinda into an elegiac mood and somehow prepared her for the next item on the programme, which was a harp solo by Miss Aspinall. There was certainly something elegiac about poor Connie. Her thin, useless hands, her fluttering grey dress – surely a cast-off from Belgrave Square? – even the instrument itself with its Victorian association, made Belinda think of past glories, of more elegant gatherings than this one, at which Connie might have played. The little beaded bag came with her on to the platform and she took out of it a little lace-edged handkerchief, on which she wiped her hands before she started to play. What she played Belinda hardly knew, but it had a melancholy air and the applause which greeted it was restrained though sincere. The village people thought poor Miss Aspinall was not quite right in the head and considered it very clever of her to be able to play at all.
Certainly their most noisy enthusiasm was reserved for the curate, who appeared last on the programme and had a sensational success. Belinda read in her programme that he was to sing Believe me if all those endearing young charms and The Lost Chord, both very suitable songs and particular favourites of hers. Like all sentimental people she cherished the idea of loving a dear ruin, and found her eyes filling with tears as he sang the affecting words. Count Bianco too was very much moved, except that he thought of himself as the ruin, perhaps being loved by Harriet.
Belinda could not see the Archdeacon very well, but she could not help feeling that he was a little displeased at the tumultuous applause which greeted Mr Donne’s songs. Some of the rougher members of the audience, accommodated on benches at the back of the hall, were even stamping their feet and whistling. There was no doubt of his success and popularity.
‘The Archdeacon was looking quite annoyed,’ said Harriet with satisfaction, as they drank their Ovaltine before going to bed that evening. ‘Imagine him singing, though. I think Agatha was pleased at Mr Donne’s success, she would do anything to disagree with the Archdeacon.’
Belinda was too tired to argue. ‘I thought poor Connie played very nicely,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Harriet, ‘and you should have heard Edith talking. She seems to think the whole success of the garden party was due to her arrangements. I didn’t see anybody disappearing behind the toolshed though, did you, Belinda? At least, nobody we know, that is.’
‘No, Harriet, I did not,’ said Belinda in a weary but firm tone. ‘After all, most of us were there only two or three hours.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s really nothing,’ said Harriet yawning.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I thought we might have a cauliflower cheese for lunch today,’ Harriet announced at breakfast one morning. ‘We shall only need a light meal as we are having the duck this evening.’
‘Oh, of course, Mr Donne is coming again, isn’t he,’ said Belinda. ‘I think perhaps it’s a mistake to ask him too often, you know. It seems no time since he was last here.’
‘Why, Belinda, it’s nearly three weeks,’ said Harriet indignantly.
‘Yes, I suppose it must be. How quickly the time goes.’ Belinda began piling up the plates, scraping fish bones from one to another. Suddenly she stopped, and an expression almost of horror came over her face. ‘But Harriet,’ she said, ‘Miss Prior is coming today. Had you forgotten that?’
‘Yes, I had, but I don’t see what difference it makes,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s rather a good thing, really. She’ll be able to patch that chair cover that’s getting so worn, and perhaps start on my new velvet dress.’
‘But, Harriet, we can’t give her only cauliflower cheese,’ went on Belinda with unusual persistence. ‘You know how she enjoys her meals and we always give her meat of some kind.’
‘You surely aren’t suggesting that we should have the duck for lunch, are you?’ asked Harriet with a note of challenge in her voice.
‘Well, I don’t know, really …’ Belinda hesitated. She was a little afraid of her sister sometimes. ‘Would it matter if we gave Mr Donne cauliflower cheese? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. We could have some soup and a fairly substantial sweet, and with coffee afterwards it would be quite a nice little meal. I’m sure I would think it very nice. After all, when we had supper with Edith Liversidge on Friday we only had baked beans and no sweet, as far as I remember, just some coffee and biscuits …’ poor Belinda floundered on, disconcerted by Harriet’s stony silence.
‘Miss Prior will just have to put up with cauliflower cheese,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘If you expect Mr Donne to, why shouldn’t she?’
‘Oh, dear, I can’t explain exactly. We always seem to have this argument every time she comes,’ said Belinda. ‘But one feels that perhaps Miss Prior’s whole life is just a putting up with second best all the time. And then she’s so easily offended. I suppose it’s cowardly of me, but I do hate any kind of atmosphere.’
The trouble was that Miss Prior wasn’t entirely the meek person one expected a little sewing woman to be. Belinda had two feelings about her – Pity and Fear, like Aristotle’s Poetics, she thought confusedly. She was so very nearly a gentlewoman in some ways that one felt that she might even turn out to be related to a clergyman or something like that. She could never have her meals with Emily in the kitchen, nor would she presume to take them with Belinda and Harriet. They must be taken in to her on a tray. She was so touchy, so conscious of her position, so quick to detect the slightest suspicion of patronage. One had to be very careful with Miss Prior.
She arrived at ten o’clock punctually, a little dried-up woman of uncertain age, with a brisk, birdlike manner and brown, darting eyes. Her dress was drab and dateless, but immaculate, and she wore what appeared to be rather a good cameo brooch at the neck.
She did her work in the little morning-room on the ground floor, where Belinda usually did the flowers. This was generally tidied beforehand, but today, on showing her in, Belinda noticed to her dismay that it had not been done. Everything looked dusty, there were bits of cotton on the carpet, and worst of all, two vases of dead chrysanthemums. Their stems showed black and slimy in the yellow water.
‘Good morning, Miss Prior,’ Belinda’s tone was bright and welcoming, but she looked a little harassed, wondering why Emily had not dusted the room and how the dead flowers could have been forgotten. She had taken them out of the drawing-room hastily the day before, when Lady Clara Boulding had been seen coming to the door.
‘I think I would like the window open,’ declared Miss Prior. ‘I’m afraid the smell of chrysanthemums always upsets me.’
‘I’m so sorry …’ Belinda moved in the direction of the window.
‘Oh, don’t trouble, Miss Bede, I can manage perfectly well.’ To Belinda’s anxious eyes Miss Prior looked unusually fragile as she lifted the heavy frame.
‘There …’ Miss Prior took a deep breath of the sharp October air, then glanced round the room, alert and birdlike. ‘And perhaps I could have a duster?’
‘Oh, dear …’ Belinda was almost speechless with confusion. ‘I’m afraid Emily doesn’t seem to have done it this morning’ – that was obvious – ‘and I know how particular you are.’
Miss Prior smiled. ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to say that, Miss Bede. I can hardly afford to be in my position, but I think we all work better in bright, clean surroundings, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course, I’m so sorry …’
‘That’s quite all right, Miss Bede. You will make me think I am being a nuisance.’ Miss Prior went to the sewing machine and drew off the cover with a brisk movement. ‘Now, what is it to be this morning?’
‘I think the chair covers are the most important, and then there are the new bathroom curtains and some sheets to be put sides to middle …’ Belinda went on rapidly, as if speaking quickly would make the work seem less, ‘and my sister was wondering whether you could start
on a dress for her out of some brown velvet she’s got. Perhaps you could begin to cut it out?’
‘Very good, Miss Bede, I will commence with the chair covers,’ said Miss Prior.
Belinda was saved any further explanations by the appearance of Harriet, who strode into the room with a bundle of silky velvet in her arms.
‘Good morning, Miss Prior,’ she said. ‘Now I want you to start on this dress first of all, if you will.’
Belinda waited rather fearfully, but she need not have been afraid, for Miss Prior seemed much meeker with Harriet and began to admire the stuff and ask her what kind of style she had in mind.
‘Oh, I’ve bought a Vogue pattern,’ said Harriet, ‘size 38, so you can just follow that.’
Miss Prior darted a doubtful upward glance at the bulk of Harriet towering over her. ‘I wonder if it’s going to be big enough on the hips?’ she ventured. ‘That’s where you usually need it, isn’t it?’ She took out her familiar tape-measure which was in a little case shaped like a frog. ‘Lady Boulding on the bust, Miss Harriet on the hips, that’s what I always say to myself,’ she chanted brightly.
Belinda laughed. ‘Don’t you say anything for me, Miss Prior?’
‘Oh, well, Miss Bede, you never wear very fitting dresses, do you, if you see what I mean? A few inches here or there doesn’t make much difference.’
‘No, I suppose it doesn’t,’ said Belinda, depressed by this picture of herself in shapeless, unfashionable garments.
‘Now, Mrs Hoccleve,’ went on Miss Prior, turning the knife in the wound, ‘she has got some lovely things. Not that I make much for her, you know, except a few summer dresses, like I do for Lady Clara. But her clothes are from the best houses. She’s just got a lovely navy two-piece with a lemon blouse …’ Miss Prior’s voice trailed off into a kind of rapture.
It isn’t right, thought Belinda indignantly, for a clergyman’s wife to get her clothes from the best houses. She ought to be a comfortable, shabby sort of person, in an old tweed coat and skirt or a sagging stockinette jumper suit. Her hats should be shapeless and of no particular style and colour. Like my old gardening hat.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Prior?’ she said aloud. ‘I am just going to make some.’
‘Thank you, Miss Bede, I was just thinking I should like a cup. I find I can start my work better after a cup of tea. There’s quite a nip in the air these mornings and I had to breakfast earlier than usual today.’
Miss Prior’s tone was uncomplaining, even bright, but Belinda felt she could bear no more and hurried out of the room to put the kettle on.
‘I don’t think today is going very well,’ she remarked to Harriet, when they were alone drinking their own tea. ‘First of all the room wasn’t dusted and I’d forgotten to throw away those dead chrysanthemums, and then Miss Prior made me feel as if I really ought to have offered tea sooner. I wonder whether she would have preferred cocoa?’ Belinda looked worried. ‘It’s more sustaining if one has had an early breakfast. Still, she is having a piece of cake with her tea.’
‘Oh, and there was no paper in the downstairs lavatory,’ chortled Harriet. ‘She came to me just now, so confidential. I couldn’t think what she was going to say.’
‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Belinda, ‘I meant to get some more toilet rolls yesterday.’
‘I just gave her an old Church Times,’ said Harriet airily.
‘Oh, Harriet, I wish you hadn’t done that. I feel Miss Prior is the kind of person who wouldn’t like to use the Church Times. And I’m still not quite happy about giving her cauliflower cheese.’
Belinda continued to be anxious about Miss Prior’s lunch, even though she herself supervised the laying of the tray which Emily was to take in to her.
‘It certainly looked very nice,’ she said, helping herself to a rather smaller portion of the cauliflower cheese than she had given to Miss Prior, ‘and I asked Emily to be sure to wash the cauliflower very well and to put plenty of cheese in it.’
Harriet helped herself liberally and ate with enjoyment.
‘I think the damson flan will make quite a good contrast,’ went on Belinda. ‘I know she will like that.’
‘Oh, I do wish you’d stop worrying about Miss Prior,’ said Harriet in exasperation.
‘I think I will just look in and see if she is all right,’ said Belinda when she had finished her meal. ‘I expect she would like some coffee.’
Belinda hesitated for a moment outside the door of the morning-room. She could hear the whirr of the sewing machine inside, but Miss Prior never spent very long over her meals. She did not like to be seen in the act of eating or drinking, it seemed to make her more conscious of her position.
Belinda opened the door and went in. Her heart sank when she saw the tray on the little table, for although everything else had been eaten, the cauliflower cheese had been pushed to one side of the plate and was almost untouched.
‘Oh, dear, I’m afraid you haven’t enjoyed your lunch, Miss Prior,’ said Belinda, who now felt near to tears. ‘Don’t you like cauliflower cheese?’
‘Oh, yes, Miss Bede, I do sometimes,’ said Miss Prior in an offhand tone, not looking up from her work.
Belinda went on standing in the doorway watching Miss Prior negotiating an awkward bit of chair cover. Then she looked again at the tray, wondering what she could say next. And then, in a flash, she realized what it was. It was almost a relief to know, to see it there, the long, greyish caterpillar. Dead now, of course, but unmistakable. It needed a modern poet to put this into words. Eliot, perhaps.
Belinda burst into a torrent of apologies. How careless of Emily not to wash the cauliflower more thoroughly! How unfortunate that it should have been Miss Prior who had got the caterpillar!
‘I’m afraid I didn’t feel like going on with it after that,’ said Miss Prior almost smugly.
‘No, of course not, I quite understand,’ said Belinda. But she did not really understand. If this had happened to her in somebody else’s house she would have pretended she hadn’t seen it and gone on eating. It might have required courage, but she would have done it. ‘You must be hungry still,’ she went on, ‘perhaps you would like a poached egg, or two poached eggs? Emily could easily do them.’
Miss Prior gave a little laugh. ‘Well, no, Miss Bede, thank you all the same. It would seem funny to have a meal the wrong way round like that, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t fancy that yourself now, would you?’
‘If I were really hungry I don’t think I should mind,’ said Belinda bravely. ‘But you must have an egg with your tea. Perhaps that will make up for it.’
‘Thank you, Miss Bede, that would be very nice. I am going to the vicarage tomorrow,’ Miss Prior went on conversationally, putting down her work for a moment. ‘Mrs Hoccleve wants one or two things done before she goes away.’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t get a caterpillar in your cauliflower cheese there,’ said Belinda lightly.
Miss Prior made a noise like a snort. ‘It might be about all I would get,’ she said. ‘Very poor meals there.’ She lowered her voice, ‘Between ourselves, Miss Bede, Mrs Hoccleve doesn’t keep a good table. At least, I never see any proof of it. An old dried-up scrap of cheese or a bit of cottage pie, no sweet, sometimes. I’ve heard the maids say so, too, you know how these things get about. Scarcely any meat except at the weekend, the Sunday roast, you know. You always have such nice meals, Miss Bede, and you give me just the same as you have yourselves, I know that. After all, it might just as easily have been you or Miss Harriet that got the unwelcome visitor today,’ she concluded with a little giggle.
Belinda’s eyes filled with tears and she experienced one of those sudden moments of joy that sometimes come to us in the middle of an ordinary day. Her heart like a singing bird, and all because Agatha didn’t keep as good a table as she did and Miss Prior had forgiven her for the caterpillar, and the afternoon sun streaming in through the window over it all. ‘You’re doing that chair cover beautifully, Mi
ss Prior,’ she said warmly, ‘and how well you’ve got on with Miss Harriet’s dress.’
‘It really does pay to show her a little consideration,’ she said to Harriet afterwards. ‘I’m sure she works better when one does. Besides, I’m afraid she’s sometimes made to feel inferior, poor soul. Next time she comes we’ll have something really nice for lunch, perhaps even a chicken,’ she mused.
But Harriet’s thoughts were already with Mr Donne and the duck they were to have that evening. Could they perhaps have something original served with it, like the orange salad they had had at Count Bianco’s? One wanted to give people really interesting food.
‘It was a good idea to give Miss Prior an egg for her tea,’ went on Belinda, ‘I think it made up for the caterpillar.’
‘Of course, Mr Donne may prefer apple sauce, though it would be more ordinary,’ said Harriet thoughtfully.
So the sisters continued antiphonally, each busy with her own line of thought. But at last they found themselves in agreement on the subject of Harriet’s brown velvet dress. It was going to be very successful and the new bracelet-length sleeves were most becoming. ‘Not even Agatha has a dress with the new sleeves,’ said Harriet proudly.
Belinda felt a little depressed at being reminded of Agatha and her clothes from the ‘best houses’, but soon brightened up when she remembered Miss Prior’s remarks about her poor table.
‘Do you know, Harriet,’ she said, ‘Miss Prior told me that the only time they have meat at the vicarage is at the weekend? I can’t believe that, really, and yet I’ve always had a suspicion that Agatha was just the tiniest bit mean.’