A Glass of Blessings

  At one point Rowena led me over to a corner to meet the new vicar and his wife. He was a tall worried looking man, quite young but prematurely bald. His wife was about my own age, neatly dressed in green, with a pleasant ready smile and anxious grey eyes. I noticed that she was nervously twisting an empty glass in her hands.

  'Do let me get you another drink,' I offered. 'I'm staying in the house so can count myself as a kind of hostess.'

  'No, thank you very much,' she said. 'I don't drink really, but it seems so unfriendly to come to a party and not have anything, so I did have one.'

  'I think Harry was going to put out some soft drinks. I'm sure I could find you something.'

  'Well, that would be nice. I am rather thirsty,' she said simply.

  I went over to the table where the drinks were and came back with a glass of orange squash.

  There was a rather awkward silence, the vicar just standing, his wife sipping her drink.

  'I hope to be coming to your church tomorrow,' I said brightly. 'How do you like being in the country?'

  'Well, it's very different,' said the vicar. 'We were in London before.'

  'Yes, near Shepherd's Bush,' added his wife eagerly.

  'What a contrast!' I exclaimed. 'Though of course there is the green there - I mean Shepherd's Bush Green itself.'

  They both laughed rather nervously.

  'We are just about to have a new assistant priest at the church I go to,' I said, babbling on rather since they did not venture any further remarks, 'with a rather promising name - Marius Lovejoy Ran some. I looked him up in Crockford.'

  'Oh yes? I think I have met him - third in theology at Oxford; Ely Theological College; Curate at St Mark's, Wapping; then St Gabriel's, North Kensington,' recited the vicar in rather Crockfordian style.

  I wondered if he himself had got a better class in theology. 'What is he like?' I asked.

  'An excellent fellow,' said the vicar dutifully, and looking at his gentle face I realized that he would probably have said the same about anybody. 'Which church do you go to?' he asked.

  I had almost expected him to say worship at, and was relieved that he did not. I told him where I went.

  'Ah, St Luke's. You would get full Catholic privileges there' he said rather wistfully.

  We talked for a little, though in a guarded manner, about Father Thames, and had just reached another conversational pause when I heard the front doorbell ring.

  Seeing that Rowena and Harry were both busy I went out into the hall intending to answer it, but found that Giuseppina, the Italian maid, was already there. She opened the door, then looked back at me appealingly.

  'That's all right, Giuseppina,' I said quickly, 'I will take this gentleman in,' for I could see that Piers was standing on the doorstep holding a branch of laurel leaves in his hand. I had the impression that he was rather drunk.

  'Wilmet, what a lovely surprise!' He held the branch of laurel towards me and bowed.

  'Piers,' I said feebly.

  He continued to stand on the doorstep without moving. His eyes were glittering strangely like glass or water with the light on it, and his fair hair was dishevelled. I was somehow reminded of the Ancient Mariner. I took his hand and led him into the hall.

  'Rowena said you might be coming.'

  'Yes, I'm afraid I didn't let her know. And now after spending an hour at the local to make me strong enough to face Harry, I find the drive full of Jaguars.'

  'Jaguars?'

  'Yes - cars, you know. Very unnerving to find oneself hemmed in by all those Jaguars and not a 279 among them.'

  'Is that the number you're looking for at present?' I asked.

  'Yes, have been for a week now. But why all the Jags?'

  'We're having a cocktail party.'

  'So that's it. Lead me to it then.' Piers started to walk rather slowly and carefully in the direction of the voices and clinking glasses.

  Was this it? I wondered - Piers's trouble? Drink? I said the word ponderously to myself, giving it a rather dreadful emphasis. The words on the title page of the dictionary rose up before me - sometime, this, formerly the other. I imagined him drunk at a Portuguese university, sprawling in the sun, drunk in the British Museum, perhaps addressing the Elgin marbles.

  'Darling!' Rowena ran forward, beautiful in her gaiety and the slight air of abandon the party had given her. 'You've come!'

  The brother and sister embraced, then Rowena took him off to meet people.

  'Wilmet, not drinking?' I found Harry by my side with a full glass. 'I wish we had a conservatory we could go into.'

  'How Edwardian,' I said lightly. 'But you haven't.'

  'What about having lunch in town with me one day to talk over old times?' said Harry in a rather muffled voice.

  I felt slightly hysterical. Had there been 'old times' as far as he and I were concerned, or was Harry just behaving in a conventional caddish way, in keeping with the idea of conservatories and Edwardian goings on? 'Why, I'd love to,' I said, recovering my social poise. 'Hadn't you better be going round with the drink? I can see some empty glasses.'

  'How sharp those beautiful eyes are,' he said and moved off bear- or badger-like with the jug of cocktail.

  'What was that Harry said?' asked Piers who had come over to me.

  'Oh nothing - just silly party conversation.'

  'It's terribly hot in here, isn't it?'

  'Do you feel all right? Your eyes are glittering feverishly like the Ancient Mariner's,' I said.

  'Shall I engage you in conversation then?'

  'If you like.'

  'Then let's sit down somewhere - what about Harry's den or whatever he calls it?'

  We walked, almost tiptoed, across the hall and into the little room which Harry used for the transaction of such business as overflowed from Mincing Lane into his home. Piers pushed some overcoats off the sofa and we sat down among other coats, hats and gloves. The room was dimly lit and a small gas fire popped and hissed with blue and coral flames. I felt the presence of stuffed animals around us. The atmosphere was almost romantic - indeed, a connoisseur of unusual atmospheres would have said that it was. The muffled noise of the party came to us across the hall.

  'How pleasant to find you here, Wilmet. You do stand out among all these rather dreadful people,' said Piers.

  'Do you find them dreadful? I expect they're very nice, really.'

  'Of course they're not, and you know it,' he said truculently, staring at me so intently that I felt bound to say something.

  'Sybil - that's my mother-in-law - and I are thinking of coming to your Portuguese classes,' I began. 'We want to go to Portugal next summer.'

  'Really? And you think you will try to learn a few useful phrases?' He laughed sardonically.

  'But you wouldn't mind if we came?'

  'How could I? If you pay the fee you are entitled to come, of course.' He seemed uninterested in the subject, so rather in desperation I began telling him about Father Thames and his domestic troubles. We talked for quite a long time about these, until I began to feel it was time we went back to the main party, and Piers to be conscious of his empty glass.

  'We must meet more often,' he said. 'And I don't mean at the Portuguese classes.'

  'Of course! You must come to dinner one evening,' I said rather formally.

  'I didn't quite mean that,' he said. 'I thought we might go for a walk in the park and have tea at a teashop like clandestine lovers.'

  I smiled. The evening had been almost too successful, and I had the pleased and comfortable feeling I used to have after parties in Italy when I had been admired and cherished. But now, of course, it was rather different. Still, there could be no harm in having lunch with Harry or walking with Piers in the park. I could show Harry what a good wife Rowena was; and as for Piers, drifting and rootless, perhaps often drunk, it might be that my friendship could be beneficial to him. It seemed an excellent winter programme. Then, for no apparent reason, I remembered my promise to Mary Beamish
to join the panel of blood donors. I saw myself lying on a table, blood pouring from a vein in my arm into a bottle which, as soon as it was full, would be snatched away and rushed to hospital to save somebody's life. There seemed at that moment no limit to what I could do.

  The next morning naturally brought with it a feeling of anti-climax. We all got up late, and my announcement that I should like to go to church was received with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

  'But it's the first Sunday in the month,' Harry pointed out 'We never go in the mornings then. The vicar will be having sung Eucharist, there'll be hardly anyone there and the service will be much longer.'

  'All the same I should like to go,' I persisted. 'It will be the kind of service I prefer, anyway.'

  'All right then. I'll take you in the car and call for you when it's over,' said Harry rather grudgingly.

  But at that moment Piers came into the room; and in the end it was be who took me in the little car, Harry not trusting him with the Jaguar.

  'I may as well come to the service with you,' he said, 'though country churches always depress me.'

  'Yes, I know what you mean. There is something sad about them, as if their life were all in the past - all those tablets and monuments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leaving no room for modern ones.'

  'And the hidebound villagers with their gnarled hands grasping Hymns Ancient and Modern and rigidly opposing any change, and the gentry putting in an appearance at Matins occasionally or reading the lessons.'

  'But we mustn't generalize,' I said. 'After all, there is young life in the country too.'

  'And a new vicar trying to spike things up a bit.'

  'Perhaps it's because country churches are always surrounded by graves and yew trees and they do have a kind of damp smell.'

  'And almost never a smell of incense.'

  We were a little too early for the service, so we walked round the churchyard together, reading the inscriptions on the gravestones. Some graves were very old, their headstones broken and overgrown with ivy, reminding me of tumbled unmade beds. Others, because of their new raw look and the flowers arranged in jam jars or ugly vases, had a different kind of sadness.

  At last we heard a distant droning of music and decided that it was time to go in. A few people, mostly women and young children, were scattered about in the pews, and I saw that the music came from the vicar's wife, pedalling away at a harmonium. The choir of girls with two men did not make much of Merbecke - as Piers said afterwards, 'One would hardly go there for the music, as people are said to in London churches.' Nevertheless, I felt that we had both been in some way moved by the service, although we neither of us remarked on it. When it was over we had a word with the vicar who seemed very glad that we had come.

  'Do you suppose those people who received Communion had been fasting for four hours or whatever it is?' Piers asked as we drove back. 'I feel they hardly could have been.'

  'Perhaps they wouldn't know about it and so could be excused. It must be difficult for Father Lester - I suppose we should call him that - to know where to start in his instruction.'

  'Yes, in the spiking up, poor man. How much better for him to have been given a cosy London church with hideous brass and stained glass and pitchpine, but a good Catholic tradition.'

  'Do you go to any special church in London?' I asked.

  'I go where it suits me, and when.'

  I was a little chilled by the unfriendliness of his answer. 'I don't even know where you live,' I said at last.

  'Holland Park, vaguely, though perhaps a little nearer to the Goldhawk Road than the address might suggest.'

  'That seems rather vague, but you must be somewhere near where I live.'

  'Not really, Wilmet. The dividing line between elegance and squalor may be a narrow one in London, but the distinction is very rigid.'

  'I hope you don't live in squalor. Have you a flat or rooms, or what?' I asked, driven on by curiosity and intrigued by the hint of squalor.

  'Well, a kind of flat.'

  'And you live by yourself?'

  He seemed to hesitate, so I said quickly, 'I imagine you sharing with a colleague, perhaps.'

  'Yes, that's about it.'

  I supposed I could hardly probe further, though I couldn't help wondering if he lived with a woman and what he would have answered if I had asked him outright.

  'Are you going back this evening?' I went on.

  'Yes, I must be at the press at ten o'clock tomorrow morning.'

  He seemed tired and dispirited, and we drove the rest of the way in silence. As we got out of the car he said, 'At least there'll be the Sunday morning gins.'

  After lunch we dozed over the Sunday papers. When it was teatime Rowena went to the window to pull the long yellow curtains.

  'The evenings are drawing in,' she said. 'I hate November, and after tea on Sunday, too. I suppose it's because people begin to feel the oppression of Monday morning and another week upon them, and it's infectious, even if one doesn't work in an office oneself. Piers, what exactly do you do at the press?'

  'Oh, just correct proofs. Menial work, really.'

  'But you have your evening classes.'

  'Yes, I have those.'

  'Teaching is creative work in a way, I always think. You must feel that you are moulding people.'

  'You should see what I have to mould,' said Piers gloomily.

  'And teaching takes it out of you, of course,' Rowena laughed. 'You are giving of yourself, or should be.'

  'I doubt if people would want my kind of self,' said Piers in a dry tone, 'so I'm not all that generous.'

  In the morning, when we were waiting for the Green Line bus, Rowena took my hand and said earnestly, 'Wilmet, darling, do try and see something of Piers if you can. I'm sure it would be so good for him to have a nice female friend - if you could bear it, that is.'

  'I expect he has lots,' I said. 'After all he's very attractive.'

  'I don't know, really. He tends not to speak of his friends here, and I do sometimes wonder if they're the right kind.' Rowena frowned and then burst into laughter. 'Oh dear, that makes you sound dreary, being so very much the right kind yourself, but you know what I mean. Do give my love to Rodney, won't you?'

  When Rodney came home in the evening he asked, 'How was old Harry Grinners?' which had been our joking nickname for Harry before we really knew him. We spent some time reminiscing about our time in Italy - long evening drives in curious army vehicles with now forgotten names, the headlights picking out an urn or a coat of arms on the gateway to some villa, or illuminating a crowd of people in the square of a little town - the rococo dining-room of a particular officers' club where the Asti Spumante was wann and flat, and there were too many drunken majors ... remembered now after ten years this life had a fantastic dreamlike quality about it.

  'By the way,' said Rodney suddenly, 'I meant to tell you, Bason has apparently got that job as housekeeper at the clergy house. I gather he's moving in immediately. I hope he'll turn out all right. In a way I feel responsible for his good behaviour.'

  At that moment the telephone rang. It was Mary Beamish. I wondered rather apprehensively what she could be wanting me for, but she was only ringing up to tell me that all the congregation of St Luke's were invited to a social evening in the parish hall at eight o'clock next Saturday to meet Father Ransome, the new assistant priest. It had been announced after Mass on Sunday and she thought I would like to know.

  'But where is he going to live?' I asked. 'Is that settled?'

  'Oh yes - with us' said Mary. 'We have two spare rooms which he is to have temporarily, and he can cook his own breakfast on a gas ring. He will have his other meals at the clergy house.'

  I was both annoyed and amused at her news, annoyed because for some reason I did not want him to live at the Beamishes, and amused at the picture of him cooking his own breakfast on a gas ring. The whole thing seemed most unsuitable. But I certainly intended to go to the social evening in the pa
rish hall. I had the feeling that it might be quite an interesting occasion.

  Chapter Four

  When Saturday came Sybil began to be worried about how I should manage my evening meal.

  'Eight o'clock is such an impractical time,' she said. 'It does seem that the Church is out of touch with life - one sees what people mean when they say that. Though I suppose,' she added, fair as usual, 'that eight o'clock is probably a convenient time for people who have been working till five or six and had a meal immediately afterwards. And of course people who have to go to work wouldn't want to stay up too late.'

  'But tomorrow is Sunday,' I pointed out, 'so I suppose it is chosen for all of us, so that we may get up early to go to church.'

  'Father Thames, from what you've told me, doesn't seem the kind of man who would naturally enjoy a cup of tea and a bun at eight o'clock in the evening. I wonder how he will be managing?'

  'I suppose he is conditioned to it after so many years,' I said, 'so there won't be any problem. I daresay Mr Bason will be giving them a high tea, or something like that.' Then I remembered that Father Thames always heard confessions at half past six on Saturday evenings, so that was something else to be fitted in.

  'Won't you at least have a drink before you go?' Sybil asked. 'I'm sure you'll need it.'

  I refused, thinking that it might not mix very well with the refreshments I should get at the parish hall, and it occurred to me that one could perhaps classify different groups or circles of people according to drink. I myself seemed to belong to two very clearly defined circles - the Martini drinkers and the tea drinkers though I was only just beginning to be initiated into the latter. I imagined that both might offer different kinds of comfort, though there would surely be times when one might prefer the one that wasn't available. Indeed, as I approached the parish hall, which was next door to the clergy house, I began to wish that I had paid more heed to Sybil's suggestion of a drink. I never think of myself as being nervous socially - I am always perfectly confident when entering the room at a party - but this occasion seemed unlike any I had experienced before. I suppose that church gatherings inevitably attract the strangest mixture of people, and I felt a little apprehensive as I pushed open the door, my eyes fixing themselves on the green walls, hung with rather chipped 'Della Robbia' plaques indicating Father Thames's interest in all things Italian. Would there be anyone to whom I could easily talk? I took courage from the assumption that practically everyone in the congregation would have come to meet or have a look at Father Ransome; it wouldn't be like a whist drive which attracted a very limited circle, so there was a chance that I might find somebody congenial.