Читать книгу Northbridge Rectory - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 5

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The casualty practice was a great success in the sense that all amateur performances are successful. That is, they give intense pleasure to those taking part, while the audience is at liberty to stay away, to take no notice, to be bored, amused, or pleased. In this case the audience was mostly either at home, in its back garden, or waiting for the pubs to open, but if Northbridge’s A.R.P. workers had been performing in the Coliseum packed to capacity with lions waiting to eat them if they did not give satisfaction, they could not have enjoyed themselves more. Boy Scouts bearing labels marked “Fractured Thigh” or “Spinal Case” were bandaged on the pavement, giving advice the while. Commander Beasley, R.N. (ret.), who was a gas case, read a little pamphlet from a society whose tenets he was thinking of embracing which gave a complete prophecy of everything that had already happened founded on a triangle with Cleopatra’s Needle as its base, lost his temper and went home before his life had been saved to write to The Times. A large white circle with the word CRATER stencilled inside it had been marked on the road outside Scatcherd’s, and this the A.R.P. cars and the town ambulance, in private life the Northbridge Hand Laundry’s delivery-van, took great care to avoid, so that the traffic coming in the opposite direction, ignorant of the yawning chasm twenty feet across, spouting gas, water, electric light, telephones and drains, were surprised and annoyed to be met by traffic on the wrong side of the road. As for Mrs. Paxon, she had managed to be a hysteria case, and never in the best days of the South Wembley Amateur Dramatic had she enjoyed herself so much. Had it not been for six o’clock, an hour which caused all the remaining male casualties (the Boy Scouts excepted) to withdraw, so that the A.R.P. ladies rather lost interest, she would willingly have repeated her performance till midnight.

She then went home, cooked Mr. Paxon’s supper, rescued the dropped stitches of one aunt and helped the other with her Patience, superintended the bi-weekly bath of the evacuee twins whose mother was on the whole half-witted and did not rightly know who the kiddies’ daddy was, though she gratefully accepted a separation allowance from the gentleman, as she artlessly called him, who had taken a father’s place. Mr. Paxon, a bank-manager in Barchester, was then allowed to help her to do her National Savings books and disentangle the money due to the Government from the housekeeping money, after which she typed a quantity of notices about the roof-spotting, to be delivered by herself on her bicycle before and after early service next morning.

Mr. Paxon, who would have preferred to sleep in his own bed, with a spiral spring mattress that represented the ideal of many years of patient drudgery, then helped her to put up the camp-beds upon which he, his wife and two aunts slept in the dining-room. Mrs. Paxon put on her Siren suit, a garment differing in few but important particulars from her ordinary-trouser suits. Mr. Paxon put a bucket of sand and a stirrup pump in the passage with the full and certain knowledge that he would bang against them in the morning, filled the scullery sink with water and went to bed.

As for the mother and the twins, they had a kind of gypsy camp in a little room known as the Back Room, containing three glassfronted shelves of books and an extra sideboard with a fern on it.

Secure in these precautions, the little town of Northbridge slept peacefully.

As the result of Mrs. Paxon’s labours all roof-spotters knew by breakfast-time that a meeting would be held at the Rectory at eleven-thirty on Saturday morning. A very full attendance was expected, because everyone was interested in Miss Pemberton and Mr. Downing, and it was generally considered that as he usually came down on Friday evening, Miss Pemberton, whose patriotism was well known, would have to come to the meeting and would sooner keep him under her eye than expose him to danger by leaving him at home.

Accordingly, Mrs. Villars made her preparations and as these included light refreshments, she decided to speak to her cook about them after breakfast.

It was her custom to go to the kitchen about nine o’clock, for the officers were usually at work by that hour, having previously left with Corporal Jackson a list of those who would be in or out for meals. A good deal of her week-end housekeeping had already been done on the previous day, but there were a few last-moment changes to be made. Major Spender had had a wire from his wife to ask if he could get away for a night to meet her to talk about letting their house in Northamptonshire, and Captain Topham was going over to Pomfret Towers to help to stem the rising tide of partridges and anything else fit for a gun.

The spacious Rectory kitchen was full of sunshine and quite empty when the mistress went in. As she looked at the massive built-in dresser and the almost immovable kitchen table which were scrubbed once a week, and the stone-flagged floor which together with the stone-flagged scullery, larder and passages the kitchen-maid insisted on washing at great length every day because she was frightened of Mrs. Chapman and did not want to learn to cook, Mrs. Villars felt extremely thankful that she had an income of her own and that her husband had made a very good thing out of Coppin’s School. With maids so hard to come by, it was not an easy house to run, but what it would have been for an incumbent who had only his stipend to live on and perhaps several children growing up and being educated, she did not like to think. While quite conscious that she could never make a proper Rector’s wife, a career almost impossible to those who do not come of parsonage stock, she was sensible enough to realize that if she made a very happy, comfortable background for her husband, as she knew she did, she would be forgiven for not doing her whole duty on committees and charitable works. Besides, when made to lie down after lunch every day, it is not easy to do all one ought to do.

She walked absently across the kitchen into the scullery and looked out of the door into the backyard. In Victorian days the Rectors of Northbridge had kept their brougham and hunted a little, as the handsome coachhouse and stabling and the brickpaved yard slightly sloping to a drain in the middle showed. The coachhouse now sheltered the Rectory car and several cars belonging to the officers, the stalls were filled with provisions of coal and wood, the maids’ bicycles, odd bits of furniture being stored for friends and a heap of sand for extinguishing incendiary bombs, while in the two little bedrooms above Corporal Jackson had installed himself a number of rabbits, to which he was much attached. Mrs. Villars had once been up to visit his pets and had determined that nothing on earth would ever make her go there again.

The kitchen-maid carrying a pail of dirty water, came out of the dark passage that she was scrubbing, saw her mistress and gasped.

“Good morning, Edie,” said Mrs. Villars. “Do you know where Mrs. Chapman is?”

Edie, in a terror-struck whisper, said she thought Mrs. Chapman had gone down the garden to get a cabbage or somethink for dinner.

“ ‘So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple-pie,’ ” said Mrs. Villars aloud to herself.

The kitchen-maid, still more terrified, dropped her scrubbing-brush with a loud clatter. Mrs. Villars looked round and saw her flattening herself against the scullery wall.

“What is it, Edie?” she said.

“Please, m’m, the drain,” said Edie. “Mrs. Chapman says not to put the dirty water down her sink.”

Mrs. Villars, understanding that Edie had orders to empty the scrubbing water down the outside drain, moved aside. Her kitchen-maid made a bolt past her into the middle of the yard to empty her pail, at which moment Mrs. Chapman, accompanied by Corporal Jackson carrying a basket of vegetables, came round the corner of the coach-house. At the sight of her tyrant Edie hastily emptied her pail, at the same moment giving a loud shriek.

“What is the matter?” said Mrs. Villars, approaching the kitchen-maid. “Good morning, Mrs. Chapman. Good morning, Jackson.”

“Please, m’m,” said the kitchen-maid, appealing to Caesar, though she knew she would repent it afterwards, “it gave me quite a start when Mrs. Chapman and Mr. Jackson come round the corner and I let the soap go down the drain.”

“Well, it’s lucky soap isn’t rationed,” said the cook, with the fine indifference of her class to her employer’s property. “Go and get a bit out of my kitchen cupboard and get on with the work. No need to worry yourself, Mr. Jackson, Edie likes carrying the pail. I’m sure I never thought you would be down yet, madam, so I thought as Hibberd hadn’t brought any vegetables in I’d just go and look, for bring me the best he does not, and Mr. Jackson said he’d carry the basket.”

By this time they had all arrived at the scullery door, where Corporal Jackson handed over the basket with a gallantry that Mrs. Villars much admired.

“ ‘But at the same time a great she-bear coming down the street popped her head into the shop. “What, no soap,” she said, so he died,’ ” said Mrs. Villars to herself, adding half aloud, “and I wonder who will marry the barber.”

Mrs. Chapman, who was putting on her white kitchen apron, looked up in surprise, but being used to the gentry kept her thoughts to herself.

The meals for the week-end were finally arranged and a light refection ordered for eleven-thirty to help the spotters to think. Mrs. Chapman announced, with ill-concealed pleasure, that though cooked ham wasn’t rationed Scatcherd’s hadn’t got a crumb, nor Fitchett’s, nor the Empire and Fireside Stores. Instead of blenching, her mistress said then they must do without and she would order some from London.

“By the way, Mrs. Chapman,” she said, “did you know Miss Pemberton’s Effie had stopped going to the Girl Guides? Mrs. Turner thinks she ought to keep it up. It will be a pity if she drops out, as she meets a lot of nice girls there.”

Mrs. Chapman’s large face assumed an expression which made Mrs. Villars very glad she was not Miss Bunce.

“Nice girls!” she said scornfully. “Of course, madam, a lady like Mrs. Turner isn’t up to the goings-on. I was only saying to Mr. Jackson yesterday when he brought the potatoes up that if Mrs. Turner knew where Doris Hibberd spends her evening off she’d lose a year’s growth. And as for that Edie, all I can say is if she isn’t in by ten o’clock sharp on her day out she’ll be one of those that are taken Advantage of.”

Mrs. Villars said that was dreadful, reflecting the while upon Mrs. Chapman’s not blameless past.

“Of course you may say,” said Mrs. Chapman with surprising candour, “that my Bert was an accident of Providence, as you might say. But he’s a good boy and I was young then.”

Mrs. Villars felt unequal to disentangling her cook’s morality and gave her final orders for the week-end. As she went along the passage and saw Edie, rabbit-faced, spectacled, with scanty pale hair, on her knees with pail, cloth and scrubbing-brush and the new bit of soap, and remembered how difficult it was to get good workers, she hoped that Mrs. Chapman’s views on mankind were as imaginative as Mrs. Paxon’s.

By eleven-thirty-five the Rectory drawing-room, all rights in which had been ceded for the morning by Colonel Passmore, was thronged with potential spotters. Mrs. Paxon, in a neat green uniform denoting Women’s Voluntary Services, was the first to arrive, bringing with her Miss Hopgood’s aunt, complete with telescope, which she carried in a stout leather case.

“Of course you know Miss Hopgood’s aunt,” said Mrs. Paxon.

Mrs. Villars felt that as Rector’s wife she so obviously ought to know Miss Hopgood’s aunt, at any rate by sight, that she would now never be able to ask what her name was.

“We did meet at the Women’s Institute Sale of Work,” said Miss Hopgood’s aunt, a large woman in a badly cut coat and skirt, with a great air of competence, “but you wouldn’t remember me.”

To this unfair, though usually very true, statement there is but one reply.

“But of course,” said Mrs. Villars. “I was just wondering where it was. How kind of you to bring your telescope.”

“It is a very good instrument,” said Miss Hopgood’s aunt. “My late husband was head of the Matthews Porter Observatory in Texas for the last three years of his life, and I took a great interest in his work. This is the actual instrument that he used when he went out in the foot-hills. For his astronomical work he of course had the forty-foot Zollmer-Vollfuss with a refraction of eighty-five degrees. It was with it that he discovered Porter Sidus in the constellation of Algareb.”

Mrs. Villars weakly said it was a pity they hadn’t got one like it in Northbridge.

“It would be impossible,” said Miss Hopgood’s aunt. “Porterville is on a pocket of basalt. Here you are mostly clay or chalk and the emplacement for a Zollmer-Vollfuss would be immensely expensive and liable to crack. Also the visibility is extremely poor. In Porterville the air is so dry and clear that I have often watched the coyotes at play in the foot-hills fifty miles away with this very telescope.”

Mrs. Villars expressed proper surprise, which was weak of her, for she had no idea how far one ought to see with a telescope and did not want to expose her ignorance to Miss Hopgood’s aunt, nor until it suddenly came upon her in a flash after tea was she sure what koy-oties were.

By this time Mrs. Turner and her nieces had arrived in company with Miss Crowder and Miss Hopgood from Glycerine Cottage. This name may sound improbable, and indeed is, so it is but the reader’s right to expect an explanation. Miss Crowder and Miss Hopgood, maiden ladies whose combined incomes were sufficient for their modest wants, were both firmly convinced that they were spiritually French, however English by birth. In pursuance of this myth they saved up every year to go to the Riviera, where they stayed at Mentone (which they always called Menton in a provocative way) in the Pension Ramsden, kept, as the reader has doubtless guessed, by the French widow of a Major Ramsden, late of the British Army, and distinguished chiefly for his success in dropping the word Sergeant from his rank. Here they had cocktails every day before lunch with the other English residents and in the afternoons went on long motor-bus excursions into the surrounding country, being careful to choose such tours as had an English guide. On one of these excursions they were so struck by a white villa embowered in wistaria, bearing the title Les Glycines, that they determined to adopt the name for the cottage they were building at Northbridge. Miss Crowder, who was a linguist and despised dictionaries, having, as she said, picked up all her French on the spot, therefore caused the words Glycerine Cottage to be painted in Gothic letters on the gate and planted a Virginian creeper by the drawing-room window, thus reproducing to her complete satisfaction and that of Miss Hopgood the atmosphere of the Côte d’Azur.

“I hope we aren’t late,” said Miss Crowder. “My watch is slow, and when I heard the church clock striking half-past eleven as we came out of the gate I was quite ah-hoory, and so was chère amie,” said Miss Crowder, who always addressed Miss Hopgood in this Parisian way.

“When my friend and I heard the clock, I said, ‘We must hurry or we shall be late,’ ” said Miss Hopgood.

Mrs. Dunsford and her daughter now appeared. As they were dressed exactly as a country-town widow and her daughter of good middle-class family and income should be dressed and did everything together, they were practically indistinguishable from hundreds of other quite useful ladies of the same kind all over England.

“You know Miss Hopgood, don’t you?” said Mrs. Villars to Mrs. Dunsford.

Mrs. Dunsford said she knew Miss Hopgood so well by sight, but had not yet had the pleasure of meeting her.

“And this is my friend with whom I live,” said Miss Hopgood, presenting Miss Crowder. It may be added that Miss Hopgood’s fondness for the beautiful word “friend” caused all her less intimate acquaintances a good deal of trouble, as they had to find out for themselves what Miss Crowder’s name was.

“I have always admired the front of Hovis House so much,” said Miss Crowder. “Pure dix-huitième.”

“I am so glad it appeals to you,” said Mrs. Dunsford. “It was in shocking repair when the General took it and we had to reface it altogether. It has an interesting story. The original owner was a wool-stapler called Hover and the house became known as Hover’s. Gradually the ‘r’ fell out and the ‘e’ was changed to ‘i’. Hence its present name.”

“You didn’t say, Mother,” said Miss Dunsford, “that father thought it was a corruption of Offa’s, a place-name from a Danish owner.”

Miss Hopgood said it was wonderful the way these old place-names survived.

As it was now a quarter to twelve and everyone had had sherry and cake, Mrs. Villars asked Mrs. Paxon to explain the object of the meeting, adding that they would not wait for Miss Pemberton and Mr. Downing.

“One moment,” said Mrs. Paxon. “I think I see them in the lane with Miss Talbot and Miss Dolly Talbot,” and so it was, and in a few moments they were in the room. Miss Pemberton announced, with no hint of apology, that she had been writing and could not start till after half-past. As for the Misses Talbot, they were always late.

“Well now,” said Mrs. Paxon, “it’s like this. We all know about this invasion and I hope we’ll get it, as it will mean a jolly good slap in the eye for our friend the Fewrer and make some people here sit up a bit.”

This bellicose beginning caused several of the ladies to pinch their lips, thereby signifying that they knew exactly which member of the Government, or alternatively of the local A.R.P. personnel, Mrs. Paxon was alluding to.

“Well,” Mrs. Paxon continued, “as we can’t all be in a hundred places at once and parachutists might come down anywhere, we thought if we had people on the church tower to keep a look-out it would be a good thing. We shall want two watchers at a time, for two-hour shifts, and I’m sure we shall get plenty of volunteers. We must have two on the roof always, for various reasons,” she added darkly, leaving her audience to fill in the gap for themselves.

“My friend and I could easily do a watch together,” said Miss Hopgood.

Mrs. Paxon said “Splendid.”

Mrs. Dunsford and her daughter and the Misses Talbot spoke to the same effect and Mrs. Paxon said That was splendid.

“I am perfectly willing to watch with Mr. Downing,” said Miss Pemberton, who had barricaded her lodger into a corner and was sitting slightly in front of him. “Or if I have one of my bad colds, Mr. Downing could take a watch with the Rector, or Father Fewling. Where is Father Fewling? I thought he was coming.”

Mrs. Villars said it was St. Sycorax’s Day, and she thought Father Fewling was having a special eleven o’clock service but she was sure he would soon be there.

“Well,” said Mrs. Paxon, “I think it would be a very good thing if we all went up the tower and had a look. Then we shall know exactly what we have to expect. Can we have the key, Mrs. Villars?”

Mrs. Villars said with pleasure, adding that her husband was so very sorry he couldn’t be at the meeting as he had to go over to Plumstead, but he would gladly take a turn at watching if his other engagements permitted; for she was a good wife.

Accordingly the party walked across the garden, through the iron grille in the brick wall and across the churchyard, at which point in their journey Father Fewling was seen hurrying over the grass towards them.

Father Fewling had begun his career in the Navy and had risen in the last war to the rank of Commander, after which he had felt a call to the religious life and had entered an Anglican order. In figure he was of that peculiarly firm and unbending stoutness which so often goes with the quarter-deck, and this was his cross, for he liked to think of himself as gaunt and ascetic, but was perpetually brought up short by his tailor or his looking-glass. At St. Sycorax, where he was a priest-in-charge, a title which gave him deep pleasure, he indulged in a perfect orgy of incense and vestments. Public opinion was strongly divided on the subject, half the church-going population following him with enthusiasm, the other half seeing in him a first cousin at least of the Scarlet Woman. Mr. Villars would never commit himself, but said to his wife that if people wanted that sort of thing it was a good thing to keep them in the parish. Meanwhile, Father Fewling worked even harder than he had worked in the North Sea and brought the St. Sycorax Boy Scouts to a pitch of perfection in tying knots that made them the envy of all the Scoutmasters in Barsetshire.

As he came flapping over the newly-mown grass of the churchyard, Mrs. Paxon said with a laugh that he was just her idea of a monk in the Middle Ages, a remark that was coldly received by the Misses Talbot, who were ardent attendants of St. Sycorax and had very definite ideas about the validity of Father Fewling’s monkhood, and about the Middle Ages. For their father, Professor Talbot, was a tremendous authority on the medieval church and they well knew that to Mrs. Paxon monks meant a picture called “To-morrow will be Friday,” familiar to the amateurs of early motor-advertisements, and the Middle Ages a limitless period, coeval with The Olden Times and consisting largely of troubadours, serfs (or villeins), and cardinals overeating themselves.

Mrs. Villars, seeing all the committee assembled, now led the way into the church, where Father Fewling genuflected in a way that made Miss Hopgood draw in her breath with a hissing sound. Mrs. Villars led the party to the foot of the tower stairs and unlocked the door. Darkness rushed out and almost hit them in the face.

“I don’t think I could ever go up,” said Miss Hopgood, retreating from the doorway.

“Nonsense, chère amie,” said Miss Crowder.

Mrs. Paxon, hovering round, said it was only the sudden contrast of coming from the sunlight into the dim religious light and there were windows higher up the stairs. But Miss Hopgood said she knew there were bats, from which attitude nothing could move her, so Mrs. Dunsford volunteered to stay with her while the others went up. After a rivalry of unselfishness between the ladies, Mrs. Dunsford won and the rest of the party, led by Father Fewling, began the ascent. Mrs. Villars came last, partly from politeness as hostess, partly because she secretly was terrified of being locked into the tower and felt that if she kept possession of the key and was nearest the exit she might be safe. Also by being last she could go at her own pace, and as corkscrew staircases made her feel rather red in the face she was glad to go slowly. Above her the voices of the climbers echoed down in the darkness, with Father Fewling’s encouraging remarks dominating the confusion. The awkward corner where the belfry door opened from the little landing all askew was safely negotiated and presently a faint light began to shine from above. A lancet window in the wall came into view, débris of nests crackled underfoot, there was another turn in the dark, light shone again and grew stronger and Mrs. Villars, blinking, stood upon the lead roof of Northbridge Church, where she had never yet been.

As soon as her eyes had stopped being dazzled she was able to appreciate Mr. Greaves’s description of the roof. The walls were high and solid, with battlements or machicolations at about five feet from the ground. Below the walls was a lead path about eighteen inches wide with rain-spouts at the corners. The whole of the rest of the roof was, as Mr. Greaves had described it, a leaden pyramid which climbers could scale by means of a kind of hen ladder on the side nearest the door. On its peak a weathercock rode high on an iron rod. Three of the angles were crowned with pinnacles and on the fourth was a larger pinnacle with a flagstaff.

Mrs. Villars was a fair height, but only by standing on tiptoe or jumping could she get any idea of the magnificent view which obviously spread in all directions. As for Father Fewling and Mrs. Paxon, they might as well have been in prison.

Conversation of a general kind was not easy, as owing to the narrowness of the path the spotters, hemmed in by the battlements on one side and the pyramid on the other, were strung out and cut off from each other, in addition to which a strong gale, which certainly had not been in the churchyard, was blowing on to the tower apparently from every quarter, carrying away even Father Fewling’s voice.

“Regular crow’s-nest,” shouted Father Fewling to Mrs. Villars, with great enjoyment. “Reminds me of the Horn. Do you know I have been round in a sailing-ship, one of the last men who has, I suppose.”

Mrs. Villars, who had an impression, chiefly gathered from old back numbers of the Boys’ Own Paper, part of her husband’s dowry, that no ships ever did go round the Horn except sailing-ships and that they were mostly wrecked, made violent faces of interest and surprise.

“Better get under the lee,” bellowed Father Fewling, “if there is a lee up here. Come round a bit.”

He shepherded the party to the flagstaff side where there was certainly less wind, and by bunching together rather uncomfortably they could hear his voice when it was not drowned by the tearing noise of St. George’s banner which was celebrating St. Sycorax’s Day by winding itself round the flagpole, fighting for breath and with a rip and a roar unwinding itself again.

“Now, Mrs. Paxon, will you tell us the scheme,” said Father Fewling, who was obviously itching to take the whole thing into his own hands.

“I think—” Mrs. Paxon began.

Miss Dunsford’s mulberry velours blew over the battlements and disappeared.

“It’s all right,” said Father Fewling, who with unexpected agility had hoisted himself half-way up the pinnacle and was looking over the edge. “It has stuck on the big yew. I’ll get it for you when we go down.”

“Oh, Father Fewling, you will be giddy,” said Miss Dolly Talbot, anxiously grasping a fold of his fluttering cassock. Then, abashed by having shown her maiden heart, she retreated behind Miss Hopgood’s aunt.

Father Fewling jumped down.

“As I see it,” he said, “we shall need some kind of platform if we are to spot parachutists. Most of us can’t see over the edge. I certainly can’t. Is there anything of the sort, I wonder.”

Mr. Downing, whom everyone had forgotten or ignored, was heard to say that he had once helped the ringers, and there were some tools in the room where the ropes were. On hearing the word ropes, Father Fewling clattered down the stairs as quickly as Sweet William slid down the cords, and was back carrying a couple of wooden stools before Miss Pemberton could do more than blight Miss Talbot’s attempt to engage Mr. Downing on the subject of campanology.

“Now,” said Father Fewling, mounting one of the stools, “that is much better. What a glorious view! I can see right over to Bolder’s Knob.”

“Not if you are looking south-west, Father,” said Mr. Downing in his pleasant scholarly voice.

“I’m looking sou’-west all right,” said Father Fewling.

“But Bolder’s Knob—a corruption of course of Baldur’s Knob or Hill—is due west,” said Mr. Downing. “Gundric’s Fossway runs right under it, past Freshdown, which, as you know, is Frey’s Down. Let me show you.”

So speaking he mounted the second stool. Miss Pemberton, half resentful of her lodger’s sudden independence, half proud of his knowledge, stood up against the stool, blocking the way from Miss Talbot.

“Well, I believe you are right,” said Father Fewling, just stopping himself saying “By Jove.” “I ought to have my bearings better. It was that clump of beeches on the hill that confused me. What hill is it, if it isn’t Bolder’s Knob?”

Mrs. Paxon said if he could see the Plumstead water tower in a line with it, then it was Humpback Ridge, but Mrs. Turner maintained that it was rather the Great Hump. Miss Crowder said she thought Great Hump was more over towards Nutfield, but bird’s-eye-views always made things look different, adding aloud to herself in French, “Le ciel est padersoo le twah.”

“Ackcherly,” said Betty, “it’s Fish Hill, because it’s stone pines, not beeches. I know because I went up there one day with Bill and Martin and those whatsisnames and we saw a golden-crested mippet.”

“A golden-crested mippet!” said Mr. Downing, getting off his stool and even pushing past Miss Pemberton in his excitement. “I didn’t know there was one nearer than Lincolnshire.”

Mrs. Villars, who began to feel that her party wasn’t a success, said if only they could see if the trees were stone pines or beeches that would settle it, and with a flash of inspiration asked Miss Hopgood’s aunt if she could see through her telescope. Without a word that redoubtable woman took her telescope from its case and mounted the stool so recently vacated by Mr. Downing.

“Can I help you?” asked Father Fewling, his fingers itching for the telescope.

But Miss Hopgood’s aunt had already laid the telescope in the most masterly way on the hill and was taking a sight. Father Fewling, who had let many ladies look through telescopes in his time and knew that they could not see anything without screwing up all one side of their faces, was struck dumb with admiration of a woman who could concentrate on one eye and leave the other open, and immediately fell into a professional conversation on telescopes that threatened to have no end.

“Now we have all seen the roof,” said Mrs. Villars to Mrs. Paxon in a low voice, for to interrupt Father Fewling and Miss Hopgood’s aunt would, she felt, have been like brawling in church, “shall we go down?”

Mrs. Paxon who, occupied though she was, noticed that the Rector’s wife looked tired, quite agreed, but at that moment steps were heard on the stair, and Major Spender, stifling an oath as he hit his head on the low lintel, stepped out on to the leads.

“Oh, Mrs. Villars,” said he as soon as his dazzled eyes could pick out his hostess, “I am so sorry to trouble you, but Jackson said he thought you were on the tower.”

“So I am,” said Mrs. Villars. “Could I do anything?”

“I am frightfully sorry to interrupt,” said Major Spender looking nervously about him, “but Mrs. Chapman said you hadn’t gone up so long ago, or I’d have waited till you came down.”

“I was really just coming,” said Mrs. Villars. “Can I help at all?”

“It seems awfully rude to bother you,” said Major Spender, “but the boy is waiting and Foster said you mightn’t be down till lunchtime, so I thought you wouldn’t mind my coming up.”

“I don’t, a bit,” said Mrs. Villars patiently. “Is it something you want to see me about?”

After a good deal more apologizing, Major Spender having by now attracted the attention of most of the party, who were huddled near the door looking over each other’s shoulders, explained with every maddening circumlocution that nerves could suggest that his wife, who had meant to meet him in town, had wired to say the hotel she usually stayed at had been bombed and could she come to Northbridge for the week-end instead. Corporal Jackson, who knew more about Northbridge than any of the Rectory inhabitants, had supplied the information that every hotel and inn and lodging was booked up to the brim and the only chance was a bed in one of the council cottages in the Plashington Road.

“Not a room in one of them,” said Mrs. Paxon from behind Miss Dunsford. “I went down there trying to billet some fresh evacuees yesterday. I do wish I could take your wife. Perhaps, if she didn’t mind the couch in the drawing-room—” said Mrs. Paxon, who had determined from the first day of heavy bombing that it was madness for anyone to sleep in comfort in a bed.

Major Spender looked so full of ungrateful gratitude and hopeless misery that Mrs. Villars felt she must do something.

“Do ask your wife here,” she said. “The room that I keep for my sons when they come here is quite free. It is really my youngest boy’s room, but there are two beds in it. We shall be delighted to have her.”

Major Spender went bright red, and mumbling profuse thanks hit his head on the lintel again and disappeared down the staircase. Mrs. Villars saw that Miss Pemberton was edging towards her lodger and Betty, and suddenly yielding to a slightly malicious inspiration, begged her to lead the way down, alleging quite truthfully that she was terrified of the descent. Torn between her wish to rescue Mr. Downing and the appeal to her strength of mind, Miss Pemberton decided to be a benefactress to Mrs. Villars, the kind of woman, she felt, with whom if necessary Mr. Downing could safely be left, and plunged into the darkness, planting her sensibly shod feet firmly upon each step as she went down. Instead of following her, Mrs. Villars stood aside till Mrs. Turner and her other niece, the Misses Talbot, Miss Crowder, Miss Dunsford and Mrs. Paxon had gone into the staircase door. From where she stood she could see Father Fewling and Miss Hopgood’s aunt deep in discussion, while a momentary lull in the wind let her hear from behind the pyramid the words “early nester” and “simply won’t look at bird sanctuaries.” Pleased with her social successes, she went down.

The Misses Talbot, who were only waiting to say good-bye to her, went off to the Aloes after issuing a cordial invitation to tea. Mrs. Turner, asking Mrs. Villars to tell Betty when she came down not to forget to go round by Scatcherd’s about the dog biscuits as she had her bicycle with her, carried off her other niece. Mrs. Dunsford and Miss Hopgood, who had been sitting in a pew discovering common friends in Hampstead, rose and came forward.

“I am sure my daughter has enjoyed her visit to your beautiful tower very much,” said Mrs. Dunsford. “It was so kind of you to let us come. Barbara dear, I think we must be going. But where is your hat?”

“It blew off, Mother,” said Miss Dunsford, suddenly conscious that she was offending St. Paul. “Father Fewling said it had caught in a yew tree. Perhaps I had better just put my scarf over my hair.”

“I think, dear, it would be better,” said Mrs. Dunsford, helping her daughter to adjust her head covering. “No, not like a turban. I don’t think that would be quite. Just over the hair and tied behind.”

“It is so different in our dear Abroad,” said Miss Hopgood, “where the peasant women run in and out of the churches so naturally, with their beautiful dark hair just knotted up.”

She sighed deeply, to express her feelings. Mrs. Dunsford, who during the roving life of a soldier’s wife had remained splendidly immune to Abroad, finding an English church wherever she went, smiled graciously and said she and her daughter would go and look for the hat, as they must be getting home to lunch.

“And did you enjoy the roof?” said Miss Hopgood joining Miss Crowder.

“Very much,” said that lady. “Such a view! I have never been so frappay by a landscape. A little like the view from the back windows of the Pension Ramsden, only, of course, the sea isn’t there. Well, good-bye, Mrs. Villars, and thank you very much for letting us come. You must come to Glycerine Cottage one day.”

Mrs. Villars, who had realized long ago that one of her war duties would be to make friends with many people whom at other times she would have been able without discourtesy to avoid except as acquaintances, said she would love to come.

As the church was now empty of visitors except for Miss Pemberton, who remained to watch the tower door for her lodger’s reappearance, Mrs. Villars went into the porch where Mrs. Paxon was waylaying her spotters and pinning them down to hours of duty. Mrs. Dunsford and her daughter were looking vaguely at the yew tree, hoping to see the mulberry velours.

“Well, good-bye,” said Mrs. Paxon, “and thank you most awfully. I’ll catch the others later. I have a splendid list already and I am going to beat up some more this afternoon. Mrs. Villars, you’ll excuse my saying so, but I don’t think you ought to spot. You look so tired.”

Mrs. Villars realized the genuine kindness of the suggestion and tried hard to keep out of her voice the slight resentment that it had roused (for what is near the truth is often the most annoying), as she answered that she was really looking forward to taking her turn on the roof and felt quite ashamed that she had never been up before.

“Well,” said Mrs. Paxon, “we can’t be grateful enough. And I do hope you will come to tea one day. We’ll choose a day when my husband’s aunts go to Barchester, and have a real chat together.”

Mrs. Villars nearly said, “If you begin one more sentence with ‘Well,’ I shall scream,” but restrained herself and said she would love to come.

A slight sensation of someone hovering which she had for a few moments felt in her right shoulder now resolved itself into Mr. Holden, who suddenly materialized in front of her, holding a mulberry coloured hat in a slightly reverent way.

“I hope I’m not being a nuisance,” he said, “but I was looking out of the office window when you were all on the tower, and I saw a hat blow off the roof on to one of the yew trees, so I rescued it. It isn’t yours, is it?”

Mrs. Villars smiled and shook her head, round which she had twisted a scarf before going over to the church.

“Of course not, how stupid of me,” said Mr. Holden, suddenly holding the hat with a want of reverence as marked as his previous careful handling had been.

“Oh, there is Barbara’s hat,” said Mrs. Dunsford coming up with her daughter. “How very kind of you to rescue it.”

She looked with well-bred questioning from Mr. Holden to Mrs. Villars, who pulled herself together and introduced them.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Holden,” said Miss Dunsford removing her scarf and putting on the mulberry velours.

“Thank you, indeed,” said Mrs. Dunsford, “and I do hope you will come to tea one day. Perhaps Mrs. Villars would bring you. I should have called before,” said Mrs. Dunsford, turning to Mrs. Villars, “but you will excuse the formality in war-time, I know. I will ring you up if I may.”

Mrs. Villars thanked her and expressed pleasure in the prospect.

“May I walk back to the Rectory with you; you do look so tired,” said Mr. Holden, who appeared to Mrs. Villars to take a real pleasure in her undoubted fatigue.

“Yes, do, it’s just lunch-time,” she said prosaically. “No, I’m really not tired, thank you, but I was wondering if I ought to wait for the others to come down, because of putting the key back in its place. Miss Pemberton is in the church but the others are up on the roof still.”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Holden, and walked into the church, where he found Miss Pemberton sitting bolt upright on a very small chair in the Children’s Corner, which was a kind of nursery chapel with cheap and dwarfish furnishings near the foot of the stairs, and one of the Rector’s crosses.

“Good morning, Miss Pemberton,” said Mr. Holden. “Mrs. Villars is rather tired and I have persuaded her to go home. She wanted me to ask if you would be so very kind as to lock the tower door when the others have come down and replace the key on its nail in the vestry.”

Miss Pemberton, with a sudden vision of locking the door upon Mr. Downing and Betty till they both died of starvation, willingly undertook the task, and Mr. Holden went away. But reflecting that Father Fewling and Miss Hopgood’s aunt, who were not in any way her rivals, would be involved in this doom, she relented and sat more bolt upright than ever. She had not long to wait, for the church bell striking one brought the loiterers back to the world, and almost at once their feet and voices were heard on the stairs. When they were all out Mrs. Pemberton locked the door and took the key to the vestry in a silence which had no effect upon three of the party.

“That’s lovely then,” Betty was saying to Mr. Downing as Miss Pemberton came back. “We’ll do Fish Hill one day and I’ll show you where I found the mippet, and we might see the broad-tailed gallowsbird. Do you know, they call him Jack Ketch round here.”

“Lunch will be waiting,” said Miss Pemberton, ignoring Betty altogether.

“And you must come too,” said Betty amiably. “I’ll tell Auntie to ring you up. She’s awfully keen on your books. She’s had her name down at the library for ages.”

She sprinted across the churchyard into the Rectory drive, mounted her bicycle and rode off. Miss Pemberton, conscious that Mr. Downing had for the moment slipped entirely from her orbit, looked at him and walked away. Her lodger, who had immensely enjoyed his bird-talk with Betty and looked forward to going to tea with her and her delightful aunt, Mrs. Turner, tried to speak lightly as if nothing had happened, but against his Egeria’s frozen silence his voice died uneasily away. This dread silence she observed all through lunch, which was spaghetti and tomato sauce out of a tin and some very dull biscuits with the very small piece of cheese that was all Mr. Scatcherd could produce that week. If Mr. Downing spoke while Effie was in the room Miss Pemberton answered, for the forms of society must be kept up before inferiors, so that Effie was able to report to her sister Ruby that the old cat was in a fine wax to-day, but as soon as Effie had left the room she confined her answers to the monosyllable “Oh,” pronounced with a want of interest that chilled her lodger to the bone. Not till teatime did she relent, when she uttered the noble words, “We will not discuss this again, Harold,” and spoke of very little else till bedtime.

As for Father Fewling and Miss Hopgood’s aunt, they walked as far as her cottage, The Milky Way, in deep converse and arranged to meet on Tuesday night to look at heavenly bodies from Father Fewling’s sitting-room window. Father Fewling walked up the Plashington Road, at the top of which he lodged with Mrs. Hicks, Mrs. Villars’s head housemaid’s mother, with an uninterrupted view of the sky, and there ate a biscuit and two bananas before rushing out to a meeting.

Mrs. Villars had waited for Mr. Holden, who escorted her back to the Rectory. On the way she broke it to him that Major Spender’s wife was coming for the week-end and asked if he knew her. Mr. Holden, who had already heard almost more than he could bear of Major Spender’s agitation over his wife’s telegram, said he knew nothing, but had imagined her as like the Major, thin, quiet and sensitive, to which Mrs. Villars replied that she could only see her as short and stout and bubbling. At the garden door they separated.

“You will lie down this afternoon, won’t you?” he said earnestly.

“But I always do,” said Mrs. Villars.