Enter Mr Porteous

I was making coffee this morning, when Bill called down to me from his little bolthole in the attic. “Good lord, Bea” he roared; “Come and have a look at this!” I rushed upstairs, fearing to find a burst water tank or a missing slate at least, but all I saw, on looking through the window as directed, was the perfectly ordinary spectacle of a man walking in all innocence along our little footpath below. Nothing so very remarkable about that, I thought: people walk along our little footpath at all times of the day and night, and the only thing we have to wonder about them is, how much of our daily lives, and our two little back gardens are they able to peer into, as they pass? This man of Bill’s wasn’t even peering; he was walking with a measured stride, his rather fine, silvering head facing straight ahead, and held at the angle not so much of inquisitiveness, as of a rather quiet contemplation.

“So?” I said. “There’s a man walking along the footpath. I don’t know who he is, and nor, I suspect, do you?” But Bill did know who he was: that was the point. “It’s that parson all the women were in love with back in Stroud!” he explained. “Are you expecting a new vicar? You’ll like this one if so. He’s a splendid example of the type – St Paul himself incarnate, I always thought.”

It would have been vain in me to have pointed out that I was in no position to be looking for a new vicar, since I hadn‘t yet taken the trouble to make myself acquainted with any of the existing ones. But I was just a little intrigued nonetheless; not least by the fact that in his former domestic existence, Bill had evidently taken at least a passing interest in members of the clergy. I thought his metaphor smacked of impiety however, and said so. To which he replied “Oh come, Bea, you know my views on parsons - that they are of all categories of persons probably the most expendable. But this one loomed so very large in my ex-wife’s pantheon, and in that of all her friends, that I was obliged to take some heed of him , whether I would or no.”

I do indeed know Bill’s views on the clergy, having been subjected to an exposition of them on more than one occasion. And though I am not a regular church-goer myself, I have to admit that his remarks about clergymen have sometimes provoked me to indignation on their account; and that there was a moment, in the anxious hours that preceded his open heart surgery, when I went so far as to suggest to him that a quiet half hour with the hospital chaplain might have helped to set his mind at ease. I remember only too well what his reply was then. He had seen the hospital chaplain, and he knew the type; which was that of the gentleman priest wearing the velvet jacket. Of all the possible variants of the class, that was the one he disliked the most. His trouble might be deep, he said, but he was not yet reduced to mouthing platitudes he’d never pretended to believe in. He had seen horrors in his time; too many, and not all of them perpetrated by benighted foreigners living in far-away places. He took my point, but all the same, and my obviously sincere concern for him notwithstanding, he thought it unreasonable of me to ask him to start putting his faith now in parsons.

There had seemed to be no answer to that at the time; any more than there was reason to suppose, now, that Bill could be persuaded to take any other than an ironic view of passing clergymen. I did feel a degree of curiosity about the man myself, though; and when once Bill had drunk his coffee and set off with Monty for his morning walk, I phoned Miss Fanshawe – or Frances, as I really must steel myself to begin to call her. I mentioned to her in passing that we had seen a rather distinguished-looking man walk past, and that Bill had claimed him as a clergyman he’d once known; which prompted in her, just as I had hoped, a little torrent of pertinent information.

“Oh, that must have been Mr Porteous!” she eagerly exclaimed. “He has just moved into old Miss Porteous’s house – you know, the rather dilapidated one, with the broken front gate, that’s next-door but one to Rose Mountjoy's. The old lady died last winter – such a fearsome old thing she was, especially after she took to getting about in that motorised chair of hers. There was simply no avoiding her, if you met her on the street - dogs and children could be seen to scatter, ahead of her! She left the house to Mr Porteous, who is her nephew, and has taken early retirement from his parish in Gloucestershire, to come down here and devote his life to writing books. Very much the same thing as my father did, in fact – it seems to me it will make a connection between us. He has two daughters, one of whom has just opened a little handicrafts shop on the corner of the Common. Such pretty hand-made things she has – such a pretty creature she is, herself, come to that, with a little fair head like a buttercup’s. You must call in to see her…….. Her name is Anne Porteous, and he has another daughter, whose name is Julia, but I don’t know where she lives at present. I daresay you wonder how I know so much about him, since he’s only been here a week. But you see, Mrs Baines and Roland have already called on him, and had him round to tea – and they told me all about him over lunch, yesterday. They were most agreeably impressed with him. He’s everything one expects of a clergyman, Pamela says (that’s Mrs Baines, you know; her name is Pamela); and yet so very easy, and really quite amusing, conversationally. He and Roland took to one another at once, apparently. I’m wondering if perhaps I might send Mr Jessop round to him – with a little basket of fresh things from the garden, you know. It would be a welcoming gesture, don’t you think…..? Though of course Pamela is already planning a little evening party for him, and she does that sort of thing so very much better than I could……….”

So there it is. Mystery solved, clergyman’s identity established. And it’s pleasant to me to know that there’s someone come to live here who is even newer than Bill and me. It makes me feel quite the old hand indeed - what with Miss Fanshawe’s friendship, and the promise of an altogether admirable Mrs Baines and Roland in the very near future. I don’t expect I’ll call on Mr Porteous myself; I’ll leave that to Frances, who is certain to discover everything one needs to know. I might call at the daughter’s shop, though. I have always been very fond of needlework, and it would be good to get some new ideas.