Out of the rain of a bank holiday Monday

Oh how it did rain, on Monday! It was bank holiday of course, so what could one expect? Bill’s little vegetable plot was almost washed away, and all evidence of my murderous activities with slug pellets went with it. It was excellent weather for snails however, so I daresay I shall have to commit at least one more act of slaughter before he returns. I have never been fond of bank holidays, to tell the truth. It has always seemed to me that the world and its wife shut up shop and went elsewhere on such days – so that if one didn’t have anything particularly special and wonderful to do oneself , one must somehow have miserably failed at life.

I determined to do something anyway, weather notwithstanding, so I took up my largest umbrella and walked out across the empty common where the rain lashed down, thinking I would perhaps call on Pamela, to put her mind at rest over Frances and Mr Porteous. But when I reached her house, and thought of Roland, and teacups amidst the chintz, my nerve failed me and I strode right past, head down, hoping they wouldn’t catch sight of me and bid me come in. They didn’t – mercifully; so on I went, dismissing the idea of Frances, for some reason, and not yet feeling quite able to call unannounced on Rose, or anyone else. Well, there is no-one else, come to think of it. When I speak of Frances, and Pamela, and Rose Mountjoy, I come to the end of my present acquaintance.

I don’t even mention David Porteous, you will notice. Though the idea of calling upon him unexpectedly out of the rain did intrigue me for a moment. How would he respond, I wondered? And my answer came , swift as the falling rain itself: he would respond as he did to everything else, with perfect urbanity and charm. He would do what he could with his aunt’s teacups and, rising above any inadequacy he might feel over the condition of her armchairs, have me worshipping at the shrine in five minutes flat. I have a natural aversion to worshipping at shrines however – and besides, my boots were muddy and my hair a mess. So I walked past Mr Porteous’s house too, and continued on my random way.

There is something rather pleasant about walking in the rain in fact, when once one has become accustomed to it. So I let my footsteps take me where they would, along this narrow lane and that, enjoying the unaccustomed views of people’s rear gardens; arriving at the main Richmond to Kingston road at last, and crossing it, finding myself all of a sudden at the entrance to a sweet old garden centre. I had heard of this place, which has been transformed lately from pleasantly run-down nursery, to centre of excellence for all things horticultural, and latest place to go for fashionable out-of-Londoners, who want somewhere different for their lunch.

I was charmed with the place at once. What it consists of most of all, is three long old greenhouses , with an Italian-style covered courtyard in between. It has been set up as a commercial enterprise, I knew that, and most of what one sees is actually for sale. But I sensed the hand of a master craftsman here – whoever has made this place, I thought, has done it for the love of beauty alone. The greenhouses have been arranged as a series of extending vistas, with every object, large and small, having been given its own lovingly appointed place. So that interspersed among the towering orchids, and the scented climbers scrambling over roofs, are cabinets of old books and antique table linen; bottles of precious oils and spices; chairs and tables for sale, or simply to sit down upon - and a series of vast ornamental screens, and gates, and doorways, collected, I believe, from all around the world.

The courtyard was drenched and deserted today, so I wandered, charmed, about the greenhouses, picking up little delicacies and putting them in my basket as I went. I was conscious that there were people still sitting animatedly over lunch at one end of the larger greenhouse, but I hurried away from them and found a homelier place in which to buy a pot of steaming coffee and a slice of home-made cake. I could carry them, so the pleasant young man in the café told me, to any spot I would, so I sat down at an ancient table beside a screen - observing, with joy, that neither would have been out of place in the garden of a Tuscan palazzo; and it was here, that Rose Mountjoy found me.

She had come across from the place where the beautiful people sat; she came quietly, and caught me unawares. She was lunching with Lady Macauley and Belle, who had spotted me, she said, and wondered if I wouldn’t bring my coffee over and join them for half an hour? Thus it was that I found myself all at once in presence of Theodora - with only two minutes in which to make the transition between what I remembered of her, and what there is today. I was very excited at the time – but I relate it to you now with the relative quietness of recollection, and with what I hope will be a fair representation of the truth.

Lady Macauley, as Theodora has become, is a very fine, and still rather beautiful old lady. She is beautiful in that way that the Mitford sisters were in old age; which is to say small, and delicately thin, but dressed in palest lavender up to the throat; with facial bone structure more or less intact, and something strangely luminous still, about the eyes. Theodora’s eyes had been celebrated, in their time. Sonnets had been written about them, and nobody had ever been quite able to say whether they were mostly grey, or green, or simply silvery blue. I too found myself wondering about the precise colour of Theodora’s eyes; even as I was receiving Lady Macauley’s rather languid outstretched hand, and murmuring what I could by way of a response to her greeting.

It was only in what she actually said, that the myth of Theodora was finally dispelled for me, and I was able to see that what she had become was a rather spoilt and querulous old woman, who was examining me head to toe, and would be prepared to endure me only if she thought I might amuse her for an hour. “I have been hearing all about you” was what she actually said. “About you and your brother Bill, who is rather famous, they tell me. I gather you live in the old gatehouse, and that your brother is away at present. Which I think a pity, since I should like to have met him.”

It didn’t get very much better than that, to tell the truth. We were together for no more than ten minutes, talking rather desultorily of this and that, before the old lady suddenly decided she was impossibly weary, and ought to be taken home at once. I rose to see her go, but found she had forgotten me already. She didn’t offer me her hand again, and made no mention of a further meeting. And it was only after they had disappeared from sight at the end of the extending vista of the greenhouse, that I realised I had exchanged no word with Belle Macauley, who had sat silent throughout the short exchange, who had looked awkward, but whom I sensed I should have liked.

Bill was not encouraged, by the way, when I described this encounter to him over the telephone later that night. He thinks he’ll probably add an extra week to his fishing trip; since so far as he can see, I am resolved to make his life as uncomfortable as possible, and the dowager count is rising by the hour!

In the garden with Mr Porteous

I have to hold very fast to my scepticism when in presence of Mr Porteous. In particular, must I persist in thinking of him as Mr Porteous, for example; since if I did not, I should probably find myself going all Jane Eyre on you: saying “Reader, he affected me!” - and calling him ‘dear David’, just like all the rest. I had only to be left alone in the garden with him for ten minutes the other day, to be reminded of just how vital it is to keep up one’s guard when in company with him.

He does that to you; he has a way of making you want to fill his silences, make things easy for him. It’s a considerable art. One that he perfected, I daresay, whilst gazing down upon his adoring congregation from the pulpit. He has had years in which to study its effects after all - and for my own part, well, it was only by summoning the image of Bill’s jubilant countenance (Bill would have relished the idea of my being made subject against my will!), that I was spared the ignominy of breaking out at once in foolish chatter again.

He and Frances had been engaged in making little water-colour sketches of the knot garden when I interrupted them. Mr Porteous was poised with brush-stroke in the making, but was quick to stand up from his easel and put out his hand to me in greeting; explaining as he did so that in this enterprise, as in so many others, it was Frances who led, he who entirely ineptly followed. “ I have very little aptitude, I’m afraid” he told me (he had the most engaging small smile for it). “But Miss Fanshawe has been kind enough to take me in hand. She‘s finding it uphill work though. My daughters have considerable skill in all branches of painting and the plastic arts, but it’s a gift they must have inherited from their mother, since I have never been able to lay claim to any such thing myself.”

Frances fluttered some kind of self-deprecatory little response to this. She had been painting in water colour since she was a small girl, she explained; her father had been fond of it too. But she had never received the least tuition, and didn’t believe she had progressed beyond the entirely amateurish stage. She thought Mr Porteous under-estimated himself, besides. “His little sketch of the knots was most accurate,” she said. “And I think he has captured the mood of the garden extremely well.” She took up his picture to show me, wanting to know if I didn’t agree with her? She was very pink beneath her sun-hat, and I thought her hand trembled a little, but she was doing her best to seem perfectly at ease.

She talked with me a little longer – she missed Bill and Monty on the common, but she was so pleased to hear about his fishing trip, and hoped it would help restore him to full health. She remembered then that Mrs Meade had promised to bring tea at four o’clock; and since that hour had already passed, and still no sign, she thought she ought to go and see what had become of her. Having said which, she drifted off in the direction of the house; leaving me in silent confrontation with Mr Porteous across the easels, wondering what I might conceivably say that would be of interest to him.

It occurred to me that Frances’s reference to Bill might provide a start, so I ventured to suggest that it might interest Mr Porteous to know that my brother, too, was writing a book about his experiences in the Middle East? I knew I did Bill no favours in linking his book with that of David Porteous – there could hardly have been any juxtaposition I might have hit upon indeed, that he would actually have disliked more! But if Mr Porteous had heard of Bill, he was prepared to show no sign of it. He only remarked that of course his own small offering was unlikely to cause much of a stir. He did not expect to set the world alight with his musings, he said – but he had dared to think he might kindle a spark or two.

I murmured what I could in response to this. I think I said something to the effect that there was need, in this particular field, for a study from every possible angle. But his message had not escaped me; and it was clear, from the way he removed his eyes from mine to gaze, meditatively, at some point in the middle distance above my head, that he thought there was room in this garden for only one man of distinction at a time.

I tried the subject of his daughter next, mentioning that I had visited her shop, and thought she had arranged it so artistically. “She makes such pretty things too – and all herself, she tells me! I simply couldn’t resist buying two of her samplers, and an embroidered cushion. They look so charming in my little sitting room at the gatehouse. ” I was gushing, I knew it; and was not proud of myself. Nor was I prepared for his response, which came only after a considerable silence, and which I thought, in all the circumstances, just a little sharp.

“Oh yes, the shop…” he said - and it was remarkable to me, how much of pure dismissiveness he could put into that one word. He had collected himself the next moment, though, and went on in more light-hearted vein. “She would have her little shop, you know! It was not in the least what I had hoped for her. And I’m afraid she will make a very poor sort of shop-keeper - giving away all her prettiest things to the first person who expresses an interest in them, and operating at a loss! Personally, I thought it a poor sort of use to which to put her inheritance from her aunt. And a poor sort of return, come to that, for all the money I have been required to expend on her art school education!”

He smiled very pleasantly whilst delivering himself of these remarks. But there was a coldness beneath, which made me sorry I had introduced the subject of Anne and her shop at all. I felt a sudden stab of compassion for the girl indeed: it couldn’t be easy, I thought, to find favour in the eyes of such a father. On the whole I was very glad when at length the clematis curtain parted again, and Frances had returned; followed closely by Mrs Meade, and each of them bearing heavily laden trays. Mr Porteous sprang up at once to do what he could to relieve them of their burdens, and there followed a short period of intense activity, during which tables were arranged and teapots put down. I was glad of the distraction, and found myself able to breath more easily again. The moment had come and gone, I thought, in which I might have heard myself doing the unthinkable - which was to say challenging the unimpeachable Mr Porteous; and on his own home ground at that.

Tea passed pleasantly enough, and I stayed another forty minutes or so. Mrs Meade and Frances between them had gone to a good deal of trouble in the matter of cakes and sandwiches, and I didn’t want to seem ungracious by rushing away too soon. Mr Porteous’s smooth surface had been entirely restored, besides. He chatted amiably about this and that, and was gracious kindness itself, toward Frances. I have to admit that I saw nothing in his conduct or demeanour to suggest that there was anything more than a perfectly innocent friendship between them - and I fully intend to apprise Rose and Pamela of the fact.

I had received a glimpse of something else in him however. I had known it must be there, so it hardly surprised, though did alarm me a little. I mean to hold on to it, at any rate. Mr Porteous is not quite what he seems: Bill insisted on it, and I now believe he was right. I’m not at all sure what I’ll be able to do if Frances takes it into her head to fall in love with him – but I shall continue to try to keep her welfare very closely within my sights.

Tableau in the garden

Rose Mountjoy evidently bears me no ill will. I met her in the high street yesterday and stopped to chat a while; after which she suggested we go and have coffee together in the little garden café down on the riverbank where, she assured me, they make a cappuccino quite as good as those at Starbucks. She was right; they make an excellent cup, and it must have acted as a stimulant with Rose, for she began at once to talk to me about Lady Macauley and Belle. Poor Belle has a hard time of it, apparently. The old lady is very exacting, and never more so than when she has taken it into her head to die again.

“She took to her bed ten days ago and hasn’t budged since” Rose informed me. “She engages a nurse of course, at the first sign of illness, but it’s always Belle she wants in the last resort. Belle’s only respite comes when there are visitors. Lady M allows herself to be whispered at from a discreet distance now and then, by those among the most faithful of her old friends whom she doesn’t regard as quite impossible; who don’t prognosticate or shout, and who haven’t about them anything of what she calls, even in her prostration, the aspect of the angel of death. She might be dying, she says, but she doesn’t require the assembled cast of the Oresteia to send her on her way!”

So, Theodora has a sharp tongue, I reflected, as I listened to this account. She doesn’t mince her words, and has a lively way of expressing herself. I supposed it must have taken something of the sort to have captivated Jack Macauley and held on to him so long; and I allowed myself to dwell a moment, on that old image I’d always had, of the early Theodora, the early Jack. Though what I went on to say to Rose, by way of a response at last, was something altogether more prosaic.

“And is she dying?” I inquired. To which Rose replied “ Oh good lord no! She’s tough as an old boot and will outlive us all. She’s bored, that’s all. She was bored with Florence and then with the Bay of Naples. When you have lived to become as bored as that, there’s very little left to keep you amused! We thank heaven, Belle and I, for the prime minister and the mayor of London, to each of whom she has taken such a profound dislike that it keeps her occupied for hours on end. She looks for them everywhere; she scours the newspapers and all the television bulletins. It seems to her that the one smiles too much, and the other too little. It’s evidence, she says, of their particular brands of perfidy: they resemble Hamlet’s mother - they can smile and smile ( or not smile, in the case of Mr Livingstone, whose best effort lies somewhere between a smirk, and a scowl)…. they can smile as much as they will, and still be villains. She thinks they’re bringing the country to ruin, and she can’t see how they have managed to persuade so many people to go on voting for them. But there they are, and there, by virtue of the persistent folly of the British people, they seem likely to remain. She has heard of Mr Brown of course, and of the likelihood of his taking over from Mr Blair at any moment. But she hardly sees how she’s going to like him any better – she thinks that if anything, especially on the smile front, he will actually turn out to be a great deal worse!”

I thought this such entertaining fare that I was loath to depart from it. But Rose herself had different ideas, and soon began talking of other things; notably of David Porteous, and that fantastic theory of Pamela’s, that he might be making love to little Frances Fanshawe! Rose can’t see it happening, herself. Though of course one never knows; and David, having nothing much more, himself, poor man, than his aunt’s rather decrepit old house, must find some temptation in what Rose calls 'Frances’s ten bedchambers and her rooms of state'.

We left the subject there; I finding myself unwilling to discuss Frances with the talkative, but rather indiscreet Mrs Mountjoy. It seemed to me that a certain caution was called for, with one who was apparently so willing to reveal intimate details about her friends. And that afternoon (it was yesterday in fact) I did take myself to the manor house at last, with the idea of trying to find out what actually is going on there.

Mrs Meade shuffled out to the gates to admit me. I thought she seemed a little out of sorts, and not just with the effects of possible gin consumed. More, did it seem to be with the general idea that Miss Fanshawe was just then, as she put it, ‘out in the garden with Mr Porteous.’ “You’ll find them in the herb garden” she rather stiffly told me, before shuffling back again to the house. “They’re having a little painting lesson out there, apparently.”

I know my way to what Mrs Meade calls the herb garden by now. Frances herself calls it the knot garden, and it’s a pretty place, filled with varieties of lavender, all lovingly kept trim by the faithful Mr Jessop. To enter it, you must cross the paved courtyard where a pair of ancient cedar trees block out the light, and follow a path through massed azaleas and rhododendrons, until you reach an arched gateway in an old brick wall. I went quietly, not wishing to disturb them, lest they should be too deeply engrossed in the work at hand. And what I saw, on parting a curtain of trailing clematis that partially blocked the gateway, was a little scene of such tranquillity, so much industry and quiet charm, that I was reluctant to break in on it.

Frances sat at one easel in flowered dress and sunhat; David Porteous, splendidly panama-ed, leant before another close beside her. So deeply absorbed were they in their respective canvases, only pausing now and then to look up and compare brush-strokes with one another, that I couldn’t find it in my heart to disturb them; and was just about to creep silently away again, when Frances looked up and saw me and, putting down her brush at once, called gaily to me to come and join them.

But I have already exceeded my allotted thousand words, alas. And, having pledged myself not to tax possible readers’ patience too much, all in the space of one blog entry, I must break off at this point, promising to come back again tomorrow, or thereabouts, to describe to you what happened next…….

A Deputation of Dowagers

Bill has gone away for two weeks on a fishing holiday with friends. Taking Monty with him, I’m happy to say; since, fond as I am of the dear old dog, I don’t think I could have contended with him, in addition to my own Florence, who remains in mortal fear of Monty, and cowers, whimpering, at the first sound of his approach. I have all the responsibility of Bill’s vegetable plot in his absence, too – though I have told him that I am unlikely to be any match against the advance of slugs or snails, and that if he had wanted early lettuces, he had probably much better have stayed at home. On the whole I’m glad he’s to have this little break, though. Especially since the alternative would have been his taking up one or other of the invitations he has had to go to New York, or Washington or other places world-wide, speaking about Iraq – and I don’t believe his health is quite up to that sort of thing just yet.

What he’s actually doing, I believe , is fleeing the possible onset of dowagers in our midst. And with good cause perhaps, since two did arrive here simultaneously, yesterday, just half an hour after he’d gone. I was surprised to receive what almost seemed a deputation, at eleven o’clock in the morning; in the persons of Pamela Baines, coming in all state, and accompanied on this occasion by Mrs Rose Mountjoy. They said they had just happened to be passing on a morning stroll, and thought it would be the neighbourly thing to call. But I don’t believe a word of it; for they are not in the very least the sorts of women to be idly strolling, immaculately dressed, at eleven o’clock in the morning. And in any case they had hardly been seated in my armchairs drinking my coffee for more than five minutes , before the real nature of their mission began to emerge.

Pamela it was, who first took the plunge (and did it rather inadroitly, I thought). “We are just a little worried about Frances, dear” was the way she put it. “Of course I know it’s not the first time I have expressed such an alarm, but it seems to have intensified of late, and then she has become so very secretive all at once, which is not like her at all. And although we know that David has taken to going to the manor house almost every day, with his laptop and a carrier bag over his arm ( Rose can’t help but notice it, you know, since he must pass her house each time en route), yet she quite declines to talk about it. Has become quite defensive, in fact. And then you see, she has taken to wearing flowered dresses and pretty shoes all of a sudden – quite out of character, you know: she was such a one for her paisley skirts and stout brogues… . And she has been purchasing, of late, or so Mrs Watson at the delicatessan tells me, quite inordinate quantities of fresh croissants, and expensive coffee….”

I read into this what I could, or would – which was most of all to suppose that Pamela’s alarm had less to do with anything Frances was wearing, or purchasing, than with the fact that she was perhaps setting herself up to appropriate Pamela’s own ‘dear David’ for herself! Of Rose Mountjoy’s position in the matter I was less certain. I know very little about her; save that she is the chosen intimate of the Macauleys, and that she wears the kinds of clothes – and flashes the kinds of many-ringed, perfectly manicured fingers – that make me uncomfortably aware of the dismal shortcomings of my own. I looked to her for corroboration of Pamela’s statement nonetheless, and she did not disappoint.

“I think what Pamela is trying to say” she explained; “is that we can’t help but fear a little for Frances, because she is of course so very much an innocent abroad. So unversed, you know, in the ways of the world. And especially in the ways of men… Even the very best of them, as I’m sure you’ll agree, being victims of their baser instincts whenever opportunity presents…… They simply can’t help themselves, poor things; and though we know that Mr Porteous is the perfect gentleman, of course, and a retired clergyman into the bargain… still, we can’t help wondering if he might just have received the wrong impression of all this unexpected largesse on Frances’s part… “

I thought this came somewhat nearer the truth. Rose Mountjoy is a neat, trim, well-made-up little woman, who has evidently been something of a beauty in her time. She has had three husbands to date, besides; so evidently knows what she’s talking about when she refers to the ‘baser instincts of men’. I had become a little impatient of what I thought their rather pussy-footing approach, for all that, so I came right out and asked them what offence it was they thought David Porteous, or Frances – or the pair of them colluding – might actually be committing.

“Are you suggesting that Frances might actually have started an affair with him?” I asked them. “It would surprise me greatly if you were – since by your own admissions, David Porteous is so very much a gentleman and a priest – and Frances so entirely an innocent abroad – that the idea of any 'carrying-on' between them is really quite preposterous.”

That took the wind right out of Pamela’s sails, I’m afraid. But Rose took up the gauntlet again, gamely enough.“Well yes, in a sense I suppose we are. I have only met Mr Porteous once, of course, and so am hardly in a position to judge. But from what Pamela has told me of him, I know that he has been a considerable number of years divorced; and since there can have been little possibility for him within the Church’s dictums, of extra-marital affairs , much less a remarriage – and since his record in that respect has been quite spotless, or so we're told….. Well, it would be no more than human in him, after all -no more than ordinarily like a man, at any rate - if, suddenly released from his vows and away from his parish; and presented with the kinds of opportunities which Frances might seem to him to be offering - he had fallen into the honeyed trap, so to speak……….”

Such a vision did I suddenly have, of poor little Frances’s sweet, but sadly crumpled little face; and so entirely outlandish did the notion seem of her presenting any kind of ‘honeyed trap’ – that I’m afraid I probably snapped a little, by way of a response; and in doing so, provoked a degree of umbrage in my guests. Pamela, in particular, had drawn herself up very stiff and tall – though she was at pains too, to recoup, if she could, some remnant of her usual stateliness.

“I don’t believe we meant to go quite so far as that, dear – did we Rose? I think it was more that we feared something of the sort might be in danger of happening….. If somebody didn’t step in with dear Frances, that was (there could be no question of stepping in with David, of course). Just to make perfectly sure that nothing did, or could....”

This did not seem to me to have improved matters very much. And Rose had a look which said she took a dim view indeed of this particular contribution of Pamela’s. But since her opinion of me was evidently dimmer still, she resolved to say nothing more on the subject of Frances and Mr Porteous, but talked of Lady Macauley and her present health problems, instead. She was really quite entertaining on the subject - but she shortly after that remembered that she was lunching with the Macauleys that day anyway, and really ought to be hurrying away. Pamela stayed on another ten minutes or so, doing what she could to recover her ground. But then she too took her leave, and there was a definite hint of dudgeon in her departing back.

It has to be said that my first attempt at entertaining in my own little sitting room was not altogether a success. I think it unlikely that Mrs Mountjoy, for one, will think it in her interests to call on me again any time soon. I can’t say I’m altogether sorry; she has a sharp, worldly edge to her, and I think it unlikely we will ever manage to become friends. I can’t help remembering what Bill said of her, anyway: how one brief glimpse of her on the high street the other day, was enough to reveal to him that she teetered along on heels of a dangerous vertiginousness, and was almost certainly a 'man-eater of the very worst kind’.

I mean to call on Frances at the first opportunity none the less. Just to set my own mind at rest on the question of her welfare.

Return of the Macauleys

Pamela phoned me at ten o’clock this morning. She has taken to phoning me every other day on one pretext or another; she seems to like to have my views on any number of different matters, not least on that of the ‘little party of welcome’ she is trying to organise for Mr Porteous. She calls him ‘dear David’ now, I notice. She wants me to know how charmingly unclerical he is; and with what an engaging candour he had entreated them, Roland and she, to call him by his Christian name. “Quite within an hour of our meeting, you know!” she exclaimed. She seemed to think it exhibited a wonderful degree of informality, in a clergyman.

“Of course he knows it isn’t quite the thing, these days, to talk about one’s Christian name," she informed me next. “He thinks it rather a pity, in what is after all still, he hopes, a Christian country. But there it is – there are just too many people out there who might conceivably be offended by it. He can’t quite see how we have arrived at such a condition – it seems to have happened virtually overnight. Still, he has always thought that when one was among friends one might relax the rules a little … You can’t think what a charming smile he had for it! Mischievous, almost, I’d have called it – were he not of course to all intents and purposes a clergyman still …….”

I have always been surprised by the solemnity (the awe, almost, I’d call it) with which women of Pamela’s sort seem to take their clergymen. I don’t yet quite subscribe to Bill’s view, that the clergy are by the very nature of their calling destined to fall into self-adulation, or worse. I have known some very good and selfless priests, in my lifetime. And I am not entirely free of the belief, born in childhood, that God is there, and is good; and that in times of severe trouble, a little palliative murmuring on a priest’s part, can sometimes help. But to attribute unqualified benificence to the clergy, as a class – to genuflect before them and, figuratively speaking at least, to touch the hems of their garments crying ‘Lord, lord’ or ‘Vicar, vicar!’ - as Pamela and her kind seem wont to do: well, that sort of blanket veneration is quite beyond my reach, I’m sorry to say.

Pamela does seem to ascribe almost equally estimable qualities to my own Bill, mind you. She somehow managed to get on to the subject of him, straight out of that of Mr Porteous. She manages that sort of thing superbly well; the transition was perfectly smooth. Hardly had she completed her enconium of ‘dear David’, than she embarked upon another one remarkably similar, with respect to Bill. She is most eager to have him at her little party, she wants me to know that. Though she quite sees that his health may not permit of anything of that sort just yet, of course. She wishes me to tell him how very much they feel for him in his present affliction, Roland and she. They miss his television reports acutely of course; she hastened to assure me of that. She said that Roland, for one, didn’t see how he could easily be replaced. Such a very large and reassuring British presence, Roland always said; especially when bombs were going off in unpredictable places; when nobody seemed to be playing by the accepted rules of war any longer - and the British reputation for fair play and good soldiery were themselves suddenly being called in question.

“A man like Bill, therefore…” Pamela went on. ( She had warmed to her theme by now; she had a kind of majesty - like a ship at full sail, I thought; even through the medium of the telephone line.) “…. A man like Bill is better than politicians, Roland always says. Better than armies even, at keeping up one’s sense of national pride. One doesn’t have to know him to understand his worth. One has only to have heard his broadcasts, and seen his courage under fire. I have even asked myself, sometimes - I asked Roland only the other day, and he quite concurred - why it is necessary to have politicians at all, when a well-spoken British journalist might do the job of running everything so very much better? We have all somehow looked to Bill in this deplorable affair, I hope you will feel able to tell him that. And of course we wish for his speedy recovery – that is of all things uppermost in our thoughts and prayers.”

It is rather a difficult thing for me, to accept fulsome tributes from stately ladies on Bill’s behalf. There is always the spectre of Bill’s private mirth, lurking somewhere in the background, disturbing the solemnity, and provoking a lapse into hilarity of my own. Bill persists in taking the ironic view of Mrs Baines, you see. Which is not quite to say that he doesn’t enjoy the accounts I give him of her conversations. On the contrary, he tells me there are few things he likes more. He fairly delights in Mrs Baines and Roland, he assures me: he could listen to tales about them all day long. He thinks them simply splendid fellows - but only from a safe distance, behind my covering fire, as it were. I think it highly unlikely he will consent to attend Pamela’s little party for all that. And my chief concern now is to try to find a kindly way of preparing her for it, in advance.

It was only in the last five minutes of her conversation this morning that Pamela suddenly remembered what it was she had actually phoned me about. She couldn’t think how it had slipped her mind – it must have been all the interest of talking about Mr Porteous, and dear Bill! What she had actually meant to let me know was that the Macauleys had returned, and that old Lady Macauley had taken promptly to her bed. “She fancies herself dying again” Pamela explained. “She has a tendency to do that, whenever she has been away for any length of time. I think it has something to do with having had to suffer a scheduled flight from Naples – and of course with the general gloominess of the house … Such a great, dismal barn of a place; impossible either to heat or inhabit. A kind of elevated rabbit warren, Rose calls it, and she should know. It’s doubtless haunted too; nothing seems more likely than that, when one considers all the conspiracies that were once enacted there! Cromwell and the two Charleses, you know – not an easy time to get through safely! The wonder is that the old lady should have consented to stay on there at all, after Sir Jack passed on. Far better to have handed it over to the National Trust at once, in my view……..”

All of this was of genuine interest to me. I remain fascinated by the idea of old Lady Macauley and her daughter Belle. I want very much to see what Theodora could possibly look like now, and was most eager to hear more. I was just on the point of trying to draw Pamela further – I knew it wouldn’t be hard – when a roar from Bill in the attic alerted me to the fact that the window cleaner had arrived. How quickly his time seemed to have come around again! And how inopportune of him to have arrived at that particular moment in time! But that’s the way with window cleaners, I find. Like bad pennies, or cats clamouring to be fed, they always turn up just when you can least be doing with them! Since somebody had to open the gate for him, however – and it most surely wasn’t going to be Bill – I was obliged to relinquish Pamela’s Macauley tidings for today, and see what the window cleaner might be disposed to tell me about them, instead.

Mrs Baines's tea party

I have met Mr Porteous. And am obliged to report , with some embarrassment, that I found myself just as much affected by him as every other woman apparently was, who attended Mrs Baines’s tea party the other day. So entirely unexpected a response was this, on my part (and so much surreptitious glee has it prompted, on Bill’s ), that I am resolved to try to ignore it for the moment if I can, and dwell on other aspects of the little party instead.

In the first place there was Mrs Baines herself. Or Pamela, as she condescended at once to entreat me to call her. What can I tell you about Pamela, I wonder, that wouldn’t be altogether uncharitable on the part of one who has after all enjoyed her hospitality? Suffice it to say that she is a large lady, just as Bill said; and that her manner is one of great stateliness. She’s a stately woman altogether, indeed; who wore, or rather was contained within, a voluminous dress in some kind of blue chiffon, which rustled a good deal when she moved. The dress was amplified, in front, to accommodate her bosom; and had been cleverly conjured, behind, into something softly draped and gently flowing, almost in the manner of a train; and it was this perhaps, which gave her the rustling effect.

Frances has told me that Pamela is known for the constancy of her opinions, and her composure under fire. She is never angry, never extreme, and almost never ruffled, Frances says. Though she has been known to expostulate a little, when talking about the current Labour government, and the iniquity of its policies on immigration and taxation. And it has to be said that I heard her come near to something which almost resembled conversational violence, on Tuesday, when the subject of the Chancellor of the Exchequer just happened to come up.

That was the exception though. For the most part she was hostessly moderation itself, and kept her little party moving forward at a perfectly judged pace. She had earlier greeted me at the cottage door, and kept me standing a while in the tiny hall, where she relieved me of my jacket and performed the essential opening functions of a hostess. There too, she introduced me to Roland, a small man posted somewhere in her wake; whose function it seemed to be to receive the coats of arriving guests, and whom I’d have taken, had she not immediately identified him as Roland, for some kind of visiting functionary. The man who was to oversee the cloakroom arrangements, perhaps; or someone she’d got in from a catering company to hand the plates

My welcome having been accomplished, and Roland having seemed to bow over my hand a little, by way of greeting, she shepherded me into what I can only describe as a sea of chintz; with a great many over-sized bowls of flowers, and padded footstools, and prim little ‘occasional tables’ (and as many as a dozen benignly smiling faces), floating in it. I was conducted about the crowded room and presented individually to her guests, for each of whom she provided a name, and a little potted history, which I suspect her of having prepared in advance. Frances was there of course, perched on the edge of an ottoman, trying to balance her cup. And Mrs Rose Mountjoy; who remained seated when presented to me; who gave me a distant smile, and struck me as being on the glamorous, and exceedingly well made-up side of sixty. Even Bill’s brigadier was there. He sprang to attention before me – it was almost a salute. He mentioned Bill and Monty; and introduced his very small wife, and said his name was Bernard.

The ceremony of tea itself remains something of a blur in my memory. Roland handed plates of tiny, triangular sandwiches, I seem to remember; and buttered scones, and many-coloured cakes. But nobody was able to eat very much, for the difficulty of locating their own allotted occasional tables, and keeping them within reach. There was a great deal of subdued chatter, but very little conversation possible. It was only when the tea things had been cleared away, and Pamela, in a gesture of mercy, had thrown open the doors to the garden, that I found myself suddenly in the presence of Mr Porteous.

He had come up to me very quietly, from behind, and while I was admiring a specially fragrant flowering wisteria, that covered an old shed at the bottom of the garden. “Ah, wisteria…” he said. “It’s early this year, I think – but there’s nothing quite like it, in the right spot, is there?” I‘m not aware that he said anything much else. He had put out his hand, and mentioned that his name was David – but I fear that any chattering which took place between us was likely to have been my own. He has that effect, you see. He has a palpable presence, and looks at you with a quiet grey eye. He’s clearly a man who is not afraid of silences; he has the gift, if you can call it that, of reducing any woman in his presence (even me) to inane babbling, in the space of about two minutes flat. He's smooth as velvet (that image of Bill's, of the gentleman priest in the velvet jacket, is ever present to my mind); and I can quite see how it was that he had all the women of his parish falling at his feet.

I have talked him over with Bill since then, however, and we are agreed that his effects are probably very carefully studied, and that beneath them beats a heart of flint. I’m going to try to hold on to that concept, at any rate. For nothing seems more certain than that David Porteous will work his charm to the utmost here, and almost certainly wreak considerable havoc in the process. To dear little Frances, who is already under the spell, I said only that I had found him perfectly charming, just as she said. But I fear for her more than ever now, and shall make her personal safety the object of my most astute concern.

What Mr Porteous told Miss Fanshawe

I’m just a little worried about Frances. She has acquainted herself with Mr Porteous with what seems to me to to be some precipitancy. She has dispatched her basket, and had it returned; and is now on such terms with him as wouldn’t have seemed possible only three short days ago. She seems to have out-stripped even Mrs Baines, on the getting-to-know-Mr-Porteous front ; so that I have had to go back to Bill, for a re-appraisal of the question of her unworldliness.

Bill sticks to his guns though. It is just her very unworldliness, don’t I see, that enables her to plunge in like that, where wiser, worldlier women would have feared to tread. She’ll come through unscathed, just wait and see: not even a clergyman of what he is convinced is Mr Porteous’s ilk, being quite so cynical as to take advantage of so clearly artless a little woman. I do hope he’s right; though I question his ability to judge Mr Porteous fairly on so brief an acquaintance. And I can’t help fearing a little for Frances. I am impatient for Mrs Baines’s tea-party now; wishing to be in a position to judge Mr Porteous for myself, so as to assess the possible degree of risk for Frances.

I have learnt a good deal about the man myself, by way of Frances. I just happened to have called on her last night, on my way home from a late walk with Florence, and she asked me to come in and have a glass of wine with her. The glass of wine led to a salad and sandwich supper, which we prepared ourselves in the rather cavernous manor house kitchen; Mrs Meade being what Frances called “generally just a little incapacitated” by that time of the evening. And it was over coffee later, in the splendid, panelled library that Frances still seems to speak and think of as her father’s , that she told me how Mr Porteous had come in with her there that morning to look at the books, and had seemed so pleased with her suggestion that it would be an admirable place for him to work and study in, whilst making the initial preparations for his book.

“He plans to write a comparative history of the three great Abrahamic faiths, you see” she explained. I thought she blushed a little for it - for the speed, that is, with which all of this must seem to me to have been accomplished. Pamela had rebuked her for it a little already, as a matter of fact; had said she ought to have waited a little, before rushing in with what might seem to Mr Porteous to be somewhat undue haste.

“But after all” as she was quick to try to explain. “It’s really no more than Pamela herself has done, is it? Inviting him to tea and arranging a party, and all that sort of thing… Though as she points out, she doesn’t do these things alone. She has Roland with her. For backup, she says - though what I think she really means is for propriety. And I daresay she’s right. I have been a little hasty perhaps. But you see, I had sent Mr Jessop round with a basket: no impropriety in that, I thought. And then Mr Porteous called so promptly to return it. And seemed so interested in everything here. I showed him the knot garden, and he loves a knot garden above all things - he had one himself, in the garden of the old rectory in Stroud, though he grew mostly lavender there... Asparagus too. He was most impressed with Mr Jessop’s asparagus bed; he has never managed to grow it successfully himself. One thing seemed to lead to another, at any rate, and before we knew it, we had come in here to the library, and Mrs Meade had been thoughtful enough to prepare coffee …. And it was over coffee that he told me about his book, which was his real reason for retiring rather early from the ministry. Though of course retirement would never have been possible for him, had it not been for his aunt’s unexpected bequest of the house…….. The house had made all the difference in the world. He had only his stipend, you know, so little. And life can be very difficult for a clergyman, still - it isn’t only in the pages of Trollope - when he hasn’t private means ……….. “

I did not think this a very encouraging beginning, and was still more dismayed to learn the further extent of Mr Porteous’s confidences. The idea for the book had evidently been floating in his mind for years. He had actually begun a doctoral thesis on the theme, in his post-graduate days at Cambridge years ago; but had forsaken it then in favour of ordination. It had been only recently, and with the influence of what he called ‘the new kind of terrorism that had begun to stalk the Western world” (so eloquently put, Miss Fanshawe thought), that the idea had begun to re-surface. There was every kind of precedent for such a book, Mr Porteous thought: the Bible – the Old Testament in particular – resounding so, with battles of every kind. The Jews of the Old Testament had actually plundered and slewn their way to Jerusalem – and generally with God to one extent or other at their head. It was very discouraging, Mr Porteous thought, to see how little two thousand years had done, to improve or simplify matters there.

“He has such a clever, and original way of expressing himself” Miss Fanshawe interposed at this point. “He can be quite amusing, even when talking about the Old Testament - he must have been very moving, in his robes and surplice, from the pulpit…”

It is seldom necessary – or indeed possible – to break in on Frances when she is in full narrative flight. She seems to gather an impetus of her own along the way. But I thought she had begun to flounder a little here, so I intervened, to try to bring her back on course. “And his book, then?” I gently prompted her. “Is that to be about the Middle East situation too?”

“Well, not directly of course…..” She seemed grateful for my interest, and able to take up her theme again with renewed eagerness. “What he wants to point up are the similarities, not the differences – he thinks that’s probably where a solution will be found to lie. And he dares to think that he might be able to do it better, or less explosively anyway, than some others who are more directly involved. I think he meant army personnel, you know; and politicians, and people of that general sort…. Meaning no disparagement of dear Bill, of course – whose own contributions have been so very wonderful! But Mr Porteous, being a retired priest, and really quite obscure and elderly … “Putting his grisled head above the parapet for an hour”, was the way he expressed it, to me. So very self-effacing, I thought! What could there possibly be that was risky, or politically volatile, in that…..? “

The evening came to an end soon after that, and I confess that I left her with misgivings very little allayed. It seemed a great deal to have learnt from a man in the course of one short visit. Now, I learn that he is to come to the manor house one morning soon, to try out the experiment of working in her father’s library. I wonder why he can’t set up a study of his own, in old Miss Porteous’s house; he must have rooms enough there, heaven knows! But I have made up my mind to say nothing of all this for the present, to Bill - since who knows what precipitate action of his own he might feel impelled to take?