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.