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.