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?