I receive a visitation

I had a sort of presentiment that something fairly calamitous was likely to happen, on Thursday. Perhaps it was because, after a reasonably promising start to the morning, it rained voluminously again in the afternoon? Or perhaps I was unconsciously preoccupied with something that Rose Mountjoy had said to me when I met her on the high street that morning ?

“Lady Macauley seems to have taken rather a fancy to you” Rose informed me, in that ever-so-slightly superior way she has. I think she must have picked it up from long association with the Macauleys; or from marriage to the almost Sir Curtis Mountjoy - I’m certain it can’t have been the manner she started out with in life. She went on at any rate to let me know that Lady Macauley thinks me a “sensible kind of woman”. Which might not seem high praise to me, she added, but which is in fact Lady-Macauley-speak for her having decided that I might be the sort of person whom it would amuse her to invite to lunch now and then.

“She would prefer it if you were to bring your brother with you of course,” Rose went on to tell me. “She shines most radiantly in the presence of men - and especially those whom she considers to have distinguished themselves in some way or other. She has formed a very high opinion of Bill – who has just that height and general ruggedness, she says, that she adored so in her own Jack! They are not qualities often met with in men today, she feels. And she has never met a foreign correspondent, besides. She thinks it a most original occupation, and is certain Bill would have many highly amusing things to say. I don't think she would expect him to dwell on the more dreadful aspects of his wars, mind you – so perhaps you ought to warn him in advance? And I think she’s likely to invite you first on your own, in any case. Always in the expectation, of course, that the next time, you’ll be prevailed upon to bring Bill along with you.”

I can’t remember exactly what I said in response to all this. I think I probably prevaricated wildly: being conscious that Bill would as soon lunch with Lady Macauley (and with Rose herself), as he would walk over hot coals, or plunge himself in a tankful of piranhas. I seemed to hear him saying something of the sort at any rate - and knew at once that I was going to be called upon to exercise every ounce of my ingenuity, if I were to spare him this new exigency.

Still, it ought to have prepared me for what was to occur later that day. I ought, at the very least, to have known better than to go out into the garden in the rain, wearing baggy trousers and an old sweater of Bill’s that reached almost to my knees and was ragged at the elbows. That was exactly what I did do though; and that my precise garb, when at four o’clock that afternoon an ancient Bentley reversed in stately fashion into our little public parking place, and Belle Macauley herself climbed out, to come across and call to me over the wall.

“I can’t apologise enough for calling on you unannounced like this!” she said – and there was everything about her to suggest she really meant it. “But we just happened to be passing. We had tried to go to Hampton Court, but were rained off, and now Mummy wants to know if you would be kind enough to ask us in? It’s the most frightful imposition, I know, and of course I’ll make your excuses to Mummy, and make her understand, if you really can’t endure the thought…”

She looked so utterly contrite and uncomfortable about it, poor woman, that I took pity on her at once, and said that of course they must come in. Provided they would overlook my own dishevelled state that was, and the horrible condition in which I was afraid I’d left my sitting room. Belle said that it was an act of mercy on my part, and that she’d make sure her mother understood. “I’ll explain that you have been gardening in the rain; and take as long as possible about getting her in! But please don’t mind about your appearance - Mummy's quite accustomed to seeing me in the same condition. And in any case must be prepared to take her chances, if she will come crashing in on people like this!”

She smiled at me in warm and friendly fashion as she said it, and I thought there was everything to like about her, just as I had expected. She was as good as her word, too: it took full five minutes to get Lady Macauley out of the car, and up the garden path beneath a large umbrella. Giving me time to remove boots and sweater, and run a hand rather desperately through my wet hair. Time to plump a cushion or two indeed, and arrange the best armchair, in the best position, for the reception of Lady Macauley.

“How charmingly you have arranged the old place!” was what the old lady exclaimed, on finally being seated, and having a cushion carefully placed behind her, by Belle. “I do believe we’d have been perfectly happy and comfortable here ourselves, don’t you Belle? So very much more convenient, certainly, than our present quarters! I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before.”

She went on then to look around at everything in such measured fashion, and with such a discerning eye, that I feared every dusty corner of mine must have been unearthed, and she would be asking me, next, to tell her what it was I paid my housekeeper to do. I was quite ready to explain indeed, that I employed no housekeeper, my means allowing for no such thing – but she forestalled me, having found something at last upon which her eyes could alight with genuine appreciation. “ How pretty they are, those two little samplers of yours!” she exclaimed; going on to ask if they were my own work, and seeming vaguely disappointed when I explained that they were in fact the work of Mr Porteous’s daughter Anne, who had the little handicrafts shop on the corner of the Common.

“Have you met Mr Porteous?” I then inquired. “ He seems to have created quite an interest in the village just lately.”

It was a rather desperate conversational ploy, I knew it; but the best I could come up with at short notice, and disadvantaged as I felt myself to be, hovering there beside her chair, and wondering at what moment I ought to ask if she’d like a cup of tea. Fortunately, she took it up with apparent enthusiasm.

“Oh yes, Mr Porteous!” she said. “It seems to me I hear of no-one else these days. You must meet Mr Porteous, they all tell me, he’s so very comme il faut and charming! But just between you and me, I could have wished he’d been anything other than a clergyman. I have quite enough of that, with the Rev. Mr Wainright coming every month in dreadful state to inquire after the condition of my soul. Just as if he thought there were anything in the world he could do about it, at this advanced stage…..”

There didn’t seem to be anything very meaningful I could say in reply to this. I thought of twenty things that Bill might have said - but feared they would have been inappropriate to the occasion. So I merely smiled, with what I hoped would be just the right degree of sympathetic fellow feeling – I wanted it to appear, I daresay, that I too was accustomed to have to endure the visits of clergymen coming to inquire after the condition of my soul... After which I said I would go away a moment if she didn't mind, to make tea for us all. Leaving Belle and Rose to take up and parry the questions of Mr Wainright and Mr Porteous, as best they could.

Alas though, my daily allotted span has already been exceeded! I don’t know how it is the words pile up so, but there it is, and I feel I must leave you for today. Hoping, perhaps, that you will come back again tomorrow, to hear what next ensued….