No Fond Return of Love (18 page)

‘Good morning, Miss Mainwaring – and
what
a lovely morning! May I introduce Father Benger?’

Dulcie shook the clergyman’s hand and murmured something, rather confusedly, for she was dazzled by the brilliance of Father Benger’s silver wavy hair, surely blue-rinsed like Mrs Beltane’s?

‘A great pleasure,’ he purred, taking her hand in a soft, intimate clasp and smiling to reveal a set of almost too natural-looking white teeth. Dulcie had the feeling that he was not an Anglican or Roman priest – although he was addressed as ‘Father’ – nor did he seem like a Nonconformist minister. There was something slightly phoney about him, and Mrs Beltane’s next words confirmed her suspicions.

‘Where is your church?’ Dulcie asked politely.

‘Well, it isn’t exactly a
church
,’ explained Mrs Beltane, ‘but a large room – an
upper
room – most beautifully furnished, in the best of taste. Very near Harrods, as a matter of fact. A few of us meet together, you know, for quite a simple service, though there
is
incense, and candles too, and today the most beautiful spring flowers,
exquisitely
arranged. And afterwards, cocktails in Father Benger’s flat.’

‘I thought churches didn’t have flowers in Lent,’ said Dulcie bluntly.

‘Oh, well, this isn’t an
ordinary
church,’ said Mrs Beltane.

‘We feel,’ said Father Benger, in a slightly reproachful tone, ‘that the most beautiful things should be offered to God regardless of the time of year.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Dulcie hastily.

‘And Felix enjoyed the service too, didn’t you, darling?’ said Mrs Beltane, gathering him up in her arms.

Felix yapped vigorously.

‘All animals are welcome – within reason, that is,’ said Father Benger. ‘We look to St Francis of Assisi as our patron. My own name happens to be Francis,’ he added.

‘It sounds most interesting,’ said Dulcie politely.

‘Perhaps you will join us one day,’ said Mrs Beltane, in the rather perfunctory tone in which social invitations not meant to be accepted are sometimes issued, and to which the only suitable reply is a murmur. ‘I had hoped to persuade Senhor MacBride-Pereira to come, but he has some idea that it is beneath a man’s dignity to go to church.’

‘Ah, yes, in Latin America – perhaps in Brazil particularly – it is considered “not
nice
” for a man to go to church,’ said Dulcie, remembering her own conversation with him.

‘If all men had that idea where would the church be today?’ asked Mrs Beltane, with an admiring glance at Father Benger.

‘The labourers are still few,’ he said, with understandable complacency. ‘I wonder if there is a shortage of priests in Latin America?’ he asked, turning suddenly to Dulcie.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ she faltered. It wasn’t the kind of thing one would be likely to know, she felt. ‘One always imagines that these Latin countries are swarming with priests,’ she added.

‘Well, Felix made one more little man for your congregation,’ said Mrs Beltane, kissing his blue curly head.

Felix’s little black beady eyes looked fiercely out at the assembled company.

‘Mother, lunch is ready,’ said Monica, appearing in the doorway, looking rather harassed.

‘Ah, our good Martha,’ said Father Benger.

He and Mrs Beltane moved slowly into the house, as if conscious of being the ones who had chosen the better part.

Dulcie went in to her own lunch. She wondered if they would be having chicken – something reared in the dim light of a broiler house as artificial as Father Benger’s ‘church’. She and Viola were having lamb, which had roasted to perfection in a slow oven, made fragrant with sprigs of rosemary.

At lunch, she asked, ‘You are coming to Neville Forbes’s church this evening, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Viola, ‘if you want company. I suppose it may be quite interesting.’

Later that day, as they got off the bus and walked along the road to the church, Dulcie said, ‘I feel I ought to call and see Uncle Bertram and Aunt Hermione. Perhaps there will be time after the service. “Solemn Evensong and Benediction”,’ she read from the weather-beaten brown notice-board, which was easier to see than at her first visit. ‘What a lot they’re giving us!’

‘Oh, it’s the usual kind of service in Anglo-Catholic churches,’ said Viola in a superior tone.

‘Oughtn’t you to be wearing a hat – or don’t they mind about that sort of thing nowadays?’

‘No, I never wear a hat. I have a black lace mantilla which I wear when I want to cover my head. It’s more becoming.’

‘Surely one shouldn’t think of whether it’s becoming or not,’ said Dulcie, regretting her last year’s dingy blue felt hat. She hoped Viola wouldn’t wear a mantilla for the service – it might make them look conspicuous, and that was the last thing she wanted. Those who go to church for other reasons than worship should sit unobtrusively towards the back, observing but not observed. Perhaps the dingy felt hat, being a kind of protective colouring, was not a bad idea after all.

They entered the church, taking hymn-books and prayer-books from a shelf by the door. There were not many people there, so it was easy to choose a seat at the back. A middle-aged man, wearing a hearing-aid, was sitting two rows in front of them. He must have heard or sensed their entrance, for he looked quickly round at them, and when Dulcie had got up from saying a quick prayer, she was disconcerted to find that he had disappeared. Nor was she reassured when some instinct made her turn round and she saw him now sitting behind them. There was the usual sprinkling of elderly ladies, one of whom came fussing up to them with more hymn-books, and several young men and girls sitting together in a group.

The organ began to play some indefinite music and Dulcie and Viola waited eagerly for the entrance of a handsome clergyman who looked like Aylwin Forbes. A choir of about a dozen men and women wearing purple robes now came in, and behind them a tall shuffling clergyman, bald and wearing heavy horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked disappointingly unlike Aylwin, and bore no resemblance to the handsome clergyman they had seen in the Bond Street tea-shop. No doubt Neville Forbes was the elder of the brothers, Dulcie thought; really quite a lot older, and with none of Aylwin’s good looks. Still, disappointing though this was, it should not make him any the less interesting. Indeed, it was perhaps even more interesting that such a plain-looking man should have been, in Aylwin’s words, ‘rather troublesome’.

‘This
can’t
be him,’ whispered Viola, as a droning voice began the service.

‘He must be a lot older than Aylwin,’ Dulcie answered.

She recognized most of the service as being like an ordinary Evensong, though there was some business with incense and putting out of candles at the beginning of the Magnificat.

At last the time for the sermon came. The text was given out: ‘Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.’ That seemed suitable, Dulcie thought, for none of us is without sin, but could it be that it had some more particular application here? Had there then been noticeable casting of stones in the parish of St Ivel? Many people – especially non-churchgoers – often accused those who went to church of uncharitableness, and it seemed from the veiled references in the sermon that something of that kind had been happening now. ‘One of our number not with us this evening – ‘an unhappy business’ – ‘The old saying “Charity begins at home” ‘ – certain phrases in the rather rambling sermon reminded Dulcie of her encounter with the vicar’s housekeeper on her first visit, and the weeping woman running into the church. ‘Trouble? Oh, my
dear
’ – had this sermon any connection with
that
?
 
Supposing this man in the pulpit were not Neville Forbes? The more she thought about it the more convinced Dulcie was that he was not. ‘One of our number not with us this evening’ must be Neville, and he had gone away somewhere, perhaps with the weeping woman. Dulcie tried to remember whether she had seen any headlines in the cheaper daily papers lately of the ‘Secret Life of Vanished Vicar’ type, but she could not remember having noticed anything in Miss Lord’s
Daily Mirror
. Now she could hardly wait for the service to be over, and when it was, she found herself lingering in the pew, hoping that somebody would come up and speak to them.

‘Well, that seems to be that,’ said Viola.’What an odd sermon Neville Forbes preached, though I suppose that kind of thing’s suitable for Lent. Has there been some scandal in the parish, do you think?’

‘I don’t think he is Neville Forbes,’ said Dulcie, ‘but we must find out definitely.’

‘Good evening,’ said a voice, louder and more confident than theirs. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. I hope you’ll both come and have a cup of tea in the hall? We always do have one on Sunday evenings, even in Lent.’

Dulcie turned and saw the vicar’s housekeeper standing at her side, dressed in purple – perhaps for the solemn season – and holding a pint bottle of milk, about two-thirds full, and a packet of lump sugar. At the same time the man with the hearing-aid crept past them carrying a brass dish of collection money, pausing for a moment as if to listen to what they were saying.

‘Thank you, we should love to,’ said Dulcie, before Viola could refuse.

‘Come with me, then,’ said the woman, and they followed her up the aisle and past the organ, where Dulcie had been on her previous visit. The air was thick with incense here, and a couple of servers in scarlet cassocks were hurrying about putting out candles and taking things off the altar. It seemed odd and a little unsuitable to be taken ‘back-stage’ in this way, Dulcie felt, averting her eyes as one of the servers began to remove his cassock and put on a very secular-looking leather jacket. One should not perhaps ever witness the change from the sacred to the profane, and how very profane it seemed when she noticed that another server was wearing jeans.

‘The hall is through here,’ said the vicar’s housekeeper, opening a door. ‘Very handy for the church, you see.’

‘What is that noise?’ asked Viola. ‘It sounds like dance music.’

‘Oh, it is! The boys and girls always put on their favourite records on Sunday evenings. Of course it’s all a terrible noise to me – I don’t know one of these crooners from another!’

‘I don’t think they even call them crooners now,’ said Dulcie, but her remark was lost in the blare of sound that hit them as they opened the door of the hall. Inside the young people were dancing with abandon and enthusiasm and the noise was deafening. How was one ever to carry on any sort of conversation against such a background, Dulcie wondered in dismay.

‘Your vicar preached a very good sermon,’ she shouted.

‘Goodness, dear,
that’s
not the vicar!’ came the answering shout. ‘That’s a locum who’s come to help us out.’

‘To help you out?’

‘Yes, Father Forbes isn’t here. Oh, good, here’s tea!’

A young girl, with her hair done in a pony tail and wearing black stockings, came towards them, carefully carrying a tray with cups of tea on it.

‘Thank you, Shirley,’ said the housekeeper, offering tea to Dulcie and Viola, who each took a cup. ‘Do you like sugar, dear?’ She turned to Dulcie and handed her a pink plastic apostle spoon with which to scoop sugar out of a jar.

‘Is Father Forbes ill, then?’ asked Dulcie, fearing that the subject might be dropped.

‘Well, not
ill
. But it all got too much for him – that business with Miss Spicer.’

‘She was the woman who was crying in church that evening,’ said Dulcie, more to herself than to anyone in particular, and indeed the music was still so loud and raucous that she was surprised when the housekeeper answered her. Obviously she must be conditioned to this atmosphere.

‘That’s right, dear,’ she said. ‘She fell in love with Father Forbes. Well, she’s not the first to do that  –  he
is
good-looking, you know  –  although I say it,’ she giggled, as if being his housekeeper made it somehow immodest and unsuitable for her to praise him. ‘But he’s a celibate, of course.’ Here her tone took on a sterner, more vigorous note. ‘And anyone can see that. It sticks out a mile.’

Dulcie caught Viola’s eye and she wanted to laugh, though one could see what she meant. Celibacy so often
did
stick out a mile, and not only among the clergy.

‘Did she,’ asked Viola tentatively, ‘
say
anything – I mean, how did people know about her falling in love with him?’

Dulcie could see an anxious look on Viola’s face, almost as if she hoped to profit from Miss Spicer’s mistakes or to say to herself, Well, at least I didn’t do
that
.

There was a respite from the music at this point – a record was being changed – and the unaccustomed silence seemed to be waiting for the housekeeper’s answer, which came ringing out.

‘Oh, she said she loved him – waylaid him one night after Benediction – a week or two ago, now – must have been
before
Lent, Quinquagesima, I believe. Anyway, she followed him back into the vicarage – I remember, I’d hurried on ahead because I had a cauliflower cheese in the oven, and I was just going to make some toast when I heard her voice in the hall, or rather
his
voice.’

‘What was he saying?’ Viola asked.

‘Oh, I didn’t hear, really,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I suppose the kind of things men do say when women get troublesome in that way.’

Are there then ‘things’ that men invariably say in such situations? Dulcie wondered. Does it happen all that often? Perhaps more to the clergy than to other men, and perhaps they, being practised speakers anyway, would find the ‘things’ easier to bring out. The housekeeper’s use of the word ‘troublesome’ to describe Miss Spicer’s behaviour reminded her that Aylwin had also used it to describe his brother, which seemed a little unfair. But perhaps Aylwin did not know all the circumstances. ‘Of course we know Father Forbes’s brother,’ she said, anxious to indicate in some way that she and Viola were worthy to receive the rather shocking confidences that were being poured out.

‘You know his brother, do you;’ said the housekeeper. ‘I thought you probably had some reason for coming here.’