Fete Fatale (5 page)

I managed to busy myself in the kitchen, so as not to worry too much about the ill-assorted guests and how they were shaking down with each other. On my trips in and out ferrying food I noted that Father Battersby was in a little group with Mrs Nielson and Howard Culpepper, which seemed a way of letting him down lightly. Howard was doggy and enthusiastic, and getting in opinions from time to time, which Franchita would doubtless have said was very bad for discipline. Mrs Nielson was being apologetic (in a manner Father Battersby had no doubt heard countless times before) about the half-heartedness of her Anglicanism.

‘I used to work in a hospital, and of course I saw all the good work done by priests there, when people were in trouble, or dying, or often just generally by coming and talking to them; but I'm afraid I got into the habit of thinking of them in that way: people for special occasions—often very unhappy occasions.'

‘You're far from alone in that,' said Father Battersby. ‘That's one of the tasks of the Church today: we're not integrated into the
whole
of people's lives . . . ”

It was standard churchy chat. No doubt something similar was
going on around Thyrza Primp, for there in a dutiful and duty-bound group were collected Marcus and the Westons, all bent forward over her in a vaguely deferential manner, as if she were a distinguished visitor who would shortly be asked to snip a ribbon or push a button. On the other side of the room Mary stood talking to Timothy and Fiona, who were holding hands on the window-seat, smiling innocently, and looking as if someone ought soon to bounce in and invite them to make a foursome at tennis.

When the buffet was set out I summoned everybody to take a plate and a fork and to help themselves to whatever they liked. Marcus meanwhile attended to their alcoholic needs from bottles which he had most dishonestly filled from wine-boxes. Mrs Nielson enthusiastically heaped her plate with hot and cold this-and-thats, and then, thinking that she had monopolized Father Battersby enough, she got herself into a corner with the Westons. The rest of the party were less sure what to do:
‘awfully
pleasant and informal,' said Mary, with the clear implication that something a
little
more starchy would have been more considerate to her bereaved state. They all took little bits of one thing, and kept having to come back for more. It was difficult to marshal them into sympathetic groupings, and in the end I realized that Mary had landed up with Father Battersby. Well, it had to happen during the evening at some stage. Mary, I saw, was leading the conversation with an expression of sweet forbearance on her face. I was sure that she was demonstrating to Marcus that there was nothing
personal
in all this. I was also sure that this was a mere overture, before she got down to the nitty-gritty.

I, for my sins, went to do my duty by Thyrza Primp. That was weak of me, for I should have let Marcus stew in his own juice. Thyrza had procured for herself the boniest available piece of duck and a small spoonful of rice salad, and she sat picking at it with an air of martyrdom, the handbag still perched on the cliffedge of her knees. I squatted on a stool beside her, and attempted to keep the conversation clean. To no avail.

‘Have you noticed,' said Thyrza Primp, after suffering a bare minimum of my polite inanities, ‘what that young man is wearing?'

Since long black robes are not normal social wear in this day and age, one could hardly help noticing.

‘Probably awfully convenient,' I said brightly.

‘Walter, naturally, would never have had any truck with suchlike nonsense, but it's called a soutane.' She lowered her voice to a menacing hiss. ‘And I think you'd find, if you counted, that the buttons down the front number thirty-nine!'

‘Would I?'

‘Symbolical.'

‘Really? What of? The steps?'

‘The Articles!' Thyrza snapped open her handbag—Primp!—and sniffed at her handkerchief, a sniff that managed to unite in condemnation both Father Battersby and me. When she snapped her bag shut I jumped, as if my nose had been caught in it.

‘I call it blatant superstition,' Thyrza resumed. ‘Childish and trivial. I must say—' with a significant sigh—‘I begin to be eager to remove myself to Harrogate.'

‘I'm sure you must be,' I said in my bright, neutral voice.

‘Harrogate, I believe, has
many
churches, so that one can
choose
the sort of service that
suits
one. And good congregations, too.'

(Those dying generations, I thought.)

‘To have remained here, to have seen Romish practices imported, to have seen all Walter's wonderful work go for nothing—it would have been too painful!'

‘I suppose one always does feel like that when there are changes,' I said, feeling a right little Pollyanna.

Over by the fireplace, Mary and Father Battersby seemed to have got to the nitty-gritty. There was definitely something in the nature of an inquisition going on. Happily Mary could hardly broach the subject of Father Battersby's disinclination for intercourse, but I did hear words like ‘incense', ‘chasuble' and ‘surplice', and Mary's expression had changed to that of one discharging a burdensome but necessary social duty. I was interested to see the manner of Father Battersby's response: he replied directly, in friendly way, but totally without apology or any attempt at ingratiation. I suspected, too, that there was not a hint of compromise. I caught Marcus's eye, smiled at him brilliantly, and shifted my eyes fractionally in the direction of the fireplace. What hostessly perfection! Marcus got up and went over to the fireplace, to make it a threesome.

After a time the groupings began to loosen up. People went
back to the table for more food and drink; some of them began eating it standing up, so they could circulate and find pleasanter or at any rate different company. Some even went into the garden to talk to our dog Jasper, who is a genial soul who welcomes any company, and to feed him scraps. Howard Culpepper was getting on very well with Mrs Nielson and eating voraciously of everything on offer (surely Franchita didn't keep him
hungry?).
Mrs Weston was flirting fluffily with Marcus, who was becoming quite avuncular (Marcus had the bulk and geniality for avuncularity, and with a few extra years would have made a good Prime Minister in the Callaghan mould, or a good telly performer when vets came back into fashion). As the evening wore on, Father Battersby spoke to everyone in one or other of the groups, and to most of them singly, for long periods or short. I began to think that the opposition was not going to have it all their own way. His directness and patent honesty were winning people over. For example, I thought that Mrs Weston might be won over to support her husband more vigorously, and to side with the choice of the ecclesiastical powers-that-be. Her daughter Fiona also seemed very taken with him, and this meant that Timothy volunteered the opinion that he seemed a ‘jolly nice chap'. Mrs Nielson had been disposed to like him in any case—on the same grounds that I had: that he seemed likely to relieve the monotony. What line Howard Culpepper would have taken had he retained a mind of his own and the right to form opinions I do not know, but he kept mum, merely skipping friskily from group to group, uttering inanities and enjoying his temporary freedom.

It was inevitable that at some time in the evening Father Battersby would have to have ‘a good talk' with Thyrza Primp. Typically, he had had no thought of giving her precedence, but by ten-fifteen he had realized that the thing had become urgent. He moved over to the armchair in which she had sat throughout the evening, like Queen Victoria in widowhood reluctantly holding a levée at Windsor. Mrs Nielson was the present recipient of her graciousness, if that was the word (for she was being glared at for lighting up a cigarette), and he joined them quite naturally. But from the beginning he showed that he was determined (having suffered one inquisition) to keep the chat on neutral lines.

‘It's certainly a fascinating, beautiful town,' I heard (by dint of
moving nearer) him say. ‘Just walking round it today with Helen and Marcus has been an eye-opener. You could say it has cast a spell over me. Is that what the “hex” in Hexton means, I wonder—a benevolent spell?'

‘Oh no,' said Mrs Nielson, eager to keep the conversation friendly. ‘I believe it's a Scandinavian or German word for “witch”—the town of the witches.'

As soon as she'd said it she blushed and looked confused. As well she might. I moved a step or two away to hide my laughter. What a perfectly apt name: the town of the witches!

‘Well, burning witches is one old custom I've no desire to see revived,' said Father Battersby, determinedly pleasant. ‘I think bazaars and fêtes provide a much more healthy form of entertainment in a parish. By the way, I've accepted Marcus's invitation to come here a week earlier than I intended, so that I can attend the church fête in June. I'm looking forward to it.'

‘You have decided, then,' enunciated Thyrza Primp, in a voice like a trumpeter warming up for the Last Trump, ‘to accept the appointment?'

Father Battersby turned to her, with ingenuously open eyes.

‘Oh yes, Mrs Primp. I never was in any doubt about accepting.'

‘I see,' said Thyrza. She drew in a deep breath, and I realized that she was about to launch into a sort of credo. ‘My husband,' she pronounced, as if launching into a funeral eulogy, ‘believed in moderation. In trying to avoid giving offence. He saw the dangers in strife in a parish, and he looked for the middle way and then took it. Undeviatingly.'

‘I'm sure he did an excellent job,' said Father Battersby. I noticed that soothing nothings sounded unconvincing from his lips, and I'm sure Thyrza noticed too.

‘It was so with the services as well. Walter didn't try to be controversial in his sermons, like so many of these modern clergymen. Nor to bring in a lot of heathen pageantry. We had a sober, reverent, decent form of service here, with nothing extreme, because that was what suited the people of Hexton.'

‘I'm sure you did,' said Father Battersby. ‘You must not take any changes I make as in any way a criticism of my predecessor.'

‘Changes! I don't think you'll find people want any changes. We don't go in for fads and novelties here! Walter suited Hexton because
he knew the people don't run after change. They know the value of moderation. How often I remember Walter saying it, in the pulpit and out: “Moderation in all things.” '

‘Don't you think moderation in
all
things might in itself be a sort of excess?' asked Father Battersby.

Primp! went the handbag. Out came the handkerchief. Sniff! This was an outraged sniff, combined with a wounded sniff. It was a crisis point, and Thyrza pushed her long nose forward into the hanky for a second sniff before she returned it—Primp!—to her bag. She set her lips, fixed her eyes to drill needle-thin holes in the wall opposite, and said not one word more. Mrs Nielson covered up, Father Battersby played along, but Thyrza Primp squatted on there, silent, grim, implacable.

‘Well, time we were on our way to the station,' said Marcus, a good ten minutes before it was necessary. Father Battersby nodded goodbye to Mrs Primp, tolerably certain that a proffered hand would be refused. Then he went round to farewell all the other guests. Mary was extremely polite, almost gracious. The Westons asked him to stay when he came for the fête, but he said he was going to stay with the Blatchleys (an interesting decision that, almost a political one: the Blatchleys were not social leaders in Hexton, he being a mere bus driver). Howard Culpepper said they'd have to get together for a drink some time. Timothy and Fiona were found to have made their excuses to Marcus earlier in the evening and gone. Marcus got him out of the front gate, into the car, and drove him away—thankfully, I have no doubt, and promising himself a stiff whisky when he'd done the duty driving.

Inside, the rest of the party began to show signs of breaking up. Mrs Nielson was in the hall, and shouting ‘Coming now, boy' to Gustave, which set Patch off into a machine-gun rattle of barks, which in its turn set Jasper off on the back lawn. The Westons collected their coats, but Howard Culpepper said he'd just have one for the road, if I'd join him. He seemed to be savouring every moment of freedom. I smiled and said I fancied a last drink myself, and we turned into the living-room.

‘Boycott!' came Mary Morse's voice, firm, and quite lacking in the social softness which it had had during the foregoing evening.
‘It's the only way. An organized boycott of the church as long as he is the minister there!'

She was standing by Thyrza Primp's armchair, and over their heads I seemed to see fluttering in a breeze a garish ensign of war.

I never did have that talk with Howard, to find out if he existed. Or rather, we had the talk, but I gave it only half my mind, because over on the other side of the room a plan of battle was being drawn up. When the two of them left, they had prim little smiles of anticipation on their faces. Howard Culpepper muttered, ‘Looks as if we're in for some rough weather,' and scuttled in their wake. I think he'd taken one look at my face and seen I was in no mood for the harmless flirtations of the elderly that I suspect he went in for when he was allowed out on his own.

I told Marcus when he returned, and he did something that he very seldom did: he totally lost his cool. He is one of those very quiet people who on a handful of occasions in their lives simply blow up. I suspect if Mary had been to hand he would have blasted her up hill and down dale, and reduced her—yes, even Mary—to tears and submission. As it was, he put on a pretty impressive performance
in vacuo
for my benefit, so that I didn't even rub it in that it was he who had insisted on inviting Thyrza Primp. The level on our bottle of Johnnie Walker plummeted like the falling pound, and Marcus finished the evening, as he so often did when something had whipped up his comfortable surface, by playing Beethoven's Pastoral (in his normal moods he said it presented an intolerably prettified view of the countryside). Even when, long afterwards, he went to sleep, it was a disturbed and unhappy sleep.