Another year, p.4
Another Year, page 4
There had been a heavy storm and there were snow drifts in the valleys, but some people walked five miles to be at Evensong that night. There were so many people that the verger had to bring some chairs across from the Village Hall, and Mr. Matthews looked pale and nervous when the moment came to say his farewell words.
“This is the last time,” he said, “that I shall speak to you as Vicar of Little Stanton. I have been your Vicar for over twenty years and they have been the happiest of my life. No man could have worked in more beautiful surroundings or had such loyal friendship and support. It is because of that, I think—because there are so many things in Little Stanton which make a parish priest’s life easy, that I have felt it right, while I still enjoy my health and strength, to undertake work of a different kind for Christ and His Church. You will, I know, give Mr. Todhunter, your new Vicar, a loyal welcome. He has laboured for many years in a parish that has given him little reward and he deserves the support and understanding that I know you will give him.
“For myself, I shall, like St. Paul, thank my God upon every remembrance of you. I know my failings, and I am grateful beyond words for your kindness and forbearance. My wife and I will value the many tokens of friendship that you have given us, but even more we shall treasure the remembrance of friends who have enriched our lives.
“I have one last request to make of you. I have no illusions about the work to which I am going. It will be more difficult, I think, than anything I have had to undertake before, but I shall be able to face the future with confidence if I know that I have the support of your prayers. Please pray that God’s blessing may rest upon the parish of Woodbank and upon the work I am called to undertake there in His name.”
It was still dark, and the snow remained when Mr. and Mrs. Matthews left their neighbour’s house next morning to catch the early train to London. They were hoping to get away without any more good-byes, but the two boys who delivered the papers in the village were waiting outside the gate.
“We’ve got to pick up the papers at the station,” said one of them. “So we thought we’d carry your bags along. Mr. Matthews.”
They talked about the football match the boys were playing that afternoon. “Write and tell us how you get on,” said Mr. Matthews. “I hope you’ll often write and tell us what you’re doing—and about the cricket in the summer, too.”
“You must come down and see us sometimes,” said the boys.
“We shall,” said Mr. Matthews. “We’ll come down quite often. We’ll come for the school sports and the Flower Show for certain.”
They looked out of the window as the train moved off. The winter sun was rising, and they saw the two boys, with the bundles of newspapers around them, waving good-bye. Then the train ran round the bend and the woods concealed them. It was the last they saw of Little Stanton that morning—the last they ever saw, for they never went back.
Chapter Four
Mr. Matthews had wanted to get rid of Mrs. Burgin, the lugubrious housekeeper at the Woodbank Vicarage, partly because she was lugubrious, and partly because, whenever he looked at her, he would be reminded of his melancholy evening with Mr. Todhunter, and he wanted to wipe the slate clean of those unhappy first impressions and begin afresh. There was always, too, the risk of her making a cherry cake, which might appear without warning at a tea-party.
He had written accordingly to Mr. Todhunter, suggesting it might be better if they brought Emily, their own housekeeper, to Woodbank, and that Mr. Todhunter should take Mrs. Burgin with him to Little Stanton.
But Mr. Todhunter, still smarting under Mr. Matthews’ refusal to exchange carpets, got his own back. He replied tartly that it would be most inconsiderate to expect a woman of Mrs. Burgin’s age to surrender a host of friends and begin a new life in a strange place. He threw in a mild threat at the end by suggesting that it would create an extremely bad impression in Woodbank if the new Vicar began by dismissing from his service a woman who had proved herself a loyal and devoted member of St. Peter’s Church.
The letter had left Mr. Matthews in no doubt that, while Mr. Todhunter wanted to get rid of Mrs. Burgin himself, he was equally determined that Mr. Matthews should have her, and would leave no stone unturned to see that he did.
Ruth thought it was probably for the best. “Emily would never be happy at Woodbank,” she said.—“And I shall need somebody like Mrs. Burgin who knows where all the meters and pipes are in the Vicarage, and where to shop and get a plumber and a good laundry, and a dozen other things. If she turns out impossible we can always get rid of her later on.”
But Mrs. Burgin turned out quite differently from what Mr. Matthews had anticipated. The van had arrived ahead of them and Mrs. Burgin had brought some friends named Mr. and Mrs. Goatley to help get the furniture into place. Mr. Goatley had worked for a London furnisher and was invaluable. He saw the way to lay the carpets and suggested how the curtains could be lengthened inexpensively to fit the windows. He pointed out that half a house well furnished was better than a whole house half-furnished, and on his advice they locked up and discarded two bedrooms and a small breakfast-room.
It was a fine breezy day and Mrs. Matthews had all the doors and windows open, and very soon the Vicarage smelt fresher than Mr. Matthews had dared to hope. “It was all that musty furniture of his,” said Mrs. Burgin, “that made it smell so bad,” and as the afternoon went on it dawned upon the Matthews that Mrs. Burgin, whom they had imagined to be hand in glove with Mr. Todhunter, was actually glad to get rid of him and completely on their side. “He was a good-natured, cheerful gentleman,” she said—“but so untidy, and he never seemed to care. It’s nice to have a lady in the house and your furniture looks so fresh and clean.” She painted a terrifying picture of conditions in the Vicarage when she had first arrived as Mr. Todhunter’s housekeeper five years ago. Slugs as big as babies in the scullery sink, she said—coming up the waste pipe as bold as brass. She spoke in the highest terms of what she had done to put things right, and Mrs. Matthews congratulated her, with certain private reservations when she found a cockroach in the pantry cupboard.
By tea-time the house was well enough arranged to spend the night in. The Matthews asked Mr. Goatley and his wife to come in next day to help clear up and hang the pictures, and went out for a first look at the garden while Mrs. Burgin made the tea.
Some steep steps, with old-fashioned maroon-coloured balustrades, led down into the garden from the dining-room. It was a small garden for so big a house, though spacious enough, they imagined, for one so near to London, and its limitations were deepened by the high brick walls that closed it in. There was a tired old lawn with grey patches in it, and a bare place like a shadow, beneath a fir tree, where the acid of the fallen needles had destroyed the grass. Beside the walls ran border beds with the drooping relics of uncared for dahlias, and near the house stood a gnarled old walnut tree with a walnut on it and a carpet of sodden leaves beneath.
It was a melancholy, neglected place, but there were signs that someone, at some distant time, had cared for it. There was a small sunken rockery and the relics of a tiny lily pond to its brim in fallen leaves and a sundial that would tell the time again if the rank trees overhead were pruned.
Ruth looked around her. A glimmer of sunset lit the eastern wall, but the garden was already in semi-darkness. “It’ll always be dark,” she said—“but I don’t see why we shouldn’t make a very nice garden here. We can read up and find out what flowers will grow without much sun. There’s still time to get some crocuses and tulips in—and I’d say a bed of lilies of the valley would do quite well. We’ll need a sack of lime to sweeten the soil, and a load of stable manure to put some heart into it.”
“Mr. Goatley is the kind of man who’d know where to get some stable manure,” said Mr. Matthews. “We’ll ask him in the morning.”
“Things aren’t nearly so bad as they might have been,” said Ruth, as they walked back to the house: “We can make quite a charming garden here—and the house is a good, solid one, even if it isn’t pretty. As for Mrs. Burgin, I think she’s wonderful. I believe we’re going to be surprised in Woodbank, Roger. I think we’re going to be really happy here after all.”
The lights were on in the library and the curtains drawn and the fire made up, and Mr. Matthews looked round him at a room transformed. It was hard to link these pleasant, warm surroundings with the cheerless place where he had spent that miserable evening with Mr. Todhunter.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “Things are going to turn out much better than I expected.”
“I felt it all along,” said Ruth.—“Todhunter was at the bottom of everything. He didn’t care and he didn’t try. He let the parish rot as he let the house and garden rot. I’m glad you’ve got the Church Council coming in this evening. You can give them a good pep talk and get things going right away.”
Mrs. Burgin brought in the tea. To Mr. Matthews’ relief there was no cherry cake, but some very passable home-made rock buns and a jam roll.
“There’ll be time to get down to the shops before they close,” said Mrs. Burgin, “if I go now I’ll be back before the people come.”
She proposed an omelette for supper and herrings for breakfast, and when tea was over Ruth went upstairs to unpack and Mr. Matthews sat down to read over the notes for his meeting with the Church Council.
He staked a great deal on this meeting. He knew the value of first impressions and he wanted the Council to see from the start that he meant business. His plans were ambitious for a parish that had stagnated for so many years, but a hard impact produced the best rebound and he decided to launch the whole grand scheme at his meeting that night.
He heard Mrs. Burgin come back with the herrings, and as the time for the meeting drew near he began to feel nervous. He wondered what his new friends were going to be like. He wanted to appear before them cool and collected so he went upstairs to wash and brush his hair to calm himself down.
Ruth was changing into a dark blue dress that she kept for formal occasions.
“You mustn’t expect too much at the first meeting,” she said. “Todhunter never gave them anything to do so they’re bound to be a bit rusty and slow to respond. But they will when they’ve got over their surprise and realise you mean to do things.”
They went downstairs to await their guests, and promptly at six o’clock the gate squeaked and the first members of the Council arrived. A few minutes later it squeaked again and the second lot arrived. Mr. Matthews waited out of sight in the study with Ruth until the Council had settled down in the drawing-room. Then Mrs. Burgin looked in and said: “They’re here, sir,” and Mr. Matthews said: “Thank you, Mrs. Burgin,” and went across the passage with his wife to meet them.
There were eleven people there: seven women and four men including Mr. Cheesewright and Mr. Harper, the Churchwardens. The two other men were plump and spectacled and dressed sedately in dark blue suits. They brought their wives forward and introduced them, but when the two ladies moved back amongst the others, Mr. Matthews could not have picked them out again because they were all so much alike. They were a nondescript, ordinary-looking lot. They were not the kind of people who would set the Thames on fire, but they looked earnest and dependable and he had a feeling they would support him and work with him.
“We’re all here except Mrs. Bannister Paget,” said Mr. Harper. “She asked me to tell you that she would be a little late and I think we ought to wait for her.”
Mr. Matthews remembered that Mrs. Bannister Paget had been mentioned to him as a great lady and a great supporter of the Church, and he agreed that they should wait. There was a little small talk: they discussed the recent fall of snow and decided, upon comparison, that it had been somewhat less severe in Woodbank than in Little Stanton. Mr. Harper said that his sister lived in Beaminster, not far from Mr. Matthews’ old parish. She was married to a Colonel Watson who was a very successful turkey breeder. Mr. Matthews said that turkeys, although delicate, did well in Dorset, and that a farmer in his parish made quite a business of them. Mr. Harper ventured the opinion that Colonel Watson probably knew the farmer through their mutual interest in turkeys, and for a little while they discussed the likelihood of this.
At a quarter past six Mr. Matthews began to get impatient. There was a lot to do and he wanted to get on with it. At twenty past he told Mr. Harper that they had better start without Mrs. Bannister Paget, but Mr. Harper seemed quite astonished by the suggestion. “I think we had better wait,” he whispered, “we really couldn’t start without her.”
It was half-past six before Mrs. Bannister Paget arrived, and she came in with an air about her that convinced Mr. Matthews that her late arrival had been deliberately staged. She was a big woman—tall and masculine, with a thin aquiline nose and arrogant, pale grey eyes. She was clad in what at first sight appeared to be quite a number of separate dresses of varying shades of purple that showed round and between and above and below each other. Her apologies were brief and formal, and she moved without question to an arm-chair by the fire which the others, by mutual accord, appeared to have reserved for her.
Mr. Matthews waited until she had unloosened some of her little purple capes: he then said a few polite words about his pleasure in being the new Vicar of Woodbank, and got down to business.
“As you are aware,” he said, “I am a stranger here. I have a lot to learn about this parish, but I’m offering you my plans at once, so that you can think them over and advise me.
“There are eight thousand people in Woodbank, and only forty of them come to Church. That’s a sad state of affairs, but with your help I shall begin at once and do my best to put things right. I understand there are two separate districts in Woodbank; the ‘old town’ and the new one that has grown up around it in the past few generations. The problem is—how can we get at these new people and attract them to St. Peter’s Church?
“Mr. Todhunter told me that there are no social clubs connected with our church. I think that’s what we need, because a healthy social life around a church is bound, in the end, to bring health to the church itself.”
He paused for comment, but as his listeners seemed anxious for him to go on, he plunged at once into the details of his plan.
It was to be a “three year plan”, he said, based on a new club with headquarters in the Church Hall that had not been used for many years. It was not to be called a “Church Club”, because that would frighten people away. He would prefer to call it the “Woodbank Club”; that would cover every kind of activity to suit all tastes and ages. There would be Dances and Whist Drives: Badminton and Concerts: Billiards and a Dramatic Society: Debating and Quiz teams—each to have its own committee and organising secretary and each to have the use of the Hall one night a week.
He went into details of membership and finance and organisation and he produced the draft of a pamphlet describing the club, which he proposed to have printed and distributed in the parish. He had worked it all out very carefully, but he made it clear to his listeners that the whole plan was open to a great deal of improvement and he invited discussion and criticism before he had it published. He laid stress on the younger generation: he wanted to encourage them and give them responsibility. He proposed no subscription for the first year. “The people of Little Stanton,” he said, “gave me a cheque for fifty guineas when I left. I would like to donate this to start a foundation fund: if we can raise another fifty guineas we shall have enough to cover the first year’s expenses—and then, when people see that the Club is worth supporting, we can decide upon a yearly subscription.”
He stopped, and glanced around him. In his enthusiasm he had talked for half an hour, and he hoped that he had not overdone it. His audience was very quiet. Whether they were thrilled beyond words, or stunned with surprise, or merely anxious to get home to supper he could not tell—but they had listened with attention and he felt that on the whole he had put the plan over fairly well.
“I call it a ‘three year plan’,” he added—“because we cannot hope to see immediate results. We are bound to have our failures and set-backs. In some quarters we may find prejudice against the church in Woodbank, and we must be ready for opposition and hostility. It means hard work and patience, but if we work together and put our hearts into it, I’m sure we shall succeed.”
There was a long silence. One or two people moved uneasily in their chairs, and then with one accord they all began to look at Mrs. Bannister Paget as if it were unseemly to speak before she had spoken.
Mrs. Bannister Paget had sat through the Vicar’s speech without a movement: upright in her chair, her hands upon her lap, her eyes upon him in a fixed, unblinking stare.
“I don’t quite understand you,” she said. “I don’t exactly understand who you are talking about.”
Mr. Matthews looked at her blankly. The remark was so strange that he wondered whether he had heard aright. Possibly, he thought, it was meant as a kind of dry joke, but when he looked around him no one was smiling, and there was no humour in her face. But he was conscious of a sudden relaxation among the others: a furtive nodding of heads and exchange of glances. Now that Mrs. Bannister Paget had spoken, they all, it seemed, knew where they were and how they stood.
“I am speaking,” said Mr. Matthews, “of the people in this parish who are at present outside the life of the Church. I thought I had made that clear. I’m sorry if I didn’t.”
Mrs. Bannister Paget neither moved nor blinked.
“It is a pity,” she said—“a very great pity that you did not explore and understand this parish before you wasted your time and ours. We have known Woodbank all our lives and you have known it for one afternoon.”
