Starlight (22 page)

Mr Geddes was cycling across Hampstead Heath.

Bicycling, at least, was better than hanging about for buses or stifling in the Underground, though – his practical eye considered the landscape as he wheeled swiftly along – the winter-bleached grass looked dirty and there was a dismal scatter of litter everywhere.

But the children of the age of affluence could not spoil the trees. Some forty feet above the marred earth there were bare silver branches, robust and thewed as the arms of giants, massive trunks, delicate tracery of leaf skeleton and twig.

He recalled his straying thoughts. What was to be done during the rest of the day?

Tea with Mrs Lysaght; Evensong; the list of his Lenten sermons to sketch out; the Men’s Group at eight-fifteen; an hour or so after that with Sunday’s sermon … what a waste of time these teas with poor Helen were.

Mrs Lysaght herself opened the door to him. Her flat was in a solid Edwardian block lifted up on one of Hampstead’s numerous baby hillocks above the unceasing hell of noise in Heath Street. She was rather tall, and rather pretty. She was a widow, and she did not have to worry about money.

‘How sweet of you to come early, Robert. Do come in, I’ve had some flowers sent me from the country, and I do so want you to see them before they go quite off. Let me take your coat – there!’

She laid the coat tenderly on a chair with one hand while with the other waving towards a bowl of wild daffodils, now well advanced in the process of ‘going off’.

‘I just wanted you to have one glimpse of them before I threw them away. You and I share a passion for flowers, don’t we?’

Cheered by a glimpse of a laden tea-trolley lurking in a corner, he nodded, and expressed admiration of the daffodils, while being pressed into a chair near the fire – electric, and too hot; he always found Helen’s rooms too hot.

‘Now! What have you been doing since we last met?’ Mrs Lysaght began, ‘Do tell me about my dear old friends at Saint James’s and all your news.’

‘Well, everything’s much the same as usual, I think. Mrs Peters is in hospital, had to have an operation.’

‘Now which is Mrs Peters? Is she the old dear who always wears a blue and white spotted scarf?’

‘No, I think you must mean Miss Cuthbert. Mrs Peters lives alone, in one of those houses on Hill Drive.’

‘Of course, I remember now … And Miss Rogers – and Mrs – I forget her name but I know who I mean – she always brings a red shopping bag to church.’

‘That’s Mrs Miller. I’m glad she does – before she started doing that she left something in the pew after every service – gloves or specs or handkerchiefs or something.’

Mr Geddes spoke with firmness. He disliked Mrs Lysaght’s habit of identifying the members of his faithful band of elderly ladies by their items of dress.

‘I’ve really brought you here to make a confession,’ said Mrs Lysaght suddenly, perhaps feeling some rebuke in his tone, and leaving the ladies of Saint James’s, ‘I hesitated about telling you – and then I thought – why not? He’ll always be my spiritual guide – my
guru
– and – he’ll … understand. I’m leaving the Church.’

Her large bright eyes beamed with pleasure, like a small girl giving someone a sweet. She gazed at him, upright and expectant. All Mr Geddes found to say was a mechanical, ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ followed by the thought,
confound the woman
. Shocked at himself, he leant a little forward and said hastily:

‘I’m sorry. But – er – what’s happened? I always believed – hoped – you were settled at last, you know. Safe and sound in the Church of England.’

He uttered a short laugh. He hoped it did not sound irritable; at least it was a laugh. But with so much waiting to be done at home!

‘I did think I was, for a few years, and I did try. But what finally defeated me, Robert, was the
narrowness
.’

‘I’m not attacking Christianity,’ Mrs Lysaght added with an access of energy, ‘please never think that –
or
the character of Jesus. It’s the Church I’m – well, not exactly attacking, but
accusing
– if you know what I mean –’

‘I expect I do,’ Mr Geddes said.

‘– and particularly the Church of England – dear old ‘C. of E.’, as it’s called – and I always think that’s so significant – Rome doesn’t invite that sort of nickname.’

‘Are you thinking of “going over”?’

Mr Geddes experienced some satisfaction at the thought. Let her try on this kind of thing with a Roman Catholic priest and see what she got. He checked himself again.

‘Of course not. Rome is even narrower, and dogmatic and superstitious into the bargain – that stuff about the Virgin Birth – no, I could never join Rome. I’m afraid I’m
far
too fond of thinking for myself.’

I’m afraid you are very silly, Mr Geddes was thinking.

‘What’s suddenly brought you up to this?’ he asked, feeling that he could not go on another moment without tea. ‘I didn’t hear anything about it last time we met.’

‘No, I’ve been sitting on my little secret, I wanted to think it all out with absolute clearness and make up my mind quite coldly. Oh – half-past – excuse me – it’s Gretl’s free afternoon, I must just go and boil the kettle.’

She fluttered away, contriving somehow to do it in a sweater and skirt, returning shortly with the teapot and a silver kettle, the latter perilously poised over a live flame in a tiny silver lamp.

‘I thought we’d use this old thing; isn’t it pretty; it belonged to an aunt of mine; will you help me?’

In a few moments, the first sips of tea had refreshed Mr Geddes. He set down his cup, bit into an excellent piece of bread and butter, and began suavely:

‘You haven’t answered my question, you know; why are you leaving us?’

‘Dear Robert, I thought I’d made it clear. The Church of England takes a very narrow view of the Cosmos. For the last three years I’ve read widely, very widely indeed, I’ve really
stretched my brains
, and oh what an inrush of knowledge and light –’

‘Can you really call it knowledge?’ pounced Mr Geddes, as his hostess paused to drink her tea.

‘Well – not knowledge in the accepted sense –’

‘In what sense, then?’

‘In a higher sense, Robert. Much of what these very gifted people write is intuitive knowledge – revealed to them by spirits from other worlds who are guiding them and inspiring them.’

‘But to get back to you leaving the Church of England,’ said he, firmly, ‘what do
you
suggest we should do about what you call our narrowness?’

‘Well – I hadn’t got as far as thinking what you should
do
, Robert … besides …’

‘Suppose all of us – we parish priests – wrote up in a body to our Bishops suggesting we should abandon the forms of prayer and worship that we’ve used for five hundred years – some of them for close on two thousand years – because they had become “narrow” and “out-dated”, what form of service do you suggest should replace them?’

‘Well … something more universal …
I
think something about reincarnation and each person’s
Karma
, their predestined life-pattern –’

‘And what effect do you suppose that would have on old Miss Jones, who has been going to Saint James’s for fifty years and looks after her ninety-year-old mother in a two-room flat? Is it going to help Miss Jones to hear about her
Karma
?’

‘You’re so hopelessly practical, Robert. Of course I’m not in a position to talk about details –’

‘Suppose it’s God’s will that the Church of England should go on offering the “narrow path” that Jesus spoke of, the “straight and narrow way”? Straight, He said;
straight
, not wandering off in all directions. Most people just can’t take the kind of thing
you’ve
been amusing yourself with.’

‘Robert! That’s not kind!’

‘You’re very happily placed for research into funny religions, you know, Helen – I’m speaking plainly now because I’m angry that you’re deserting us – you’ve got leisure, and proper domestic help, and friends, a pretty home – I know you’re lonely sometimes – most people are – but on the whole you’re one of the lucky ones, aren’t you. Well, aren’t you?’ as she sat looking at him with obstinacy on her soft, unlined face.

‘I don’t like being told I’m deserting you,’ she said at last.

‘Well, I think you are. We need every soul we can get; every living one of you, to bear witness! What are you going to do, where will you go to worship God – I suppose you’ll still need to do that – when you’ve left us?’

‘Oh I shall read and meditate.’

‘If you haven’t a church to go to that’ll soon turn into day-dreaming. You need a special type of mind to keep that up, and you haven’t got it.’

‘Oh if you knew how I often long just to go into
permanent retreat
– silence, and peace, and … prayer …’

‘You could enjoy all that in a good hotel in Bournemouth,’ Mr Geddes said. ‘(May I have another cup, please.) I thought you were rather worried about your prayers, by the way? (Thank you.)’

‘I don’t find it easy,’ Mrs Lysaght confessed, ‘my mind wanders. It seems worse lately.’ The last words came out with a little reluctance.

‘Everybody’s mind wanders. And yours will, while you’re stuffing your head with all this.’ He tapped a pamphlet he had taken up. ‘You aren’t a Hindu.
You aren’t a Hindu
,’ he repeated. ‘You were born in England and you’ve taken in Western thought all your life. It may not attract you as much as all this,’ tapping the booklet again, ‘but it’s moulded your way of thinking. Of course your mind wanders worse than ever while you’re trying to pray.’ He looked at the booklet inimically.

‘Mrs Besant –’

‘I really don’t want to hear about Mrs Besant,’ almost cried Mr Geddes, snatching himself a biscuit, ‘I hear enough about peculiar spiritual women from Gerald – my curate. I’m sorry, but I really can’t stand them. I’ve been used to – the ordinary kind. Margery was the ordinary kind, and so is my mother. I dare say I should have disliked Saint Teresa very much. I can’t help it; I can’t stand them at any price.’

There was a pause. Mr Geddes angrily munched, and Mrs Lysaght stared into the fire with compressed lips. But perhaps the reference to his dead wife had turned her thought into softer and less exalted regions, for in a moment she said in another tone:

‘Your mother is really with you at last, then? I’m sure it must be much more comfortable for you … how does she like London after Harrogate?’

Mr Geddes accepted the change of mood gratefully.

‘Very much, I think,’ he replied.

‘Didn’t she mind leaving that beautiful old vicarage?’

‘She hasn’t been living there for three years, you know. I think the idleness in the hotel got on her nerves.’

‘But such a joy to have no cooking or catering or washing up!’

Mr Geddes merely said that his mother had always been very active.

‘Oh – you make me feel so useless. I’m afraid I’m a very idle person. I try to excuse myself by thinking that I
am
more sensitive than most people, and I’m a dreamer, of course, too – always have been. Heigh-ho!’ Mrs Lysaght sighed and looked at the electric fire with her head on one side; then went on in a more animated tone, ‘I’m glad to hear my dear old Gladys still keeps up her church-going.
She
’s a
simple
soul. I don’t want to see
her
leaving the Church. She came to tea last week. Isn’t it
thrilling
about Mrs Pearson!’

‘Gladys? Oh – Miss Barnes, of course; yes. Yes, she comes to Sunday Evensong usually – can’t manage the early service. I suppose she has to look after her sister.’ (Mr Geddes braced himself; he foresaw more complications.)

‘I can’t wait to meet her – Mrs Pearson, I mean.’

‘Mrs Pearson?’ Mr Geddes asked, quietly stalling.

‘Gladys’s new landlady. Hasn’t she told you about her? She’s
a medium
.’

‘I have heard of her,’ he said unenthusiastically, ‘though not through Gladys Barnes.’

‘Oh
do
tell me what you heard. I’m so interested in her – a genuine psychic. My little plan is to get her to give me a sitting.’

‘We were told about her by one of her tenants, an old man who lives next door to her – he described her as “looking like a lost soul”.’ Mr Geddes was feeling increasingly irritated and disturbed.

‘“A lost soul”! Oh that really
is
exciting! Did he mean she’s
possessed
?’

‘How can I possibly say, Helen? I suppose he meant she looks unusually depressed – despairing, perhaps – her looks seem to have made a deep impression on him, anyway. I imagine it might be … I don’t know …’ He decided, then and there, against telling Mrs Lysaght even the little that he did know.

‘Do you know if she gives sittings?’

‘No I do not.’

‘Well don’t sound so cross about it! I’m so excited – life’s so awful in London in February when one hasn’t much money – Ronald always used to send me to the South of France for three weeks – I miss that terribly (and him, of course) – and any little thrill is a godsend, this time of the year. Can you find out for me if she does?’