the Custodian must keep faith with the Book, and she doesn’t know if she can do both.
She apparently regards this as the most agonising spiritual dilemma that anyone’s ever had to face since the Temptation in the Wilderness, which makes it perfectly reasonable for her to expect Maurice to spend hours every day discussing it.
The fact is that Maurice isn’t all that keen on having Daphne in his congregation — she’s a little on the intense side for St. Ethel’s — but he feels rather conscience stricken about not wanting her.
“Because after all, Reg, one’s supposed to believe that in the eyes of God every human soul is infinitely precious, and I suppose one’s supposed to believe that He likes them all coming to church, though I’ve never quite understood why, so who am I to say that He wouldn’t be pleased to see Daphne sitting in a pew in St. Ethel’s? I mean, for all I know He’d be thrilled to bits. Anyway, she thinks He would be and if I suggest He wouldn’t she’ll be terribly hurt. So I’ve simply told her that God is very broad-minded nowadays and if she feels it wouldn’t be right for her to go to church He’ll quite understand and do His best to manage without her. But of course that wasn’t the end of it.”
Which with Daphne it wouldn’t be. She isn’t the kind of girl, you see, who asks for one’s advice and then either takes it or doesn’t and leaves one to get on with something else. She’s the kind who asks for one’s advice and looks as if she’s listening to it and comes back next morning to ask for it all over again.
One certainly can’t accuse her of not being grateful to Maurice for the help he’s given her — she’s always saying how kind he’s been and how lucky she is that he’s there to give her spiritual guidance. And she’s always trying, poor girl, to find ways to repay him — she goes round to the Vicarage every day to take his rubbish out to the dustbin and ask if he wants any shopping done and see if she can do anything to make herself useful. The trouble is, though, that Maurice doesn’t really need anyone to do things for him — he has Griselda to help with the garden and Mrs. Tyrrell to clean for him two mornings a week and otherwise he’s quite good at looking after himself.
He came round for supper with me yesterday and we spent nearly the whole evening talking about Daphne’s problems, drinking more gin than was good for us and not getting anywhere. With great difficulty — she evidently thought it beneath the dignity of the Custodian — he’s persuaded her to ask for some money from the Social Security people. He helped her to fill in the forms and they’re supposed to give her enough to keep her from starving. Apart from that, it’s hard to know what to suggest.
I wondered for a while whether perhaps she could go on with the fortune-telling business — if she’s going to go on claiming to be the guardian of some sort of sacred text I thought she might as well make some money out of it. But Maurice isn’t sure it’s something he could encourage — he feels it rather savours of witchcraft.
“And you might think, Reg, that in these ecumenical times that wouldn’t matter much. But the Bishop’s very down on witchcraft, almost as down as he is on ordaining women, and you know how he feels about that.”
Besides, if it was the kind of business that Ricky says it was, it’s out of the question — she couldn’t get information by the same methods as Isabella, and even if she could, of course, it would be very wrong. It’s rather a pity in a way, though, because she actually sometimes seems—
I don’t mean I think that she can see into the future — that would be too ridiculous. But some quite sensible people do believe in telepathy, and she does sometimes say things—
Two or three weeks ago in the Newt and Ninepence, Ricky was buying a round of drinks and asked her what she would like. She hesitated a bit and then she said, “Oh well, as you’re getting all that money next week, I’ll have a glass of wine.”
Ricky wasn’t expecting any money, and asked her what she meant. She looked slightly bewildered, as if she didn’t quite know why she’d said it, and said, “I just thought you were going to get some money — for some medicine you’d sold, or something.”
Ricky was most amused by this — rather more noisily, in fact, than was quite kind or polite, and I told him so afterwards — and said he’d never sold medicine to anyone in his life.
But two days later, when he opened the post in the morning, he found he’d got quite a large dividend from a pharmaceutical company he had shares in. Poor Ricky, he was quite shaken — mind you, it serves him right for making fun of poor Daphne.
And then there was the day she came round to give me a box of chocolates, to thank me for helping her with the funeral and so on — very sweet, squishy chocolate creams, actually not at all what I like — it breaks my heart to think of her spending her money on them. Still, she ate several while she was here, so at least she did get some pleasure out of it. Just as she was leaving, she said, “Oh — give all my best to Mrs. Tyrrell. I hope she finds whatever it is she’s lost.”
I said that I didn’t think Mrs. Tyrrell had lost anything — she’d been here that morning, and hadn’t said anything about it. And again Daphne looked rather bewildered, and said, “Oh, I thought she’d lost something quite important — something to do with someone who’s dead.”
And half an hour later there was Mrs. Tyrrell at the door, saying she couldn’t find her ring and wondering if she’d left it here. It’s a very pretty ring and rather valuable — late Victorian, turquoise set in silver — left to her by her grandmother, so naturally she was quite upset. We looked everywhere for it, and I’m glad to say we found it — she must have taken it off when she was cleaning the bathroom, and it had rolled behind the sink.
But the extraordinary thing is that the moment she discovered it was missing must have been almost exactly the same moment that Daphne told me she’d lost something.
Yes, Julia, I know it’s all very trivial and I dare say it’s only coincidence, but I can’t help finding it slightly eerie. Which is why I’m feeling a little bit worried about Maurice, who seems to have disappeared.
I experienced, on reading this, a sudden sharp sense of apprehension, which I could not at once account for. It was Daphne, if anyone, on whose behalf I had felt a certain uneasiness; Daphne whom someone might suspect of being the heir to some still-dangerous secret. What cause had I for any disquiet regarding the Reverend Maurice?
I remembered, after a few moments, that he was the only person in Parsons Haver, indeed perhaps anywhere, who could identify the man in the black Mercedes.
The sound of drilling had been replaced by the thudding of gigantic hammers; Julia was still writing her Opinion; I continued my reading.
He wasn’t in the Newt and Ninepence this morning, as he usually is on a Saturday, but at first I didn’t even think of being worried about him.
Griselda and I went and sat out in the garden, with our drinks and our crosswords, and grumbled a bit about not having anyone to tell us how to spell Sibylline. Or Sybilline, whichever it may be. Ricky turned up and bought another round of drinks, and we all just sat and talked about how hot it was, not worrying about Maurice or anything else.
Then Daphne arrived looking for him, and very agitated that he wasn’t there. It wasn’t clear why she wanted him so urgently — it seemed to have something to do with a lobster that she’d bought him for his lunch. We told her he’d probably turn up sooner or later and in the meanwhile she’d better sit down and have a glass of wine with us. Which she did, and sat quite quietly, apart from a few sighs and sniffles, while we went on with the crossword.
And then, completely out of the blue, there was a scene — ridiculous, but quite disagreeable — all on account of a clue in the
Ricky is one of those people who never start a crossword on their own but always want to help when someone’s halfway through. So we let him have the
In the course of this, he suddenly seemed to find something enormously amusing, and said, “Ah, here’s one for you, Daphne.” And he read out the clue for Sibylline, or Sybilline, whichever it is, which we only hadn’t filled in because we didn’t know how to spell it.
I don’t know if you happened to see it? “Bein’ silly, very silly, like prophetic book.”
Instant rage from Daphne. She jumped up, knocking her chair over and spilling her wine, and started shouting that the Book wasn’t silly, it was the crossword that was silly, and Ricky who was silly, and everyone in Parsons
