The Comforters

‘Do I?’ Caroline said.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Hogg. ‘That’s what you want to do. Please call me Georgina by the way. I’ll call you Caroline. Sometimes we have as many as a hundred and thirty pilgrims to stay. And of course thousands for the day pilgrimages. Sir Edwin and Lady Manders and Father Ingrid had no idea what they started when they started St Philumena’s. You must meet the Manders.’

‘I know them,’ said Caroline.

‘Oh, you do. Are you one of their converts? They are always making converts.’

‘Converts to what?’ said Caroline in the imperative need to be difficult. Caroline vented in her mind her private formula: You are damned. I condemn you to eternal flames. You are caput, as good as finished, you have had it, my dear. More expressive, and therefore more satisfying than merely ‘Go to hell’, and only a little less functional than a small boy’s ‘Bang-bang, you’re dead!’

‘Converts to the Faith, of course,’ Mrs Hogg was saying.

During her three days’ stay at St Philumena’s she had already observed Mrs Hogg. On her first evening Caroline overheard her:

‘You have to take what’s put before you here. Sometimes we have as many as a hundred and thirty pilgrims. Suppose a hundred and thirty people all wanted tea without milk —’

Her victim, a young lawyer who was recovering from dipsomania, had replied, ‘But I only say don’t trouble to put milk in mine.’

‘It isn’t what you say, it’s what you get.’

They sat later at a polished oak refectory table silently eating a suet-laden supper which represented the monastic idea at St Philumena’s. Their mouths worked silently, rhythmically, chew-pause-chew-pause-swallow- pause-chew. A sister from the convent next door was reading aloud the ‘holy work’ prescribed for mealtimes. Caroline recognized the Epistle of St John, and listened, fixing her eyes on the white blouse of Mrs Hogg opposite. Soon her mind was on Mrs Hogg, and the recent dispute about the tea. She began to take in the woman’s details: an angular face, cropped white hair, no eyelashes, rimless glasses, a small fat nose of which the tip was twitching as she ate, very thin neck, a colossal bosom. Caroline realized that she had been staring at Mrs Hogg’s breasts for some time, and was aware at the same moment that the woman’s nipples were showing dark and prominent through her cotton blouse. The woman was apparently wearing nothing underneath. Caroline looked swiftly away, sickened at the sight, for she was prim; her sins of the flesh had been fastidious always.

That was the first evening.

And this was the third day. At the end of the long corridor they turned. Caroline looked at her watch. Mrs Hogg did not go away.

‘The Manders converted you. They are always converting somebody.’

‘No. Not in my case, they didn’t.’

‘The Manders are very nice people,’ said Mrs Hogg defensively.

‘Charming people.’

‘Very good people,’ Mrs Hogg insisted.

‘I agree,’ said Caroline.

‘You couldn’t possibly disagree. What made you a Catholic then?’

‘Many reasons,’ Caroline said, ‘which are not too easy to define: and so I prefer not to discuss them.’

‘Mm… I know your type,’ Mrs Hogg said, ‘I got your type the first evening you came. There’s a lot of the Protestant about you still. You’ll have to get rid of it. You’re the sort that doesn’t mix. Catholics are very good mixers. Why won’t you talk about your conversion? Conversion’s a wonderful thing. It’s not Catholic not to talk about it.’

The woman was a funny old thing in her way. Caroline suddenly felt light-hearted. She giggled and looked again at her watch.

‘I must be going.’

‘Benediction isn’t till three o’clock.’

‘Oh, but I’ve come here for rest and quiet.’

‘But you’re not in Retreat.’

‘Oh yes, you know, I am in retreat.’ Then Caroline remembered that the popular meaning of ‘retreat’ in religious circles was an organized affair, not a private retiring from customary activities, so as to possess one’s soul in peace. She added, ‘I mean, I’ve retreated from London, and now I’m here for rest and quiet.’

‘You were speaking plenty to that young lawyer this morning.’

In her private neurotic amusement Caroline decided to yield. Ten more minutes of Mrs Hogg. The rain pelted with sudden fury against the windows while she turned to the woman with a patronizing patience.

‘Tell me about yourself, Mrs Hogg.’

Mrs Hogg had recently been appointed Catering Warden. ‘If it wasn’t for the Faith I couldn’t hold down the job. On my feet from six till two, then on again at three and then two hours’ break till supper and then there’s the breakfast to think about. And I’ve got a great number of Crosses. That young lawyer you ye got in with, the other night he said, “I don’t take milk in my tea” — did you hear him? Sometimes we have as many as a hundred and thirty. Suppose a hundred and thirty people wanted tea without milk —’

‘Well, that would be fairly easy,’ said Caroline.

‘Suppose they each wanted something different.’

‘All at the same time?’ said Caroline.