better view of Gethsemane. But the garden itself is shut. It doesn't really matter, though. You can get the atmosphere from here.' He smiled in a rather shamefaced fashion as Bob approached him. 'If I don't write down what I see, I shan't remember it. Robin lent me his torch. I want to lecture about this when I get home. Well, not a straight lecture. Just my impressions to the lads.'
Have you seen Jill?' asked Bob.
Babcock stared. Jill… Oh yes, his young wife.
'No,' he said. 'Isn't she with you?'
'You can see she isn't with me,' Bob almost shouted in exasperation. 'And there are only Mrs Foster and Lady Althea and Miss Dean up the road.'
'Oh,' said Babcock. 'Well, I'm afraid I can't help you. The Colonel is around somewhere. I came on alone with the boy.'
Bob could feel the anger mounting within him. 'Look here,' he said, 'I don't mean to be rude, but just who is in charge of this outfit'?'
The Rev. Babcock flushed. There was no call for Bob Smith to get so excited.
'There's no question of anybody being in charge,' he said. 'The Colonel and Robin and I left the hotel on our own. If the rest of you chose to follow on and got lost, I'm afraid it's your own affair.'
He was used to rough talk from the lads, but this was different. Anyone would think he was a paid courier.
'I'm sorry,' said Bob. 'The fact is…' The fact was he had never felt more helpless, more alone. Weren't parsons supposed to help one in trouble? 'The fact is, I'm worried stiff. Everything's gone wrong. I had one hell of a row with Jill before dinner, and I can't think straight.'
Babcock put down his notebook and extinguished his torch. No more impressions of Gethsemane tonight. Well, it couldn't be helped.
'I'm sorry to hear that,' he said, 'but it happens all the time, you know. Young married couples have arguments, and they feel it's the end of the world. You'll both look at it differently in the morning.'
'No,' said Bob, 'that's just it. I don't think we shall. I keep wondering if we haven't made a terrible mistake in getting married.'
His companion was silent. The poor chap was overtired, probably. He had let things get on top of him. It was difficult to give advice when one didn't know either of them. If things hadn't been going too well, the vicar of Little Bletford should have spotted it and had a word with them both. He probably would have, if he had been here, and not on the boat in Haifa.
'Well,' he said, 'marriage is give and take, you know. It's not just… how shall I put it? It's not just a physical relationship.' 'It's the physical side of it that's gone wrong,' said Bob Smith. 'I see.'
Babcock wondered if he should advise the lad to see a doctor when he got home. There was nothing much that could be done about it here tonight.
'Look,' he said, 'don't worry too much. Take it easy. Be as gentle as you can with your wife, and perhaps…'
But he couldn't continue, for at that moment a small figure darted up from the trees below. It was Robin.
'The actual Garden of Gethsemane looks very small,' he called. 'I feel sure Jesus and the disciples wouldn't have sat down there. They would more likely have climbed up here, amongst all the olive trees that were growing in those days. What puzzles me, Mr Babcock, is why the disciples kept falling asleep, if it was as cold as it is tonight. Do you suppose the climate has changed in two thousand years? Or could the disciples have had too much wine at supper?'
Babcock handed Robin back his torch and pushed him gently along the homeward path. 'We don't know, Robin, but we have to remember they had all had a long and very exhausting day.'
That's not the right answer, he thought, but it's the best I can do. And I haven't helped Bob Smith either. Nor was I particularly sympathetic to the Colonel. The trouble is, I don't know any of these people. Their own vicar would have known how to deal with them. Even if he had given them quite the wrong answers they would have been satisfied.
'There they are,' said Robin, 'standing in a huddle up the road and stamping their feet. That's the most sensible way to try and keep awake.'
It was Lady Althea who was stamping her feet. She had wisely changed into sensible shoes before setting forth. Kate Foster was not so well shod, but she scored over Lady Althea by being well wrapped-up in her mink jacket. Miss Dean was a little apart from them both. She had found a break in the wall, and was sitting on a pile of crumbling stones. She had become rather weary of listening to her two companions, who could discuss nothing except the whereabouts of their respective husbands.
I'm glad I never married, she thought. There always seems to be such endless argument going on between husband and wife. I dare say some marriages are ideal, but very few. It was very sad for dear Father losing his wife all those years ago, but he has never tried to replace her. She smiled tenderly, thinking of the manly smell in the vicar's study. He smoked a pipe, and whenever Miss Dean called, which she generally did twice a week to bring flowers to brighten up his bachelor solitude, or with a special cake she had baked, or a jar of homemade jam or marmalade, she would give a quick look through the open door of the study to see if his housekeeper had tidied it properly, brought some sort of order to the chaos of books and papers. Men were such boys, they needed looking after. That was why Mary and Martha invited Our Lord so often to Bethany. They probably fed Him well after those long walks across the hills, mended His clothes-darned His socks, she was about to say, but of course men didn't wear socks in those days, only sandals. What a blessed honour it must have been to soak the travel-stained garments in the wash-tub….
Miss Dean became aware of some sort of scuffle in the trees behind her. Could the menfolk have climbed over the stones and wandered into what seemed like private property? Then she heard a man laugh, and a woman whisper 'Shshsh!'
'It's all right,' murmured the man, 'it's only Miss Dean. Sitting all on her own lamenting the absence of her beloved vicar.'
'If she only knew,' came the answering murmur, 'that he hides whenever he sees her walking up the vicarage drive. She's the thorn in his flesh, he told Mum once. Pursued him for years, despite her age.'
There was a sound of stifled laughter, and then suddenly Jim Foster coughed loudly and emerged from the cluster of dark trees, Jill Smith at his heels.
'Well, well, Miss Dean,' he said, 'what a surprise. We've been looking for the rest of the party. Ah, isn't that Kate standing up the road with Lady Althea? And some more of them coming from the opposite direction? Rendezvous all round.' He held out his hand to Jill and helped her over the stones. 'Now, Miss Dean, what about you? Will you take my arm?'
'Thank you, Mr Foster,' she said quietly, 'I can manage on my own.'
Jill Smith threw a quick look down the path. Bob was there, and the Rev. Babcock and young Robin. Robin was chattering and waving a torch. It would look better if she stayed with Miss Dean. She nudged Jim Foster with her elbow, and immediately he understood and began walking alone up the path to where Kate and Lady Althea were standing.
'Hullo, hullo there,' he called, 'we all seem to have been going round in circles. I can't think how I came to miss you.'
The tight-lipped expression on his wife's face made him hesitate a moment, then he smiled, and strolled up to her casually, self-confident.
'Sorry, old girl,' he said. 'Been here long?'
He put his arm round her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
'Twenty minutes at least,' she replied. 'More like half-an-hour.'
The three of them turned their heads as Robin came running towards them flicking the light of his torch in all their faces.
'Oh, Mr Foster,' he called delightedly, 'that looked so sinister as you kissed Mrs Foster. You could have been Judas. Mr Babcock and I have had a tremendous time. We've been right down to Gethsemane and back on our own.'
'In that case, where were you?' Kate turned to her husband.
