On the other hand, she had not mentioned her name on either occasion. She decided to identify herself immediately and hope that, out of context, he would not make the association.
“Good afternoon, my name is Mrs Pargeter,” she announced boldly, as soon as the fruity voice had answered.
“Well, Mrs Pargeter, and what can I do for you?”
“It’s difficult…” she began, still shaping her plan of campaign.
“The Church,” he pronounced pontifically, “is here to be an ever-present help in time of trouble.” Whether he was referring to the Church of Utter Simplicity or to some larger concept of the Christian Church was not clear, but Mrs Pargeter rather suspected it was the former.
“Yes. The fact is…” She edged forward cautiously, remembering the tone of Theresa Cotton’s unposted letter. “…that in recent years I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the kind of materialism I see all around me.”
“Our Lord,” Brother Michael intoned, “came into the world, like us, with nothing. And when we leave the world, we will leave it with nothing. Does it not therefore seem irrelevant to set store by the riches of this world?”
“Well, yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking,” Mrs Pargeter lied. The late Mr Pargeter, she knew, would forgive her in the circumstances, although what she said went very strongly against one of the basic tenets of his life. He could never have been described as a greedy man, but he had always had – and encouraged in his wife – a proper sense of the value of material things.
“And I don’t know…” she went on with increasing confidence. Now she had a line to follow, the words came with no problem. “The more things one accumulates, the more unimportant they all seem. And the more complicated everything gets.”
“Indeed,” Brother Michael asserted eagerly, pouncing on the cue. “And the more one feels in need of a more simple life.”
“Exactly.”
“This is a conclusion I myself and certain like-minded brethren reached some twenty years ago. And it was from that that the Church of Utter Simplicity was born.”
“Yes. I really would like to know more about your Church.”
“You are welcome to any information you may require. If, that is to say,” he admonished, “you ask in a spirit of genuine enquiry after Eternal Truth.”
Mrs Pargeter crossed her fingers. “Oh yes, of course I do.”
“Am I to understand that you are considering the possibility of joining our church?”
“Well, I had thought of it. I mean, I’d certainly like to know more about the set-up. There isn’t an age limit on entry, is there?” she added anxiously. “I’m not exactly in the first flush of youth.”
“There are no restrictions on entry to the Church of Utter Simplicity,” Brother Michael boomed. “The only qualification is a heart empty of acquisitiveness and a mind ready to devote itself to the contemplation of the Almighty Simplicity of God.”
“Yes. Yes, well, I think I could probably manage that,” Mrs Pargeter lied again.
“I must ask,” Brother Michael pressed on, “just a few details about yourself. You know, it would be time-wasting to arrange an interview if there were some obvious reason why we would not suit.”
What a strange way of putting it, Mrs Pargeter thought. In her own mind, she had already reached the conclusion that what wouldn’t make someone ‘suit’ was a completely empty bank balance. She had a feeling that the Church of Utter Simplicity, though emphasising that people could take nothing with them, would not welcome aspirant members who brought nothing with them. But perhaps she was being overcynical.
“First,” Brother Michael continued, “what is your marital status?”
“I am widowed,” she replied in appropriately subdued tones.
He produced an uninterested reflex condolence. “So your problem is not a husband who keeps lavishing worldly goods upon you?”
“Oh no. Mind you, he did in the past. He was very lavish, the late Mr Pargeter. But now, I’m afraid, I have to do most of the lavishing on myself.”
“You are at least fortunate – even though in the unhappy state of widowhood – that you do not have to worry too much about money.”
“Oh, goodness, no. That’s not a problem.” She stopped herself, and continued soberly. “Well, yes, it is a problem – that is what makes me so materialistic, which is the cause of my spiritual problems. But the lack of money is not a problem in the conventional sense.”
“No, no,” said Brother Michael judiciously. And then he went straight on to arrange an interview for the next morning. The ‘just a few details about yourself’ seemed to have become less important once the health of her bank balance had been established.
Or, again, Mrs Pargeter asked herself, was she letting her natural scepticism get the better of her?
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Eighteen
Dunstridge Manor had presumably in its time been the home of the Lord of the Manor of Dunstridge, but now it looked like a private school. So many such buildings became private schools when the depredations of death duties ousted family owners that the architectural style now says ‘private school’ rather than ‘manor house’ to the casual onlooker.
And at Dunstridge Manor this impression was reinforced by a scattering of low, apparently prefabricated buildings around the central Tudor pile. (It is a rule, quickly observed by prospective parents doing the rounds, that in all English private schools the majority of classrooms shall be in prefabricated buildings. A secondary rule supports the thesis that, the higher the fees are, the tattier these prefabricated buildings shall be.)
The Manor House, or ‘private school’, was in good repair, and so were the low prefabricated buildings, offering the hope to an inspecting parent that the fees might be quite reasonable. But such an inspection was not the purpose of Mrs Pargeter’s mission. Once she was out of her hired limousine, she merely noted the condition of the buildings, observed evidence of well-organised agricultural activity in the surrounding area, and tugged at the long wrought-iron bell-pull beside the studded oak door.
After a pause, the door was opened by a tallish man of indeterminate age, who wore a cassock of some rough dark blue material. He had black-framed glasses and a straggling beard. His hair had that unrubbed-tobacco texture of hair that could do with a wash.
He identified himself as ‘Brother Brian’, and led the way across the stone-flagged hall towards a pointed doorway. As she followed, Mrs Pargeter received the distinct impression that it wasn’t only his hair that needed washing. The fumes of ancient sweat assailed her nostrils.
This Mrs Pargeter did not like. She was aware that Man created the deodorant, but she liked to feel that the act had been performed under God’s direction. She did not subscribe to any fundamentalist view that, if God hadn’t intended people to smell, then He wouldn’t have given them sweaty armpits. If that was one of the beliefs of the Church whose premises she had just entered, then she thought it was taking Simplicity too far.
The hall they crossed could have been magnificent, but wasn’t. It needed thick rugs on the flagstones, heavy brocade curtains at the windows, ancestral portraits on the wall, maybe the odd stag’s head, stuffed pike or spray of halberds. Instead, no doubt in accordance with the precepts of Simplicity, there were thin cotton check curtains, chipboard notice-boards, metal filing cabinets and rows of the sort of coat-hooks found in municipal swimming baths.
But it was all clean and tidy. When they entered, two girls in their twenties, sleeves of their navy blue cassocks rolled up, were polishing the magnificent oak banisters of the staircase. They showed no interest in the new arrival. Neither looked up. The face of the one Mrs Pargeter could see was blank. Not blank in rapt contemplation of the Almighty Simplicity, but blank as if devoid of thought.