Jerusalem… Jerusalem… Well, the daughters of Jerusalem would certainly weep if they could see this big agnostic crowd on the Mount of Olives. It really did not seem right to have a modern hotel on such a hallowed spot, where Our Lord had wandered so frequently with his disciples on his way to Jerusalem from Bethany. How she had missed Father when the bus paused for a few minutes in the village and the guide had pointed out the ruined church beneath which, so he said, the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus had stood two thousand years ago! Father would have brought it so vividly to life. She could have pictured the modest but comfortable home, the well-swept kitchen, Martha in charge and Mary not too helpful, probably, with clearing the dishes, reminding her, when she read the passage in the Gospel, of her own younger sister Dora, who never did a hand's turn if there was a good programme on television. Not that one could compare Mary at Bethany listening to Our Lord's wonderful sermons with someone like Malcolm Muggeridge asking the question why, but after all, as Father always said, one should try and relate the past to the present, and then one would come to a better understanding of what everything meant.
Ah, there was Lady Althea coming along the corridor now. How distinguished she looked, so English, so refined amongst the rest of the people here in the hotel, who seemed mostly foreigners, and the Colonel at her side every inch the soldier and gentleman. Little Robin was such an original child. Fancy him making that remark about Our Lord being surprised if he could see electric light. 'But He invented it, dear,' she had told him. 'Everything that has ever been invented or discovered was Our Lord's doing.' She was afraid it had not sunk into his little mind. No matter. There would be other opportunities to make the right impression upon him.
'Well, Miss Dean,' said the Colonel, advancing towards her, 'I hope you feel rested after the long bus ride, and have a good appetite for dinner?'
'Thank you, Colonel, yes, I am quite refreshed, but a little bewildered. Do you think we shall have English food, or will it be that greasy foreign stuff? I have to be careful with my inside.'
'Well, if my experience in the Near East is anything to go by, avoid fresh fruit and melon. Likewise salad. They never wash them properly. Had more tummy trouble amongst the troops in the old days with fruit and salad than anything else.'
'Oh, Phil, what nonsense,' smiled Lady Althea. 'You're living in the past. Of course everything is washed in an up-to-date place like this. Don't take any notice of him, Miss Dean. We shall be served a five-course dinner, and you must do justice to everything they put on your plate. Just picture your sister Dora sitting down to a boiled egg at home, and think how she would envy you.'
Now that, thought Miss Dean, was kindly meant but uncalled for. Why should Lady Althea imagine that she and Dora never had more than a boiled egg for supper? It was true they ate sparsely in the evening, but that was because they both had small appetites. It was nothing to do with the way they lived or what they could afford. Now, if Father had been here he would have known just how to answer Lady Althea. He would have told her-laughingly, of course, for he was so courteous-that he had been better fed by the two Miss Deans in Syringa Cottage than anywhere else in Little Bletford.
'Thank you, Colonel,' she said, addressing herself pointedly to him, 'I shall follow your advice about the fruit and salad. As to the five-course menu, I shall reserve judgement until I see what they have to offer.'
She hoped she would be sitting next to the Colonel at dinner. He was so considerate. And he knew Jerusalem of old-he was quite an authority.
'Your grandson,' she said to him, 'makes friends very easily. He is not at all shy.'
'Oh yes,' replied Colonel Mason, 'Robin's an excellent mixer. Part of my training, I like to think. He reads a lot too. Most children never open a book.'
'Your son-in-law is a scientist, is he not?' said Miss Dean. 'Scientists are such clever men. Perhaps the little boy takes after his father.'
'H'm, I don't know about that,' said the Colonel.
Silly old fool, he thought. Doesn't know what she's talking about. Robin was a Mason all right. Reminded him of himself at the same age. He used to be a great reader too. And imaginative.
'Come on, Robin,' he called, 'your grandmother wants her dinner.'
'Really, Phil,' said Lady Althea, half-amused but rot entirely so, 'you make me sound like the wolf in Red Riding Hood.'
She walked leisurely through the lounge, aware of the many heads that were turned in her direction, not because of her husband's remark, which few people had heard, but because she knew that, despite her sixty-odd years, she was the best-looking and most distinguished woman present. She looked around for the party from Little Bletford, deciding as she did so how she would seat them at dinner. Oh, there they were in the bar-all, that is to say, except Babcock. She dispatched her husband in search of him, and moving into the restaurant summoned the head waiter with an imperious finger.
Her seating plan worked out very well, and everyone appeared satisfied. Miss Dean did justice to the five-course dinner and the wine, though possibly it was a little tactless to lift her glass as soon as it was filled and say to her left-hand neighbour, the Rev. Babcock, 'Let us wish dear Father a speedy recovery, and I am sure he knows how sorely we all miss him here this evening.'
It was not until they were embarking upon the third course that she realised the full import of her words, and remembered that the young man talking to her was not a social worker in the midlands at all but a clergyman himself, acting as deputy for her own beloved vicar. The glass of sherry in the bar had made her light-headed, and the fact that the Rev. Babcock did not wear a clergyman's collar had somehow confused the whole situation.
'Be very careful what you eat,' she said to him, hoping to make amends for any small hurt her words had caused. 'The Colonel says that fruit and salad are not advisable. The native people do not rinse them thoroughly. I think roast lamb would be a wise choice.'
Edward Babcock stared at her use of the word native. Did Miss Dean imagine herself in the wilds of Africa? Just how out of touch with the world of today could you get, he wondered, living in a village in southern England?
'In my rough-and-ready fashion,' he told her, helping himself to ragout of chicken, 'I believe we do more good in the world by seeing how the other half lives than by just sticking to our own routine. We have quite a number of Pakistanis and Jamaicans in our club, amongst our own local lads, and they take it in turn to prepare a meal in the canteen. We get some surprises, I don't mind telling you! But it's a case of share and share alike, and the boys enjoy it.'
'Quite right, padre, quite right,' said the Colonel, who had heard the tail-end of this remark. 'It's absolutely essential to promote a spirit of goodwill in the Mess. Morale goes to pieces if you don't.'
Jim Foster pushed Jill Smith's foot under the table. The old boy was off again. Where did he think he was-Poona? Jill Smith retaliated by bumping her knee against his. They had reached the stage of mutual for-want-of-anything-better-attraction when bodily contact brings warmth, and the most harmless remark made by others suggests a double meaning.
'Depends what you share and who you share it with, don't you agree?' he murmured.
'Once married a girl has no choice,' she murmured back. 'She has to take what her husband gives her.'
Then, noticing Mrs Foster staring at her across the table, she opened her eyes, wide and innocent, and bumped Jim Foster's knee once more to cement duplicity.
Lady Althea, glancing round the restaurant at the occupants of the other tables, wondered if Jerusalem had been such a good choice after all. Nobody of much interest here. Perhaps there would be a better class of people in the Lebanon. Still, it was only for twenty-four hours, and then they would rejoin the boat and go on to Cyprus. She would be content that Phil and darling Robin were enjoying themselves. She must tell Robin not to sit with his mouth open. He was such a good-looking child, and it made him appear half-witted. Kate Foster was surely feeling the heat, she had become very flushed.