The Comforters

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘Friday evening then?’ said Mervyn.

‘Yes,’ she answered with melancholy.

‘See you Friday,’ said Andrew.

‘Thank you, Mrs Jepp, for a most pleasant evening.’ said Mr Webster.

Because Laurence had started writing a letter, resting the paper on a book on his knee, Louisa was clearing part of the table for him, saying, ‘Come, love, sit up at the table, it’s more comfortable.’

‘No, I always write like this.’

Louisa spread a white cloth over the corner reserved for Laurence. ‘Always put a white cloth under your papers when you write a letter. It’s good for your eyes because it reflects back the light. Come, dear, sit up at the table.’

Laurence shifted to the table and continued writing. After a few minutes he said, ‘The white cloth does make a difference. Much pleasanter.’

Louisa, lying full-length on the sofa by the little back window where she rested till tea-time in the afternoons, replied dozily, ‘When I told Mervyn Hogarth of that little trick, he started working out in his head whether it could be effective or not, all about light-rays and optics. “Try it, Mervyn,” I said, “just try it, then you’ll know for certain that I’m right.”‘

‘Of course,’ Laurence reflected absently, ‘it may be due to something psychological.’

‘Oh, it’s something psychological all right,’ said Louisa surprisingly and imponderably. Then she closed her eyes.

She opened them again a few seconds later to say, ‘If it’s your mother you’re writing to give her my love.’

‘I’m writing to Caroline, actually.’

‘Then give her my love and say I hope she feels better than she was at Easter. How has she been lately?’

‘Miserable. She’s gone away to some religious place in the north for a rest.’

‘She won’t get much of a rest in a religious place.’

‘That’s what I thought. But this is one of Mother’s ideas. She gets together with her priests and builds these buildings. Then they dedicate them to a saint. Then Mother sends her friends to stay in them.’

‘But Caroline isn’t a Catholic.’

‘She’s just become one.

‘I thought she was looking thin. How does that affect you, dear?’

‘Well, of course Caroline’s left me, in a way. At least, she’s gone to live somewhere else.’

‘Well!’ said the old woman, ‘that’s a nice thing!’

‘We might get married some day.’

‘Ah, and if not?’ She looked at him with a reserved wonder as she added, ‘Does Caroline know what she’s doing? The one certain way for a woman to hold a man is to leave him for religion. I’ve known it happen. The man might get another girl, but he never can be happy with anyone else after a girl has left him for religious reasons. She secures him for good.’

‘Is that really true?’ Laurence said. ‘How very jolly. I must tell Caroline.’

‘Oh well, my love, it’s all for the best. I hope you can marry her, soon. They wouldn’t make you become a Catholic, you only have to promise to bring up the children Catholics. And after all, children these days make up their own minds when they grow up. And there’s nothing wrong in being a Catholic if you want to be one.’

‘It’s a bit complicated,’ Laurence said. ‘Poor Caroline isn’t well.’

‘Poor Caroline. That’s religion for you. Give her my love and tell her to come down here. I’ll feed her up, I daresay everything will come out all right.’

‘Grandmother has just dozed off again,’ Laurence wrote, ‘after looking up to inquire after you. The news of your conversion caused a serious expression, on her face. Made her look like one of Rembrandt’s old women, but she rapidly regained her Louisa face. She wants you here, to give you things to eat.

‘I hated seeing your train out at Euston and mooned off afterwards with thoughts of following you on the evening train. Met the Baron in Piccadilly Underground and walking back with him to the bookshop fell under his influence and decided against. He argued, “The presence of a non-believer in a Catholic establishment upsets them if the unbeliever is not interested in acquiring their faith. Those places always advertise their welcome to the faithless. However, if you go merely looking for Caroline, it will upset them, you will not be welcome. Moreover, they will have it in for Caroline, for being manifestly more desirable to you than their faith.” On the whole, I decided it would be cloddish to barge in, just as well as it has turned out.

‘I couldn’t face the flat so went over to Hampstead. Father was in, Mother out. He let fall something that rather worries me. Apparently there’s a woman by name of Hogg at the outfit you are staying at. She’s a sort of manageress. Mother got her the job. God knows why. We all loathe her. That’s why we’ve always gone out of our way for her really. She’s that Georgina Hogg I think I’ve mentioned, the one who used to be a kind of nursery-governess before we went to school. She got married but her husband left her. Poor bastard, no wonder. We used to feel sorry for him. She suffers from chronic righteousness, exerts a sort of moral blackmail. Mother has a conscience about her — about hating her so much I mean, is terrified of her but won’t admit it. Father calls her Manders’ Mortification. Of course she’s harmless really if you don’t let her get under your skin. I think I could handle the woman, at least I used to. But best to avoid her, darling. I hope you won’t come across her. I confronted mother with her damned silliness in sending you to a place where Georgina is, at a time when you’re feeling limp. She looked a bit guilty but said, “Oh, Caroline will put Georgina in her place.” I do hope you will. If she upsets you, leave immediately and come down here to be plumped up. Such things are happening down here!

‘Arrived on Sunday night. My little grandmother is a mighty woman, as I always knew. I’ve discovered such things! She runs a gang. I’m completely in the dark as to what sort of gang, but I should probably think they are Communist spies. Three men. A father and son. The son’s a cripple, poor chap. The father has a decided air of one manqué. The third gangster is rather a love, like a retired merchant sailor, fairly old. He’s sweet on Grandmother. He owns the local bakery and delivers the bread himself.

‘I don’t know how far Grandmother is implicated in their activities, but she’s certainly the boss. She’s handsomely well-off. I think she only draws her pension to avoid suspicion. Do you know where she keeps her capital? In the bread. She sticks diamonds in the bread. Without a word of exaggeration, I came across a loaf weirdly cut at both ends, and in one end diamonds, real ones. I wondered what the hell they were at first, and picked out one of the stones ever so carefully. Diamonds look so different when they aren’t set in jewellery. When I saw what it was, I put the stone back in its place. Grandmother has no idea that I’m on to this, of course. Isn’t she a wonder? I wonder what her racket is. I don’t think seriously of course that they are spies, but criminals of some sort. The thing is, Grandmother isn’t being used, she’s running the show. The main thing is, Mother mustn’t find out, so be most careful, my love, what you say.

‘I intend to find everything out, even if it means taking an extra week and mucking up Christmas. I’ve started compiling a dossier.

‘Any ideas on the subject, let me know. Personally, I think Grandmother is having the time of her life, but it might be serious for her if the men are caught. I can’t begin to guess what they’d be caught at. They may be jewel thieves, but that doesn’t fit in with the sweet naval old fellow’s character. Anything fits G’mother’s.

‘Grandmother openly refers to them as “my gang”, airy as a Soho slender. Says they come to play cards. I met them here the other night, since when I’ve been snooping. I wish you would come for a few days and help me “put two & two together” as G’mother says. I hope you don’t get the jitters at St Philumena’s. Take it from me, you have to pick and choose amongst Catholic society in England, the wrong sort can drive you nuts. Mother knows she’s done the wrong thing in sending you there. It’s her passion for founding “Centres” and peopling them, gets the better of her. Father swears she’ll start a schism.

‘I expect a letter from you tomorrow. Longing to hear that you have got Mrs Hogg under control. It would be rather fun in a way if you had a set-to with her. I’d like to be there if you did. There, but concealed.’

Louisa opened her eyes and said, ‘Put the kettle on, dear.’

Laurence laid down his pen. He asked her, ‘Who d’you think is in charge of that religious place Caroline’s gone to?’

‘Who, dear?’

‘Mrs Hogg.’

‘In charge! I thought it was a convent.’

‘No, only a Centre. Georgina is housekeeper or something.’

‘Does your mother know that?’

‘Yes, she gave her the job.’

‘I think something is happening to Helena’s mind,’ said Louisa.

‘Mrs Hogg! Just think of her, Grandmother, worming in on Caroline.’

‘Mrs Hogg,’ said Louisa, as if she’d never heard the like. ‘Mrs Hogg. Well, Caroline will fix her.’

Laurence went into the scullery to fill the kettle, and shouted from there, ‘You haven’t seen her lately?’

His grandmother was silent. But as he returned and placed the kettle on the black coal stove, Louisa told him, ‘I haven’t seen her for years. A few months ago your Mother wrote to suggest that Georgina Hogg should come and live here as a companion for me.

Laurence chuckled.

‘You said no bloody fear, I suppose.’

‘I said that I would not wish to have that poisonous woman in my house for a five-second visit. It fairly puts you against Catholics, a person like that.’

Laurence took up his pen again.

‘I detest that woman,’ said Louisa.

‘Grandmother is awake now,’ Laurence wrote. ‘She has been delivering herself of her views on Ma Hogg. “Poisonous” she says. It makes me rather sorry for the old Hogg being so dislikable. Truly, she has to be savoured to be believed.’

‘Tell Caroline,’ Louisa broke in, ‘to be careful of Mrs Hogg. Say she’s dangerous.’

‘I’ve told her,’ Laurence said.

He finished his letter, and read it over.

After tea he added to it, ‘P.S. I forgot to mention Grandmother’s cheque book. According to the stubs she donates the exact sum of her pension each week to the Prisoners’ Aid Society.’

He sealed the letter, then went to post it.

TWO

A storm, fierce enough to hold up the shipping at the mouth of the Mersey, ranged far enough inland to keep Caroline Rose indoors, where she paced the pale green corridors. Not for exercise but in order to think. A thinking-place of green corridors. The Pilgrim Centre of St Philumena.

‘Taking exercise.’ This was Mrs Hogg tacking on to her, infuriating. Taking exercise. Not a question, a statement.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Caroline.

‘And feeling lonely,’ said Mrs Hogg with her sort of smile. Feeling lonely, taking exercise. Caroline made no answer. The small perfect idea which had been crystallizing in her mind went all to mist. All right, I am at your disposal. Eat me, bloody well take the lot. I am feeling lonely. Rome has spoken.

‘Another time,’ said Mrs Hogg, ‘you don’t want to make a private Retreat. You want to come in the summer with one of the big pilgrimages for one of the big Feasts.’

‘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.