"Christ's Kingdom should come in our lifetime," he now realized reading the book-that the pond was neither as he had seen it nor as Oscar had described it.

Wardley-Fish had an impression of a killjoy, love-nothing, a man you could not send a birthday present to in case he smelt the racetrack on it, a man who would snatch a little Christmas pudding from a young boy's mouth. But where he might have expected to find a stern and lifedenying spirit, he found such a trembling and tender appreciation of hedgerow, moss, robin, and the tiniest of sea creatures that even Wardley-Fish (it was he who thought the "even") was impressed and moved. Leaning against the counter at Martindale's with all the heavy physical awkwardness of a fellow waiting for his wife at the milliner's, he read this passage: "the pretty green Ploycera ocellata was numerous; but the most abundant, and at the same time most lovely species was the exquisite Eolis coronata, with tentacles surrounded by membranous coronets, and with crowded clusters of papillae, of crimson and blue that reflect the most gemlike radiance."

Now Wardley-Fish thought himself a man's man, steeped in brandy and good cigars, and ifexpediently-he had renounced the racecourse, he had no intention of abandoning the hunt, which he still rode to at Amersham whenever it was possible. Further, he imagined himself stupid. He had been told so long enough, and had this not been his father's opinion also, he would never have been pushed into a life as a clergyman. His early wish had been to study law, but he was told he had not the brain for it. He had not questioned this assessment and had therefore decided, whilst still at Oriel, that he could only hope to advance himself through connections, the most effective of which would be made through marriage.

He claimed to have no ear for poetry or music and yet he was moved-it nearly winded him-by the elder Hopkins's prose. Where he had expected hellnre and mustard poultice, he found maidenhair and a ribbon of spawn. "I found the young were perfectly formed, each enclosed by a globular egg, perfectly transparent and colourless."

To be able to feel these things, to celebrate God's work in such a lovely hymn, Wardley-Fish would have given everything and anything. He felt, in these simple, naturalist's descriptions, what he had never felt-what he should have felt-in the psalm beginning "I will extol 163

Oscar and Lucinda thee, my Cod, ^,

He stood at tK Kin8; and J wil1 bless Thy name for ever and ever." one would expet)C°unter' his head bowed, with that moist-eyed look returning to di^, f° ** Produced by a sentimental story. His fiancee, the saucy-eyed JVer both the changed mood and the parcel which the one had caUs'stant was wraPPingfor him, saw immediately that disposed towar^ the other' and was therefore not sympathetically liked him best», he book-She knew him as bright and jolly. She They found a ^ red Jacket fifteen hands high, ton. Riding throu!nsom outside the shop and ordered it to Kensinggreen, he contin^ Hyde Park' with a11 the deep black trees shooting his secret visit w% to think/ as he had thought, continually, since a room with only the coa1' of his friend who had jailed himself in of a terrifying vo> birdless sky for company and only the prospect

Once when he failed to look forward to.

Harrow, he had iv *s voun8' so y°ung he was not yet a boarder at a single blue starry dled with a stamP in his father's vast collection, so reverent almost With a Picture of a swan. He had been so careful, damaged. His fath^j.and yet' somehow, the perforations had been ing which made hJ' °f course' had noticed, and it was not the birchafterwards, but that? blubber into his nanny's white starched bosom caused harm, and t?e had intended only admiration, and instead had It was his charaq is harm was irreversible.

and so it would be ^.to carry the burden of his mistakes with him, not clear his mind,^Uh Oscar'

He could not put it down. He could

The carriage lurcj^ lt-Wardley-Fish, Jiearihed °n to the brid8e across the Serpentine and her and knew he diq 8 his fiancee exclaim bad-temperedly, looked at gusting to him. He f^.not like her-Her Httle plump wrists seemed disso by the powder oh choked' claustrophobic, was made particularly He wished he had u her dimPled cheek.

He had put the idea j ne out to Africa-He had thought of it for a while, ing to Africa togeth^to the Odd Bod's head-They had talked of goGardens-but there, r~this was well before the day at Cremorne now he knew he sho *d been the Problem of the water phobia. But tion that had made V^ have 8one to Africa anyway and the ambicontemptible. him court the da" ghter of a bishop seemed

He knew she would

he asked if he might j,110'like the.elder H «pkins's book, and yet when but rather in the hop Cad her a little' he d>d not do it provocatively, "Melody,"hesaid, '-^ that he might be wrong. must share my secret with you." They had not

164

Hymns

spoken since they left the West End and, as this silence was unusual, he knew she would be uneasy. He did not normally read at all, and he knew his purchase of a book would seem strange. Still, he pulled the string on the green parcel, smiling queerly in her direction.

"We are almost there, dearest," she said, but took the paper and string from him and began to tidy it. Wardley-Fish did not see the reproof intended.

"A little only," he said. "Here. It is written by the Odd Bod's pater and not in the least what one would expect."

She nodded, severely, she hoped.

Wardley-Fish opened the book, not at the beginning, but at random. " The body is about one and a half inches thick.' " he said (this was not quite the sort of thing he sought) " 'and the same in height, of a purplish brown hue marked with longitudinal bands of a dull lilac, each band margined with a darker colour.' "

Melody Clutterbuck looked at her fiancé, perplexed. They passed a troop of guardsmen on horseback, a sight she normally loved. She did not even notice. She opened her mouth to speak, to object to the unsavoury scent-there was no other way to think of it-of this writing. It certainly did not seem appropriate for ladies. But her fiancé was ahead of her. He was already galloping on in search of better evidence. A paragraph here. A sentence there.

"You see, you see," he exclaimed, his eyes glistening wet. She had only seen him become this excited about horses. "The old boy is a marvel. The old boy is alarming. It is the 'Yea!' Melody, isn't it? Your father's 'Yea!' Mr Carlyle's 'Eternal Yea!' The one your pater speaks of." "Ian, please!" "From this," he waved the book with great emotion, "to a room with no hre."

"Dearest, you make no sense."

" Within a day or two after this, the other two of the same species lay their spawn.' No, no dearest. It is botany, or zoology. The old fellow is a fearsome Evangelical so we need not worry ourselves about propriety."

But talk as he might, he knew he had gone too far. He surrendered 'he book when she held out her left hand for it and he watched it join its partner-she was, in spite of her firm chin, very agitated-as the Pair of them, left and right, attempted to collaborate in rewrapping tl» e parcel. I am frightened of her, he thought, and it is far too young to know

such a thing.

165

Oscar and Lucinda

It was the Hon. Mary Braden-Loch's day At Home. The young clergyman performed expertly. Melody Qurterbuck was pleased to have him much admired and had soon forgiven him his outburst in the cab. She was alarmed therefore to notice, in a break in the conversation, the dead quality of his lovely eyes. She could not guess that they held the indefinite sky of a window three storeys above the streets of Netting Hill. ^?