Free Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker Page A

this,’ she said. And again she rubbed her hands together and smiled at me.
    ‘I’m sure you are,’ I said wretchedly.
    Just as we drew up to the Deanery, the Dean came out of his front door and stood under the arches saying goodbye to some friends. Miss Hargreaves fumbled quickly for her lorgnettes.
    ‘The Dean?’ she murmured. I nodded. She tapped on the window. ‘Stop a moment,’ she commanded. ‘I must have a word with him.’
    ‘Not now–please, not now,’ I begged.
    But already she was getting out of the car and walking quite briskly towards the group under the Deanery arches. Surprised, the Dean looked up. I heard her talking.
    ‘My dear Mr Dean, pray excuse me. But on the privilege of my first visit to your Cathedral town, I feel that I must make myself known to you.’ She handed him a card which the Dean could not very well avoid taking.
    ‘My Uncle Grosvenor had a great attachment to Cornford,’ she added.
    ‘Oh? Indeed?’ said the Dean. He turned pointedly to his friends. ‘Well, good-bye, good-bye. Yes, we must certainly do something about those frescoes. Good-bye.’
    ‘Sing unto the Lord! Sing unto the Lord!’
    I jumped aside nervously, wondering for the moment who had shrieked out the harsh notes. It was, of course, that damn cockatoo. Miss Hargreaves laughed gaily.
    ‘What is that?’ asked the Dean.
    ‘Oh, it is only Dr Pepusch,’ she explained. The Dean glared over to the taxi and now noticed me. I slunk back trying to make myself invisible.
    ‘Is that you, Huntley?’ he snapped. ‘Was that you crying out?’
    ‘Oh, no, Mr Dean. Not me, not at all. I–’
    ‘Well, good night to you,’ said the Dean coldly. He turned, walked under the arches and shut his door loudly. Miss Hargreaves came back to the taxi and got in.
    ‘Sing unto the Lord!’ croaked Dr Pepusch, more in a minor key this time. It was funny, but that bird was never so certain of himself when Miss Hargreaves was near by.
    ‘Yes, dear;
yes
,’ she said indulgently. ‘So you
shall
sing unto Him. He’–she addressed me–‘he is so proud of his
Venite
. He has not got it quite right yet. I taught it to him while we were at Hereford. The chant is by Samuel Wesley. I only hope that he understands what it
means
. I like you, Dean; a fine, scholarly, upstanding clergyman. He was Balliol, was he not? I hope he is not a modernist.’

    We left the Close through Princes’ Gate, drove up Canticle Alley and thus came into the High Street. In a few minutes we should be at the Swan. By now the other taxi had disappeared ahead of us.
    Quite suddenly, out of the void of my half-fearful gloom a mad and wild idea lurched into my head; a burst of my old inventiveness, tempting me on to destruction. Another leap on to the ever-tempting Spur.
    ‘And how is Agatha?’ I asked.
    (I suppose you understand that I hadn’t the slightest idea who Agatha was? No good asking me why I do things like that. I’m made that way, as I told you earlier.)
    ‘Sinking!’ she replied promptly. ‘Rapidly sinking!’
    For the moment I was silenced; almost appalled by the immediate and totally unexpected response to my question.
    ‘Tch! Tch!’ I clicked sympathetically. ‘But still,’ I added gravely, ‘it was bound to come, sooner or later.’
    ‘Yes. We all sink, sooner or later. The bar must be crossed by all.’
    ‘Does she suffer?’ I asked. (I was now enjoying it.)
    ‘Cruelly.’
    ‘You will miss her.’
    Miss Hargreaves touched her eyes with a fine lace handkerchief.
    ‘Yes, indeed, I shall miss her–almost as much as I miss poor Seraphica Archer. I expect a telegram at any moment to say she has passed. I cannot pretend I shall be sorry. Protracted suffering is hard to understand. But it will be an old–a very old tie severed.’
    ‘You will find it distressing,’ I ventured, ‘to return to Oakham without her.’
    ‘I shall not return,’ she said simply.
    ‘Oh? You–will not return?’
    ‘No. I am closing Sable Lodge.