Another Year, page 6
“You don’t think it’s shabby and underhand—going round behind their backs?—hatching a kind of plot?”
“They’ve treated you rough,” she said. “You’ve got a right to treat them rough—and it’s for the good of the parish, anyway.”
Mr. Matthews got up and began to walk about the room.
“I’ll begin to-morrow!” he said. “I’d begin to-night if it wasn’t so late. I’ll call on every man and woman in the parish!—I’ll get a hundred supporters or burst!—You said Woodbank was going to be a great adventure, Ruth. You never said a truer thing!”
Chapter Six
Mr. Matthews went into the town next morning to buy a local directory. It gave him a list of names and addresses and a street map of the area, and he began to work out his house-to-house campaign.
On a large-scale map, Woodbank looked like the skeleton of a flat fish, with the High Street as a backbone and the side streets coming in like ribs. The bend of the river gave the fish its belly and the railway formed its back. The builders of the town had tried to cover up what they had done by giving the streets the names of flowers—beginning with Aster Avenue and finishing with Zinnia Drive.
He decided to begin with Marigold Road on the eastern boundary of the parish and work westward to Primrose Street on the other side. There were forty streets with about fifty houses in each … two thousand houses averaging four people to a house. He reckoned that if he visited ten houses every afternoon and ten each evening, he would cover the parish in about three months. He hoped, as he went along, to make friends whom he would revisit, and he set aside a day a week for this, with tea at the Vicarage on Sunday afternoons for his most ardent supporters. He aimed at a hundred supporters to give him a clear majority over any additions that Mrs. Bannister might scrape together when she got wind of what he was doing.
He spent the morning copying out the names of the people in Marigold Road, and after lunch he was ready to start.
“Go easy at first,” said Ruth. “I don’t expect many of them have seen a clergyman at close quarters since they were christened.”
“I don’t expect they have,” he said. “I’ll just begin by making myself known, that’s all.”
“Good luck!” she called out as the gate squeaked behind him.
It was a fine clear day in early February. The air was keen and springlike and Mr. Matthews felt the zest of adventure as he walked briskly down the High Street to Marigold Road.
It was a long, dreary road of small, red brick houses all of which appeared to have more chimneys than rooms. He was lucky with the weather, but not so lucky with the children. He had hoped they would all be in school at that hour of the afternoon, but for some reason it was a holiday, and Marigold Road was swarming with them. It was soon apparent that a clergyman was a novelty in this part of the world. The children stopped their games and hushed their voices when they saw him coming, and he began to wish that he had planned to start his visiting at the first house in the road instead of the one at the farther end, for as he went along the children fell in behind and followed him. By the time he was half-way down the road there were a dozen children at his heels and two cats running along in front.
No. I was the home, according to his notes, of Mr. Abel Wainwright, and when he entered the gate the children crowded round in growing excitement.
“Somebody’s dead,” said a little girl in a blue frock.
As he rang the bell Mr. Matthews saw the pale, scared face of a woman peering at him between the front room curtains. It moved away, and presently the door opened and the woman stood staring at him with terror in her eyes.
“Mrs. Wainwright?” he enquired.
“Yes?” she said in a strangled voice.—“Yes? … what’s happened?”
Mr. Matthews was rather put out by her distressed appearance, but he collected himself and gave her a reassuring smile.
“I’m the new Vicar of St. Peter’s Church,” he said. “My name is Matthews and I just wanted to say ‘how d’you do’, and tell you that I’m here to be of service to you if you ever need me. I shall be at home at the Vicarage every evening from five till six, and I shall always be pleased to see you if you care to come in for a chat. That was all I wanted to say, and I hope I haven’t disturbed you.”
Mrs. Wainwright went on staring, then she put her hand to her eyes with a moan of relief, and he thought she was going to faint.
“Oh …” she gasped.… “… It isn’t my husband then?”
“Your husband?” enquired Mr. Matthews.… “I … I haven’t met your husband. Is … is he ill? … in hospital?”
“Oh no!” cried Mrs. Wainwright.—“Not if you haven’t come to say so!—But he’s working right on top of the paper mill chimney to-day and it’s terrible up there at his age … with his giddy turns. He won’t tell them about his giddy turns for fear of losing his work … and … and it’s so dangerous and …” she nearly sobbed … “and I thought they’d sent you round to say he’d had a horrible accident.”
“I’m very glad I didn’t come with any news like that!” said Mr. Matthews, feeling that she couldn’t have looked worse if he had. There were beads of perspiration on her forehead, and her face was deathly pale.
“I’ve got a bad heart,” she murmured.—“And you gave me such a terrible turn … you shouldn’t do it!—it isn’t right, and I can’t stand it!”—she began to cry as she closed the door and left him on the step.
Mr. Matthews departed, distressed but relieved. He was touched by Mrs. Wainwright’s anxiety for her husband, but very glad she had not died on the doorstep. It would have been a bad start if the first person he had visited had fallen dead at the sight of him.
The children were standing round the gate in an awed, respectful silence. “Has Mr. Wainwright fallen down the chimney?” asked a little boy.
Mr. Matthews reassured him. As far as he knew, he said, Mr. Wainwright was still at the top of the chimney. The children lost interest on hearing this. They seemed to take him for a fraud. They went off to their games again, and Mr. Matthews felt quite lonely as he followed one of the cats into the next gate.
No. 3 Marigold Road was occupied, according to his list, by Mr. Hubert Hobbs, and Mr. Hobbs himself came to the door in answer to the second knock. The cat went straight in, and Mr. Hobbs kicked it out again. He was a burly man in an open, collarless shirt and carpet-slippers, with braces dangling down behind him. He blinked at Mr. Matthews with bleary, blood-shot eyes, and when the Vicar had made his speech of introduction he sighed and nodded wearily.
“I was asleep …” he said. “I’m on night duty at the Post Office.”
“I’m sorry,” replied Mr. Matthews. “I must apologise for disturbing you.”
“It’s hard enough to get off anyway,” said Mr. Hobbs. “What with the baker and everybody else. With all these kids about as well, it’s something cruel.”
“It must be,” agreed Mr. Matthews—“and I’m very sorry I disturbed you. I’ll call again another time.”
Mr. Hobbs nodded and watched the Vicar out of the gate with a blood-shot eye around the edge of the door.
Mrs. Alice Richards lived at No. 5. She was a withered little woman with beady eyes and a shock of untidy grey hair. She was hostile and suspicious, and listened to the first part of Mr. Matthews’ speech with the chain still up on the door. But when he got to the point where he offered his services, her manner changed: she brightened up and took the chain off and asked him into a foetid little sitting-room and made him sit down.
“You’re just the gentleman I want!” she said—“they’d have to listen to a clergyman. They couldn’t help themselves.”
The people who would have to listen turned out to be the Gas Company, who had misread Mrs. Richards’ meter and cheated her out of fourteen shillings.
“It’s the Inspector,” she said—“and it was deliberate. He’s had his knife in me ever since I reported him last year. I never use the stove except for breakfast because I always light the range, and he swindles me because my eyes are bad. I went straight down and reported him, but they don’t listen because I’m poor and haven’t got anybody to stand up for me. But they’d have to listen to a clergyman!”
She took him into the scullery to see the meter. There were the usual meaningless rows of red and black figures, showing through little slots, and Mr. Matthews said he thought they ought to make them easier to understand.
“I understand them all right!” retorted Mrs. Richards—“I understand them a darn sight too well for their liking!”
“Then I think you should go to the Company,” said Mr. Matthews, “and ask for the Secretary.…”
“I’ve done it!” she shouted, working herself up into a fury—“Time and again … and they keep me waiting and don’t see me. But they wouldn’t dare treat a clergyman like that!—You can take all the bills with you so as you’ll know what you’re talking about.”
Mr. Matthews started to explain that it was unwise for a Vicar to interfere in disputes of a purely business nature, and to his dismay she began to abuse him.
“You’re all the same!” she cried: “Humbug and pious words!—You come here saying you want to help, and when a poor woman’s in trouble you start a lot of excuses! What d’you do it for if you don’t mean a word you say?”
In the end Mr. Matthews said he would do what he could. No use ever came of a Vicar interfering in the commercial disputes of his parishioners, and he had seen enough of Mrs. Richards to feel fairly sure the Gas Company was in the right, but the atmosphere in the room was appalling and he either had to surrender or suffocate.
“The Gas Company’s in Chalfont Street,” she said—“And don’t you move until they’ve knocked that 14s. off!”
“I’m very busy now,” he said, “I’ll do the best I can.” And Mrs. Richards closed the door, muttering that people never wanted to help anybody who was old and poor.
When Mr. Matthews reached the street again he saw that he now had a competitor, for an Indian in a seedy blue turban and a brown overcoat was canvassing the houses opposite with an armful of rugs, and it looked as if there was going to be a door-to-door race up the street.
But he soon outstripped the Indian, for there was no answer at No. 7 and No. 9. Mrs. Wright at No. 11 told him she couldn’t wait because her iron was hot and Mr. Podmore at No. 13 was rude. Outside No. 15 he looked back with envy at the Indian, who was still in animated discussion at No. 6, not only with the lady of the house, but with the lady next door as well, across the fence. Mr. Matthews sighed and went on. He wished that Marigold Road was as interested in God as it was in rugs.
At No. 15 he met Mr. James H. Wilson, whose name was engraved upon a brass plate on the door. Mr. Wilson was a jovial man with plastered black hair and two bright red patches on his cheeks like a wooden soldier. When Mr. Matthews offered his services, Mr. Wilson, who was an Insurance Agent, offered his in return and advocated a pedal cycle policy. Mr. Matthews said he had ridden a bicycle for forty years without serious accident, but on this Mr. Wilson looked grave and told him he had cheated fate too long. “The laws of average are against you,” he said—“with all these motors on the road and a man of your age … you can’t depend on your sight and hearing like you used to. If you lost a leg you wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a pound a week for life, would you?—the premium is ten shillings a year with £500 on a fatal accident if you die within a month. It’s worth doing, Mr. Matthews. I wouldn’t say so if it wasn’t.”
Mr. Matthews accepted the proposal form and said he would consider it—but what he was really considering was Mr. Wilson himself, who was the first alert and likely person he had met that afternoon.
“You’re one of the men I’m looking for in Woodbank,” he said: “I’m going to organise a social club, and I want the help of a few keen people with the right spirit and plenty of friends—it’s a job worth doing.…”
He told Mr. Wilson his plans and Mr. Wilson listened good-naturedly with occasional glances at the clock.
“It’s a good idea,” he said when it was over. “I’m too busy for that kind of thing myself—but you go ahead. I’m not against the Church, mind you—I always say it’s a fine thing for people, but Sundays are my busy days because it’s the only time I’m certain of catching people at home.”
He saw Mr. Matthews to the door and said he would drop in at the Vicarage one evening and pick up the pedal cycle proposal form when Mr. Matthews had had the time to fill it in.
“The Regal Insurance Company is first-class,” he called out down the path. “If you have a bad tumble, they pay up and don’t argue.”
By four o’ clock Mr. Matthews had called at twice the number of houses he had allowed for in one afternoon. The news of what he was doing appeared to outstrip his own progress down Marigold Road, for as he went on the element of surprise was lacking. Children answered the doors and said their mothers were out, although in most cases he clearly saw the mothers looking at him between the window curtains. “They think I’m after money,” he thought as he went out of the last gate and turned into the High Street on his way back to the Vicarage. “It’s a mistake to go from door to door … to-morrow I’ll make quick, surprise calls, here and there in different streets, and see if that works better.”
Chapter Seven
But the quick surprise calls worked no better than the methodical house-to-house ones. Some days he tried one way and some days the other. He gave up thinking of them as “house-to-house” and called them “door-to-door”, for that was about all it ever came to.
“It’s disappointing,” he said: “I’m up against a brick wall and I’m not getting anywhere.”
“You can’t cure years of prejudice in a week,” said Ruth.
“I don’t think it is prejudice,” he answered. “People have got to feel something to be prejudiced, but these don’t feel anything. They just don’t care, one way or another. I thought some of them would be prejudiced against Mrs. Bannister Paget and her gang for freezing them out of the church—but I don’t believe any of them have ever heard of Mrs. Bannister Paget. If I told them I wanted to throw her out of the Church Council they’d probably say: ‘Why throw her out if she wants to stay?”’
He began looking through the note-book in which he kept a record of every visit. It was depressing reading.
“Most of them imagine I’m after money,” he said. “When I say I’m not, they seem to think I’m playing some kind of confidence trick. They can’t believe anybody would take the trouble to call unless they wanted to sell something. If I had something to fish out of a bag and show them, like these fellows with furniture polish and shirt buttons, I might get somewhere. It’s something solid and visible that sets the ball rolling.”
“What about that pamphlet you wrote about the club?” said Ruth. “Make it interesting and attractive to look at and have it printed and sell it to them at sixpence a time—the sixpence to go into a foundation fund. Once they’ve put some money into it they’ll be interested and want something in return. As long as you go about saying you don’t want any money they think there’s something fishy about it.”
Mr. Matthews thought it was an idea worth trying, so he laid off his visiting and re-wrote the pamphlet. He designed a picture for the front page, showing people acting a drama and playing badminton and dancing, and titled it with the one sentence—“WHAT ARE YOU INTERESTED IN?” He had 500 copies printed. It cost him most of the money the people had given him when he left Little Stanton, but it looked attractive, and he began his new campaign refreshed and hopeful.
It certainly worked better than the old one. People were interested to see what he had got and quite a number paid their sixpence. He followed this up with a form of membership to fill in and the free use of his fountain pen.
Most of them fought shy of the fountain pen. They said they would fill up the form when they had talked it over with somebody who was always out at the moment, but would be in later on.
But Mr. Matthews soon discovered that clubs were not born from pamphlets carried by lonely strangers from door to door. When barely a dozen forms came back he began return calls on those who had seemed most interested. But he found that an epidemic of second thoughts had now set in. Some said they hadn’t got the time: others that they belonged to a club outside the parish and saw no reason for another one, while one man bluntly expressed what the others were no doubt thinking when he said the whole thing was a sprat to catch a mackerel. “After all,” he declared “it’s a church club, isn’t it?—whatever you like to call it. You aren’t running it because you’re mad about seeing us dancing and playing cards. You’re doing it because you’re the Vicar here and it’s your job to get people into church any way you can.”
“There are worse things than going to church,” retorted Mr. Matthews.
“There are better things, too,” said the man—“when you’ve been cooped up in a flour mill all the week.”
But Mr. Matthews kept at it, and finally collected seventeen completed forms of membership. In the space marked: “What branch of the club are you specially interested in?” nine said Whist Drives, three said Dances, two were for Drama and one for Debating, while two expressed a willingness for anything that came along.
It was not encouraging, but seventeen were enough to justify a preliminary meeting. “We can appoint some of them as organising secretaries for the various activities,” he said. “That’ll spur them on to rope their friends in.”
He sent out post-cards calling a meeting at the Vicarage for eight o’clock one evening, adding at the bottom—“bring your friends,” and Mrs. Matthews and Mrs. Burgin spent the afternoon cutting sandwiches and preparing cakes and coffee for thirty, to be on the safe side.
By eight o’ clock eleven people had arrived. They looked incredulously at the fine array of apparently free food, and when Mrs. Matthews invited them to help themselves they fell upon it as if they half suspected it to be a mirage that would melt away before it was inside them. Mr. Matthews listened anxiously for the bell, but by eight-thirty no one else had come, and he began the meeting to save his furniture and carpets from being eaten.
