A Child of the Cloth Read Free Page A

the organ consul and observed an elderly lady entering the church. Just as she was leaving, she placed a five pound note in the collection box marked ‘Vicars Stipend’ but leaving the edge of the bank note protruding from the box. Seeing the bank note, the temptation was too much for him, feeling aggrieved by his own lack of money he took the bank note. What he did not know was that he had been observed by the Sexton who reported the matter immediately.
    â€œHe had a singular ability to keep off the subject of religion. I had never seen him attend a service at the church and assumed that he must be of the other faith, a Catholic. We had never so much as touched each other; I had never even held his hand.
    â€œI came alive that summer sitting on the wooden bench under the old yew tree in the churchyard with Arthur reading the romantic poetry of Keats and Shelley to me. I found it so easy to fall in love. One day, he gathered lavender from the bushes and gave it to me and when I got home, I placed the lavender between the pages of my Bible and every time I open my Bible and smell the lavender, Arthur is with me.
    â€œThe first time that he touched me, it could either have been by accident or design. It did not matter as it was not unwelcome on my part. I was arranging flowers on the altar when I accidentally dropped one to the floor. At that moment, Arthur appeared next to me, bending down. We were both on our knees, collecting the fallen flower; it seemed the most natural thing in the world as we both instantly moved closer to each other. My heart was pounding and then, as gently as a butterfly’s wings, our lips briefly touched.
    â€œHe gently helped me to my feet saying ‘Amelia please forgive me. I feel so ashamed, I’ve shamed us both’. My mind could hardly comprehend his words. Shamed, ashamed of what? My mind started to work quickly searching the Bible. The word ‘shame’ jumped straight out of the Bible at me. Was this the shame of the original sin of Eve? Or that of the fallen woman. My mind was full of disquiet. I told Arthur that I felt no shame, nor should he. There can be no shame in being kissed by the man you love. He had difficulty in finding his words and said, ‘It is not the kiss, Amelia it is the place, we are standing before this altar, where your father worships his God, to us it is a beautiful first kiss, to your father, blasphemy’.
    â€œAs you can well imagine, that loving first kiss was not the last kiss of that long summer. We would walk hand in hand through Lovers Walk on Wimbledon common in the early evenings and lay innocently together in the long grass to be serenaded by an exaltation of larks high in the sky above us, with Arthur reading to me Shelley’s ‘Ode to a Skylark’. I can still hear Arthur in my mind with the soft beauty of his voice added to Shelley’s words, it was so moving and memorable.” She then started to recite the opening lines of the poem:

    â€œHail to thee, blithe Spirit!
    Bird thou never wert
    That from Heaven or near it
    Pourest thy full heart
    In profuse strains of
    unpremeditated art”
    As she finished speaking she looked pale and thoughtful and then quietly said, “I have tried so many times to read that particular poem in my times of loneliness but I only found cold comfort in the words without Arthur to read them to me. When possible, we would spend whole days together travelling into London, visiting art galleries. I was often delighted by his knowledge of art and artists. We would stand before paintings by the great masters and he would explain in great detail the inner meanings. He saw imagery in paintings that I had been totally unaware of, even though I had looked at the paintings many times before. On one occasion we went to Hampstead to visit Wentworth Place, the home of the poet Keats. It had just been opened to the public; our visit coincided with an exhibition of paintings