A Child of the Cloth Read Free Page B

chronicling his life and that of his fellow poets and their lovers. One painting that we were both instantly drawn to was of Shelley and Mary Godwin seated together with her prayer book by her side in the old St. Pancras Churchyard titled, The Lovers Seat by William Powell Frith, an eminent Victorian artist. Arthur said that it was a painting that reminded him so much of us sitting on the bench under the old yew tree in St Mary’s churchyard. Arthur kindly purchased a postcard copy of the painting for me and he wrote on the back of the postcard:
    â€˜Remembering a lovely day together, another bench in another place. Love Arthur.’
    â€œIt was extremely unnerving to have a secret love that you cannot tell anyone of, or show them tokens of that love that meant so much to one. I had to take great care in conversation, especially with my father, as I could easily in an unguarded moment say something that would lead to questions that I could not answer truthfully. It would be so natural for me to tell to him of the painting and my visit to Wentworth Place. The love of art and the written word was something that I had shared with my father since my early childhood. I concealed the postcard between the pages of my prayer book, cutting off the edges so that it would fit unseen in my prayer book. The need I felt to conceal it from view troubled me greatly. Always meeting on platform five at Wimbledon Station, not wishing to be observed together. This was another sense of dishonesty that was alien to me.
    â€œI felt guilty and ashamed that I could not feel secure in my mind that my parents would accept Arthur. I was convinced I could survive the argument that he was a working-class man, as our Lord had worked with his hands but not his lack of religion. It seemed quite natural in my mind to believe that Arthur was a Christian; even his work seemed to confirm it. I remember the day I discovered the truth. When we met Arthur seemed very ill at ease, on asking him if anything wrong he said, ‘Yes, I’ve kept something that is very important from you, I should have told you when we first met’. I felt a cold shiver go right through me, what could be in his mind, but before I could speculate on what the problem might be he just quietly said, ‘I’m an atheist’!
    â€œI had initially believed that Arthur was a Roman Catholic, though this would be an enormous hurdle to overcome with my father, keeping company with an atheist would be total anathema to him. I felt in time my father’s deep Christian faith would prevail, I kept thinking of the words my father spoke each day when saying grace, ‘We must be mindful of others less fortunate than ourselves’ .
    â€œI was relying on this philosophy, encompassing those that have not had the benefit of Christ’s teachings. Arthur’s initial reluctance to talk about religion changed when we agreed we would not judge each other on the right or wrong of our individual beliefs. I was not sure in my mind whether he would ever believe in my God, as he had once said to me with a slight smile that he would only be convinced there was a God in heaven if a man landed in a spaceship from another world, bearing a copy of the first Common Book of Prayer dated 1549, but he did accept from me my autographed copy of The Life of Christ by the Reverend Frederick Farrar, promising me that he would read it. I told him the book had been a constant companion and that I had turned to it many times for guidance.
    â€œThrough reading it, he would understand my faith and he should especially read my grandfather’s guidance written on the flyleaf. Arthur slowly read out the words my grandfather had written there so many years ago, words that had been given to him by his father, who was also a man of the cloth.
    â€˜I would advise a worldly minded person to read Ecclesiastics to learn the vanity of the creation - a lover of Christ to Solomon’s song. An