Miss Hargreaves Read Free Page A

members of the congregation in memory of the late Reverend Mr Archer, vicar here for forty years who died in 1925.’ He hissed and glared at us. ‘You will be kind enough to read the inscription. Mr Archer was a good man.’
    ‘Dear Mr Archer,’ I said.
    No more. Said it without thinking much. Didn’t even realize that I had sown the seed.
    ‘Dear Mr Archer.’ Like that. Nothing more. Queer how those three simple words affected the sexton.
    ‘You,’ he teethed eagerly, ‘were a friend of the late very beloved Reverend Mr Archer?’
    I was cautious.
    ‘By no means,’ I said. ‘But I have heard a lot about him. Haven’t I, Henry?’
    ‘You bet we have,’ said Henry cheerily. He was always very quick in this way.
    ‘Oh, but, indeed,’ screamed the sexton in a frenzy of delight, whipping off the dust-sheet from the pulpit — ‘a friend of Mr Archer’s is a friend of Lusk.’
    I fondled the tail-feathers of the bird half absently.
    ‘I wish to emphasize,’ I said, ‘that I never knew Mr Archer
personally
. But I have a great friend who knew him well in his’–I peered at the brass plate–‘in his Cambridge days,’ I added.
    ‘Oxford,’ said Henry, annoyingly going off on his own track.
    ‘I said Cambridge,’ I remarked acidly, ‘and Cambridge I meant.’
    The sexton seemed not to hear us. ‘Mr Archer was our best-beloved pastor,’ he said, speaking in a dreamy hiss, through his nose like a Welsh
hwyl
. ‘There was not a man more respected. He was a darling man, most free with his money. And his daughters — ah! They were the lovely creatures and all!’
    ‘Let me see,’ I said, biting my lip reminiscently and looking at the roof, ‘there were four, weren’t there?’
    ‘Three,’ said the sexton.
    I frowned. ‘Surely–four?’ It was annoying to be contradicted.
    ‘Yes, you are right, sir,’ cried the sexton. ‘Four it is–four beautiful creatures. There was Miss Emily, there was Miss Angela, Miss Dorothea, and–and–’ He paused and looked at me suspiciously. ‘There were only three!’ he snapped suddenly.
    ‘Surely,’ I corrected gently, ‘you are forgetting Miss Seraphica?’
    ‘Miss Seraphica,’ said Henry gravely, ‘was–alas!–always overlooked.’
    ‘Consistently overlooked. She died,’ I reminded him, ‘in
complete
obscurity.’
    ‘Maybe I forget,’ sighed Squint. ‘My poor memory is not so good as once it was.’
    Thanking God for his poor memory, I asked him what had become of Mr Archer’s surviving daughters.
    ‘Miss Emily,’ he said, ‘teaches in Belfast. Every Christmas she writes to me, the darling lady. Miss Angela married an army gentleman called–called–’
    Henry quickly took advantage of the poor memory.
    ‘Major Road?’ he suggested, ‘M.C.’
    ‘Possibly,’ said the sexton. ‘And Miss Dorothea went to live in America with an aunt. She was the most beautiful one. Gone!’ He waved his arm mournfully.
    ‘Baltimore?’ I murmured.
    ‘That is so,’ said the sexton.
    I sighed. ‘Dear, dear! For so long I have looked forward to seeing Mr Archer’s church. And now–here we are! Something very moving about it, isn’t there, Henry?’
    Henry touched his eye with his handkerchief and declared that he had never been so moved.
    ‘If I had been told,’ said the sexton, ‘that two gentlemen would come into this church this evening who knew Mr Archer, I would not have believed it. No, I would not! Holy God no!’
    I reminded him again that I had never known Mr Archer personally. But he ignored this and went on to talk about the Communion plate.
    ‘It is,’ he said, ‘of the very finest beaten gold, studded with onyx, opals and agate. You will please to follow and I will show you. It was Mr Archer’s gift to the church. Holy God, it is beautiful plate!’
    We followed him to the vestry, feeling much less depressed. While we examined the plate I spun a few more fancies concerning Mr Archer. He had edited, I suggested, a hymn-book and