Was There Love Once? [antikvár]

WAS THERE LOVE ONCE? PART I CHAPTER ONE " Judith Fear can best be explained," Father Porteous used to say, when his humour was getting the better of his desire to be good, " in terms of her father. The Reverend Basil Mottram Fear is the fine, dark, lowering background against which that pale, passionate girl can be seen in sharp relief and understood. And much of Father Mottram Fear can be deduced from the notice-board outside his church. I recommend you to take a look at it. And I think you will see what I mean." Of course, in the whole Church of England it was only Father Porteous who referred to the Rev. Basil Mottram Fear as " Father." He did it in mischievous mood, for Mr. Mottram Fear was no Anglo-Gatholic like himself, but as broad a churchman as can be got into the ample cassock of Anglicanism. Let us, then, on Father Porteous's advice, take a look at this notice-board outside the church of St. Columba, Stenning Gate. Let us consider it as it was on a certain June day in the year 1936. What was remarkable about it as it stood under a plane tree by the churchyard gate ? What did it reveal ? Nothing to a heathen eye unversed in the Church's ways. And nothing to a church-going eye if it was the eye of some simple-souled and credulous parishioner. But to such an eye as Father Porteous's, which was shrewd and twinkled, quite a deal. To him that dark-green notice-board with the faded gilt lettering was a window through which he could see at least the outlines of the Rev. Basil Mottram Fear. First it published the times of the Sunday sei-vices : Holy Communion, 8.0 a.m.; Matins, 11.o a.m.; Children,