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On Sundays spent with the Rhodes's it was understood that we attend the parish church at Standon. Heaton, Kathleen, Faith, Mercy and I walked there and returned the same way afterwards. We hated it. One day Kathleen, who had brains and spirit, announced to Mr Rhodes in the presence of Mrs Rhodes and the family, that it was ridiculous to go. We were astounded. Mrs Rhodes, who always reminded me of the Mona Lisa and derived her frightening quality from the source that Leonardo must have known, pursed her lips ever so slightly, the smile fading out of her eyes; or perhaps, since they did not alter in any other way I can describe, it was my imagination that made me think so. She asked why. Kathleen did not flinch – let me be the sacred poet who only can erect an imperishable monument to her courage – and with eyes blazing in contrast to the block of ice that her mother had become, said “I think Mr Philson is a fool; he gabbles away” – and so he did – “like an old cockatoo!”
When she had finished her denunciation Mrs Rhodes ordered her up to her bedroom. There, for the rest of the day, she stayed. Heaton and I – the men – were delighted but did nothing. I do not know what we could have done, but … well, it was her funeral, not ours. I was to remember my cowardice many years after in a situation which could not be so easily laughed off. Was I in love with Kathleen? ‘In my fashion’ perhaps, provided it did not cost too much.
After lunch we went to the chapel in Latchford, a tin-roofed little box with ‘gothic’ windows and a patch of stained glass in one of them – ‘late lavatory’ would describe the style. Mrs Rhodes would play the harmonium to accompany the hymns. There we were, scrubbed, transformed yet recognizably the same. Saint Paul has described it beautifully: “Behold I tell you a mystery. We shall not
all die, but we shall be changed.“ So we were! And though we might reasonably have died of laughing, in fact we did not dare. The change must have been something to do