Read Regret to Inform You... for Free Online Page B

chair wondering how best to tell Eleanor all that had happened. He need not have worried, for how good she was at judging the best way to start a conversation. The soft blue eyes settled on Arthur, but she let him get well underway with his tea and teacake before prompting him to speak.
    â€˜So, how did you get on my love? How did you find the bishop?’
    From telling his wife how surprised he was to find that his meeting had been with the dean, he moved on to what he now thought to be the real purpose of the summons to Canchester.
    â€˜It seemed to me that you should really have been there although, of course, I didn’t know that until this morning.’ His wife gave a slightly puzzled look, but refrained from interrupting him. ‘Well, it was as if his questions about my background and St Mary’s were just a prelude to his real purpose: to launch into the fact that you supported the suffragettes.’
    â€˜He what?’ In spite of her intended silence to listen to Arthur she couldn’t help interjecting these words of surprise. He could sense her tone of disbelief.
    â€˜After I told him about the support you give to me in the parish, he said in a very direct way that he knew you supported the suffragettes. He leapt to the conclusion that you supported, indeed were actively involved in their more extreme activities.’
    Arthur was finding it increasingly hard to relay to his vivacious wife all that had transpired at the bishop’s palace, but neither he nor Eleanor ever stopped short of telling the truth. ‘He really said all that, Arthur? Pray tell me what you said?’
    He finished his cup of tea, a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘I told him that you definitely supported the movement, but the sanctity of life was overwhelmingly important to you. In other words you would never knowingly cause harm to another. I told him I respected your views as you do mine. Believe it, or believe it not, he demanded to know whether I had used my position as a priest to dissuade you.’
    He wondered how Eleanor would respond: disbelief, anger and if anger, to whom would that anger show? To the bishop? The dean? Even to himself? As had been the pattern in so much of their life together, he was surprised at her words.
    â€˜Poor Arthur! And you had gone wondering whether you were to be offered a bigger parish, whilst the whole plan seems to have been spying on me.’ She stood up, moved across and lightly kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for saying what you did. I know we don’t see eye to eye on votes for women, but we will always respect each other. I love you even more for saying that.’
    Arthur relaxed as their love remained unaffected. ‘Come on,’ said Eleanor, ‘it’s not raining and it won’t be dark for another hour. Let’s take a walk along Church Stream.’ Arthur nodded in delight.
    Quickly dressed in warm coat and wellington boots, they left by the back door, walked to the end of the garden, through the small wooden gate and onto their own special path which came to the deep gully from which Church Stream emerged and crossed Bury Way beyond the churchyard. How many times had they walked together along this narrow path as it followed the shallow stream? It was slippery now and care needed to be taken. The trees, a mixture of oak, horse chestnut and elm still showed their unadorned winter wear.
    Eleanor stopped and turned back to her husband, the path was too narrow here for them to walk alongside each other. ‘I love this time of the year,’ she said. ‘Of course, it’s lovely when all the leaves show themselves, but look at the patterns of the bare branches; that oak over there, amazing.’ They stopped, too, a little further on and Arthur gently pulled a low branch even lower.
    â€˜Look, sticky buds. I remember as a child I once collected some, took them home and gave them to mother. Strange, I hadn’t thought about