Chapter 1
In the middle of November, Miss Prim had the opportunity of meeting her employer’s mother.
She arrived without warning, wearing an elegant hat and followed by a maid weighed down with luggage.
The children greeted her jubilantly, signifying to the librarian that behind the imposing aspect was concealed an attentive, devoted grandmother.
An opinion Miss Prim held on to even after she observed that the children’s joy was due in large part to the pet bulldog and the numerous presents she had brought with her.
Miss Prim was immediately struck by her extreme beauty.
An attractive, refined woman is a work of art, her father had always said.
If this was true, and the librarian believed it was, the lady who had just entered the house was a Botticelli, a Leonardo, even a Raphael.
“Where is my son?” she asked briskly as the maid helped her remove her beautiful silver-fox fur stole.
“At the abbey, I’m afraid,” replied the librarian.
“The abbey,” the old lady echoed in a disapproving tone. “If he thought less about the abbey and more about this house, everything would go much better. And you are?”
“I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Prudencia Prim, and I’m here to sort out the library.”
The lady stared at her for a few moments without a word. She looked closely at her face and examined her figure minutely, finally bringing her gaze to rest on her neat hair. Finally she asked the maid to bring her a cup of coffee and sat down in an armchair.
“And him too? Are you here to sort him out?”
The librarian blushed furiously. Miss Prim loved beauty, and the woman was beautiful, but that did not mean she was prepared to put up with certain insinuations. And of all possible insinuations, this was the one she was least able to tolerate.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied curtly.
The visitor looked up at her with a sardonic grin.
“First of all, Miss Prim, I must tell you that I don’t like having to crane my neck when holding a conversation.
Do sit down. In my father’s time, a librarian wasn’t considered an employee, exactly; it was a position of trust, so it wasn’t customary for them to remain standing when spoken to.
I’m an old-fashioned woman, and I don’t like to change my habits. ”
Miss Prim obediently sat down in an armchair. She’d abandoned her work and was painfully aware that Herodotus’s Histories awaited her in the library.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, but you can’t deny that your employer is rather peculiar. Or hadn’t you noticed? Don’t be afraid to speak freely, my dear, he is my son. If there’s a woman in the world who knows him thoroughly, it’s me, Miss Print.”
The librarian opened her mouth to correct the pronunciation of her name but thought better of it. It was plain that this lady was not accustomed to being interrupted, much less contradicted. She had probably never in her life had that salutary experience.
“He’s a pleasant, generous employer. I have no cause for complaint. With regard to his character, you’ll understand if I say that I don’t consider it right or appropriate to give my opinion.”
The old lady, removing her gloves, was silent for a moment.
“It’s a relief to hear it, Miss Prim. I’m pleased to see that you’re exactly as they say you are.
I’d like to make a confession: I have a bad habit of testing people before I trust them in the slightest. You must be aware that in the space of half a minute I made a malicious insinuation about your intentions in this house, prompted you to gossip about your employer’s character flaws, and deliberately mispronounced your name.
You, however, responded to my insinuation with dignity, politely rejected my prompting, and overlooked my mistake.
As my son says, you’re impeccable. There is absolutely no doubt about it. ”
Hearing this, the librarian felt confused.
The idea that this stranger had been testing her was not pleasant, and yet she wasn’t offended.
Not only because she had evidently passed the test but because, despite his prejudice against highly qualified people, the Man in the Wing Chair had described her to his mother as impeccable.
“You’re very kind,” she stammered.
“I’m simply being honest.”
The maid came back into the room with a tray and, while the old lady took her first sip of coffee, she set about lighting the fire and drawing the curtains to shut out the dull, gray outdoors.
“Do you like autumn?” the lady asked, out of the blue.
“I find it romantic,” replied Miss Prim, then blushed, this time at the thought that the woman might misinterpret her words. “I mean Romantic in the sense of the artistic movement, not the emotion, of course.”
Appearing to ignore this last comment, the mother of the Man in the Wing Chair offered Miss Prim a steaming cup of coffee.
“I detest it. I’ve always thought T. S. Eliot was quite wrong. April is not the cruelest month, it’s November, without a doubt. April is a wonderful month, full of sun, light, and wisteria in flower. Do you know Italy?”
Somewhat bewildered by the twists and turns in the conversation, the librarian replied that she did indeed know Italy.
“Do you mean you’ve lived there?”
Miss Prim clarified that she had not lived there.
“Then you should. Right now, before it’s too late.”
“I don’t think it would be possible at the moment,” the librarian replied, worried that this sudden recommendation concealed a wish to dispense with her services.
The visitor’s laughter, jolly and tinkling, broke the silence.
“When you get to my age you’ll realize that anything’s possible.
Look at my son. A few years ago a brilliant academic career lay ahead of him.
He was a charming, intelligent man with a dazzling future.
And what remains of it? Here he is, buried in this tiny village, holed up in his father’s family’s house, looking after four children and traipsing to an old monastery every morning before breakfast. Believe me when I tell you anything’s possible. ”
“But he seems very happy here,” Miss Prim ventured.
“He is, he definitely is. That’s the most annoying thing about it. And I have to admit that he’s done a great job. You can’t imagine what it was like here only a few years ago.”
The librarian, who had by now put the distressing image of the volumes of Herodotus lying on the desk quite out of her mind, made herself comfortable in the armchair, looking forward to hearing some things that would satisfy her endless curiosity about the village and her employer.
“What gave him the idea of setting up this community? Few people would undertake such a daunting enterprise.”
The old lady put down her cup, leaned her head back, and half closed her eyes, as if trying to remember.
“If only I knew. Actually I don’t think it was down to one single factor. Obviously it had something to do with meeting the old Benedictine monk. I expect you’ve heard about him already.”
Miss Prim settled deeper into the armchair and drank some more of her coffee.
“As I recall, he’d just finished giving a series of lectures,” the old lady continued, “and he took a break to attend a university seminar in Kansas. He found something there, don’t ask me what.
That summer he traveled to Egypt, then to Simonos Petras on Mount Athos, and he also spent time at the Benedictine abbey in Le Barroux.
On his return he said he’d decided to live at the abbey here in San Ireneo for a few months.
Imagine: he, who hadn’t stepped inside a church in twenty years, in a monastery of traditionalist Benedictine monks.
I thought he wouldn’t be able to stand it, but a year later he asked if he could open up the house again and, as far as I can tell, that’s how this whole thing started.
But you shouldn’t be surprised. Life is surprising. ”
The librarian thought for a moment before asking: “But what about the children? Aren’t you worried about his influence on them?”
“Worried?” exclaimed the old lady, taken aback.
“My dear Miss Prim, my grandchildren are the only children I know who can recite Dante, Virgil, and Racine; read classical texts in the original languages; and recognize most of the great pieces of classical music from a few chords. Not only am I not worried, I’m actually proud, frankly proud.
It’s one of the few things I truly approve of in this hermit’s retreat my son has chosen and which, I won’t lie to you, I detest profoundly. ”
“I wasn’t referring to culture, but to religion. Aren’t you concerned that they might be too religious, as it were? Too precociously religious? You know what I mean.”
The woman regarded the librarian incredulously before giving a happy laugh.
“My dear, I see you know very little about the house you live in,” she said, eyes shining with mirth.
Miss Prim peered at her, confused.
“What do you mean?”
The lady smiled.
“I mean that it wasn’t my son who instilled his beliefs in the children.
He had already taken a step or two when he took charge of them after my daughter’s death.
He’d discovered the depths of Christian thought and culture and he was delighting in the beauty of worship.
But he hadn’t taken the final step. He was still, so to speak, on the threshold.
Don’t you understand? It wasn’t him; it was them.
It was the children, the children themselves who guided him to where he is today. ”
The arrival of the Man in the Wing Chair’s mother marked a turning point in Miss Prim’s life.
From the day of their first meeting, the librarian found that her social life was considerably enriched.
The old lady immediately adopted her as an inseparable companion.
Soon she considered it perfectly natural to take Miss Prim with her to all the social engagements that filled her diary.