Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

The title of Barbara Pym’s first published novel, Some Tame Gazelle, might not seem to have any connection to the plot, but the quote appears early in the novel:

Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:

Something to love, oh, something to love! (Thomas Haynes Bayly)

I happen to share that feeling–people need something to love, and if there’s no person available, then let it be a dog, a cat, a hamster, or a budgie. If push comes to shove, a plant will do. Even my neighbor has his Harley Davidson since his missus departed for less turbulent pastures. Anyway, the need to have something to love is evident in Some Tame Gazelle, the story of two spinster sisters, Harriet and Belinda Bede, in their fifties whose lives are built around the local church and its clergymen. The sisters live together in a life of genteel comfort, and while they can afford a maid, there’s a little nip and tuck when it comes to meals if no guests are expected at the table. The two sisters are completely different: Belinda, the eldest sister is a romantic introvert whose male ideal, somewhat incongruously is the “dear Earl of Rochester.” Yes, Belinda in many ways is someone who doesn’t get the nuances of character as we later see through Belinda’s decades long devotion to the unrequited love of her university days–now the local, pompous married Archdeacon Hoccleve. Harriet, on the other hand, is an extrovert, a plump flirt who obsesses about her appearance, and always has a crush on whichever young, pink-cheeked, innocent curate is assigned to the local church. She’s a groupie of sorts: “She was especially given to cherishing young clergymen, and her frequent excursions to the curates’ lodgings had often given rise to talk.”

The novel begins with bubbling excitement over the new curate’s attendance at dinner. Belinda is fully expecting Harriet “to be quite as silly over him as she had been over his predecessors,” and the relationships Harriet has with the series of curates who’ve passed through seem to cover all sorts of roles from surrogate mother & sons to vague courtship.  One of Harriet’s problems is that she doesn’t know whether to mother the curate du jour or giggle and flirt with him. Needless to say she does both–but she’s not alone in the parish when it comes to fussing over the curate. This seems to be a popular pastime with the single women, and whether or not they are too old to be jealously possessive about the highly-prized curate is beside the point. But in spite of the slight awkwardness generated when a mid-fities spinster fusses over a single man young enough to be her son, those involved seem happy with the arrangement. It’s one of those ‘no damage done’ situations with everyone glossing over the possibly unhealthy ramifications of these relationships. Harriet immerses herself in questions such as ‘is the curate getting proper meals?’ and whether he needs a new of pair of hand-knitted socks. For their part, the curates benefit by getting regular free meals.

So while the novel opens with the exciting prospect (for Harriet, at least) of a fresh, young, curate, The Reverend Edgar Donne, Belinda faces the thrill of the Archdeacon’s wife, Agatha going away on holiday and leaving her obnoxious husband behind. To Belinda, of course, the Archdeacon, “dear Henry,” can do no wrong, but we get a glimpse of the domestic trials of being married to the Archdeacon–an immature man of insufferable ego and full of constant complaints:

Belinda recognized the voice as that of the Archdeacon. He was leaning out of one of the upper windows, calling to Agatha, and he sounded very peevish. Belinda thought he looked handsome in his dark green dressing-gown with his hair all ruffled. The years had dealt kindly with him and he had grown neither bald nor fat.  It was Agatha who seemed to have suffered most. Her pointed face had lost the elfin charm which had delighted many and now looked drawn and harassed.

Belinda cannot fathom the reason behind Agatha’s bad temper and thinks that “Agatha should humour dear Henry a little more.” This is a position of some naiveté as Belinda, who has never moved beyond idealized love, has no idea how grueling married relationships can be and just how taxing and demanding her idol Henry really is. The prospect of Henry alone creates no small amount of speculation between the sisters and raises the question whether or not the Archdeacon is upset or delighted by his wife’s absence.

When the day came for Agatha to go away, Belinda and Harriet watched her departure out of Belinda’s bedroom window. From here there was an excellent view of the vicarage drive and gate. Belinda had brought some brass with her to clean and in the intervals when she stopped her vigorous rubbing to look out the window, was careful to display the duster in her hand. Harriet stared out quite unashamedly, with nothing in her hand to excuse her presence there. She even had a pair of binoculars, which she was trying to focus.

With Agatha away, the Archdeacon makes more visits to the Bede household, and Belinda makes a few visits to the vicarage. Vague long-distant memoires and lost opportunities are stirred accompanied by just a whisper of mild discontent.

How odd if Henry were a widower, she thought suddenly. How embarrassing, really.  It would be like going back thirty years. Or wouldn’t it? Belinda soon saw that it wouldn’t. For she was now a contented spinster and her love was like a warm, comfortable garment, bedsocks, perhaps, or even woolen combinations; certainly something without glamour or romance. All the same, it was rather nice to think that Henry might prefer her to Agatha, although she knew perfectly well that he didn’t. It was one of the advantages of being the one he hadn’t married that one could be in a position to imagine such things.

Some Tame Gazelle makes some interesting statements about love; we see Belinda still in love, decades past the initial onset, and she cannot see that the Archdeacon is flawed and not really worth her worshipful attention, and yet does that really matter? There are a couple of times when reality punctures Belinda’s image of the Archdeacon, but she turns away from her perceived disloyalty and criticism and chooses to keep her perfect image of the Archdeacon. Harriet, is a study is serial adoration, and she smoothly moves her infatuations from one curate to another. While no great crisis occurs in this delightful, humorous  novel of manners, nonetheless the calm, orderly world of the Bede sisters is threatened by the arrival of two eligible men including one of Harriet’s long-lost curates, now middle-aged Bishop Theo Grote,  who returns from darkest Africa. According to Belinda, Bishop Grote “doesn’t have all his goods in the shop window,” and as one of Harriet’s past pet-project curates, he’s now a eligible bachelor….