Bedfordshire Tales-The Courtship (Critique)

(This is a tale of two English people who live in the town of Bedfordshire--except that isn’t its real name and these people aren’t really English. But that’s another tale.)

    Every weekday morning for almost eleven years, promptly at quarter past seven, Miss Abitha Winship entered the Café Romano, followed a few seconds later by Mr. Walter Lynch. Today was to be the last in that long unbroken series.
     A conscientious observer would have noticed changes in both over the years. With a demure gray dress in summer and a brown tweed suit in winter, always set-off by an attractive broach from some mysterious family collection, hair carefully combed into a top knot, face freshly washed with just a whisper of makeup, Miss Winship presented herself so well one hardly noticed she was rather plain.
     In contrast to Abigail's carefulness, Mr. Lynch was the bull after the china shop. Time had not been as kind to him or, perhaps, he had not been kind to Time. Never a man about whom one would consider using words such as fashionable or fastidious, Mr. Lynch had slid down the age pole a little faster than most, his clothes preceding him. You could best sum up his wardrobe over the past decade by saying many of the wrinkles had become holes.
     Apart from a slight deepening of the lines in her face, the most noticeable change in Miss Winship during the past decade was the whitening of her hair. However, she styled her lustrous locks in such a clever way that most of the silvery invaders resided inside her topknot. At least until a few years ago when, even with the most adroit combing skill, some of the advancing age army remained exposed.
     In the hair department, Mr. Lynch’s had been mostly gray during this entire period but was now noticeably thinning. He also tried to keep this change at bay with clever combing though with considerably less success. As so many men did these days, he compensated for less hair by letting the existing hair grow longer in other locations and arranging it in such a way that the thinning was hardly noticeable--at least in his mirror. This style strategy created another problem, however.
     The process of removing his hat, if there was the slightest wind at all, unleashed a mane which would rise high and then settle on his shoulder for a distinctly leontyne look. Since common practice was to doff one’s hat whenever a lady passed by, since it was considered unseemly to comb one’s hair in public, and since there were few windless days in this part of the world, Mr. Lynch hadn’t worn a hat for years. Instead, he applied a hair tonic, obtained through the post, which set like Portland cement and stayed firm for just about as long as it took him to walk from his house to the Café, where he stood now, waiting in-line, behind Abitha Winship.
     Miss Winship always placed the same order; a pot of English Breakfast tea and a not-too-sweet roll with a small pad of unsalted butter. She would then reach into her emerald green and royal red pocketbook--embroidered by her grandmother and given to Miss Winship on her sixteenth birthday--withdraw a small, worn black leather change purse, extract the exact change--a five shilling note and three pence in coin--and place it on the counter.
     Carefully positioned on a tray with an appliquéed picture of Trafalgar Square, the brewing pot, small pitcher of milk, two cubes of sugar, cup and saucer, small stainless steel spoon, napkin, and the not-too-sweet roll with unsalted butter pad were carried to the table at the far left of the Café, right next to the big plate glass window which overlooked Bromley Way. Miss Winship sat down in the Queen Anne replica chair, buttered her not-too-sweet roll and watched from her self-appointed viewing stand as the citizens of Bedfordshire passed by.
     Mr. Lynch's daily order was a large coffee, black, and one of the sticky buns baked fresh every morning by Mrs. Romano, the slightly overweight but passingly pleasant proprietor’s wife. He handed over a crisp one-pound note, and received five shillings and three pence in change, which Mrs. Romano had learned to simply slide across the counter from where Miss Winship had left her payment.          
     Taking a newspaper from the rack, Mr. Lynch carried his tray to the table next to Miss Winship and sat down on the outside chair, facing in her direction.
     And thence the dance commenced, performed without the slightest variation in word or gesture, for over a decade now, performed with the precision of a Japanese tea ceremony.
     “Good morning, Miss Winship,” it began, just after Mr. Lynch had pulled out his chair and bent forward slightly, presenting himself in a bow of form if not substance.
     “Good morning, Mr. Lynch,” came the high-pitched response, as Miss Winship turned from the window to look at her perpetual breakfast neighbor, her lips curling ever so slightly in a ladylike imitation of a smile.
     “Pretty much the weather I’d expect this time of year.”
     “Yes. There are few surprises in Bedfordshire.”
     It was always after this statement that Miss Winship poured her tea, now properly steeped, adding one of the sugar cubes and half the milk.
     “Labor is blasting the Tories again, I see.” An unusual statement, coming, as it always did, concurrent with Mr. Lynch opening his newspaper, and a few seconds before his eyes actually looked in that direction. The statement did show, however, that Mr. Lynch was, as a gentleman should be, properly concerned with government affairs.
     “Almost as predictable as the weather, I would imagine,” Miss Winship commented, demonstrating simultaneously that she was also abreast of current events and quite able to carry her end of a social conversation, including just the proper portion of wit.
     Mr. Lynch continued to read his paper and Miss Winship continued to gaze at the world of Bedfordshire … until exactly quarter-to-eight when Mr. Lynch would examine his gold Hamilton watch, a gift from his great uncle who, while in his twenties, fled (some might say deserted) these shores, never to be heard from again until forty years later when the watch arrived with a note from a solicitor advising of the uncle’s death and that he had bequeathed this keepsake to his nephew, whom he had never met but apparently cared for a good deal.
     “Tempis fugit,” Mr. Lynch commented, as he replaced his timepiece, folded the newspaper into a neat square and placed it under his arm.
     The Latin phrase was always mispronounced, which would be impolite to point out, so Miss Winship simply answered, “Yes, it certainly does,” simultaneously demonstrating her understanding of dead foreign languages and her appreciation of good manners, though the latter, of course, went unappreciated by Mr. Lynch.
     Before leaving, Mr. Lynch, intoned again with the hint of a bow, “Do have a pleasant day, Miss Winship.”
     “And you as well, Mr. Lynch.”
     And today’s dance was ended. A mirror image of yesterday’s, a precise preview of tomorrow’s. Except this tomorrow would be different from the eleven years of tomorrows that had preceded it.

     The storm hit suddenly, well before dawn and with a rare fury. Trees bent over further than they had since they were saplings and, heavy from the onset, rain had overflowed gutters and created a narrow imitation of a raging mountain river down one side of Bromley Way.
     Quarter-past-seven had gone by some ten minutes before a harried and very wet Miss Winship entered the Café, knocking over a chair as she attempted to close her dripping umbrella. She patted, pushed and pulled strands of hair in an attempt to bring some sort of order to her windswept coiffure and, in a surprisingly calm voice, repeated her standing order.
     “I’m so sorry Miss Winship,” apologized Mrs. Romano. “The van seems to have been held up. All I have is Earl Grey, toast and jam.”
     “My, my,” her lips quivered. “We will have to make do then, Mrs. Romano. Earl Grey, toast and jam it is,” the quiver subsiding as her mouth became party to the declaration.
     “That comes to five and six.”
     “Oh, dear,” said Miss Winship who, you see, always brought only the exact change.
     “I will advance the difference,” came Mr. Lynch’s baritone voice from directly behind her. "I'm sure Miss Winship’s credit is good.” He paused, then added, “A little light humor for a dark day.”
     “Why thank you, Mr. Lynch, for saving a damsel in distress,” eyes demurely positioned downward as she prepared her breakfast tray.
     There was black coffee but alas, with all the morning's confusion, there had been no time to bake Mr. Lynch's sticky buns. He would have had toast and jam as well, except Miss Winship had taken the last of the jam, so he was handed, instead, a glass jar of an orange-brown marmalade. He winced as it was placed on his tray.
     Now the entire rhythm and ritual must be abandoned. It was too late to say “Good Morning”. The weather was obviously not what one would expect this time of year, and while the Labor Party was, in all probability, blasting the Tories once again, it seemed less than professional to say so without some independent verification, lacking this particular day as the man who delivered the English Breakfast tea also brought the newspapers.
     Mr. Lynch sat down and thought frantically for what seemed half an hour but was, in fact, only thirty-four seconds. Then he took a deep breath, and improvised.
     “Miss Winship, would you be interested in some of this newly arrived golden marmalade instead of that ordinary black current jam?”
     “Why, how kind of you, Mr. Lynch. I would, in fact, prefer the marmalade, if I’m not depriving you of it in the process.”
     And so, the marmalade-for-jam exchange took place and Miss Winship never did tell anyone whether she really preferred orange marmalade to black current jam or whether, sensing Mr. Lynch’s discomfort, she sacrificed her own breakfast enjoyment on the alter of politeness, or selflessness, or maybe something else, hidden away all these years.
     From the table right next to the window it was impossible not to notice the storm was getting even stronger, attested to by an airborne hat, the fourth in as many minutes. 

     At almost exactly quarter to eight, even though he hadn’t finished his coffee, Mr. Lynch looked at his gold Hamilton watch. Then he looked at Miss Winship. Then, together, they looked out the window, just in time to catch the flight of hat number five, a tweed fedora.
     As a storm is the time for decisions not procrastinations, as only a fool would go out in this weather, and emboldened by their recent attempts at impromptu conversation, Mr. Lynch and Miss Winship stayed at the Café and talked and talked and talked as the storm raged on.
    Head modestly forward, she told him how she had studied at University, planning to become a writer, but ended up as town librarian when her mother became ill, how she had lived with her sister after her mother died, how her sister had finally succumbed to a particularly stubborn strain of pneumonia some eleven years ago, how since then she worked at the library during the week and in her garden on weekends, except for a monthly trip to London to attend a play or visit a museum, and how she now lived alone with an elderly angora cat named Mrs. Wiggles to whom she talks constantly. She paused, her hands twisting the napkin in a failed attempt at linen origami, and looked up at Mr. Lynch.
     He told her about his dog and the time it buried a bone in an antique Victorian sofa in the manor where he had grown-up the only son of an elderly baron, his mother having died in childbirth. He told her about arranging his father’s funeral which took place about the same time Miss Winship’s sister had passed on, and about never having been to the town library because the manor had three rather large rooms devoted to his father’s extensive book collection, and he was only now finishing the works in the first room, making him quite well versed in literature but dismally lacking in the sciences whose texts were all in the third, yet unexplored wing.
     Then Miss Winship both said and did something truly unexpected, at least by Mr. Lynch, though I suspect not by you, the reader.
     “Oh, Mr. Lynch,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. “You certainly know how to wile away a gloomy day with delightful conversation.”
     Mr. Lynch pondered that remark so long Miss Winship thought maybe she had committed some sort of faux pas not included in her annual Miss Manners review, and was about to remove her hand from his arm, when Mr. Lynch looked her straight in the eye and cleared his throat.
     "Miss Winship, I...uh...this may seem a little forward but..." and he looked out the window as if to steal some strength from the storm.
     "Yes, Mr. Lynch?"
     “Miss Winship...will you do me the honor of consenting to be my bride?”
     Miss Winship quickly turned away, also in the direction of the storm, and blushed for the first time in the eleven years Mr. Lynch had known her. It was quite becoming.
     She looked back at him, her mouth in a real smile this time. “Yes, Mr. Lynch. I believe I will.”

     And so she would have, four weeks later, in a small quarry stone church on a hill overlooking the small ocean shore hamlet of Wilchester.

     Except that is not what occurred because while people often choose to procrastinate and wait, the same is not true of time and fate.

    As it happened, Mr. Lynch, in his haste to seal their spoken bond with an appropriate ring, rushed across Dommer Avenue without looking and married a lorry from Harrod’s instead.

     Miss Winship, gray hair pulled loosely into a bun, still enters Café Romano at precisely quarter past seven each weekday morning, and still partakes of a pot of freshly brewed English Breakfast tea with a not-too-sweet roll and a pad of unsalted butter … plus a small jar of orange marmalade. Only now she sits in the rear, alone, away from the other patrons, away from the world of Bedfordshire.

     Exactly one half hour later, after checking her gold Hamilton watch, she leaves for the library.
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