Open Writing

As a conversation stopper, it worked.

‘I am with child,’ said Miss Muriel Haywood-Smith.

The ladies of the St. Saviours Anglican Church prayer group looked shocked, bewildered and disbelieving. Surely this couldn’t be true. Miss Haywood-Smith was a long-standing member of the church, and in fact was on the Parish Council.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Mabel Delbridge.

‘Quite sure, I have had it confirmed by Dr. Somers.’

‘You will be getting married soon then?’ Asked Stella Crawford.

‘No, I have no plans to get married.’

This statement caused more consternation in the group. The average age of the prayer group would be over fifty, and they were generally very conservative in their opinions. Babies should be born to parents who were married, and if you were careless enough to get pregnant before marriage, then marriage should follow as soon as possible. Yet here was this upstanding member of the church, a member of the prayer group, saying she was not going to get married.

They wanted to know who the father of the child was, but somehow, didn’t know how to ask. They thought of possible candidates. It surely had to be a single man, and there were not that many who were members of the church. Horror of horrors, surely it was not a married man! Possibly it was someone outside the church that she had met at a social of some kind.

The Parish of St. Saviours was quite small, everyone knew everyone, or so they thought. After what Miss Haywood-Smith had just told them, they realised that they didn’t know her as well as they thought they did.

The prayer group met every week. They prayed for the missionaries, for war-torn areas and the like. They then took turns talking about their own worries or concerns, and where necessary, prayed for the member having the problem.

Mrs Delbridge, who was the leader of the prayer group, felt that a prayer was necessary, in fact essential for Miss Haywood-Smith. She asked the other members to close their eyes and for each in turn to say a prayer.

‘I don’t want your prayers. I knew what I was doing, and I am happy about it.’

‘We only want to help you Muriel. Surely you don’t mean to go through with this? It’s a great responsibility for someone…’

‘For someone my age you mean?’

‘Well, yes. You have never had any children, and you have no idea of the work they are.’

‘You are right that I haven’t had any children, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t wanted them. You probably remember that my first boyfriend was killed in the Vietnam War. We were engaged to be married, but you may not have known that. Well, I have met someone else. I cannot tell you who he is, as he isn’t free to marry me, but we love each other, and that is all that matters to me. I know that you will think I am a sinner, and maybe I am, but to be honest, I don’t care.’

This outburst caused even more dismay among the group of ladies sitting open-mouthed at what they were hearing. They just couldn’t believe Miss Haywood-Smith would have an affair involving sex! She didn’t seem the type. Most of the ladies had long forgotten the joys of a sexual relationship, after all, the church taught that it was for the procurement of children, and once you were past child-bearing, then it stopped, didn’t it? And Muriel must be over forty!

Normally the group session lasted just an hour or so, but this afternoon, it went on for over two hours as they tried to take in the enormity of what Muriel Haywood-Smith had told them. It was understood that anything said in the group was in confidence, nothing was to be told anyone else, not even husbands, siblings or parents. But how could they keep news like this to themselves?

‘There is no way that I can keep my condition a secret, everyone will find out sooner or later, so if you want to, you can share this information. The father has been told, and in time you will know who it is. All I can say is, that it is someone in the parish.’

This last information set the group agog. That could mean that it may be one of their husbands! Now they were really worried. Were they so sure of their respective husbands that they trusted them implicitly?

It was a worried group of ladies who left the prayer group that day. The only one who felt sure of her husband was Felicity Chambers, wife of the vicar of St. Saviours. She knew it couldn’t be him, he wasn’t interested in sex, at least he never indicated he was.

But as she thought about it, maybe he… no! She couldn’t even think it of him.

But maybe she should!