A Matter of Some Delicacy
些か繊細な問題
The Little Wibbling Heritage Committee had, over the years, mastered the art of turning nothing whatsoever into a matter of some .
On this particular Tuesday, the nothing in question was a bench.
Not, one hastens to add, an ordinary bench, but a bench that had been generously donated to the town green by the late Mr Alfred Pockle, a man remembered chiefly for remembering nobody.
"I shan't take up much of your time," announced Miss Prudence Featherstone, which was the surest sign imaginable that she intended to take up all of it.
"There is, I fear, the smallest of small difficulties concerning the plaque."
The committee leaned forward, for they knew from long experience that Miss Featherstone's smallest difficulties were, without exception, enormous.
"It appears," she continued, examining her notes with the of a surgeon, "that the wording has not yet been agreed."
Mr Cyril Binks, who had sat on the committee for thirty-one years and enjoyed every of them, cleared his throat.
"With the greatest respect to the late Mr Pockle," he began, in the tone of a man who respected nobody, "one wonders whether a bench is quite the thing."
"Whatever else could it be?" asked Mrs Agatha Crumb, who had sponsored the plaque and regarded it as her personal .
"A ," said Binks darkly.
There was a silence of the kind that only English committees can produce, thick enough to spread on toast.
"Perhaps," young Deirdre, the minute-taker, "we might simply write his name."
This modest proposal was received as though she had suggested burning down the church.
"His name," repeated Miss Featherstone, "is precisely the difficulty."
It transpired that Mr Pockle had, in life, insisted upon being called Alfred, while his headstone, his will, and his widow all preferred Albert.
"It is not for us," said Binks gravely, "to correct the dead."
"Nor," added Mrs Crumb, "to them."
Miss Featherstone permitted herself the faintest of sighs, a sound she reserved for moments of profound crisis.
"I had rather hoped," she said, "that we might resolve this without a subcommittee."
The word 'subcommittee' fell upon the room like a dropped hymn book.
"A subcommittee," breathed Mr Reginald Thorne, who had been asleep until that very syllable, "would be most appropriate."
Thorne had not contributed to the town in forty years, unless one counted opinions, of which he had contributed a great many.
"Shall we say," Miss Featherstone proposed, "that the matter be tabled until we have consulted the relevant parties?"
Everyone agreed at once, chiefly because nobody had the faintest idea who the relevant parties might be.
And so the meeting closed, as all their meetings closed, with a great deal decided about how to decide.
As the members gathered their coats, Mrs Crumb was heard to remark that it was, after all, only a bench.
She would come, in the weeks that followed, to regret those words rather bitterly.