The phone box beamed its rays into the surrounding darkness like a lighthouse. It was the old-fashioned kind made of bomb-proof glass panes encased in a solid red painted metal fame. It appeared and disappeared from view as Theodora strode along the winding lane from St Sylvan’s towards the village. The scene in the hall of an hour ago kept replaying itself in her imagination.
Mrs Lemming’s cries had summoned the rest of the pilgrims. At first it was not clear what had caused her emotion. Guy had been early on the scene. He raised the glass case and whipped off the biretta. Then as though elevating the paten he’d raised the skull and held it on high. Mr Clutton Brock marched up, gazed at the object and then turned on his heel and swung off across the hall and out through the front door. Mrs Clutton Brock, who was much taller than Guy, stared down at the skull and then ran her finger over the cranium. She looked at the dust which came off and adhered to her finger. As she did so, Theodora noticed that in the middle of the skull above the hole, where, in life, the nose would be, was a glint of metal. She looked more closely and detected a nail with a broad head which had been inserted cleanly into the bone. Angus, meanwhile, busied himself with examining the glass case which had housed the object. Canon Beagle, who had bowled up later than the rest, looked at it, sucked the air through his teeth and muttered, ‘How very foolish.’ The group must, Theodora thought, have presented to any observer an ikon of different responses to mortality.
Mrs Lemming was not easily calmed and the Reverend Angus Bootle’s unwillingness to break the rule of silence did not make it any easier. Theodora could see that he felt that the rule had been made to help pilgrims to cope on just such occasions as this. However much Mrs Lemming wanted to give full vent to nervous hysteria it was impossible, in the face of Angus’s calm determination, not to practise self-control. Gently Angus took the skull from Guy’s hands. He gathered up the biretta and replaced the glass case, now empty, on the table. Then he signalled to Theodora to see Mrs Lemming to her room. He smiled reassuringly at Mrs Lemming as though this were normal procedure in any well-run retreat house.
Theodora had accompanied the shaking woman up the staircase to the first floor. Her room was exactly like Theodora’s own, a small white cell, absolutely without decoration, comprising of a door, a window, a bed, a table and a chair, and a notice in Gothic script giving instructions about what to do in case of fire. Your cell shall teach you all you need to know, Theodora thought. Mrs Lemming’s only impact on the place was an open suitcase and a mass of coat hangers on the table. The light, by this time almost gone, prevented any consoling pastime like reading. Touched by a sudden inspiration, Theodora mimed the action of drinking. She had in mind a cup of hot milk. Mrs Lemming, however, dived into the jumble of her suitcase, scrabbled in its innards for a moment, threw out a couple of balls of stockings and in triumph produced a large Edwardian racegoer’s leather-and-silver flask. Theodora declined the offer of a swig and felt able to leave the lady to her consolation.
Now, as she swung along the track towards the light, she rather wished she’d taken the preferred hospitality. She realised how very tired she was. The image of the skull kept dancing before her eyes. Who had placed it beneath the biretta and why? Was it a joke or a threat? A mockery of Father Augustine’s style or a reminder of mortality for the present pilgrims? She was nearly sure it had not been in place when she went into supper. She tried to recall the order in which they had appeared in the dining-room. She and Angus had gone in together, Guy had been soon after, then the Clutton Brocks. That meant Canon Beagle had been last. It was impossible to imagine his doing anything as tasteless or as macabre as placing a biretta on a skull.
She put the problem away from her and pushed on towards the village. Two and a half miles, Angus had said. Surely that must be nearly completed by now. She badly wanted to ring Geoffrey. He wouldn’t, she had to admit, be in the least worried about whether she had arrived safely. It never occurred to him that she would not. In any case, he had presumably much to think about. It was, as she acknowledged, sheer self-indulgence. She wanted to hear his sane voice and exchange a few words, it did not matter about what, he would understand her and she him. There was rarely any need to elaborate or explain. The ban on talking, the impossibility of reading without electric light, the abstention from conversation at supper were subjects she’d like to know his mind on. Had he made a silent retreat? she wondered. Surely he must have done before he was priested. There was a great deal she reflected that she did not know about Geoffrey. Did Oenone know any more? She realised where she was heading and put a stopper on her thoughts.
She was aware of vigorous country nightlife all around her. An owl called at regular intervals; pheasants coughed in the middle distance and down in the village a dog uttered a staccato volley of barks. Every now and again rabbits caught unaware froze or scudded across her path. Sheep could be heard chewing and shuffling about on the other side of the dry-stone walls. The track which had started in open country had got deeper and now narrowed into a passage with high banks on either hand. She rounded the bend and saw the road, the signpost and the phone booth a hundred yards away. She was about to start forward again when she remarked the booth was not empty. She could just make out the familiar figure of Mr Clutton Brock, his face illuminated by the single electric bulb, in animated conversation. Theodora hesitated for a moment and then she swung off down the road towards the village. The main street had a terrace of stone-built cottages from which came the suddenly shocking sound of music from the television sets. She passed on to find a shuttered shop-cum-post office, a couple more houses and at the far end a single light illuminating a sign The Broad Arms. There were no cars parked outside the pub but propped against the wall beside the door was a familiar yellow mountain bike. Beyond and behind the pub she could glimpse the church, presumably Angus’s. That appeared to be it as far as the village was concerned.
The phone booth when she reached it again was empty. Theodora clicked the familiar combination of numbers and raised the handset. There was no more than a couple of rings and she heard the familiar voice saying, ‘Geoffrey Brighouse here.’ Theodora drew breath and then stopped. She held the handset for a moment and heard the name repeated. Then quickly she put the phone back on the cradle. What, after all, was the rule of silence for, if it did not save her from the consolation of idle chatter?
CHAPTER FIVE
Mysterious Way
The pool, a perfect circle, lay in its cradle of rock with a low cliff at its back. The south side was open to the path which wound up from the chapel through a fringe of yew and holly trees. The immediate surrounds of the pool had been tidied up since Augustine Bellaire first tumbled into the landslip which had made St Sylvan’s well accessible to pilgrims. The paving flags had been levelled to make a broad terrace all round it. The ilex at which he had vainly clutched in his descent had flourished, grown taller and now overshadowed a quarter of the pool. The carved marble slab with its deer’s head and advice (was it Roman, was it Christian?) had been fixed at eye-level to the face of the cliff.
Guy, perched in his tent on the cliff above the well, pulled at the piece of Velcro which secured the flap and snuffed the air. It tasted fresh and watery in the early light. His grandfather was dead. He had got to St Sylvan’s and he would make it his own. He was suffused with health and hope. The tent, of orange nylon, big enough to contain only a single sleeping bag, was pitched in a shallow dip between two large, smooth rocks. There were ferns at its door. Guy stared into the slate-grey water of the well immediately below. The still surface invited him. The chapel clock chimed five. He caught up his towel and slipped like a serpent down between the rocks to the water.
Mrs Lemming peered over the bannisters of the guesthouse and gazed at the glass case where last night (had she dreamed it?) she’d seen the skull beneath the biretta. This morning there was nothing in the case. Well, better nothing than horror. She took firm hold of her small easel and satchel and tripped dow
nstairs. The front door presented a problem. It had a plethora of locks and bolts. But Mrs Lemming was resolute. She surveyed the devices and came to the conclusion that only one lock was operational. Beside the door was a key on a chain. Which of the three keyholes would it fit? was the question. She fumbled, selected the smallest and applied it. The door swung open. Gleefully she fled down the path in the direction of the well. She had to see the well. She had to possess it. She felt an almost physical thirst for the place. Surely it would heal her, make her a new and more courageous person. She wanted to be purged of a lifetime of Tubridge Wellsishness, of doing what Norman told her, of thinking what Norman wished her to think. Am I worth nothing? she asked herself as she hastened by the chapel and hurried through the trees towards the pool.
The stony path began to climb. Boulders with a fuzz of moss and lichen rose on either hand. She paused to stroke the growth on one of them. Hart’s-tongues and regalis ferns joined the vegetation. There was a smell of water. She felt her spirits rise. Then she stopped. The track divided. Which way should she go? One path was wider and concreted, the other narrower and looked harder. Why were there no signposts? Why had she been left comfortless? Mrs Lemming consulted her biblical knowledge and chose the narrow path. Then she halted again. On the still air came a sound. It was so strange, so unlooked for that, for a moment, she could not identify it. The soft notes of a cello came through the curtain of trees and rocks. The playing was accomplished, the phrasing of the Elgar secure and commanding; no fumbling amateur was responsible for it. Mrs Lemming rounded the last of the boulders and came out into the open. In the middle of the space she saw the well. Behind it the ground rose in a sheltering cliff. On the left-hand side of the cliff about halfway down, seated on a stone bench, the instrument held against her as though in an embrace was Mrs Clutton Brock. She was dressed in something flowing and purple. Her hair fell forward as she bent to listen to herself. Her eye had the inward look of the totally concentrated. Life, thought Mrs Lemming, and art, that’s what I need, not religion. She set down her easel and unpacked her charcoals.
Canon Beagle in his guest-room meditated on his immobility. He’d woken before six and taken a moment to remember where he was. When he’d worked out from observing the cracks on the ceiling that he wasn’t in the Bishop Herbert Nursing Home, his spirits had risen. He’d made it, alone, without a care, to his old haunt. Now all he had to do was to pray and enjoy the beauty of the place and the society which had been provided. Angus looked as though he might manage a theological discussion, the Braithwaite girl seemed sensible. Then underlying it all, was his quest: the satisfaction of his wish to know how things had come about between Augustine and Tussock. If enlightenment were offered on that score, his cup would be running over. He could die happy.
He felt so light-hearted that he considered leaving off some of his medication. It taxed him beyond endurance, bits of this, bits of that. But he thought better of it. Didn’t want to seize up in a strange place, causing a lot of trouble for people. He knew from experience that, however steady the will, that barrier against pain was necessary to him. He leaned out from his bed and grasped his stick. He had left his window open overnight. He’d thought of all the times he’d lain out under stars in England, South America, China. He’d not lie out again but at least he could open a window without double glazing. It was some small contact with reality. He’d noticed an increasing number of occasions at Bishop Herbert where they curtailed freedoms he could still enjoy or kept him from realities to which he could still respond. It wasn’t going to be like that here.
A couple of blackbirds were practising like a choir, going over and over bits to perfect them. A ring-dove on the chimney pot was talking to himself in that quiet intimate way they have. He was about to swing himself from bed to chair when he heard voices. He recognised them at once, not at first the words but the tones. They were the tones of people long practised in quarrelling with each other. As smooth and predictable as opera recitative and arias he heard the taunt and the response, the accusation and counter-accusation that stemmed from the wish to hurt and humiliate which came from longstored rancour, pain and desperation. He tried to shut his ears but the voices were gaining in strength. Then suddenly they stopped. Agitatedly, in anger, for what right had human beings to gash and deface each other in such a way, he hooked his stick towards the casement and shut it. At the same time he heard the window of the room above slammed to.
Eager now to be gone from the room and abroad in the world, Canon Beagle swung the handle of his wheelchair to bring it alongside his bed. Access for the disabled, eh? Well he’d see about that. He’d fight the good fight to the end. He wouldn’t have a helper, a carer, he framed the word with contempt. He could still dress and shave himself. Life in the old dog yet. The great thing was to use every faculty he still possessed. Pity his teeth had given out. His tongue explored his last remaining pair. They felt like decaying castles. But his arms, he clenched his fist and regarded it, were still immensely strong. The room had been fitted out for the disabled. It had stout handrails round all four sides and the door handles were at a height to be reached from the wheelchair. There was a bar above the bed for heaving on. He heaved himself into his chair and applied himself competently to the wheel to allow himself to shave and dress. His room on the ground floor gave on to a corridor at the end of which was an outside door leading to the garden. Ramps everywhere. Nothing of a challenge.
By the time he’d reached the end of the path to the chapel, however, the going was rougher, uphill and stony. He increased his efforts and his pace. He began to sweat and felt glad of it. Canon Beagle had retained a notion of being fit long after most of his contemporaries had settled for not being. He marked the beginning of the area round the well and remembered how the path narrowed. Perhaps that would defeat him this time. But no, the way divided and the left-hand curve, he perceived, had been widened and concreted for just such as he. Pity really. He paused to regroup.
He was about to resume his efforts, when round the corner between the rocks there came a stout figure. It was dressed in a singlet, crumpled khaki shorts and old-fashioned running shoes. It was sweating profusely. Mr Clutton Brock was jogging, his elbows rigidly bent, his thin fair hair waving in his own breeze. He laboured on, passing within twenty yards and disappeared up behind the pool. He looked at last gasp. Canon Beagle gazed at him with all the compassion of an athlete for the seriously unfit. No word passed between them. Slowly he started heaving at his wheel.
Theodora, striding out ten minutes behind Canon Beagle and eager to savour the morning and bathe herself in the silence and solitude of the well, was brought up short when she edged her way round the final bank of boulders to emerge on to the terrace. On a bench to her left was Mrs Clutton Brock balancing her cello as she rested from her playing. To her right, Mrs Lemming was wielding charcoal on sugar paper, while opposite her she could make out Canon Beagle, his head thrown back as he contemplated from his parked wheelchair the deer’s head and inscription. All were studiously avoiding looking at the centre of the pool where, like a young sprite, Guy could be seen throwing water over his naked body.
At breakfast pilgrims could, of course, converse. Freed from the constraints and embarrassments of silence, fresh from the morning Eucharist in the chapel, minds and souls thus catered for, they felt justified in applying themselves to the gratification of bodily needs. Muesli abounded but so too did warm bread, raspberries and an Edwardian collection of scrambled eggs, kippers and mushrooms.
Theodora was interested to notice that no one spoke of their earlier meeting at the well; there was a feeling of complicity as though to hide their experience from Angus. Mrs Clutton Brock had the air of a lifetime’s cultivation of sang-froid; Mrs Lemming had two sons of her own; Canon Beagle had spent a good part of his youth in the shower rooms of the very best rugby clubs of three continents. But they were resolved, clearly, to make no mention of the episode. In time Guy had waded to the bank, flick
ed his towel over his shoulder and hopped spryly into the surrounding ferns.
About seven-forty-five, one by one they had folded easels, corralled cellos into cases, revved up wheelchairs and made for the chapel. Angus had invited Theodora to serve for him and she had done so in the small white, light-filled space. Angus had not preached (he had told them), but he stood at the chancel steps and gave them a thought for the day.
‘We have come here,’ he had said, ‘with luggage. Physically,’ he glanced at Canon Beagle, ‘we lug our bodies about with us. But we come here too with a backlog of feelings and judgements. Our past life is our impedimenta. Should we perhaps start our time together by considering what we could fruitfully leave beside the road as we start our pilgrimage? We are, after all, moving towards death where we need nothing.’
Theodora glanced at him now as he ladled scrambled egg on to his plate and took a minute amount of mushrooms. She wanted to ask him about the skull under the biretta. Whose was it? Who had placed it there and when and why? And where was the skull now! But in the calm morning light the event seemed unreal and the enquiry out of place. Certainly no one else appeared disposed to raise the question.
Angus tapped his knife against his glass and said, ‘There are just two notices this morning. Firstly I would like to say with regard to last night’s happening, I hope no one of you will let that unpleasant and silly episode distress you. I’m sure there is a perfectly natural explanation for it.’
Theodora wondered what a perfectly natural explanation could be for a skull with a nail in it being found in a glass case under the biretta of a dead priest. Surely you couldn’t have a real human skull floating about? Ought it not, if it were real, to be united with its body and then buried, preferably with the Church’s rites?
Every Deadly Sin Page 6