Christmas at the Vicarage

by Rebecca Boxall

  When darkness descended they returned to the Vicarage, where they were obliged to stop being and start doing. Benedict chopped vegetables whilst Rosamunde put a leg of lamb in the Aga and made some mint sauce. Bernie arrived home with hilarious tales about Mrs Croft’s obsessive wedding planning and soon Mrs Garfield trotted in with a homemade apple and blackberry crumble to be warmed for their pudding later in the evening. After dinner the four played Rummy and Pontoon by the fire as they listened to Christmas carols, much to Bernie’s dismay – he’d heard enough carols for a lifetime.

  When Rosamunde headed up to bed with a hot water bottle, having dispatched Benedict and Mrs Garfield into the night, she thought that perhaps the key to proper relaxation was to enjoy the perfect mix of being and doing. She was just drifting into a relaxed slumber when she remembered the garden wall. She sent a text message to Benedict from her phone: ‘Tomorrow is a doing day . . . xxx’

  18.

  APRIL 1987

  Only two weeks after Rosamunde had returned to some semblance of normality, though her heart was sore and her body rake-thin with grief, she began to realise there were other changes to her body that had been taking place recently.

  A trip to the school nurse confirmed her suspicions. She was possibly the only sixteen-year-old in the history of time to be elated by an unplanned pregnancy. A visit to the doctor a few days later revealed that she was about nine weeks gone. Bernie, while not exactly happy about the situation, was reassuringly supportive following the news and spent most of each day trying to pluck up the nerve to tell Granny Dupont. When he’d finally got round to it he reported that, most surprisingly, Rosamunde’s grandmother was uncharacteristically unruffled by the news. She’d even promised to start knitting a matinee jacket.

  There was no doubt it was scandalous news in the village, however, particularly as Rosamunde was a vicar’s daughter, but whilst everyone around her reeled at the shock of the situation and tried to cajole her into making plans, Rosamunde was lost in a bubble of contentment. She sat in lessons stroking her still flat stomach and wondering whether the baby would inherit Stephen’s turquoise eyes and, as her classmates focused on To Kill a Mockingbird, Rosamunde found herself going through the alphabet in her head, choosing baby names. Every now and again she’d feel a sharp pang of grief slice through her body as she wished she could be sharing this joy with Stephen, but then she recognised that if he’d still been alive there was every chance both he and she would have been as shocked and horrified at this pregnancy as everyone else. As it was, Rosamunde felt she had been given a gift. A link forevermore with the boy she had loved so desperately.

  The only other person who seemed to be as excited about the whole situation as Rosamunde was Kizzie. She was going through a bit of a hippy phase, obsessed with horoscopes and certain that everything that happened in life was down to fate. Rosamunde’s pregnancy was, to her, absolute confirmation of this belief.

  On one particularly rainy April day the girls sat on the bus home from school and Kizzie chattered about how the baby would have a dramatically different personality depending on which star sign it was. Rosamunde wasn’t really into what her father called ‘Kizzie’s twaddle’ but she listened happily, grateful for any positive interest in the baby. As Kizzie twittered on, Rosamunde decided she would make her a godmother. Then she started to think about who else she would choose. She’d definitely ask Mrs Garfield – she, too, had been very supportive since the news had broken. She hadn’t been blessed with children and had told Rosamunde she was looking forward to being able to play grandmother. She was a little bit stuck for godfathers but she supposed she could always ask Gerard, Kizzie’s boyfriend, at a push. The other boys she knew at school were far too irresponsible for such a job.

  As the bus arrived in Potter’s Cove, Kizzie was still rabbiting on about the disadvantages of being born a Scorpio when Rosamunde felt a twinge in her pelvis. She frowned.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Kizzie noticed immediately. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. It’s fine,’ replied Rosamunde. She’d had a few twinges in the last few days but her doctor had said it was normal. There were so many changes going on that she was bound to feel a few aches and pains. ‘Hey,’ she said, changing the conversation. ‘Do you fancy going to the cinema later? We could go and see Lethal Weapon.’

  ‘Yes!’ Kizzie agreed immediately. ‘If only to see Mel Gibson. I love that man!’

  Rosamunde returned to the Vicarage for a bath and to change into leggings and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt. Bernie offered to drive the girls to the cinema in Thatchley and it was agreed they would get the bus home. She promised to be back by eleven o’clock.

  As fate would have it, however, Rosamunde didn’t make it home at all that night. Halfway through the film she went to the lavatory and by eleven she’d been driven to hospital in Totnes by Kizzie’s mother. Rosamunde was examined and as she sat there, expectant, a young doctor confirmed her worst suspicions.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘You’ve had what’s called a miscarriage.’ He took in her sad, youthful face. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘It’s probably for the best. You’re far too young to be a mother. You’ll get another chance when you’re older.’ He meant well, Rosamunde was sure, but she couldn’t look at him. She turned her head away and shut her eyes.

  Strangely, for a day or two after the miscarriage, Rosamunde found herself weirdly elated – as if a weight had been lifted from her. She laughed hysterically at witty remarks her father and Kizzie made and she even made a few jokes herself. But soon a black veil of gloom and despair descended until Rosamunde felt as though she were flying solo encased in murky cloud, much as Granny Dupont and her friends must have felt when they were flying Spitfires in terrible weather during the war.

  The next few weeks were a blur that Rosamunde would never fully remember, for which she was grateful. It was the lowest point of her short life, of that she was certain, the loss of the baby compounding the grief for Stephen that had been neatly parcelled away when she’d discovered she was pregnant.

  It was about a month after the miscarriage that Rosamunde woke up in the night, breathless. She’d been dreaming that she was being suffocated. She was with Stephen and the long-nosed, sinister child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had locked them in her bedroom. Rosamunde screamed as he picked up her pillow and began to smother Stephen. She tried to reach out to him, to save him, but her limbs were heavy and soon the child catcher had pinned her down and was trying to suffocate her as well. Rosamunde could feel the pillow being squashed down onto her mouth as she fought for oxygen.

  As she sat up in bed, gasping for breath, she wondered whether she would actually have died if she hadn’t woken up at that moment. She realised this was fanciful but it made her recognise that she didn’t want to lie down and die. She’d lost Stephen and now she’d lost his baby, but she didn’t want to lose herself as well.

  It was a turning point for Rosamunde. She would possibly never be quite the same girl again but she had to find something to grasp on to. Something to keep her afloat. The raft she decided to cling to was her studies. She had her O Levels coming up and she’d been anything but focused in recent months. If there was one area of her life she could influence it was this.

  Rosamunde achieved straight As in her exams and again, two years later, in her A Levels. With determination she had transformed herself from a victim of life’s cruel events to a high-flying achiever.

  The first chapter of her life was closed.

  PART TWO

  19.

  WEDNESDAY 10TH DECEMBER 2014

  Benedict had always been wild about dogs and on a crisp, December day – as an early Christmas present to himself – he was collecting a rescue greyhound from Totnes to replace his old Labrador, Tess, who’d died a year ago. Rosamunde had agreed to go with him for moral support – he was worried he’d come home with every greyhound in the centre if he wasn’t physically restrained. It was no hardship to
Rosamunde, who loved any contact with animals, whether pets or wildlife. She assured Gladys she wouldn’t bring a greyhound back to the Vicarage and strolled down the hill to The Kiln where she’d agreed to meet Benedict for today’s adventure. She was rather enjoying their little jaunts. Rosamunde had told Benedict she needed to be back by mid-afternoon, however, as she was helping Bernie pick the angels for the nativity play. She had no qualms about favouritism (unlike Bernie) and had mentally picked Harriet, Kizzie’s little girl, already. She would use impartial judgement to help elect the other five. But for now she had several hours to dedicate to Benedict.

  Benedict had already had his house assessed by the couple who ran the home and clearly they had the measure of him for, when they arrived to a cacophony of barking, Phil and Suzie told Benedict very firmly they had just the dog in mind for him. Benedict’s large dark eyes were full of pity and sadness as he and Rosamunde were led past the many kennels until they reached the greyhound that had been earmarked for him. They opened the kennel door and, instead of bounding up, the dog looked up from his bed, scrutinised Benedict and then rested his head back down with a sigh, as if to say, ‘I’ve nearly been chosen so many times that I can’t be bothered to make the effort today. If you like me, then have me, but I’m blowed if I’m going to do all the running.’

  The dog was black, skinny and long-limbed, with dark eyes as soulful as Benedict’s and a long Womble-like nose. He had a little white diamond patch on his chest, which made him look like Bernie in his cassock and dog collar, and Rosamunde found herself instantly smitten. Benedict approached the dog bed and knelt down beside the hound, stroking his silky coat.

  ‘What’s his name?’ he asked Suzie, who was looking on fondly.

  ‘Humphrey,’ she told him.

  ‘Really?’ asked Benedict. ‘Well, that seals it, then, old chap,’ he told the dog. ‘I had a favourite teddy called Humphrey once,’ he explained to the onlookers sheepishly. ‘I lost him when I was about seven and I never managed to find a bear to replace him. I think I may finally have found his substitute.’ Humphrey seemed to agree. He raised himself from his bed and began, very slowly, to wag his tail.

  On the way home, with Humphrey happily dozing on the back seat, Rosamunde found herself being quizzed by Benedict about her love life.

  ‘Have you met anyone since you got back to the village?’ he asked. Rosamunde raised her eyebrows at him.

  ‘Are you joking? I love Potter’s Cove with all my heart but it’s hardly throbbing with eligible bachelors. Apart from you, of course,’ she added quickly. ‘But you don’t count.’ Benedict pulled a face. ‘Anyway, I’m not looking. What about you?’ Rosamunde turned the tables. ‘Anyone special?’

  ‘Only Humphrey,’ he grinned. ‘And I think we make a very special couple.’ Rosamunde smiled. She was inclined to agree.

  Later in the day the Vicarage was taken over by a gaggle of over-excited little girls and their parents. The auditions had been meant to take place in the church hall but the heating had broken down and Bernie didn’t feel he could inflict the creepy, cold building on a bunch of small children. It was hardly ideal, though, and the Vicarage seemed to groan like an elderly aunt wakened by an overzealous young relation as she dozed by the fire. Doors were slammed, voices were loud. It was all less than angelic.

  Thankfully Mrs Garfield turned up in the nick of time, just as Bernie and Rosamunde were standing in the sitting room, unsure how to get the children and their parents to quieten down sufficiently to start the auditions. Kizzie had been unable to stay with Harriet; otherwise she would have done her teacher bit. Within a couple of minutes Mrs Garfield had commanded silence and was ordering everyone about. An hour and a half later the auditions were over and the successful angels had been notified, including Harriet who, to be honest, was far too loud and bossy for an angel, but Rosamunde had insisted. She’d even been made the Angel Gabriel.

  With the house returned to the three of them, they sank into the sofas, breathing a collective sigh of relief. Gladys emerged from the airing cupboard where she’d taken refuge for the last couple of hours and deigned to re-join the rest of the household by the fire.

  ‘I don’t know why I think it’s a good idea to do these things,’ Bernie admitted. ‘Such a fabulous wheeze in August but now I remember why I always feel in such dire need of a break by January,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a Scrooge,’ Mrs Garfield admonished him. ‘I think it’s lovely to have a nativity play in the village. It gets everyone involved as a community, like the old days. What you need is a stiff drink and a decent meal,’ she announced, getting up from her slumped position on the sofa.

  ‘Now that’s a wonderful idea,’ he agreed, starting to haul himself up.

  ‘No, no,’ she told him. ‘You stay there. I’ll get the food on and Rosamunde will sort out the drinks, won’t you, dear?’

  ‘Of course,’ Rosamunde agreed. Who could refuse dear Mrs Garfield? She jumped up and began to inspect the drinks tray on the shining chestnut table in the corner of the sitting room. There were numerous bottles containing all sorts of putrid-coloured potions but she located the important bottles – gin for her and Bernie, sweet sherry for Mrs Garfield, who always liked Harvey’s Bristol Cream as an aperitif as Christmas approached.

  ‘No Benedict tonight?’ asked Bernie as Rosamunde fixed the drinks. He had become rather a part of the furniture of late.

  ‘No, he’s settling Humphrey in.’ Rosamunde proceeded to tell her father about their morning.

  ‘He’s a funny lad,’ Bernie mused. ‘Has he found himself a partner since all that Clara business?’ he asked, the modern word ‘partner’ sounding foreign on his tongue.

  ‘Maybe he did initially, but there’s no one at the moment,’ Rosamunde replied, thinking to herself what a waste it was that he was single. Her view of him had changed dramatically in the last couple of weeks; witnessing how soft he was at the greyhound centre today had cemented her new opinion of him. ‘It’s such a waste,’ she added, speaking her mind.

  ‘Well, he’s not the only one who’s going to waste,’ Bernie remarked, one white eyebrow raised, his amber eyes fixed on Rosamunde. But Rosamunde would not rise to that particular bait. Instead, she took a large gulp of gin and tonic and flicked on the television. There was some dreadful-looking dating show on Channel 4. That would do, she decided. Let her father focus on the love lives of this lot. Anyone’s rather than her own.

  20.

  APRIL 1997

  It was the spring of 1997 and Rosamunde was still working at Clarkson, Petty & Partners in Harbourton, where she’d bought a small flat overlooking the harbour. She’d worked there since qualifying as a lawyer despite the opportunities she’d had to pursue a career in London after obtaining a first-class honours degree in Law from Durham University.

  Having focused on her studies so obsessively, Rosamunde had found little time to open her heart to the men who’d pursued her over the last decade. She’d enjoyed the odd fling but had swiftly severed relationships before there was a chance they might turn serious. At twenty-six, though, she was beginning to watch all her friends pair off. Suddenly, instead of wobbling drunkenly from bar to bar with Rosamunde on a Saturday night, they were making excuses. ‘Sorry, Rosamunde. Toby’s cooking for me tonight. A romantic candlelit dinner,’ or ‘Would love to but I’m meeting the in-laws this evening.’ It was all rather disappointing and made Rosamunde start to question her own love life, or rather the lack of it. So at last she opened her eyes a little. Of course, now that she was looking it seemed there was a terrible drought of decent men.

  Beginning to think she was never going to meet anyone, Rosamunde threw herself into her work. She was dealing mainly with personal injury claims at the moment, which was hardly terribly challenging but she liked helping ordinary people rather than making rich conglomerates even richer. She was in the midst of a case that was pulling at her heartstrings and she had a meeting arranged with the client this m
orning.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Chapworth,’ she said, helping his wife usher him into the meeting room. The room was on the ground floor of the old building and had large sash windows looking onto the street. Although beige blinds prevented passers-by from gawping in at confidential meetings, they still allowed the sunshine to burn through and so the room was bright and warm.

  ‘Would you like a tea or coffee, either of you?’ she asked the couple, who were in their fifties but looked much older. They were sitting down now at the round conference table and looked terribly awkward. This was by no means their first meeting with Rosamunde but the Chapworths were simple folk and they were as uncomfortable in a law firm as a farmer in a suit. They shook their heads and so Rosamunde pulled the door shut and sat down beside them. She’d never been the kind of lawyer to sit opposite her clients in an authoritative fashion.

  ‘Thank you for coming in,’ she told them. ‘I just wanted to update you on my recent meeting with the other side. As you know, the trial date’s fixed for next week but negotiations are going well and it’s clear Lenses 4 U doesn’t want the adverse publicity of a trial so I’m hopeful we’ll be able to reach a very decent settlement. I’m adamant we shouldn’t go below the figure we discussed, though, and we’re about twenty thousand pounds away from that at the moment,’ she explained. ‘So I wanted to discuss the next step with you,’ she added. ‘What I need to know is how you feel about the trial. If you desperately want to avoid it we can settle at the sum currently offered but I would recommend holding out for the extra money, although there is a risk that in doing so we’ll end up having to go to trial.’

  She looked at the couple, who were listening eagerly to her every word, and her heart ached for them. Mr Chapworth had made his living as a children’s book illustrator and although he’d never made an enormous amount of money from his work, the stylistic pictures were well recognised and his living was sufficient to get by on. Not enough to enable Mrs Chapworth to give up her job as a dinner lady at the local primary school, and not sufficient to allow either of them to retire early, but they were happy with their lives. Or, at least, they had been until Mr Chapworth’s optometrist had failed to diagnose glaucoma despite obvious warning signs. Without an early diagnosis Mr Chapworth’s vision had deteriorated swiftly and he was now registered blind.