Saxonhurst Secrets

by Justine Elyot

  He sat awake, staring at his inbox for hour after hour, not that he expected a reply at least until morning.

  ‘Please respond,’ he whispered.

  Evie was due back today. He had been unfaithful to her. He couldn’t face her. And besides, he was going mad. The faith that had been so strong was unravelling, falling away, breaking into chaos. He sat back in the chair and shut his eyes, but then he opened them again, afraid of what he might dream.

  The Archdeacon’s reply, a terse nod coupled with some griping about how hard it would be to find a stand-in at such short notice, came just after Mrs Witts had arrived to prepare the breakfast.

  With ineffable gratitude in his soul, he trudged upstairs to pack a bag.

  Aquinas House stood in a shallow valley hidden deep in the Forest of Dean.

  Adam had spent the month of August in prayer and anguished efforts at atonement. If he’d known how to make a hair shirt, he would have done so. Instead, he spent three hours at a stretch on his knees on the cold stone floor of the chapel. He fasted for three days out of every seven. He went on long forest walks, letting the brambles scratch him and the nettles sting, never stopping until he was physically incapable of moving any further. Then he would lie where he was and sleep until he was able to walk back.

  He struggled daily with the knowledge of what he had done. He had gone to Julia, night after night, and given in to the lusts of the flesh. Yet when he tried to think back to how it had happened, what had been the moment of fatal weakness, he could never put his finger on it. How had he fallen, so far and so fast? It was witchcraft. There could be no other explanation.

  ‘Lord, deliver me from this evil woman,’ he prayed. ‘Turn her away from her sin and direct her to the path of righteousness. I failed to do so. I was weak and I became her vessel. Oh, how shall I ever atone?’

  Kneeling, naked from the waist up, he reached beneath the bed that took up most of his Spartan cell and found the instrument he had made from a handful of birch rods, bound together with twine. He whipped it over his shoulder, letting the branches swoop down on his back, establishing a dull, painful rhythm, carrying on past the point where he thought he could bear it, until he broke down in tears and fell on his face on the floor.

  After perhaps an hour, he stood up shakily, put on his shirt and jacket and went out into the forest.

  He hadn’t walked far when he became aware of sounds behind him – twigs snapping on the forest floor, a cough. He was being followed.

  He turned around and groaned with dismay.

  ‘Evie. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Why did you leave us? I’ve had to call in a few favours to find out where you were.’

  ‘I needed some time. Saxonhurst … Well, it’s not a healthy place for me to be.’

  ‘It’s healthier than that holy prison up the road.’

  ‘I fell into an abyss. I’m trying to find my way out.’

  ‘That’s very poetic, Adam.’ She stepped closer.

  Dear Lord, she was even more beautiful than before. Autumn was in the air, and she wore tight jeans and a figure-hugging long-sleeved T-shirt, a headscarf making a nominal effort to tame her mass of dark curls. A jewel flashed on the right side of her nose and her lips were plumper, her eyes brighter, her skin more touchable than ever.

  He sat down on a felled tree trunk, winded.

  ‘Why have you come?’

  ‘I missed you. Came back from France, couldn’t wait to see you. Ran all the way to the vicarage, but you weren’t there. Aunty said you’d gone on retreat. Retreat from what? From me?’

  She sat down beside him.

  If she touches me, I am lost.

  ‘From Saxonhurst,’ he said. ‘The most godless village in England. They weren’t wrong.’

  ‘We have our gods. Our own ones.’

  ‘I can’t work with that, Evie. Polytheists. Witches. Heathens. That’s all Saxonhurst is made of. It’s no place for a man of God.’

  ‘You’re saying you want to leave?’

  ‘I think that’s the decision I’ve been building up to, these last weeks. God has shown me that I don’t have the strength to prevail in that place. He has showed me my weakness … I pray every hour of the day for His forgiveness, that I might be made worthy. But I will have to prove myself in some other arena. Saxonhurst has defeated me.’

  Evie, who had been smiling and shaking her head, suddenly looked anxious, pale beneath her tan.

  ‘No, Adam, you ain’t defeated. You needed a rest, that’s clear. But you’ll come back stronger and you’ll build up that congregation. I’ll round up some of the locals, get them down the church next Sunday.’

  ‘Church attendance is immaterial. They have to have true faith, or it’s meaningless.’

  ‘They just need time, that’s all. They’ll come round. Get a choir together, some good rousing hymns. They love a bit of singing. Have a jumble sale.’

  Adam put his head in his hands.

  ‘A jumble sale,’ he said, laughing unsteadily. ‘I can’t go back. I can’t ever go back.’

  ‘But Adam.’ She put her hand on his thigh. ‘What about us?’

  I am lost.

  ‘You don’t mean it,’ he said. ‘You’re toying with me.’

  ‘Toying with you? D’you call this toying?’

  She pulled his hands away from his face and knelt up on the branch. She clasped her hands around his neck and moved slowly forward, gauging his response, which was to remain stock-still and petrified.

  When their lips met, he felt the penances of the past weeks come undone. As quickly as the washing of a wave, he was a man of flesh and blood again, drowning in his desires.

  She was his nemesis and he would never be able to resist her.

  Her soft mouth on his, she nipped at his lower lip, catching it delicately between her white little teeth, pulling at it. He plunged his tongue into her dark recesses, gathering her up, possessing her with a force that frightened him. She squirmed and gasped on his lap, her bottom grinding lusciously on his erect cock.

  They kissed ravenously and without stopping for breath until a dog rushed by, hotly pursued by its owner, causing them to break apart with blushes on his part, though not on hers.

  ‘Come back to Saxonhurst, Adam.’

  ‘I want you. But I don’t want Saxonhurst.’

  ‘You can only be with me there. It’s my home.’

  ‘I hate it.’

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you apply to the diocese for a transfer? We can sort something out, I’m sure. Maybe a nice little suburban church in Parham? All yummy mummies and bake sales.’

  ‘But you would be in Saxonhurst.’

  ‘As long as you weren’t too far away, it’d be all right, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Evie, I want to marry you. If I marry you, we live together. I’m not leaving you in Saxonhurst.’

  ‘Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. But you can’t stay here for ever. And the Archdeacon’ll want you back. Don’t trash your career for the sake of some stroppy villagers. If it’s that Julia Shields you’re worried about –’

  ‘What’s she said to you?’

  Evie smiled slyly. ‘Nothing. I know what she’s like, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s a witch.’

  ‘Just come back for a little while, darling. Just until the Harvest Festival. You’ve got to do the Harvest Festival. It’s the one church thing everyone goes to. Put on a slap-up supper and a barn dance. The place’ll be heaving at the rafters.’

  ‘I can’t …’

  She kissed him again, gently as air.

  ‘You can, lover. You can.’

  ‘Where the hell did you disappear to?’

  Adam had not bargained on bumping into Julia. He finished pinning up the notice on the board and turned to her, his face set in unwelcoming blankness.

  ‘I needed to get away. To think. I’ve thought. Now I’m back.’

  ‘I see. Care to share any of these t
houghts?’

  ‘Yes, actually.’ He dropped his voice, looking over her head for any passing villagers, but the lane outside the church was quiet. ‘What happened between us was wrong and it’s over. I wasn’t myself. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘You weren’t yourself? It’s the one time you’ve ever been entirely yourself, Adam, you silly, silly man. It’s the one time you’ve dropped those ridiculous inhibitions and scruples and been the natural Adam Flint. I know it and, deep down, so do you. But you’ll keep lying to yourself because it suits you.’

  ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree,’ he said. ‘Are you still at the manor house?’

  ‘No. Got turfed out with a police escort. Made it into the local paper, actually. You’d have seen it if you’d been here. I needed you, Adam. You left me when I needed you most.’

  ‘What you need,’ he said, ‘is a doctor. A psychiatrist.’

  ‘Oh, how dare you! You’re going to deny everything that happened, aren’t you? God, you’re an idiot.’

  She seemed about to flounce off, but the poster caught her eye and she stopped to read it.

  ‘And so it begins,’ she said, in a tone that made Adam’s hackles rise.

  ‘What do you mean? The Harvest Festival? It’s pretty usual to have one at this time of year.’

  ‘Her idea, was it?’

  ‘Actually, it was both of our ideas.’

  ‘At least you’ll get a full house for that one. Adam.’ She put out a hand suddenly, touching his forearm. He snatched it away. ‘I wish you’d listen to me. You mustn’t go to that festival.’

  ‘It’s a church event, Julia. How can I not go?’

  ‘You won’t come out of it.’

  He shook his head with exasperation.

  ‘Look, all that village history stuff – Tribulation Smith, the Lydford book, the generations of Evangelines – I’m going to put it behind me. I got too involved in it and it affected my thinking. From now on, I look to the future. My future and that of Saxonhurst as a Christian village.’

  ‘And the future of Evie.’

  He glared.

  ‘Yes. Yes, why not? The future of Evie.’

  Julia turned away from him.

  ‘You’re next, then,’ she muttered, before stalking off towards the post office.

  Adam shook his head and re-entered the churchyard through the lych gate. It was a gloriously mellow late-summer day, the air ripe with the smell of fallen apples.

  When he walked into the vicarage, Mrs Witts called out from the kitchen, ‘Evie’s come to see you. She’s in the garden.’

  Adam’s heart glowed and he walked out into the neatly tended back garden, finding her sitting at the far end of the lawn in her scarlet dress.

  She waved at him. As he drew nearer, he saw that her mouth was stained a delicate purple.

  ‘You’ve got a ton of blackberries, vicar,’ she said, pulling a few more off the hedge and cramming them into her mouth.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Aunty’s making a crumble with ’em, but there’s loads left. Come and have some.’

  He sat down beside her and took off his hat.

  ‘How many have you had?’ he asked laughingly.

  ‘Loads. I love ’em. Don’t you?’

  She put one to his lips and he accepted it, biting down so that the slightly sharp, mildly flavoured juice burst on to his tongue.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said, swallowing it down.

  ‘Have another,’ she said.

  She popped one in her mouth, then she lifted her face to Adam’s, putting her hands around his neck and pulling him into a kiss. Once she had prised open his lips with her tongue, she pushed the blackberry into his mouth. Their tongues competed to burst it first, Evie winning the race.

  ‘Mmm. Let’s do that again.’

  They consumed a lot of blackberries in this manner, the juice running down their chins, their lips and teeth bumping together, their tongues stained purple.

  Adam grasped Evie around her waist and pulled her down so they lay, entwined and panting and surrounded by smashed blackberries, in the shadow of the hedgerow. Now the kissing continued without the fruit, sensual yet solemn, while the sun looked down upon them.

  The lushness of her body beneath his hand made him moan with desire. The way she filled her dress, curving and spilling over, was too perfect to bear. He ran a hand up her thigh until he was inside her silky skirt, close to her silky briefs.

  Evie broke off the kiss. ‘’Ere, vicar. You’re coming on a bit strong, aren’t you? Didn’t think you knew how to feel a girl up. I see I’ve got a lot to learn about you.’

  ‘You are going to marry me, Evie, aren’t you? Say yes.’

  She sat up, dried grass stalks in her hair, blackberry juice on her breasts. God, she was obscenely gorgeous.

  She put a finger on his lips, smiling fondly.

  ‘You’re covered in juice stains,’ she said. ‘What a funny bloke you are, Adam. You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘You know I am. I love you so much it chokes me. I love you so much my vision goes black around the edges when I see you. I love you so much it’s driving me slowly insane. Well, not that slowly, actually.’ He laughed mirthlessly and grabbed her hand. ‘You have to say yes.’

  ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘After the Harvest Festival. OK.’

  ‘Really? You will?’

  ‘Yeah, why not? You’re fit as fuck and you’ll do for me.’ She giggled. ‘Imagine Evie Witts as the vicar’s wife. I’ll never hear the end of it.’

  ‘Oh Evie. Oh, you’ve saved my life.’

  He threw his arms around her and locked her in a passionate kiss that threatened to drown the pair of them.

  ‘Steady,’ she laughed, emerging in even more of a mess than she had been before. ‘Where’s my ring then?’

  ‘Ring? Oh! Of course. Well, are you busy? Shall we go to Parham and look in the jewellers?’

  ‘I’m never too busy for new diamonds, lover. Not that I’ve got any old ones, mind.’

  Mrs Witts, who had been watching from the back porch, mixing bowl under her arm, congratulated them as they passed by. The look exchanged between aunt and niece was a little strange, loaded with something. But Adam was too immersed in his private rapture to think about that too much.

  ‘You’ll have to give up that porn film work. If you can call it work.’

  They lazed in the shade of a spreading oak tree by the river in Parham. Evie’s ring finger sparkled. She held it up to the sun, admiring it from every angle.

  ‘Why? I’m a modern woman, Adam.’ She laughed at his face. ‘I’m only joking. I know it’d get you in trouble with the bishop. Dunno why, though. It’s just sex.’

  ‘Evie! You can’t have sex with anyone else but me. We’ll be married. “Forsaking all others”, remember.’

  ‘Oh, you religious types,’ she sighed, stretching out on the grass. ‘Funny lot you all are.’

  ‘You’re going to have a lot of adjustments to make,’ said Adam anxiously. ‘Perhaps I should help you understand what Christian marriage is. Perhaps we should focus on that in our study sessions.’

  Evie laughed, a trill that sent the ducks quacking over to the other bank of the river.

  ‘You want to teach me how to be a wife? You’re classic, Adam, you know that?’ She rolled over to face him, smiling up at him. ‘But I do like you.’

  ‘More than like, I hope.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She reached up to stroke his cheek. ‘More’n like.’

  ‘Our love must be faithful and exclusive,’ he said earnestly. ‘Nobody else can have you now.’

  ‘We ain’t married yet.’

  ‘Evie!’

  ‘Tell you what. Let’s go back to yours and – get a bit of practice in. For the wedding night, like.’

  ‘No. No sex before marriage.’ A flashback to all those nights with Julia, so vivid his stomach ached, burst into his brain. ‘We should wait.’

  ‘Who’d care? You
r God? He don’t care. He knows I’ve been around the block, I should think, what with being omniscient and all.’

  ‘Evie. I want to do this properly.’

  ‘Can you do it properly, though? That’s my question. When it comes down to brass tacks – have you had a woman?’

  Adam swallowed and looked out over the river.

  ‘Adam. I asked you a question. Are you a virgin?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Really? I thought you were, for some reason. Bad boy, were you, back before you took up wearing that dog collar?’ She curled her fingers inside it, poking his neck. ‘Love it. Such a sexy look. My man in his dog collar. Not like the ones we put on the subs at work. They really are dog collars, leashes and all.’

  ‘Yes, well, the less said about that the better.’ Adam’s tone was stiff. ‘And you’re going to have to learn to stop saying everything that comes into your head. I can’t have you talking about – subs – at the Bishop’s palace garden party.’

  Evie pouted. ‘Why not? What am I supposed to talk about?’

  ‘The weather. A good book you read recently. A charity you support.’

  ‘I support the Saxonhurst cricket team. Will that do?’

  Adam clenched his fist, remembering that awful afternoon in the sports pavilion.

  ‘I have a lot of work to do on you,’ he said under his breath. ‘But I’ll get there.’

  ‘That sounds ominous.’ A cloud covered the sun and she sat up and hugged herself. ‘We going home for that shag then, or what?’

  ‘No, we are not. But I do need to book the service and call around for a clergyman to officiate. I take it you want to use St Jude’s?’

  ‘Register office’d do me fine,’ she said sulkily.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Come on. Let’s get home. We can call at your parents’ on the way back – tell them the good news.’

  If they thought the news good, Evie’s parents didn’t do much to show it. Her father, out in his combine harvester, wasn’t available, and her mother stood at the counter in the farm shop, counting out eggs into boxes without even looking up.