The Clear Light of Day

by Penelope Wilcock

  As she was two steps into the yard, she heard him say in quiet but vehement reproach, appalled, “Ember, how could you?”

  When Esme returned to the kitchen, Jabez would not look at her. He made her a mug of tea, and set it before her without speaking as she sat down at his table. Ember had taken the pile of clean linen to put away, and Esme searched for a way into his self-conscious silence.

  “Thank you for the flowers,” she said gently, after awhile. “You shouldn’t have picked the last of your roses for me.”

  He shrugged, embarrassed. “You’re welcome. I—well, you’re welcome.” She sat, watching him. “Jabez, for goodness sake, look at me!” So he did, but only for a moment. “Leave it,” he said, shaking his head. “Leave it, let it sort itself out. Let’s just see how we go.”

  She sighed. “Okay. But—are we all right? Are you all right? I mean—is it all right between us?”

  He stretched across the table and with his fingertips lightly stroked her hand.

  “It’s all right,” he said, “but leave it for now. Esme, I got work to do. I’m expected in Brockhyrst Priory at half-past nine.”

  She drank her tea, and as she left the cottage, he came outside with her to collect the necessary tools for his morning’s work from the shed.

  He smiled at her, so hopelessly shy he made her feel shy too.

  This is crazy, she told herself. We’re like teenagers! And whenever am I going to tell him about my job?

  The days that followed plunged Esme into an unremitting round of pre-Christmas social gatherings and liturgies. She drove out to Wiles Green and called at the cottage after the Portland Street carol service on the second Sunday of Advent, but apart from that there seemed no time; even the Sunday evenings after worship had turned into special occasions celebrated with obligatory mince pies. Esme hated mince pies, but it would have been impolitic to confess it.

  The busyness of the season drove from her mind all concerns about the impending move, apart from the occasional pang of wistfulness as she reflected that if things developed smoothly, this would be her last Christmas with her congregations here.

  Neither could she give much time to worrying about her friendship with Jabez. With characteristic self-possession he had contained his mortification at having his confidences of love betrayed, and when she called after church in mid-Advent, he made her welcome, cooking her supper and hearing with quiet amusement her exasperation at all the excesses smothering the simple beauty of Christmas. Esme asked him if, in time to decorate Portland Street chapel for the junior school end-of-term carol service on Tuesday, she might have some of the ivy and the bright-berried holly that grew in his hedge at the top of the orchard. Jabez readily agreed, offering to cut her some and bring it over on Monday afternoon.

  “If I don’t find you home, I’ll leave it somewhere in the yard,” he said. “Unless—” he hesitated. “Would you rather I take it straight to the chapel?”

  Esme’s heart went out to him. She sensed that Jabez would rather do almost anything than involve himself with a party of church members arranging flowers. “My place will do fine,” she said. “It’s really kind of you to bring it over for me.”

  Ember had chuckled at the relief on his face.

  About ten days before Christmas, Esme became conscious of how tired she felt. She looked at her packed diary, which had long overrun any hope of a day off before Boxing Day, turning the pages desperately in search of something she could cancel without causing offense. She found nothing.

  Christmas day fell on a Saturday that year, and the preceding weekend held a Christmas Fayre at Portland Street on the Saturday morning (Esme had been written down to open it with a prayer and then help run the white elephant stall); a church concert at Brockhyrst Priory on the Saturday evening (Esme had been asked to say a blessing at the end); and on the Sunday the junior church nativity presentation at Portland Street in the morning, followed by two carol services one after another in the evening at Wiles Green and Brockhyrst Priory.

  As she stood in the doorway of Brockhyrst Priory Methodist Chapel in the bitter cold, shaking the hands of visitors leaving the Saturday-evening concert, Esme’s head ached and her throat felt sore.

  “Nice for you to have an evening off!” beamed the husband of one of the choir members, and Esme looked at him in amazed disbelief, unable for a moment to frame a reply.

  “Yes,” she said lamely then, seeing some response was required. She had no need to summon a smile. Her Christmas smile had become a permanent fixture. Her face ached when she let the smiling mask drop as she got into her car to go home.

  On the Monday morning, when the ladies from Portland Street came for the annual “Parsonage Pies” event, erecting folding tables laden with bric-a-brac for sale in her front room, Esme was beginning to feel shivery and distant. Grateful that welcoming them into her kitchen with all the chapel crockery, coffee, and boxes of biscuits seemed to be all that was required of her, she subsided onto one of the chairs that she had ranged round the walls of her dining room, the table being pushed against the wall below the hatch to serve coffee.

  Normally she felt encouraged and cheered by the jollity and good fellowship of these gatherings. The evident goodwill and friendliness of her church members was heartening to see, but through that morning, as people came and went in faithful support of the event, her head swam and her eyeballs hurt her. She felt faint and dizzy and slightly nauseous, but most of all, despite the air desiccated by the central heating, she felt so cold.

  The ladies washed up, counted the takings from the bric-a-brac stall, asked Esme if she would mind if they left all the unsold bits and pieces with her at the parsonage, and made their cheerful departure at about one o’clock.

  I must go to bed, Esme thought as she said thank you and smiled and waved in farewell to the last one. I’ve got to go to bed. I can’t be ill now, there’s the junior school end-of-term concert tomorrow and all the Christmas services coming up. I can’t be ill. I expect I’ll be better if I just have a lie-down.

  Shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering, she began to climb the stairs. She wanted her hot-water bottle, but it seemed such a long way to go to fetch it. She thought she ought to lock the back door, which meant returning to the kitchen anyway, so she persevered in her journey to collect the hot-water bottle. She felt as though she would never reach her bedroom, and when she reached the top of the stairs, she crawled along the landing on her hands and knees. When she got to her bed, she collapsed onto it and lay there for a while, summoning the strength to make her way back down. Eventually, with an effort, she sat up on the bed, pulled off her clothes, and dropped them on the floor. Even the touch of her nightdress seemed to hurt her skin as she put it on, but she felt pathetically grateful for the snuggly softness of her dressing gown over it, a warm pink chosen to be comforting. She sat for a while, and then made herself begin the trip back to the kitchen; but halfway down the flight of stairs she crumpled and sank down, shaking, hunched into a heap of feverish misery. Oh, God, I feel so ill, she muttered. Oh, help!

  She sat there for a few minutes, shivering violently. She felt as though she were spinning in the cold loneliness of black space, weak and drained and empty. Oh, God, I need somebody. I feel so ill. She gave up all hope of moving, and just sat in a state of collapse.

  She vaguely heard a knock at the back door without taking in what it was. The knock was repeated, and the door opened. She heard Jabez’s voice calling, “Esme?” and it felt like the most welcome sound in the world.

  “Hello!” she called back, embarrassed at the feeble croak of her voice. For heaven’s sake! she thought. Half an hour ago I was on my feet saying good-bye to people, I can’t be that bad. She lifted her head and leaned it against the banisters, listening to the sound of him kicking his boots off just inside the kitchen door before he came through from the kitchen into the hall toward the sound of her voice.

  He looked up and saw her. “Esme!”—and the next moment s
he was enfolded in his arms.

  “I don’t feel very well,” she murmured, turning toward him, shivering, clinging to him pathetically for warmth and restoration.

  “Come on, sweetheart, you shouldn’t be here. Let me put you to bed.”

  Esme clutched at his sweater, longing for the friendly, woolly feeling of it, and nuzzled her face against him, smelling him; tobacco and machine oil and the warm, human smell of him.

  He held her for a moment, and she felt him kiss her hair, felt herself enfolded in absolute tenderness.

  “You’re not well, my love, look at the state of you,” he said. “Let me put you to bed. What are you doing sitting here?”

  “I was going to fill my hot-water bottle,” Esme said, reaching to pull it out from where it had wedged between her and the banisters. He took it from her and laid it down on the stairs.

  “I’ll do that,” he said, “and get you a hot drink if you’d like one. Come on now.”

  He came upstairs with her, and she showed him which was her bedroom. He straightened the bedclothes and turned back the quilt, and Esme curled up on the bed, her dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, shivering convulsively, her teeth chattering.

  He tucked the quilt round her, and she stayed there curled in a tight ball while he went down to the kitchen and boiled the kettle. He was back quickly with the hot-water bottle and a steaming cup of medicated lemon drink for colds and flu that he had found at the back of the cupboard where Esme kept her tea and coffee.

  She took the hot-water bottle into the bed gratefully, and gradually its warmth enabled her to relax. After a few minutes she sat up, and propped against the pillows she drank the hot mixture he had made her. She began to feel warmer and a little less desperate.

  “Is there anything more I can do for you, my love?” Jabez asked her as he took the empty cup from her hands and put it on her dressing table ready to take downstairs.

  “Yes,” said Esme. Even as she spoke, a rational part of her mind was telling her, Don’t do this, Esme; don’t drag him into this any deeper—be fair, but she said, “I want you to lie on the bed with me and hold me. Oh, Jabez, I feel so ill.”

  For a moment he hesitated, looking down at her. Her eyes ached unbearably, and now she was beginning to feel hot. She lifted back the covers and immediately a wave of shivery cold returned. She closed her eyes. “I feel so ill,” she said again. “Please, Jabez.”

  Diffidently, because she asked it, he lay down on the bed beside her, and took her into his arms. “Just for a little while,” he said. “I think you need to go to sleep, my love.” Esme snuggled against him, hungry for the comfort of his kindness and warmth. As he held her, breathing quietly, saying nothing, the softness of his beard against her forehead; as the tension smoothed out of her, she began to feel his heartbeat, and an unfamiliar sense of trust and peace welled up and suffused her whole being. She felt like a child again. She felt as though she’d come home.

  “Esme,” she heard him say gently as drowsiness enveloped her, “will it be all right if I let someone like Mr. Griffiths know you aren’t well? I guess this is a busy week, and it might be as well to sort out someone to step in for you.”

  “Oh … yes, please … whatever … thank you, Jabez.…” And she fell asleep in his arms.

  For the next twenty-four hours Esme drifted in and out of feverish sleep. For two days after that she felt too weak to get out of bed. Each day Jabez called in twice to make sure she was all right, and he brought her simple, nourishing things to eat and left her with a hot drink in a Thermos flask by her bed. A message came from Marcus to say he had contacted the people in her diary, as passed on to him by Jabez, and she need have no concerns, just get well. He added that five other people from Brockhyrst Priory had flu, including the organist; but not to worry, he would deputize on the organ for the Christmas services if necessary.

  On Christmas Eve, when Esme was on her feet and feeling like herself again, shaky but normal, she discovered with delight that in three days of illness she had lost five pounds, which made it all worthwhile. Jabez called in to see her in the morning and expressed doubt about her being sufficiently recovered for the Christmas services, but she reassured him she would be fine and thanked him, promising to call in to the cottage before she went away to visit her family.

  She felt well enough to take the children’s crib service at Portland Street, and their midnight communion, and despite feeling strangely insubstantial by Christmas morning, she managed the early service at Brockhyrst Priory, where Marcus played for her.

  “Well done!” she said to him afterward. “I had no idea you could play!”

  “Oh, well …” He shrugged his shoulders in deprecation. “I can fill in, my dear, but I’m not a patch on good old Clifford. When he plays, the spirit soars, but with me it’s more a case of Toccata and Fudge in D minor, and that’s if you’re lucky on a good day. Glad to help out—but are you sure you’re better? Should you be here?”

  Esme smiled at him. “I feel a bit floaty, but I’m fine really. Thanks for all your help.”

  Marcus looked at her thoughtfully. “Just as well Jabez Ferrall was about; he explained he’d been calling in with the church greenery and found you unwell. Kind of him to help out with decorating the church for Christmas. Jabez is a good man.”

  “Ah! There you are, my dear!” Hilda’s arm was suddenly around Esme’s shoulders in a loving squeeze. “I was looking for you at the door and someone said, ‘There she is, look, Hilda, over by the organ!’—and here you are indeed. A teeny little Christmas gift, dear—just a small packet of fossilized ginger, very warming, good for the circulation. Merry Christmas!”

  “Crystallized,” murmured Marcus, as he turned to assemble his sheets of music and lock up the organ console. “Merry Christmas,” he added, looking at Esme over the top of his glasses. “And make sure you get some rest.”

  Esme went straight from Brockhyrst Priory to the morning service at Wiles Green, where one by one as they left the chapel, her congregation expressed their love and concern—“Are you all right?” “Take it easy, now!” “Have a nice rest with your family after tomorrow.”

  She thought of the Christmas cards mingled with “Get well” cards crammed on every ledge and surface at the parsonage, the greetings and affection of her church members.

  As she walked away from the chapel toward her car, Esme felt warmed and encouraged by their friendship and support, and privileged that she should be its focus.

  “Esme.”

  When she reached her car, Esme looked around to see who had spoken her name. In the shadow of the yew tree, well out of the sight of worshippers leaving the chapel, stood Jabez.

  “Would you like to come to us for lunch, or have you got other plans?” he asked.

  Esme smiled, grateful.

  “Happy Christmas,” she said. “I’d love to be with you.”

  EIGHT

  In the days between Christmas and New Year’s, Esme spent time with her parents and with her brother and his family who lived near them.

  Over dinner one evening she told them about the changes agreed for the Southarbour circuit, and the suggested possibility of a move to Surrey. They listened with interest and saw it overall as a positive move—“Provided no one’s doing you down or trying to push you out of where you are at present,” her brother said.

  “Is the rectory in the Surrey parish nice?” asked her mother, and Esme explained that everything had still to be discussed, letters written, meetings arranged. Looking at the Surrey parsonage belonged to a later stage of negotiation.

  She wondered whether to talk to them about Jabez but decided there was nothing really to tell. He had never referred again to the moment of intimacy they had shared when she was ill, and on Christmas Day she saw in his manner no hint of an invitation offered to move their relationship onto a deeper level. He was his usual self; quiet, friendly, and kind. Nothing more. Yet she felt so much had passed between them that to refrain from men
tioning him to her family seemed wrong.

  “I have made some very dear friends in Southarbour,” she said to her family, as her mother brought in the glass and silver-plate French press steaming from the kitchen at the end of their meal. Unsure how much to say, or how to describe Jabez and Ember, Esme hesitated. It seemed odd that, though they had become so important to her, in all the discussions with her colleagues and now with her family, there never seemed an appropriate point to mention them, to bring them into the equation. She supposed it was that there was no more to be said than that she loved them; and love had little place in decision-making about house moves and career opportunities.

  “It’s my one misgiving about going,” she went on; “I don’t want to leave them.”

  “That’s the way of the world, young Esme,” her father said sagely, as her mother handed him the jug of cream to pour into his coffee. “Life was ever thus. You’re a professional woman with a living to earn; you must put your career first. Friends are all very well, but I’m afraid what you must do is just move on and forget them. It’s sad, but that’s how it has to be. The job has to come first. Just forget them. Welcome to the real world.”

  Her mother nodded thoughtfully in agreement, and her brother added, “Besides, Es, if you play your cards right and stay good friends with them, you’ll have seaside holidays for life, which can’t be bad.”

  It sounded so sensible. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with me, thought Esme; maybe I just haven’t got my feet on the ground. After all, I have got my living to earn. No one’s offering me an alternative. And there’s nothing to be gained by feeling miserable about what’s inevitable.

  She did not pursue the matter, and her family had no questions to ask about Jabez and Ember, seeing nothing of influence or significance in the relationship.