by Ron Benrey
“And the reason is…?”
“The tea party provides a uniquely English mechanism for people to interact and communicate. Thus, Alice felt free to communicate openly with the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit and to exchange information in a peaceful, nonconfrontational setting.”
“I’ve said it before—bah humbug!” Nigel tromped on the accelerator.
Flick did not enjoy driving or being driven through Tunbridge Wells’s town centre. Nigel seemed to relish the challenge. He charged into the heavy flow of late-afternoon traffic crawling along Eridge Road.
“I chatted with the vicar, as promised,” Nigel said, glancing at Flick. “He sounded happy that we wanted to visit him.”
Flick needed all her willpower not to shout “Don’t talk! And keep your eyes on the road!” It didn’t help matters that the sun had set and the dazzling headlights of the oncoming traffic made her squint repeatedly.
Nigel zipped around a lorry lumbering in low gear and veered around several parked cars, coming perilously close to oncoming traffic.
Flick shut her eyes. Anyone driving like Nigel in York, Pennsylvania, would be sentenced to years in prison. In England everyone seemed to drive the same way.
“Were Elspeth and Vicar de Rudd good friends?” Nigel asked. “I never had the impression that they were. Of course, I have seen them together only at trustee meetings.”
Nigel turned onto a two-lane road lined with tall trees that were busy dropping their leaves. The houses along the road were fewer and larger; many were hidden behind high hedgerows. In Pennsylvania, a road like this would be a quiet scenic lane. In Kent, it was a busy thoroughfare. Flick tightened her seat belt as Nigel revved the engine and the car shot forward.
“We’re almost there,” Nigel said. “Have you thought about what we are going to say to the vicar? He probably is tired of hearing you allege that one of his fellow trustees poisoned Elspeth.”
“Very funny. However, you can tell him that Elspeth wanted to share a Bible verse with the other trustees but never got the chance. Say that you are curious about what she might have had in mind. Repeat the verse, but leave out the part about an exceedingly clever thief in our midst.”
Nigel downshifted and passed a slow-moving bus. “Good! That’s more or less the truth. I wasn’t looking forward to lying to a vicar.”
Flick squeaked out a laugh. “And here I thought you had lost your boyish faith.”
“Oh, I’m still a member of the Church of England. I just don’t do much about it.”
“Same with me. I stopped going to church when I went off to college. Well, except for Christmas and Easter. I love the music.”
“Hmmm. Me, too.” He grinned at her. “Do you still remember the prayers you used to say when you were a kid?”
“I came close to praying yesterday when I thought you were poisoned.”
“You were going to pray for me?”
Flick laughed. “Actually, I thought about praying for wisdom. For me.”
The vicarage of St. Stephen’s Church was on the north side of Pembury Road, opposite Dunorlan Park. Nigel steered the BMW into the vicarage driveway and parked next to the gray stone building. He seemed to anticipate her next question.
“It’s made of some sort of limestone, I believe,” he said. “If we get the chance, let’s ask the vicar.”
Nigel worked the large brass doorknocker.
“Don’t you recognize what that is?” Flick asked excitedly. “It’s a miniature tea clipper. How did it end up way out here?”
The door opened. Vicar de Rudd smiled and said, “Welcome to St. Stephen’s.”
Flick and Nigel followed the vicar—a man of her height but significantly larger girth—into a small parlor full of friendly looking overstuffed furniture. He guided them to two comfortable wing chairs and said, “I have a pot of tea brewing in the kitchen. How would everyone like a good cuppa?”
Flick said, “I’d love one.” She expected Nigel to decline, but he nodded graciously. “Me, too.”
“I’ll be back in half a tick.” The vicar suddenly stopped in the doorway. “Would anyone care for a biscuit? Elsie, my housekeeper, bakes the best shortbread in the realm.”
“Please!” Flick said.
“Indeed!” added Nigel.
It wasn’t long before Flick heard the vicar’s footsteps on the wooden floor and the rattle of teacups on a tray. He set the tray on a small table and sat down opposite them. The vicar winked at Nigel. “If our museum mother doesn’t object, I shall be mother at the vicarage.”
Flick had heard the metaphor many times during her stay in England; one of these days she would have to ask for clarification. Was pouring tea while other members of the family looked on an inevitable responsibility of British motherhood? And why did the museum’s trustees find great pleasure in repeatedly reminding Nigel that he was “mother” at their meetings?
Flick took a sip. She identified the tea immediately. A good quality Ceylon, brewed strong enough to support a teaspoon.
“Very nice,” she said. She took a bite of the shortbread biscuit.
What we call a butter cookie back in Pennsylvania.
Vicar de Rudd leaned back in his chair. “Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?”
Flick gave Nigel a “go ahead” nod. He cleared his throat and said, “Vicar, we have a bit of a biblical mystery that we hope you can solve.”
She watched a grin creep across de Rudd’s normally somber countenance. “You have come to the right place. I earn my daily bread helping people appreciate the Bible. Please go on.”
“As you know,” Nigel said, “Dame Elspeth visited me a few hours before she died.”
The vicar nodded. “She wanted to speak briefly at the end of the trustee meeting. She asked you to arrange it.”
“Yes. However, Dame Elspeth also said something curious to me—something that I have been wondering about ever since. She apparently planned to share a Bible verse with the trustees—a brief passage from Exodus. ‘The thief, if he is caught, must pay back double.’ Would you have any idea of the significance of that verse to Elspeth Hawker?”
Vicar de Rudd burst into laughter—a deep, rumbling belly laugh that Flick could not resist. She began to laugh along with the vicar, and so did Nigel. When everyone had stopped laughing, the vicar stood up and said, “Follow me, and all will be made clear.”
Flashlight in hand, he led them out of the vicarage, along a narrow macadam pathway that wound through trees and brought them to the back of a shadowy stone structure that Flick could not make out in the dark.
“Wait here while I turn on the lights.”
The vicar entered a rear door. A few seconds later, Flick had to shield her eyes with her hand as the area seemed to explode with light. Eight banks of floodlights—four in the ground, four hidden on the church—made St. Stephen’s Church glow like a theme-park castle.
The vicar returned quickly, his face still beaming.
“Let me tell you about St. Stephen’s,” he said. “Our church accommodates two hundred worshippers. It was built late in the nineteenth century, but in the style of a fourteenth-century kirk. The primary building material is Kentish ragstone, a hard gray limestone from a local quarry. The vicarage also is made of ragstone. The dressings—the trim, if you prefer—are bath-stone, a different kind of limestone that has a textured, open grain. The roof is made of tile. The cost to acquire the land and build the church was six thousand pounds.”
Flick couldn’t understand why this information was significant, but Vicar de Rudd seemed to be having such fun conveying it that she couldn’t help smiling and nodding as he spoke.
The vicar led them to the front of the church and pushed open the front door. “Next, I direct your attention to the bronze tablet on the wall, just beyond the door.” He used his flashlight to light up the tablet.
Flick read the inscription. The Cornerstone of St. Stephen’s Church Was Laid by Commodore Desmond Hawker
on the Sixteenth Day of September, Anno Domini 1897. This Church Was Consecrated the Thirtieth Day of August, Anno Domini 1899. And then at the bottom of the bronze plate: St. Stephen’s Church is the gift of a thief who made every effort to pay back double.
She fought to keep the emotion she felt out of her voice. “Desmond Hawker paid for this church,” she said calmly.
“And why not?” The vicar waved vaguely at Pembury Road. “We are scarcely a mile away from Lion’s Peak. Desmond Hawker saw the need for a church close to his home, so he bought one. Six thousand pounds was nothing to a man of his means.”
Flick thought she heard criticism in the vicar’s tone. Did he disapprove of Desmond’s wealth? Or did he dislike the outward haughtiness of a man who could decide one day to build a church where and when he wanted one—and even put a tea-clipper-shaped knocker on the vicarage door?
She took a step backward and nearly fell against Nigel, who had moved behind her to get closer to the tablet. He held her in his arms for a moment. When she looked up at him, she saw a startled-little-boy expression that made her smile.
The vicar went on. “The words that Elspeth spoke to Nigel are from Exodus 22:7. By all reckoning, that verse was Desmond Hawker’s favorite Bible passage and became the equivalent of a family motto in his later years. I suspect that the verse became equally significant to Dame Elspeth as she approached the end of her life, although I can’t begin to guess her reasons for wanting to share it with the board of trustees.”
Flick reached out and touched the raised bronze letters on the tablet. “Why do you suppose Desmond considered that verse so important?”
The vicar began his reply with a slight shrug. “One need not look far to find an answer. As Desmond grew older, he undoubtedly came to understand the depth of the sins he had committed earlier during his life. He felt a strong need to repent and undo the damage he had done through a campaign of good works.” The vicar sighed. “Hardly a unique story. Many powerful men have tried to buy their way into heaven.”
Flick exchanged glances with Nigel. He didn’t accept the vicar’s “obvious” explanation, either. Desmond had called himself a thief, not merely a sinner. There had to be more behind Desmond’s selection of that specific verse from Exodus and the way he modified it. Desmond’s motives—whether he really had some scheme to put himself right with God—mattered less than his curious choice of words. If they could decipher what Desmond wanted to say, maybe they also could understand why Elspeth chose to speak similar words to describe a systematic theft at the museum.
Flick struggled to invent a reasonable pretext on the fly.
“Frankly, I am astonished,” she said. “I thought I knew most of Desmond Hawker’s life story, but you have introduced me to an entirely new chapter. St. Stephen’s Church was obviously important to Desmond, yet we don’t have a single mention of it at the museum. We must correct that oversight quickly.”
The vicar stared at Flick, his eyebrows raised. “As chief curator, you know best, yet I can’t imagine that visitors to a tea museum would care about a small country church that Desmond Hawker established. The world knows that the commodore performed the lion’s share of his good works when he created the Hawker Foundation.”
Flick ignored the vicar’s mild rebuke. “Whom might I talk to if I want to learn more about Desmond Hawker’s decision to build St. Stephen’s?”
“The only person who might be able to answer such a question is Nathalie Stubbings. She was our church historian for many years. Nathalie is quite elderly now, of course, but still sharp-witted as ever. She lives with her son in London, in St. Johns Wood.”
“Perhaps I will pay her a visit,” Flick said, as if she had not yet decided. In fact, her racing mind had all but finished planning a trip to London.
Thirteen
Nigel perused the map the next morning. If they left Tunbridge Wells at eleven thirty, it should take no more than ninety minutes to reach Abercorn Place in St. Johns Wood, an upscale neighborhood close to the western boundary of London’s congestion zone. The simple fact of Abercorn Place’s location posed an interesting dilemma: Should he invest five pounds, pay the outrageous congestion tax, and drive through central London? Or would it be more sensible to take a more circuitous route and skirt the congestion zone entirely?
Have some fun. Enjoy your unnecessary afternoon away from the office.
Nigel rehashed the convoluted purpose of their journey. Because Flick thought it important to know why Elspeth had quoted a pithy Bible verse, she insisted on visiting the elderly woman who lived on Abercorn Place in the hope that she would explain why Desmond Hawker had chosen the same verse as a kind of personal motto. The instant Flick had reached the BMW, she used her smartphone to call Nathalie Stubbings. The pair had chatted for most of the trip from St. Stephen’s vicarage back to Tunbridge Wells.
Flick had rung off with a huge smile on her face. “Mrs. Stubbings is eager to see us tomorrow afternoon. We are to call her Nathalie. She is a retired schoolteacher and a widow who lives with her son, Marcus. She’s seventy-nine years old. She grew up in Brighton, not far from the Pavilion. She says it’s been a dog’s year since anyone has asked her about St. Stephen’s Church. She often went to church with Elspeth Hawker. She considers Commodore Hawker a fascinating character and will be happy to tell us everything she knows about him.”
“Even if she has to make everything up on the fly,” Nigel had muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he had replied. Nigel’s mother had a flock of elderly friends with little useful to say, who also loved to talk to strangers.
We’re probably on a fool’s errand.
Vicar de Rudd had provided the woman’s address. “I have never been there,” he had said, “but I have been told the flat is quite lovely. Keep in mind when you visit Nathalie Stubbings that she is—as we are encouraged to say these days—mobility challenged. She may offer more hospitality than she is able to provide. And go with my blessings. I may not understand your interest in these matters, but I pray that your questions are answered.”
Nigel returned to his map. He couldn’t remember the last time he had followed Regent Street through Piccadilly Circus. He thought of other familiar streets on the direct route: Portland Place, Marylebone Road, Baker Street, Park Place, and Wellington Road. After six months in Tunbridge Wells, he thought a drive through London seemed likely to recharge his batteries. And because Flick Adams was a dyed-in-the-wool Anglophile, the cross-London route undoubtedly would amuse her, too.
Nigel fired up his computer and entered his user name and personal identification number to pay the congestion tax online. Now the various TV cameras that watched license plates go by would know he had paid dearly for the privilege of driving through his favorite city.
That morning, Nigel had filled the BMW’s petrol tank. Now, at nearly eleven thirty, he looked out his window at the steady drizzle. He definitely would need his raincoat today and also his umbrella, should he not find a car park close to Nathalie Stubbings’s flat.
“Have you been to London before, Cha-Cha?” he asked. The dog, curled up on Nigel’s sofa, immediately lifted his head. “You must be on your best behavior today or else I will stash you in Dame Elspeth’s canvas bag for the duration of our trip.
Wakarimashita ka?” Nigel had visited a “Learn Japanese” Web site and found the phrase for “Did you understand?” Cha-Cha let his head drop between his paws.
On his way out of the museum, Nigel stopped at the Duchess of Bedford Tearoom. Giselle Logan had arranged for the substitute chef to prepare two box lunches. “You have roast beef sandwiches, cookies, and cold tea,” she said. “However, Flick picked up the boxes about five minutes ago. I think she’s waiting for you outside.”
Nigel looked at his wristwatch. Eleven twenty-nine. Thank goodness he wasn’t late.
He found Flick standing under the awning just outside the side door. She smiled when she saw him and handed him a vacuum flask. “
Strong coffee. I brewed it myself in the Conservation Laboratory.”
“In that case,” he said, “wait here; I’ll get the car.”
“Don’t be silly. I won’t melt in the rain.”
Nigel watched Flick run toward the private car park. She really did look lovely in motion. He had to sprint to catch up with her. He worked the remote control to unlock the BMW’s doors a moment before she reached the car.
He had been overly optimistic. The combination of heavy traffic and determined rain conspired to add twenty minutes to the hour and a half he’d allotted for their forty-five-mile journey. As modest compensation, Nigel had found a car park only one long block away from Abercorn Place. At one twenty, a smiling, silver-haired woman scarcely five feet tall admitted them to Marcus Stubbings’s fifth-floor flat. The woman walked with the aid of two aluminum canes.
“You must be Felicity,” she said to Flick. “I am afraid that I have forgotten your colleague’s name.”
“Nathalie, this is Nigel Owen.”
“Of course—Nigel! May I offer you both a cup of tea? You must be tired after your drive.”
“Yes,” Flick said, “but only if you let me help you make it.”
“Too late. It is all made. But I will be happy to let you carry it to my room.” Nathalie used her right cane as a pointer. Flick went off to the kitchen.
Nigel raised the lead in his hand. “I hope you don’t mind, but we didn’t want to leave the dog in the car.”
Nathalie smiled. “Cha-Cha has been here before,” she said.
Nigel didn’t get a chance to pursue Nathalie’s statement because she turned and moved haltingly across the flat’s foyer toward a short hallway. Nigel followed slowly. She led him into a room that surely had been furnished one piece at a time, with a mélange of furniture from different eras. Nigel recognized a sofa table from the 1950s, a settee from a hundred years earlier, a rolltop desk from the 1920s, a canopied bed that Jane Eyre might have owned, a new telly on a stainless-steel stand, and a hodgepodge of chairs that spanned three centuries. The floor was covered by a large Oriental carpet, full of browns and reds, that had been worn bare in a few spots. Placed around the room were dozens of framed photographs, most black and white, many of a man who must have been Nathalie’s late husband. One photo, in an antique silver frame, was of a woman Nigel had seen before. He needed several second looks to recognize a younger Elspeth Hawker. Probably at age sixty or so.