Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins

by James Runcie

  ‘You mean you know something too? Have you both been deceiving me?’

  ‘I have only just discovered your fiancé’s secret.’

  ‘I knew there was something,’ Amanda shouted. ‘Is there another woman? TELL ME. Was it Virginia Newburn? Has she been the one sending the letters and tormenting me? Did you kill her to protect me? How much have you told Sidney? Have you both been keeping things from me?’

  ‘There’s one thing . . .’ Sidney began.

  Amanda would not let him finish. ‘My BEST FRIEND, and my fiancé, working together. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘That is not the case,’ Sidney said quietly. ‘But you should know that Connie Richmond is still alive.’

  Amanda walked up to Henry and looked straight at him. ‘You said she was dead.’

  ‘She was to me.’

  Sidney made it clear. ‘They are divorced.’

  Amanda refused to believe him. ‘And she’s behind all this?’

  ‘She’s not well, Amanda. She’s in an institution,’ Henry explained. ‘I tried to behave as best I could but it’s been impossible. Virginia Newburn kept an eye on her.’

  ‘And your wife killed her?’

  ‘We think it was an accident.’

  ‘Was she going to kill me?’

  ‘We’re not sure. Connie doesn’t have a very firm hold on reality. She is often disorientated.’

  ‘Did she think the woman was me?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  Sidney tried to explain that the situation was under control. ‘The police are with her.’

  ‘She didn’t mean you any harm,’ said Henry.

  ‘DIDN’T MEAN ANY HARM? WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE’S BEEN DOING? HOW CAN YOU EXCUSE THIS BEHAVIOUR?’

  ‘She’s not well.’

  ‘NEITHER AM I.’

  ‘Here,’ said Sidney, handing Amanda a drink. ‘Have some whisky.’

  She looked at the floor but was speaking to Henry. ‘It’s obvious you are more sympathetic to your former wife than you are to me.’

  ‘That’s not true. You didn’t tell me about the letters.’

  ‘I was frightened. I told Sidney.’

  ‘And he has only just told me. I would have stopped them, Amanda. You just had to tell me. I would have explained everything.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘You have both had secrets from each other,’ Sidney interrupted. ‘But let’s try to be calm.’

  ‘ME? CALM?’ Amanda replied.

  ‘If we could just establish the truth.’ He turned to Henry. ‘Virginia Newburn was a co-respondent in your divorce case, wasn’t she? She had hoped to marry you.’

  ‘I have tried to behave well,’ said Henry. ‘I only wanted to spare people’s feelings.’

  ‘You lied to us.’

  ‘I did not think that either of you needed to know the truth. It was naive of me. And wrong. I know that now. But please believe me when I say that I have tried to be decent about this. Connie sent me letters too. Forgive me.’

  ‘But it’s even worse than if you had told me everything from the start,’ Amanda said quietly, too shocked to shout. ‘And, what’s worse, it’s clear that you still see your wife.’

  ‘She’s not my wife any more. We are divorced. She is, for want of a better word, mad. I was trying to stop her damaging our happiness. It was easier to say that she was dead.’

  Amanda no longer made eye contact. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. I was afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘This.’

  ‘A couple shouldn’t have such secrets,’ Amanda said. ‘What else have I still to find out? Perhaps I don’t know you at all.’

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt you or let anything damage our relationship.’

  ‘And this is why we can’t be married in church? I see that now. It’s nothing to do with faith. It’s the law. I could tell Sidney was suspicious. He had that annoying look in his eye.’

  ‘I was hoping that it wouldn’t come out like this,’ Henry went on, ‘that everything would be gentler and more gradual. You know I don’t like confrontations. They don’t often help. I tried my best with your friend Elizabeth and we both saw what happened there. Mark killing himself . . .’

  ‘You did the right thing.’

  ‘With the wrong result. And this time, I didn’t want to endanger our future together.’

  ‘But it would have been built on a lie.’

  ‘I thought that my punishment was to bear this alone. I only wanted to do what was best for you. If you knew you would have been anxions. You might not have wanted to marry me at all.’

  ‘And how do you think I feel now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I can’t describe it. The feeling of stupidity. To be duped.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to find out. I was trying to keep things from you.’

  ‘Who else knows?’

  ‘About Connie? Mark Kirby-Grey . . .’

  ‘But not Elizabeth? She would have told me . . .’

  ‘Mark was good at keeping secrets.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Her family. No one you know.’

  ‘But I know everybody.’

  ‘Connie didn’t move in your world, Amanda. She was a seamstress.’

  ‘And not you, Sidney?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve got that shifty look . . .’

  ‘Inspector Keating is aware of the situation.’

  ‘I thought he might be.’

  ‘But Henry has committed no crime. He didn’t know about the letters or the threats.’

  ‘Even though he says he received some himself.’

  ‘They were nothing new. Did any refer to me?’

  ‘They did.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘And how did your wife know about me then?’

  ‘She’s not my wife. I told her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought she should know.’

  ‘So you have been more honest with her than you were with me?’

  ‘I wanted to protect you. I love you, Amanda.’

  ‘You have a very odd way of showing it.’

  ‘It’s been a very difficult situation . . .’

  ‘I could have helped you share it. We could have helped each other. You could have comforted me.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me what was going on.’

  ‘I couldn’t . . .’

  ‘And neither could I tell you. If you want to break this off and find someone else I will understand, but we have both kept things from each other. I will never love anyone other than you.’

  ‘Did you once say that to her?’

  Sidney issued a quiet ‘Amanda . . .’ but he was ignored. He knew he should leave the room but he couldn’t find the right moment.

  ‘I can’t remember what I said to Connie. It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘It does to me.’

  ‘People can’t be held to things they have said in the past.’

  ‘I thought that was what marriage vows were all about.’ Amanda looked to Sidney. ‘You’ll back me up on that at least.’

  ‘Henry may have been deceived.’

  ‘He probably deceived himself.’

  Her fiancé tried to buy time. ‘We don’t have to decide anything now.’

  ‘Am I going to have to meet this woman?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘Do you think if I did then this might stop?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s what we should have done in the first place . . .’

  ‘I know. But . . .’

  ‘You don’t like confrontation. You keep saying. You’re going to have to get used to it if you want to marry me. Am I supposed to forgive all this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We could have made it clear from the beginning. We could have gone to see y
our former wife as a couple. Started as we meant to go on.’

  ‘We still could. Forgive me. I meant for the best.’

  ‘I’ll say one thing, Henry, and you may be able to draw some comfort from it. I am not going to be defeated by a madwoman.’

  Two days later Sidney visited a mental hospital located in a converted orphanage outside Chettisham. Connie Richmond had been a patient for eight years after being caught shoplifting. She suffered from hallucinations, some of her actions were obsessive and compulsive, and although there had been hopes to return her to the community she had failed to thrive.

  One of the most notable features of her condition was a sense of being persecuted and abandoned; emotions made more understandable given the fact that it was her own husband who had had her committed and who had divorced her after being ‘unable to cope’. In order to make their divorce as straightforward as possible, he had concocted a story of adultery with Virginia Newburn, Connie’s best friend. This had turned out disastrously, as the co-respondent had thought the ‘affair’ was rather more than a ‘story’.

  Despite confinement and divorce, Connie still loved her husband. She spoke to Sidney about the sanctity of marriage and promises made before God. What did the clergyman think? What was sanctity anyway? Was it in the home, in the kitchen and in the bedroom? Were there borders to it? Did it have a beginning and an end? Do children add to it or diminish it? And how much is sex a part of it?

  Sidney could not imagine anyone other than a priest being asked such questions, and wondered what was abnormal about Connie’s interest in the answers. The conversation proved far more challenging than any he had recently had with a so-called ‘normal’ person.

  Connie said she felt bad about Virginia’s death. They had been walking and talking and laughing. Despite the mist and the cold they knew where they were going. They took the same route each time they met. Connie said that she had walked on without realising that her companion was no longer with her. ‘I hardly heard the splash so I didn’t know where she’d gone. It was unlike her to go and drown herself like that.’

  ‘So you did not touch her?’

  ‘I couldn’t find her. I had a little panic, if truth be told. Then I came back here. Took off my coat and cleaned my shoes. It took an age to get the mud away. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d done anything. I put a nice coat of polish on the shoes. They’ve never been cleaner.’

  ‘And you were sending the letters?’

  ‘I got other people to help. I told them I was writing a penny dreadful. I made up a whole story about a man who let down his wife. Some of the women here have been disappointed in love. I am not the only one. Ginny knew. She liked to join in. I said we could have real letters. I asked them all to think of what they would say to the men who had abandoned them and to the women they had taken up with. There was a flood, I tell you. The River Liffey would have burst its banks, such was the torrent. We sent some to him and some to her. We thought it was funny. Die soon! Choke on your own vomit! Your car will explode if you drive it! Some of them were too rude to send; the ones to my husband especially. Cut your jangle off! Your friend must have thought there were hundreds of us; and all of us hating her and her alone. But I wrote most of the ones we sent to Miss Kendall. I took an interest. Henry told me more than he thought; Ginny followed you and she also talked to Canon Clough. There’s a revenge coming there one day, you mark my words. No Sherlock Holmes clergyman will be able to solve that one!’

  Connie Richmond moved closer, challenging Sidney to meet her eye. ‘I enjoyed it, pretending to be different people all the time, writing differently. I’ve always been good with my hands. I’m a bit ambidextrous. Sewing, stitching, mending, writing. Not so good with my heart. Only loved one man. That was the only thing I’ve done that’s insanity. Finding the wrong man and loving him for ever.’

  ‘I think sometimes it depends on how we love,’ Sidney replied, edging away.

  ‘And is my husband still going to marry that woman?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She has to forgive him first.’

  ‘Does she know what she’s in for? Won’t you tell her not to?’

  ‘People can take or ignore advice, Mrs Richmond. I can’t force my friends to do anything against their will. Sometimes you just have to watch them fall.’

  ‘So you don’t want her to marry him, then?’

  ‘Probably not.’ Sidney had never said this aloud or so baldly.

  ‘And I could have saved her,’ Connie Richmond answered. ‘You should be grateful.’

  ‘But you weren’t acting in Miss Kendall’s interests.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘I hope so. But these are private matters, Mrs Richmond.’

  ‘Not as private as you think, Canon Chambers, just as I am not as lunatic as everyone takes me for.’

  ‘I am not sure anyone says you are mad.’

  ‘Then why am I here?’

  ‘You may not be for much longer. Inspector Keating . . .’

  ‘Oh, the police. Yes, I suppose they’ll be back again soon enough. I’ll have to make my escape by then.’

  ‘I am sure there will be extra security now.’

  ‘I mean from life, Canon Chambers.’

  ‘Please. You wouldn’t do anything as stupid.’

  ‘I like it when no one knows what I’m going to do next. It makes everything more exciting.’

  Sidney was exhausted when he returned home and Hildegard was in bed. She was reading Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. ‘You might like to have it after me, Sidney. It has many echoes. A former wife that’s still alive . . .’

  ‘I’m not sure I will, if you don’t mind, my darling. I think I’ve had enough of that kind of thing.’

  As he cleaned his teeth he thought about the past. He seldom asked Hildegard about her marriage to Stephen Staunton. That was private, he decided, just as, perhaps, Henry Richmond’s past should be. But he should talk to Amanda if she wanted to proceed with the wedding, as he might be able to help. That was, in part, why he had gone to see Connie Richmond, so that he could brief Amanda about her prospective visit. He couldn’t imagine how that was likely to turn out.

  ‘Is the marriage going ahead?’ Hildegard asked as she closed her book.

  ‘Do you think it shouldn’t?’

  ‘I don’t think it should be like Jane Eyre, when she nearly marries St John Rivers while she knows she’s in love with someone else.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s like that.’

  ‘I still sometimes wonder why Amanda didn’t marry you.’

  ‘Like the clergyman in Jane Eyre, I was a vicar. It wouldn’t have done. Amanda was after someone more glamorous.’

  ‘And has she found him?’

  ‘Perhaps she has changed her priorities. Henry’s a good man. He means well. She could do worse.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem enough.’

  ‘Friendship is better than loneliness.’

  ‘Is that why you married me?’

  ‘I could ask the same of you, Hildegard.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘I think our marriage is a great deal more than friendship.’

  ‘So much so that we can argue and forgive each other?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Hildegard lightened the tone with a tease. ‘And you have done much that needs forgiving.’

  ‘While you, my darling, are clearly without fault.’

  ‘I know I am bossy.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You agree?’

  ‘I think that is what I am supposed to do.’

  ‘Not when I say that I am bossy.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And I am getting fat.’

  ‘You’re not fat.’

  ‘Would it matter if I was?’

  ‘Of course it wouldn’t.’ Sidney hesitated. This was dangerous ground. ‘You’re not pregnant again, are you?’

  ‘No, just fatter. Will you still l
ove a fat, bossy wife?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘As long as you don’t become a fat, bossy husband.’

  Sidney smiled. ‘I can’t guarantee it.’

  He thought about Amanda and Henry. He had always hoped that a marriage could be based on a couple being unable to imagine that they could ever live without each other; but perhaps that romanticism had been the result of his own good fortune. He could not conceive having to settle for second best. That was his privilege and his luck in finding Hildegard.

  This, at least, was one thing he could talk to Amanda about. Now they would both be committed to people who had been married before.

  How, then, should one deal with a past in which the person who was loved had been passionately involved with someone else?

  It involved acknowledgement and recognition. One could not pretend that a future partner had no hinterland, or that everything before could be ignored or forgotten. At the same time, was there really a need to go into the kind of detail that would renew the pain of failure and separation? Perhaps every couple needed its secrets. A person could not be so lost in love, like Connie Richmond, that infatuation led them to lose all sense of their identity.

  What mattered was not so much the past but the idea that love could be built on a mutual desire for a better future. There had to be no resentment, no continuation of feeling from a time of hurt, even if the memory remained. This was where forgiveness might lie, and it was, as a result, the beginning of hope.

  Ten days later, Amanda and Henry came for another of Sidney’s ‘chats’. They had thought a great deal, visited Connie Richmond together and decided, despite everything, to go ahead with their marriage.

  ‘She’s quite mad,’ Amanda began. ‘But then, most people are only a few steps away from the loony bin.’

  ‘It’s not a loony bin,’ Henry added quietly.

  ‘We had it out. I told Connie that if I got any more letters I was going to start writing back. I could out-threat her. And I had more friends. I said it as a joke of course.’

  ‘I don’t think Connie took it as that,’ her fiancé replied.

  ‘And I said I wouldn’t be a regular visitor. In fact I was only coming this once and she couldn’t expect me to allow Henry to visit in the future. That was going to have to stop and she was just going to have to accept it.’