Eleven Pipers Piping

by C. C. Benison

  “Perhaps you best go,” he called back to Tom. He raised his hand towards Caroline, in a kind of tentative wave of acknowledgement, and heaved his body up the steps and through the door. Mildly startled at the man’s behaviour, Tom moved across Poynton Shute and met Caroline across from the Tidy Dolly.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, taking his proffered arm. “It’s quite treacherous, isn’t it?”

  “Caroline, I’m so sorry.” As he glanced at her, she raised her face to his. She was snow-pale, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed, her expression grave.

  “I’ve tried so not to cry, for Ariel,” she said, touching the skin below her eyes with a gloved hand. “I mustn’t let on, until I can get her safely home.”

  An older couple, unknown to Tom, crossed Poynton Shute in front of them, heads bent into the cold.

  “Oh, Mrs. Moir, we’re very sorry for your loss.” The woman turned a sympathetic expression to them.

  “You’re very kind, thank you.”

  “If we can help in any way, please let us know.” The man added a solicitous smile. “Vicar.” He nodded acknowledgement, glancing at Tom’s exposed collar. They passed on, crossing the street towards the pub.

  “Francis and Beth Hamilin,” Caroline told Tom. “They supply honey to us. I guess the whole village knows. However shall I get Ariel through this?”

  “Children are surprisingly resilient.” Tom reflected on Miranda’s response to her mother’s death, more than two years ago.

  “I meant, how will I get Ariel back to Thorn Court through a gauntlet of well-intentioned people. I have a feeling that with the electricity down, many will be headed out for a pub lunch or some warmth.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I’ll be very happy to accompany you and Ariel back. I can fend folk off with a fierce look or a growl or something.”

  Caroline made a feeble laugh. “Would you? That would be a great help. How …” She stopped herself, as if needing a moment to stanch fresh tears. “How did you tell Miranda?”

  “Well.” Tom sighed deeply at the memory. They had reached the vicarage’s front gate. “I don’t think I had a plan. It’s not something you ever expect to have to do, is it? So you can’t really have anything rehearsed. And even if you did expect something like … well, this, I’m sure anything you might plan to say would fall by the wayside anyway, if that makes sense. I’m sorry, I’m not being at all helpful.”

  “No, that’s all right. Of course, Miranda was about—what?—seven?”

  “Almost. Her seventh birthday was a few days hence. Lisbeth, you see, had brought her birthday present to the church I was serving in at the time to hide it there. She was then to pick up Miranda after school, but when she never arrived, Miranda …” He hesitated. The memory still felt raw. “Miranda took herself off to the library, took out a book, went home, and made herself a sandwich. She was in front of the TV watching some kids’ show when I arrived. She was so resourceful. I was so proud. And then—”

  His eyes teared unexpectedly. Caroline sensed his distress and moved her arm around his back.

  “I think I’m supposed to be comforting you,” he said, his voice thick.

  “Never mind. Have a moment, then tell me.”

  They stopped at the vicarage gate. “Well, I told her that something had happened, that her mother had died. She really didn’t understand, I don’t think. Not at seven. For days afterwards, she would ask when her mummy was coming home. Of course, Lisbeth’s death was … unusual, and eventually that had to be explained, too.”

  Caroline, silent, looked past Tom down Poynton Shute towards the entranceway to the Old Orchard, which abutted the vicarage property to the east. She seemed lost in thought.

  “Please tell me if I’m being intrusive, Caroline, but … was Will having heart problems?”

  Her eyes turned to meet his. “Not that I know of.”

  “Or was there heart disease in his family? Again, stop me, if I’m being rude.”

  “That’s all right, Tom.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t say. Will was adopted. Did you know?”

  “Roger mentioned it to me yesterday.”

  “Will’s adoptive father wasn’t even around long enough to give Will his name.”

  “And Will’s mother? Did she know anything of his natural parents’ health?”

  Caroline turned her attention to her shoes, which she shook to remove snow. “She’d died before I met Will. If she knew anything, I don’t think she told Will. I … I can’t say I even know what took her, really. Or I can’t remember, not that it matters.”

  Tom frowned as he pushed through the squeaky gate then ducked to avoid a tumble of new snow from the arch. It wasn’t that he thought it odd not to know the circumstances of one’s mother-in-law’s death—it was possible, if you had never met the woman, and you might forget after twenty-odd years of marriage—it was that he heard the lie in Caroline’s voice.

  “I hope the girls behaved themselves,” she said as they reached the vicarage door.

  “I’ve had no reports of problems,” Tom replied, pushing through the door into the vestibule. He stamped the snow off his shoes, aware of the absence of a now familiar sound, that of Bumble skittering down the hall and scrabbling into the door that opened onto the central hall.

  “Hello!” he called, opening the door. “Anyone home?”

  “What a gorgeous smell of beef.” Caroline came up behind him. “Every Sunday?”

  “No, not usually. But you were witness to the Yorkshire debacle last week. Mrs. Prowse has been worrying the problem all week. I thought it best she try again, soon, and for some reason she won’t make Yorkshire unless there’s a roasting beef. You know,” he added, noting the absence of footwear in the vestibule, “I expect they’re all in the back garden. Snowman-making was the order of the day.” He looked at his damp shoes and Caroline’s wellies. “Perhaps we should go round the house, rather than through it.”

  Bumble greeted Tom and Caroline first, racing towards them with his usual desperate energy, kicking up the snow, yelping with every bound and whirl.

  “Bumble!” Tom commanded the dog to silence, but he paid little attention. Clearly, Tom thought, not for the first time, Bumble’s previous owner, the late Phillip Northmore, had exercised an authority over the animal that he, Tom, didn’t seem to possess.

  But Bumble acted as early warning, so when Tom and Caroline rounded the corner of the vicarage, they came upon three figures under the old pear tree’s snow-smothered winter branches who were turned towards them in expectation—four figures, if one counted the deathly white, strangely rounded, inanimate form in the middle.

  “Mummy,” Ariel called excitedly, “come and see our snowman!”

  “It’s brilliant, darling,” Caroline responded. The forced enthusiasm in her voice was detectable. Tom could see Judith Ingley studying her with some intensity and then remembered his manners and introduced them.

  “Judith grew up in Thornford,” he added.

  “But left many years ago,” the older woman explained. “Before you were born. My maiden name was Frost.”

  “Oh?” Caroline’s brow crinkled, as if she were winkling out some memory. “Well”—she cast Judith a wan edition of a hotelier’s smile—“I do hope you enjoy your stay.”

  “Where’s Emily?” Tom asked Miranda, suddenly conscious of a missing child.

  “She went home.” Miranda looked at Ariel and they exchanged wicked grins.

  “Has something happened?”

  Miranda wiped her wet mitten across her nose. “Emily thought we should make a snow princess.”

  “Ah,” said Tom, halfway to understanding. The princess force was still strong with young Emily Swan, who had been lobbying for months to be crowned queen at next Saturday’s Wassail in the Old Orchard.

  “We did try, Daddy,” Miranda continued, “we really did …”

  “We really did,” Ariel echoed.

  “… but …”

  And they both bu
rst into giggles.

  “But …?” Tom prompted.

  “They couldn’t—” Judith began.

  “We couldn’t,” Miranda interrupted with another sudden frown, “stop the …” She looked down the front of her jacket. “ … chests from falling off.” The frown quickly shot back to a shining grin.

  Tom grinned back. It was too silly.

  “Did Emily go off in a huff?” Caroline asked.

  Judith nodded.

  “Oh, well.” Tom glanced at Bumble finding olfactory treasure at the snowman’s base. “Never mind. She’ll get over it soon enough. Besides, yours is properly … traditional. As it should be.”

  They all turned to the masterwork, three not-entirely-spherical spheres, piled one atop the other. It was more head, thorax, and abdomen than any humanoid assemblage, poor legless thing. A line of black buttons, likely plucked from Madrun’s sewing basket, bisected the thorax to suggest a jacket; a bright red knitted scarf of ludicrous length (possibly one of Giles James-Douglas’s from the box under the stairs) swaddled the neckless neck and draped over the tree-branch arms, which ended in gardening gloves. An exceptionally broad-brimmed straw hat, likely another of Giles’s leavings, crowned its head. Madrun must have raided the larder to give the face expression: A couple of Cox’s Pippins denoted eyes with staring calyx-pupils; the traditional carrot, this one straight as a file, served as the nose; a banana formed the mouth, which curved upwards into a lopsided grin. The effect was of a dapper, portly gent, going nowhere and nowhere to go—not unlike a cleric or two he’d known in his time.

  “Well done, you,” Tom enthused. “I can see you’ve gone to a lot of work. However did you lift those great balls of snow?”

  “Mrs. Ingley helped,” Ariel piped up.

  “I may pay for it tomorrow.” Judith clutched the small of her back.

  Tom looked down the garden, at the strips of exposed grass poking through the white covering here and there where the girls had rolled their balls, then up through swirling flakes at the denuded trees weighted with accumulated snow. Above that was leaden sky, punctuated by a flock of rooks spiralling and climbing, finally vanishing, leaving only the promise of yet more snow. Nature seemed shrouded in a single tonality, its riotous summer palette shrunken to grey and white and brown, and it made the world feel claustrophobic, hushed as a tomb. Small sounds—the squish of nylon rubbing nylon of the girls’ anoraks, Bumble’s doggy yap—were curiously amplified, which may be why he started a little at Ariel’s querulous question:

  “Mummy, have you been crying?”

  “Oh, dear, no. I just … didn’t sleep well, that’s all.” Caroline flicked a finger along her eyes. “Come, we need to pack up your things and leave Mr. Christmas and Miranda and … Mrs. Ingley to their lunch. Goodness”—she reached for her daughter’s mittened hand—“your things are wet, aren’t they? I don’t want you catching cold.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Prowse has some extra mittens or gloves,” Tom responded, glancing at Miranda, who was wearing the same sceptical expression she had worn the night before, when he arrived with John and Judith. My child can read atmospheres too well, he thought, as he wondered aloud where Mrs. Prowse was.

  “She went in just as you were coming round the back,” Judith replied.

  But Madrun had seen them and come to the door, wringing her hands on a tea towel. At her feet, Powell and Gloria sniffed the air and backed away in disgust at their new, changed world. “Shall I lay more places, Mr. Christmas?” she called.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Prowse,” Caroline answered in his stead. “Ariel and I must be leaving. And thank you for everything you’ve done … for Ariel, for the girls.”

  “Mrs. Prowse,” Tom added, “I’m accompanying Caroline and Ariel back to Thorn Court, so—”

  “That’s fine, Mr. Christmas.” Madrun was pushing the cats away with her feet preparatory to closing the door. “I won’t put the Yorkshire in until you’ve returned.”

  “I hope all goes well,” Caroline murmured.

  Tom smiled wanly and replied, “There are worse tragedies than a fallen pudding.”

  Tom’s heart sank when Madrun offered Caroline one of her casseroles, frozen in preparation for her absence, but proffered in condolence, without, of course, phrasing words of condolence, Ariel being within earshot. Caroline meekly accepted it, but Tom ended up carrying the heavy, bright orange, two-handled dish up Pennycross Road, Caroline being lumbered with Ariel’s sleeping bag and Ariel with her backpack. Miranda had viewed the passing of the casserole at the vicarage with even more visible suspicion, peering at the lettering on the lid—it was part of Madrun’s very good Le Creuset set—and then peering at Tom. He knew that she was remembering when her mother had died, when a swarm of well-meaning parishioners had descended upon their home bearing Pyrex. Robbed of hunger, he could barely tolerate the rich aromas of their contents. What became of all those casseroles? he wondered as he stepped carefully on the road’s icy surface. Someone—Ghislaine?—must have consigned their contents to the bin, then returned the dishes to their owners. He felt a flicker of guilt for the wasted food and the scorned cooks, and wondered what would happen to this casserole, though he was sure, given the chef, that its contents were superb. It was Madrun’s best boeuf bourguignon, after all.

  “Taking your lunch for walkies?” one wag remarked in passing.

  Tom was sensing that the freakish weather and the assault on the mod cons was, perversely, beginning to cast a spell over the village. He noted as he passed the gate to old Mr. Sainton-Clark’s cottage that Mr. Snell from next door was shovelling the snow from his front walk. The two, he was told, hadn’t spoken in ten years, having battled bitterly over intrusive tree roots. Mrs. Ewens, who was normally reserved, greeted them effusively as she cleared the pavement in front of her cottage, clearly unaware of what had befallen Caroline and Ariel, and just as happily looking forward to the worst old man winter had to offer—all very spirit-of-Dunkirk and such. They were hailed more than once along the way, with the expectation of cheery conversation, but Tom, feeling Caroline’s growing anxiety, cut each visit short. Mercifully, only Tilly Springett, sweeping the walk of April Cottage, the last one before Thorn Court, was aware of the tragedy, having heard the news in church. She glanced at Ariel, then, reading the anxiety in Caroline’s eyes, murmured “good day” before turning back to her solemn task.

  Against the low grey sky of midday, Thorn Court appeared as a colourless silhouette, its hip roof and the witch’s caps over the bow windows snow-burdened, its Elizabethan garden a zoo of hilly white shapes, broken only by a tall cypress. Fresh footsteps—John’s and Caroline’s earlier traversings, presumably—cut a narrow path through the snowy walk up to the hotel forecourt. Tom gave a passing thought to Nick, who might have taken the trouble to clear the snow, but when they stepped onto the forecourt, as if thinking made it so, there Nick was, still in his kilt, his shirt crumpled and half open, and his hair plastered awkwardly to one side of his head. A blanket was draped over his shoulders.

  “I saw you coming up the path,” he said, then yawned extravagantly and scratched his head. “Christ, it’s colder than a witch’s tit. Look at all this sodding snow! Can you credit it?” He regarded them peevishly. “What? What’s the matter? You look like—” Then a certain alertness crept over his dulled expression. “Oh …”

  “Don’t say another word, Nick.” Caroline spoke with a kind of suppressed fury, shepherding her daughter. “Not a word. I have something I want to talk about with Ariel.”

  “Where’s Daddy?” The child’s tone was sulky, suspicious.

  “Not a word, Nick,” Caroline repeated, turning towards the Annex. “Come along, Ariel. Let’s get you warm and dry. Tom”—she glanced back at him over her shoulder—“thank you very much for your help.”

  “Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do,” Tom responded.

  “I will. Come around tomorrow morning, if you can.”

  “What’s
that you’ve got, Father Christmas, sir?”

  Tom followed Nick’s gaze to his own gloved hands, then looked hurriedly at the retreating figures of mother and daughter. He was loath to disturb them. “Here, you take this, Nick. It’s something of Mrs. Prowse’s.”

  “Tarts?”

  “Beef bourguignon, I think.”

  Nick burped, then pulled the blanket around his shoulders. “No thanks, mate. Don’t think I could manage that sort of grub, the state I’m in.”

  “It’s not meant for you specifically.” Tom shoved the dish at him. “Or now,” he added, annoyed. “Have you only just got up?” He studied Nick’s face. He had his answer. The man’s skin was sallow, his lips dry and cracked. The evidence of sleep crusted the corners of his eyes.

  “Yeah, Christ, that was some night, wasn’t it?”

  “Then you slept through the mortuary van arriving and people going up the tower to fetch Will’s body?”

  “Yeah, must have.”

  “Will you please take this?” Tom pushed the casserole dish against Nick’s shirt.

  “Will’s dead.”

  Tom glanced again at Nick’s face, alerted by the tone of his voice, which was—shockingly—wondering, almost pleased. He sensed a mind rising out of somnambulance and calculating some marvellous effects of changed circumstances in the House of Stanhope. Then, as quickly, he appeared to snap out of it.

  “Coming in for a drink?”

  “Good God, no,” Tom responded brusquely, taken aback, then realised how ungracious his words sounded. “Sorry. I’m wanted back at the vicarage for lunch.”

  “Suit yourself.” Nick, his hands full, shouldered the door closed. The rich clunk of wood on wood resounded through the muffled landscape.

  Tom took a purifying breath and turned to retreat down the path, but the view from Thorn Court’s rise arrested his step. See, amid the winter’s snow, born for us on earth below—the lines of the Christmas hymn slipped unbidden into his head. The village amid the winter’s snow appeared transformed, the sharp edges of its cottages and boundary walls softened into curves. It was as though someone had poured castor sugar over the village and let it settle into satiny valleys and peaks. How unblemished and pure it all looked—at least from a distance.