by Kate Charles
In keeping with his position as head server, Tony Kent was as usual the spokesman for the group, and the leader of opinion. In his late twenties, Tony was also the oldest of the servers, with the notable exception of Venerable Bead: most of the servers were in their late teens or early twenties. Tony was a handsome young man with grey-blue eyes and straight, fine, fair hair worn in a floppy fringe; well educated and articulate, he was a teacher of history and geography.
‘Poor Old Norman Newsome – you’ve got to feel sorry for him,’ he stated. ‘Though talking to that journalist wasn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done.’
Venerable Bead, who had just joined the group after his self-imposed toils in the sacristy, nodded vigorously. ‘I’ve met Norman Newsome, you know – last year, or was it the year before, when the Society of the Most Holy Blood had its annual do at Plymouth. He celebrated at the service, and he was brilliant. Biretta, lace down to his knees, and the liturgy . . . well, the man really knows what he’s doing. It would be a crime for the Church to lose a man like that.’
‘What will happen to him? Will he resign?’ These questions were from the young ginger-haired server named Johnnie – or was it Chris? No one but Tony ever seemed to remember which was which. Close friends and always together, they were referred to indissolubly as ‘Johnnie ’n’ Chris’ by those who knew them, and ‘the dark one and the ginger one’ by those who did not.
‘Hard to say,’ ventured Tony. ‘The Dean says he won’t force his resignation, but the pressure is pretty strong. I don’t know if he can hold out against it.’
‘If he does resign, he’ll never get another job in the Church of England,’ Venerable stated.
The dark one – Chris – added, ‘But it’s not as if he’s actually done anything! How can they hound him out of the Church just because he’s had fantasies? I mean, who’s perfect? The first stone, and all that?’
Tony shook his head. ‘It’s not what you think – or even what you do – that matters. Most people’ – he shot a look at Mavis Conwell, still holding forth to her friends – ‘most people don’t really care, as long as they don’t have to know about it. Some, of course, make an occupation out of knowing other people’s business.’
Emily caught the end of this as she approached the cluster of servers, and exchanged smiles with Tony. ‘Morning, Mrs Vicar,’ he said, tugging on his floppy forelock. ‘To what do we owe this favour?’
Emily played along, greeting him with a royal flourish. ‘I don’t want to interrupt anything, but I wanted to tell you all how excellent the serving was this morning. I didn’t see a single mistake, and I know Gabriel really appreciated the care you’ve taken.’
‘Where is Gabriel?’ asked Venerable, looking around. ‘I haven’t seen him since he left the sacristy.’
‘Oh, he’s gone home with a headache.’ Emily tried to look unconcerned. ‘I suppose the pressures of the service – with the new Bishop and everything – must have caught up with him. And of course things are very difficult for him now, between curates. All the workload is falling on him.’
‘Well,’ said Venerable, with a cagey expression, ‘I suppose the pressure really is on, with the Archdeacon retiring. The Bishop must be taking a very close look at Gabriel right now.’
Discreet as always, Emily changed the subject quickly. ‘Thank you especially for looking after Sebastian. He’s been looking forward to this day for a long time. I hope he didn’t give you too much trouble.’
‘Oh, no, he was as good as gold. He knew he wouldn’t dare misbehave, and I don’t think he would have wanted to,’ replied the thurifer.
‘Well, he’s certainly pleased with himself now,’ Emily said. ‘Next week he’s going to want to be crucifer!’
‘I think he might find the cross just a bit heavy for him,’ laughed Tony. ‘But I’m sure he won’t be boat boy for ever. Was Viola upset to be left out?’
‘Dreadfully. I’ve always told her she can be anything she wants to be. So now she wants to know why she can’t be the first female server at St Anne’s.’
Venerable bristled angrily. Before he could speak, Tony interposed, ‘Can you imagine what the Dawsons would say?’
Emily laughed. ‘They don’t even approve of me, you know. Married clergy are definitely not the thing, in their book.’
The Bishop was at that moment enduring a session of hearing the Dawsons’ views on the sad state of the Church of England, and most particularly Anglo-Catholic worship at St Anne’s. Their main grievance, as far as he could tell, was that Father Neville failed to treat the Walsingham Cell, of which Roger was clearly the leader, with the due respect and deference it deserved, or indeed to accord it any pre-eminence among Church organisations. Mary Hughes, a gentle spinster of the parish, joined them and tried to turn the conversation in a more positive direction. ‘Don’t you think we’re fortunate to have such a good choir – and such a gifted organist?’ she asked. The Bishop nodded and she went on, ‘And of course there’s that clever little machine on the organ.’ Before the Bishop could respond, an extraordinary-looking old woman hobbled up and confronted them. ‘It’s Beryl Ball,’ Mary Hughes whispered warningly. ‘Don’t pay any attention to what she says.’
Beryl Ball was, as always, very smartly dressed in the cast-off clothes which she purchased at the jumble sales of the fashionable London churches. But the overall effect was just slightly bizarre, set off with the bright green moon-boots which she always wore. She fixed the gathering for a moment with a stare, her eyes magnified alarmingly behind thick spectacles. Then she startled the Bishop by thrusting out her false teeth with her tongue, and settling them back into place, before she spoke. ‘It won’t do you any good, you know,’ she announced. ‘I can tell that you want me, but I’m telling you right now that I’m pure. No man has ever touched me, and no man ever will.’ She looked at the Bishop challengingly, defying him to deny it. ‘I’ve been in this church for a long time, and every Vicar who’s been here has wanted me, but I’ve kept myself pure.’ She lowered her voice, shooting a look at Emily. ‘Not that I wasn’t tempted by this last one. Oh, he was a beautiful young man, and he didn’t half want me. I very nearly gave in to him. But then she came along and stole him away from me. No better than a prostitute, is that one. She came between me and the Vicar, and that’s no mistake.’ Her expression was pure venom. The Bishop gazed with repelled fascination at the magnified eyes with their dilated pupils.
Mary Hughes tried to intervene. ‘Beryl, now you know that’s not true . . .’
Beryl Ball turned on her fiercely. ‘Shut up, Mary Hughes! Everyone knows that you wanted him for yourself! All the women wanted him, but he wanted me, until that whore made him marry her!’
The Bishop opened his mouth, then shut it again. He knew it wasn’t true, but what sort of man was this who inspired such passionate feelings? What sort of man was he about to recommend to be Archdeacon?
CHAPTER 3
O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand: and there is none to help me.
Psalm 22.11
After the splendours of the morning service, and later Solemn Evensong and Benediction, the seven forty-five Low Mass was a welcome relief. Gabriel conducted the service quietly, his head still throbbing with a dull pain behind his eyes. This wasn’t like him, to feel unwell. Not like him, either, to dwell on negative feelings. What shall I do? he thought. There’s no one I can talk to, no one who can help me. No one who would understand. If only I could confide in Emily, and she could tell me what to do . . . And then a name came into his mind unbidden, and resounded there. David. I must talk to David.
The congregation was small, but Lady Constance was there as she usually was. After the service, Gabriel waited for her to finish saying her rosary in the Lady Chapel, and approached her as she rose to her feet. She was an imposing woman, rather tall and with a stately carriage. Her silver hair was immaculately waved above her fine-featured face, delicate fair skin webbed with the tiny lines of old age. ‘I wa
nt to apologise to you for this morning,’ he began. ‘I’d intended to have a glass of sherry with you and the Bishop, but I got a terrific headache during the service, and had to go straight home.’
She looked closely at him, noting the faint purple marks of pain under his eyes. ‘I do hope you’re feeling better now,’ she said with concern.
He smiled with an effort. ‘I tried to get some rest during the afternoon, and of course Emily did her best to wave her magic wand and make it go away. She fixed me some foul-tasting herbal brew, and kept the children quiet – and that was quite an accomplishment, believe me.’
‘Your wife is a treasure. I hope you realise that,’ said Lady Constance with a smile.
‘My greatest asset,’ Gabriel agreed. ‘I don’t know where I – or the parish – would be without her.’
A good choice . . .
It was probably because he was so unaccustomedly thinking about the past that when Emily’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, it was not the self-assured Emily of today that he saw, but the Emily of ten years ago, at their first meeting.
Cyril Fitzjames, churchwarden even then, brought her over to him with a faintly proprietary flourish. ‘Father Gabriel, I think you should meet Miss Emily Bates. Her father is an old friend of mine.’ Shy, quiet Emily, just down from Cambridge with a First in English. She looked up at him, her small heart-shaped face framed by sleek wings of dark hair, her dark eyes glowing with a quick intelligence, and with something more . . .
Was it from that moment that he had determined the shape of his future?
The future, the past . . .
David.
Gabriel hesitated for a moment before the Sacristan’s flat. He occasionally turned up for a quiet drink after the evening services, so Daphne wasn’t likely to be suspicious of ulterior motives. But how exactly was he going to bring up the subject of David, without making it seem forced? He’d have to play it very carefully, make it look like her idea somehow. He rang the bell deliberately.
Daphne’s round face creased with pleasure as she opened the door. ‘Why, Gabriel! Do come in.’
Daphne’s flat was as homely and welcoming as she was; Gabriel felt instantly at ease in its comfortable shabbiness. He sank gratefully into an armchair and accepted a drink with thanks. Having women fussing around him was a constant feature of his job, and one Gabriel could very well have lived without, so Daphne’s matter-of-fact treatment of him was always a welcome relief.
She wouldn’t be described as feminine in any conventional sense: short and plump without any of the curves that might once have softened ‘plump’ into ‘voluptuous’, Daphne had a blunt, open face and roughly cut grey hair with no pretence of style. Her manner, too, said, ‘Here I am – take me for what I am, or leave me.’ And yet there was an essential vulnerability about her that tempered the honesty into something even more appealing. She could be counted on never to be small-minded, petty or judgemental. Gabriel, in common with most people, liked her very much.
He sipped his whisky for a few moments before speaking. ‘I didn’t have a chance to tell you this morning how much I appreciated all your hard work in getting the church ready for today. Everything looked absolutely splendid.’
‘I can’t take all the credit. You know I had a lot of help.’
‘Yes, but I also know that you won’t let anyone else touch the silver. You must have worn your fingers to the bone polishing it all.’
‘Not exactly,’ she replied, holding up stubby hands for inspection. ‘But it does seem to multiply on these occasions.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘That reminds me – I thought that Mavis Conwell was going to give us a new silver alms dish in memory of the late, lamented Richard. It must be nearly a year since he died – has she said anything about it lately?’
‘No. Strange, isn’t it? After he died, that was all she could talk about, but I haven’t heard a word about it for several months now.’
‘Well, the old one will do for the moment. I don’t suppose we can press her on it.’
They sat in companionable silence for several minutes. Thank God Daphne’s not one of those women who feels she has to fill every second with conversation, Gabriel reflected.
Daphne spoke at last. ‘Have you heard anything from David lately?’
Gabriel smiled to himself. This was going to be easier than he’d thought.
‘David Middleton-Brown? Not really. Of course I had an acknowledgement of the flowers for his mother’s funeral, but nothing else. How is he doing? I’d meant to write him a proper letter of sympathy, but I had the Area Synod meeting that week, and the PCC . . .’
‘I don’t think he’s handling it very well. You know David.’ She smiled fondly. ‘She was a terrible old harridan, his mother, but she was all he had. It must have been hell for him, living with her, but he needs to be needed. Now he’s got nothing, no one.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘You know that David hates the telephone; never uses it unless he absolutely has to. No, I had a letter from him just yesterday. It was typical David: polished prose, all terribly light-hearted, but between the lines a real cry for help. I wondered if we might be able to help him – you and I.’
Gabriel was cautious. ‘How? I realise you’ve known him much longer than I have, but I wouldn’t have thought that he’d welcome help from either one of us.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean . . . Wait, I’ll explain my idea,’ Daphne replied. ‘He seems to be at a real loose end at the moment. Apparently he’d booked a long summer holiday so he could take his mother to the seaside for a month. And now . . . well, he certainly doesn’t want to go to the sea by himself, and his firm says he must go ahead and take the holiday, since they’ve planned the workload around him already – you know how inflexible solicitors can be.’ She paused consideringly, then rushed ahead. ‘I was wondering if we might invite him to come here for a while. I know he’s refused our invitations before, but maybe under the circumstances . . .’
Behind the carefully maintained non-committal expression, Gabriel was jubilant. This was going far better than he could have hoped. ‘You think he’d come?’
‘Well, he might. If I were to write to him and invite him, and you were to write at the same time . . . We couldn’t make it seem like we were trying to do him a favour, or he wouldn’t come. Maybe if we could let him think we needed him to do us a favour . . .’ She considered, then went on. ‘We could say we needed his help in sorting out something in the sacristy. Something to do with the silver, that required his expertise . . .’
‘No good. You taught him practically everything he knows about church silver. Why would you need his help?’
‘These old eyes aren’t as good as they used to be on the hallmarks,’ she chuckled. ‘And you do him an injustice – he knows much more about silver than I do. But no. I’ve got it. The Comper crypt chapel. You know how long that project has been hanging fire! Lady Constance has offered to fund the repairs to the polychrome walls and roof, in her brother’s memory. We’ve even been granted the faculty for the work. You know the only reason it hasn’t been done yet – we need to be sure we’re doing it exactly right.’
‘And who better than David to advise on that?’ Gabriel finished. ‘I must admit, that will be pretty irresistible bait for him. He’ll protest, say he isn’t qualified, that he doesn’t know any more about Comper or polychrome or gilding than the average man in the street – but he’ll come.’ He paused and took a sip of his drink before considering the next difficulty. ‘Where will he stay?’
‘Of course he can stay here. I have an extra room.’
‘Will he think that’s proper?’
Daphne smiled wryly. ‘I’m an old woman. He’s an old friend. Why shouldn’t it be proper?’
‘That’s settled, then.’ Gabriel was silent for another minute, thinking. This might be the most difficult part. He continued, slowly, ‘One more thing. I’d appreciate it if . . . well, that is, I’d rather it looked l
ike he was visiting you, not me.’ She looked at him, inquiring. ‘I can’t really explain, but I just think it would be better if the parish didn’t know generally that we knew each other. In fact, it might be better if the letter inviting him came just from you, and I kept out of it entirely. Would you mind?’
She was puzzled but compliant; Daphne had long ago learned not to ask Gabriel – or David, either – too many questions, especially when she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers. ‘I won’t say a word. Would you like another drink?’
Gabriel rose with a satisfied smile. ‘I’d love one, but I’d better not. I’d better be on my way – you have a letter to write, and the sooner the better.’
CHAPTER 4
These wait all upon thee: that thou mayest give them meat in due season.
Psalm 104.27
The lounge bar of the country pub was almost empty, but Emily chose a table in the back corner and sank into the chair with a sigh, exhausted after the morning’s task of delivering the twins to her parents for a short visit. ‘Sit down, Lucy. I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely starving.’
‘Don’t you want to order a drink?’
‘I’d love to, but I’m driving, so I’d better not. Just an orange juice and lemonade, I think.’
She watched her friend order the drinks, then thread her way back to the table, balancing one in each hand. Lucy managed to perform even such a mundane task with unnatural grace. She sat down and pushed her hair back from her face with a characteristic gesture.
Lucy Kingsley’s hair had, in childhood, been bright red; now, in her thirties, it had faded to an attractive strawberry blonde. But it retained all of its natural curl, and it fell to her shoulders in a cascade of waves and ringlets. She had a long white neck, and her colouring was of the peaches-and-cream sort that so often accompanies that particular shade of hair; she accentuated her very English type of beauty by dressing in pastel-coloured floral Laura Ashley prints.
She faced Emily across the table and raised her wine glass. ‘Cheers, Em. Now, what’s up? Why the sudden invitation to accompany you on this mission? Did one of your men-friends stand you up?’