A Finer End

by Deborah Crombie

  “I can see him here,” Faith said dreamily, tilting her head back until her hair brushed his arm. “With his little hut in the woods, and the spring flowing out of the hillside.” Her face darkened. “But the other spring would have been always below him, reminding him of the darkness to come.”

  “The White Spring?” It flowed from the base of the Tor itself, and if the Red Spring represented the female element, the White Spring was said to represent the male.

  “Garnet says it’s the entrance to Annwn, the home of Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of the Underworld. And I can feel … something there … it’s a dark place.”

  “Oh, bollocks, Faith.” He touched her chin with his fingertips, turning her face towards his. “You don’t really believe that, do you? It’s just a fairy story.”

  “How do you know?” She twisted her face away and sat up straight. “The Druids were in tune with the earth itself, and there’s nothing more powerful.”

  “But it’s myth, Faith! Symbolism. It was their way of explaining the world. No one’s meant to take it literally.”

  “Is what’s happened to Jack a myth? Do you not believe that’s real?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “If Edmund can speak to us across nine hundred years, how can you set limits on what’s true?” Faith stood and faced him, her eyes bright with anger.

  “But that’s different—”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course it’s different. Glastonbury Abbey was a real place, and monks really did live there. Edmund was a real person—”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I don’t need to prove it. I’ve experienced it.”

  “Then how can you say other people’s experiences aren’t valid?” she shot back.

  He stared at her. This was not going at all the way he’d intended. “Look, Faith, meet me tonight. We can talk about it, but right now we’re both going to be late for work.”

  “I can’t. Garnet wants me to study.”

  “Study what? The Old Religion?” He heard the loathing in his voice.

  Faith’s chin went up defensively. “The first religion. You know the Christian Church just built on what went before. Even Simon says so.”

  “That’s not the point. You need to be doing normal, ordinary things. Finishing school. Taking your exams. Thinking about what you’re going to do with your life—and how you’re going to take care of your baby. You need to go home, Faith.” As he said it, he knew it was a mistake, and worse, if she were to take his advice he would very likely lose her altogether.

  “Don’t patronize me, Nick Carlisle,” she spat at him. “And don’t tell me how to live my life. I’ve done all right—”

  “Only because Garnet took you in, and I suspect she had her reasons—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Garnet understands me, and she knows I have something to do, something important—I just can’t see what yet. So just bugger off, okay?” She spun round, opening the gate and clanging it shut behind her.

  Jumping up, he called out, “Faith, I’m sorry—” but she ran down the path, away from him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  We also had to meet with a certain amount of jealousy from that section of the community which regards all positive happiness as tending to evil, and all beauty as an endowment of the devil; for it did undoubtedly happen that the young things that studied with us acquired a liveliness and a physical carriage that marked them out from their fellows.

  —RUTLAND BOUGHTON,

  FROM THE GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL MOVEMENT

  HAVING GIVEN FAITH chamomile tea and tucked her in bed for a nap, Garnet walked down the hill towards the café, for once oblivious to the beauty of the mild afternoon. Buddy had sent the girl home after lunch, insisting that she take the afternoon off, and Garnet needed to know exactly what had transpired that morning.

  She was thankful to find the café empty and Buddy cleaning tables after the lunch rush. When she entered, he smiled and motioned her to a seat with a flourish of his cloth.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, darlin’. It’s been a bugger of a day.” His Texas drawl had never faded, although it was regularly interspersed with English slang.

  “And you’re culturally confused,” Garnet replied. There was something about Buddy’s lanky frame and graying ponytail that still made her think of the Wild West, although he swore his only contact with cows had been on a plate and that he wouldn’t know what to do with a horse if it bit him.

  “Tea?” he asked. “You look like you could use the real thing.”

  “Yes, please,” Garnet said gratefully, and waited until he’d made two mugs and brought them to the table.

  “How is she?” he asked, sitting across from her.

  “Sleeping, I hope. What happened this morning, Buddy?”

  “Hell if I know. She came in five minutes late—first time she’s ever done that—puffy-eyed and silent as a newt. Dropped things all morning like her fingers had been greased, then I found her crying in the soup.” He shook his head. “Anybody could see the poor girl wasn’t fit to work, so I sent her home. She didn’t like it, though.”

  Garnet sighed. “I never thought I’d be looking after a teenager, and a pregnant one at that. She left the house early this morning; I just assumed she was coming in to help you.”

  “Think she met someone? But who?”

  “Nick Carlisle would be my guess, damn him. Although I’ve never seen Nick get her in such a state.”

  “Maybe it was someone else. What about the baby’s father? Has she ever said anything to you?”

  “Not even a hint. But I wonder … Faith told me last night that Winnie Catesby intends to talk to her parents. It may be that’s what has her so out of sorts.”

  “The priest?”

  “You make it sound like Winnie has a disease, Buddy.” Garnet laughed in spite of her worry. “She means well.”

  “Then let her send the girl home to her mom. It’d be a burden off you.”

  “I can’t.” Garnet said it flatly.

  “And why the hell not? Sounds like the sensible solution to me.”

  “It would be, except that it’s not safe.”

  “Not safe?” Buddy frowned. “You think her dad would hurt her?”

  “I don’t know. She’s never said so, not flat out. But there’s something not right in that family.”

  “Anybody laid a hand on that girl’d have me to answer to, dad or not,” Buddy bristled.

  “You’re a good man, Buddy, not like some. But it’s not as simple as that.” Garnet tried to gather into words what she felt with such certainty. “Faith is a pivot, a magnet, for forces much more powerful than her father. She and her baby are in dire peril—I’m more sure of that than anything I’ve ever known. Faith has to stay with me—it’s the only way I can protect her.”

  “And the boy you’re so riled up about—Nick? Is he part of this danger?”

  “I don’t know. But he is a distraction, and that’s something Faith can’t afford right now.”

  Buddy fidgeted with his mug, then reluctantly met her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not … overreacting?”

  “I don’t want to be proved right, Buddy. And I don’t carewhat anyone thinks. I’m not willing to risk Faith if I can help it. Are you?”

  “No … I … well, I’ve gotten used to having her around, if you want to know the truth. If anything happened to her …”

  What a pair they were, thought Garnet. Childless, never married, no family. And this slip of a girl had come into their lives and pierced them like an arrow.

  “Just look after her, Buddy, when she’s with you. Promise me that.”

  It was the best she could do.… But she was terribly afraid it would not be enough.

  Faith’s family lived in the town of Street, just two miles from Glastonbury across the sluggish trickle of the River Brue. Whenever Winnie drove across the bridge, she found it hard to imagine that it was here King Arthur was sa
id to have seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin; perhaps in those days it had been a more prepossessing spot.

  Street was home to the Clark Shoe Company. One of the more enlightened of Victorian employers, Clark’s had provided good working conditions and comfortable housing for their factory workers, and the town had carried that air of forward-looking prosperity into the present. It was quite a contrast to Glastonbury’s ragtag appeal, but it was Glastonbury that Winnie preferred.

  Faith had admitted reluctantly that her name was Wills, and had given Winnie an address in a comfortable housing estate near the Street police station. At half past five Winnie stopped her car in front of the Wills house. It sat at the end of a quiet close of similar brick, semidetached homes that looked as if their owners had participated in a “tidy garden” contest. There was neither an untrimmed shrub nor a weed to be seen, and Winnie found it vaguely depressing. Nor was there any sign of life: no bicycles, no roller skates, no one digging in a well-manicured flower bed.

  As she neared the front door, however, she saw signs of neglect that had not been visible from the street—weeds sprouting in the beds, parched petunias and begonias that had been allowed to wither. Winnie rang the bell, and after a moment a woman of about her own age opened the door. The woman wore smart business clothes, and would have been pretty had she not looked drawn with worry or exhaustion.

  “Mrs. Wills? Could I speak to you for a moment?”

  “I’m sorry, but we’ve already donated at our church.” She started to close the door.

  “Mrs. Wills, it’s about your daughter.”

  The woman stared at her, her hand flying to her throat in the classic gesture of shock that Winnie had seen too often.

  “She’s all right, Mrs. Wills,” Winnie hastened to reassure her. “May I come in, please?”

  Mrs. Wills moved back like a sleepwalker, then sank onto a sofa in the small, formal front room. There was a faint smell of cooking potatoes in the air. “Is she … is the baby—”

  “Faith is healthy as a horse, and hasn’t had any difficulties or complications with the pregnancy.” Winnie sat in a nearby chair. “My name’s Winifred Catesby, Mrs. Wills, and Faith asked me to come and see you.” That might be stretching the truth a bit, but Winnie didn’t see any harm.

  “Where—where is she?” Mrs. Wills started to rise, as if to go to her daughter that instant.

  “It’s Maureen, isn’t it?” said Winnie as she laid a gently restraining hand on her arm. “Maureen, Faith wanted you to know that she was safe and well.”

  “But she’s coming home? She is coming home, isn’t she?”

  Winnie had known this would be difficult. “Not just now, Maureen. She seems to be content where she is for the present, but she wanted you to know that she misses you, and that she misses her brother and sister.”

  Maureen Wills put her face in her hands. “You don’t know—you can’t imagine what it’s been like,” she choked out. “Losing your baby, not knowing if she’s alive or dead. And Gary—Gary won’t even allow us to speak her name—It’s been terrible for Meredith and Jon.…” She raised her face, blotched and tear streaked. “How could she do this to us?”

  “Maureen, kids make mistakes. We all make mistakes, but this one isn’t easy to put right. I’m sure Faith never meant to hurt any of you.”

  “Then why is she so stubborn? If she’d just told us what happened, who the father is, or if she’d just been reasonable about having an—” Maureen broke off abruptly, with a glance at Winnie’s collar. “I never thought … when Gary told her she was legally an adult, that if she was going to disrespect us that way, she could fend for herself. I never thought she’d go.”

  Winnie listened, nodding encouragingly, knowing how badly Maureen Wills must have needed to say these things to someone.

  “And then, when I found her gone, that was terrible enough. But I never thought she’d stay away. Every minute, every hour, I thought I would hear the door. Or she would ring and ask me to come and get her. Sometimes I’d find myself thinking I had to pick her up from soccer practice, or choir, and then I’d realize …”

  “She told me she sang in the choir. It seems to have meant a lot to her.”

  “She was at Somerfield. We were so proud of her.”

  “Faith is very special, Mrs. Wills—Maureen. What’s happened doesn’t change that. I’ve seldom seen a girl her age with such courage and self-reliance.”

  “I want to see her, please. Can’t you take me to her?”

  The tearful supplication was hard to resist, but Winnie shook her head. “I can’t betray Faith’s wishes. But I’ll tell her what you’ve said, and I’ll do my best to arrange a meeting. I think that’s all we can hope for just now.”

  “But where is she? How is she managing? Is she eating? Does she attend your church?”

  “I came to know Faith as a friend, not in my official capacity,” Winnie explained. “She has a job, and a safe place to live, and a number of people who are concerned for her welfare.”

  “But how will she manage, once the baby’s … When is it …?”

  “Late October, I believe. As for what she’ll do then, I don’t know, but we’ve some time to find a solution. If you’ll just—”

  There was a sound from the back of the house and Maureen Wills froze, holding up a hand to silence Winnie. “It’s Gary and the kids. I don’t want him to—It’ll be better if I talk to him. Could you—”

  The woman looked so terrified that Winnie quickly handed her the card she’d taken from her handbag and rose. “Here’s my number. Ring me.”

  She patted Maureen’s trembling hands, and was out the front door as a man’s furious voice called out, “Maureen, where are you? The damn chips are burned to a crisp! Maureen?”

  Winnie drove home with hopes that she had made some progress in reconciling Faith with her family, although perhaps a goal of physical reunification was unwise if Mr. Wills was as intimidating as he seemed. It seemed obvious that he was the real stumbling block. Winnie had seen this a number of times in her years of counseling parishioners—men often took a daughter’s pregnancy as a personal affront, and even in the more well-balanced families there seemed to be an element of jealousy involved. What she did find curious was the lengths to which Faith had gone to protect a boy who apparently had shown no further interest in her.

  The next challenge would be arranging a meeting between Faith and her mother on neutral ground. As she neared home, she decided that her study at the Vicarage would provide the ideal setting.

  The Vicarage was on the Butleigh Road, south of Glastonbury, in the village of Compton Grenville. Winnie had come to love her parish in this gentle countryside, with its view of the Levels to the east, and to the west the Hood Monument at the top of wooded Windmill Hill.

  The house was the epitome of the drafty Victorian pile, but in five years Winnie had come to regard its eccentricities with a profound affection.

  Of course, to do the place justice would have taken a small fortune, but Winnie had done the best she could with diocesan funds, and she had used a bit of the small inheritance she and Andrew had had from their parents. She had made the front parlor her office, and had outfitted the large old kitchen as a combination sitting/eating area.

  She turned into her drive with the pleasure she always felt. She and Jack had no plans for that evening; for once she had no pastoral obligations, and she was rather looking forward to a quiet evening spent working on her sermon. Then, to her surprise, she saw Andrew’s car pulled round near the kitchen door.

  Andrew had been dropping in unannounced rather frequently of late. While Winnie adored her brother, she was aware that his concern was much more likely to be for his welfare than for hers. Andrew had come to depend on her, perhaps too much, and she had tried to reassure him that her feelings for Jack wouldn’t change things between them—although if she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit they already had.

  Stopping the car, she retrieved
the shopping she’d picked up for her supper from the boot and let herself in the back door. Andrew sat at her kitchen table, the Observer spread out before him, a half-empty glass of red wine in his hand. He looked up with an impish smile.

  “Hullo, darling. I brought you a nice bottle of Burgundy, and thought I’d stay to do the honors.”

  “I can see you already have.” She gave him a fond peck on the cheek as she set her shopping on the table. The cheerful kitchen was her favorite room in the house. Roman blinds in tomato-red canvas covered the windows, so that the morning sun filled the room with its own sunrise, and she’d slipcovered the old sofa and chair in the small sitting area in a combination of prints in the same red and apple-green.

  Now in the evening light the rich colors were muted, the room cool and welcoming. Andrew examined the contents of the shopping bag. “A loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese—farmhouse Cheddar, no less—apples, and a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. Planning a romantic dinner?”

  “No, a working one, actually, so I’d better go easy on the wine. But I will have a glass and put my feet up for a bit before I dig in.” Winnie fetched a glass from the cupboard and sat down beside Andrew, slipping out of her shoes with a sigh of relief.

  She had often been told that they resembled one another, but she’d always thought that Andrew had got the better part of the deal. He was taller, slimmer, and on him her pleasant features and untidy brown hair were refined to quiet good looks. His tortoiseshell wire-rimmed spectacles added just the right touch of distinction. Perfectly professorial, she thought as she filled her glass, and smiled.

  Raising an eyebrow, Andrew queried, “Had a good day, then? You look as though you’ve been impressing the bishop.”

  “Tougher than that.” She hesitated. How much might she tell him about Faith’s situation without compromising the girl’s trust? Without mentioning names, she briefly outlined her efforts to negotiate a reconciliation.

  Andrew swirled the wine round the rim of his glass, then took a swig and studied her over its edge. “Winnie, don’t you think you’ve gone beyond the pale here? This girl is not a member of your congregation, or even C of E as far as you know. No one has asked you to intercede—or interfere, as the case may be—and it seems to me you’re likely to do more harm than good.”