Chapter 7 thou shalt not steal

Yesterday was a scorcher; got to over 100F and I wilted.  Not sure how much I will manage to write over the weekend before my holiday, but I am open to suggestions on themes to explore.

Chapter 7 – Thou Shalt Not Steal

“You don’t belong to the W.I., ladies?” said Chaz, over shortbread with Lucy Grey and Lyndsey Grayling. Lindsey had come to check how Zeb and Rachel were settling, and Lucy had come with her.  Lucy had Zeb on her lap, purring up a storm, and Rachel was ecstatically empting Lyndsey’s handbag in order to settle down in it.  Chaz had apologised, but Lyndsey had waved his apology aside and removed her mobile phone with the comment that Rachel had a bad habit of phoning people on it.

“We don’t feel welcome at the W.I.,” Lucy answered Chaz’s question. 

“It’s about those who toil not, neither do they spin,” said Lyndsey dryly.  “Not entirely true, but many of them are older women and most of them have independent means, not the world’s workers.”

“That isn’t true of W.I.s in other places,” said Chaz.

“No, but it is of a club run by Mrs. Hadley,” said Lyndsey. “Nobody else dares stand against her as president.”

“Well, as the W.I. elect their officers in September after the big AGM, there’s time for both of you to join.  I did recognise Summer’s hand in the pond and water lilies didn’t I?” said Chaz.

“Yes, but what has the flower club to do with it?” asked Lucy, mystified.

“Mrs. Hadley was laying into Mrs. Beales publicly over the flower club offerings in church and I  ... intervened,” said Chaz.  “I expect you will hear all about it on Friday.  What I want you two ladies to do is to get all the flower club people you can to join the W.I. and canvas for Mrs. Beales to be president next year.  It is a secret ballot after all, and I wager if anyone else was prepared to stand, the other members would like a breath of fresh air.”

“Oh!” said Lucy.

“You Bolshevik!” said Lyndsey, admiringly.  “All right, Rev Chaz, we will work your felonious little plans for you.  We can always leave if it doesn’t work.”

“Gilbert and Sullivan,” said Chaz.  “Thank you.  Now, tell me how much mayhem you wrought in your youth having names so similar.”

They looked at each other and laughed, and Chaz reflected how pretty Lucy was when she was looking happy.

“We sat next to each other at school,” said Lucy

“And we swapped seats regularly,” said Lyndsey.

“Until Mrs. Pearson caught on,” said Lucy. “Her daughter teaches in the school now and is a favourite of Summer’s.”

“Oh, the shame!” laughed Lyndsey. “She made us each sit with a boy!”

“And I was lucky because mine was the newcomer, Adrian Dempsey,” said Lucy, softly.

“But I was sitting next to a real tearaway called Wendel Whitely!” laughed Lyndsey.  “I never realised I’d end up working for him or that he would be a pillar of the community.  In our young day he was always in trouble with the police for disrupting the hunt, and squaring up to people he thought were mistreating animals, and having a sit-in to stop old oaks being cut down.”

“I knew I liked Wendel,” said Chaz, cheerfully. “My sort of chap.”

“One doesn’t usually tag a vicar as an anarchist,” said Lyndsey.

“Oh, I’m not an anarchist; I believe in the rule of law, and you need government for that,” said Chaz.  “Actually, a funny story I heard about Prince  Kropotkin, a Russian anarchist of the early 20^th century, who bombed an anarchist meeting on the grounds that they were too organised and insufficiently anarchic.  I’m a rabble-rouser.”

“Oh, fair enough,” laughed Lyndsey.  “So what is your next mission beyond launching us at the W.I.?”

“I’m not sure,” said Chaz. “I was guided to deal with the village pervert, by the hand of a little child; Lucy, I am sure that God’s hand drew Summer to bring Claire to me.  And I hope I might help Amos Crow with his gambling addiction.  Tony strikes me as the sort of man who is strict over not selling more to those already drunk so any alcoholism will be private and behind closed doors, I fancy.”

“Petty theft,” said Lucy.  “Someone in the village is an opportunistic thief, who wanders in back doors, picks up a couple of things and wanders out again.   I got Summer a mobile phone to use when she was away on a school trip in case of emergencies, and she left it on the kitchen table.  It walked while we were in the front room watching TV.  But people are in and out the kitchen door all day, and you can’t have the police fingerprinting everyone who has been in and out – Summer’s friends, you two, a couple of other people who don’t consider my house to be one of ill-repute.  Other people have missed similar things, as well as food items.”

“I will keep my ears to the ground,” said Chaz. 

Chaz heard about the thefts again when an agitated and tearful Patty Raikes came to see him.

“Mrs. Hadley has fired me!” she said.  “She had some knick-knacks stolen, and she accused me.  Me!  My boyfriend is a copper, is it likely I’d be stealing?  And suddenly, after having worked for her for nearly seven years?”

“Why should she suspect you?” asked Chaz, making tea and getting out shortbread.

“Because I’m the domestic, and therefore of the criminal classes,” said Patty, bitterly.  “I hope it turns out to be one of her set!”

“As I understand it the thief is bold and comes in during broad daylight through open back doors,” said Chaz.  “Well, she can’t expect you to work out your notice, so perhaps I can employ you on the same hours to do for me?  I will be glad of someone to keep me tidy, it’s a vice of mine.  I don’t check the tops of doors, and I usually wipe my own cooking surfaces.”

“Vicar, I’d love to,” said Patty.  “And when the thief is caught, I won’t go back to her, even if she begs on her knees, which she won’t.  She’ll have trouble getting the same level of service, and what’s more I’ll warn anyone who comes for the job.”

“What ye sow, so shall ye reap,” murmured Chaz.

Chaz found the petty thief sooner than he might have expected.

He was writing, rather desultorily, a sermon when he was surprised that Rachel slithered off his shoulder and padded determinedly towards the kitchen.

“It isn’t your tea-time yet,” said Chaz, absently.

He was about to resume writing when there was a feline yowl, and a human scream.

He put the pen down and went hurriedly into the kitchen.  Rachel had launched herself at the face of an intruder, whose bulging pockets contained a number of food items and, by the trailing wire, Chaz’s CD player which he listened to as he cooked.

The human screams had outlasted the hunter’s yowl.

“Rachel, please put him down,” said Chaz.

Hearing her human’s voice, here to sort things out, Rachel dropped off the well-lacerated face of a young man.

“Dear me, Artie Denham, isn’t it?” said Chaz.  “You had better sit down; I’ll treat those lacerations, then you can give me back all my things, and I’ll make a nice cup of tea while you tell me why you feel a need to steal.”

The thief let himself be guided into a chair without protest.

“If you know who I am, ain’t no use fleeing,” he said, defeated.

Chaz got out antiseptic wipes and cream, and cleaned up the scratches, and anointed them well with the cream.  Then he made tea and retrieved the tin of biscuits from under Denham’s jacket, as well as his CD player from the man’s pocket.  He put some biscuits and cakes on a plate, and sat himself down opposite the lacerated thief.

“Now, Artie, you are a man with a young wife and beautiful twin daughters; why are you risking being sent to jail by stealing so clumsily from your neighbours, even those who can ill-afford it like the Greys?” asked Chaz.

“I only took a mobile phone and a can of beans; mobiles are luxuries.”

“Not to a mother of a little girl who is worried about her when she is away with a school trip,” said Chaz. 

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Artie, dully. “To me it was a red rag, here she is supposedly struggling but she buys her kid an expensive toy.”

“I wonder if she had to miss a meal to buy it?” said Chaz.  “I know she makes some income by writing children’s books, but it’s not a certain income, but she wants to be at home for her daughter, as the child’s father is dead.”

Artie flushed.

“I suppose you’ll say it’s wrong to let what people say about her as an unwed mother influence me.”

“Well, as you already know that it is, I don’t need to do so, do I?  Are you telling me that you and your good lady were celibate before tying the knot?  Miss Grey was just unable to tie the knot by reason of being widowed before marriage.”

“I hadn’t looked at it this way.  That old bugger Sir Tarleton would have it that she makes a mint with expensive clients.”

“Well, that’s to assuage his own guilt in trying to force himself on her.  But this isn’t about Miss Grey, who is the only one of two victims I know of so far, though I am told there have been a number of petty thefts.  It’s about you, and what you are up to.  I thought you had a good job over in Withymere St Andrews,  at the builder’s yard there? Your wife was saying so at the W.I. meeting.”

Artie Denham flushed.

“I lost my job, three weeks ago,” he muttered. “I haven’t dared tell the wife.  She expects the good things in life, y’know?  And now I’m out of a job and can’t sign on yet, there’s no income.  So I’ve been selling the bits I steal to give her money and living on cans of beans, telling her I eat in the works restaurant.”

“Well, that’s not going to be a sustainable lifestyle, you know, Artie,” said Chaz.  “And it’s also a betrayal of the trust of your neighbours to steal from them.  Why did you lose your job?”

“They’re downsizing, and I was late twice because I had to feed the twins, when Marianne was feeling rough,” said Artie.

“So what skills do you have?  Are you a qualified builder, or are you a box-shifter?”

“I can drive a forklift.  I wanted to learn building, but I never got to go to college because Marianne got pregnant and I had to do the right thing.  She’s a cut above me, see.”

“We are all equal in the eyes of the Lord,” said Chaz, severely.  “Well, Artie, if I can get you a job, will you stick with it?  And please, tell your wife the truth.  It’s always better to be honest in marriage.”

“I will, if you can get me a job. Doing what?”

“I have a cousin-in-law over in Collingham, he’s a builder and he needs an apprentice while his son is growing up,” said Chaz.  “If I put in a good word for you, you are putting my reputation on the line, if I tell him you are naturally honest, so no pilfering from the houses where you work, however much you resent them, you understand?”

“You know it’s the ones I resent that I pilfered from?” gasped Artie.

“I guessed,” said Chaz.  “And I’m thinking that’s Sir Tarleton, Mrs. Hadley and your wife’s extended family.  And you got the wrong idea about Miss Grey and resented her living without apparent means of support, unaware that she works very hard to write books.  Summer tells me that her mum works about sixteen hours a day.”

“Gawd!” said Artie.

“He is very good, but when it is said ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves’ it does not refer to helping themselves to unconsidered trifles from other people,” said Chaz.  “Now I’d like you to give me anything you have stashed that you have not yet sold, and I’ll see it gets to the right people.  And while you collect it, I’ll have a word with my cousin Fred, and talk him into taking you on.  Then you will go over and meet him, and do what he asks you to.  Pay won’t be huge at first, but on the other hand, he’ll teach you the trade and you won’t have to pay for it.”

“Vicar, you’re a marvel!” Artie had hope in his rather battered face.  “I ... I won’t let you down.”

“It’s this ruddy village,” said Chaz. “Everything has to look perfect.  And the village failed you.  I want to make sure we have enough community spirit here to avoid that happening again.”

The text on Sunday was “Thou Shalt Not Steal”.

“The Ten Commandments are simple, even simplistic, and can be summed up in one phrase,” said Chaz. “Show respect to other people.  And stealing from people is a lack of respect.  Indeed, it can be said to be the key commandment, as the other commandments can be described in terms of theft.   Some are more obvious than others.” He paused.  “Of course coveting other people’s goods is a first step to planning theft or possibly destruction of property, so they do not have such goods either; and adultery is the theft of honour, in the breaking of the vow of marriage.  To murder is to steal the life of someone else, perhaps to steal a breadwinner from a family, or a mother from children, and happiness from all the relatives of the dead person. To fail to acknowledge God and to set up false gods like pop stars is to steal respect from him; to fail to honour your father and mother is to steal the acknowledgement of what they have given you.  Though the failure of some parents means that this can be a difficult one.  The commandment assumes one’s parents do not betray their sacred trust of being parents,” he added.  “To keep the Lord’s Day holy is a way, too, of making sure that everyone got one day off.  It kept employers from stealing the little bit of leisure their workers had. And finally but not least, bearing false witness is a theft of character of another, perhaps almost as wrong as depriving someone of life.  Labelling someone falsely is an attack upon their life.”  He looked hard at Mrs. Hadley.  “Some people have made an accusation regarding the petty thefts.  The accusation was wrong, and the firing of the person accused was bearing false witness.  I hope the person who bore such false witness is thoroughly ashamed, for I’d hate to think that someone with so much on their conscience was a member of my congregation without repentence.”  He looked around. “Now, it so happens that the village’s petty thief has repented of his misdeeds, and has returned such goods as have not yet been sold.  If, after the service, you would like to go into the vestry, if you have missed anything, it may be that what was stolen is there.  The thief does not have the means at his disposal to make restitution, but if anything of strong sentimental value was taken, let me know and I will see if I can find a way to get it back.   He is now determined to go straight, however, so I will not be answering any questions about who it is, or why he has repented.  It is sufficient that he has, and the Good Lord is aware of that.  He has suffered from his conscience; ‘Vengeance is mine, Saith the Lord, I will repay’ and leave it to the Good Lord to let his conscience tell him what to do.  It is sufficient.”