Chapter 2- Whited Sepulchres
Sir Tarleton Rickett [“Not Sir Richard Tarleton, please!”]
strode out onto the cricket ground for a little net practice. His
long-suffering man-of-all-work, Jamison, was to bowl for him. Sir Tarleton looked around the centre of the
village with complacent pleasure; it looked good to him, the self-styled squire
and leader of society, such as it was.
And then his eye fell on a sight
which suffused his already florid face with purple, and made his Colonel Blimp
moustache quiver in outrage.
A down-and-out in the bus
shelter!
Sir Tarleton strode over to the
bus shelter.
“Look here, you, just get out of
our village,” he said.
Chaz looked up from his book.
“I beg your pardon, what did you
say?” he said.
Sir Tarleton went a shade more
purple.
“I told you to get out!” he
bellowed. “You layabouts have no place
around decent folk! A little military service is what you need!”
“I have seen active service, as
it happens,” said Chaz, mildly, whose education had been Eton, Sandhurst, Iraq
and Oxford. His voice sounded like it,
but Sir Tarleton was too incensed to notice.
“Oh, one of these cowards
claiming PTSD, I suppose, after hearing a gun fired once,” he sneered.
Captain Cunningham, DSO, who had
singlehandedly taken out an enemy mortar position, flared briefly in the blue
eyes of Rev Chaz, and was subdued for a while.
“Where did you see active
service, sir?” Chaz asked.
“None of your business!” roared
Sir Tarleton, whose active service had been served behind a desk in the
Ministry of Defence. Soft answers did
not turn away wrath in Sir Tarleton’s case, but were rather a red rag to a
bull. “Now you just get out and don’t
question your betters!”
“I don’t feel like getting out,
you know,” said Chaz. “I’m enjoying
watching the village life. I certainly have no plans to leave on the say-so of some
over-inflated desk-wallah. You can’t make me, you know.” He mentally grimaced
that the captain had escaped momentarily to speak with such scorn.
Sir Tarleton raised his cricket
bat.
“I can make you; one way or
another,” he said, grimly.
Chaz was vaguely aware of a flash
of light, but he became rather preoccupied.
He had taken seriously the warning from Tony that he would meet some
disapproval, but that anyone should actually physically attack him was not
something he had anticipated.
He gave his full attention to the
charging Sir Tarleton.
Sir Tarleton could not have
explained afterwards how he ended up disarmed, and flat on his back, minus his
whites.
Chaz threw the trousers back to
him, the reverend mentally chiding the captain for backsliding.
“They’re too big for me,” he
said. “I think I might keep the bat to hand to the police as evidence as
well. Really, assault and battery upon
the Queen’s highway?”
“I have a photograph of him going
for you while you were sitting there,” said a female voice. “I took it as evidence of his violence as the
police don’t believe me.”
“Who would believe a whore?”
blustered Sir Tarleton.
“Our Good Lord, when he accepted
Mary Magdalene,” said Chaz. The woman flushed, angrily.
“I am not a whore, and so I keep
telling him!” she said. “He tries to
force himself on me – I have an illegitimate daughter, because my fiancé and I
got premature and he went out to fight in the second gulf war. He died there.”
“My commiserations; you are a
widow without a pension,” said Chaz. “I
was also in Iraq; it was a mess. Knowing that you loved him probably buoyed him
up. I will ask for the use of the photo,
and I will ask the police to listen seriously to your complaints.”
“Who are you?” asked the woman. “I
was bringing you a thermos of coffee and some sandwiches when Sir Tarleton
started in on you.”
Sir Tarleton was putting his
trousers back on over incongruous boxers with an adult theme to the pictures on
them.
“He’s a down-and-out,” he
snarled. “You found your level with him, Lucy.”
“Miss Grey. I have never said you
can use my first name, Sir Tarleton,” said Lucy.
“Miss Grey, delighted,” said
Chaz. “My name is Charles Cunningham; I’m
the new vicar here, and I decided I would like to see the village incognito, so
I dressed down. I see that some people
make it something of a whited sepulchre.”
“I don’t believe you!” Sir
Tarleton blustered, his colour draining.
Chaz shrugged.
“If you ever come to church you
will find out,” he said. “You are
someone who needs the power of prayer to heal you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” cried Sir Tarleton.
“That is why you are so much in
need of healing,” said Chaz. “Miss Grey,
will you share coffee and sandwiches with me?
I have some maids of honour which I can add to the pool, but only water
to drink.”
“If ... if you don’t mind eating
sandwiches made for a homeless person...” said Lucy.
“Jesus said, ‘whenever someone
does any kindness to the least of my people, he does it to me,’” said
Chaz. “Now feed the inner Jesus; and
then I will call the police. I shan’t
press charges, but they need to have a crime report to establish
character. Perhaps being watched by the
fuzz will have a greater impact on Sir Tarleton than the knowledge that God
sees all.”
Sir Tarleton glowered and stalked
off, his afternoon’s cricket quite spoiled, and a number of aches and
contusions making themselves felt on his body.
“So, what can you tell me about
the village?” asked Chaz, devouring his second sandwich. “These are good; what
do you put in the egg that lifts it?”
“A pinch of black pepper, chopped
spring onion and the lightest touch of cardamom,” said Lucy. “It wasn’t as bad when Gran was alive – I’m
an orphan – but calling it a whited sepulchre is spot on. Above the surface all
is pretty, and good, and below the surface all sorts of tensions seethe. I’m a bit of a pariah to some people because
I have a love-child, which I think is a nicer term than bastard, but it’s
unfair on Summer, because some people won’t let their children play with
her. And it’s not her fault.”
“No, poor child, and it’s not
yours either,” said Chaz. “What about
your man’s family?”
“Diana, his mother, is very good,”
said Lucy. “But she’s moved out to Collingham, to be away from memories of
Adrian growing up. I sort of understand,
but I would want the memories, myself, if I lost Summer. And I know it’s an odd sort of name, but it
was Ade’s nickname for me, because he said I was like sunshine on a dull
day. So her middle name is Adriana after
him ... I’m babbling.”
“I think you’ve needed someone to
talk to for a while,” said Chaz. “I find
it hard to take on board how parochial and unkind people can be in this day and
age; in a city, a significant number of the kids in any school don’t even know
who their father is, let alone have a hero to be proud of, lost rather than
strayed, as you might say.”
“And I almost took Diana up on
her offer to go and live with her with Summer in Collingham, where such things
are not unknown,” said Lucy. “But it
seemed like cowardice. And Gran left me
her cottage, and expected me to keep it nice.
It would be like letting her down as well as letting down Adrian’s
memory. Am I making any sense?”
“All kinds,” said Chaz. “Oh dear, here comes trouble.”
Trouble was in the shape of Mrs. Hadley.
She glared.
“Not content with flaunting
yourself in public, Lucy Grey, you consort with his type?” she said. “I thought
the police moved you on.” That was addressed to Chaz.
“I can’t help what you think, I’m
afraid,” said Chaz, firmly quashing the captain’s desire to question out loud
whether she was capable of thinking. “But I think you are rather discourteous
to the widow of a war-hero.”
“If she told you she was the
widow of a war-hero she was lying! She’s nothing but an unwed mother!” frothed Mrs.
Hadley.
“Oh, weddings are made in Heaven,
and a temporal ceremony is merely a matter of dates,” said Chaz. “The intention to marry Adrian was there, and
God sees and knows. And a soldier who
dies for his country is a war-hero in my book, you know. She did not claim it,
but you see, it is a matter of perception.
I think you should see someone about the plank in your eye before
claiming that Miss Grey has a mote in hers.”
“Well really!” said Mrs. Hadley. “Don’t
think you can get round me by quoting the Scriptures; the Devil quotes the
Scriptures for his own purpose.”
“Well, that’s the first time I’ve
been called a devil in English,” said Chaz, amused. “I don’t think it counts coming from an Arab out
of his head on adrenaline on the scary end of an AK47.”
“You, sir, are a disgrace, if you
are frightened of Arabs,” said Mrs. Hadley.
“Oh, not in general, and I did
not have time to be scared, but with an assault rifle jammed in my belly, I was
a trifle unnerved,” said Chaz. “Fortunately he had not cared for it properly,
and it jammed long enough for me to sock him on the jaw and take it away from
him. But war reminiscences are tedious
fare. It is sad that there are people of
any religion who cannot accept that others follow different paths, and that
Christians, Jews and Muslims even worship the same God.”
Mrs. Hadley, who ranked Jews
along with Methodists and Catholics as Unbelievers, let alone Muslims, gaped at
him in incomprehension.
“I meant, young man, that you
should not be afraid of inferior types like foreigners,” she snapped.
“Inferior to whom?” asked Chaz. “If
the Good Lord sees every sparrow fall, does he rate er, foreigners lower than
Britons? Or did you mean only English Britons?”
“A good English sparrow is better
than any foreigner,” said Mrs. Hadley.
“Jesus was a Jew from Palestine,”
said Chaz.
“Wash your mouth out, you
heathen!” cried Mrs. Hadley.
Chaz dissolved into laughter.
“He’s the new vicar,” said Lucy.
“I don’t believe it!” Mrs. Hadley
almost shouted. “Swapping lies, that’s
what you two disgraceful objects are doing! I shall write to the Bishop.”
“Yes, he told me the village
needed a shakeup,” said Chaz.
Mrs. Hadley, incensed, stalked off, not sure whether to believe such
utter nonsense or not. She planned to telephone the bishop as soon as she got
home to ask whether he had sent a vicar, and if it was indeed an extraordinary
young man with a motorbike who looked like a hoodlum.
Chaz had no idea that Mrs. Hadley
was about to be told by the Bishop’s secretary that yes, he was the new vicar,
and that he had been appointed to bring the village into the twentieth century
since the Bishop considered that aiming for the twenty-first was probably a
little too ambitious.
He was discovering that unless an
individual tackled a problem, it was swept under the carpet.
“You’ll think it a little thing,
I am sure, but I see it as a way of demonstrating things,” said Lucy. “Rose Cottage belonged to an estate agent,
and she lived here most of the time, but when she got promotion, she moved to
the city, and because she only had a flat there, she didn’t take her cats with
her. And she had never bothered to
neuter them, she just kept them in at night.
Well, everyone complained about the sounds of cats mating, and the
explosion of kittens, but nobody was
willing to do anything, until Lyndsey Grayling stepped in. She’s one of the two vet receptionists, but
she’s training to be a vet nurse too.
And she collected Josephine, who has a coat of many colours, and the
black panther, and took them in. She
called the black one Reuben until she produced kittens, when she changed her
name to Ribena. And they were then
neutered, and I helped her trap the tomcat who had sired kittens on them, and
the vet did the neutering for the cost of the anaesthetic. The tomcat is Jacob, and Lyndsey gradually
captured Isacher, Gad, Dan, Zebulun, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Benjamin, Dinah,
Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah to have them done. Summer helped me clear out so we could have a
garden sale to help with the costs, and Sausage-Roll Sally , that’s the other
receptionist, baked stuff to sell.”
“I take it she makes
sausage-rolls and doesn’t need feeding any,” said Chaz. “I thought health and
safety regulations banned the use of meat in fundraising cooking?”
“Probably, but nobody here takes
any notice of it,” said Lucy. “Only
instead of being grateful that Lyndsey took care of the problem, half the
village just refer to her as the crazy cat lady.”
Chaz nodded.
It was a little thing, perhaps,
but it was emblematic of the problems the Bishop had outlined. He had told Chaz that the village was smug
and self-satisfied with a good many churchgoers, but bums on seats did not
indicate souls in contemplation. Chaz had pointed out that he might lose a few
parishioners, but the Bishop had reminded him that the Good Shepherd sought for
those who were lost, and there were more ways to stray than not going to
church.
“It sounds as though Lyndsey had
help from you,” he said.
“And from Patty; Patty Raikes,”
said Lucy. “We grew up together and have always been friends. They never judged me, and I think without
them I would have given up.”
“Patty was recommended to me as a
cleaner if I teach her to cook in return,” said Chaz. “Her boyfriend is a copper.”
“Oh, yes, they’ve been engaged
for years, waiting to afford a down-payment on a house,” said Lucy. “I would have let them live in Honeysuckle
Cottage if I moved.”
“And is that by any chance next
to Rose Cottage where the cats were left?” asked Chaz.
“Yes, and Rose Cottage has been
bought by someone who keeps himself to himself,” said Lucy. “It used to belong to the Vaiseys; Adrian’s
people. And Lyndsey on the other side,
with her parents, in Clematis Cottage.
There’s a row of half a dozen of what used to be farm workers’ cottages,
the three at my end timber-framed and the others at the other end built to
resemble them in the eighteenth century as what they called ‘cottages ornés’ to fit the look. Apart from Gran’s cottage, which was already named
by Gran’s parents when they married, the
others were just numbers two to five. Someone
bought them all in the 1920s and fancied them up, and gave them all flower
names in keeping with Honeysuckle Cottage.
My great-grandparents refused to sell.
So now the other three are ‘Lavender Lodge’, where the doctor lives, ‘Marigold
Mansion’ which is where Sir Tareleton lives, and a misnomer if there ever was
one, and ‘Hyacinth House’. All terribly
pretentious, but then, that also shows what the village is about.”
Chaz nodded.
“So who lives in Hyacinth House?”
he asked.
“Tony, the landlord of the ‘Thrasher’,”
said Lucy. “He’s an incomer, like Sir Tarleton, but at least Tony had relatives
here. He’s only been here twenty odd years; moved in when I was a kid, you are
laughing at me.”
“Only a little,” said Chaz. “And how long has Rickett been here?”
“Sir Tarleton moved in when I was
in my teens,” said Lucy. “He had a wife,
then; but she was terribly frail. I
think he bullied her to death.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said
Chaz. “Well if he and Tony, whom I have met, along with Fang, are incomers,
what does that make me?”
“A breath of fresh air,” said
Lucy, and then blushed.
