A Dead Man Out of Mind (18 page)

He tried to summon some enthusiasm but failed. ‘Thank you, Mrs Goode. Sorry for the bother.'

‘Oh, no bother. No bother at all, Mr Bairstow.' She smiled at him and hesitated by the door, hoping for a little chat. ‘I had a cat myself once. A fine black tom he was. Mr Goode used to say that I had more time for that cat than I had for
him
.'

He was once again spared the necessity of a reply by Mrs Goode's prompt reaction to the faint sound of a key in the front door. ‘Oh, there's Father now,' she stated, making a quick exit from the study. ‘I'll tell him you're here.'

Bairstow had time only for a whispered warning to Norman Topping before the Vicar entered, rubbing his hands together briskly. ‘Chilly out there, isn't it? I see that the excellent Mrs Goode has taken care of your needs, with drinks and a nice cheery fire.'

‘Oh, yes,' Norman Topping assured him with a chuckle. ‘This whisky goes down a treat, all right. Keeps the chill out better than the fire.'

Pouring himself a drink, the Vicar sat down across from them. ‘To your good health,' he said, lifting his glass.

Bairstow was in no mood for pleasantries. ‘The DAC have said no,' he announced bluntly. ‘We can't sell the silver.'

‘Ah.' The Vicar's smile didn't falter, but he put his glass down and pressed his fingertips together in a thoughtful way. Unwilling to commit himself to further comment, he regarded his wardens and waited for them to speak.

Although Bairstow understood what game was being played, and would have preferred a more cautious approach, he was afraid of what Norman Topping might say if the silence continued too long, so he rushed to forestall him. ‘It requires that we . . . re-think certain plans we'd made,' he said as circumspectly as possible.

‘About the shelter for the homeless, you mean.' The Vicar managed to say it without a hint of irony in his voice or on his face.

Silently Bairstow cursed him; he was making it damnably difficult. He knew that they all knew exactly what was at stake, but he wasn't about to let the Vicar force him into spelling it out. Changing tack, he replied. ‘Yes, that's right – it's a great shame, isn't it? The need is so great, even in this affluent part of London.'

‘The solicitor said that a Consistory Court wouldn't go against the DAC,' Topping contributed. ‘I was wondering if there was anything else we could sell instead. But Martin said—'

Bairstow interrupted him. ‘I said that perhaps we'll have to put that idea on the back burner for the time being, and look at other priorities in the parish instead.'

‘Yes?' The Vicar raised his eyebrows, inviting him to go on.

Taking a deep breath, Bairstow plunged in. ‘It's that . . . the curate. She's got to go, Father.'

‘Rachel?' The look of surprise on his face raised deliberate obtuseness to a fine art. ‘But she's doing a good job. Works jolly hard, she does. It's been a great help to me in my parish work. And she's bright, as well – she's only been on the job a few weeks, but already she's picked up so much about the people involved, and the setup in the two parishes. Give her a few more months, Martin. It's early days yet. She'll shape up – you'll see.'

‘Only if she's capable of changing her gender!' Bairstow exploded. ‘Bloody hell, Father! I have nothing against the woman personally, but this is an Anglo-Catholic parish! Don't you read the papers? Don't you know what's happening in the Church of England?'

Long after the wardens had gone, Father Keble Smythe sat in his study, cradling an empty glass and staring into the dying embers of the fire. It didn't require a Martin Bairstow to tell him that he'd made a mistake in appointing Rachel Nightingale as his curate. But his concern was not for the parish, nor for the delicate sensibilities of Dolly Topping and her cronies. From his point of view the mistake was personal, with consequences that might damage his own prospects.

His piloting of his own career to date had been characterised by an unerring instinct for those things that would best enhance his image, and a certain amount of caution; together with good connections and a fair degree of ability those qualities had served him well, and had advanced him to a position where preferment seemed assured. But now he had made a potentially fatal error: he had allowed his short-term needs to overshadow his long-term goals. The loss of Father Julian as his curate had left him hopelessly swamped with parish work, and that, along with the desire to curry favour with those who had suggested it, had blinded him to the dangers inherent in Rachel Nightingale's appointment. His instincts had let him down, and that in itself depressed him almost as much as the consequences of his misstep.

Now that it was too late, now that he had tacitly allied himself with the pro-women camp, it had become evident that the Church of England was prepared to be more than generous with opponents of women's ordination who were willing to stay within the Anglican Church rather than joining the exodus to Rome. Fast-streaming promotion opportunities were available – deanships, archdeaconries and suffragan bishoprics were being offered to the best and brightest of the anti-women clergy. Bribes, perhaps, if one were being cynical, but those who were beneficiaries of such largesse were not about to put too fine a point on it.

It might have been him. William Keble Smythe groaned unconsciously, thinking about what might have been. He could have been a suffragan bishop, or even a London area bishop.

Then what was he to do? Going over to Rome, as he'd been aware all along was his churchwardens' intention, wasn't really an option for him. He had no illusions that a horde – or even a trickle – of rogue Anglican clergy would be received by Rome with open arms, bags of money, or opportunities for career advancement. Rome was a dead end. Even without the complications of a wife, he knew that it wasn't for him.

But what was left?

If only . . .

She had to go.

With a surge of resolution, Father Keble Smythe reached for the whisky decanter and refilled his long-empty glass. He didn't know how it was to be accomplished, but Martin Bairstow was right. Rachel Nightingale had to go. Changing horses in mid-stream could be a dangerous activity, but sometimes it was the only alternative to drowning. Somehow, some day soon, she had to go.

Walking along beside Ruth Kingsley, Rachel was glad that the girl was in an ebullient, talkative mood: it gave her time for reflection, and masked the fact that she was less than her usual cheerful self.

Her impromptu visit to Vanessa Bairstow had been cut short by Martin Bairstow's return home, and the resulting scene had not been a pleasant one. Accustomed as she was to rudeness, both subtle and direct, Rachel had still not been prepared for what the churchwarden had said to her. The experience had left her badly shaken.

But Ruth seemed unaware of her disquiet, chattering on about her boredom with her work experience. ‘Dead boring,' she said yet again. ‘Nothing but running the photocopier and making tea, although today he sent me to the library to look up some information. About Canon Law and Consistory Courts. Don't ask me why. It wasn't really much more interesting than photocopying, but at least it got me out of that boring office.'

‘Canon Law?' For a moment Rachel's interest was caught, but soon Ruth was off on another variation of her complaint. ‘And the evenings are just as bad. Sitting around playing Cluedo, just like I was eight years old. Aunt Lucy just doesn't seem to realise that I'm nearly grown up. And
him
.' She shuddered melodramatically. ‘He's
awful
. I just don't know what Aunt Lucy sees in him.'

‘Mr Middleton-Brown, you mean?'

Ruth nodded. ‘Yes,
him
. He's so soppy about Aunt Lucy – it just makes me sick.' With a few gagging noises to demonstrate her disgust, she went on, ‘Last night, I went into the kitchen before dinner and found them
kissing
. Ugh – it was nauseating! Before dinner, even!' She gagged again. ‘Gross.'

In spite of herself, Rachel smiled in amusement. Poor Lucy, she thought. And poor Ruth, to have her delicate sensibilities so offended. ‘Aren't you being a little hard on your aunt?' she suggested gently.

‘Oh, no. Aunt Lucy used to be so . . . sensible. Before she met
him
,' Ruth declared, adding maliciously, ‘they're living in sin, you know. And she doesn't want Grandad to find out. I told her that you wouldn't approve.'

Rachel decided that the situation wasn't really so amusing; she thought carefully about how to respond. ‘It's not up to me to approve or disapprove,' she said as mildly as possible. ‘And it's not up to you, either. Your aunt is a grown woman, responsible for her own decisions.'

‘But it's so hypocritical,' Ruth declared with fierce intensity. ‘If she wasn't ashamed of it, she wouldn't mind Grandad knowing about it.'

‘Oh, Ruth.' Rachel shook her head. ‘I'm afraid that people are often a lot more complicated than we'd like them to be. That's one thing I've learned in my job. There are so often conflicting motivations, and so many factors that someone on the outside can't possibly understand. When I realised that, I knew that I was halfway towards accepting people as they are, not as I wish they were.'

She wouldn't have listened to anyone else, but Rachel's words carried a great deal of weight with Ruth. ‘Oh,' she said thoughtfully. ‘Well, maybe. But still . . .'

‘Now, here we are at Vera Bright's house,' Rachel interrupted in a brisk voice. ‘She lives with her father, who is very old – nearly a hundred.'

That had the desired effect; Ruth turned to her with wide eyes. ‘A hundred!'

‘Well, nearly. Ninety-six,' she amended.

To Ruth, it was much the same; as far as she was concerned, anyone over thirty, even Aunt Lucy though perhaps not Rachel Nightingale, was terminally old. The woman who answered the door, with her wrinkled face and stringy body, looked to her young eyes as though she might have been a hundred as well, but common sense told her that if she was the daughter of the ninety-six-year-old man, she probably wasn't much over seventy.

‘Hello, Miss Bright,' said Rachel with a smile. ‘Have we called at an inconvenient time?'

The older woman's face lit up. ‘No, not at all. Father and I were just watching the television. We do most evenings.'

‘I wouldn't want to interrupt anything important.'

‘Oh, no,' Vera Bright assured her. ‘It's only a programme about the life cycle of the bee that Father wanted to see. He likes the nature programmes, though I'd sometimes prefer to watch a film. Or listen to the wireless. Please come in.' She looked curiously at Ruth as they stepped into the hall, but was too polite to say anything.

‘This is my young friend, Ruth Kingsley,' Rachel introduced her. ‘Ruth, this is Miss Bright.'

Vera Bright smiled at Ruth. ‘How nice to meet you. You might not believe this, but you remind me a great deal of myself when I was a girl. My hair was just that colour.'

Ruth hoped that her face didn't betray her amazement. It was difficult enough to believe that this faded, drained-looking woman had ever been young at all, but that she should have been like her was beyond comprehension. ‘Oh, really?' she managed.

The older woman gave a quick look over her shoulder in the direction of the room from which issued a barrage of sound, loud buzzing with an even louder voice-over. ‘Come upstairs for a minute,' she whispered conspiratorially. ‘I'll show you.'

Rachel and Ruth followed her up the stairs and into a room that was surprisingly small and claustrophobic for a house of that size. It wasn't that the room was cluttered – it was in fact almost bare in its simplicity – but it had an airless quality about it that both Ruth and Rachel found oppressive. ‘Here,' said Vera, picking up a silver-framed photo from the table beside the bed and handing it to Ruth. ‘See what I mean?'

The girl who laughed up at Ruth was young, probably in her late teens or early twenties. Though the photo was in black and white, the camera had captured the girl's essence: a face bursting with vitality and happiness, framed with vigorous curls that might have been red, her head held on a proud neck above a lithe, lively body.

‘Oh!' said Ruth.

‘She
is
like you,' Rachel declared, looking over her shoulder. She smiled at the older woman. ‘Miss Bright, you were lovely.'

After a moment of staring at the girl in the photo, Ruth's attention shifted to the other inhabitant of the frame. Next to the young Vera Bright, his arm draped around her shoulders casually but possessively, was a good-looking young man in uniform. He had an open, guileless face with liquid dark eyes and a wide smiling mouth, under cropped hair that looked as if it might have been dark blond in colour. ‘Who is he?' she asked with curiosity.

To her own amazement, Vera Bright's voice was steady; she hadn't spoken his name in years. ‘Sergeant Gerald Hansen, his name was. Gerry. He was an American airman, in the war. We were going to be married. But he . . . he was killed.'

‘Oh!' Stricken, Ruth looked up at her. ‘Oh, I'm so sorry. How sad.'

‘It was a long time ago,' Vera Bright said quickly, embarrassed. She reached for the photo.

Over the cacophony of the television below, a querulous, imperious voice made itself heard. ‘Vera? Where have you disappeared to, girl? Who was it at the door?'

CHAPTER 14

    
Teach me thy way, O Lord: and lead me in the right way, because of mine enemies.

Psalm 27.13

The next two days were busy ones for Rachel, as Ruth returned to the tedium of the photocopier. In addition to her regular parish duties, there were several things that she needed to follow up on.