Read The New Rector (Tales from Turnham Malpas) Online
Authors: Rebecca Shaw
The New Rector (Tales from Turnham Malpas) (15 page)
He drove back to the Rectory and arrived home about six. There was no letter on the mat as he had hoped. The cats rushed to greet him.
‘Cupboard love, that’s what it is – pure cupboard love.’
As he hung up his jacket he smelt that special lingering perfume of Caroline’s on her coat hanging beside his own. The cats cried for attention and he went to the kitchen to get their food. The table was laid for two. He could smell a casserole cooking.
‘Caroline.’
‘Peter.’
‘You’re back.’
‘I am.’
Caroline turned to face him. ‘Mother sends her love. I’ve put a casserole in the oven. It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.’
‘I smelt it when I came in. I’ve fed the cats.’
‘So have I. The greedy things.’
‘Shall I get a bottle of wine opened?’
‘That would be nice. I’ll be down in a moment.’
‘I didn’t see your car.’
‘No, I’ve had to leave it in Culworth for repair. There’s something wrong with the electrics.’
‘I was in Culworth. I could have picked you up if I’d known.’
‘I caught the bus.’
‘I see.’
On a weekday evening they usually made a bottle of wine last two meals but tonight they finished the whole bottle. They exchanged news about the parish, about the weather, about Northumberland, carefully avoiding the major difficulty which consumed their minds. Caroline broached the subject first.
‘Peter, I had to get away to get the right perspective on things. Something about not being able to see the wood for
the trees, you know. It took me until yesterday to understand how I felt. I stood high up on the cliffs watching the sea coming pounding in onto the rocks, and I thought about the permanency of the sea and that it goes on relentlessly no matter what trivial pursuits Man manages to occupy himself with. I sat thinking about you, thinking about how you are the permanency in my life. I tried to imagine what my life would be like if I turned my back on you now. Sitting there I said goodbye to the Rectory, to the village, to Muriel and Jimbo and Harriet and Willie and all the others. I set myself up in a little flat and got a job in a hospital. I saw myself coming home at night to an empty flat, trying to make new friends, going to evening classes. It didn’t work. I thought about you coming home to an empty house. No one to talk your problems over with, no one to love you and make sure you were fed properly, no one actually to care whether you lived or died. And I could see no point in both of us being on our own.’
Peter smiled. ‘Are you saying then that the sole reason for you coming back is to make sure the village doesn’t sit sniffing the air during the sermon because the rector hasn’t washed his socks?’
‘Yes, you could say that.’ Caroline looked up at him and grinned. ‘That’s if you want me.’
‘A lifetime of washing my own socks couldn’t make up for what I’ve done to you. You make me feel very humble. Could you possibly sit on my knee?’
‘Yes.’
They talked well into the night. The cats gave up hoping for their nightly walk around the garden with Caroline and went to bed in a huff. The Aga in need of its usual stoking up went unattended, the Rectory door remained unlocked and the bedroom light stayed on all night.
After the service, she stood talking to Lady Bissett whose head was full of arrangements for next month’s Village Flower and Vegetable Show.
‘Well, Muriel, if you go on winning like you do we shall
have to ban you to give someone else a chance.’
‘I’m not competing this year.’
‘Not at all?’
‘No. I haven’t the time to devote to my garden like I used to. I’m so busy, you see.’
‘Of course – I’d forgotten you’d got a job. I’ve decided to organise more classes for the flower-arranging this year and some more for the children. If they enter things they’re bound to bring their parents. Do you think Jimbo might provide the refreshments?’
‘He’s already promised Peter to provide the meat for the Harvest Supper. We can’t go on asking and asking.’
‘Oh, come off it, Muriel! He’s making a packet out of this village, what with the store and the tearoom and restaurant. He can well afford it.’
‘Can well afford what?’
Lady Bissett hadn’t realised that Harriet was standing right behind her.
‘Ah, Harriet. I was just saying to Muriel here that you and Jimbo might be so kind as to provide something towards the refreshments for the Village Show.’
‘It sounded to me as if you were saying we could well afford to provide the lot. It’s not Charity Hall, you know. We do actually run a business.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘How did you mean it, then?’ Harriet retorted. Muriel felt very uncomfortable. She hated rows and this one looked as if it was going to be a big one. But Lady Bissett was saved from answering Harriet’s belligerent question by a loud joyous shout.
‘Moo? It is – it’s really Moo! What in heaven’s name are
you
doing here?’
Muriel turned round to see who had used a name she
hadn’t been called since she was a girl. The owner of the cultured voice stood about five feet six in his socks. He had thick snow-white hair, big bushy eyebrows, a very tanned complexion, a haughty nose and big laughing bright brown eyes. She blushed bright red as she realised who he was.
‘Why it’s … it’s … Ralphie! I don’t believe it.’ Before she could say any more he had clasped her in his arms and given her a hearty kiss on both cheeks.
‘What are you doing here, Moo? You left the village years ago.’
Muriel tried to restore her equilibrium but didn’t succeed; she was quite breathless. Swallowing hard she replied, ‘I did, but when I retired I came back here and bought a little house. What are you doing here?’
‘Come to see the old place to find somewhere to live. I’ve retired, you see – fancied coming back to the old roots. Well, would you believe it! You haven’t changed a bit. This is wonderful! Won’t you introduce me to your friends?’
In a state of total confusion and almost unable to differentiate between everyone because of a sudden mist which had come down over her eyes, Muriel introduced him.
‘This is Sir Ralph Templeton. Ralphie, this is Harriet Charter-Plackett who owns the village store with her husband James who’s over there talking to the rector. This is Liz and Neville Neal from Glebe House. This is Lady Bissett, who’s husband Sir Ronald you might know, with him being a trades union leader. He’s been on TV a lot …’
‘Living abroad, I haven’t had that pleasure.’ He shook hands with them all. ‘Delighted to meet you, how do you do. What a pleasure to meet Moo’s friends! There must be a lot of newcomers to the village, I imagine, and very few of
the old families left.’
Muriel found her voice again. ‘Well, Jimmy Glover’s still here, and Valda and Thelma Senior, the twins. You remember them, don’t you?’
‘Not the twins!’
‘I can’t think of anyone else at the moment.’
‘Come on, Moo, I’ll take you out to lunch. We’ve lots to talk about – more than forty years to catch up on. You will excuse us, won’t you?’ he said to those around him. ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again before long.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Muriel panicked. ‘No, I really can’t.’
‘Have you other plans?’
‘No. Well, yes … I have. I like to garden on Sunday afternoons in the summer and—’
Ralphie interrupted, ‘The gardening can wait, can’t it, surely?’
‘Well, I suppose it can, but no, I can’t come with you for lunch. It wouldn’t do.’
‘Wouldn’t do? I’m not abducting you, Muriel, simply asking you out for a meal. I’ll bring you straight back if you like.’
Harriet gave her a nudge. ‘Go on, Muriel. You can’t say no, you’ve so much to talk about.’
‘Well, perhaps I might then.’
Before she knew it Muriel was whisked off towards Sir Ralph’s Mercedes which he’d parked in Church Road.
‘Moo, I’m so sorry – I didn’t stop to think. Have you a husband we ought to be taking with us?’
Muriel, who was already blushing at the prospect of the entire village seeing her being carried off by this dynamic personage, went even redder.
‘No, but I do have a dog and I can’t go anywhere until he’s been for a little walk.’
‘Here by the church in Glebe Cottages.’
‘Go and get him, then. I’ve got a cover I can put on the back seat and we’ll take him out for a run. I know a nice place in Culworth where we could have lunch afterwards.’
The congregation mysteriously found reasons for lingering around the lych gate. They weren’t going to miss the chance of watching Muriel Hipkin being driven off in such style. Pericles climbed into the car as though he’d been going for rides in a Mercedes all his life, and when Muriel waved goodbye to the crowd at the gate, she felt quite royal.
Lady Bissett was taken aback by the sudden change in Muriel’s social status.
‘Who the dickens is Ralphie?’ she said too loudly, forgetting she was titled.
Harriet laughed. ‘I really don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.’
Caroline supplied the answer. ‘He’s just introduced himself to Peter. He’s one of the Templetons who used to own the Big House. Apparently, Sir Ralph has retired from the Diplomatic Service and is coming back to live in the village as soon as he can find a house he likes. He’s rather nice, isn’t he?’
Harriet agreed. ‘Nice? He’s gorgeous. I would never have dreamt of calling her Moo.’ Lady Bissett wasn’t sure she approved of someone she looked down on suddenly having such aristocratic connections. It rather put Ron’s life peerage in the shade.
The news about the return of Ralph Templeton spread through the area in a flash, and there was much speculation about the difference it might make, having a Lord of the Manor in the village again. Would he buy back the Big
House? And wouldn’t it be a bit of a comedown, living in an ordinary house after having been abroad, and after growing up on a country estate?
Tucked up safely in bed that night, Muriel gave herself time to think about Ralph Tristan Bernard Templeton. Ralphie was the only one who called her Moo. Her mother used to get furious when he called her that. ‘Your name’s Muriel and a very pretty name it is, too. Tell him, go on – you tell him not to call you Moo!’ she used to nag. But Muriel never did. It was their own special link. They did have something between them, even though they were only children. They were just in their teens when his mother sold up and he went away for ever. She remembered how they’d held hands, on the last bonfire night that there’d been at the Big House. With his father gone, Ralphie had had to light the bonfire himself; the older people, Muriel recalled, had had difficulty in not shedding a tear when they thought about his father, dead in some Burmese jungle and his body not brought home for burial with his ancestors. The two of them had kissed when he left – just a little youthful peck on the lips, but she had carried the memory of it for years. She had been leaving, too, at the time and in the turmoil it had never occurred to her to ask for his address. It all seemed so final, that moving away from their roots. Fancy – she hadn’t thought about him for years – and then out of the blue he turns up!
They’d had a lovely lunch, in that posh restaurant overlooking the Cul. He asked the restaurant manager for some bread and they’d gone out to feed the swans when they’d finished their meal, just like they used to when they were children, feeding the swans on the lake at the Big House with bread Ralphie had pinched out of the kitchen.
‘I shall have to get up and have another cup of Ovaltine,’ Muriel murmured. ‘I’m not going to get to sleep, I’m in a whirl.’
As she got warm in bed again and began relaxing, Muriel thought about the thick scratchy tweed jacket he wore and how it had rubbed on her arms when he’d kissed her as he left. There was that slight perfumed smell about him, as if he kept himself particularly clean, and she liked that in a man. Scrupulous attention to cleanliness was a commendable trait.
Next morning, she popped into the store. It was her cousin’s birthday and she needed a card.
Jimbo was serving. He raised his straw boater to her and said, ‘Ah, good morning … er … Moo. You’ve got back home, then?’
‘Good morning, Jimbo, of course I have.’
‘What a send-off! I don’t think there could have been many more people to witness your departure. Did you have a good time?’
‘I did, thank you.’
‘Shall we be seeing more of him?’
Harriet came in. ‘Hello … Moo. What a sensation! The whole village is agog to hear how you got on.’
‘We had a lovely lunch at the George in Culworth and then we drove around a bit for Ralphie to see how things have changed – or not, as the case may be. Then we had afternoon tea at that new café by Havers Lake and then he brought me home.’
‘I’m so glad you had a good time. He seems very nice.’
‘He is, just like he was as a boy except he’s calmed down a lot.’
Jimbo, stacking shelves from the top of a stepladder, called down, ‘He could always rent until a house comes up for sale. Those people from London who have the cottage behind the pub are off to South Africa for six months soon. They might be willing to rent to such a nice tenant.’
‘That would be a good idea, Muriel, wouldn’t it? Which one is it, Jimbo?’
‘Number three.’
Harriet suggested ringing up Ralph to tell him about the cottage.
‘I mustn’t presume to ring him up,’ Muriel demurred. ‘I don’t really know him very well. No, I won’t ring.’
‘Well, if you do decide to ring, come here and use our phone. Don’t use the public one – it’s always so smelly.’
‘I’ll put some money by the phone if I do use it.’ Muriel left in haste to avoid being persuaded.
‘Now who’s playing at Charity Hall?’ Jimbo said from the ladder.
‘This is a good cause. In fact, a very good cause. I’ve half a mind to have another dinner party. What excuse could I
think up?’
‘Too late, Caroline’s already arranging one. She has the date to fix, that’s all. She’s planning the menu with me ’cos she’s no time to cook herself at the moment.’
‘Who’s she inviting?’
‘Yours truly, “Moo” and “Ralphie”, Liz and Neville, and you if you behave yourself.’
‘What does that mean exactly?’
‘Come here and I’ll show you.’
He leant down from the ladder, clutched hold of Harriet’s hair, turned her face up towards his and began a lingering kiss which would have lasted much longer if Muriel hadn’t come in and interrupted.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m so sorry. I left the card on the counter. I’ll be off now.’ She hastened out covered in embarrassment.
‘Tell you what, a good kiss like that is just what Muriel needs. It wouldn’t half widen her horizons.’
‘Jimbo, not everyone is sex-mad like you.’
‘
N . o . o . o . o . o . ?
’
‘Wouldn’t it be fun if the two of them got married?’
‘Getting like a typical villager you are, a finger in every pie.’
‘I shall pull the stepladder away in a minute.’
‘Don’t you dare! How is the menu for that Twenty-first coming along?’
‘Not too good. The mother likes everything I’ve listed but the son wants something less traditional. I’m waiting to see who wins. There’s another two weeks yet.’
The door burst open and in dashed Linda. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late, roadworks for miles. Have you been busy?’