Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death (12 page)

“Well,” I said, “I’d better be getting along. I must return this key to Father William.”

“I could give it to him if you like.”

“No, really, thanks all the same, but I’m passing the vicarage on my way back.”

“Well, I’ll be getting on, then.” She picked up a large bunch of flowers she’d laid down on one of the front pews.

“What splendid dahlias,” I said. “Did you grow them yourself?”

“Oh, that’s Jim’s department—he takes prizes at the Flower Show.”

“Well, those would certainly win a prize,” I said.

“I can’t say I’m fond of dahlias myself,” she said. “Always full of earwigs, nasty things. I give the bunch a good shake to get rid of them, but you can be sure there’ll always be one left that crawls out when you’re arranging them.”

I gave her what I hoped was a sympathetic smile and went on my way.

Since it was a chilly day and since Father William had seemed impervious to cold, I was pleased to see that the firescreen in the grate had been replaced by a real fire and there were sherry glasses and two decanters on the desk.

“Now, do sit down; that is the more comfortable chair. And, please, it’s William to my friends.” He went over to the desk and turned to look inquiringly. “I can offer you a choice of sherry: fino or amontillado?”

“Oh, amontillado, please,” I said. “I know fino is more the thing, but I don’t really like it.”

He positively beamed at me. “Well-done!” he said. “I have
longed
to hear someone say that!” He poured a glass of the darker sherry. “People are such sheep,” he went on as he handed it to me. “If once they’re told that something is more ‘civilized’ or fashionable, they accept it without any reference to their own taste. I have always preferred amontillado myself,” he concluded, as if that settled the matter. “Mind you,” he said, with the air of one modifying a supposition, “sweet sherry—or
cream
sherry, as it is sometimes called—is quite a different matter.”

“Oh, quite,” I said. “This is excellent.”

“My wine merchant in St. James’s sends me down a case. The fino I buy locally.” I couldn’t help laughing and he looked at me approvingly. “Exactly. It is ridiculous.”

We sat for a moment without speaking, peacefully, with our sherry in the warm, elegant room as though there was some unspoken communion between us. William (as I now thought of him) broke the silence.

“Tell me,” he said, “did you really want to have anything to do with this book?”

“To be honest I was bullied into it, but, actually, now that I’ve started, it’s really very interesting.”

“Bullied by Annie, of course.”

“She had a very forceful personality.”

“She was an extremely unpleasant woman, in some ways actually evil.”

I looked at him. “
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
?” I suggested.

“Indeed, and one’s Christian principles make that mandatory, of course. But just this once I must make an exception.”

“I know she was irritating and a bit of a bully, but not evil, surely?”

He got up, went over to the desk and refilled his sherry glass, holding up the decanter inquiringly.

“No, thank you; I’m fine,” I said.

He was silent, staring into the fire. Then he said, “I think I’m going to tell you something I’ve told no one else. I’m going to tell you, partly because you are writing a book about this village and I think it’s something you ought to know, and partly because I have the urge to tell somebody and I think you will understand and, having understood, I’m sure will keep it to yourself.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Some years ago,” he said, “when I was a very young curate in a London parish, my vicar, a man of considerable charisma, was accused of abusing young boys, boys in the choir. Naturally it caused a great scandal and the national papers took it up. He was found guilty and sent to prison—which, indeed, he richly deserved. Unfortunately that sort of mud sticks not only to the perpetrator but also to those around him. You may find it hard to believe, but I had no idea what was going on, but, as I said, I was very young and, in those days, such situations, although they undoubtedly existed, were not widely reported in the media. In the course of the investigation I too came under suspicion and, although I was absolutely cleared, there was a great deal of talk and I was asked, discreetly, if I would consider moving to another parish. I refused, of course, but pressure was put upon me and eventually I agreed. Then, what I feared did happen and there were articles in the local paper saying things like no smoke without fire and so forth. Fortunately it was a nine days’ wonder and, when I went to another parish—a pleasant town on the south coast—I was able to put it behind me.” He looked at me and smiled wearily. “Of course, it is human nature to believe the worst of people, but it is depressing, shall we say, when it happens to you.”

“It must have been horrible,” I said.

“In those days, as you will have gathered, I was young and simple, someone it was easy to take advantage of. But I had learned my lesson. I began to build myself another personality. My new parishioners liked their religion spiked up, as they say, so I became Father William and my sermons were more pointed and controversial so that soon I attracted some interest, was asked to write articles, even do a little broadcasting. They liked my new affected manner, so I developed it as you see today. All very camp, and I’m sure everyone thinks I’m gay—I’m not, by the way, but simply that old-fashioned thing: a celibate Anglican priest.”

“Omnipresent in Victorian novels,” I said, “but not today. Just as there are no bachelors or spinsters anymore; everybody has to be something.”

“Very true. You will be wondering,” he went on, “why I am burdening you with all this personal history. The fact is that one day, when I had been in Mere Barton for about a year, Annie Roberts let me know, in the subtlest way, that she knew all about that unfortunate period in my past, as she put it. Of course, she said, she wouldn’t
dream
of mentioning it to anyone; she quite understood it was better that it should remain buried.”

“She blackmailed you!”

“Oh no, nothing as obvious as that. But as time went on I found that she expected me to back her, whenever there were disagreements on the parish council, for instance, or to support any scheme she proposed—that sort of thing.”

“And did you?”

“No. I had no intention of submitting to pressure.”

“So what happened? What did she do?”

“She came to see me and said how upset she was that I hadn’t seen my way to giving her my support on various matters, and she was sure, if I considered it more fully, I would agree that it would make life more harmonious for everyone if I did so. She may have expressed it a little more forcibly, but that was the gist of it.”

“Good gracious. So what did you do?”

“I explained, equally forcibly, that on no account would I change my attitude and that if she wished to inform the village of what was a perfectly innocent episode in my past, she was certainly welcome to do so.”

“Good for you. Publish and be damned. And did she? Tell everyone?”

“Oh no, bullies very rarely fulfill their threats. She was very wary of me after that, because, you see, I had discovered the secret of her influence over the rest of the village.”

“You mean she had a hold over people because of something in their past?”

“Precisely.”

“But surely . . .”

“Everyone has something in their past they’d rather other people didn’t know about, often something quite small and unimportant—although it seems important to them.”

“Yes, you’re right,” I said thoughtfully. “What an extraordinary thing! But how did she find out all these secrets? I’m sure she was the last person people would confide in.”

“She was the district nurse. In and out of people’s houses all the time, able to overhear conversations, catch glimpses of papers—many opportunities.”

“But that was an appalling betrayal of trust! I see what you mean about evil.”

“Precisely.”

“I often wondered how she managed to run everything and get support for all her schemes. She didn’t want money for her silence. She wanted power; she wanted to run the village!”

“A very big fish in a small pond. A strange ambition, but I believe that when new people—off-comers—came into the village, she and her mother were looked down upon, as I’m sure she would have put it. And she became resentful that these rich newcomers were taking over
her
village and she was being left out. One can understand the resentment, but not the action she took to satisfy it.”

“And now she’s gone . . . I can see now what you meant, at the funeral, about people being relieved she was no longer able to look over their shoulder.”

“I have certainly noticed a certain lightening in the atmosphere.”

“Well,” I said, “thank you very much for telling me all this.” I got to my feet. “Of course, I’ll respect your confidence about—well, all of it, really.”

“Thank you. And when next you come to look at the parish records, do, please, come and have a glass of amontillado. It is such a pleasure to have a chat with someone outside the village.”

When I got home I still hadn’t fully taken in what William had told me. The thought that one person could have such influence over so many, and that influence derived from a strange form of blackmail, seemed ridiculous, but then, I could see how it might have happened. Presumably William was the only person who’d the courage to stand up to her. I suddenly thought of Diana’s comments at the Harvest Supper. “Thinks she knows everything,” Diana had said when she’d had too much to drink. Well,
in vino veritas—
I seemed to be thinking in Latin clichés today—perhaps she had a secret too. Perhaps they all had secrets, large or small, that held them in thrall to Annie. I visualized her as a spider lurking in the middle of a web with flies caught, helpless in the silken threads.

A sudden thought came to me and I went out into the kitchen. The list of initials on that scrap of paper—perhaps that was a list of her victims. I couldn’t remember which cookery book I’d put it in so I took them all down, one by one, and shook them to dislodge the loose pieces of paper (recipes from friends, relations, or cut out from magazines) that had been filed away between their leaves. Eventually I found it (in
Food from the Freezer
), smoothed it out once again, and looked at it with new interest.

Now that I looked more closely, I saw, in a crease in the paper, beside the initials W.F., there was a faint mark—
X
—as though he’d been crossed off the list.

Foss, who had been regarding my activities with the interest he showed in anything I did in the kitchen, leapt onto the work top and began hooking the loose recipes onto the floor, where Tris, attracted by the movement, regarded them with interest. I rescued Annie’s list and took it into the sitting room where I sat for some time, staring at it, wondering what, if anything, I should do with it.

 

 

 

The more I looked at the list of initials, the more confused I became. F.T., E.T., Fred and Ellen—what secret could they possibly have? Or Jim and Mary Fletcher, pillars of rectitude; so were all the others. But as William said, we all have secrets; what would be passed over by the world as not worth considering might be of immense importance to the person involved. The fear of embarrassment should never be underrated. Clever of Annie to use these minor things to manipulate people. But what if there
was
something major? That might be a different matter. I thought of the unlikely book beside her bed; was that part of her scheme?

Something connected with a prominent businessman would surely be major. I resolved to go to the library and order the book straight after lunch.

In the library I got trapped by Anthea.

“What’s all this about a book you’re writing about Mere Barton?” she demanded.

“It’s just a sort of history of the village—there’ve been a lot of them lately.”

“Why are you doing it? You don’t live there.”

“Annie Roberts asked me to.”

“Oh, Annie Roberts,” Anthea said dismissively.

“Did you know her?” I asked.

“I’ve known her off and on for years. When she was a district nurse she used to come and give Mother her insulin injections. A bit of a busybody, I always thought.”

“Not a gossip, though.”

“No, I will say that for her. She never gossiped, though she must have heard all sorts of things, in and out of people’s houses like that.”

“She more or less ran that village,” I said.

“Oh well, villages.” Anthea’s voice held more than a hint of scorn. “A lot of old fogys and retired people nowadays. Somebody’s got to get things moving or they’d all sit around talking and nothing would
ever
get done.” Remembering various meetings at Brunswick Lodge, I smiled inwardly but merely gave a murmur of assent. “No,” Anthea continued, “I didn’t like the woman—I don’t think many people did—but she certainly got things done. We could do with more people like her at Brunswick Lodge.”

I shuddered inwardly at the thought of the conflict that would ensue if such a thing was ever allowed to happen.

“Well,” Anthea said briskly, “I haven’t got all day to stand here chatting. Don’t forget to bring that Victoria sponge cake in good time for the coffee morning on Wednesday.”

Thinking about it, I decided Anthea was right. I couldn’t think of anyone who actually
liked
Annie. I suppose Judith was the nearest thing to a friend that she had, but Judith was always more of a vassal than a friend, and had been rewarded, as vassals sometimes are, with the Welsh dresser. Though, come to think of it, did Annie ever expect her to actually have it? After all, Judith was much the same age, perhaps a little older, so she might not be expected to outlive her. No, I decided Annie had bequeathed the dresser to Judith because it would look good in the will and make it appear that she had a friend.