Scandal in the Village (17 page)

‘No, it’s not, not any more. He’s just shouted it out all over the whole shop. My son has a right to know.’

‘Now look here, Mother …’

‘No, I won’t look here. There’s something going on here we should all know about. I want the truth.’

‘Well, you’re not going to get it, you interfering old busybody. You’ve caused more harm in this village in the time you’ve been here than all the rest of us put together.’ Bel fled into the back and returned in a moment with her coat and keys. ‘School. Sorry.’

As the door slammed shut Grandmama said, ‘I told you there was something very funny going on when the sewing-machine man was so odd when I mentioned her name. I knew it. I should have persisted then, but you warned me off.’ She paced rapidly about the Store. ‘So I was right.’

‘Mother, for heaven’s sake, you’re at it again. How many more times. The man’s mistaken.’

‘She didn’t deny it did she? Oh no! Put my rolls on one side. I’ll be back shortly.’

She stepped smartly from the Store and headed for the rectory. As she turned into Church Lane she glanced to check the road for traffic and caught sight of Glebe Cottages, and the thought hit her like a sledgehammer. Oh God! Surely not! It couldn’t be true! That confirmed what she suspected. Of course! Those cottages only had one bedroom. That could definitely only mean one thing! Dicky and Bel must be lovers … they couldn’t be … could they? But that was … yes, that was … incest … they were committing incest! Well, there was one thing for certain then, that letter was not getting torn up, for she meant every word of it now and she’d make the others change their minds again if it killed her. Someone had to preserve the reputation of this village and keep it a good place to live. If the mantle had fallen on her then so be it.

Peter’s car was outside so the moment could not be more opportune. Breathlessly, she hammered on the rectory door.

Sylvia answered the door. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Charter-Plackett.’

Instead of answering in her normal well enunciated manner, Grandmama stuttered and stammered. ‘The Rrrector, he’s in, is he in, in is he?’

‘He is, but he’s having an early lunch. Can it wait?’

‘Wwwait. No, it can’t. Tttell him, tell I’m here. Ts’urgent.’

‘Step in, then. Wait there.’ Sylvia went into the kitchen where Caroline and Peter were eating lunch. Peter looked up. ‘Rector, it’s Mrs Charter-Plac—’

‘It’s me, Rector.’ Grandmama stood in the doorway. Peter got up from his chair.

‘It must be urgent for you to …’

‘It is. Your study if you please.’

‘Won’t you join us for coffee? Get another cup, Sylvia, would you, please?’

Grandmama waved her hand impatiently. ‘No, there’s no time for that. Have you torn up that letter I sent?’

‘The petition?’

Grandmama nodded.

‘No, not yet.’

‘Good, well don’t. Things are far worse than we thought.’

Peter raised his eyebrows. ‘Are they indeed!’

‘Oh yes. I have just found out that Dicky and Bel are brother and sister and Glebe Cottages have only one bedroom. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see which way the cookie crumbles. That’s the answer to the wedding ring. A complete cover-up. I knew there was something fishy. I knew it.’ She slapped her closed fist into the palm of the other hand and looked triumphantly at the three of them.

All of them registered first shock, then disbelief and then downright scorn. Peter was the first to find his voice. ‘Come into the study will you?’ He led the way and left Sylvia and Caroline staring at each other.

Sylvia gave a croaky little laugh and muttered, ‘I don’t believe this, she’s finally gone balmy.’

‘Balmy? She needs certifying. What a perfectly dreadful thing to say about anybody. How can it be true?’

‘It can’t.’

‘Of course, it can’t. Not Dicky and Bel. That’s ridiculous. Quite disgusting in fact. I just hope Peter is giving her what for. Jimbo and Harriet will be distraught. She can be so perceptive and considerate and then there’s this other side to her … She defies belief. What I can never quite comprehend is the way she always appears at the right place at the right time and picks up on all the gossip before anyone else does.’ Sylvia flashed her a questioning look, afraid there might be more to what she said than first appeared, but Caroline continued by saying, ‘I’ll clear up. Might as well keep myself occupied while I wait to hear the full story.’

‘Certainly not. You go and rest. You had a dreadful day yesterday with that chemo business so you deserve a rest.’

‘Sylvia! You’re spoiling me.’

‘I’m not. Off you go.’

‘Very well. But I won’t lie down, I’ll sit and watch TV.’

‘OK. But feet up. That blessed woman. Where does she get her mad ideas from?’

After a quarter of an hour watching TV Caroline heard Peter opening the front door. Though he was trying to keep his voice low it was impossible for her not to overhear him say, ‘Not a word until I have verified it one way or the other. Remember! Not even to Georgie.
No one at all
.’

She heard Grandmama answer in subdued tones. ‘Very well.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Good afternoon, then. I’ll be in touch.’

Caroline heard him shut the front door, and turned expecting him to come into the sitting-room but he didn’t. Then she heard him shut the study door. In that case then it was serious. When he shut the study door like that, no one not even she unless the house was on fire, dared to interrupt. Then there must be grounds for what Grandmarna had said. Heaven help Peter if it was true. Heaven help the village, too, if it was true.

‘More custard, darling? There’s still plenty left. I’m sure you’re not eating enough, I want to see you putting on more weight.’

‘No, thanks. You know full well I’ve gained half a stone since my op. If I keep on like this I shall be as big as Bel Tutt.’

Peter didn’t take her up on that which she’d rather hoped he would. He hadn’t said a word about Grandmama since the door had slammed on her. Caroline was bursting to know, and he normally told her everything but there were times when he shut up like a clam and she knew not to trespass. After all it was the same for her with her patients. Confidentiality and all that. She sighed.

‘You’re overtired, I can tell.’

‘Peter! Stop mollycoddling me! I know whether or not I’m tired. And I’m not. I’m quite simply impatient to know what went on this afternoon.’

‘I can’t …’

‘I know you can’t, but I’m still bursting to know.’

‘I am aware we promised ourselves an evening in on our own but I’m afraid I’ve got Dicky coming round tonight, it’s rather important. We said eight o’clock.’

Caroline glanced at her wristwatch. ‘He’ll be here in five minutes, then.’

‘Heavens I didn’t realise how the time had flown. Can you manage the dishes?’

‘Of course. Will you want tea or anything?’

‘I think the parish whisky might be more appropriate.’

‘OK. I’ll be in the sitting-room if you … There’s the door.’

‘Help! Is there ever a right way to broach this kind of subject?’

‘I have no doubt the Lord will provide the answer.’

When he and Dicky were settled in the study Peter said, ‘I’ve asked you to come to see me tonight because of what happened this morning. I expect Bel has told you that the new bakery man is someone you knew before you moved here? And no doubt you know what he said, which unfortunately was heard all over the Store.’

Dicky didn’t answer.

‘Come, Dicky, I’m trying hard not to get impatient. I struggled last weekend with your close encounter with death, now it’s allegations of a very serious nature and I need answers if I am to be expected to back you up.’

Still Dicky didn’t answer.

‘Please.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Then shall we begin?’

Dicky rested his elbow on the arm of his chair and without looking at Peter began to speak, his voice was far from being the jolly laughing one everyone knew. It was quiet and distant and very thoughtful, and his words were chosen with such care. Peter braced himself for what might be going to be revealed.

‘That chap, Trevor, is quite right. Bel is my sister. I make no bones about that. She’s older than me by eleven months, so we’ve grown up together just like twins. She doesn’t remember a time when I wasn’t there. We don’t remember our parents at all, because apparently so we’ve been told, when Bel was just two and I was just one year old someone, perhaps our mother, left us in our twin pushchair outside a doctor’s surgery and walked away. We’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her since. Why she left us there I’ll never know. Desperation I suppose, well at least Bel and me hope it was desperation and not … not because she didn’t love us. They named Bel and me after the two doctors on duty that morning, and we got the name Tutt because the surgery was in a suburb called Tutt End. So it began, in a home first and then foster parents. All our lives we’ve looked after each other. There isn’t a bond quite like that of children who’ve never known their parents. You stick like glue. You’re all each other’s got you see. You’re mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandparent. There isn’t anyone else to stand up for you.’

Dicky locked the fingers of both hands together very tightly and looked up at Peter. ‘See what I mean? Like that. So close. They talked about separating us at one time, Bel for adoption and me to another foster home, but we ran away and spent two miserable nights hiding in a shed tall they found us. Bel screamed and cried so much and did such dreadfully bad things that they decided she wasn’t suitable for adoption so we went together to another foster home. It’s hell, without roots. Not knowing who or what you are. Like living on shifting sands. When you’re young you study the faces of the people in the street just in case you catch a glimpse of someone who looks like you and they might be the mother or the father you’ve been waiting for all through the years. Daft isn’t it? We don’t do that any more of course. Then when we were sixteen I got the job at the factory where I work now and Bel went into service, but didn’t sleep in and we had a little tiny two-roomed flat and it was home. In capital letters it was home. The first real home we’d ever had. We could call it ours and we could lock the door and we were untouchable. We ruled our own lives, we ate what we wanted, we went out when we wanted and we were accountable to no one.’

‘Whisky, Dicky?’

‘Don’t touch the hard stuff, Rector, thank you.’

‘Right. Carry on, I’m listening.’

‘About three years ago, Bel met this chap. To me it seemed like a gigantic earthquake, my whole world felt as though it was falling apart. There’d been just the two of us, still in the same flat, all those years, and here was an intruder disturbing our very foundations. For Bel’s sake, for I could see she was smitten by him, I had to keep quiet, because I thought maybe my prejudice was rooted in the fact that I didn’t want to lose my Bel. And it well could have been, for I loved her and she was my anchor in the storms of life like in the hymn. I always will love her, it’s not difficult to love Bel.’

He looked up at Peter unable to continue, then he cleared his throat and carried on speaking. ‘She’s a gem. She knows me back to front and inside out. Every move. I’ve no secrets from Bel. Anyway he said he had a flat for them and he would persist that they should marry. Bel asked what I thought and well, what could I say? I couldn’t stand in the way of her happiness, just like she won’t stand in the way of mine now. Selfish love isn’t real true love is it?’

Peter shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘So they had a wedding. It was a poor do, he said he’d no family and we certainly hadn’t so it was just friends and a do at the Prince Albert after. I don’t think they’d been married three months when I started getting suspicious things weren’t right. They lived in their own flat, and I was definitely feeling the pinch trying to pay the rent for our home all by myself, so Bel used to ask me over quite often for a meal to help me out. Did my washing and that Called one night unexpected, I was feeling lonely, fancy me Dicky Tutt feeling lonely! Ridiculous isn’t it? Even before I knocked on the door I could hear the shouting. They didn’t hear my knock so I walked straight in and he was thumping her, like nobody’s business. She was thin then, like me and she wasn’t half taking a battering. He was a big chap and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him. So a neighbour called the police and he was arrested.’

Dicky’s hands were twisting together round and round, this way and that. He swallowed hard two or three times. ‘Sorry, I can’t forget how she looked when we got her to hospital. I kept saying “why didn’t you tell me, why ever not?”’

‘Long and the short of it was she came home to our flat, changed her name to Tutt again and that was that. Then she started putting on weight, couldn’t stop eating you see, comfort or something I expect. I hadn’t the heart to say anything. He started calling again and pestering her, wanting her back, apologising for this and that you know, usual rubbish. He wouldn’t lift a finger to her ever again and all that nonsense. She thought perhaps she should go back, I said no she shouldn’t, a leopard doesn’t change its spots and I think it was the first time in our lives that we’d disagreed. It broke our hearts when we realised what had happened to us. We both hung on to each other crying our eyes out. We decided there and then we wouldn’t allow anyone else to come between us, it wasn’t worth it. Upshot of it was I persuaded her to go for a divorce and we decided to move. Buy a home of our own. Something of
ours
. We saw the advert for Muriel’s, you know Lady Templeton’s house being up for sale and by adjusting this and that and bargaining the price down a bit we realised that between us we could just about manage to buy it. Couldn’t afford anything bigger you see, and it was isolated and we’d feel secure. We loved the village as soon as we saw it. We’re mortgaged up to our eyebrows, believe me, it’s been a struggle. Anyway the lady Bel was housekeeper to was taken very ill and Bel couldn’t leave her. So I came here and she stayed at the lady’s house till she died. We’d had no promises made at all but we both rather hoped that the lady would leave Bel something in her will, but, as I’ve no doubt you know blood is thicker than water when it comes to wills, and all she got was the lady’s gold watch and bracelet, so that was that.’