The Judgement of Strangers Read online

  ‘I suppose you spend most of your time dealing with authors and so on,’ said the headmaster’s wife. ‘It must be marvellous. Do you have lots of bestsellers?’

  Cynthia shook her head. ‘We tend to do fairly specialized non-fiction titles. Actually, I think Royston and Forde’s out-and-out bestseller was something called Great Engines of the 1920s.’

  Ronald and Thurston talked to Vanessa for much of the meal. When we left the table, Mary Thurston seized her husband’s arm as if to re-establish her claim to him. Ronald went to the kitchen to make coffee.

  ‘Ronald bought a machine when he was in Italy last year,’ Cynthia explained to the rest of us. ‘He does like to use it when we have guests. Too complicated for me, I’m afraid.’ She added as an afterthought, ‘Super coffee.’

  We went back to the drawing room to wait for it. Vanessa came over to me.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could give me another cigarette, could you? I’ve mislaid mine. So silly.’ She smiled up at me. Even then I think I knew that Vanessa was never silly. She was many things, but not that. She sat down on the sofa and waved to me to join her.

  ‘Are you in Ronald’s – whatever it is? – area?’

  ‘He’s my archdeacon, yes. So in a sense he’s my immediate boss.’

  I did not want to talk about Ronald. He and I did not get on badly – not then – but we had little in common, and both of us knew it.

  ‘Cynthia tells me you’re a publisher.’

  She squeezed her eyes together for an instant, as though smoke had irritated them. ‘By default.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It was my husband’s firm.’ She stared down at her cigarette. ‘He founded it with a friend from Oxford. It never made much money for either of them, but he loved it.’

  ‘I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I – I assumed Ronald might have mentioned it to you. No reason why you should know. Charles died three years ago. A brain tumour. One of those ghastly things that come out of a clear blue sky. I’ve taken over his part in the business. Needs must, really. I needed a job.’

  ‘Do you enjoy it?’

  She nodded. ‘I’d always helped Charles on the editorial side. Now I’m learning a great deal about production.’ She smiled towards Cynthia, who was embroiled with the headmaster’s wife. ‘Cynthia keeps me in order.’

  ‘At dinner Cynthia said she thought Great Engines of the 1920s was your bestselling book.’

  ‘She’s perfectly right. Though I have my hopes of The English Cottage Garden. It’s been selling very steadily since it came out last year.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘In fact, our real bestseller in terms of copies sold is probably one of our town guides. The Oxford one. We do quite a lot of that sort of thing – that’s where the bread and butter comes from.’

  At that moment, Ronald appeared in the doorway bearing a large silver tray. ‘Coffee, everybody,’ he announced in a voice like a fanfare. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ He advanced into the room, his eyes searching for Vanessa.

  ‘One of my parishioners has written a book,’ I said to her.

  Vanessa looked warily at me. ‘What sort of book?’

  ‘It’s a history of the parish. Not really a book. I’d say it’s about ten thousand words.’

  ‘How interesting.’

  She glanced at me again, and I think a spark of shared amusement passed between us. She knew how to say one thing and mean another.

  ‘She’s looking for a publisher.’

  ‘Sugar, Vanessa?’ boomed Ronald. ‘Cream?’

  ‘In my experience, most authors are.’ She smiled up at Ronald. ‘Just a dash of cream, please, Ronnie.’

  Ronnie?

  ‘She believes it might appeal to readers all over the country,’ I continued. ‘Not just to those who know Roth.’

  ‘The happy few?’

  I smiled. It was a novelty to have someone talk to me as a person rather than as a priest. ‘Could you recommend a publisher she could send it to?’ I stared at the curve of her arm and noticed the almost invisible golden hairs that grew on the skin. ‘Someone who would have a look at the book and give a professional opinion. I imagine you haven’t got the time to look at stray typescripts yourself.’

  ‘Vanessa’s always looking at stray typescripts,’ Ronald said, and laughed. ‘Or looking for them.’

  ‘I might be able to spare five minutes,’ she said to me, her voice deadpan.

  Once again, she glanced at me, and once again the spark of amusement danced between us.

  ‘Brandy, anyone?’ Ronald enquired. ‘Or what about a liqueur?’

  For the rest of the evening Vanessa talked mainly to Ronald, Cynthia and Victor Thurston. I was the first to leave.

  3

  The following Monday, I looked up Royston and Forde in the directory and phoned Vanessa at her office. Cynthia Trask answered the phone. Oddly enough this took me by surprise. I had completely forgotten that she worked there.

  ‘Good morning, Cynthia. This is David Byfield.’

  ‘Hello, David.’

  After a short pause I said, ‘Thank you so much for Friday.’

  ‘Not at all. Ronald and I enjoyed it.’

  I wondered if I should have sent flowers or something. ‘I don’t know if Vanessa mentioned it, but one of my parishioners has written a book. She volunteered to have a look at it.’

  ‘I’ll see if she’s engaged,’ Cynthia said.

  A moment later, Vanessa came on the line. She was brisk with me, her voice sounding much sharper on the telephone. She was busy most of the day, she was afraid, but might I be free for lunch? Ninety minutes later, we were sitting opposite each other in a café near Richmond Bridge.

  The long, clinging dress she had worn at the Trasks’ on Friday had given her a voluptuous appearance. Now she was another woman, dressed in a dark suit, and with her hair pulled back: slimmer, sharper and harder.

  The typescript of The History of Roth was in a large, brown envelope on the table between us. I had picked it up from Audrey on my way to Richmond. (‘So kind of you, David. I’m so grateful.’)

  Vanessa did not touch the envelope. She picked at her sandwich. A silence lay between us, and as it grew longer I felt increasingly desolate. The friendly intimacy that had flourished so briefly between us on Friday evening was gone. I found it all too easy, on the other hand, to think of her as a desirable woman. I had been a fool to come here. I was wasting her time and mine. I should have sent the typescript in the post.

  ‘Do you visit many churches?’ I asked, to make conversation. ‘You mentioned our panel paintings on Friday.’

  Vanessa fiddled with one of the crumbs on her plate. ‘Not really. I wanted to see Roth because of the connection with Francis Youlgreave.’

  ‘The poet?’ My voice sounded unnaturally loud. ‘He’s buried in the vault under the chancel.’

  ‘He deserves a few paragraphs in here.’ Vanessa tapped the envelope containing the typescript. ‘Quite a sensational character, by all accounts.’

  ‘Audrey does mention him, but she’s very circumspect about what she says.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a member of the family still living in Roth. I think her husband was the poet’s great-nephew. Audrey didn’t want to give people the wrong idea about him.’

  ‘Defile their judgement, as it were.’ Vanessa smiled across the table at me. Then she quoted two lines from the poem that had found its way into several anthologies. It was usually the only poem of his that anyone had read.

  ‘Then darkness descended; and whispers defiled

  The judgement of stranger, and widow, and child.’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘Does anyone remember him in the village?’

  ‘Roth isn’t that sort of place. There aren’t that many people left who lived there before the last war. And Francis Youlgreave died before the First World War. Have you a particular reason for asking?’

  She shrugged. ‘I re
ad quite a lot of his verse when I was up at Oxford. Not a very good poet, to be frank – all those jog-trot rhythms can be rather wearing. But he was interesting more for what he was and for who he knew than for what he wrote.’

  ‘Not a very nice man, by all accounts. Unbalanced.’

  ‘Yes, but rather fascinating.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m awfully sorry, David, but I’ve got to rush.’

  I concealed my disappointment. I paid the bill and walked with her back to the office where I had left my car.

  ‘Would you like to telephone me tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘I should have had time to look at the book by then.’

  ‘Of course. At the office?’

  ‘I’ll probably read it at home, actually.’

  ‘What time would suit you?’

  ‘About seven?’

  She gave me her number. We said goodbye and I drove back to Roth, feeling profoundly dissatisfied. I had made a fool of myself in more ways than one. I had expected more, much more, from my lunch with Vanessa – though quite what, I did not know. I was aware, too, that there was something absurd in a middle-aged widower acting in the way that I was doing. It was clear that she saw me as an acquaintance and that by looking at the typescript she was merely doing me – and Audrey – a good turn from the kindness of her heart.

  Still, I thought, at least I had a reason to telephone Vanessa tomorrow evening.

  In the event, however, I did not telephone Vanessa on Tuesday evening. This was because on Tuesday afternoon I received an unexpected and unpleasant visit from Cynthia Trask.

  4

  Cynthia arrived without warning in the late afternoon.

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ she said briskly. ‘But I happened to be passing, and I thought this might be a good opportunity to drop in those odds and ends from my niece.’

  In the back of her Mini Traveller were two suitcases and a faded army kitbag containing the lacrosse stick and other sporting impedimenta. I carried them into the house and called Rosemary, who was reading in her room. She did not appear to hear.

  ‘I won’t disturb her, if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘She’s working quite hard this holiday. Would you like some tea?’ It would have been churlish not to offer Cynthia tea but I was mildly surprised that she so readily accepted. She followed me into the kitchen which, like the rest of the house, was cramped, characterless and modern.

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘Everything’s under control, thank you.’

  ‘This is the first time I’ve been inside the new vicarage. You must be so relieved.’

  ‘It’s certainly easier to keep warm and clean than the old one was.’

  It was partly due to Ronald’s influence that the old vicarage – a large, gracious and completely impractical Queen Anne house – had been demolished last year. The new vicarage was a four-bedroomed, centrally heated box. Its garden occupied the site of the old tennis court and vegetable garden. The rest of the old garden and the site of the old house itself now contained a curving cul-de-sac and six more boxes, each rather more spacious than the new vicarage.

  ‘Of course, you didn’t really need all that space. You and Rosemary must have felt you were camping in a barrack.’

  ‘Rather an elegant barrack,’ I said. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  I carried the tea tray into the sitting room. Having a stranger in your home makes you see it with fresh eyes, and the result is rarely reassuring. I imagined that Cynthia was taking in the shabby furniture, the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling and the unswept grate.

  ‘Much cosier,’ Cynthia said approvingly, as though she herself were responsible for this. ‘Do you have someone who comes in to do for you?’

  I nodded, resenting the catechism. ‘One of my parishioners acts as a sort of housekeeper.’ I handed Cynthia a cup of tea. ‘Your house is pretty big,’ I said, trying to change the subject, ‘but it always seems very homely.’

  She smiled wistfully. ‘Yes, I’ve enjoyed living there.’

  ‘Are you moving?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘How wonderful.’ I felt a sudden stab of envy. ‘You must be very proud of Ronald.’

  Cynthia frowned. ‘Proud?’

  ‘I assumed you meant he’s been offered preferment. Well deserved, I’m sure.’

  Cynthia flushed. She was sitting, pink and foursquare in my own armchair. ‘No, I didn’t mean preferment. I meant that, when Ronald marries, I shall naturally move out. It will be time to make a home of my own. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us if I stayed.’

  ‘I didn’t realize that he was getting married.’ I guessed that Cynthia and her brother had shared a house for nearly twenty years, for I remembered hearing that Ronald’s first wife had died soon after their marriage. I wondered how Cynthia felt at the prospect of being uprooted from her home. ‘I hope they will be very happy.’

  ‘There hasn’t been a formal announcement yet. They haven’t sorted out the timing. I know Ronald nearly said something on Friday evening, but they decided it would be better to wait.’

  A suspicion mushroomed in my mind. Suddenly everything began to make sense.

  ‘They are ideally suited,’ Cynthia was saying, talking rapidly. ‘And Vanessa has been so lost since Charles died. She’s the sort of woman who really needs a husband.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  Cynthia put down her cup and saucer and looked at her watch. ‘Heavens, is that the time? I really must be going.’

  I took Cynthia out to her car. I think I said the right things about the charitable donation she had brought. I asked whether she would like me to return the suitcases, though I cannot remember what she replied.

  At last she drove away. I trudged back into the house and took the tea tray into the kitchen. I was being childish, I told myself. I had not even realized that I was entertaining foolish hopes about Vanessa Forde until Cynthia had made it so clear that my prospects were hopeless. I had been celibate now for ten years – at first from necessity and later by choice – and there was no reason why I should not remain celibate for the rest of my life.

  That afternoon some very unworthy thoughts passed through my mind. Jealousy and frustrated lust are an unsettling combination. I respected Ronald Trask, or rather I respected some of his achievements. One day he would probably be a bishop. I did not find that easy to accept. It was a shock to discover that I found even less palatable the thought that he and Vanessa would soon be married.

  Sex apart, I had liked what I had seen of Vanessa. Ronald was a bore. A worthy bore, but still a bore. Vanessa deserved someone better. But of course there was nothing I could do about it. In any case, if Ronald and Vanessa chose to marry, it was nothing to do with me.

  It was one thing to frame these rational arguments; it was quite another to accept them emotionally. I went into my study and tried to write a letter to my godson, Michael Appleyard. That proved too difficult. I turned to the parish accounts, which were even worse. Always, in the back of my mind, were the interlocking figures of Ronald and Vanessa. Physically interlocking, I mean. It was as if I were trapped in a cinema with a film I did not want to see on the screen.

  Time crept on. Rosemary was still working in her room. At six-thirty I decided to go over to the church and say the Evening Office. Then I would ring Vanessa about Audrey’s book. I went into the hall.

  ‘Rosemary?’

  She did not answer. I went upstairs and tapped on the door of her room. Her room was uncluttered. Even as a young child she had had a formidable ability to organize her surroundings. She was sitting at her table with a pile of books in front of her and a pen in her hand. She glanced at me, her eyes vague.

  ‘Is it suppertime already?’

  ‘No – not yet. I’m going over to church for a while. Not for long.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You’ll be all right, my dear?’

  She gave me a condescending smile, which said, Of course I’ll be all right
. I’m not a baby. ‘I’ll start supper in about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Rosemary let her eyes drift back to her book. I envied her serenity. I wanted to say something to her but, as so often, I could not find the words. Instead I closed the door softly behind me, went downstairs and let myself out of the house and into the evening sunlight.

  The Vicarage was next to the churchyard, separated from it by a high wall of crumbling eighteenth-century brick. I walked through the little garden to our private gate, a relic of the old house, which gave access from the grounds of the Vicarage to the churchyard. As I opened the gate the church was suddenly revealed, framed in the archway.

  Most of the exterior of the St Mary Magdalene was of brick, and in this light it looked particularly lovely: the older bricks of the sixteenth-century rebuilding had weathered to a mauve colour, while the eighteenth-century work was a contrasting russet; and together the colours made the church glow and gently vibrate against the blue of the sky. Housemartins darted round the tower.

  I closed the gate behind me. Traffic rumbled a few yards to the left on the main road and there was a powerful smell of diesel fumes in the air. I caught sight of a shadow flickering through the grass near the gate to the road. I was just in time to see Audrey’s cat slipping behind a gravestone.

  I walked slowly round the east end to the south door on the other side. On my way I passed the steps leading down to the Youlgreave vault beneath the chancel. The iron gate was rusting and the steps were cracked and overgrown with weeds. No one had been interred there for almost fifty years. The last Youlgreave to die, Sir George, had been killed in the Pacific in 1944, and his body had been buried at sea. I noticed there were grey feathers scattered on the bottom step, immediately in front of the iron gate, where no weeds grew. I wondered if Audrey’s cat was in the habit of dismembering his kills there.

  I went into the porch. The door was unlocked – I left the church open during the day, though after two robberies I now locked it at night. Inside, the air smelled of polish, flowers and – very faintly – of incense, which I used two or three times a year. The church was small, almost cosy, with a two-bay nave and a low chancel. Above the chancel arch were the panel paintings, their colours murky; the pictures looked as if they were wreathed in smoke. I walked slowly to my stall in the choir. I sat down and began to say the Evening Office.