Eleven Pipers Piping (22 page)

“Well, Mrs. Prowse, let us hold on to that thought. If it takes that many seeds, there must be some sort of mistake.”

What he didn’t report to Madrun was the remark Will made at table when he bit into one of her tartlets:
“Are there nuts in these?
”

It was the plural that was troubling.

13 JANUARY

Dear Mum
,

Something dreadful has happened—much, MUCH worse than my troubles with the Yorkshire pudding. Mr. Christmas told me yesterday that Will Moir died may have died of the sort of poison produced by parts of the yew. Remember last week I told you I had got a note asking if I would send some of my berry tartlets up to Thorn Court to the Burns Supper? Well
everyone thinks some folk think Mr Christmas thinks
it’s thought that perhaps I didn’t tweezer out all the seeds from the berries and that Mr. Moir swallowed some of them. I can’t believe this could be true. Mum, I can’t believe that EVEN ONE slipped my notice! I went over and over in my mind how one could have slipped through my counting system. And even if one or two slipped through, which can’t have happened, I can’t believe there would be such a horrible aeffect. The only creature I can remember being affected by yew was one of the heifers at Thorn Barton who ate a Christmas
wreath some fool had tossed onto the property. There’s to be an inquest, Mr. C says, and all this will come out and people will think my tartlets were to blame and how will I be able to look Mrs. Moir in the face? Or Ariel? I can’t bear the idea of the child blaming me for losing her father. Or Adam. I can’t think how I shall hold up my head in the village after this. If it’s true, which I can’t believe it is. It can’t be, so you mustn’t worry, Mum. I’m sure it will be all right in the end and Mr. Moir will be shown to have died of something else entirely. But perhaps this morning I ought to rid the freezer of the remaining yewberries. I don’t think I shall have the heart to bake with them again, and also who will want to eat them now? Anyway, I mustn’t dwell on this. I talked to Aunt Gwen on the phone last night, as you probably know, and decided not to mention it. She says you are both well and untroubled by all the snow, which is a great relief. It’s good to know you have such good neighbours. I’m glad you didn’t have to go out in it. I know Florence Daintrey sprained her ankle on some ice on the path outside their cottage. No school again today. The snow stopped early yesterday and some of the roads are beginning to be cleared, and for many of the village children, like Miranda, the walk to school isn’t far. But perhaps the teachers want a day off more than anyone, even if they only just got back from their Christmas holidays. I know Miranda is anxious to get back, especially so she can make her lantern for the Wassail. I did look in Karla’s shop yesterday morning when I posted your letter to see if she had any lantern-worthy
miterial
things, but no. I am feeling more optimistic that the Wassail will go on as planned on Saturday. The radio last night said mild air is on its way from the Azores, which promises to make short order of all this snow. Soon it will be like a dream, I suppose. Judith Ingley is still our guest at the vicarage while she’s waiting for someone from the estate agents to get to Thornford and she’s been making herself useful. She likes
a good natter the way Mr. James-Douglas did when he was alive, which is such a pleasure as Mr. Christmas does tend to frown on what he calls “tittletattle.” I’ve been filling her in on various village doings and such, though much has changed in the years she’s been away—at least as far as people go. The buildings are much the same! She’s been curious mostly about those she met at the Burns Supper, so I told her about Mark and Violet’s lovely baby and Roger’s
marterdom
martyrdom to his mother, and how the poor Kaifs lost their son last autumn, and why John Copeland comes to St. Nicholas’s rather than to the perfectly good church at Noze, and why Nick Stanhope’s stint in the army got short shrift. She was curious about Clive Stanhope, but as it’s thirty years or more since any one of us last saw him, I couldn’t say, other than how he died,
poor silly
poor man. I’m not sure I told you this as it only came on my “radar” recently, but apparently about five or six years ago he was at his second wife’s funeral tea at a country hotel somewhere in Cumbria where he had landed up after coming back from Australia when he took it upon himself to drive himself home and ploughed straight into a tractor as he was tearing through the hedgerows. I expect he was very drunk. This meant Caroline was planning a second funeral within days of the first, though of course it wasn’t her mother who had died the few days before, but then I expect Nick is fairly useless at such things—or perhaps he was in the army then. I’m not sure. Now that’s made me think that Caroline must plan a funeral for a loved one and perhaps I am the cause, though I simply know I cannot be. I did tell Judith last night after teatime what Mr. Christmas told me, as she must have seen I was not my usual self, though I did try to hide my upset at least for Miranda’s sake. She told me she thought Mr. Moir looked a bit off BEFORE they sat down to pudding and Judith trained as a nurse so I’m taking heart from this though I think Mr. Moir has been “off” in a way for some months. When he was at lunch
Sunday before last he wasn’t terribly cheerful, the way he used to be. Anyway, I must buck up and get on with things, breakfast to start with. It will be nice when there’s light in the morning. January is always a bit of horror isn’t it, Mum. So dark! We are all well otherwise here. Even Powell and Gloria are bearing the snow a little. I hope you have a very good day. Love to Aunt Gwen
.

Much love,
Madrun

P.S. Mr. Christmas has a little bee in his bonnet about Old Bob’s spectacles. Do you remember them? Large, with pink frames, very the thing twenty years ago. I’d forgotten they were originally yours, Old Bob’s been wearing them so long. I expect he found them at a jumble sale. I think when Mr. Christmas takes him for his next medical appointment, he’s going to see if he can get him fitted with some new frames, something better suited a man, I suppose. I can’t think Mr. Christmas will have much luck. Old Bob is awfully attached to those things for some reason
.

M
adrun had suggested he roll socks
over
his wellies to give him some traction if he were going to attempt walking over black ice, which was indeed his intent. But the notion of strolling through the village to the Daintrey cottage thus shod struck Tom as haberdashery beneath the dignity of the priesthood—an invitation to ridicule. Still, he understood Madrun’s wisdom now, as he began to climb Thorn Hill. The road was covered here and there between the snowdrifts with the most remarkable sheet of ice, almost invisible, as if the macadamised surface had been given little more than a light polish. Adding to the delicacy of his task was the object he was toting with him—hot soup in a large plastic container itself inside a Morrisons carrier bag, which, should he take a tumble, would most likely burst its lid and cover the ice with steaming stock and vegetables.

“You look like you’re in trouble, Father,” remarked a cheerful male voice behind him.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Tom released a sort of embarrassed chuckle and stopped, resting his free hand on one of the crooked stones in the wall lining the road. It was Rorie, the postman, whose bright red cagoule proclaimed him and whose last name eluded Tom. He was usually to be seen dashing through the village, so much like a cartoon blur that Tom had little firm idea of the man’s physical appearance. Now he did. Rorie was short and stocky with a fringe of dark hair over a large, ruddy face split by a huge grin.

“The entire country’s virtually shut down.” Tom eyed the large red bag slung over the man’s left shoulder.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor … something, something …”

“Isn’t that an American saying?”

“Yes, but a good one. As it happens, the road to the village has been cleared, some trains are getting through from London, and there’s mail!”

But Tom was more interested in Rorie’s footwear, Doc Martens embossed with
ROYAL MAIL
on the heelcap, but wrapped in a crisscrossing of steel chains.

“I used to work in North Yorkshire,” Rorie explained, following Tom’s eyes. “Terrible black ice we would get. These work a treat. You know, Father, if you put socks over your—”

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” Tom interrupted with rising impatience.

“Here,” Rorie continued, shifting his bag so it hung down his back. “Let me help you. Take that carrier bag in your other hand. There, that’s the way.” He took Tom’s hand in his own beefy one and led him up the slope, half pulling him, encouraging his progress with lively invocations. The question was whether it was sillier to wear socks over your boots or hold hands with your postman. Tom wondered if he would be rewarded with a sweetie for being a good boy when they reached the Daintreys’ gate. He wasn’t. He was rewarded with a sheaf of letters.

“Here. Give these to the girls, would you, Father?”

The girls?
“One moment, Rorie.” Tom steadied himself on the gatepost. “If someone gave you an unstamped envelope and asked you to take it to someone down the road or across the village on your rounds, would you do it?”

“Well, we’re not supposed to. We’re not carrier pigeons, Father. But if someone asked and it was on my way, I might. Why? Is there something …?”

“No. I was just wondering … You haven’t delivered something under those circumstances in the last week, have you, by any chance?”

“Can’t say I have.” The postman paused. “No, I tell a lie. Mr. Sainton-Clark asked me to pass a note to Mr. Snell next door. You know they refuse to speak to each other? There was some urgent need of communication. Still, that was about four months ago. Shall I leave you here? Will you be all right?”

“Yes, thank you for your help. Will we see you in church?”

“You saw me Christmas Eve.”

“So I did,” Tom white-lied.

“Our Theo was one of the shepherds at the Crib Service.”

“Of course, yes.” Tom poked through the deck and picked out the right card: Young Theo had used his crook to hit one of the other shepherds; unholy screeching ensued. “I hope you’ll come again.”

“Easter, I should think, Father.”

Of course. More C & E than C
of
E.

“Hello?” Tom poked his head through Uphill Cottage’s door into a small square hall with a small round table with a small parched poinsettia dead centre, on which he placed the Daintreys’ post. “Hel
lo
?”

A muffled response came from behind the closed door to the left. Tom stepped out of his boots and padded across the hall in his
Barbour. A blast of warmth rushed along his face when he opened the door. Not only must the central heating be cranked up, but a fire in the grate was blazing at good mid-tempo. One hand went automatically to his zipper.

“Oh, hello, Vicar!” Florence Daintrey boomed from one of the two identical couches perpendicular to the fireplace. She was lying flat, her greying head to the fire, swathed in a patchwork quilt. She placed the book she had been reading onto her stomach. “How kind of you to visit.”

“I heard you were under the weather.” Florence’s foot, which was partly exposed from the quilt, was dressed in a makeshift splint and an argyle sock, resting on a nest of pillows.

“Bloody council can’t be bothered to salt the road, can it? Take off your jacket, Tom. You’ll probably find it warm in here.”

“I have a bad code,” Venice Daintrey announced thickly. She was huddled under a quilt of her own on the couch opposite. Her eyes blinked at him rheumily.

“You have a bad cold, Ven. Co
ld
. Say it!”

“Code.”

“And it’s not that bad.”

Tom interposed. “Mrs. Prowse sent me over with her very good homemade soup to buck you up.” He held up the carrier bag with a gesture of triumph.

The two women traded sharp glances.

“Oh,” Venice wheezed.