Femmes Fatal (10 page)

“Why, Miss Thorn, whatever is the matter?”

She heard me not. Blind to my presence, the imperiled one threw back her head and howled at the moon, then cast herself upon Ben, who was hovering a few feet to my right.

“Mr. Bentley Haskell! Thank God you’re here.”

“Pleasure, I’m sure.” Sounding uncannily like my Uncle Maurice when asked to vacate the Ladies Room at Harrods, Ben made a masterly attempt to unbuckle his knees and stand up straight. Not easy. Miss Thorn, being the taller by many inches, hung over him like a felled tree.

Loud sobbing. More papers escaped from the hatches of her elbows to fly in the wind.

“Oh, hapless me, Mr. Haskell. Never in the sweet years of my youth did I dream so grievous a misfortune should befall me.”

“Surely this is a matter for the vicar?” Arms pinned to his sides, Ben sounded in desperate need of an immediate tracheotomy. Was he, like me, suspecting that the lady was with child, courtesy of one of her many swains?

Miss Thorn released him with such force that he slammed into me, almost sending us both into the herbaceous border.

“
Speak
to the vicar!” Her face stretched the length of a tombstone, etched with mournful sentiment. “Be advised, Mr. Haskell, I shall never again speak to that creature! That monster in clerical duds! Let me go un-shriven to my grave! It matters not!” Here Miss Thorn clasped her knobby hands to her breast and let loose a throbbing moan.

“By Jupiter!” Ben, who had given up taking the Lord’s name in vain when the twins were born, evinced profound shock, tempered with glee. “Are you telling us, Madam, that the Reverend made unseemly overtures?”

Intriguingly, Miss Thorn looked quite shocked by this suggestion. “I should hope not! Never let it be said I am that sort! No indeed. The upstart informed me about fifteen minutes ago that my services as church organist are no longer required. Can you believe that, Mr. Haskell? After all these years of bashing out hymns on that worm-eaten instrument, I am cast off, or—to use the vulgar parlance—sacked!”

“Oh, Miss Thorn,” I whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

“Too … too kind.” Wrenching a handkerchief from her coat pocket she buried her twitching face in it. “I come from the choir loft. None shall accuse me of theft, I trust, when all I took were my own sheets of music. Dear Mr. Haskell, how gripping the compulsion to cast myself o’er the parapet! But, alack, I do not have a head for heights and could not mount the steps to the bell tower.”

“Did the vicar offer a reason?” To avoid sneaking a second glance at his watch, Ben placed his hands behind his back, out of temptation’s way.

She raised her fogged glasses to his face. “Some trumped-up story about my being seen frequenting one … of … those places.”

“The Dark Horse?” I ventured.

“No, not a pub.” Miss Thorn shook her mousy head,
sending a spray of Kirby grips to the four winds. “The Methodist Church. As if I am capable of such a defection, having seen my sister banished from the familial home for entertaining Wesleyan sympathies. A hedonist, my Daddy called her.”

“Meaning, perhaps, a heathen?” Ben suggested.

“Oh, deary me, no!” Miss Thorn sighed gustily. “Daddy invariably said what he meant and meant what he said. He used to call me his rose without a thorn. You get the humour, Mr. Haskell?”

“Indeed.”

“And he called my brother a ‘skirt,’ because he liked to cook.”

Ben winced. But this harkening back to the good old days proved too much for Miss Thorn. She collapsed once more against Ben, who in slow motion brought round his hands to support her. Above us the moon nosed out from behind the clouds like a bloodless Peeping Tom. In the groping dusk the vicarage shifted a few paces closer to us, as if eavesdropping too. From every corner of the churchyard came the dark rustling of the trees, and from far off came the sly murmur of the sea.

“Miss Thorn, is there anything my husband and I can do?” I reached into my coat pocket, thinking to lend her my hanky, but pulled out a nappy instead.

“How sweet; industrial size.” Taking it, she mustered a heroic titter. “You are too, too kind, but only I can pick up the shattered pieces of my life. The Lord be praised, I do have my bird-watching and my collection of telephone directories to occupy my time … and the affection of a certain gentleman. His name, not to make a mystery of it”—a demure lowering of the eyelids and a coy lift to the lips—“his name begins with W.”

Oh, knickers! Instantly, my eyes became glued to her face, as if by some force of will I could draw the
nom de l’homme
from her lips the way a snake charmer
lures the serpent out of hiding. Surely Miss Thorn’s swain wasn’t … couldn’t be … Mr. Walter Fisher, undertaker extraordinaire, he who had stolen Mrs. Malloy’s heart?

Before miss Thorn was halfway down the drive on her way to catch her bus, Ben had managed to make our being a good ten minutes late for the meeting entirely my fault. He thumbed the vicarage doorbell; its gentle chimes added disharmony to discord.

“Ellie, if we had left home on time, we would never have collided with that woman, and if you hadn’t been so damned sympathetic—”

“Me?” I screeched like an owl. “Almost every remark she made was addressed to you—
dear
Mr. Haskell.”

Hush! At the sound of stirrings within the vicarage, we wiped the scowls off our faces and clapped on a pair of the phoniest smiles you would ever wish to see. Precipitously, as it turned out. When the door didn’t open, Ben punched the bell again.

“Jealousy ill becomes you, wife.”

I started to say that he was talking utter rubbish. Me, jealous of Miss Thorn? That would be the day! But a little voice deep inside whispered that he just might be right. And far from feeling horribly cornered, I felt a stirring of excitement. Was it possible that I was already feeling the effects … reaping the rewards of my Fully Female novitiate? Could it be that I was destined to fall in love all over again? And even supposing the wonderful happened, would my feelings be reciprocated? Staring straight ahead, I prinked in the door’s glass panel. My French-braided hair looked nice and the chilly night air lent a flush to my cheeks and darkened my
rainwater eyes. But I mustn’t get cocky. Easy enough for a headshot to pass muster. The full-length version is another matter. Bother! Why hadn’t I brought a bigger handbag? This stupid thing wouldn’t cover my belt buckle, let alone anything else.

“Damn!” Ben lifted a fist to pound on the door, but managed to control himself. “I should have brought along a book to read.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a face blurred the glass a split second before the door opened, rocking me back on my heels. A sense of unworthiness came at me in a rush, like a dog who had been lurking in the twilit hall. What would Reverend Foxworth have to say about my missing Sunday service these last few weeks? Would he buy my explanation about God preferring quality time?

“Good evening, Mrs. Pickle.” I spoke without thinking, without seeing, programmed by other visits to expect the vicarage daily to do the honours of admission.

“Sweetheart”—Ben resumed his pose of devoted spouse—“I know I’m not wearing my glasses but …”

Say no more. The woman eyeing us from under neon-painted lids was not Mrs. Pickle, but our very own Mrs. Roxie Malloy. A scarlet organdy apron added a splash of colour to her black taffeta ensemble with its rat fur collar.

“Mr. and Mrs. H, what a treat!”

This was tantamount to going to get my teeth checked and finding the dentist in the chair. Following Ben into the hall with its twisty turny staircase, porridge wallpaper, and chocolate-brown radiators, I said, “Mrs. Malloy, I had no idea you worked here. What happened to Mrs. Pickle?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard!” Her voice rich with reproof, Mrs. Malloy bumped the door shut with her rump.

“Dead?” Ben had given up euphemisms, along with saturated fats, when the twins were born.

“Now you know me, Mr. H, I don’t do drains, I don’t do chimneys, and I don’t gossip.” The butterfly lips were sealed.

“She’s … pregnant?” I backed into a portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury. “At her age? Why, she must be close to seventy!” The absurdity of the accusation dawned, but then again we are forever reading about such things in the scandal sheets … and the Bible. Just look at Sarah! All those chaps patting Abraham on the back and telling him he’d never be bested in the Guinness Book of Records, while his poor wife was coping with night feedings at ninety.

Mrs. Malloy scoffed a laugh. “What, Edna in the family way? You must be joking. Her Albert’s been gone thirty years. And if a man so much as put his hand where he shouldn’t, he’d be singing soprano in the boy’s choir. Anyone but old Jonas that is; Mrs. P’s had a crush on him since she was a young chick of fifty. Ah well,” she said, checking herself out in the hall tree mirror, “since you’ve twisted me bra strap, I’ll tell you …”

“Yes?” I prodded. Ben was eyeing the closed door across the hall. From the murmurings wafted our way, the meeting of the Hearthside Guild was in full swing.

“At six-thirty-seven this evening, Edna Pickle threw down her apron and walked out.”

“Left Reverend Foxworth?” I couldn’t take this in. “There must be some mistake. She was devoted to him; no polish was ever good enough for his floors, no starch ever crisp enough for his collars.”

“Where’ve you been living? In an igloo?” Mrs. Malloy folded her arms, forcing her bosoms upward, so that they resembled a pair of balloons bound to pop at any moment. “The Reverend Mr. F moved on to greener pastures yesterday afternoon.”

“Gone, without so much as a good-bye?” The picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury was tilting at a crazy angle.

“You got it, Mrs. H: a parish in Kent, from what I could make out from Edna. Horribly sudden it was. But that’s bishops for you. Always getting too big for their mitres.”

The ground had gone out from under me. I had to clutch at Ben to keep myself steady. No more Rowland. Surely there was something sacrilegious in the concept. The St. Anselm’s pulpit would never be the same. Was this God’s way of punishing me for poor attendance?

“What brought this on?” Pacing the frayed strip of carpet, Ben did the asking.

Mrs. Malloy patted her two-tone hair and assumed a repressive mien. “I keep me suspicions to meself.”

“Not,” I quaked, “money missing from the collection plate?”

“Ellie, get a grip on yourself.” My husband proceeded to unbutton my coat as though I were a rag doll. “The chap was integrity itself. Remember how he tried to ban the pool some of the parishioners got up before the twins were born?”

“Yes,” I whispered, dizzy from being spun around for the removal of my scarf. “Dear Rowland gave that wonderful sermon—the one about the money lenders in the temple, but to no avail. They still laid bets on the sex of the babies. And now the bishop has found out about the gambling and in a fit of ecclesiastical fury banished that saintly man to the wilds of Kent. Ben, this is all my fault, and I quite see why Rowland could not bring himself to say good-bye.”

“There, there ducky,” Mrs. Malloy said with unwonted gentleness. “Why don’t you go in and have a nice chat about all this with the new vicar?”

Replaced so soon! I was lost in a whirlpool of remembrance … my
wedding day, the twins’ christenings, and those many other luminous occasions enriched by Rowland’s presence. Would I ever again smell pipe tobacco without recalling how his cassock breathed that sweetest of all incense?

“Change is the name of the game.” Ben hung our coats on the hall tree.

“You’ve said it, Mr. H.” Mrs. Malloy tugged at the bodice of her frock so that the requisite amount of cleavage showed. “First Mrs. Pickle gone and me playing understudy. Then Miss Thorn—she gets her marching orders! Better than a box at the opera it was. Such a caterwauling she made! And while I’ve never been overly keen on Miss Thorn, I don’t mind saying that new vicar has made one bloody big mistake. There won’t be a man in church next Sunday, they’ll all be outside picketing.”

Entirely possible.

“No time for tears. Duty calls.” Giving her cranberry apron a flounce, Mrs. Malloy headed for the kitchen while I followed my husband across the hall to the sitting room. So many memories behind that closed door. Rowland had been my first friend in Chitterton Fells and now I must face the new vicar. Truth be told, the word
usurper
sprang to mind.

I barely had time to hitch up my smile before entering that book-lined room. All was the same, from the monk brown sofas and striped wallpaper to the towering grandfather clock, the worn rugs and picture of Rippon Cathedral above the fireplace. No, not quite the same. Silk poppies sprouted from the vase on the bureau and the odds and sods in the curio cabinet had been replaced with what looked like Waterford crystal.

Ben, in his role as program chairman, was not focusing on the furnishings. Instead, he was toting up the members of the Hearthside Guild present and reaching
the inevitable conclusion that whichever way he counted, they still numbered only four. Dr. and Mrs. Melrose and, yes, over by the window sat Jock Bludgett, the shifty-eyed plumber, and his better half, the siren who lured him home from work, leaving my washing machine high and dry. I could see Ben was taking the poor attendance hard. As for me, the sparsity of the group was a dubious bonus. It made it impossible to miss the most obvious disruption of the old order.

Standing before the fireplace, a teacup poised on his palm, was your stereotypical vicar. A balding man, slight of build, stooped of shoulder, whose nearsighted eyes peered wistfully upon the vagaries of this world through a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. Beside him stood your made-to-measure vicar’s wife. A pillar of the church. Her iron-grey hair of the sort that does double duty as a hat. Her beige twin set and houndstooth skirt made clear she would do a masterly job of organizing the summer fête and the Christmas bazaar. She would introduce weekly altar cloth bees and … she had seen Ben and me.

She touched her husband’s arm. “We have some new arrivals, Gladstone, dear.”