The Evil Seed (11 page)

‘Forget you?’ I gasped.

‘Nothing lasts for ever,’
said Rosemary. ‘I had friends, Daniel. I thought they were good friends. But
now, I’m alone, and there is a coldness inside me which can never be melted.
You called me the beggar maid; perhaps I am that, for ever on the fringes of
things, for ever alone.’

‘But—’

‘I have a face,’ said
Rosemary. ‘Was that what you were going to say? A beautiful face? I wish I didn’t!
‘She closed her eyes; the tragic mouth thinned, her fists clenched in her lap.
I longed to touch her, to comfort her, but I did not dare, so inviolate was her
air of tragedy. I will never forget what she made me feel, that passionate rush
of pity and love. I felt the tears spring to my eyes: I make no apologies. She
was a superb actress.

‘My parents were poor,’
she said. ‘I don’t blame them for that, or for wanting me to use my face to
help them. They didn’t understand. They thought that it would be easy, with my
face, to find the kind of husband who could look after me and them, there are
lots of nice young men in Cambridge, they said.’

‘You don’t have to tell
me,’ I said. ‘None of it matters, Rosemary!’

‘I want to tell you,’
she insisted. ‘I want you to know, even if it means you despise me afterwards.
I want you to try and understand. I found a job in a pub.’ She shuddered. ‘It
was hot, and noisy; sometimes I worked very late, and I was afraid to walk home
at night. I lived in a little flat in the town centre; it was too far to go
back to my parents’ house in Peterborough every day. My landlady was suspicious
of me — jealous, perhaps, of my face. Sometimes, men would follow me home. I
never let them in!’

She stared at me, her
lavender eyes intense and passionate.

‘Understand, Daniel, I
never did!’

I nodded. You would have
believed her too.

‘Then, one day, I met,
well, even now, I dare not tell you his name. It doesn’t matter; it may not
even have been his name. He said he was a professor at one of the colleges. He
was handsome, intelligent and, I thought, kind. As soon as he saw me, he said
he fell in love with me, told me that it was wrong for me to be working in that
place, said that all he wanted was to look after me. I was suspicious at first,
but he seemed sincere. He broke down my defences with kindness and consideration,
led me to think that he wanted to marry me. He never said so, but …’ Here,
she broke off, and passed her hands over her eyes.

‘Weeks passed. He was
kind. He held my hand when we walked in the park, he took me to the theatre.
One day he took me to London in his car … but never to his house. I didn’t
mind. I knew that if he married me, his family would be shocked. I waited,
patiently, blinded by my happiness. Then, one day, I saw him as I was carrying
some shopping home from the market.

I saw him and called his
name in the street. He turned around … and I saw that he had a lady on his
arm.

She stopped, her eyes
brimming, and impulsively, I took her hand.

‘I heard the young lady
say: “Who is that woman?”

‘He turned away without
a word, and he said … God, I can still hear it now! “Nobody, darling.”‘

‘Nobody! That’s who I
am, despite my pretty face. Not good enough to earn the respect of a good man.
The beggar maid! You couldn’t have put it better, Daniel. My dear Daniel.’

I tried to comfort her,
but she went on.

‘No! I want you to hear
the whole. I suppose I knew then that all hope was gone, but I couldn’t bear it
to be ended like that. I watched for him on every street; waited in vain for
him to call and explain everything … I think I was still desperate enough to
want to believe any lie, just as long as it could be like it was before … but
he never came. I could not bear to work in the pub again; so I did sewing work
for my landlady
…
earning just enough to keep myself alive. That woman
was glad, I know it. She knew that something had happened … you cannot begin
to believe the scornful words she heaped upon me … hints … comments
…
but
I was afraid to leave. I was afraid that no one else would agree to house a
single woman on her own. I drank … alone in my room at night
…
I
drank gin, like the lowest of sluts. I hated it, but it would appease the
loneliness and the despair a little. Then, one day, I saw him again, coming out
of the theatre with some friends. I was afraid to speak to him, I was shabby,
maybe I had been drinking, I can’t remember. I followed him home. I waited at
the door until the friends had left, I don’t know how long. A long time, I
think. Then I knocked.

‘He didn’t come to the
door straightaway; I was beginning to be afraid that he would not come at all
…
then I saw him, through the glass of the door. He opened it …
looked
at me for a moment. His eyes were cold.

‘“I’m sorry,” he said. “I
don’t know you.” And he closed the door on me. I waited there for a long time,
cold … despairing, until I saw the dawn beginning to rise. I had been there
all night. I never understood why he had changed so much, and not knowing was
worse than anything else. When I came back to my flat, my things were waiting
for me on the doorstep, neatly packed into a bag and a suitcase. I am sure it
must have given her pleasure to do that …
to handle and gloat over all
my possessions … to write that little note I found pinned to the door. What
it said, I don’t think I could tell even you, Daniel; though I was innocent, it
shamed me to the core, made me dirty. And so, I went to the river. And
somewhere, there must have been a little pity left in the world, because you
came. You came.’

And then, she did cry — long,
hitching, tearing sobs which bruised my heart — her face in her hands, like a
little girl. I put my arm around her, mumbled sorry, sincere, adolescent words
of comfort to her … felt that jerk of the heart which I never felt before or
since as I held her; that moment of epiphany when she looked up at me and
smiled.

No, I could never have
blamed Robert, even if he had not been my friend, for taking her from me.
Rosemary was the wedge which drove friend from friend, drove the honest man to
crime, the good man to murder. In his place, no doubt I would have done the
same, and sometimes my blood runs cold to think how easily our roles could have
reversed. It could have been me, there in Grantchester churchyard. Maybe it
will be yet.

PART TWO

The Blessed Damozel

Two

THE REVEREND HOLMES WAS A SMALL, THIN,
RATHER insignificant-looking man, the lovely stained-glass window of the nave
behind him bleeding all colour from his oddly childish features; but the pale
eyes behind the magnifying lenses of wire-framed glasses were shrewd and bright
with humour. His eyebrows were thick and very dark, giving him an earnest,
rather faraway look, and at the moment they were drawn together in a frown
which managed only to convey bewilderment. His voice was that of a much older man,
or a man who is so much involved in his own little circle of events that the
comings and goings of the world simply pass him by, and he spoke slowly, with
much hesitation, his voice the cultured, gentle, slightly bleating voice of the
country priest.

‘Ahh … Well,’ he said,
shaking his head, ‘I can’t really say any more about it than, ahh, you know.
Just a prank, albeit a nasty one, just one of those student tricks. Though I
fail to see any humour at all in the, ahh, digging up of graves and the
vandalizing of a church. I’d rather see it as a prank, my dear.’

‘But what happened?’
insisted Alice, trying to curb her impatience.

‘No one knows,’ said the
Reverend. ‘Just another of those incidents …
rather nasty, though, and
a bit of a shock for me, actually.’

He lowered his voice and
turned to her conspiratorially. ‘I think it’s … ahh … a personal
dig
against
me ahh
…
no pun intended, you know,’ he said.

Alice looked suitably
interested, though privately she was beginning to think that she must have been
crazy to look up this man in the first place. What she thought she remembered
had never happened; what she had seen in the paper had been a coincidence,
nothing more.

Martin Holmes beckoned
her closer.

‘One of the graves which
was tampered with, I knew. It was my uncle’s.’ He paused for a moment. ‘We’re
an old family, miss, er?’

‘Alice Farrell.’

‘Ahh … yes. An old
family, as I was saying; Cambridgeshire born and bred, though I have not
actually lived here very long myself. It could be that, ahh, rancour still
exists, old grudges, you know the kind of thing.’

Alice glanced at her
watch. The Reverend Holmes did not notice, but continued his halting, gentle
narrative with the air of a man who has found a captive audience.

‘I … ahh … can’t say
I was a, ahh, a
popular
choice as vicar of this parish. There were, let
us say, ahh, factions, who found me unsuitable. There was a bit of an upset in
the family long ago, ahh, insanity, you know, that sort of thing. I suppose
they remembered it still. Long memories, Cambridgeshire folk. Maybe some of the
young ones thought it was funny to dig up the grave of my poor Uncle Dan to
tease me with it.’

Alice looked
sympathetic.

‘Mad as a hatter, poor
chap,’ said Martin Holmes with a shake of his head. ‘Died in some kind of a
home … hanged himself, so I’ve been told. Not that I knew him at all … ahh …
can’t remember him too well. Uncle Dan kept himself to himself. Remember seeing
him once, with my father, when I was a boy … he tried to give me a shilling,
but Father wouldn’t let him. Father told me afterwards that he talked endless
nonsense about
devils
… and monsters. Monsters!’ he repeated, and
laughed.

Alice looked at her
watch.

‘Well …’ she said, ‘If
there’s nothing else
…
’

‘Nothing else?’ said the
Reverend. ‘No … except that they were fooled, of course. Poor old Uncle Dan.’

‘Fooled?’

‘Well, he’s not there,
of course,’ said the Reverend Holmes simply. ‘Whoever dug him up didn’t find a
thing. There’s nothing in that coffin except a box and a few oddments.’

Catching sight of Alice’s
astonished face (she now had no desire to go away), he turned an apologetic
smile towards her.

‘I said he was mad as a
hatter,’ he said.

‘Well, where is he?’

The Reverend laughed
again, very softly.

‘He’s here,’ he said, ‘right
here in the church. They ahh …
cremated
him, you know, then they put
him in the east wall, behind a plaque. It was all in his will, you know, and,
ahh, my father felt obliged to carry out his last wishes, even though he was so
peculiar.’ He paused again. ‘Funny,’ he mused, ‘it looks as if he may have been
right in hiding away.’

‘Why?’ (I can’t believe
I’m hearing all this, thought Alice desperately, can’t believe I’m still here
listening
to all this …
)

‘Because that’s what he
was afraid of all that time,’ explained the priest, patiently. ‘Being dug up.’
He shrugged. ‘Kept on spouting a lot of … ahh
…
nonsense about …
being
dug up,
don’t you know, and ahh … used in some kind of, ahh
…
Though why it happened now, after all these years, beats me. Poor old fellow.’
He turned to Alice.

‘Look there,’ he said.

Alice couldn’t see
anything.

‘There,’
insisted
the Reverend. ‘Just at the end of my finger. Can you see a little brass plaque?’

Alice moved forwards,
squinted, moved forwards again. Yes, she could see it, set into the wall about
eight inches above the ground. The plaque was very small, about twelve inches
by ten, and it was drab with oxidization. She peered at it to read the
inscription, traced the words with her fingers with a growing feeling of
unease. It said, in very plain letters, cut deep into the thick metal:

KEEP ME SAFE

That was all. No name,
no date, nothing. For a moment, she wondered whether the priest had not
invented the whole thing as an excuse to keep her there talking.
‘Keep me safe’?
What kind of an inscription was that? She had not even known that it was
legal to hide a body in the wall of a church like that. She examined the plaque
again, rubbed it with the tip of her finger, not liking the dirt which came off
on to her hand.

‘That’s where he is,’
chirped the Reverend Holmes. ‘Just his ashes, of course, and his papers, ahh.
He was a writer, you know, in the …
ahh … old days. Quite famous
too, in his way. Had his manuscript buried with him. I always wondered what was
in it.’

Alice ignored him.
Behind the half-inch or inch of plaque and the three-inch wall behind it, there
was a mystery. A story as immediate and as poignant as the one behind that
little metal door on which was engraved:

Something inside me
remembers and will not forget.

She jerked away from the
plaque as if she had been stung. The Reverend Holmes was standing above her, an
expression of slight concern on his good-natured face.

‘Are you all right?’

Alice nodded. What had
she been doing? For a moment there, she had been somewhere else, had almost
seen,
almost
known
something of tremendous, dizzying importance … Not
for the first time in these few days, she wondered if she was quite sane.
Surely, there had been a man … a scent of the circus in the air … an altered
light. And more than that, a strong compulsion to pull back the plaque, loosen
the stones …
to find, to see…