The New Rector (Tales from Turnham Malpas) (12 page)

‘God bless you, Muriel. What the Church would do without its women I do not know.’

‘Good morning, Peter. In that case, why can’t we be ordained priests? I’m not clever enough to be one, but there are plenty of women who would be and could do good service to the Church.’

‘I didn’t know you were a militant parshioner?’

‘I’m not, but I do get annoyed about the whole subject sometimes. I expect we’ll win in the end, women usually do. Have you got out Mr Furbank’s costume for Stocks Day? I’ll give it a good clean and a mend for you if you like.’

‘Stocks Day – what’s that?’

‘What part do I play in this?’

‘Oh, you’re the Devil.’

She turned away to collect her cleaning cloths and move on to the altar vases. Peter stood appalled. ‘
The Devil?
’ He followed her to the altar.

Muriel didn’t notice the effect on Peter of what she had said. She busily rubbed away at the twiddly bits on the altar vases, remembering processions from her childhood and how much she had enjoyed seeing the transformation of the Rector from a nasty horned Devil to a charming harmless figure dressed all in white.

‘The Press always come and take photographs and there’s always a piece in the paper about it and lots of people come to watch – to see the villagers playing at being quaint, I suppose. There’s an old painting of it on the wall in the corner behind that tomb that Willie Biggs says is haunted – you know, the one with the knight resting his ankles on his little dog. I don’t know which rector it is but he’s there for all to see.’

Peter beat a retreat to the rear of the church and stood gazing at the painting. The gold frame was old and in need of a good clean and so was the painting, but it was possible to discern a rector of indeterminate century dropping his Devil’s mask and costume onto the grass and standing there holding up his hand in blessing. Close by him were an angel and a figure he assumed was someone’s idea of the Grim Reaper. Pagan. Definitely pagan. Nothing to do with Christianity at all.

Peter called to Muriel: ‘Surely we usually dress a well, not the stocks.’

Muriel came up the church to speak to him.

‘I have grave doubts as to whether I can perform this blessing.’

‘Oh dear. Mr Furbank never gave it a thought – he loved getting dressed up. We had the procession right through the war. Whatever’s going on in the world, the ceremony always takes place.’

Neither of them realised that they were being overheard. The news about Peter’s misgivings was all round the village and the outlying farms before he had finished his soup that evening.

As Peter entered the church the next morning he noticed an increase, in fact a substantial increase, in the size of the congregation. For a split second he wondered if he had forgotten it was some kind of special day but knew he hadn’t. The difference he did notice was that only the choir was singing. The congregation stood mute to a man. When he announced the first hymn, scarcely a hymnbook rustled. Mrs Peel played the first two lines and everyone stood. From his position on the altar steps Peter could see that Caroline, Muriel and Jimbo and Harriet had got their hymnbooks out, but none of the real villagers had done so.

He conducted the entire service in his normal joyous uplifting manner but by the end the strain was beginning to tell. When Peter stood at the church door to wish the congregation ‘Good morning’ he found that apart from those same four people, no one appeared to shake his hand. They had all gone out through the vestry door.

Willie Biggs supplied the answer.

‘Does it mean so much to them, then? Why can’t someone else play the part? Jimbo would do a good job, wouldn’t you, Jimbo?’

‘No, Peter, indeed I wouldn’t. If they gave me the same cold shoulder they’ve given you this morning, I’d be bankrupt in a week and with a wife and three children to support, I simply can’t afford it. It’s you they want, Peter. I’d be no substitute, believe me.’

‘But it’s a pagan ritual.’

Caroline took his arm. ‘Let’s go home and have a think, darling.’

‘Can’t you persuade him to do it, Caroline?’ Harriet asked as they made their way down the church path.

‘I never try to influence Peter where his conscience is concerned. He is the rector, not me. Sorry, Harriet.’

Caroline went straight to the kitchen and began making sandwiches for their lunch, leaving Peter to wrestle with his own conscience. She knew he’d have to fall in with it in the end, but he needed to come to that conclusion himself. This Stocks Day was evidently part of the fabric of village life and sometimes modern theological thinking had to give way when such stout opposition was voiced. She’d been mortified during the whole of the service and had felt desperately sorry for Peter. At one stage she had nearly stood up and told them what she thought about them all, and then she remembered that he was the rector, not she, and that this was a battle he must fight.

‘Surely to goodness that isn’t a dress you intend wearing, is it? It’s not your colour at all,’ Peter protested as he brought in an afternoon cup of tea as a means of regaining Caroline’s favour.

‘Yes it is. I’m playing the part of a medieval peasant woman fearful of the plague and trying hard to forget that I’ve lost my mother, my father, two sisters and three of my children with the dreaded pestilence.’

‘Caroline, is this some kind of joke?’

‘No, thanks for the tea, no, that’s what it’s for.’

‘Are you joining in the procession, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though I don’t approve?’

‘I am not trying to persuade you to change your mind, so you mustn’t try to change mine. We agreed on that before we married.’

‘But this is something where I need your support.’

‘I can’t support you when these good people have so vehemently shown you their disapproval. They must feel very deeply about the issue or they wouldn’t have been as unkind and rude as they were this morning. It’s not in their nature.’

‘But this has nothing to do with Christianity. It’s a relic of some pagan ceremony, I’m sure it is. The Devil, indeed! There’s no such thing, only the evil within ourselves.’

‘Who are you trying to persuade now? Yourself or me?’ She slipped off her dress and tried on the costume. ‘All I need now is to make my hair all drab and disgusting and I shall look a treat. I’ve got that old pair of Jesus sandals you don’t like – they’ll come in handy. It’s ages since I had my tea on a village green. You’ll have to get your own tea that day. I’ll leave something in the fridge for you.’

‘What if I asked you not to join in?’

‘It wouldn’t work, Peter. I’m part of the village and I must join in. They know it has to be done or things won’t be right for them. I look like a too-well-fed peasant, don’t I? I’ll have to put some shadow on my cheeks and make them seem hollow.’

Peter had a bitter week following his declaration about Stocks Day. Those who did speak to him looked sorrowfully at him; even Muriel was icily polite when he dropped into Harriet’s Tearoom for a coffee.

‘Good morning, Mr Harris. Would you like a table outside in the garden or do you prefer inside?’

‘Inside, Muriel, then we can talk.’

The YTS girl brought his coffee and Muriel sat at the till trying to look busy with her bookwork. Her natural politeness prevented her from being rude but secretly she was very distressed by Peter’s attitude.

He chattered on about the playgroup starting and one thing and another of parish interest, and then eventually she could stand it no longer.

‘It’s no good, Mr Harris. You’ve got to face up to it, you know.’

‘Face up to what?’

‘Stocks Day. I knew the village would be upset but I’d no idea feeling would run so high. The ceremony has a great deal of significance for them, you know. It’s right there in their bones and they won’t feel right if they don’t have the rector doing what he should. They’ll all be quite convinced that terrible things will happen to the village if they don’t keep faith with the past.’

‘Pshaw! What’s your conscience worth if you lose everyone’s trust?’

‘It’s worth a lot to me.’

‘Yes, I know it is, and we wouldn’t want it any other way, but please try to see their point of view.’

Other customers came in and she had to break off her conversation with him.

He went across to the school in the hope that he might find some kindred spirit there in Michael Palmer.

The children were all having their dinners when he arrived. The hall was full of laughing chattering children, a sheer delight which lifted his spirits. As soon as they noticed him, however, they fell silent and Peter knew it wasn’t out of respect.

‘Good day to you, children. God bless you all.’

Michael Palmer looked sternly at the children and told them to answer. Peter got some shamefaced muttered responses and then the children ignored him.

‘Mr Palmer, could I speak to you for a moment?’ They went into Michael’s tiny office, where Michael offered him the only chair whilst he perched on the edge of the desk.

‘You’ve done it now, Peter. The children can talk of nothing else.’

‘I don’t know how everyone found out I disapproved.’

‘You can’t catch cold in this village without they know before the first sneeze. It’s no good trying to keep anything quiet. Historically, Blessing the Stocks is part of them, you see.’

‘Historically yes, but from the Church’s point of view it’s a no-go area.’

‘You do know the origins, don’t you?’

‘Not really. A Victorian cleric with more time to spare than you have nowadays, investigated old village customs and found that the Stocks Day procession in Turnham Malpas originated because of the plague. A vagrant had come to the village and had been stealing food and clothes from the villagers. They caught him at it and the local Lord of the Manor, namely one of the Templetons, had him put in the stocks. Unfortunately, while he was fastened in there they realised he had begun showing the early symptoms of the plague. They released him but he died the next day. In consequence of this, many of the villagers died. The part of the ceremony in which villagers beat the stocks with sticks to get rid of the dead flowers is their way of getting rid of the vagrant who brought death with him. That’s why there is someone to represent the Grim Reaper – though where the angel comes in I’m not sure. Then the white flowers represent a new beginning after the plague had passed, and the rector dressed in white blessing the stocks makes everything right for another year. When you do that, the whole village will feel safe from the outside world. So really it’s an historical drama commemorating the past.’

‘I see. I suppose that casts a different light on it. But they shouldn’t need something like this to make them feel safe.’

‘I know, I know, but they do. Presumably they felt the Devil had sent the vagrant in the first place, and they get rid of him by turning him into the rector.’

‘Thank you, Michael, for taking time to explain. You’ll need to get back to the children now. How’s the playgroup working out?’