The Snares of Death (11 page)

‘Worshipping a piece of bread!' he thundered. ‘I've never seen anything so . . . so shocking in my entire life!' His eyes blazed in a white face.

Elayne busied herself in making him coffee. ‘I'm sure they don't look at it that way,' she suggested. ‘I asked Miss Barnes about it. About the tabernacle – that's what they call that box. She said that the wafer represents Christ's presence. They're worshipping Jesus, not the wafer.'

‘Nonsense!'

‘But Bob –'

‘Elayne, you know nothing about this! You weren't there – I was! And you can believe me when I tell you that it was absolutely disgusting! It was like the Israelites in the wilderness, worshipping the Golden Calf! Bowing and scraping to an idol . . .' He shuddered dramatically. ‘God will punish them for it. You can mark my words.'

She handed him the ‘Thank God for Jesus' mug. ‘But if they think –'

‘I don't care what they think!' he shouted. ‘Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and God has sent Bob Dexter to this place to teach these people the difference!'

‘But –'

He turned on his wife with fury. ‘Stop contradicting me, woman! And I absolutely forbid you to talk to those hateful women ever again! Do you understand me?'

She cast her eyes down. ‘Yes, Bob.'

‘Only four more days, and then I'll show them! They'll learn soon enough that Bob Dexter will not abide their ungodly behaviour!' He slammed the mug down on the counter with such force that it shattered; Elayne looked in horror at the shards of pottery, the set white face of her husband, and the outstretched hand, dripping bright red blood.

The house was very quiet. Lying awake, Elayne could hear the regular ticking of the bedside clock, and her husband's measured breathing. Bob Dexter always slept deeply; in years gone by he'd never been the one to rise in the middle of the night to minister to an ailing Becca. After a long while Elayne eased out of bed, shivering suddenly in the chill of the room. Bob did not stir. She found her discarded clothing on the chair – Bob always berated her when she failed to hang her clothes in the wardrobe as soon as she took them off – and dressed quickly and quietly. Her shoes, too, were easily found in the dark, and the old cardigan that she wore for extra warmth. In a moment, Bob Dexter was alone in the bedroom, and Elayne crept down the stairs and let herself out of the house.

The church was a dark shape in the night, with only a very faint light filtering through the windows of the chapel. But the north porch door was open, and Elayne found her way easily.

She caught her breath at the sight before her in the chapel. There were only two people there, kneeling silently and motionlessly before the altar. The Garden of Repose was indeed beautiful; the flowers, so vibrantly colourful by day, seemed curiously muted and transformed in the light of the flickering candles. The tabernacle glinted gold, reflecting the flames. And high above in the shadows, the ancient statue smiled radiantly and lovingly at the child in her arms, her beautiful face illuminated softly by the candlelight.

CHAPTER 11

    
For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his tabernacle: yea, in the secret place of his dwelling shall he hide me, and set me upon a rock of stone.

Psalm 27.5

Bob Dexter had a longstanding commitment to lead a youth retreat over the Easter weekend, so he'd planned to leave the house early on Friday morning.

Becca was up early, too, to make him his breakfast, and she looked with horror at his bandage-swathed hand. ‘Daddy, you can't possibly drive with your hand like that,' she insisted. So she hurriedly packed a case and went with him, as his chauffeur; when Elayne woke a bit later, she was alone in the house.

She found a terse note on the bedside table to inform her of the fact. ‘Becca has gone with me to the retreat. We will be back on Sunday evening.'

It was not often that Elayne was completely alone. The cup of tea that had been left with the note was quite cold, so after a few minutes she got up and went downstairs to make a fresh pot. She washed up Bob's and Becca's breakfast dishes, which had been left on the kitchen table, then went back upstairs and luxuriated in a hot bath for nearly an hour.

‘Idle hands are the Devil's workshop,' she'd heard Bob Dexter say often enough, so Elayne thought hard about what to do next. The unpacking had been entirely accomplished, and everything was in its place. There was not much point in baking hot cross buns with no one to eat them, and there was no church fête on the horizon for which she could busy herself making jams or knitting loo-roll covers. On Good Friday the village shops would probably be shut, so there wasn't even the opportunity to spend some time poking around their unfamiliar shelves on the pretext of needing a light bulb or a packet of sugar. She would have loved to read a book – a forbidden pleasure when Bob Dexter was around – but she knew that there was nothing interesting in the house, and she had not yet discovered the whereabouts of the nearest public library.

She could write a letter, Elayne decided at last. She wished there were someone in Richmond to whom she could write, but Bob had always discouraged her from getting too close to anyone in the congregation – showing favouritism, he called it – so she had not a single friend to show for the last twenty years of her life. She couldn't very well write to her sister, she thought. She and her only sister had been very close when they were young, but her sister had married a country doctor, a supremely secular man with whom Bob Dexter had nothing in common and in whose company he was most uncomfortable. So now their contact was sporadic at best; Dexter had always had the very good excuse of not being able to get away at Christmas or weekends, and Elayne saw her sister very rarely. They always wrote to each other at Christmas, general letters full of the children's latest accomplishments, but she didn't know what she could say to her sister now.

Elayne did write occasionally – once or twice a month, perhaps – to her mother, though the reply was rarely more than a brief, breathless phone call. She never had the feeling that her mother needed or even appreciated her letters, so busy was she with her friends and her social activities. Since Elayne's father had died, shortly after his retirement, his widow had made a new life for herself in the south coast town where they'd retired and her family was no longer the centre of her life. Elayne decided to write to her now, to tell her about the move and to describe their new surroundings. She found some writing paper in the bureau in the sitting room and settled down with pen in hand.

When the letter had been signed, addressed and stamped, she decided she might as well walk into the village and post it immediately, though it would not arrive until after the long Easter weekend. The post was generally collected only once on Good Friday, but perhaps she had not yet missed that noon collection. She looked at her watch: a quarter to twelve.

On her way into the village, Elayne passed several people who seemed to be heading for the church, and realised that there would probably be a service beginning at noon. Why not go? she thought. There was nothing better to do, and at least it would pass the time.

The church was very sombre, with none of the candlelit magic of the night before. The high altar had been stripped down to the bare wood, and the only cross visible was made of wood rather than of precious metal. Elayne chose a seat near the rear.

The service started at twelve o'clock with a familiar Good Friday hymn, and Elayne joined in with her pure soprano voice. A few people turned around to locate the source of the abnormally tuneful singing but she was oblivious to their stares. After the hymn, a rotund man in a black chasuble mounted the steps of the pulpit and fixed his gaze on the congregation. He looked not in the least impressive to Elayne, who was used to Bob's commanding presence in the pulpit, but as he began to speak she was immediately captivated by the quality of his voice, which was cultured and melodious; only after a few minutes did she really begin to listen to what he was saying.

Owen Osborne talked about the Pièta, the representation of the Virgin with the dead body of her son. He began with a historical perspective, explaining that the image had first appeared in Byzantine art, and that it had been popularised by the
Revelations
of St Bridget of Sweden. Then his voice dropped and became more personal; Elayne found herself straining to hear his words. He spoke of the Virgin as a mother of a son, a mother who had given birth as any other mother, who had held her infant son in her arms, nourished him with her own milk, sung him to sleep, and loved him. And then . . . years later she had once again held him in her arms, the Saviour of the world, who had given up his life so that all men – every mother's son, and daughter too – might be reconciled to God. At what point, he asked, did that mother know what awaited her son? When she cradled his infant body in her arms, did she have foreknowledge of that other terrible embrace? Was her joy in his birth mingled with the pain of knowing his fate? He invited the congregation to go into the chapel after the service to contemplate the statue of the Virgin with her child, and to meditate upon it. ‘Say your rosaries, and think of that mother. Try to see that statue as a Pièta – for that mother with her baby was holding, as well, in a very real way, the body of her dead son, for that moment and for eternity.'

The service went on for a long time after that. There were more hymns, two more talks, and at one point most of the congregation went up into the chancel to kneel at the foot of a cross, and to kiss it. Bob would have hated that, Elayne thought with detachment. But most of what happened after Owen Osborne left the pulpit the first time was a blur to her. She sat completely still, not singing, not listening – thinking only of that mother holding her baby, holding her dead son. Bobby, she thought. Bobby.

She escaped during the singing of the final hymn, and walked around aimlessly for a while. Finally, inexorably, she was drawn back into the church, and into the chapel. Miss Barnes and Miss Vernon were kneeling there, rosary beads in their hands. Elayne stood for what seemed an hour, gazing at the statue in the niche. That lovely serene face, so full of love: was it also full of pain?

At last Alice completed her prayers, and pulled herself to her feet while Gwen finished. Elayne approached her tentatively; she was not surprised, after what Bob had told her about yesterday, that Alice regarded her with suspicion. ‘I'm . . . I'm so sorry to bother you, Miss Barnes,' she began, indicating the rosary beads in Alice's hands, ‘but do you think . . . could you teach me to do that?' Elayne looked up again at the statue; she was sure that the Virgin was smiling at her.

CHAPTER 12

    
Lord, thou knowest all my desire: and my groaning is not hid from thee.

Psalm 38.9

Shopping in a busy market town like Wymondham was difficult on any Saturday in the year; on the Saturday before Easter it was complete madness even to attempt such a thing. But David Middleton-Brown had very little choice on this particular day: the following Friday Lucy would be arriving, so this was his last chance to prepare for her visit.

He'd arisen quite early to get a start on cleaning the house. It had been all very well for Lucy to say, when she'd invited herself to stay, that he'd have more than six weeks to do the cleaning, but in the intervening time he'd spent all of his weekends in London. The task that he'd embarked upon of trying to save St John's, literally to keep the roof from falling in, had necessitated a number of meetings with church officials and various property developers. Not that he'd minded that, of course – the work was fascinating, if time-consuming, and he'd enjoyed the opportunity it had given him to spend more time with Lucy. Fortunately, the negotiations had now reached a point at which he could conduct them largely at a distance, by post and by phone. For by now his house was in a deplorable state, and his larder was even worse; this weekend of cleaning and shopping was in the way of a frantic last-ditch effort.

Mid-morning he took a break from the cleaning. Thinking that he'd have too many purchases to carry home comfortably, he got the car out, though the supermarket was only a short distance from home.

In the end it was hopeless. The car park of Somerfield, the huge supermarket on the edge of town, was absolutely jammed with cars, people, and white shopping trolleys, and David gave up in disgust. Instead, he drove into the town, down Market Street past the Elizabethan market hall. The town car parks were completely full, so he ended up in Church Street, in front of the Abbey church, where he could usually be sure of a place on the street.

The Abbey, with its striking double towers, looked beautiful in the spring sunshine, and David's spirits lifted as they invariably did when he saw it. It would be nice to spend Easter here, in the church that he loved.

He locked the car with care; it was a new (for him) automobile, a second-hand Volvo which he'd bought a few weeks ago. The weekly trips to London had at last taken their toll on his venerable Morris, a vehicle that had served him well during years of commuting the short distance from Wymondham into Norwich, and he'd parted from it with some regret.

Automatically, his steps turned up the path that led to the church. The Abbey Church of St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury had been on the site since 1107, first as a priory, then as an abbey, and finally as a parish church. David had first visited it as a young boy on a school trip; that visit had been the beginning of a life-long love affair with this church in particular, expanding eventually to include the love of church architecture and furnishings that was his chief avocational interest. He occasionally wished, in a reflective moment, that he had followed his heart to a career somewhere in that field, rather than giving in to his mother's pressure and opting for the safer and more secure alternative of the law. As it happened, the law had been a good choice; David made an excellent solicitor, with his incisive mind and solid instincts. Nevertheless the Church was still his first love, but –
Church Building
magazine's prompting aside – he knew that it was too late now to make a change.