Read A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09) Online
Authors: Rebecca Shaw
Caroline rested a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘Lie still for
a moment, Bryn, till you come round properly. You’re going to have an almighty bruise and a lump. Could we have an ice pack or frozen peas or something, Georgie, to keep the swelling down. Don’t worry, Bryn, you’re going to be all right. You must have cracked your head on the corner of the cupboard as you tripped.’
Dicky looked at Georgie and saw a warning in her eyes.
‘Too many whiskies, that’s the trouble with him. I did tell him.’ She somehow got up from the chair and walked as quickly as she could out of the room. Jimmy caught her eye as she passed him and winked. She squeezed his fingers in thanks.
Alan, remembering that he’d left Trish to manage in the bar on her own, disappeared. Bryn sat up. Dicky still didn’t speak, but he did see the bat lying just where he’d dropped it.
‘I’m sure you should go to hospital. You could have it X-rayed. I can’t tell whether or not you’ve cracked your skull.’ Caroline helped Bryn into a chair.
Dicky moved closer to the bat.
Georgie came back with some ice cubes in a plastic bag. ‘Will this do?’
‘Splendid.’ Caroline applied the ice bag to the side of Bryn’s head and he winced.
‘That’s painful!’ He tried to jerk his head away but even that hurt.
Dicky got the toe of his shoe to the bat and edged it under the coffee table. ‘Got to get back to Scouts.’ He sidled out of the room, leaving Georgie with Jimmy and Caroline and her patient.
Jimmy said he’d better be going, or he wouldn’t get another pint in before closing time.
‘I’m not. I’m going back to Glebe House as soon as maybe. A night’s sleep is all I need. Feel better in the morning. In fact, I feel better already. This ice is doing the trick.’ He took it off his head to rearrange it and winced. ‘Wow! Some cupboard. I don’t remember falling.’
‘Perhaps you will tomorrow when your head’s settled down. I’ll walk with you to Glebe House. Tell me when you’re ready. I still think you should go to hospital, though.’
Bryn said no and tried standing up. ‘There you are, you see, you’re too cautious, Dr Harris, too cautious. Sorry to have bothered you.’
‘That’s OK.’
Georgie said nothing at all except, ‘Thanks.’
But she had plenty to say when she walked round to Dicky’s house after she’d closed up and she knew he’d be home from Scouts. She let herself in with her key and found him standing with one foot on the bottom step of his spiral staircase, as though making up his mind to go to bed.
‘Dicky, love!’ Georgie, arms wide, intended kissing him but Dicky was having none of it.
He backed away from her. ‘No, Georgie. No.’
‘It was all nothing what you saw, it was the whisky talking.’
‘I’m not a fool.’
‘I know you’re not.’
‘Don’t, Dicky, please don’t.’
‘Don’t be upset by what I saw? What else can I be? Eh? What else? You stood there in
his arms
, the man who tried to murder me. Or had you forgotten? I’ve watched him this last few days trying to get closer and closer to you, and he has, Georgie, he
has
. You’ve let him.’
She knew she was guilty of that. ‘You shouldn’t have hit him like that, though, you know. You could have killed him, then where would the two of us be? Thank God you didn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being in prison after all we’ve been through.’ Then a thought occurred to her. ‘How did you know to come right then?’
Dicky looked away. He fiddled with an ornament on the mantelpiece. Then he said quietly, ‘Alan doesn’t like Bryn, you see, but he and me, we’re mates, so he rang me on my mobile, on a thought-I-ought-to-know basis. He was damn right too, I did want to know. I’d do the same all over again. I’ve threatened to kill him and I will because he’s not having you. I had thought you loved me.’ He turned to face her to see her reaction.
She did love him. She did. She must have been crazy this last week. Hang what the village thinks, I’m staying the night with him. ‘Dicky! Love!’ She held wide her arms and this time he came into them and hugged her tight.
She was ready for off before seven the next morning but hadn’t bargained for Peter’s early-morning run. She stepped out of Dicky’s door, shut it quietly behind her, went down the garden path and set off down Church Lane
to find herself facing Peter as he turned out of the lych-gate after saying his early-morning prayers in the church. He made a handsome figure in his old college rugby shirt and shorts. She could have sworn that briefly there appeared to be a halo of light round his fair hair.
‘Good morning, Georgie, another beautiful day.’
‘It is indeed, Rector.’ Not a word or a hint of criticism but Georgie felt shabby. She knew those penetrating blue eyes of his had seen how she felt. He might not have said anything but, after all he’d done to preserve her standing in the village, she’d let him down and no mistake. Well, there’d have to be an ending to all this hole-in-the-corner sneaking about. She’d have that divorce from Bryn and she and Dicky would have things put right by a register office wedding, though she’d have loved Peter to marry them in the church. At the flick of a net curtain to her left she knew Grandmama Charter-Plackett had watched Peter greeting her. Damn and blast!
Linda, of course, knew the whole story, having listened to it until after midnight, with Alan describing in full his part in the night’s happenings. She couldn’t wait for Mrs Jones to come to work. Straight up on nine she was there, unaware of the gossip Linda was about to impart. Linda opened the steel door to the post office section and beckoned her for a word.
‘What’s up? I’m in a hurry.’
‘You’ll never guess what happened in the Royal Oak last night.’
Mrs Jones’s eyebrows worked overtime. ‘What?’
They were so absorbed in their gossip that neither of them noticed Jimbo had returned to the front of the Store
and was busy rearranging the cards on the Village Voice notice board.
‘Your Alan
rang
him?’
‘On his mobile.’
‘The miracles of modern science.’
‘Exactly. So he arrived …’
Neither of them noticed that Jimbo had found some writing pads on the stationery counter in need of straightening.
‘Without saying a word he went behind the counter, picked up the cricket bat Georgie keeps there in case of trouble and went straight through to the lounge and fetched Bryn one.’
Mrs Jones almost fell from her perch with shock. ‘Dicky hit Bryn with a cricket bat! I don’t believe it, wait till I tell Vince, he won’t half laugh.’
‘Well, he did, as true as I’m here. Course Alan wasn’t right behind him so he didn’t know what they were up to when Dicky burst in, but it must have been something serious, mustn’t it, otherwise why hit him with it? Out for the count he was. They got Dr Harris to see to him and she wanted him to go to hospital but he wouldn’t.’
‘He should’ve.’
By now Jimbo was openly listening.
‘He should, but he didn’t and Dr Harris saw him home.’
Reluctantly they had to put an end to their conversation as the rush of mothers from the school had begun. Jimbo went to the till, Mrs Jones to the mail order office and Linda to opening up the post office and sorting out her cash for the morning’s business.
Gradually the story of Dicky’s foolhardy bravery
infiltrated the village houses and spread via the milkman and the postman as far as the outlying districts. If Georgie had hoped that Caroline’s idea of Bryn having hit his head on a cupboard as he slipped would carry the day she was to be sadly disillusioned. What was worse, Grandmama Charter-Plackett, making her early morning call at the Store before departing for Culworth, let out by mistake what she’d seen at seven that morning.
Her nose pressed to the grille, Linda said, ‘So the Rector knows they’ve been … you know …
‘I didn’t say that. I said the Rector spoke to her just as she left Dicky’s cottage, that’s all. Nothing more. For all I know they could have sat up talking all night.’
Linda stared into the distance, lost in thought. ‘Given the choice, I know who I’d prefer.’
‘Linda! Really. What would your Alan think to that.’
At this precise moment Alan was doing a lot of thinking as, out of Dicky’s hearing, he was getting his comeuppance from Georgie. ‘I may have known you a long time but you have nothing to do with my private life and I won’t stand for you putting your pennyworth in. Do you hear me? If he’d killed Bryn last night how would you have felt? Tell me that.’
‘I didn’t know he was going to do that, did I? It’s not right, you and Bryn, he’ll be …’
‘What’s right and what’s wrong is my business, so you keep your long nose out of it in future and leave me to sort things out for myself. Right. Or else you’ll be out on your ear.’
Alan blenched. Lose his job. Get thrown out. He knew nothing else but bar work with Bryn and Georgie.
Nothing at all. Briefly he saw destitution looming, little Lewis homeless, and Linda looking to him for answers and him having none. Hurriedly he declared he would not interfere again and Georgie was free to do as she wished.
Grimly Georgie replied, tapping his chest with her finger as she did so, ‘Thought that might remind you where your loyalties lie. Remember, he tripped and caught his head on a cupboard.’ She saw the look of guilt in his eyes. ‘You told Linda, didn’t you? You did. I don’t believe it. Blast it, I might as well have put an advert in the
Culworth Gazette
. That’s it, then.’ She threw her hands up in despair.
Alan cringed. Anything but that. ‘I-I-I’m out, then?’
Georgie saw how cruelly she’d behaved towards someone who didn’t deserve it. Poor inadequate Alan. It wasn’t his fault. Only hers, for letting that thieving, conniving louse persuade her to … ‘No, Alan, you’re not out, but I warn you, one more piece of interference and you will be. Lock, stock and barrel. Understood?’
Alan nodded in gratitude. He’d have licked her shoes if she’d asked him to. He knew Linda would have told everyone she met, even though he’d said keep it to yourself. She was like that, was Linda. Well, he’d tell her at teatime just how close to losing their livelihood her chattering to customers had brought them and might still if she didn’t watch her Ps and Qs. In future he wouldn’t warn anyone about anything and then he couldn’t be in trouble. Women! God save him from bossy women.
Caroline admired her mug. ‘These are very attractive. I like the colour and the picture. He doesn’t hang about when he has a new project in hand, does he?’
Harriet had to laugh. ‘No, he does not. You know Jimbo, anything new and he moves heaven and earth to achieve it. That’s what makes him so successful.’
‘Which he definitely is. Let’s hope Bryn’s new project does as well. More business in the village can’t be anything but a plus.’
As Harriet offered Caroline a biscuit she said, ‘These are new. I’m thinking of selling biscuits mail order, I want to know what you think.’
The slightly misshapen biscuit, misshapen as in homemade, was a tempting golden mound of cinnamon and … and … syrup or was it honey? It smelled delicious and lived up to its promise when she bit into it. ‘This is gorgeous! Absolutely gorgeous. How do you do it?’
Harriet showed her delight on her face. ‘Trial and error.
It’s an old recipe I found in a book of Mother’s when I sorted through her belongings. It’s purported to have been handed down from the seventeenth century, but I daren’t put that on the packet as I’m not totally sure it is.’
‘Well, it’s lovely. A real treat.’
‘Good. Wait till Bryn tries one. He’s in and out of our door like a yo-yo at the moment, bursting with new ideas for his tourists. Let’s hope it all comes off.’
‘He’s in Bath checking out hotels for his tours.’
‘So he’s well enough to travel, then?’
‘I went to see him yesterday and he appears to have recovered. Still all black and blue but the swelling’s gone down. It was an almighty bump he had.’
‘Not surprising. I’d have an almighty bump if someone had swiped me with a cricket bat.’
Caroline, in the act of picking up her mug, paused, put it back down again and asked, ‘Who hit him with a cricket bat?’
‘Thought you’d have realised. It was Dicky.’
‘
Dicky hit Bryn with a cricket bat
?’
‘He did.’
‘So …’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought he’d tripped and hit his head on the corner of the cupboard. I said so and no one denied it, but I knew there were undercurrents I couldn’t pick up on. So that was it.’
‘Also my dear mother-in-law saw Georgie coming out of Dicky’s cottage the following morning.’
‘No!’
‘And she saw Georgie meet Peter going out for his run.’
‘He’s never told me.’
‘And they’ve been away for a weekend together.’
‘Bryn and Georgie …’
‘No, of course not. Georgie and Dicky.’
‘I see. So why did Dicky hit Bryn?’
‘That’s what no one knows.’
Caroline picked up her coffee and sipped it while she thought. ‘Harriet! We really mustn’t speculate, must we, that’s how rumours start.’
‘No, but isn’t it fun?’
Caroline had to laugh. ‘Yes. You know there’s trouble about the dig, do you?’
‘Can’t work in a village store without hearing all the rumours.’
‘Everywhere Peter goes he’s being blamed for it when he couldn’t stop it if he tried to. It’s not on church land.’
‘He shouldn’t have offered to have a service and burial. That’s what’s got under everyone’s skin. I wonder …’
‘What?’
‘I wonder, should I tell you that there’s a protest meeting tonight.’
‘Where?’
‘At Willie Biggs’s.’
‘He hasn’t told us.’
‘Well, no, I don’t expect he has.’
Caroline became indignant when it occurred to her that Sylvia had not said anything either. ‘Sylvia hasn’t said a word to
me
.’
‘Apparently she’s furious and is refusing to have anything to do with it.’
‘Oh, dear. Are you going?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘Of course not.’
‘What time?’
‘Er … well,
I
didn’t tell you, right? Half past seven.’
‘Right.’
Sylvia’s opposition to Willie’s determination to challenge the dig and the burial had boiled up inside her until she could no longer hold her peace, so two hours before the meeting was to begin she finally told him how she felt. ‘You’ve known all along I agreed with the Rector, all along, and you’ve the gall to decide to hold the meeting here. Well, I’m sorry, Willie, but I’m leaving you to it.’
In a soft, wheedling tone Willie said, ‘Sylvia! Now, this isn’t like you.’
‘Don’t take that tone with me, because it won’t get you your own way.’
‘But I need help with the refreshments and things, and arranging the chairs and …’
‘I’m quite sure you’re perfectly capable of seeing to all that. You’re not helpless. You managed for years on your own.’
‘Sylvia, please!’
‘You can wheedle all you like, I’m not staying for the meeting. Wild horses wouldn’t make me.’
Willie watched her pick up her handbag and cardigan. When she went to the drawer where she kept her car keys, he knew she meant business. ‘You don’t mean you’re really going out while the meeting’s on.’
Those fine grey eyes of Sylvia’s, which had attracted him to her from the first, looked at him with scorn. ‘I have my principles. How can I be here? If I am, it means I’m in agreement with you, which I am not. And never will be. I honestly can’t see why it’s wrong to dig up the remains and give them a decent Christian burial. It’s their right.’
‘Anyone would think I hadn’t got a mind of my own. Well, I have. I won’t oppose him on this.’
‘But he won’t be here; he doesn’t know about it.’
Sylvia tapped the side of her nose. ‘Don’t you be too sure about that. He sees and knows more than we think.’
Willie cringed at the thought of a confrontation with Peter, for whom he’d always had the deepest respect. Goosepimples broke out all over him at the prospect.
‘Sylvia! You haven’t told him. Have you?’
‘I may be against you, Willie, but I wouldn’t do a trick like that. I need an apology from you for thinking such a thing.’
Willie realised how much he’d hurt her but he felt it counted for nothing in comparison with how he felt about her withdrawing her support from him. ‘Sorry. But it’s not like you, isn’t this …’
‘I’m sorry too, more sorry than you realise, but I will
not
stay for the meeting.’
Thoroughly cowed by her adamant refusal to give in to him, Willie asked sadly, ‘Where will you be?’
‘In Culworth at the pictures.’
Horrified, Willie stuttered, ‘All by yourself?’
Sylvia nodded.
‘Do I get a kiss before you go?’
Sylvia studied his woebegone face. ‘Very well.’ She gave him the merest peck, conceding in her own mind that she’d make it up to him when she got back.
At exactly eight o’clock Peter knocked at Willie’s door
and walked in as he always did in village houses, calling out, ‘It’s Peter from the Rectory,’ as he entered.
He was greeted by stunned silence. To a man the conspirators couldn’t meet his eye, but he looked at each of them and said a cordial ‘Good evening, everyone. Sorry I’ve arrived late.’ Several of them blushed with embarrassment, others found their shoes more interesting than meeting Peter’s eyes. They were occupying easy chairs, dining chairs and in some instances stools, which Willie had collected from various rooms in the cottage. The small living room meant they were shoulder to shoulder in as much of a circle as Willie could devise. No one moved a muscle.
Willie, from years of treating him with deference, leapt to his feet and offered him his stool.
‘Thank you, Willie, but I’ll perch on the end of the table if you don’t mind.’ Sitting there gave him an advantage, which crouching on a low stool wouldn’t have done. ‘Please continue. Just sorry I arrived late.’
Naturally Peter’s arrival had taken the wind out of their sails and no one had the courage to continue. Finally Grandmama Charter-Plackett spoke. ‘You know why we’re here, Rector?’ Peter nodded. ‘We’ve all agreed we don’t want the dig and we certainly don’t think it quite right for you to be supporting it by offering burial. Already we’ve had a fire, which could have got out of control if it hadn’t been for Willie’s swift action, and we all dread what might happen next. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. They’ve only scratched the surface so far and found a few bones, but we want it closed up now and perhaps when they’ve done that you could say a few words appropriate for the circumstances and then we can forget about it.’
Jimmy spoke up. ‘Look! Gilbert would dig anywhere whatever if he thought he could find something of value. Look at the trouble we had over the Roman ruins when we wanted to hold the Show. He didn’t care a button that all our hard work would be in jeopardy. All he could think of was what he might find. He just gets carried away, he does. Also my Sykes knows a thing or two about that Dell. He won’t go anywhere near it. Wild horses won’t get him in there, not even if he thinks there’s rabbits there. Animals is wiser than you think.’
There was a general nodding of heads at Jimmy’s last statement.
Arthur Prior from Wallop Down Farm added his opinion. ‘Two of my granddaughters have come down with violent attacks of chickenpox. They’ve blisters the size of a two-pence piece and they’re very poorly. I just hope to God it is chickenpox and nothing more sinister. They’ve very high temperatures.’
Gasps of horror could be heard all round the room. A couple of the weekenders who’d been persuaded to stay on for the meeting voiced their protests too. ‘There you go! You see, and this is only the start. Heaven alone knows what might happen next. Please, Rector, will you stop it?’
‘I can’t.’
Vince Jones had his say. ‘You could, sir, please, have a word with Mr Fitch. We’re all so afraid. They’ve got to stop.’
Arthur Prior got to his feet. ‘I propose we make a deputation to Mr Fitch and go up to see him. The
Rector’s quite right. He can’t stop the dig but Mr Fitch could, and he’s been much more amenable lately, so he might listen.’ He sat down again, feeling that he’d exonerated Peter from any blame, but the others would have none of it.
Miss Senior’s woolly hat bobbed again as she shuddered and, with a nigh hysterical tone in her voice, said, ‘Think what might ’appen if they’s buried in our own churchyard. I shan’t fancy finding myself next to ’em when my time comes, believe me.’
A muttered ‘hear! hear!’ came from most of the people squeezed into Willie’s tiny living room. A silence fell while they all looked to Peter for support.
‘Those bones have been there for over six centuries already, and for most of that time they’ve been there unknown to anyone. Can any of you give me a sound reason for suspecting the bones are responsible for anything at all, either evil or good?’
‘Don’t think reason comes into it.’ This from a weekender who guessed he was about to be persuaded by Peter that their protest was foolish.
Willie spoke up. ‘Well, Rector, we know it doesn’t make sense but it’s how we all
feel
. It’s not right and we want it stopped.’
‘I’m afraid you haven’t my support. I am still willing to see their remains decently buried in hallowed ground and so, too, should you be. They could be your ancestors, don’t forget.’
Grandmama Charter-Plackett said firmly, ‘You’re a clergyman and I can see where you’re coming from, but it won’t wash with us. We want it stopped and I for one offer myself as a member of the delegation.’
‘Who’s willing to go with me?’
When it came to the point of standing up to Mr Fitch there was a marked reluctance on everyone’s part to volunteer. In the end Arthur Prior said he would go with her and Peter realised he’d lost the debate. ‘I’m certain in my own mind that Mr Fitch will say he wants the dig to go ahead, and quite rightly so. There’s no harm in it, none at all, take my word for it.’
But they wouldn’t be moved. They even begged Peter to head the deputation but he refused. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be at one with you about this, but there we are. I assure you, you are worrying unnecessarily about the situation and I have to say I’m disappointed in you. I thought you would have had more Christian understanding in you than to deny people a respectable burial. I’ll leave you to it.’
Peter turned to leave but not before Miss Senior had said, ‘And what about the chickenpox, a high temperature and sinister? What about that? I think it’s very suspicious.’
There were grunts of agreement from almost everyone in the room.
‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’ Peter left, feeling ashamed of them all and especially of Willie, of all people, spearheading it.
Despite high words between Mrs Charter-Plackett and Mr Fitch when he met with them in his office, he refused to withdraw his approval of the dig and both Arthur Prior and she were left in no doubt that their interference was nothing less than idiotic, and they weren’t to come bothering him with prejudices and complaints more suited to peasants.