The Judgement of Strangers (17 page)

I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that. It’s perfectly possible that there are rational explanations for everything we now class as paranormal. But we simply haven’t stumbled on them yet. In the meantime, the church can sometimes help people come to terms with their existence, if only because theology at least recognizes the existence of the supernatural. And the average scientist doesn’t. It’s a curious truth that modern materialism is far more dogmatic about its beliefs than modern theology …’

I broke off, aware that I was beginning to lecture Joanna. The truth was that she was making me nervous, and I was taking refuge in my classroom manner – just as I had with every woman who had ever attracted me; it is chillingly easy to repeat our mistakes. I glanced at her sitting opposite me, hunched over the glass in her hands, with a cigarette smouldering between her fingers. The harsh grey light revealed every detail of her without flattery; and I liked what I saw.

‘I’m wasting your time,’ she said abruptly. ‘But I don’t know who else to talk to about it.’

‘Of course you’re not wasting my time. Do you believe you’ve seen a ghost?’

Joanna half shrugged, half shivered; her body moved fluidly as water flexes to contain a ripple. ‘Not
seen
, exactly. But I’ve heard things.’

‘Has Toby, too?’

She shook her head. ‘It was the night before last. I – I don’t sleep well. You know the tower at the end of the house? My room’s there, the one below the top. I was going to have the top one but I didn’t like the atmosphere, and Toby thought it smelled of dry rot. Anyway, I was lying in bed and I heard a man walking. At least, I think I heard him. A man in the room above me. To and fro, to and fro.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing. I locked the door and covered my head with the bedclothes. After a while the noise stopped. Or maybe I dozed off … You’ll think I’m a coward. I suppose I am.’

‘It’s not cowardly to be afraid. Did you tell Toby in the morning?’

She stubbed out her cigarette, stabbing it in the ashtray. ‘He said I was imagining things.’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know – maybe I was. I made him fetch the key and we went upstairs together, to the top room. There was nothing there, of course. Just an empty room.’

I waited, looking at the rain.

‘You don’t believe me,’ she burst out. ‘You’re just like Toby.’

‘I believe you.’

She stared hard at me, as though trying to read in my face whether or not to trust me. At length she said, ‘Do you think rooms can have emotions? That they can be happy or sad?’

I remembered my uncomfortable experience in the chancel of St Mary Magdalene the previous summer, the evening when Rosemary had failed to pass on a message for me from Vanessa. ‘I’m not sure whether places have atmospheres or whether we project our emotions on to them and create an atmosphere.’

She looked disappointed. ‘The room was unhappy,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t know – maybe someone had been unhappy there. Toby said that poet used to sleep there – Vanessa told him. Or maybe it was me: maybe it was me who was unhappy.’

I waited for a moment, listening to the rain and looking at Joanna, whose head was bowed over her lap. Her neck and shoulders were bare and I would have liked to stroke them, for stroking is the simplest and the oldest way to bring comfort.

‘Joanna,’ I said slowly. ‘Would it help if –’

There was a rapping on the window. Joanna and I both looked up sharply. For an instant I felt a shaft of shame, as though I had been surprised in a guilty secret.

Standing on the terrace on the other side of the window were Toby and Rosemary, both of them streaked with rain, despite the umbrella which Toby carried. In his other hand was a nylon shopping bag containing what looked like a bottle. Rosemary, her blue eyes glowing, was even wetter than she had been before, her hair dark with water, plastered in tendrils over her skull. She held up what looked like a tobacco tin, tapped it with her finger and mouthed through the glass: ‘We’ve got it.’

Joanna smiled at Toby and made as if to open the window. He shook his head and pointed along the terrace: it was as clear as if he had spoken the words that he did not want to come in by the French windows because they were too wet. Then he and Rosemary had gone, and all we could see through the French windows was the grey sky and the green, rainswept garden.

‘I was beginning to think they’d got lost,’ I said to Joanna.

In the distance, a door slammed and Rosemary laughed. Joanna looked up. There was no trace of a smile left on her face.

‘
Please
, David,’ she whispered. ‘I need to talk to you without Toby knowing.’

Rain sluiced down the windscreen and thrummed on the long bonnet of the Jaguar. The car rolled over the gravel of the Vicarage drive and pulled up outside the front door. There were lights in some of the windows, earlier than usual because of the gloom.

‘Have you got time for a drink?’ Rosemary asked from the tiny back seat, sounding a good ten years older than she really was, apart from a quiver on the last word.

‘That’s very kind.’ Toby turned, including me in the conversation. ‘Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way?’

‘Not at all,’ I said, as I had to say.

The three of us struggled out of the car. Toby produced a black umbrella and held it over Rosemary and myself as we stumbled to the front door: it was a courteous gesture, but not one that kept much rain from us. I unlocked the front door and the three of us fell into the hall. Vanessa opened the kitchen door. Michael was behind her, sitting at the table with a plate in front of him.

‘I was about to send out a search party,’ she said, smiling. ‘Hello, Toby. Have you rescued them?’

‘Yes, he has,’ said Rosemary, still aspiring to a precarious adult dignity. ‘And now we’re going to reward him with a drink.’

Vanessa’s eyes sought mine and found no objection there. ‘Of course. Come into the sitting room. David, you and Rosemary look as if you need a change of clothes.’

Rosemary began to say something and then stopped. ‘Back in a moment,’ she said and then, flushing, she galloped upstairs with uncharacteristic clumsiness.

‘You’d better have this,’ Toby said to me, holding out the nylon shopping bag which contained the tobacco tin and the empty cider bottle.

‘What’s that?’ Vanessa asked.

Toby grinned at her. ‘Clues.’

I explained briefly to Vanessa and then went upstairs. While I was changing, I heard a Niagara of rushing water from the bathroom. I went downstairs and poked my head in the kitchen. Michael was working his way through an enormous bowl of apple crumble.

‘Everything all right?’

The boy’s mouth was full, so he nodded.

‘We’ll be in the sitting room. Come and join us if you like.’

Michael swallowed. ‘Thank you.’ He loaded his spoon with another mouthful of crumble. I shut the kitchen door. How did one talk to children? Something about Michael encouraged one to treat him as more grown-up than in fact he was: his stillness, perhaps, his wary eyes and his slow, grave smile.

I went into the sitting room. Vanessa was laughing at something that Toby had said, genuine, unforced amusement with her head thrown back. It was a long time since I had seen her so eager to be pleased.

‘We’re having gin and tonic,’ she said to me, ‘so I poured you one, too.’

I sat down and took a long swallow of my drink.

‘Vanessa’s been telling me about her book,’ Toby said. ‘Wonderful stuff. I can’t wait for my signed copy.’

Vanessa flushed. ‘There’s a long way to go before that happens.’

There were footsteps on the stairs and Rosemary came in. In her short time upstairs she had managed to transform herself. It looked as if she had bathed and washed her hair. She had changed into a short turquoise needlecord skirt and a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt. On her wrist were silver bangles, and she brought in a powerful cloud of perfume.

‘I could murder a gin and tonic,’ she said in an airy voice.

‘I beg your pardon –’ I began.

Vanessa was already on her feet. ‘I’ll get it, shall I?’ she said to no one in particular. As she turned towards the drinks trolley, her face averted from everyone in the room except me, she glared, wordlessly telling me not to interfere.

‘I like your bracelets,’ Toby said. ‘Jo’s looking for some like that.’

‘It’s a Moroccan
semaine
,’ Rosemary explained. ‘One bangle for each day of the week.’

While she was speaking, I watched Vanessa pour a teaspoonful of gin into a long glass and top it up with tonic water. She gave the glass to Rosemary, who raised it and said, ‘Cheers.’ If I had not known better, I would have thought Rosemary was already a little tipsy. But people can intoxicate you as well as alcohol.

Vanessa sat down beside me on the sofa. ‘By the way, there was a message for you while you were out. Doris phoned.’

‘But I saw her this evening at Lady Youlgreave’s.’

‘This was after you left. The old lady wants you to come and see her on Monday morning.’

‘It sounds like an order,’ I said, trying to make a joke of it, though Lady Youlgreave’s occasional outbreaks of imperiousness irritated me profoundly. ‘Did Doris say why?’

Vanessa hesitated. ‘It’s about the bird table, apparently. Lady Youlgreave wants to tell you – ah – who was feeding the birds.’

It was clear what Vanessa meant. She was a discreet and diplomatic woman, in many ways an ideal clergyman’s wife – ironically enough. Rosemary was asking Toby a question about the fuel consumption of his Jaguar, no mean achievement considering she had never shown any interest in cars before.

‘Has she told Doris who it was?’ I murmured.

Vanessa shook her head. ‘Doris sounded quite put out.’

‘I’ve no idea how much juice she uses.’ Toby wrinkled his eyebrows in a way that I suspected women might find attractive. ‘I just like driving the thing. What goes on under the bonnet is an enormous mystery to me.’ Turning to Vanessa, he went on, ‘Talking of mysteries, I wanted to ask you something about our poet. I feel quite possessive about him, you know – because he lived in the house.’

‘And died,’ Rosemary pointed out in a cool voice.

‘And died.’ Toby flashed a grin at her, then turned back to Vanessa. ‘Jo found a copy of that poem of his – “The Judgement of Strangers” – in an anthology she’s got. I read it last night and I just couldn’t make head or tail of it. What’s it meant to be about? What does the title mean?’

‘No one’s quite sure,’ Vanessa said. ‘I hope to find out when Lady Youlgreave lets me examine the relevant part of the journals. It’s generally taken to be a medieval trial scene. With a woman in the dock who’s being accused of everything from heresy to murder. And finally she’s condemned and burned at the stake.’

‘A bit like Shaw’s
St Joan
?’ said Toby, sounding like a bright undergraduate in a tutorial.

‘In a way. But it’s a narrative poem, remember, rather than drama. Like Keats’s “Eve of St Agnes” or Browning’s “Abt Vogler”. Youlgreave goes all mystical at the drop of a hat, and there’s a rather unpleasant theme of defilement running through it. The idea that when judgement is perverted, then everything falls apart. But it’s hard to know for certain. Francis is almost wilfully obscure.’

‘He probably found the title in
The Book of Common Prayer
,’ I said.

Vanessa’s face sharpened; she was a scholar
manqué
, a sort of intellectual terrier – wasted as a provincial publisher. ‘Where?’

‘I think it’s in the Service of Commination. I’ll see if I can find it.’

I went to the study to fetch a Prayer Book. When I came back, a moment later, Rosemary was on her feet. She emptied her glass and put it down on the table. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. ‘I’d better go and do some work.’ She slipped out, shutting the door behind her.

‘She’s working very hard at present,’ Vanessa said, as if apologizing for the abruptness of Rosemary’s departure. ‘Oxbridge entrance, next term. But you wouldn’t think this was her summer holiday, would you?’

‘Here it is, “
A COMMINATION OR DENOUNCING OF GOD’S ANGER AND JUDGEMENTS AGAINST SINNERS
”. There’s a list of curses. Rather like the Ten Commandments. “Cursed is he that perverteth the judgement of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow.”’

‘Where does it actually come from?’ Vanessa asked.

‘It might be from one of the Ash Wednesday services of the Middle Ages. But originally it probably comes from the Old Testament. I can look it up, if you like.’

‘Please.’ Vanessa smiled at Toby. ‘You must find this rather tedious.’

‘Not at all,’ he said politely. ‘But do remember to tell me what the poem means when you find out.’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing the house, too – especially Francis Youlgreave’s room. How are you getting on with the swimming pool?’

‘They could have it ready by next week.’ Toby glanced out of the window. ‘All we need is the weather for it.’

He finished his drink. Vanessa offered him another, but he shook his head. ‘I really should be going, thank you. I don’t like leaving Joanna alone for too long.’ Despite his words, he stayed in his chair, looking from Vanessa to me. ‘Actually, there’s something I wanted to tell you,’ he said slowly. ‘And this might be a good moment. You remember that I mentioned that Joanna hasn’t been well? Well, in fact, the trouble was mainly psychological. Our mother died – it was an overdose, actually – and poor Jo was the one who found the body.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Vanessa said, ‘for you both.’

He smiled at her. ‘Afterwards, she had a sort of nervous breakdown.’ He hesitated. ‘Obviously, it’s not something she generally likes known. But I thought I’d better mention it. If only in case she sometimes acts a little strangely. So you’ll know why.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I really must go.’

Vanessa and I saw him out. In the hall, I called upstairs to tell Rosemary that Toby was leaving but there was no answer.

Behind Toby’s back, Vanessa mouthed a single word:
sulking
.

‘Don’t bother,’ Toby said. ‘I don’t want to break her concentration.’

We watched him skipping like a dancer through the rain to the shelter of the E-type. The Jaguar’s engine roared. As the car slipped out of our drive, Vanessa said, ‘It’s not a car, is it? It’s a phallic symbol on wheels.’