Cast the First Stone

by Margaret Thornton

  Fiona had just finished serving a middle-aged man and his wife who sometimes came in of an evening for a half of bitter and a port and lemon – as much for the company as the drinks, she guessed – and she glanced towards the next customer waiting at the bar. Her mouth dropped open a little in surprise and she heard herself give a tiny gasp, but she quickly recovered and smiled at the customer. It was the Reverend Simon Norwood, without his clerical collar now, she noticed. He was wearing a blue shirt with his tweed jacket and a colourful tie in a floral design.

  ‘Hello there,’ she greeted him. ‘We meet again.’ She didn’t say that she was surprised to see him. After all, why shouldn’t he visit a local public house if he wished to do so, just as he chose to read books that were not of a religious content?

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, smiling at her in a very friendly way. It was possibly he who looked the more surprised. ‘I suppose I could ask you what you are doing here, but it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’ He laughed. ‘You’re pulling pints! It’s clear that you’re a young lady of many talents. I expect you are just as surprised to see me here, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, not really,’ she answered. ‘It’s none of my business anyway, is it? You have a right to socialize anywhere you wish, and I’m sure this is as good a way as any to get to know the local people.’

  ‘Quite so,’ he nodded. ‘That’s the main idea. I like them to realize that their rector is just an ordinary sort of bloke who can meet with them on their own ground. Mind you, not everyone sees it like that. There were a few raised eyebrows when it got round the parish that the rector was not averse to knocking back a pint.’

  ‘So what?’ Fiona laughed. ‘Didn’t Jesus change the water into wine? That’s a cliché of course, I know, in defence of anyone who likes to have a drink. And didn’t he also spend time with publicans and sinners? Not that I’m suggesting that the good people of this town are sinners!’

  ‘Probably no more than anyone else,’ remarked the rector. ‘I see you are conversant with the Bible?’

  ‘Well, sort of,’ she answered, a trifle evasively. ‘I remember it from Sunday school days and from when I was quite a lot younger. I must admit I haven’t been to church much lately . . . Anyway, what are you drinking?’

  ‘Just a half of bitter,’ he relied. ‘No, go on; I’ll go mad. I’ll have a pint of Tetley’s, a good old Yorkshire brew. And what about you? Could you possibly join me for a drink? You’re not stuck behind the bar all evening, are you?’

  ‘No; actually I’m just about due for a break. I’ve been here since seven o’ clock.’ It was now half past nine. She called to Joe, the publican, at the other end of the bar. ‘Is it OK if I take my break now, Joe? I’m just going to have a drink with . . . er, Mr Norwood.’

  ‘That’s fine, Fiona,’ he replied. ‘Hello there, Simon. Good to see you. Go and sit down and I’ll fetch them over to you. What is it now?’

  ‘A pint of Tetley’s, and I’ll have a gin and orange,’ said Fiona. She glanced at Simon. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘The pleasure is all mine.’ He smiled, getting out his money. He joined her a few moments later at a corner table.

  ‘Please call me Simon,’ he said. ‘Most people do, except for a few diehards who seem to think it’s disrespectful to call the vicar by his Christian name. And you won’t mind, will you, if I call you Fiona?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she smiled. ‘Thanks for the drink, and . . . well . . . cheers!’ She lifted her small glass and clinked it gently against Simon’s larger tankard. ‘I’m just working here part time,’ she explained. ‘Three nights a week, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday at the moment. As you can see we’re not very busy tonight.’ It was Tuesday. ‘It’s only my second week here so I’m still sort of finding my feet. Joe and Ivy are very good to work for and it’s . . . well, a respectable sort of pub.’

  ‘It’s a good way of meeting people,’ Simon remarked, ‘although you meet quite a cross section of people in the library, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but a lot of the folk who come in are somewhat elderly. They get a younger crowd in here and married couples, and quite a few small parties now they’ve started doing bar snacks. I must admit though that my main reason is to earn some extra money. My librarian’s salary is quite good – I can’t complain – but I’m saving up to buy a place of my own, you see; a flat or a small house.’

  ‘Where are you living now?’ enquired Simon.

  ‘I’ve got quite a nice flat in Cedar Avenue, the top storey of a house. It’s fully furnished, so that was a help, although I do have some furniture in storage back in Leeds, bits and pieces that were in my gran’s house. That’s why I moved here, you see, after Gran died. There was nothing to keep me there any longer and I knew that I was ready for a change of scenery . . . and everything.’

  ‘You don’t have any other relations in Leeds then?’ asked Simon.

  ‘No, my parents both died in an accident ten years ago; that’s when I went to live with my gran. We got on very well together and I was quite heartbroken when she died. She was ninety though, so I really couldn’t have hoped to have her much longer.’

  ‘It’s always sad though, isn’t it, when a loved one dies?’ He smiled consolingly. ‘So, as you say, you are having a fresh start?’

  ‘That’s right. Gran left me what little money she had – not a great deal – and the house she lived in was rented, as was my parents’ house. Gran used to say to me, “Make sure you buy a little place of your own when you can. There’s no sense in paying rent all your life like I’ve done.” So that’s what I intend to do eventually.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Simon. ‘My house is provided for me, of course, but most clergymen try to put something away for the future, when it becomes necessary to buy a place of one’s own. I’ve heard some say that God will provide and that one shouldn’t worry about the future. But I’m a great believer in the saying that God helps those who help themselves. A cliché, I know, but there’s a good deal of sense in it.’

  Fiona thought to herself that Simon was a very sensible sort of clergyman, a far cry from the vicar she remembered back in Leeds when she was in her teens, at the church where her sanctimonious parents had worshipped. She dismissed the unwelcome memory hurriedly as she heard Simon asking her if she would like to come along to St Peter’s church.

  ‘I don’t believe in hounding people,’ he said, ‘although I must, of course encourage folk to give the church a try if they’re so inclined. I think you would find that most members of the congregation would make you welcome. There are a few, though, I must admit, who are rather set in their ways; you get them in all churches. They don’t like change. I met with quite a bit of opposition when I moved here six years ago. So did my wife when she took over some of the jobs that the ladies of the Mothers’ Union had been doing . . . You knew that I’d been married, did you, Fiona?’ he asked.

  She nodded in assent. ‘Yes, so I believe. Your wife died, didn’t she? I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘We’d been in the parish for about three years when Millicent developed bronchitis, which turned to pneumonia. It was very sudden. But she’d never been strong; not in her body, I mean, although she could be quite a determined lady.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But life has to go on; another cliché but it’s true. So . . . do you think you might give it a try a St Peter’s?’

  ‘Yes, I will. I’ll come next Sunday morning,’ agreed Fiona. ‘I’m a confirmed member of the Church of England but, as I said, I’m afraid I’ve lapsed somewhat of late.’

  ‘You’re not alone in that,’ said Simon.

  She was thoughtful for a moment. ‘I suppose, deep down, I do still believe,’ she said. ‘I’ve not always been a very good person, though.’

  ‘Then join the club,’ said Simon, laughing. ‘We’ve all fallen short of God’s standards at one time or another. None of us are perfect, but He’s still there for us. As I’ve told you, though, I don’t believe in preaching to people when I’
m not in the pulpit. I’m glad you’ve said you’ll come though, Fiona.’ He reached out his hand and, very gently and fleetingly, covered her own.

  And that was how it started, slowly at first. She attended the morning service at St Peter’s the following Sunday, sitting near the back as unobtrusively as she could. The woman next to her in the pew introduced herself as Joan Tweedale and told her that her husband was the organist. A nice friendly woman, Fiona thought, so that was a good start.

  Her eyes were drawn inevitably to the rector at the front of the chancel and then in the pulpit as he preached about the parable of the Good Samaritan.

  Simon stood at the door to shake hands with the folk as they departed, and he introduced her to Arthur Bayliss, the church warden, who seemed quite jolly and friendly. His wife, Ethel, by contrast, appeared a little frosty and, possibly, a mite disapproving? Fiona reflected that perhaps her cherry red coat with the fur collar and the matching Cossack style hat could be considered a little daring for Sunday morning worship, together with her knee-high boots with silver heels. And, of course, her lipstick and nail varnish matched her coat.

  She was not surprised when Simon called in the library to see her towards the end of the week. He invited her out for an evening meal at a country inn a few miles away. They drove there in his Morris Minor car. It was the first of many outings. Simon’s day off from his parish duties which he insisted on – all clergymen, he maintained, needed a day off from the job – was Wednesday, which was also Fiona’s day off from the library.

  They explored the countryside around Aberthwaite – the sleepy villages and the other market towns, ruined abbeys and castles – and they walked in the foothills and the wooded vales of the limestone fells.

  Fiona stayed on the fringes of the congregation. Her work prevented her from taking part in the occasional social afternoon for ladies of the parish; neither was she eligible for the Mothers’ Union, and the Youth group was rather too young. But she was contented as she was. She and Simon found themselves to be more and more compatible and, as time went by, very much in love.

  Their love did not reach its fulfilment until their honeymoon, which was everything that Fiona could have wished for. Simon was a considerate lover, both tender and passionate in turn. He had, of course, been married before, although, reading between the lines, she had gathered that it had not been an ideal marriage. She had known, therefore, that he would not be lacking in experience. He must have realized that she, too, was not entirely lacking in the knowledge of sexual matters. But he had not commented on this – neither would she have expected him to do so – and to the joy of both of them they found that they were perfectly attuned to one another.

  As far as Simon was concerned her past remained a closed book. She learnt week by week, as she attended the church, of God’s forgiveness; and there were times when she felt His love and compassion surrounding her as she grew closer to the God she had disregarded for so long.

  But what of Simon’s forgiveness? she pondered. If he were to know about all that had happened to her so long ago – or so it seemed, although it was only fourteen years – would he be so ready to understand and to overlook the past?

  Five

  Mary Dalton was thirty-seven and Wilfred thirty-nine when their first and only child, Fiona, came along in the May of 1934, a child they had begun to despair of ever being born, as they had been married for ten years. They both loved her with a passion that was all consuming.

  ‘She is all I’ve ever wanted,’ Mary was often to remark. ‘Such a precious gift, isn’t she, Wilfred, given to us so late in life?’

  ‘Aye, she is that!’ Wilfred agreed. ‘We must do everything we can for her, Mary. Our little treasure. She must have all the chances in life that we have never had. Just think; she might go to that training college near here.’ There was a teachers’ training college not far away in Beckett’s Park.

  ‘Or even to that university we pass on the tram every time we go to town,’ added Mary. ‘She might not want to be a teacher. She might be a doctor . . . No, p’raps not; I don’t know as I’d be right keen on that idea. Or a solicitor or . . . what do they call ’em? – a chartered accountant.’ Their dreams for her were manifold, the sort of careers they had never been able to aspire to themselves.

  Mary and her brother, Eddie, had had no choice but to start work in their early teenage years, as their mother had been widowed at an early age. Mary had left school at fourteen and had gone to work in a shop, ending up, before she left to get married, in charge of a counter at the big Woolworths in Leeds. Her brother, Eddie, two years older, had started work at a woollen mill near the city centre as a ‘bobbin ligger and taker off’. He had done quite well at the job and eventually became an overseer in charge of a number of looms. Their mother, Annie Jowett – Fiona’s dearly loved grandmother – had worked there too, until the rheumatism in her hands had forced her to retire.

  Likewise, Fiona’s father had worked from an early age. He, too, was employed at one of the many woollen mills in the area, in the warehouse though, not on the factory floor.

  Wilfred and Mary, on their marriage, had started to rent a small house in Headingley, just off the main road leading from the city centre. Wilfred insisted on Mary stopping work after they were married, as did many self-respecting husbands. He considered it was his job and his alone to be the breadwinner. Besides, they were hoping that before long they would have a family. This did not happen, but they were still contented with their simple life, then overjoyed when the longed-for baby arrived. Now their hopes and aspirations were all centred upon Fiona. Wilfred didn’t seem to consider it ironic that he should want his daughter to have a career of her own, something he would never have wanted for his wife.

  Their parish church was quite near to where they lived in Headingley, on the outskirts of Leeds. Mary and Wilfred attended spasmodically, but they had always insisted – as did most parents at the time – on Fiona going to Sunday school. She had attended regularly from being four years old.

  It was around the time of Fiona’s thirteenth birthday that a new vicar arrived in the parish. It was 1947 and the war had been over for two years. He was soon seen to be a ‘new broom’ if ever there was one. The state of affairs at the church – the services and the church life in general – had lapsed considerably during the last years of the previous vicar’s incumbency. The numbers in the congregation at both morning and evening services were at times no more than twenty or so, and a general feeling of apathy had prevailed.

  The Reverend Amos Cruikshank, therefore, was seen at first as a breath of fresh air. He was thirty-seven years old, by no means handsome – rather short of stature and portly, in fact, with wispy gingerish hair, a beaked nose and horn-rimmed spectacles – but his voice and manner were commanding. Mary and Wilfred had decided to go to hear him preach his first sermon and had to admit they were very impressed. The numbers in the congregation rose steadily; and it was the same in the Sunday school, which had previously been struck by a similar feeling of indifference.

  The church, however, in the past had enjoyed quite an active social life – with whist drives, dances, concerts and the like – until members at these events had, likewise, dwindled. A monthly whist drive still took place, though, in the church hall, for anyone who enjoyed the game, and not just members of the congregation. There were also dances and social evenings from time to time for such occasions as Harvest, Hallowe’en, and Christmas.

  That was until the Reverend Cruikshank came on the scene. Whist drives and dances, in fact almost all social occasions, were immediately stopped. Whist drives, he decreed, were a form of gambling, not to be countenanced in the house of God or anywhere near it. It was the same with dances, which he believed encouraged young people of the parish to get too close to one another. They were seen as the work of the devil, and once such goings–on were allowed on church premises one never knew where it might end. Especially so for the merrymaking at Hallowe’en; turnip lanterns an
d masks and dressing up as witches and ghosts, no matter that the children thought it was great fun, it was all taboo.

  Fiona, who, along with her friend, Diane, liked to go along to the social evenings, asked her mother about this. ‘Why has the vicar stopped the Hallowe’en party? It used to be good fun. I’ve made a turnip lantern every year since I was five. And you used to help me, didn’t you, Mum?’

  ‘That’s true,’ replied her mother. ‘But the Reverend Cruikshank says that it’s something that Christian people should not associate themselves with. It’s a pagan festival, and that’s why he’s put an end to it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just silly,’ argued Fiona. ‘It isn’t as if we take it seriously. We don’t go in for devil worship or casting spells on people. It was just jolly good fun. This vicar doesn’t want anybody to have fun any more, does he, Mum?’

  ‘I can see his point of view,’ replied her mother. ‘We should go to church to worship God and to learn about Jesus. All these other things, well . . . they are not what is important. That’s all I want to say about it, Fiona.’

  Fiona had noticed that both her parents were attending church regularly now. They never missed the morning service, which Fiona usually attended with them, and sometimes they went along in the evening as well.

  Despite all the restrictions and reservations the congregation was growing week by week. There was no doubt about it, the Reverend Cruikshank was a force to be reckoned with: a dynamic preacher, and many were encouraged to follow his lead. He spoke of God’s love and forgiveness, but above all of repentance – turning away from sin – and of a personal relationship with Jesus, something that had not been preached about so plainly in the days of the old vicar.