Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

At five the next morning, already wide awake, she heard a car start up in the parking lot. Somebody getting an early start. She took five or six sheets of stationery off the rack on the table and began the letter she would give to Father Woodleigh after church.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jenny walked into the tearoom and picked up the Sunday paper from the rack near the entrance. She nodded or mouthed a good morning to five or six of the guests she recognized as she made her way to the table by the window, the one with the reserved sign placed there especially for her. She returned the waves of the archeologists as they straggled in separately. She knew them now. Dagmar and Nils were from Copenhagen and Peter from Oslo. Hilde came from Vienna and the others were from different parts of the UK. They were in the middle of excavating a site of Viking remains. Jenny had joined them in the bar a few nights and played darts or dominoes. They’d also taught her how to play lawn bowls on the green at the back of the inn.

  She slung her bag over the chair back and watched Walter Pudsley walk toward her. He carried a tray with a pot of coffee, toast, jam, some butter.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer as he began taking the things off the tray. Even though Walter was friendly, he had never sat with Jenny in the dining room. Surely he hadn’t found out about her and Sarah already. News traveled fast in a small town.

  “Ada tells me you’ve finished your job in the shop.”

  “It was time. She’s got plenty of help now.”

  He picked up the coffee pot, poured two cups, and placed one in front of her. She picked up her spoon and stirred the coffee absently. As much as she liked this man, she wished he would go away. She needed all her concentration on how she could get her letter to the priest, and then leave the church gracefully without explaining.

  “I don’t know how much longer you plan on staying,” Walter said, stroking his beard, “so I have to strike while the iron’s hot. The thing is, if you could see your way clear to doing me just this little favor.”

  She took a slice of toast from the rack. “I will if I can.”

  “It’s all to do with Ada y’see. For instance, on slow days in the shop, when you were having a cuppa and talking about this and that, did she ever say anything about me? You know, maybe ask how I’m doing or anything?” He fiddled with his napkin, rolling it up in the corners, then straightening it out. “What with you working alongside her and staying here at the inn too, it’d be only natural wouldn’t it?”

  Jenny spread her toast with butter and reached for the gooseberry jam. “Sometimes we’d get to talking about the inn and all, and well, yes, we talked about you some.”

  “Ah, but she never comes into the pub. Not the type, too reserved altogether.”

  Jenny bit into the toast. “She told me her husband was a sot, said he was never out of this pub.”

  “Aye, that’s true enough. Fergel Malone was the village drunk but he’s been dead for years. It’s time she was getting over it. I’ve been having a think about all this, and what with you two getting on so well, I’ve decided nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “You want me to ask her to join me for a drink in here don’t you,” Jenny said, smiling in spite of herself. “Then you’ll sort of wander casually over and say hello.”

  Walter laughed like a teenager. “Tonight would be perfect if you’re not too busy? Sunday is Pub Quiz night. It’ll give us something to do besides trying to make conversation.”

  Jenny reached for the milk. “Ah, the famous quiz game.” Hilde had asked her to join them a couple of times, but something else had always come up.

  “It’s a sheet full of questions,” Walter said. “Costs fifty pence. It’s popular in a lot of pubs these days, especially on Sunday or Monday nights when things are slow. It attracts a certain type. You take those archeologists,” he said, inclining his head toward their table. “That sort knows a lot and they nearly always win.”

  “I probably wouldn’t know a thing on the sheet.”

  “Ah, I’ll bet you’re just being modest. Still, it’d be a nice evening. We could ask Andy Ferguson to join us. If we did, it wouldn’t look too contrived. And anyway, Andy’s brainy. He may look rough and ready in those overalls of his but he could have been just about anything he wanted.”

  “OK,” Jenny said, the idea so much more appealing now that Andy had come into the picture. “I’ll call Ada if you’ll get in touch with Andy.”

  After Walter had gone, Jenny poured herself a second cup of coffee and stared out the same window she had on that first day. The place had taken on an air of familiarity, almost as if she had been here for years. She watched the two Canada Geese, Romeo and Juliet to the locals, preening themselves on the lawn in front of the inn. Walter had told her Romeo had injured his wing years ago and even though the RSPCA had tried to mend it, all he could manage was a sort of chicken flight as far as the lake. Juliet never left his side, and together they’d parented a clutch of goslings every year.

  Jenny glanced at her watch. Time to get ready. She’d wear her grey suit and that floppy red velvet beret that had been her mother’s. She stood up and headed for the door, returning Walter’s knowing wink as she passed him on her way out. Before she left the cottage, she called Ada and asked if she felt like coming to the Hare that night for Pub Quiz.

  “Walter and Andy’ll be joining us. Sounds as if it might be fun.”

  Ada gave a tinkle of a laugh. “Did Walter put you up to this?”

  “Yes, but don’t you dare let on.”

  “You can trust me. And, yes, of course I’ll come. I’ll wear my new blue blouse. I remember Walter telling me at a dance in the village hall more than thirty years ago how much he liked me in blue.”

  Jenny sat in the car in the inn’s parking lot and took out the letter to the priest. After she’d read all five pages for what had to be the fifth time, she folded it and placed it in the buff colored envelope with the Hare and Hounds crest. She sealed it before tucking it carefully in her bag, then turned the ignition key and headed slowly out the parking lot toward St. Mary’s.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In the same pew as before, she tucked in beside the stone pillar. After the service, the parishioners would straggle out, and the priest would stand in the doorway shaking hands and saying all the usual things. She’d hand him the envelope face down so he wouldn’t see the words extremely personal she had written in the corner as a precaution against it being opened by a church secretary. After a smile and breezy wave of her hand, she would stroll to her car, then drive out of the parking lot and out of his life.

  He stood before his congregation as he had that other time. When he spotted her, Jenny could have sworn he winked. He walked over to the choirmaster and whispered something. When the boys sang “Ave Maria” for their first hymn, she knew he hadn’t forgotten. It was especially for her. She fudged her way through the service as she had the other Sunday. At first she struggled to find her place in the prayer book, then gave up and listened to the priest and the responses from the congregation.

  Father Woodleigh finally mounted the steps to the pulpit for his sermon. For a moment he looked at his notes then with the flat of his hands resting on the corners of the lectern, he began. “Somebody once said the word solitude was coined for those people who love to be alone, and that the word lonely for those people who hate it. For some, a walk alone in the woods is a delight, for others it’s a nightmare. There’s a world of difference between—”

  He stopped and looked down the aisle as a murmur rustled through the congregation at the rear of the church. Heads turned to see the cause of the disturbance.

  Jenny also looked over her shoulder, then clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the gasp. Sarah, her face flushed and arms pressed stiffly against her sides, plodded down the aisle toward the lectern. She drew level with Jenny’s pew and passed without seeing her, eyes focused dead ahead. Jenny looked to the back again. Biddy sat across the aisle,
two or three rows from the back, arms folded, watching Sarah with all the concentration of a drill sergeant.

  Sarah wished a great big hole would open up in the floor, some place she could fall into and just disappear. Here she was, right in the middle of Mass, walking toward Father Woodleigh to give him a snapshot she could just as easily have given him on her way out, or even posted it to him. Biddy had shoved the snapshot in her hand and booted her out of the pew, hissing it was now or never. Sarah cringed as she clomp-clomped down the aisle in the heavy old-lady shoes Biddy had made her wear. Every step she took bounced off the flagstones and echoed around the church. And even though Sarah kept her eyes straight ahead, she could feel every eye in the church on her, burning through her red and white polka dot dress.

  She looked past Father Woodleigh and fastened her gaze on the stained glass window behind him. The Virgin Mary in a bright blue robe sat on a stone bench and bounced baby Jesus on her knee. He had blonde curly hair and laughed up at his mother. A tall man with a long beard and in a cloak stood beside them. This was probably Joseph, baby Jesus’s father. He had a halo round his head too, like his wife and little boy.

  And suddenly Sarah was standing in front of Father Woodleigh. She had expected him to be frowning, but he wasn’t. There was even a trace of a smile on his face that reminded Sarah of the way her Daddy used to look at her when he knew she was afraid. It was as if Father Woodleigh knew she was dying inside, that none of this was her idea.

  “What is it, Sarah?” he said, his voice so soft, so gentle, she felt her eyes fill up. He leaned forward, his gaze on the snapshot in her hand.

  She reached up and handed it to him, then stretched on tiptoe, hands around her mouth so nobody else could hear. “It’s a photo of you when you were younger,” she whispered in a shaky, hoarse voice. “It’s you and your sweetheart, your young lady.”

  Father Woodleigh stared at the snapshot for what seemed ages, yet couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds. When he looked back at her, his face had gone a chalky white and it didn’t look as if he was going to thank her as Biddy had promised. Instead he gripped the lectern with one hand and the snapshot with his other and just stared as if he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, and just when she needed her most, Jenny was standing beside her. Her Jenny, her very best friend. Who would have believed it?

  Jenny took hold of Sarah’s sweaty hand and gave it a little squeeze as she stretched her other hand toward Father Woodleigh. “Please Father,” she said in a tight, strained voice. “The picture’s mine. I don’t know how Sarah got hold of it.”

  “But where did you get it?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly as he stared from her back to the picture.

  “My mother gave it to me. That’s her in the picture with you.”

  The murmur rippling through the church grew louder.

  Sarah pulled her hand away from Jenny’s and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress, then flapped her arms up and down as if trying to take flight.

  “I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” she said loudly, turning from the priest to Jenny, then back to the priest.

  “Biddy said it would be all right. She said you’d be thrilled.” Sarah’s lip quivered as she looked wildly round the church, then swung round to return to her place.

  Horrified, Jenny watched Sarah, her head lowered as she took quick little clunky steps back down the aisle. Biddy had moved to the entrance and stood, feet apart, arms still folded, waiting for her. Sarah was a bug lurching toward a giant frog ready to swallow her whole. Jenny couldn’t bear to watch and turned back to the priest, her mouth in some sort of hideous grimace.

  “Sarah didn’t mean it, Father. She didn’t understand.”

  The priest’s pale face frightened Jenny, even though she raised her hand again for the snapshot, he held on to it. She didn’t know if he was too overwhelmed or too reluctant to part with it.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, then not knowing what else to do, spun round and followed Sarah down the aisle and out of the church. She was in time to see Biddy, with Sarah in the seat beside her, pull out of the handicapped persons’ parking space and screech out of the parking lot toward Stoney Beck. Jenny felt bile rising in her throat. What was the point in chasing after them now? The damage was done.

  Charles Woodleigh stuck the photograph in his vestment pocket as he watched Jenny stride down the aisle, head held high, her shoulder-length hair bouncing with every step. Beverly’s hair did that. And that walk, it was Beverly’s all over again. When she’d looked up at him, it was through Beverly’s eyes. He’d noticed those eyes before but wouldn’t let himself believe. Now though there was no doubt. Even Jenny’s red velvet beret was familiar, so becoming on Beverly all those years ago.

  He took long deep breaths while he pretended to peruse his notes, then looked up and gave an almost casual shrug as well as an apologetic smile to his parishioners. No need to explain. Disruptions happened everywhere these days, sometimes even in a church. He leaned heavily on the lectern to ease the weight from his trembling legs. As he struggled to focus on his sermon about loneliness and how to deal with it, he bet not one of those faces gazing up at him was aware of the self-control he had mustered to stay in the pulpit and not go racing down the aisle after the young woman who’d just marched out of his church.

  Jenny dragged herself to the rectory and rang the bell. Mrs. Thwaites opened the door wide and wiped the flour off her hands with her apron.

  “It’s Jenny isn’t it?” the woman said, beaming at Jenny, at the same time eyeing the envelope Jenny thrust toward her. “Father Woodleigh’s in the middle of Mass. If you’d care to come inside and wait.”

  “No, no, but thanks anyway. Just please make sure he gets this envelope. It’s very important.”

  Mrs. Thwaites cocked her head to one side, a puzzled smile on her face. “Yes, lass. The very minute he comes in. Perhaps it’s just as well if you don’t stay. He’s not having his tea and biscuit affair today. After lunch he’ll be on his way to Liverpool. There’s a special Mass at the cathedral tonight, then he’s off to a retreat. Won’t be back for a month.”

  “I see. But you will make sure he gets the envelope?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll set it in the middle of his plate.”

  ***

  Biddy was silent as she drove back to Glen Ellen, her mind still back in the church. She could tell by the look on Sarah’s face, the girl thought she’d made a cock-up of the job. Biddy, though, had relished every minute of it. Jenny Robinson being there was an unexpected bonus and when she’d scuttled along her pew and dashed to the front, Biddy had almost wet herself with the thrill of it all. The best part had been when the girl had reached her hand toward the priest, obviously expecting him to hand over the snapshot. But all she’d got was a long astonished stare. The poor sod was in shock and the American girl had finally turned away from the pulpit empty handed.

  Biddy tapped her index finger on the steering wheel as she drove a steady thirty-five miles an hour. It didn’t matter any more that Dr. Thorne had come back early and told that girl everything. And it didn’t matter much either that she hadn’t left Stoney Beck. The incident in the church made up for everything. There were still a few bits and pieces to the puzzle that Biddy hadn’t figured out but was convinced now that the priest was the father. You only had to look at his dead white face to realize that the news had come as a colossal shock.

  As if from far away, Biddy heard Sarah’s whining voice.

  “You lied to me, Biddy. You said Father Woodleigh would be tickled pink to see the snapshot. But his face went all white and funny. And you never said Jenny would be there. I could have just died. That lady in the picture was her mother. I didn’t know that.” She beat her fists on the dashboard. “Jenny thinks I stole it. I know she does.”

  Biddy drove without saying a word, a big smile on her face to aggravate Sarah even more. Sarah grabbed her arm. “You stole it d
idn’t you, Biddy? That was very wicked and I hate you, Biddy. I hate you more than anybody in the whole world.”

  Without taking her eyes off the road, Biddy flung out her arm and hit Sarah hard on the mouth with the back of her hand, then turned on the radio, loud. Crazy rock music she hated but at least it blocked out Sarah’s sniveling. There was a bottle of gin waiting for her in the sideboard back at Glen Ellen, and after she’d let Sarah know who was boss, she’d have a few drinks and sleep for the afternoon. If the priest came asking questions, she’d think of something. What else could you expect from someone like Sarah, she’d say. She’d get the devil himself in trouble if she could.

  ***

  Jenny pulled out of St. Mary’s parking lot and drove in the opposite direction from Stoney Beck. She stopped to check the signpost at the fork in the road, then headed toward Bowness on Lake Windermere. The day was warm, shirtsleeve weather. She peeled off her suit jacket as she watched a hoard of people board the ferry for the two-hour sail on the lake. After it pulled away from the landing, she walked beside the lake, her guidebook open as she pretended to read items of interest. She aimed her camera at scenery that was nothing more than a blur. When a young American couple offered to take her picture because she was obviously on her own, she handed over her camera, then stood with the lake behind her and smiled into the lens.

  Later she wandered through the Steamboat museum, her brain still hammering with unanswered questions. What had the priest thought of the letter? Jenny could see him now, his eyes growing ever wider as he turned the pages. Weak in the knees he would flop into the nearest chair and stare off into space, repeating Oh my God over and over, then covered his face with his hands. And it wasn’t only him. What was Jenny going to do about Sarah, who was sick and at the mercy of a spiteful, half-crazy woman? What if Sarah’s nephritis worsened? Leaving her with Biddy was as bad as a death sentence. Jenny would sign every paper they put in front of her as long as it got Biddy out of Glen Ellen and away from Sarah forever. Finally, after an hour in Windermere, Jenny headed for her car.