After the Mass, Charles stood as he always did at the top of the church steps. With a glued-on smile, he shook hands and struggled through the usual give and take of after-Mass small talk, with parishioners whose names had suddenly escaped him. Some of them held on to his hand, stood in front of him longer than usual as if they longed to ask what the commotion had been about, but were either too polite or didn’t have the nerve. When the last person had gone, he wiped the perspiration from his brow and strode toward the rectory.
“Lunch is on the table, Father,” Mrs. Thwaites said as she met him in the hallway. “You need to be on the road by four. On a day like this, everybody and his brother will be out. It’ll be choc-a-bloc all the way to Liverpool.”
Be down in a minute,” he said as he whipped past her and took the stairs two at a time to his bedroom. He pulled out the snapshot and placed it on the dresser. From under his bed, he yanked the old battered suitcase he’d carried with him since his schooldays, adding memorabilia as his life unfolded. He took out the old shoebox, full of precious snapshots, all the way from his baby pictures through school. Some were of his trips to Rome, a couple of a holiday he took once in the Isle of Man. There were others of his family, his mother and father, both dead now. Three or four were of his sister who lived in South Africa with her husband and family and hadn’t written to him in years.
Ah, here it was, in the middle of the box. Charles plucked it out and reached for the snapshot Sarah had handed to him. The two pictures were almost identical. Perhaps his head was a little closer to Beverly’s, and yes, she was smiling a little more on this one. He remembered as if it were no more than a few weeks ago, even days. They had asked a passing stranger to take their pictures, the last two on the roll, then gone, arms around each other, that very afternoon to get them developed.
The very night Charles had shown Beverly the snapshots, and told her to take the one she liked best, they had made love. For the last time, it turned out. The next night, when he told her yet again he was in love with her and wanted to marry her, she had laughed and told him not to be so serious. By the following morning she was gone. And now, after all these years, the snapshot she had taken was given back to him. Jenny had said the picture was hers and that Beverly was her mother. Did this mean there was the remotest possibility—?
But where did Sarah fit into this? Her housekeeper or companion had been with her, that Biggerstaff woman. Charles tried his best not to think ill of anybody but something about the woman disturbed him. She had forced Sarah to walk down the aisle with that snapshot, he was sure of it. She would never have thought to do this on her own, especially in the middle of Mass. Why and how had the woman got hold of the picture in the first place? What was her motive and why was she living with the gentle, defenseless Sarah? Most of all, was today’s incident some sort of vendetta against Jenny and if so, why?
He looked at his watch as he pushed the suitcase back under the bed with his foot. The Mass at Liverpool’s Christ the King Cathedral was at seven o’clock followed by a month’s retreat at a village in Cheshire. As much as he longed to see Jenny, ask her questions, a phone call would have to do. He changed from his vestments into his street clothes and went downstairs to lunch. He picked up the envelope in the center of his plate and slit it open. The letter was long, five pages of neat script. Quickly he turned to the signature. It was from Jenny.
He read slowly, letting every incredible word sink in. When he came to the part about Beverly putting a note in the personal column of paper trying to find him, he went to the sideboard and poured himself a scotch, agonizing all over again at his mother’s treachery. Beverly, all alone, had stayed on in England to have not one baby, but two, concocting some wild story about a boy back home being the father. Jenny had written she and Sarah were born on a Good Friday. Charles walked to the window, thinking back. My God, the very day Beverly had given birth to twins, he had been in Rome.
With the letter still clutched in his hand, Charles went outside and headed for his rose garden. He stood on the red brick path inhaling the scents, watching a thrush splash about in the birdbath. In the shed, he picked up the pruning shears, then wandered among his flowers, snipping off the dead blooms, keeping his restless hands busy while he struggled to bring some sort of order to his jigsaw puzzle of a mind. At last, after all these years, he knew. Beverly was dead. No need to wonder any more what sort of life she was living, or if she ever thought of him as he thought of her. No need now to look for her among the tourists passing through the Lakes. No more speculating how he should act if she ever came into his life again. No need to wonder whether he would be able to smile a welcome as she offered her hand, then perhaps introduced him to her husband and children, before explaining this was the first leg of their European tour. Would Charles have given an easy-going laugh at her light-hearted remark about him being a priest, and how surprised she was to see him wearing a dog collar?
There was closure at last, another page to be turned. But the story wasn’t over yet, just the ending to the chapter headed “Beverly.” He sat on the bench at the bottom of his garden, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, seeing Sarah, all nervous and afraid, walking down the aisle toward him, then Jenny dashing out to stand beside her. Jenny had written that the Biggerstaff woman had stolen her snapshot and was blackmailing her. This was the sole reason for the letter. Otherwise, Jenny would probably never have told him. She had finally written the letter because he was a priest and she wanted him to beware, to save him, if she could, from any ugly surprises. That first time he’d seen her at Mass, little had he known then what she was going through, snapshot in her hand, waiting for him to stand in front of the congregation. How she must have struggled for composure when she had recognized him and realized her father was a priest. Still, she had stayed for refreshments after Mass, even seemed to enjoy the companionship and easy chatter of the others.
All of this had to be a sort of closure for Jenny too. It wasn’t until yesterday she herself had found out Sarah was her twin sister. It was obvious from the way Jenny wrote, as well as strangely puzzling to Charles, that the news had come as a bombshell. But she was still grieving for her parents. Perhaps time was all that was needed. She had written about the strange will. With the second anniversary of the Fitzgeralds’ death only weeks away, and no contenders in sight, at least not until Jenny turned up, the Biggerstaff woman, along with the vulnerable Sarah, stood to inherit a windfall.
Mrs. Thwaites was at the back door as he approached the house. “What is it, Father?” she said, her voice all concern. “You’re white as a sheet. Have you had bad news?”
“Some of it was,” he said, as he slowly folded the letter, “not all of it though.”
She gave him a worried, curious look when he apologized for not being hungry and unable to eat her casserole. He suggested that perhaps Father Doyle, the substitute priest, would be hungry when he arrived around five. After Charles assured her he was fine, she loaded her tray and ten minutes later was on her way to catch the next bus to her sister’s.
He poured himself another scotch, unable to remember the last time he’d had two drinks in the middle of the day. He leaned against the mantlepiece while he pondered how he would break this incredible news to his new bishop. Vincent Fitzpatrick had been assigned to the diocese just three months ago. He had replaced Richard Delaney, Charles’s friend for more than twenty-five years, who had dropped dead of a heart attack a few seconds after throwing a coin into Rome’s Trevi Fountain. Richard had known all about Beverly, and Charles knew if his friend were still alive, he would have given a sympathetic ear. But Vincent Fitzpatrick, cast from a different mold, was a deep believer in the old ways of the church. He told Charles on their first meeting it was a sad day for him indeed when it was decided the Catholic Mass should no more be conducted in Latin.
Charles dialed the bishop’s number and felt a stab of relief when a male voice told him Father Fitzpatrick was in Dublin but planned to be at the
retreat by Tuesday. Charles replaced the phone in the cradle. He should probably tell his bishop first but with a matter of this kind, perhaps it was better to send a letter to the parish, which he knew he would be expected to do anyway. Both had to be told. While Charles was away at the month-long retreat, his parish could talk amongst themselves, have meetings, then decide if they wished to talk to their bishop.
Charles took his empty glass into the kitchen, then rang Mrs. Kendale, the church secretary. Something had come up, he said, and if she could come in and do a couple of hours work. He’d have the letter typed by the time she arrived. It was to everyone on the church register. He had never learned how to set the computer to do the tricky things, like putting different addresses on each sheet, or to set the printer. It would be easy for her to pull up the list of names and addresses they had compiled the other week, then print out the labels. Yes, he had envelopes and stamps.
He then rang the Hare and Hounds and asked to be put through to Jenny. After a minute the voice came back to say Miss Robinson didn’t answer and was there any message. No, no message, Charles said, thanked him, and hung up.
Mrs. Kendale completed the job in just over an hour. The woman was a treasure, who, although surely staggered by the news, didn’t bat an eye. There was concern in her face, perhaps because it was obvious from Charles’s jerky manner and shaky voice, he was close to coming unglued. Instead she chatted of other things. What in the world did they do before computers and did Father Woodleigh remember the time when a job like this would have taken all day.
“I’ll be glad to drop these in the post box,” she said. “It’s on my way home.”
“I’d be very grateful,” he said, “and thank you for being so understanding.”
“Not at all.” She turned and headed out the door.
Mrs. Kendale had been gone about ten minutes when there was a knock at the door. As he strode down the hall, he caught a glimpse of red through the beveled patterned glass. Jenny’s beret. Charles’s suddenly wooden fingers fumbled with the lock until at last he yanked the door open wide.
“I saw your car in the drive,” she said as she stepped inside. “May I come in for a minute?”
They stood in the hall staring at each other, weighing each other up, until Charles remembered to close the door.
“I rang the Hare & Hounds but you weren’t there,” he said. “You’ll have to bear with me, Jenny. Your letter, well, it’s hard to know where to begin. Still don’t know how to put it except—”
Jenny bit her lip, then pounded her fist into the palm of her other hand. “I shouldn’t have told you. I shouldn’t.”
Charles took hold of her arm. “No, Jenny, please. I haven’t finished. I was going to say I don’t know how to put it except I’m glad.”
He snapped his fingers as the realization slammed into him. “Yes, that’s it exactly. I’ve just realized you’ve made me a very happy man.”
Her eyes grew wide and her hands went up to her mouth. “Happy? You mean you want us?” The tears spilled out of her eyes. “I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t know.”
“Ah, there now,” he mumbled, reaching for her hand. “Do you think we could start by being friends? Come on into the lounge. I’ll make us some coffee.”
After they struggled through an awkward beginning, neither knowing where to begin, Charles told her how he had waited weeks for Beverly to come back, but when he heard he’d been accepted at the seminary, he returned to London. Oh, he didn’t blame her for leaving. What had started out as a light romance grew too serious for her, especially when he had pushed her for a commitment. They were so young, so foolish. Still, he would blame himself forever for not waiting just a few weeks longer.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jenny said. “I realize that you didn’t know. I’m glad now I told you, that you know at last. You won’t believe how I worried, afraid what it would do to you, what with you being a priest and all.”
“I can well understand how you felt. This isn’t supposed to happen to priests is it? But I’m not the first and won’t be the last. And I can’t help the way I feel. I mean it isn’t everyday a man in his fifties finds out he’s the father of grown-up twins.” Charles suddenly longed for a cigarette but had given them up two years ago. “I could tell from your letter that finding out Sarah is your twin came as a shock. That’s understandable I suppose. Still, she’s very sick, Jenny, and in many ways desperately alone. She needs family, someone to care. Now that you’ve told me, it won’t all be on your shoulders. Even if you go home to America, it isn’t as far as it used to be. We can visit each other.”
Jenny couldn’t believe how easily he had accepted it all, how he was suddenly standing on the edge of God knows what, yet was determined to do the right thing. The swelling inside her filled her chest. She wanted to fling her arms round his neck and tell him how proud she was of him, to let him know she herself would try harder to be kinder, more compassionate. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Sarah. She was very fond of her. Of course she was. It was just the sister thing, the twin thing. It would have been a shock to anyone. Now, because the priest was looking into his own tunnel of uncertainty, she, Jenny would try harder to overcome her fear of Sarah’s sickness looming dead ahead.
Within an hour, they had it all worked out. Charles would go to the retreat, at least for a few days. With him out of the way, the parishioners would have time to digest his letter, while it gave him the opportunity to tell his bishop. Sarah would be told the story in two stages, because hadn’t Dr. Thorne already warned that keeping her blood pressure on an even keel was vital. Jenny would tell her tomorrow that they were sisters, then perhaps a few days later, Sarah would be told the news that her father was the priest in the next village..
Jenny assured him that when she left the rectory, she would head straight for Dr. Thorne’s house and ask him to go with her to Glen Helen to get Sarah. “Dr. Thorne has known Sarah all her life,” Jenny said. “He was the doctor who delivered us. He has this way about him, this air of authority. I think he knows how to handle Biddy. And there’s no way I’ll let Sarah spend another night in that house.”
“Be sure Dr. Thorne goes with you,” he said, “It wouldn’t be wise to go alone.”
Jenny nodded. “Dr. Thorne and the Social Services have told Biddy she must leave the house. She’s getting more unstable and might have to be hospitalized.”
Charles wrote on the pad by the phone. “This is the number of the retreat,” he said, tearing off the sheet. “Let me know how it goes. My bishop won’t be at the retreat until Tuesday, so I hope you can bear with me.”
Jenny glanced at the number, then stuck it in her handbag. “There is one thing. So far, nobody else knows about us. Not even Dr. Thorne or Andy. I haven’t told a living soul.”
“It’s all right,” he said, almost shyly patting her shoulder. “We’ll tell them in good time.”
Eventually, while Jenny made for Stoney Beck, Charles headed for the M-6 and Liverpool.
Chapter Nineteen
Biddy drove up to Glen Ellen’s kitchen door, and then eased the car onto the grass and round to the back of the house, away from the prying eyes of Fred and Edna. Sarah had fallen asleep for the last couple of miles and as Biddy shook her awake, she noticed a trickle of dried blood coming from the swollen lip. Once inside, Biddy stuck a frozen macaroni and cheese in the microwave for herself and plonked an apple on Sarah’s plate.
Sarah pulled out a chair and sat at the table, shoulders hunched, her bluster gone now. She was back in the house, alone with Biddy who had that look on her face Sarah had seen before, the one that filled her with dread. For twenty minutes, while they sat at the table, Biddy demanded total silence.
“Did I do all right, Biddy?” Sarah finally said, her hand reaching across the table for Biddy’s arm. “I tried to get it right, honestly I did.”
Biddy knocked her hand away. “Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. But you made a big mistake accusing me of st
ealing that snapshot. On top of that, you said you hated me. That was a bad thing to say, Sarah. A very bad thing.”
“I didn’t mean it. Walking down that aisle was so scary. Then when Father Woodleigh looked at me like that, I felt like a—”
With a deliberate sneer dallying around her mouth, Biddy folded her arms and peered at
Sarah. “You felt like a what?”
“I don’t know. Like a—”
“You felt like a great big fat mongoloid didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes you did. Come on, Sarah. Say it. Say ‘I felt like a great big fat mongoloid.’”
Sarah leaned forward, her forehead touching the table, the cramps in her calves tightening. “I felt like a great big fat mongoloid,” she muttered.
Biddy stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. “I can’t hear you. Get your head off the table and sit up straight. Now shout it as loud as you can. Do it three times.”
Sarah leaned back in her chair, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. “I felt like a great big fat mongoloid,” she shouted in her wheezy voice. “I felt like a great big fat—” She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes as a great shuddering sob rattled her body. “I can’t say it again. I just can’t.” She folded her arms on the tabletop and rested her head.
Biddy silently puffed on her cigarette.
“What are you thinking about?” Sarah finally asked without lifting her head.
“Your punishment. Which one to give you.”
Sarah raised up and reached a hand toward her. “Please, Biddy, don’t. I’m sorry I said those wicked things. Didn’t I do my best? I gave Father Woodleigh the snapshot like you said.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What then?”
“You, Sarah. You’re the point. I can’t stand the sight of you and you have to be punished.”
Stoney Beck Page 20
