THE MEETING PLACE

by MARY HOCKING

  The bell had stopped. She got out of the car, impelled by the strongly held conviction that it is bad manners to be late for any meeting and particularly one of a religious nature.

  The graveyard was a tangle of grass and wild flowers dotted with seedling hollies, but the graves were well maintained. She had a brief glimpse of the church as she approached the porch, a sixteenth-century building much subject to Victorian improvement. Inside it was rather dark, the plaster having been stripped from the walls by the restorers. The windows were plain glass but the surrounding trees, even at this time of year, blocked the light. She sat in the side aisle. To her left was a board in the shape of a scroll naming past incumbents as far back as 1589. She noted that the present vicar had been here since 1965 and that his predecessor had ministered from 1934 until 1965. Prior to that, priests had come and gone rather frequently until a Thomas Jory, who held the record, being minister from 1842 until 1890. It was the man before him who would be most likely to have known Mrs Tresham, nee Carey, who was born in one of the farmhouses in his parish. She read the name: Samuel Naylor. It meant nothing to her. And the church itself, pleasant and well cared for, reasonably well attended and boasting a small choir, gave the impression of being cheerfully unconcerned about the past. The language was modern, pedestrian but inoffensive; small children scampered up and down the aisle, watched with mild disapproval by a black retriever accompanying his blind master. It was probable that Miss Wilcox had attended a service here and that her grandmother had been christened here, but if their spirits still lingered, they certainly weren’t making any contact today.

  Clarice recalled how people would say of a place, ‘The very stones cry out,’ to which she invariably replied: ‘Not to me, they don’t.’ Today was no different. Whatever it was she shared with the nineteenth-century Mrs Tresham, it had nothing to do with susceptibility to psychic phenomena or the awareness of the language of stones. And why, she wondered as the congregation settled for the sermon with the sound of falling foliage after a departing wind, should she expect to gain any particular impression from sitting in the same building that had once been visited by the Careys and their descendants? Had not Mrs Tresham written in her diary that she, Clarice, was a ghost? This might suggest that it was in the future rather than the past that they encountered each other. Some little annexe of the future reserved . . . for whom?

  She forced herself to attend, but sermons seldom engaged her mind, probably because of her preference for her own opinions to those of others, and she soon found herself studying the man rather than his words.

  The vicar was in his fifties, she judged, and had that wry air of failure which she found endearing in clergymen – to her Puritan spirit a successful clergyman was an abomination. When he smiled, a not quite quenched naivety lit up his face; a man who could not cure himself of the error of expecting rather more than God was pleased to give him? She thought, made sombre by a little sermon of her own, that perhaps there were gifts that God had wanted to give us had we not been quite so concerned with our misconceptions of what was good for us. Suitably chastened, she rose to add her croak to the singing of ‘Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart’.

  When the service ended and people began to move towards the porch, she walked round the church, looking at the memorial tablets, none of which enshrined members of the Carey family. The pulpit was interesting, with a Jack o’ the Green among the carvings, leaves and acorns surrounding the face of Silenus.

  ‘Unusual, surely, as late as this?’ she said to the vicar when eventually he joined her.

  ‘Yes, it is. We’re rather fond of him, though some visitors raise eyebrows. They don’t mind him peering through foliage somewhere up aloft, but they don’t like him looking out at them from the pulpit.’ They walked out into the churchyard. ‘I seem to remember that he figures in one of your paintings.’

  Clarice was charmed, and wishing to repay him with some little compliment of her own, she said, ‘I see you’ve managed to retain your village school. That’s a real achievement.’

  ‘And, I may tell you, we had to fight for it.’ She had sparked his pride. ‘Came very near to fisticuffs once or twice.’ He paused, looking fondly at the building. ‘We’ve added a bit to it, of course, but it’s still the monument to one remarkable man.’

  This, it transpired, was the long-serving Thomas Jory, who was obviously something of a hero to the vicar. Clarice, respecting enthusiasm in others, realised she must listen patiently while he recounted the history of the man who had pioneered education in the area.

  ‘He was a prodigious walker, too,’ the vicar said when he had almost run out of attributes. ‘He thought nothing of covering thirty miles in a day.’

  ‘So I would be wrong in thinking that people scarcely moved out of their villages?’

  ‘Certainly. They would all have walked long distances, the men particularly. Though I expect you’re right in thinking they would have known little about the people in neighbouring villages. On the other hand, bad news seems to have travelled fast enough.’ He went on to tell her of the murder of little Ellie Jarvis. ‘That soon seems to have spread around the moor. Thomas Jory had a lot to do with the apprehension of the man, Will Jarvis. A terrible tale. The child was done away with for the sake of the two shillings and six pence a week it was costing the father to keep her.’

  ‘Where did they find the body?’

  ‘You aren’t familiar with the story?’

  Clarice wasn’t, but she had an idea that she knew the answer to her question. The vicar said, ‘There’s an old mine shaft up on the moor, not so very far from here.’

  The grim little story had stemmed the flow of his enthusiastic account of the life of Thomas Jory and he turned reluctantly from contemplation of the school to lead her into the vicarage.

  ‘They have some little ceremony for the children at the Sunday School, so I’m afraid my wife can’t join us.’

  Clarice murmured politely. He opened the door to the sitting room, a big, forbidding room that seemed too lofty to reward any attempt to make it look homely, although efforts had been made with flowers and crookedly hung pictures, mostly too small to give colour to the walls.

  ‘Very difficult to heat,’ he said. ‘One can hardly bear to think of Jory alone in this barn of a place all those years.’

  Clarice, who did not want to waste any more time on Parson Jory, said, ‘It’s very kind of you to see me, and on a Sunday of all days. But as I explained, we have so many rehearsals . . .’

  ‘Ah, yes. Now, you must tell me what I can do for you.’ He went to a small cabinet. ‘You will take sherry?’ he asked hopefully, and Clarice, suspecting this was an indulgence he seldom permitted himself, said that she would.

  Once seated in a lumpy armchair she found that the urgency that had driven her here had lost its sharp edge and the fear which had accompanied it was dulled. But the vicar was smiling at her expectantly and as he had given up his time to see her, she must do her best to cobble up a reasonable explanation of her intrusion.

  ‘As I told you over the phone, I’m staying at the Carpenters’ farm. It so happens that the grandmother of the headmistress of my school was born there and my headmistress – Miss Wilcox – used to stay at the farm, in the twenties and early thirties.’ He was looking uncertain, as well he might, unsure of the drift of her mind. She decided to dispense with story telling.

  ‘Roberta Wilcox had a great influence on me.’

  He warmed to her immediately; if she wasn’t careful they would find themselves discussing Jory again. But she did him an injustice; it was she he was concerned with now and he said gently, ‘A journey of discovery, perhaps?’

  He sees an elderly woman evaluating her life, seeking answers in nostalgia, she thought: well, let it be.

  ‘Or perhaps there’s something more?’ He was more perceptive than she had given him credit for and sensed that his first conjecture had been wide of the mark. Clarice, too, found herself better focused.r />
  ‘Mrs Carpenter showed me old Mr Carpenter’s diaries. We looked through them together and found several references to Miss Wilcox’s visits. It seemed she was interested in finding out more about the Carey family, but they weren’t able to help her. One of the entries referred to a visit to the parson, who it was felt might have more information. I wondered if you might have any records?’

  ‘You could certainly look at the parish records, but I don’t imagine that’s what you have in mind, since it’s Miss Wilcox in whom you’re interested. I’m afraid St John’s hasn’t produced a Kilvert or a Parson Woodforde. In fact, my immediate predecessor was a man who seemed to suffer from a great disinclination to set pen to paper.’

  So that was that – or was it? He was turning the stem of the glass on the table beside him, concerned with some evaluation of his own. When he looked up, he said, ‘Your headmistress’s mother would have been Mrs Veronica Wilcox, am I right?’

  Clarice found her throat dry and her voice was husky when she replied, ‘You’re better informed than I. I simply know that her mother came here sometimes, but I had no idea of her Christian name.’

  He said, looking down into the glass, ‘She used to visit old Jory right up to the time he died and she brought her children to see him, though your Miss Wilcox may not have been born until after his death. I know this because I came across letters she wrote to him, very affectionate letters, telling him all about her school and the subjects she was studying. Later, she wrote about her family. Jory’s wife died in childbirth and he never married again. I imagine this correspondence must have been a great comfort to him, and it seems, from what she said, that he was the best kind of confidant, able to share both her excitement as learning widened her horizons and the joys of her parenthood.’

  There was silence in the room. Clarice pressed her fingers against trembling lips.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I found it very moving myself.’

  It was some moments before she could trust herself to speak and he waited, perhaps a little perplexed by the extent of her distress.

  ‘The letters?’ she said eventually.

  ‘They were in an old trunk in the attic; it looked as if someone had emptied out a desk and stuffed the contents into it, perhaps intending to go through the papers sometime later and then forgetting. I burnt them. They were not what you might call confidential, but they were the private letters of private people and no concern of anyone else. Perhaps you disapprove?’

  Clarice shook her head. ‘No, I hope I would have done the same.’ The room no longer seemed large, was, in fact, getting far too small each second and her unruly heart was crying out for more space and fresh air. She got up and the room contracted further. ‘You have been very helpful and I mustn’t keep you any longer.’

  He accompanied her to the door and then, as she made to go down the path, he said, ‘You might be interested to see Mrs Tresham’s grave.’

  ‘Mrs Tresham?’

  ‘The grandmother you mentioned. One of the sad things that came out in the letters Veronica wrote when she was still a young girl was that her father was so deeply grieved he was unable to talk to his daughter about her mother. Jory, it seemed, was the only outlet for her feelings of love and loss.’

  ‘And Mrs Tresham is buried here?’

  ‘Come, I’ll show you.’

  He led her through the long grass to a row of gravestones near the churchyard wall. Clarice knelt down and, fending off the branches of a holly, she read:

  SACRED

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  RHODA

  BELOVED WIFE OF EDWARD TRESHAM

  DIED 29TH SEPTEMBER, 1857

  She remained unmoving, staring at the headstone. The vicar looked at her speculatively; graves can have a strange effect on people, but her comment when it came can hardly have been what he expected.

  ‘But that is this Thursday.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gower, the Story-teller, was bringing the play to an end:

  ‘In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard

  Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:

  In Pericles, his queen and daughter seen,

  Although assail’d with fortune fierce and keen,

  Virtue preserved from fell destruction’s blast,

  Led on by Heaven, and crowned with joy at last.’

  In the gap between her cubbyhole and the tabs, Clarice could see the faces of the children in the front row, eyes round as marbles. They had looked like that when the play began and enchantment had held them throughout. The rest of the audience seemed to have shared something of their wonder, for they reacted with more than polite enthusiasm when the players took their bow.

  The side door was open and she could see the director standing out in the yard, as redundant as Prospero after he renounced his power.

  ‘A real success, I think, don’t you?’ she said, joining him.

  They could still hear the applause. The cast would be taking their third curtain call by now and, however great the encouragement, would not take another, milking the audience being regarded as a mortal sin by most Theatre Guild companies, second only to the appearance on stage of the director.

  ‘You’ve lost them now, haven’t you?’ Clarice said, hearing the cast making their way to the dressing rooms, laughing and embracing stage-management staff as they went, shouting thanks to the wardrobe mistress and her assistants.

  ‘When I went into the dressing room before we went up half of them looked at me as if they couldn’t remember who I was; the others pretended to be delighted to see me. I can never decide which is worse.’

  ‘It’s a bit like that with a painting,’ Clarice said. ‘When there’s nothing more you can do, it breaks away from you, stands on its own.’

  The audience was coming out in twos and threes, briefly outlined in the doorway of the lighted theatre before disappearing among the shadows of the yard. In the dimly lit auditorium someone was going round with a dustpan and brush, collecting discarded sweet wrappings and tickets, making ready for the next performance. On the set the assistant stage manager was sweeping the floor.

  ‘Gower, Pericles, Marina . . . theirs is the only reality.’ the director said sombrely.

  Clarice protested, ‘Oh, come!’ without conviction. As they turned towards the backstage entrance, she said, ‘Four more performances. Do you ever find yourself being afraid that one day something quite unforeseen may occur?’

  ‘In my experience,’ the director said grimly, ‘it nearly always does.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  I

  At the crossing of tracks, in a place where the wind pressed cold against the cheek and stung the eyes, and surged on thrusting through invisible barriers with a noise like tearing silk, an old man, grey-bearded, walked with firm, measured tread, staff in hand, watched impassively by horned sheep. Above, the sky was herring- ribbed with cloud beneath which darker smudges moved fast. In spite of so much motion, there was an underlying stillness that was not disturbed by intrusive wind and racing cloud.

  The old man stopped at the crossing of tracks and considered. In front of him ground fell away rapidly to where, between a line of mop-headed trees, there was a glimpse of squares of green, tidily hedged, surrounding the small town of Mellor. Sunlight flickered pale and ghost-like on its stone buildings as if strained through gauze. Behind him, and on either side, the moorland gazed contemptuously down on this tranquil scene.

  Cattle, large, black and ponderous, occupied the downward path, in no mind to hurry. At the side of the track sheep drank from a pot-hole. The old man strode forward, using his staff briskly to make a way between the cattle. The wind surged on, leaving the stillness untouched.

  II

  Joan and the juggler were travelling to Mellor. She was lighting a fire and he had led the horse down to a stream when a party riding close by stopped to watch. A pompous red-faced little man who bobbed about on his horse like a cork on a rough sea began to desc
ribe her activities. ‘And now you will notice, she will lay that stone so, leaving a well in the centre . . .’ Joan followed his prompting and succeeded in getting a good fire going. She hoped he might stay to cook the fish for her, but by this time his companions were eager to be on their way. There was a youth among them and he threw a coin to her.

  ‘He was very handsome,’ she told the juggler when he returned.

  ‘It was his clothing and his mount you thought so handsome. Were I dressed as he is able to dress you would think me very handsome, too.’ And he began to show her how splendid he would be, his hands moving surely over flowing robes, showing the fullness of wide hanging sleeves, making her feel the softness of a fur border; drawing attention to the contrast between the rich, heavy cloth of gold of the gown and the soft satin sheen of its lining. As he moved, splendid raiment swayed about his thin, bony body.

  Joan clapped her hands and cried, ‘And the jewels! Show me the jewels!’ There were rings on his fingers, a brooch at his throat and another on the cap he wore on his head. ‘Oh, you are indeed handsome!’ she said. In her heart, she thought, ah, could we but live like this all the time. He seemed composed only of joy and laughter when he acted, and yet when the performance ended care seeped into every line of his wrinkled face. He was like Martin, more gentle and undemanding, but worried, worried all the time about where they would sleep and how they would get food.

  ‘We could take a chicken,’ she pointed out.

  ‘That is stealing.’ He would rather starve than steal. ‘If I am caught stealing they will cut off my hands. What would I do without my hands?’ It was his constant nightmare that he would have his hands cut off. Sometimes she stole without telling him. After all, if she didn’t have hands no one could expect her to wash clothes, kindle fires, and cook.

  She was disappointed to find that even on the road care kept her company. She and the juggler had been together for many years now and her face had been roughened by sun and wind, the dry flesh scored by fine lines. She had lost that heedless delight which had so tormented Martin, but the grey eyes were still wide with the candid surprise of one who is slow to learn life’s lessons and the parted lips found a smile less effort than composure. But her mood could darken, and now, as she watched the juggler ravenously eating the fish, she said: