‘All right for some, able to park their posh cars here,’ a man mouthed, presumably one of the stallholders we had moved on.
‘Just bugger off!’ his Lordship replied, before turning back to me. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, Lady Polly wondered whether you and Rachel were free for a spot of lunch tomorrow. Shall we say one for one-thirty?’
I promised to get back to him once I’d checked with Rachel. His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed – clearly this wasn’t so much an invitation as a summons.
‘But I’m sure she’ll be free,’ I stuttered.
He roared off in his Range Rover, and I passed the rest of the lunch hour talking to two pleasant young women with pushchairs. In one pushchair sat a little girl with blonde ringlets, ruddy cheeks and piercing blue eyes, in stark contrast to her mother, whose hair was black and skin ivory.
‘She takes after her dad,’ she explained, when she saw my puzzled look. ‘He’s a monk, or at least he used to be!’
As first lines go, this took some beating. It transpired that her husband had been a monk, but had found even what was quite an ascetic monastery too worldly. On the principle of ‘if you can’t beat them join them,’ he decided to work his deeply held faith out in the world. Something quite a lot of religious people do these days – the churchy term for it is ‘new monasticism.’ Working as a lab technician at Ampleforth Abbey School, where an older colleague had introduced him to her daughter – she instantly became the love of his life, and in the course of time they married and set up home in Helmsley. Whilst mum was telling me all this, the little girl chuckled and giggled with sheer delight.
Another little girl, dark-haired and olive-skinned, sobbed uncontrollably whilst her equally dark-haired and olive-skinned mother chatted to me.
‘Don’t worry, she’s just been to playgroup,’ her mother explained in a thick French accent.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I replied. ‘Are there problems with the group?’
‘Oh no, it’s run by two lovely farmer’s wives who are so kind to Teresa when she misses me – they’re always giving you big cuddles, aren’t they Teresa?’ she said, stroking the little girl’s head before turning her attention back to me. ‘It’s just that we’re French, so we speak French all the time at home – when they speak to her in your Yorkshire dialect, she doesn’t recognize the tenderness.’
She pressed a fiver into my hand before breezing on her way with her wailing child, leaving me with a lot to think about. How often did I get the inflection and nuance wrong, and people craving affection heard only harshness?
My musing was interrupted by Father Bert coming around the corner, bearing an enormous plate covered by a polished silver cloche. ‘Margaret’s sent you a bit of her fish pie, it being Friday,’ he explained. He delved into his jacket pocket and handed me his pipe before thinking better of it, ‘No, you don’t want that.’ He delved again and produced a fork. ‘That’s better!’
I sat on the steps and consumed the generous portion of creamy mashed potato saturated with salmon, shrimps, cod and smoked haddock; the North Sea concentrated in one dish. Fortified by a lunch that was completed by the friendly staff from Claridge’s bringing me and Father Bert a steaming cuppa, the rest of the afternoon whizzed by. The number of people tailed off as the market began to pack up. Alan took our takings for the day, with Gus acting as fierce guard dog and tugging at his lead. After about half an hour Alan returned, beaming from ear to ear.
‘We’re well up on last year, so well done!’
The success was absolutely nothing to do with me, since I’d only just arrived in the place. Next year though, would be the test of my mettle. I packed away, happy with the day and moved by all the conversations, but simultaneously wondering how to break his Lordship’s invitation to my Rachel, who took after her mum in being a fierce socialist, so tended to be resistant to summons by imperious aristocrats.
Chapter Seventeen
Expecting a lunch of medieval proportions, Rachel and I cycled to Lord and Lady Feversham’s in order to work up an appetite. A little chap in a wooden kiosk saluted us as we breezed through the main gates of Duncombe Park. We veered off the drive and took a sharp left to take a more scenic route through the 300 acres of parkland, although all the routes in and around Helmsley are pretty scenic. We bumped up and down over two meadows and hauled our bikes over a couple of stiles, before following the River Rye on its meander through the estate. We stopped by the Cascades, where the torrent plunges over a spectacular six-foot waterfall. Alan had told me that in very dry summers he and Gus had gingerly walked across the Cascades, but if I’d tried to do so now I’d have been swiftly swept downstream to Malton.
Alan had also tipped me off that many parishioners sneak into the park when his Lordship isn’t looking and throw the ashes of their nearest and dearest into these waters, a Yorkshire Ganges. I was rather taken with this modern-day Viking funeral, where the deceased’s voyage bisects Yorkshire; they would join the Derwent above Kirkham Priory, the home of the Augustinian monks who had founded Helmsley Church and built our vicarage, before their ashes would wend their way through the fecund meadowlands of the Vale of York, briefly flirting with the Ouse before being swept out to the North Sea by the Humber at Spurn Point.
Above the Cascades, the path rises steeply onto an old concrete tank road laid in the war, when the 22nd Dragoons had occupied the expansive grounds, enabling them to practise manoeuvres prior to the D-Day landings. Our problem was that the roads had been built for tanks and not for bicycles. Each concrete slab was about thirty feet in length and joined to the next slab with cement. This had been repeatedly patched in the decades since the war, only to be quickly eroded by the fierce moors weather. The uneven joins and the massive potholes made it a boneshaker of a ride. Rachel and I jolted our way up the 1:3 climb, our calves screaming in pain, any progress hindered further by sharp hairpin bends. Our reward for this strenuous climb was that as we cleared the forest, the big house was open to our gaze like a scene from Brideshead Revisited.
We continued towards it, and, as we sheepishly wheeled our cycles through the iron gates that guarded the circular drive, left a furrow in the deep gravel. The huge, eighteenth-century neo-classical house, complete with side bays and detached wings, sprawled before us. I don’t think we were actually open-mouthed in awe, but it felt like that. We parked our bikes to the side of the sweeping stone staircase leading to the grand entrance, and knocked on a modest little door at ground level – the entrance reserved for tradesmen and vicars. Whilst we were waiting, Rachel straightened her posh dress and attempted to comb her curly fair hair, windswept after the climb. A woman-what-does eventually opened the door and invited us to follow her as she limped along the dark passageway, dragging her left leg. The passage opened into what must have been the servants’ basement kitchen in a bygone age, but now served as a snug-cum-kitchen for the family. His Lordship rose from a large oak chair, the back and seat lined with cracked and faded red leather embossed with the family crest.
‘Welcome, Vicar, but more importantly, welcome the good Vicar’s lady, to my humble abode!’ he intoned, in a voice which had more than a passing resemblance to Laurence Olivier’s Now-is-the-winter-of-our-discontent speech. He bowed his domed head before Rachel and gallantly kissed her hand, giving her a lupine smile. ‘Welcome, my dear. Polly, come and meet the Wilbournes.’
Lady Polly had her back to us, busily stirring a large cauldron of soup bubbling on a black-leaded Yorkshire Range. She turned and gave us a radiant smile which lit up the dark kitchen. In contrast to his Lordship’s bulk, she was petite. Though she had an apron wrapped around her, and her face had a ruddy sheen from working over a hot stove, she carried it off well; an aristocratic beauty with eyes that twinkled mischievously.
‘Oh Peter,’ she said, her accent cut-glass with an Irish lilt, ‘do stop trying to ape Henry VIII! Rachel and David, thank you so much for coming. Don’t take any notice of him, he will play his tricks!’
�
�You know I like to have my fun, my dear!’ Lord Feversham chuckled fondly.
Once Polly had stopped Peter having his fun, lunch was just fine. It wasn’t exactly lavish; homemade bread buns and a particularly strong Cheddar washed down with a thick potato and leek soup made by Polly’s fair hand. The conversation was easy: talk about how our girls were settling into school; Polly glowing with pride about her son’s prowess at Latin and Greek and showing informed concern as to how Rachel was coping with moving into an ancient pile. Whilst we were chatting, Hoover, one of their pet Sussex spaniels, sprang onto the table and stole the afore-mentioned strong cheddar. The woman-what-does was summoned and began to chase after, or rather limp after, the dog as it disappeared down the dark corridor.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lady Polly shouted, ‘just bring another piece.’
After a considerable time the woman-what-does returned, bearing a smaller piece of cheese on a plate. It looked more like Emmental than Cheddar, perforated with holes that looked suspiciously like teeth marks. Nevertheless, following his Lordship’s example, we each cut a piece of cheddar, savouring the unique combination of flavours – cheese seasoned with dog saliva. Hoover eventually returned, his tail between his legs, his soulful eyes full of remorse for his misdeed.
‘Hoover, do that again and I’ll give you a good thrashing,’ his Lordship shouted, the sense of threat being undermined by a loud chuckle. ‘Remember how I sorted out Molesworth, Polly?’
Polly gave a girlish giggle. ‘It was just after we had re-taken possession of Duncombe Park,’ she explained, making it sound like an invasion. ‘Molesworth was Peter’s pet Sussex spaniel. Anyway, a couple of visitors had sneaked in and were walking past the house when along came Peter with Molesworth, who had a live rabbit in his jaws. The visitors were horrified, and even threatened to report him to the RSPCA. “You’re quite right, I’ll deal with the blighter straight away,” Peter said, and he dragged Molesworth round the corner into the courtyard, out of sight. The next thing they heard was a shotgun going off, followed by the howls of a dog in its death throes. The visitors rushed away, grateful to have escaped with their lives. They must have been thinking they’d met the maddest peer of the realm. Little did they know that Peter’s impression of a dying dog was his legendary party piece!’
Lord Feversham duly obliged us with said party piece; plaintive, ear-splitting howls which reached a crescendo before tailing off and ending abruptly with a tremendous thud as Peter kicked the table to complete his dance of the dying spaniel. We all duly laughed, but Hoover howled in sympathy.
After lunch, Lord Feversham proudly showed us the palatial rooms whose design was influenced by Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect of Castle Howard, where Brideshead Revisited was filmed. Duncombe Park was originally completed in 1713 before being extended in the 1840s by Charles Barry, who took time off from rebuilding the Houses of Parliament for a North York Moors’ sojourn. Much of the main house then had to be rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth century after a disastrous fire. The whole place was not static, but organic; evolving even now as Lord and Lady Feversham restored the cornices, coving, wallpaper, drapes and windows to their Georgian glory, and added modern touches of their own.
We ended up in the chapel-cum-mausoleum – so chilly you could have freeze-dried blackberries in it. Pride of place on one ledge was a soldier’s helmet perforated by a huge bullet hole.
‘That belonged to my ancestor Charles, Second Earl of Feversham,’ the present Earl explained, a wobble afflicting his normally stentorian tones. ‘He was a bright spark – went to Eton and Christchurch at Oxford, and became a Conservative MP. He took the nom de plume Viscount Helmsley to try and disguise his aristocratic origins,’ he chuckled, ‘merely reducing his rank one level! He ended up commanding the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, which he formed at Helmsley in 1915. All the tenants and estate workers enlisted with him, of course. But he caught a packet the next year at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. Saddest thing is that he took his deerhound to the front – she took a packet too and was buried along with him.’
We stood in respectful silence, looking at the bullet hole which broke the family’s fortune and thinking of the other bullets which decimated the flower of Helmsley’s youth. Mercifully, we were spared his Lordship doing an impression of a dying deerhound.
We walked around to the back of the house; the side normally hidden from the public. There the most gorgeous scene unfolded, nothing less than a Garden of Eden; the wooded ground fell away to reveal the velvet-green fields surrounding the River Rye, a silver ribbon bubbling through the undulating meadows. I thought of Viscount Helmsley adoring the same scene daily; striding out with his faithful deerhound, fully expecting that one day he would die here, a heaven on earth, only to be killed in the darkest and bloodiest jaws of hell.
Chapter Eighteen
I never sleep well on Saturday night, anticipating the Sunday ahead. I have terrible nightmares where I am leading services in my pyjamas, failing to get my tongue around the Tudor English used at the early Communion, fumbling around in the Prayer Book, persistently turning up the Burial of the Dead rather than the Gospel for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity. On the Sunday after our visit to Duncome Park, I woke just after six and tiptoed down the dark stairs, not wanting to disturb the girls. I dressed in my study, where I had laid out my clothes the night before, but realized I had stupidly left my only pair of shoes in the bedroom. To return up the creaky stairs and even more creaky landing would have risked waking the whole house, so instead I donned my muddy wellingtons and hoped that my bleary-eyed parishioners wouldn’t notice them beneath my robes.
I squelched into church, which was still in darkness. I couldn’t find the light switches, so instead I gingerly felt my way along the altar rail and choir stalls. I swore as I jarred my ankle on a step I didn’t know was there, felt bad about cursing in such a hallowed spot, and eventually plonked myself down on a pew beneath my friend, the twenty-foot long dragon. For an hour I drank from the still silence and the darkness and greeted the dawn, which slowly turned the dragon’s dull grey to fierce red.
Just before 7.30 there was a great clattering as the deputy warden made his loud entry and put on all the lights, burning my eyes accustomed only to darkness. ‘Morning, Vicar,’ he shouted across to me, as candles were lit, books were piled up by the door (in case there was a surprising surge of worshippers) and loud greetings were exchanged with the dozen or so who had come early to be sure of a seat. Abandoning any hope of further silence, I put on my robes and stood outside the church door, watching the waking town. A sleek tabby cat stole behind a gravestone, stalking a blackbird, busy foraging for insects in the golden carpet of leaves, oblivious to the approaching huntress. Shopkeepers swilled down the stone flags outside their cafes, with the flotsam and jetsam from the previous night’s revelry in the town’s numerous pubs swirling into the beck. Saturday night is party night in Helmsley; the estate workers descend from the moors, drink their fill and then noisily wander around the town to ‘sober up’ before driving home.
‘I see you’ve got your wellies on, Vicar,’ one eagle-eyed man shouted, sloshing his mop. ‘Perhaps you can give us a hand!’
A heavily bearded tramp, who’d been sleeping rough by the beck, walked stiffly and slowly down Castlegate and came to a halt outside Rivis’ cafe. It was as if a rendezvous was pre-arranged, because no sooner had he arrived than a slim young woman brought him out a mug of tea and a bacon buttie and gave him a hug. A weary-looking young guy with bags under his eyes passed by, pushing a screaming toddler in a pushchair. ‘Little bugger’s kept us up all night teething,’ he said, shrugging. A young man emerged from a house in Castlegate, tucking his shirt into his trousers and tightening his tie with an illicit look about him; he turned and passionately kissed a young woman in a skimpy nightdress standing just inside the red door. Chefs in attire as white as mine loitered outside the kitchens of the Black Swan and the Feathers, which both front the market square, h
aving a crafty fag whilst their bacon crozzled. An immaculately made-up lady in a mink coat stared into the middle distance as her cocker spaniel did its steaming business by the church wall. There were constant comings and goings at the newsagent’s opposite the lychgate, stocky farmers with weather-worn faces hauled themselves into mud-splattered Land Rovers, staggering under the weight of their Sunday papers with supplements galore, as if they were heaving bales of hay. They slid open their windows and talked loudly with other farmers arriving in Land Rovers about the terrible price of sheep and the need for rain, their breath condensing in great white clouds in the frosty air. The church clock chimed eight and I started my first service of the day: Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid . . .
It was all over in half an hour. My taciturn and arthritic congregation suddenly put on a surprising spurt as they headed home for a late breakfast, wishing me a curt good morning as they sped off. I sped off too, and snatched a bowl of Shreddies with my chattering daughters before returning for the big event. Father Bert was already in the vestry, fretting. Like me he hadn’t slept at all well, but his nightmares are different from mine; bombers being shot from the skies rather than prayer books with pages perversely sticking together.
‘I’ve never slept well before celebrating Mass,’ he confided.
‘Well, Father, if you think of what we’re doing, who could sleep?’
Tomes have been written about what goes on or doesn’t go on at Communion; people have gone to the stake denying it all or believing it all. I believe it all, because otherwise ministry is utterly pointless, but I don’t make a song and dance of it. I like to go for simple sentences, like ‘We leave Holy Communion with the taste of Christ on our lips to give people a taste of Christ in their lives.’
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