Part 58 (1/2)

”Nothing in particular.” Winifred was rubbing away, though al most certainly making matters worse. ”Really, nothing. I shouldn't bother.”

”Then I won't,” said Millicent. ”You look like a pilgrim: more on her knees than on her back, or whatever it is.”

”Most of the things have been taken away,” continued Winifred informatively.

”In that case, where did the funeral happen? Where did they hold the service?”

Winifred went on fiddling with her trousers for a moment before attempting a reply. ”Somewhere else, I suppose. That's quite common nowadays.”

”There's something wrong,” said Millicent. ”There's something very wrong with almost everything.”

They ploughed back through the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s to the brick path up to the porch. The owls seemed indeed to have retired once more to their carnivorous bothies.

”We must get on with things or we shall miss Baddeley,” said Winifred. ”Not that it hasn't all been well worth while, as I hope you will agree.”

But - On the path, straight before them, between the church porch and the other, by now almost familiar path which ran across the descending graveyard, right in the center of things, lay a glove.

”That wasn't there either,” said Millicent immediately.

Winifred picked up the glove and they inspected it together. It was a left-hand glove in black leather or kid, seemingly new or almost so, and really rather elegant. It would have been a remarkably small left hand that fitted it, Millicent thought. People occasionally remarked upon the smallness of her own hands, which was always something that pleased her. The tiny but expensive-looking body of the glove terminated in a wider gauntlet-like frill or extension of rougher design.

”We'd better hand it in,” said Winifred.

”Where?”

”At the rectory, I suppose, if that is what the place is.”

”Do you think we must?”

”Well, what else? We can't go off with it. It looks costly.”

”There's someone else around the place,” said Millicent. ”Perhaps more than one of them.” She could not quite have said why she thought there might be such a crowd.

But Winifred again remained silent and did not ask why.

”I'll carry the glove,” said Millicent. Winifred was still bearing the rucksack and its remaining contents, including the empty half bottle, for which the graveyard offered no litter basket.

The carriage gate, which had once been painted in some kind of blue and was now falling apart, crossbar from socket, and spike- work from woodwork, offered no clue as to whether the abode was, or had been, rectory or vicarage. The short drive was weedy and littered. Either the trees predated the mid- Victorian building, or they were prematurely senile.

The front-door bell rang quite sharply when Winifred pushed it, but nothing followed. After a long- ish, silent pause, with Millicent holding the glove to the fore, Winifred rang again. Again, nothing followed.

Millicent spoke: ”I believe it's open.”

She pushed and together they entered, merely a few steps. The hall within, which had originally been designed more or less in the Gothic manner, was furnished, though not abundantly, and seemed to be ”lived in.” Coming towards them, moreover, was a bent figure, female, hirsute, and wearing a discolored ap.r.o.n, depending vaguely.

”We found this in the churchyard,” said Winifred in her clear voice, pointing to the glove.

”I can't hear the bell,” said the figure. ”That's why the door's left open. I lost my hearing. You know how.”

Millicent knew that Winifred was no good with the deaf: so often a matter not of decibels, but presumably of psychology.

”We found this glove,” she said, holding it up and speaking quite naturally.

”I can't hear anything,” said the figure, disappointingly. ”You know why.”

”We don't,” said Millicent. ”Why?”

But of course that could not be heard either. It was no good trying further.

The retainer, if such she was, saved the situation. ”I'll go for madam,” she said and withdrew without inviting them to seat themselves on one of the haphazard sofas or uncertain-looking chairs.

”I suppose we shut the door,” said Winifred, and did so.

They stood about for a little. There was nothing to look at apart from a single colored print of lambs in the Holy Land. At each corner of the frame, the fretwork made a cross, though one of the crosses had been partly broken off.

”None the less, I don't think it's still the rectory,” said Winifred. ”Or the vicarage.”

”You're right.” A middle-aged woman had appeared, wearing a loose dress. The color of the dress lay between oatmeal and cream, and round the oblong neck and the ends of the elbow-length sleeves ran wide strips of a cherry hue. The woman's shoes were faded, and she had taken little trouble with her bird's nest hair. ”You're perfectly right,” said the woman. ”Hasn't been a clergyman here for years. There are some funny old rectories in this county, as you may have heard.”

”Boreley, you mean,” said Millicent, who had always been quite interested in such things.

”That place and a number of other places,” said the woman. ”Each little community has its specialty.”

”This was a rectory,” Winifred enquired in the way she often did, politely elevating her eyebrows, ”not a vicarage?”

”They would have found it even more difficult to keep a vicar,” said the woman in the most matter-of- fact way. Millicent could see there was no wedding ring on her hand. Indeed, there was no ring of any kind on either of her rather ma.s.sive, rather unshaped hands. For that matter, there were no gems in her ears, no geegaws round her neck, no Castilian combs in her wild hair.

”Sit down,” said the woman. ”What can I do for you? My name's Stock. Pansy Stock. Ridiculous, isn't it? But it's a perfectly common name in Ess.e.x.”

Winifred often went on in that very same way about ”Ess.e.x,” had indeed already done so more than once during the journey down, but Millicent had always supposed it to be one of Winifred's mild fancies, which it was up to her friends to indulge. She had never supposed it to have any objective metaphysic. Nor had she ever brought herself to address anyone as Pansy and was glad that the need was unlikely to arise now.

They sat, and because it seemed to be called for, Winifred introduced herself and then Millicent. Miss Stock sat upon the other sofa. She was wearing woolly, midgreen stockings.

”It's simply about this glove,” went on Winifred. ”We explained to your servant, but we couldn't quite make her understand.”

”Lettice has heard nothing since it happened. That was the effect it had on her.”

”Since what happened?” asked Winifred. ”If we may ask, that is.”

”Since she was jilted, of course,” answered Miss Stock.

”That sounds very sad,” said Winifred, in her affable and emollient way. Millicent, after all, had not exactly been jilted, not exactly. Technically, it was she who was the jilt. Socially, it still made a difference.

”It's the usual thing in this place. I've said that each community has its specialty. This is ours.”

”How extraordinary!” said Winifred.

”It happens to all the females, and not only when they're still girls.”