“You can’t expect us to sit round waiting for Simon until Doomsday,” snapped Nick. “He’s not the only one with access to genealogical records—”
“No one’s suggesting we leave avenues unexplored,” Jack broke in, forestalling outright hostilities. “I’ve some elderly relatives I could have a word with. That seems as good a place to start as any, don’t you think, Simon? More tea, everyone?”
Winnie hesitated, glancing at her watch. She felt a great need to block out the emotional undercurrents of the group so that she could absorb what she had just experienced. “I think I’ll go to Wells for Evensong. Jack?”
“Sorry, darling, I can’t. I’m meeting with some clients at six.” He touched her arm lightly. “You’re sure you won’t stay?”
“I’d like to come with you, if that’s all right,” offered Faith, much to Winnie’s surprise.
“Of course,” Winnie said with genuine pleasure. She’d been hoping to have a word with the girl without appearing too much the interfering priest, and she had just been handed the perfect opportunity.
Historically, Wells had long been Glastonbury’s rival, with much building at the Abbey spurred by progress at Wells, and vice versa. As the west front of the cathedral came into view across the green, Winnie tried to imagine that the Abbey had once looked very like it, but it seemed impossible to superimpose the magnificent front and towers of the intact cathedral against the ruins that remained at Glastonbury.
“The ladders are my favorite thing.” Faith stopped to look up at the carved stone saints climbing to heaven.
“Mine too,” Winnie agreed. “You’ve been here before, then?”
“Lots of times.”
When Faith didn’t offer anything further, Winnie glanced at her watch. “I think we’ve time for a cup of tea in the refectory, if you’d like. Are you hungry?”
Faith gave her a shy smile. “Always.”
As they entered the main doors of the cathedral, Winnie felt a lift of delight, as she always did, at the sight of the great scissor arch supporting the towers. Some historians theorized that Glastonbury had once had an arch like that, and it suddenly occurred to Winnie that they might ask Edmund—a sure sign that she was becoming as batty as the rest of them.
They turned right, passing through the gift shop and into the refectory, where Faith accepted a cheese roll and insisted on herbal tea. “Garnet says I mustn’t have any caffeine,” she explained. “It’s bad for the baby.”
“Do you get on well with Garnet?” Winnie asked when they were settled at a table overlooking the quiet green square of the Cloisters.
“She’s been brilliant. And she knows ever so much about everything. Have you seen her tiles?” Faith took an enormous bite of roll.
“Yes, in several of the churches I visit. They’re beautiful.”
“She knows all about the Old Religion, too, and about how Goddess worship was incorporated into the Christian Church as worship of the Virgin Mar—” She stopped, giving Winnie a horrified glance, as if suddenly realizing Winnie might not approve of these views.
“I daresay she’s right,” Winnie interposed gently. “It’s an interesting idea. You said you’d come to Wells often?”
“I sang in the choir at school,” Faith explained. “We came to hear other choirs, and once we were even invited to sing ourselves.”
Did she detect a wistful note in the girl’s voice? “You must miss that.”
“It was … It made me feel sort of … outside myself, I suppose.” Faith gave a small shrug, as if embarrassed by her admission.
“Like today? You felt it, too, didn’t you?”
Faith nodded. “It was really weird—like I was there, in the church, and I could hear them singing.”
“I don’t think the others had the same experience.” Winnie drank her tea, which had gone lukewarm, while she thought. “I can’t explain it. I’m not even sure I believe this whole thing.”
“Maybe you needed convincing.” The look in Faith’s dark eyes brooked no dissembling.
“Maybe I did. But what about you?”
Touching her belly, Faith said, “I think it might have something to do with this. Since the baby—it’s like the world’s more intense. I see better, hear better—everything seems to have another layer.”
A hormonally boosted increase in perception? Winnie wondered. Or something more? “Faith, about the baby—do your parents know where you are?”
The girl pushed away her empty plate and cup. “My dad—They said they never wanted to see me ever again. That I was a disgrace to them.”
Oh, dear God, thought Winnie. “People often say things in anger that they don’t mean. I’m sure your parents have spent the last few months regretting every word, and that they’re worried sick about you.”
“I can’t go back. Not after that. You don’t know my dad. And my place is with Garnet now.”
Winnie thought she’d glimpsed a hint of tears in Faith’s eyes, but the girl’s chin was set in a stubborn line. She wouldn’t push her luck, but perhaps she could at least open negotiations. “Would you let me talk to them?”
Faith started to shake her head before Winnie had even finished her sentence.
“I wouldn’t tell them where you were,” Winnie continued. “I wouldn’t tell them anything you didn’t want me to—only that you’re all right.” Seeing Faith waver, she added with a grin, “You can trust me to keep a promise—it’s part of my job description,” and was rewarded with a hesitant smile.
“Could you—could you tell my sister and my brother that I miss them? And my mum?”
“Of course. You give me the address and I’ll go see them first chance I get.” Looking round, Winnie realized the refectory was almost empty. “We’d better go, or we’ll miss the service.”
Returning to the front of the cathedral, they made their way down the left-hand side of the nave to the rope that blocked entry to the Quire until time for the service to begin. There was a sizable crowd waiting, and after a moment the verger released the barrier and ushered them into the stalls.
There was a visiting choir that evening, as the cathedral choir was on August holiday, and Winnie saw with pleasure that they were singing the Bach Magnificat, then Parry’s Songs of Farewell, two of her favorites.
After the usual rustle and shuffle of people adjusting positions and shedding belongings, a hush fell as the choir processed in and took their seats.
Surrounded by the rich, dark wood of the stalls and the glow of lamplight, Winnie felt shielded from the outside world, sealed in a nucleus that rendered time and space meaningless. As the music rose about them, she glanced at the young woman beside her. Faith’s countenance was suffused with such joy and longing that Winnie’s heart ached, and she knew that this child was one innocent she would protect with all the weapons of her calling.
Chalice Well Gardens lay in the gentle valley between Chalice Hill and the Tor. The gardens rose, level by level, until the last, an enclosed, leafy bower that housed the well itself. Water the color of blood filled the five-sided well chamber, then flowed through an underground pipe into the Lion’s Head pool below at an unceasing twenty-five thousand gallons a day and a constant temperature of fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit.
Nick sat on a bench near the well, waiting for Faith, who had promised to meet him for a half hour before they both had to be at work. He contemplated the well’s intricate wrought-iron cover, designed just after the First World War by Frederick Bligh Bond; funny how old Bond kept cropping up, once you’d made a connection with him.
The carving was an ancient symbol called the vesica piscis, two interlocking circles said to represent the interpenetration of the material and immaterial worlds, or the yin and yang where the conscious and unconscious meet.
It was also said to represent the blending of male and female energy … perhaps a propitious sign for this meeting, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up. He told himself often enough that it was utterly stupid to be in love with a pregnant schoolgirl; he of all people should know better. But it made no difference. And what did he think he would do if she did return his feelings? Marry her and take care of mother and infant? Absurd. He barely managed to feed himself and pay the rent on his caravan.