He had only just finished when Ann came down, and after rummaging for some straps in the cupboard under the stairs, they attached her suitcase to the back of his borrowed bicycle and set off for Orford.
The Vicar's wife, whom Ann knew well but had never liked on account of her dictatorial manner, proved in this emergency a truly Christian woman. After their first words she would not allow Ann to talk of the tragedy, but made her lie down upon her bed, produced aspirin and fine china tea which she valued more than gold dust from her own limited store, and insisted that all arrangements should be left to herself and Kenyon.
Her husband was another of those who had been caught away from home at the time of the outbreak, so Orford was without a vicar; but a local colleague had promised a service for that evening and she suggested that he should be asked to officiate at the interment of the Reverend Timothy and his housekeeper, at the same time.
Kenyon soon learned from her that the little town was by no means so secure as he had supposed. At the outset of the trouble the local farmers had marched in and wrecked the bank, burning the ledgers that contained particulars of their overdrafts, derisively calling upon the manager, who had sought to protect his company's property, to telephone 'Head Office' and see what they meant to do about it. The Watch Committee had restored order, and the head of it was a retired Colonel, a capable organiser, but a martinet, many of whose decisions were resented by the locals, and a Communist Party had been formed among the poorer classes which was likely to revolt against his authority at any moment.
The village undertaker was sent for, and the verger, but neither expressed surprise at this hasty burial of a well known local character. Both had been called on in these last few weeks to deal with a rush of their melancholy business which neither had ever known before. Even to this seeming sanctuary the terror was creeping closer day by day and already outlying farms were no longer safe from the murderous hunger raiders, so they accepted the tragedy at Fenn Farm almost as part of the gruesome daily business which they had come to know.
Later, in an effort to cheer him, the Vicar's wife led Kenyon out into her garden, but the dahlias and golden rod could not draw his thoughts from the long queue of people that he had seen earlier that afternoon in the Square. Not a cigarette or pipe had he seen among the men, and the faces of the women were filled with strained anxiety as they stood patiently waiting for their meagre rations; some distance away a group of men wearing red armlets had been hustling three miserable looking fellows towards the lock up; invading townsmen, he had no doubt, caught in the act of housebreaking or some nefarious business on the outskirts of the town.
Now he was regarding Orford with very different eyes to those with which he had viewed it in the morning. It seemed only a matter of a week or two before the Colonel and his committee must be submerged under a wave of Bolshevism, and for the first time Kenyon admitted to himself that there was real justification for Gregory's policy of ruthlessness to any but their own community. Only behind those well panned and well provisioned defences at Shingle Street was there any real hope of survival in this dissolution of England which was now affecting even its remotest parts.
At half past six Ann and Kenyon accompanied the Vicar's wife to the ancient church. All regular parishioners had gathered for the service and, in addition, many townspeople who had learned of the Reverend Timothy's tragic death.
The visiting clergyman was an elderly man of unusually fine physique, stooping slightly in the shoulders but with a handsome leonine head on which the silver hair swept back from the broad and lofty forehead. His eyes were large, intelligent and kindly, and the fine tenor of his voice would have attracted large congregations had he been the incumbent of a wealthy parish. In a few simple sentences he passed from the subject of the newly dead to an address upon the present situation, urging his listeners upon a course which would ensure their spiritual, and might ensure their bodily, preservation.
He proceeded to cite the conduct of his own parishioners as an example. At the beginning all had been filled with fear at the approach of these terrifying and unknown dangers which were creeping in upon them, but a few, and those by no means the most regular attendants at his church, had come to talk with him about measures for their safety; and, in what seemed to him almost a miraculously short space of time, a strange understanding had come to them that if they would only believe in Our Lord and Saviour, no fear should ever trouble them any more.
Hard headed business men, and farmers who all their lives had been wrestling every penny from each other, had put their avarice behind them and spoken to others of their conversion, so that soon the whole village had come, in this great emergency, to see the light.
He went on to describe the new life and hope that had permeated his community. How each morning they gathered for a simple service to ask a blessing and a guidance for the labours of the day, and met each evening to render thanks for their preservation; while their need being greater than his, it had even been necessary for him to lend his own Bible to poor people who lacked that blessing, that they might read at home the wonderful message which all had learnt at school, but so many forgotten in the turmoil of modern life, yet which stood as a timeless beacon, unflickering, undimmed, in the growing darkness of a changing world.
'Of what value is property any more?' he asked; 'God in His goodness has given us many blessings, but in our folly we have abused them, hoarding where we had opportunity, striving against each other for a greater share than our necessities warranted, and waxing fat and slothful upon the labours of our weaker brethren. Now, in His infinite wisdom He has chosen to change the order of things that we may see them in their true perspective and live more nearly in accordance with His will. The fruits of the earth remain with us and the fishermen may still go down to the sea. There is no reason, once the crisis is past, why any man should starve, but once more the money changers have been thrown out of the temple and humanity given a new chance to accept the simple, straightforward teaching which Christ laid down nearly two thousand years ago for the guidance of mankind.
'Death and destruction are upon every side,' came the clear clarion note of the silver voice, 'yet that is only because we have been bound up with ignorance and evil for so long. No man who truly believes upon our Saviour can raise his hand against another, and although everyone will be called upon to make some sacrifice of worldly goods, how infinitesimal is that sacrifice compared to the ineffable peace and joy which comes to those who live daily according to the Word, strong in the knowledge that the divine love is about them, and certain that whatever may befall', their blindness has been lifted from them, so that when their eyes are closed to this life on earth they will be the joyous recipients of the eternal salvation in the life to come.'
It was the most vital sermon that Ann and Kenyon had ever heard, and with the people of Orford they stood silent and awe struck, so that the passion of the afternoon was gone and the terror which had assailed them in the morning.
Silently, with lowered eyes, they followed the creaking farm wagon which carried the coffins to their last resting place and after the final rites set out, with new hope in their hearts but little knowledge of what lay before them.
21
Gregory 'Reaps the Whirlwind'
Kenyon had been anxious to get Ann safely back to Shingle Street before dark, but that was impossible now. It was already seven thirty when they started off up the hill out of Orford, and he knew that they would have to tramp a good portion of the way for, in this undulating country, he could only carry her on the step of his bicycle where the gradients were favourable.