Mr Parkin’s hand contracted playfully within Mrs Gloss’s brassiere. “Honk, honk!” he whispered into her ear.
“...which, after all, is concerned with a most serious matter. It would be most unfortunate if our little group were to find itself involved in a police investigation—particularly at a time when, as you have heard, some representatives of the national Press are in the town. We do not want any misunderstandings, do we? They could, if publicized, do some of us great harm.”
Mrs Gloss, OBE, Chairman of the Standing Conference of Conservative Ladies, looked grave. So did Mrs Pearce, Honorary Secretary of the Flaxborough Society of Mead Makers; Mrs Hall, vice-president of the Ladies’ Branch of the British Legion; and Mr Gooding, who for years had been trying to get into the Masons by sending gifts of his fretwork to members of the Royal Family.
“What I do think is regrettable,” continued Mrs Framlington, “is this quite unauthorized piece of spell-casting in the parish church. Sister Pentatuke is right to warn us of the possible consequences of, er, tactlessness in the exercise of our arts...”
“That,” Mrs Pentatuke broke in, “is not what I said. I warned and warned thrice of harm intended by spies and strangers. I have never sought to stay the hand of sister or brother in mal or moil, in dark or light.”
“I beg your pardon, Maiden Pentatuke.”
“Granted, Sister chairman.”
There was a long pause. Mrs Framlington looked expectantly at several members in turn. Mrs Gooding spoke.
“Couldn’t Warlock Bottomley get all these newspaper people or whatever they are into his pub? It would be easy enough then for him to...” She began to laugh wheezily—“to put a few drops of...of...”
This was as much of the suggestion that Mrs Gooding was able to offer before the palsy of her amusement rendered her altogether inarticulate.
“No, he jolly well couldn’t,” declared the horrified licensee of the Freemasons’ Arms.
“Let us be practical,” Mrs Framlington urged. She noticed that Henry Pearce had stood up and was looking at a piece of paper on which he had been writing a few notes. “Yes, Warlock Pearce?”
“To test the feelings of the meeting,” Pearce said slowly, “I am going to propose the following motion from the floor in regard to matters arising from what was said by madam secretary. That this assembly hereby authorizes the officers of the organization, known for security reasons as the Flaxborough Branch of the Sabbath Day Conservation Society, to conjure or otherwise obtain the presence—no, the attendance—the attendance for advice purposes of the Being we call for security reasons the President of the said Branch. And that we agree”—Mr Pearce glanced about him, then looked down at the paper again—“to co-operate in any ceremony or other activity deemed necessary by the said officers in order to raise the said President.”
Mr Pearce folded the paper twice, put it into his pocket and sat down.
“I second that proposition,” called Mr Parkin, withdrawing and raising his right, warmer, hand.
“Me, too!” Mrs Gooding was fumbling with a button at the side of her skirt.
Mrs Framlington searched with hopeful eye for evidence of contrary counsel. She looked for a moment at the unenthusiastic face of Mrs Hall but it remained averted. No one else seemed to wish to say anything.
“Carried unanimously,” announced Mrs Pentatuke, before Mrs Framlington could call for a vote. “I think,” she added, rising energetically to her feet, “that the curtains had better be drawn just in case anyone wanders by.”
Mr Parkin hastened to respond.
From within the tent of her tortuously uprising inside-out skirt Mrs Gooding was making little growling noises of pleasurable anticipation.
Her husband moved to the other side of the room and began slowly to unknot his tie in front of a gilt-framed wall mirror in which he could watch the reflected disrobing of Mrs Gloss. It looked, he thought, very artistic in the greenish gloaming produced by the closing of the curtains.
“Potions, everybody!”
This rallying cry came from Mrs Tossie Pearce on her return from a brief excursion to the kitchen. She shut the door behind her with her foot. On the tray she carried were five big black bottles.
“Do you mind using your cups?” she inquired cheerily.
To Mrs Pentatuke, ecstatically unbuttoning her dress, the question seemed to be a reminder. She came out of her trance.
“Gosh, I must just ring home,” she said to Mrs Framlington, and hurried to the door. “I left Lionel some liver in the oven. Mind if I use the phone?”
She disappeared before the owner of the house and telephone could reply. Mrs Framlington reflected that Mrs Pentatuke’s forcefulness of character could be a little trying on occasion.
She looked about her. Everyone seemed preoccupied and rather excited. Tossie Pearce’s home-made wine—this particular crue, she believed, was Sage and Blood Orange—had no rival in the county as an aphrodisiac. Would they take offence if she were to put newspapers over the furniture? Perhaps. Feeling apprehensive but quite impotent, she edged unobtrusively to the door, slipped through, and closed it behind her. She had decided to spend an hour weeding the herb garden.
On her way to the kitchen and the back door, she heard the voice of Mrs Pentatuke telephoning in the hall. She did not consciously listen to what Mrs Pentatuke was saying. Later, though, it was to occur to her that there had been something odd about the call—about the tone of voice which Mrs Pentatuke had used.
Why, Mrs Framlington was to ask herself, should a homely conversation about braised liver have sounded so threatening?
Chapter Eight
The following morning, Mrs Framlington drove her sedate, seven-year-old motor-car into the Market Place and parked it with three wheels in the roadway and the fourth half-way across the pavement. This untidiness did not matter much, for it was Sunday and the streets were deserted except for an occasional blear-eyed wanderer in quest of cigarettes or milk or the News of the World. Mrs Framlington wanted none of these things. Nor did she join the thin straggle of citizens making their way to the south door of St Lawrence’s in response to the great waves of bell-music that had been assaulting the town since before eight o’clock. She took the perimeter path round the Church Close and halted before the door of a tall, narrow, Georgian house that looked as if it would have one or, at the most, two rooms on each of its three floors. Mrs Framlington remarked expansively to the woman who opened the door—a woman slightly younger, perhaps, than herself but of gracious manner and a pleasing mildness of countenance—that she had never heard the parish bells in better voice.
“What a lovely peal and how splendidly it seems to sing out right over one’s head,” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and gazing up at the vast honey-coloured cliff of the tower.
The other woman smiled and shook her head. She took Mrs Framlington’s arm and drew her inside the house, then closed the door.