After luncheon Troy showed Miss Hart three of her paintings, any one of which would have commanded a high price at an exhibition of contemporary art, and Miss Hart chose the one that, in her own phrase, really did look like something. She insisted that Troy and Mr. Bates accompany her to the parish hall where Mr. Bates would meet the rector, an authority on village folklore. Troy in person must hand over her painting to be raffled.
Troy would have declined this honor if Mr. Bates had not retired behind Miss Hart and made a series of beseeching gestures and grimaces. They set out therefore in Miss Hart’s car which was crammed with vegetables for the Harvest Festival decorations.
“And if the woman Simpson thinks she’s going to hog the lectern with her pumpkins,” said Miss Hart, “she’s in for a shock. Hah!”
St. Cuthbert’s was an ancient parish church round whose flanks the tiny village nestled. Its tower, an immensely high one, was said to be unique. Nearby was the parish hall where Miss Hart pulled up with a masterful jerk.
Troy and Mr. Bates helped her unload some of her lesser marrows to be offered for sale within. They were observed by a truculent-looking man in tweeds who grinned at Miss Hart. “Burnt offerings,” he jeered, “for the tribal gods, I perceive.” It was Mr. Richard De’ath, the atheist. Miss Hart cut him dead and led the way into the hall.
Here they found the rector, with a crimson-faced elderly man and a clutch of ladies engaged in preparing for the morrow’s sale.
The rector was a thin gentle person, obviously frightened of Miss Hart and timidly delighted by Troy. On being shown the Bible he became excited and dived at once into the story of Old Jimmy Wagstaff.
“Intemperate, I’m afraid, in everything,” sighed the rector. “Indeed, it would not be too much to say that he both preached and drank hellfire. He did preach, on Saturday nights at the crossroads outside the Star and Garter. Drunken, blasphemous nonsense it was and although he used to talk about his followers, the only one he could claim was his niece, Fanny, who was probably too much under his thumb to refuse him.”
“Edward Pilbrow,” Miss Hart announced, jerking her head at the elderly man who had come quite close to them. “Drowned him with his bell. They had a fight over it. Deaf as a post,” she added, catching sight of Mr. Bates’s startled expression. “He’s the verger now. And the town crier.”
“What!” Mr. Bates exclaimed.
“Oh, yes,” the rector explained. “The village is endowed with a town crier.” He went over to Mr. Pilbrow, who at once cupped his hand round his ear. The rector yelled into it.
“When did you start crying, Edward?”
“Twenty-ninth September, ’twenty-one,” Mr. Pilbrow roared back.
“I thought so.”
There was something in their manner that made it difficult to remember, Troy thought, that they were talking about events that were almost fifty years back in the past. Even the year 1779 evidently seemed to them to be not so long ago, but, alas, none of them knew of any Hadets.
“By all means,” the rector invited Mr. Bates, “consult the church records, but I can assure you—no Hadets. Never any Hadets.”
Troy saw an expression of extreme obstinacy settle round Mr. Bates’s mouth.
The rector invited him to look at the church and as they both seemed to expect Troy to tag along, she did so. In the lane they once more encountered Mr. Richard De’ath out of whose pocket protruded a paper-wrapped bottle. He touched his cap to Troy and glared at the rector, who turned pink and said, “Afternoon, De’ath,” and hurried on.
Mr. Bates whispered imploringly to Troy, “Would you mind? I do so want to have a word—” and she was obliged to introduce him. It was not a successful encounter. Mr. Bates no sooner broached the topic of his Bible, which he still carried, than Mr. De’ath burst into an alcoholic diatribe against superstition, and on the mention of Old Jimmy Wagstaff, worked himself up into such a state of reminiscent fury that Mr. Bates was glad to hurry away with Troy.
They overtook the rector in the churchyard, now bathed in the golden opulence of an already westering sun.
“There they all lie,” the rector said, waving a fatherly hand at the company of headstones. “All your Wagstaffs, right back to the sixteenth century. But no Hadets, Mr. Bates, I assure you.”
They stood looking up at the spire. Pigeons flew in and out of a balcony far above their heads. At their feet was a little flagged area edged by a low coping. Mr. Bates stepped forward and the rector laid a hand on his arm.
“Not there,” he said. “Do you mind?”
“Don’t!” bellowed Mr. Pilbrow from the rear. “Don’t you set foot on them bloody stones, Mister.”
Mr. Bates backed away.
“Edward’s not swearing,” the rector mildly explained. “He is to be taken, alas, literally. A sad and dreadful story, Mr. Bates.”
“Indeed?” Mr. Bates asked eagerly.
“Indeed, yes. Some time ago, in the very year we have been discussing—1921, you know—one of our girls, a very beautiful girl she was, named Ruth Wall, fell from the balcony of the tower and was, of course, killed. She used to go up there to feed the pigeons and it was thought that in leaning over the low balustrade she overbalanced.”
“Ah!” Mr. Pilbrow roared with considerable relish, evidently guessing the purport of the rector’s speech. “Terrible, terrible! And ’er sweetheart after ’er, too. Terrible!”
“Oh, no!” Troy protested.
The rector made a dabbing gesture to subdue Mr. Pilbrow. “I wish he wouldn’t,” he said. “Yes. It was a few days later. A lad called Simon Castle. They were to be married. People said it must be suicide but—it may have been wrong of me—I couldn’t bring myself—in short, he lies beside her over there. If you would care to look.”
For a minute or two they stood before the headstones.
“Ruth Wall. Spinster of this Parish. 1903-1921. I will extend peace to her like a river.”
“Simon Castle. Bachelor of this Parish. 1900-1921. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
The afternoon having by now worn on, and the others having excused themselves, Mr. Bates remained alone in the churchyard, clutching his Bible and staring at the headstones. The light of the hunter’s zeal still gleamed in his eyes.
Troy didn’t see Mr. Bates again until Sunday night service when, on her way up the aisle, she passed him, sitting in the rearmost pew. She was amused to observe that his gigantic Bible was under the seat.
“We plow the fields,” sang the choir, “and scatter—” Mrs. Simpson roared away on the organ, the smell of assorted greengrocery rising like some humble incense. Everybody in Little Copplestone except Mr. Richard De’ath was there for the Harvest Festival. At last the rector stepped over Miss Hart’s biggest pumpkin and ascended the pulpit, Edward Pilbrow switched off all the lights except one and they settled down for the sermon.
“A sower went forth to sow,” announced the rector. He spoke simply and well but somehow Troy’s attention wandered. She found herself wondering where, through the centuries, the succeeding generations of Wagstaffs had sat until Old Jimmy took to his freakish practices; and whether Ruth Wall and Simon Castle, poor things, had shared the same hymnbook and held hands during the sermon; and whether, after all, Stewart Shakespeare Hadet and Peter Rook Hadet had not, in 1779, occupied some dark corner of the church and been unaccountably forgotten.