"Do you mean the sending of the request? No one here has been in contact with your newspaper. If you mean am I denying the appearance of Father Franklin, the answer is yes."
We stared at each other. I was torn between irritation with her and frustration at myself. Whenever incidents like this did not go smoothly, I blamed my lack of experience and motivation. The other writers on the paper always seemed to know how to handle people like Mrs Holloway.
"Can I see whoever is in charge here?" I said.
"I am the head of administration. Everyone else is involved with the teaching."
I was about to give up, but I said, "Does my name mean anything at all to you?"
"Should it?"
"Someone requested me by name."
"That would have come from the Press Office, not from here."
"Hold on," I said.
I walked back to the car to collect the notes I had been given by Wickham the day before. Mrs Holloway was still standing by the bottom of the stairs when I returned, but she had put down her bundle of files somewhere.
I stood beside her while I turned to the page Wickham had been sent. It was a fax message. It said, "To Mr L. Wickham, Features Editor, Chronicle . The necessary written details you requested are as follows: Rapturous Church of Christ Jesus, Caldlow, Derbyshire. Half a mile outside Caldlow village, to the north, on A623. Parking at main gate, or in the grounds. Mrs Holloway, administrator, will provide your reporter Mr Andrew Westley with information. K. Angier."
"This is nothing to do with us," Mrs Holloway said. "I'm sorry."
"Who is K. Angier?" I said. "Mr? Mrs?"
"She is the resident of the private wing on the east side of this building, and has no connection with the Church. Thank you."
She had placed her hand on my elbow and was propelling me politely towards the door. She indicated that the continuation of the gravel path would take me to a gate, where the entrance to the private wing would be found.
I said, "I'm sorry if there's been a misunderstanding. I don't know how it happened."
"If you want any more information about the Church, I'd be grateful if you'd speak to the Press Office. That is its function, you know."
"Yes, all right." It was raining more heavily than before, and I had brought no coat. I said, "May I ask you just one thing? Is everybody away at present?"
"No, we have full attendance. There are more than two hundred people in training this week."
"It feels as if the whole place is empty."
"We are a group whose rapture is silent. I am the only person permitted to speak during the hours of daylight. Good day to you."
She retreated into the building, and closed the door behind her.
#############
I decided to refer back to the office, since it was clear the story I had been sent to cover was no longer live. Standing under the dripping ivy, watching the heavy drizzle drifting across the valley, I rang Len Wickham's direct line, full of foreboding. He answered after a delay. I told him what had happened.
"Have you seen the informant yet?" he said. "Someone called Angier."
"I'm right outside their place now," I said, and explained what I understood was the setup here. "I don't think it's a story. I'm thinking it might just be a dispute between neighbours. You know, complaining about something or other." But not about the noise, I thought as soon as I had spoken.
There was a long silence.
Then Len Wickham said, "See the neighbour, and if there's anything in it, call me back. If not, get back to London for this evening."
"It's Friday," I said. "I thought I'd visit my parents tonight."
Wickham replied by putting down his receiver.
I was greeted at the main door of the wing by a woman in late middle age, whom I addressed as "Mrs Angier", but she merely took my name, looked intently at my press card, then showed me into a side room and asked me to wait. The stately scale of the room, simply but attractively furnished with Indian carpets, antique chairs and a polished table, made me feel scruffy in my travel-creased and rain-dampened suit. After about five minutes the woman returned, and uttered words that put a chill through me.
"Lady Katherine will see you now," she said.
She led me upstairs to a large, pleasant living room that looked out across the valley floor towards a high rocky escarpment, at present only dimly visible.
A young woman was standing by the open fireplace, where logs blazed and smoked, and she held out her hand to greet me as I went across to her. I had been thrown off guard by the unexpected news that I was visiting a member of the aristocracy, but her manner was cordial. I was struck, and favourably so, by several features about her physical appearance. She was tall, dark-haired and had a broad face with a strong jaw. Her hair was arranged so that it softened the sharper lines of her face. Her eyes were wide. She had a nervous intentness about her face, as if she were worried about what I might say or think.
She greeted me formally, but the moment the other woman had left the room her manner changed. She introduced herself as Kate, not Katherine, Angier, and told me to disregard the title as she rarely used it herself. She asked me to confirm if I was Andrew Westley. I said that I was.
"I assume you've just been to the main part of the house?"
"The Rapturous Church? I hardly got past the door."
"I think that was my fault. I warned them you might be coming, but Mrs Holloway wasn't too pleased."
"I suppose it was you who sent the message to my paper?"
"I wanted to meet you."
"So I gathered. Why on earth should you know about me?"
"I plan to tell you. But I haven't had lunch yet. What about you?"
I told her I had stopped earlier in the village, but otherwise had not eaten since breakfast. I followed her downstairs to the ground floor where the woman who had opened the door to me, addressed by Lady Katherine as Mrs Makin, was preparing a simple lunch of cold meats and cheeses, with salad. As we sat down, I asked Kate Angier why she had brought me all the way up here from London, on what now seemed a wild-goose-chase.
"I don't think it's that," she said.
"I have to file a story this evening."
"Well, maybe that might be difficult. Do you eat meat, Mr Westley?"
She passed me the plate of cold cuts. While we ate, a polite conversation went on, in which she asked me questions about the newspaper, my career, where I lived and so on. I was still conscious of her title, and felt inhibited by this, but the longer we spoke the easier it became. She had a tentative, almost nervous bearing, and she frequently looked away from me and back again while I was speaking. I assumed this was not through apparent lack of interest in what I was saying, but because it was her manner. I noticed, for instance, that her hands trembled whenever she reached out for something on the table. When I finally felt it was time to ask her about herself, she told me that the house we were in had been in her family for more than three hundred years. Most of the land in the valley belonged to the estate, and a number of farms were tenanted. Her father was an earl, but he lived abroad. Her mother was dead, and her only other close relative, an elder sister, was married and lived in Bristol with her husband and children.
The house had been a family home, with several servants, until the outbreak of the Second World War. The Ministry of Defence had then requisitioned most of the building, using it as regional headquarters for RAF Transport Command. At this point her family had moved into the east wing, which anyway had always been the favoured part of the house. When the RAF left after the war the house was taken over by Derbyshire County Council as offices, and the present tenants (her phrase) arrived in 1980. She said her parents had been worried at first by the prospect of an American religious sect moving in, because of what you heard about some of them, but by this time the family needed the money and it had worked out well. The Church kept its teaching quiet, the members were polite and charming to meet, and these days neither she nor the villagers were concerned about what they might or might not be up to.