Which just goes to show you that hanging round Lady Schrapnell and her ancestors can teach you a thing or two about getting things done.
“Hurry!” I said to Baine, and he sprinted off through the drizzle, which was rapidly turning into rain.
“I really do not think a tour at this time is advisable,” the curate said. “The workmen are installing a new choir railing, and I have an appointment to meet with Miss Sharpe regarding the fancywork table.”
“You’ll be having a jumble sale, of course,” I said.
“A jumble sale?” the curate said uncertainly.
“It’s the latest thing in bazaars. Ah, here they are.” I bounded down the steps as the carriage pulled up, snatched Verity’s hand, and pulled her out of the carriage. “What good luck! St. Michael’s is open after all, and the curate’s offered to give us a tour of the church. Quick,” I muttered under my breath. “Before he changes his mind.”
Verity tripped lightly up to the curate, smiled brightly at him, and peered in through the door. “Oh, do come look at this, Tossie,” she said, and ducked inside.
Terence helped Tossie out and into the church, and I assisted Mrs. Mering, holding the umbrella Baine handed me over her head.
“Oh, dear,” she said, looking anxiously at the clouds. “The weather looks very threatening. Perhaps we should start for home before the storm breaks.”
“Some of the workmen say they’ve seen a spirit,” I said rapidly. “One of them went home ill after the experience.”
“How wonderful!” Mrs. Mering said.
We came up even with the curate, who was standing in the doorway, wringing his hands. “I’m afraid you will be sadly disappointed in St. Michael’s, Mrs. Mering,” he said. “We are—”
“—preparing for the annual bazaar. Mrs. Mering, you must tell him about your dahlia penwipers,” I said shamelessly, maneuvering her around him and into the church. “So clever, and beautiful, besides.”
There was a crack of thunder so loud I was convinced I’d been struck by lightning for lying.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Mering said.
“I’m afraid this is an inauspicious time for a tour of the church,” the curate said at the same time. “The vicar is away, and Miss Sharpe—”
I opened my mouth to say, “A brief tour, at least, since we’re here,” and didn’t have to. There was a second crack of thunder, and the skies opened up.
Mrs. Mering and the curate stepped back into the church, away from the splashing raindrops, and Baine, the ever-ready, stepped forward and shut the door. “It looks like we’ll be here awhile, madam,” he said, and I could hear Verity sigh with relief.
“Well,” the curate said, “as you’re here, this is the nave. As you can see, we are undertaking renovations.” He had not exaggerated about the sawdust or the mess. It looked nearly as bad as after the air raid. The chancel was blocked off with wooden hoardings. The pews were draped in dusty tarps. Stacks of lumber lay in front of the choir, from which there issued a loud banging.
“We are modernizing the church,” the curate said. “The decorations were hopelessly out-of-date. I had hoped to have the bell tower replaced with a modern carillon, but the Renovations Committee refused to consider it. Hopelessly hidebound. But I was able to persuade them to remove the galleries and many of the old tombs and monuments, which were cluttering up the chapels. Some of them dated all the way back to the Fourteenth Century.” He rolled his eyes. “Simply ruined the look of the church.”
He smiled a rather protruding smile at Tossie. “Would you care to see the nave, Miss Mering? We’ve put in all new electric lighting.”
Verity came up next to me. “Get his name,” she whispered.
“When our proposed plans are completed,” the curate said, “the church will be a fully modern church which will last hundreds of years.”
“Fifty-two,” I muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” the curate said.
“Nothing,” I said. “You’re modernizing the tower, too?”
“Yes. It and the spire are being completely recased. It’s rather rough here, ladies.” He offered Tossie his arm.
Mrs. Mering took it. “Where is your crypt?” she asked.
“The crypt?” he said. “Over here,” he pointed in the direction of the hoarding, “but it’s not being modernized.”
“Do you believe in the world beyond?” Mrs. Mering said.
“I… of course,” he said, bewildered. “I’m a man of the cloth.” He smiled protuberantly at Tossie. “I am of course merely a curate at present, but I hope to be offered a living next year in Sussex.”
“Are you familiar with Arthur Conan Doyle?” Mrs. Mering demanded.
“I… yes,” he said, looking even more bewildered. “That is, I’ve read A Study in Scarlet. Thrilling story.”
“You have not read his writings on spiritism?” she said. “Baine!” she called to the butler, who was neatly standing the umbrellas next to the door. “Fetch the issue of The Light with Arthur Conan Doyle’s letter in it.”
Baine nodded, opened the heavy door, and disappeared into the deluge, pulling his collar up as he went.
Mrs. Mering turned back to the curate. “You have heard, of course, of Madame Iritosky?” she said, steering him firmly in the direction of the crypt.
The curate looked confused. “Is she something to do with jumble sales?”
“She was right. I can feel the presence of the spirits here,” Mrs. Mering said. “Have you any history of ghosts here at St. Michael’s?”
“Well, actually,” the curate said, “there is a legend of a spirit having been seen in the tower. The legend dates back to the Fourteenth Century, I believe,” and they passed beyond the hoardings to the Other Side.
Tossie looked after them uncertainly, trying to decide whether she should follow them.
“Come look at this, Tossie,” Terence said, standing in front of a brass inscription. “It’s a monument to Gervase Scrope. Listen to what it says, ‘Here lies a poor tossed tennis ball/Was racketed from spring to fall.’ ”
Tossie obediently came over to read it, then to look at a small brass plate to the Botoners, who had built the cathedral.
“How quaint!” Tossie said. “Listen. ‘William and Adam built the tower, Ann and Mary built the spire. William and Adam built the church, Ann and Mary built the choir.’ ”
She moved on to look at a large marble monument to Dame Mary Bridgeman and Mrs. Eliza Samwell, and then an oil painting of “The Parable of the Lost Lamb,” and we proceeded round the nave, stepping over boards and bags of sand, and stopping at each of the chapels in turn.
“Oh, I do wish we had a guidebook,” Tossie said, frowning at the Purbeck marble baptismal font. “How can one tell what to look at without a guidebook?”
She and Terence moved on to the Cappers’ Chapel. Verity paused and gently tugged on my coat-tails, pulling me back. “Let them get ahead,” she said under her breath.
I obediently stopped in front of a brass of a woman in Jacobean costume dated 1609. “In memory of Ann Sewell,” it read. “A worthy stirrer-up of others to all holy virtues.”
“Obviously an ancestor of Lady Schrapnell’s,” Verity said. “Have you found out the curate’s name?”
When would I have had the chance to do that? I thought. “You think he’s Mr. C?” I said. “He did seem taken with her.”
“Every man seems taken with her,” she said, looking at Tossie, who was hanging on Terence’s arm and giggling. “The question is, is she taken with him? Do you see the bishop’s bird stump?”
“Not yet,” I said, looking round the nave. The flowers in front of the choir hoardings were in plain brass vases, and the sawdust-covered roses in the Cappers’ Chapel were in a silver bowl.
“Where is it supposed to be?”
“In the fall of 1940, standing against the parclose screen of the Smiths’ Chapel,” I said. “In the summer of 1888, I have no idea. It could be anywhere.” Including under one of those green tarps or somewhere behind the hoardings.
“Perhaps we should ask the curate where it is when he comes back,” she said anxiously.