I felt I must go and see Mrs. Trent because there was a special sort of relationship between us since she had told me that Evie was connected with our family, as Richard Mather had been truly Dickon’s son.
It was with great trepidation that I called.
I had not told David or my mother that I was going, for I felt sure they would try to dissuade me. Indeed I should have needed little dissuasion, for I was very unsure whether I should be welcome.
The curtains were all drawn across the windows. The door was opened by a servant who took me into a little room which led from the hall. She said she would tell Mrs. Trent that I had come.
After a while Dolly came in. Her face was distorted by grief and her eyes seemed more awry than ever.
“Oh, Dolly,” I said, “I’m so terribly sorry. This is heartbreaking.”
Her lips quivered. “She’s gone. Our Evie… gone forever. I shall never see her again.”
“Oh Dolly.” I was crying with her.
“There wasn’t any need,” said Dolly. “She would have been all right.”
“We would have taken care of her,” I said.
“I would have taken care of her… and the little baby as well.”
I nodded. “How is your grandmother taking it?”
“She doesn’t eat. She doesn’t sleep. She thought the world of Evie.”
“I know. I would have come. My mother would have come, but we were not sure whether she would wish to see us… just yet.”
“Yes, she wants to see you.”
“I would like to comfort her. I wish I knew how.”
“There’s no comfort,” said Dolly, “or not much. But she wants to see you.”
“Is she in bed?”
“She’s up there. She doesn’t seem to know where she is.”
“Shall I go up?”
“Yes. I’ll take you.”
Mrs. Trent came out of her bedroom and we went into a small dressing room. There were two chairs in it and we sat down. Dolly stood by the door. Mrs. Trent was wearing a grey dressing gown which she must have slipped over her nightdress. Her face was blotched with weeping and her eyes swollen. She did not look like the perky Mrs. Trent we had known.
I took both her hands in mine and on impulse kissed her cheek.
“Oh, Mrs. Trent, I am so sorry. We are all so distressed.”
She nodded, too emotional to speak.
“If only we could have known… we could have done something,” I said.
“I’d like to murder him,” she muttered, coming to life. “I’d take him to that river and I’d hold his head down and not let him go until he was dead… as she is.”
“I understand how you feel.”
“She couldn’t face it, you see. She couldn’t face me. I shouldn’t have made her feel like that. She ought to have been able to come to me in trouble.”
“You mustn’t say that, Mrs. Trent. I know you would always have done anything for her.”
“I would and all… but she knew how I’d set my heart on her doing well. I’ve gone wrong somewhere.”
“You always did your best, Mrs. Trent. None could say other than that. You must not blame yourself.”
“I blame him,” she said fiercely. “The dirty swine! He deceived her, he did… promised he’d marry her and when this happens it’s goodbye and he goes off to marry a real lady. She was a real lady, my Evie was.”
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Trent.”
She clenched her hands together and I knew she was imagining them round the throat of Harry Farringdon.
“And now there’s this Reverend gentleman… the vicar. He won’t take my Evie. He says the likes of her can’t be buried among decent folks.”
“No, Mrs. Trent!”
“Yes. He says suicides can’t be buried in consecrated ground. They will put her at the crossroads. They’ll give her the suicide’s grave. I just can’t bear that… not for my little Evie.”
“Something will have to be done about that.”
She looked at me with hope in her eyes.
“I’ll go and see the Reverend Manning. Or my husband will. Don’t worry about that, Mrs. Trent. Evie is going to be buried properly. There must be no doubt about that.”
“It’s kind of you… and it’s her due. You know who she is. It’s different I suppose with the gentry. No one would think of putting them anywhere but in a proper grave.”
I was glad that there was something I could do, something which would relieve her, even though nothing could ever bring Evie back. I said: “I will go along to the vicarage now and see him. Don’t worry, Mrs. Trent. I am sure it will be all right.”
“Thank you,” she said; and there was that glint of determination in her eyes which I had noticed before her grief had descended upon her and made her a pathetic shadow of what she had been. “It’s her due,” she said with a certain firmness.
Dolly conducted me to the door.
“Goodbye,” I said. “I will do everything I can.”
I went straight to the vicarage. It was not as easy as I had thought it would be.
The Reverend Richard Manning was the kind of man I disliked on sight. He was pompous, self-righteous, and I was sure completely lacking in compassion and imagination.
We saw little of him for the living did not belong to Eversleigh. The family had always had its own chapel and although nowadays we did not have a priest living in the house, there was one who had a small place on the estate and whose duty it was to officiate when needed. He came every morning to conduct prayers for the household.
Therefore the family had no jurisdiction over the Reverend Richard Manning.
I told him that I was concerned about the burial of Evie Mather.
“The suicide,” he said, and I immediately felt a sense of outrage at the cold and precise tone of his voice, and to hear Evie spoken of in that way.
“Her grandmother is very distressed because you are denying her normal burial.”
“I have said that according to the laws of the Church she cannot be buried in consecrated ground.”
“Why not?”
He looked surprised. “Because she has offended against the laws of God. She has committed the sin of inflicting death on a human being.”
“Herself,” I said.
“It is a sin in the eyes of the Church.”
“So everyone who is buried in your churchyard is quite beyond reproach?”
“There are no suicides buried there.”
“There must be greater sins than finding one’s life so intolerable that one takes it.”
“It is a sin against God’s laws,” he said complacently.
“I do want you to understand that this is a terrible blow to her family. Could you not waive the laws for once and give her the burial they want for her? It means such a lot to them.”
“You cannot ask me to break the holy laws of God.”
“Is this a holy law? Is it God’s will to inflict greater pain on people who have already suffered infinitely?”
“You miss the point, Mrs. Frenshaw.”
“On the contrary, I think you do that. But please, will you do this for the sake of humanity… for pity’s sake…”
“You cannot be asking me to go against the rule of the Church?”
“If these are the laws of the Church, then I will say they are cruel… unkind… uncaring… and yes, wicked. And I want nothing to do with them.”
“You are coming near to blasphemy, Mrs. Frenshaw.”
“I will speak to my father-in-law.”
“I am not responsible to Eversleigh,” he said. “This living never has been. This is a matter between me and my conscience.”
“Then your conscience, if it has any humanity in it, should give you a very uneasy time.”
“Mrs. Frenshaw, you must leave now. I have nothing more to say.”
“But I shall have a great deal to say.”