Reginald Hill: Pictures of Perfection

‘Charley Cage, your predecessor, was my predecessor’s predecessor’s revenge on the Guillemards. Shortly after his elevation to the episcopate back in the ’thirties, he gave way to pressure from the then Squire to move the then incumbent, Stanley Harding, on. Later, as he grew into the job, he much regretted this weakness, so when, just before his own retirement in the ’fifties, the living became vacant again, he looked around for someone whose views were likely to cause the Guillemards maximum pain, and lit upon young Charley.’

‘What was Stanley Harding’s crime?’

‘Oh, social awareness, Christian charity, the usual things. But worst of all he had the temerity to marry the Squire’s daughter!’

‘Good Lord! And the Bishop got his own back with Cage.’

‘This is only my own theory, you understand,’ laughed the older man. ‘In fact, it rather backfired. The old Squire died and his son, the present Squire, got on rather well with Charley. At least they never fell out in public. But to get back to your non-gayness, I’m relieved because old Charley was in every sense a confirmed bachelor, and I feel that after forty years, the blushful maidens of Enscombe deserve at least a level playing field.’

‘I haven’t made my vow lightly,’ said Lillingstone, slightly piqued.

‘Of course you haven’t, but the strongest oaths are straw to the fire i’ the blood, eh?’

‘Saint Augustine?’ guessed Lillingstone.

‘St Bill, I think. No, you’ll do nicely for Enscombe, Larry. But be warned, it’s a place that can do odd things to a man.’

‘Such as?’ inquired Lillingstone.

The Bishop sipped his Screwdriver and said, ‘Old Charley used to claim, when the port had been round a few times, that after the Fall God decided to have a second shot, learning from the failure of the first. This time He created a man who was hard of head, blunt of speech, knew which side his bread was buttered on, and above all took no notice of women. Then God sent him forth to multiply in Yorkshire. But after a while he got to worrying he’d left something out — imagination, invention, fancy, call it what you will. So he grabbed a nice handful of this, intending to scatter it thinly over the county. Only it was a batch He’d just made and it was still damp, so instead of scattering, it all landed in a single lump, and that was where they built Enscombe!’

Lillingstone laughed appreciatively and said, ‘I wish I’d known Cage.’

‘He was worth knowing. He died in the pulpit, you know. No one noticed for ten minutes. His dramatic pauses had been getting longer and longer. He was extremely outspoken both on his feet and in print. For recreation, or as he put it, to keep himself out of temptation (though he never specified the nature of the temptation), he was writing a history of the parish. You’re a historian yourself, aren’t you? If you feel the flesh tugging too strongly, you could do worse than follow Charley’s example. All the archival stuff’s at the vicarage. It’ll need sorting out before our masters sell the place from under you.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ said Lillingstone. ‘But if Cage’s work was well advanced …’

‘Oh yes. He showed me various drafts. Fascinating, but much of it utterly unpublishable! No, you take my advice, Larry. There’s nothing like the dust of the past for clogging an overactive internal combustion engine!’

The young vicar had taken this as a joke till a few days after his induction when his desire to meet those of his flock who hadn’t been at the church (i.e. the majority) took him through the door of the Eendale Gallery.

He had been instantly aware that there were paintings here of a quality far above that of the usual insipid watercolours of local views which filled much of the wall space. One in particular caught his eye, a small acrylic of his own church, stark against a sulphurously wuthering sky, with the angle of the tower so exaggerated that it looked as if the building had been caught in the very act of being blown apart.

The Gallery had been empty when he entered and so rapt was he in studying the picture that he did not hear the inner door open.

Then someone coughed gently and a voice said, ‘Need any help?’

He turned and saw the Scudamore sisters, or rather he saw Caddy, and he knew instantly he needed more help than anyone here below could give him.

It was a coup de foudre , a surge of longing so intense he felt as if every ounce of his flesh was on fire.

He stammered thickly, ‘The church … I’d like to look at the church …’

Kee Scudamore, whom he’d registered merely as a pale presence, bland and bloodless alongside the vibrant carnality of Caddy, said, ‘The church? Perhaps you should ask the vicar.’

He heard himself say idiotically, ‘I am the vicar’, and the smaller, darker, infinitely more luscious girl put a paint-stained hand to a mouth made to suck a man’s soul out of his body, and tried to stifle her giggles.

‘You mean the painting? Of course,’ said the cool blonde.

She moved past him, unfolded a set of steps, mounted, and unhooked the picture.

He had left with the painting wrapped in brown paper under his arm. It had cost him more than he could afford, but what was money when he was already aware of the incredibly high price he was likely to pay for his visit?

He was in love, a man who had nothing to offer, a man bound by a vow no one could release him from. He didn’t doubt that if he consulted his friend, the Bishop, he would be offered all the reassurance which that pragmatic prelate could muster. It is better to marry than to burn , would be trotted out. But it all depended where you were going to burn! He wasn’t sure just how much credence he gave to a physical hell, but he knew he had a belief to match Thomas More’s in the nature of a vow.

So he had thrown himself into his parish work with a fervour which soon won golden opinions, and he put himself out of temptation in his ‘spare’ time by following the Bishop’s suggestion and Charley Cage’s example by plunging into the past. Sorting out Charley Cage’s chaos of archival material was a necessary as well as a therapeutic act. As forecast by the Bishop, the diocese’s business managers had decided to do what Cage’s obduracy had inhibited them from doing much earlier, which was to build a modern bungalow and sell the rambling old vicarage into private occupancy. So Lillingstone had a great deal to occupy him. Yet in a small place like Enscombe not all the business in the world could prevent occasional encounters with Caddy, and the merest glimpse of her was like a tot of whisky to an alcoholic, producing instant relapse. Fearful that the physical effect of her presence would be too visible to sharp country eyes, he had abandoned the tell-tale tight jeans which were his preferred off-duty garb and reverted to the protective folds of the traditional cassock, a move which mollified his older parishioners who liked a parson to look like a parson.

His efforts to avoid Caddy did not extend to her sister. On the contrary, he found much solace in Kee’s grace and composure. Here was the still centre of the Scudamore household, its domestic and commercial strength and its tutelary spirit. And while Lillingstone would not have dared to be alone with Caddy, the company of Kee permitted a pale but safe shadow of contact.

‘Larry? Are you all right?’

He turned from his mirror to find Kee Scudamore, like a conjuration of his thought, standing in the open french window. A quick glance reassured him she was alone and he went towards her, smiling.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just rehearsing my Luncheon Club talk.’

‘Indeed? Well, if that was a dramatic pause, I’d be careful. There are ladies there who will not hesitate to rush forward with offers of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.’