Reginald Hill - Pictures of Perfection

‘I think you overestimate my charms,’ he said glumly.

‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way to Old Hall and I thought I’d return these documents. Fascinating.’

She placed the box file on his desk.

‘I’ve hung on to the Deed of Gift,’ she said. ‘By the way, what exactly is a tithe?’

‘Old English teopa , Middle English tipe , a tenth,’ he said promptly. ‘Specifically, that tax of one-tenth of produce or labour paid for the upkeep of clergy. Last century as the produce and labour thing became uncollectable, or just undesirable, a rent charge was substituted. And in 1936 the Tithe Act abolished tithes completely, except as purely voluntary payments. Why do you ask?’

‘It was just something in the Deed,’ she said vaguely.

He glanced at her sharply and said, ‘You’ve not been nobbled by the antediluvians, have you? The ones who think the vicarage shouldn’t be sold because it was a gift from the parish?’

‘It does seem a mite ungracious.’

‘Kee, it was two hundred years ago!’ he said in exasperation. ‘And even if it were yesterday, a gift’s a gift. You don’t retain rights.’

‘So you’ll be happy to move into some little breeze-block bungalow?’

‘Of course not. I love it here. But you must admit it’s absurd for one single man to be rattling around in a place this size. Anyway, it’s not my decision. I have got masters.’

‘I thought you worked for God. Sorry. Let’s not fall out. I noticed your For Sale sign says Under Offer . Anyone I know?’

‘Indirectly,’ he said, not too happily. ‘Phil Wallop.’

‘What? As in Philip Wallop, Contractor, who’s doing Girlie’s improvements at the Hall? What’s he going to do with the place? Turn it into a massage parlour?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘There are of course restrictive covenants. Domestic use only. The positive way to look at it is a man doesn’t make a mess in his own back yard.’

‘You’re losing me, Larry,’ she said. Then her sharp mind made the leap. ‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with this working estimate for the Green Edwin was just telling me about? It would, wouldn’t it! My God, Wallop’s going to turn us into a suburb!’

Her face flushed with anger, she strode through the french window and across the lawn. Lillingstone hurried after her, catching up as she passed through the arched gateway leading into the churchyard.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘if the Green’s put on sale, it’ll be on the open market. There’ll be other bidders than Wallop.’

‘Other developers, you mean?’

‘No one’s going to pay the kind of money we need without planning permission. It’s Hobson’s choice, Kee, the school or the Green. But I’m not Hobson. Even the PC’s not Hobson. It’s the whole village, and that’s who’ll be making the choice at tomorrow night’s meeting.’

She walked on through the well-kept churchyard till they reached another arched gateway, this one with Guillemard arms and motto above it, marking the entrance to the family’s own private route from Hall to church, known as Green Alley. A hundred years ago it had been a broad gravelled path along which full-skirted ladies on the arms of full-bellied gents could stroll between banks of laurel and viburnum and lilac and rhododendron. But the cost of labour had gone up and the cost of irreligion had gone down and gradually Green Alley had shrunk to a muddy track scarcely wider than a sheeptrod.

Here she turned, the anger gone from her face, and reached out and touched her cool fingers against his hand.

‘Larry, I’m sorry. I’ve no right to snap at you. Something’s happening here — the school, the vicarage, the Green, the Hall — something that can run out of control unless we all stick together and use our heads. Forgive me?’

‘Of course,’ he said. Her candid gaze, her wise smile, her understanding tone, the cool touch of her fingers, brought to him how much he admired and respected her. Several times in the past he had come close to opening his heart to her and confiding his feelings for Caddy. Something had always got in the way. But here and now seemed the ideal time, the ideal place.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

‘Kee,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m passionately, insanely, helplessly in love with Caddy.’

He opened his eyes and found he was talking to Kee’s retreating back. But having come so far he was not about to give up. Dauntless, he plunged after her along the narrow track till she reached a small clearing where she paused and turned and said, ‘Sorry, Larry, were you saying something?’

‘Yes,’ he said, keeping his eyes open this time. ‘I want to tell you that …’

‘How very odd,’ said Kee.

‘Odd? Why so?’ demanded Lillingstone, assuming some kind of precognitive response to his proposed confession.

‘The hat,’ she said.

He knew he wasn’t wearing a hat. Nevertheless his hand flew to his head.

‘There,’ she said impatiently.

He followed her pointing finger. The function of this clearing was easy to work out. Here those upper-class promenaders overcome by fatigue, devotion or love had been able to rest a while on a granite bench made for two. It was lichened and ivied almost to invisibility now, but its location was signposted by a marble faun strategically placed to leer encouragingly over the heads of bashful wooers.

A hundred years ago, who knows what ardent outbursts that prurient presence had provoked?

Today, however, it was a real turn-off. Laurence Lillingstone had not become a vicar without being able to recognize a sign when he saw one.

This after all was neither the time nor the place to confess an illicit love.

Not in the presence of a marble statue wearing a policeman’s hat.

PROLOGUE BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE

Journal of Frances Guillemard

August 29 1931 .

After the school committee meeting this evening Stanley asked me to stay behind to help with some correspondence. As soon as we were alone he made a very stilted and stuttering proposal of marriage! It was so unlike himself that I laughed and asked him if he’d been reading Trollope, upon which he grabbed me in his arms and kissed me so hard I thought I would stifle, but I didn’t want him to stop. After that I would have stayed all night. As it was, I got back very late and expected a scolding (24 and I still get scolded!) but it turned out Selly had done something to draw all the fire and I was able to slip upstairs hardly noticed.

All I wanted was to think about the evening and fill in my journal, but Guy appeared in his dressing-gown, very put out because he’d been sent to bed at nine for asking questions when the row started, which he felt was considerably beneath the dignity of a young gent of 13! He thought it had something to do with Agnes, the undermaid, and said Father was in a tremendous paddy and talking, as he always does when Selly gets in hot water, of sending him off to Uncle Jack’s ‘to grow up’! I got the feeling that, hurt pride apart, Guy wouldn’t be too displeased at the prospect of being left the sole son of the house, with first pick of the horses and everything. But it probably won’t happen.

August 30 . Went to Selly’s room this morning and found him packing. This time it’s true. He’s spending a couple of weeks with Great Aunt Meg in Gilbert Street, then it’s off to New Zealand to learn about sheep! As if there wasn’t one thing we had an excess of in Eendale, which is sheep! He was very coy about the reason for his banishment, and in the end he got so pompous we quarrelled. What on earth do they feed them at school and college to make them believe a young idiot who’s spent most of his time shut up with other young idiots knows more about life than any woman who isn’t forty and formidable!