Andrew Taylor - The Judgement of Strangers

We went back to the drawing room to wait for it. Vanessa came over to me.

‘I don’t suppose you could give me another cigarette, could you? I’ve mislaid mine. So silly.’ She smiled up at me. Even then I think I knew that Vanessa was never silly. She was many things, but not that. She sat down on the sofa and waved to me to join her.

‘Are you in Ronald’s – whatever it is? – area?’

‘He’s my archdeacon, yes. So in a sense he’s my immediate boss.’

I did not want to talk about Ronald. He and I did not get on badly – not then – but we had little in common, and both of us knew it.

‘Cynthia tells me you’re a publisher.’

She squeezed her eyes together for an instant, as though smoke had irritated them. ‘By default.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It was my husband’s firm.’ She stared down at her cigarette. ‘He founded it with a friend from Oxford. It never made much money for either of them, but he loved it.’

‘I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.’

‘I – I assumed Ronald might have mentioned it to you. No reason why you should know. Charles died three years ago. A brain tumour. One of those ghastly things that come out of a clear blue sky. I’ve taken over his part in the business. Needs must, really. I needed a job.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

She nodded. ‘I’d always helped Charles on the editorial side. Now I’m learning a great deal about production.’ She smiled towards Cynthia, who was embroiled with the headmaster’s wife. ‘Cynthia keeps me in order.’

‘At dinner Cynthia said she thought Great Engines of the 1920s was your bestselling book.’

‘She’s perfectly right. Though I have my hopes of The English Cottage Garden. It’s been selling very steadily since it came out last year.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘In fact, our real bestseller in terms of copies sold is probably one of our town guides. The Oxford one. We do quite a lot of that sort of thing – that’s where the bread and butter comes from.’

At that moment, Ronald appeared in the doorway bearing a large silver tray. ‘Coffee, everybody,’ he announced in a voice like a fanfare. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ He advanced into the room, his eyes searching for Vanessa.

‘One of my parishioners has written a book,’ I said to her.

Vanessa looked warily at me. ‘What sort of book?’

‘It’s a history of the parish. Not really a book. I’d say it’s about ten thousand words.’

‘How interesting.’

She glanced at me again, and I think a spark of shared amusement passed between us. She knew how to say one thing and mean another.

‘She’s looking for a publisher.’

‘Sugar, Vanessa?’ boomed Ronald. ‘Cream?’

‘In my experience, most authors are.’ She smiled up at Ronald. ‘Just a dash of cream, please, Ronnie.’

Ronnie?

‘She believes it might appeal to readers all over the country,’ I continued. ‘Not just to those who know Roth.’

‘The happy few?’

I smiled. It was a novelty to have someone talk to me as a person rather than as a priest. ‘Could you recommend a publisher she could send it to?’ I stared at the curve of her arm and noticed the almost invisible golden hairs that grew on the skin. ‘Someone who would have a look at the book and give a professional opinion. I imagine you haven’t got the time to look at stray typescripts yourself.’

‘Vanessa’s always looking at stray typescripts,’ Ronald said, and laughed. ‘Or looking for them.’

‘I might be able to spare five minutes,’ she said to me, her voice deadpan.

Once again, she glanced at me, and once again the spark of amusement danced between us.

‘Brandy, anyone?’ Ronald enquired. ‘Or what about a liqueur?’

For the rest of the evening Vanessa talked mainly to Ronald, Cynthia and Victor Thurston. I was the first to leave.

The following Monday, I looked up Royston and Forde in the directory and phoned Vanessa at her office. Cynthia Trask answered the phone. Oddly enough this took me by surprise. I had completely forgotten that she worked there.

‘Good morning, Cynthia. This is David Byfield.’

‘Hello, David.’

After a short pause I said, ‘Thank you so much for Friday.’

‘Not at all. Ronald and I enjoyed it.’

I wondered if I should have sent flowers or something. ‘I don’t know if Vanessa mentioned it, but one of my parishioners has written a book. She volunteered to have a look at it.’

‘I’ll see if she’s engaged,’ Cynthia said.

A moment later, Vanessa came on the line. She was brisk with me, her voice sounding much sharper on the telephone. She was busy most of the day, she was afraid, but might I be free for lunch? Ninety minutes later, we were sitting opposite each other in a café near Richmond Bridge.

The long, clinging dress she had worn at the Trasks’ on Friday had given her a voluptuous appearance. Now she was another woman, dressed in a dark suit, and with her hair pulled back: slimmer, sharper and harder.

The typescript of The History of Roth was in a large, brown envelope on the table between us. I had picked it up from Audrey on my way to Richmond. (‘So kind of you, David. I’m so grateful.’)

Vanessa did not touch the envelope. She picked at her sandwich. A silence lay between us, and as it grew longer I felt increasingly desolate. The friendly intimacy that had flourished so briefly between us on Friday evening was gone. I found it all too easy, on the other hand, to think of her as a desirable woman. I had been a fool to come here. I was wasting her time and mine. I should have sent the typescript in the post.

‘Do you visit many churches?’ I asked, to make conversation. ‘You mentioned our panel paintings on Friday.’

Vanessa fiddled with one of the crumbs on her plate. ‘Not really. I wanted to see Roth because of the connection with Francis Youlgreave.’

‘The poet?’ My voice sounded unnaturally loud. ‘He’s buried in the vault under the chancel.’

‘He deserves a few paragraphs in here.’ Vanessa tapped the envelope containing the typescript. ‘Quite a sensational character, by all accounts.’

‘Audrey does mention him, but she’s very circumspect about what she says.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s a member of the family still living in Roth. I think her husband was the poet’s great-nephew. Audrey didn’t want to give people the wrong idea about him.’

‘Defile their judgement, as it were.’ Vanessa smiled across the table at me. Then she quoted two lines from the poem that had found its way into several anthologies. It was usually the only poem of his that anyone had read.

‘Then darkness descended; and whispers defiled

The judgement of stranger, and widow, and child.’

‘Just so.’

‘Does anyone remember him in the village?’

‘Roth isn’t that sort of place. There aren’t that many people left who lived there before the last war. And Francis Youlgreave died before the First World War. Have you a particular reason for asking?’

She shrugged. ‘I read quite a lot of his verse when I was up at Oxford. Not a very good poet, to be frank – all those jog-trot rhythms can be rather wearing. But he was interesting more for what he was and for who he knew than for what he wrote.’

‘Not a very nice man, by all accounts. Unbalanced.’

‘Yes, but rather fascinating.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m awfully sorry, David, but I’ve got to rush.’

I concealed my disappointment. I paid the bill and walked with her back to the office where I had left my car.

‘Would you like to telephone me tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘I should have had time to look at the book by then.’