A Fall from Grace (9 page)

Because who could do anything about it other than him? There was never any question of his being influenced by her. If she showed him that she knew what had happened in Coombe Barton he would be incandescent with rage, but it would have no effect: in his mind he had no doubt rearranged the incident so that blame was put on the shoulders of all the ladies in the village, ganging up against him.

She could of course warn the ladies of Slepton Edge. If he found out, that would have a similar result—a paddy, with fireworks. But did they need warning? She had a feeling they didn't. All the ladies who offered the occasional meed of help to her father struck her as knowing what they were doing, and as basically canny types who had him summed up. Or was this a hope rather than an assessment?

When Charlie and Carola got home there was bedtime for Carola, a story from her, and then, eventually, blessedly, a late-night drink with Charlie and the chance to tell him everything Mrs. Easton had revealed about why her father had fled to Yorkshire.

“ ‘Dark Deeds at Coombe Barton,' ” said Charlie when she had finished. “A good title for Rupert when he is in a Gothic mood.”

“You're not taking it seriously,” Felicity protested.

“Oh, I am, but I'm not taking it
too
seriously. Him hitting a woman is bad, but he'd be let off with a caution if she had reported him. Attaching an impressionable teenager to him is a bit off,
potentially
serious. But there's no evidence that anything was done, or even on the cards. As you say, all his women here seem pretty sensible. I bet most of them have got his measure and have talked it through among themselves. And as a consequence they'll be too worldly-wise about dangers to take children or grandchildren with them when they go up to Rupert's. Let's face it: Dora Catchpole was a fool to do it. We've heard nothing like that up here to date, and no hint that in general he's attached to little girlies. Let's stop making a mountain about what is basically a molehill.”

As a consequence Felicity let him lead her on to talking about where in Halifax they'd take Carola over the weekend, and she went to bed much happier. In a fool's paradise, but happier.

The carol service at St. Wilfrid's, Slepton's parish church, took place on the first Saturday in December. It was the first in a series of Christmas events, and by far the most popular. The church was just off the village square, and it had late-medieval bits to which had been added some fairly appropriate Victorian bits. Few members of the congregation were entirely sure which bits were which, and nobody really cared: by now all of it was “old.” By tradition (a strong power in Slepton Edge) the first half of the carol service was held outside, and if the weather was anything like appropriate there was mulled wine and nonalcoholic hot drinks served in the winter cold, before everyone went into the church for the second part. “What you spend on the mulled wine you save on heating,” said the vicar cheerfully, his annual joke, expected and responded to as an old friend.

Felicity and Charlie were intending to go if possible: they tried to be at every village “thing,” as part of the
integration process, one that they liked and that everyone else joined in with spirit. In any case, they had no choice because Carola insisted on going: two little girls from her nursery school were going to be Christmas tree fairies, and Carola was determined to cast a critical eye on their dresses, wands and general demeanor.

“Going to nursery school has transformed Carola's life,” said Felicity to Nancy Stoppard, her father's widow-friend. “She now has a circle of her own.”

“To dominate,” added Charlie. “She already has them lining up when she arrives, saluting her and shouting, ‘
Heil,
Carola!' ”

“They don't say, ‘Hi, Carola',” said their daughter scornfully. “We all say
hello
to each other, and
good-bye
when school is over. Oh look, there's Victoria and Wendy.”

That kept her quiet for the next ten minutes. The two little girls were stationed on either side of the brilliantly lit Christmas tree, waving their wands with decreasing enthusiasm.

Elsewhere the lights around the church and in the road beyond were more dispersed, in some places bright, in others romantically dim, casting a glow of glamour or mystery over the familiar faces of the village. Little knots of people were on the pavement beyond the church gate under the one streetlight. Others gathered around the graves or by the main door, waiting for the music to begin, greeting the vicar, and quietening impatient offspring.

“This will be your first carol service at Slepton, won't it?” said Nancy, who had the air of not being entirely
easy with them, while doing her duty by village new-comers. “I always love it—there's always something magical about it.”

“We're all looking forward to it,” said Felicity. “Especially Carola, of course . . . Oh look, there's Desmond! That
is
nice.”

Desmond Pinkhurst was standing by a gravestone, his legs somehow intertwined, looking about as relaxed as Bertie Wooster at a World Congress of Aunts. But when he saw he had been noticed he brightened up and ambled over.

“I say, isn't this jolly? I always love it. Brings back my own childhood—I once played Joseph, my very first dramatic role! This sort of thing makes the whole ghastly business of Christmas worthwhile. I wonder if Chris will be here,” he went on, looking around him in the way that he had. “I'm not even sure if he's a Christian. I wanted to thank him for pushing me into taking the part in
The Wild Duck
 . . . you too, of course,” he added, remembering his manners and turning back to Charlie.

“Oh, I only said what everyone would say: Go for it. I'm sure Chris says these things with much more force and experience behind him.”

“Well, of course in a way he . . . Anyway, you were both right.”

“Oh, we're really glad,” said Charlie and Felicity together.

Desmond rubbed his hands with glee.

“I'm enjoying myself to bits! We've got four days off now, without rehearsals, to stop us getting stale. I can't
imagine getting stale in a play like that, but there you are. Then we've got an intensive week until the first night. I say, isn't it a wonderful idea to put it on for
Christmas
?”

“I don't really know,” said Charlie. “I've never seen it or read it. Is it Christmassy and jolly?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Desmond. “That's why it's such a clever idea. It's terribly
meaty,
all sorts of levels or layers or whatever in it, and people need an antidote to all those Aladdins and Peter Pans and nonstop
Railway Children
on television. I tell you, the advance bookings are marvelous. Everyone's flabbergasted. A bit of angst and gloom and being made to
think
seems to be just what people need. And want too!”

“I'm really glad,” said Felicity. “So the part wasn't beyond you after all?”

Desmond put on a coy face.

“Well”—slyly—“people say not. In fact, they're being
very
kind. And it's a wonderful cast all round. Not just people who've been on the telly, which is so demeaning if you haven't. And my telly days are so long ago that nobody's seen me. Oh—there's Chris.”

Charlie looked at his departing back.

“I feel I'm in a replay,” he said.

“A what?” asked Nancy.

“A replay. A repeat of what happened when I first met Desmond. He makes do with us, practices his woes and worries or joys and successes on us, then at the first glimpse of Chris he hares off.”

“Chris usually has that effect on people,” said Nancy. Then after a pause she said, “I wonder if he's heard.”

But before they could ask what he might or might not have heard, the sound of the first carol floated over from the knot of people around the main door. Accompanied by a pumped-up string quartet of local players, the church choir and all the assembled locals launched into “Away in a Manger,” and on cue a spotlight illuminated a part of the graveyard with waiting space where a makeshift manger had been set up with children miming the Holy Family (with a doll as the baby, the vicar having vetoed the real thing).

“Very nice,” said Charlie, as the last verse faded.

“It
is
nice,” said Nancy, pleased at his pleasure, and opening up. “It's pretty much the same every year, but that's because it's lovely, and we want to see it again.”

“What were you wondering whether Chris had heard or not?” asked Charlie, always the dog gnawing at a bone.

“Oh—about Archie Skelton.”

“Skelton. Isn't he the mayor?”

“That's right. He's had another heart attack.”

“Serious?”

“Very. Couldn't be more.”

Charlie put on a concerned expression and nodded.

The choir and musicians began “While Shepherds Watched” and the audience's eyes went back to the pretty manger as shepherds came from the side entrance to the church, scantily clad in shifts and carrying crooks in their hands. They paid their respects to the Saviour rather briskly, and then legged it back to the comparative warmth of the church, probably on
orders from their parents.

“If I still had a kid to perform in this I'd insist he was a wise man,” said Nancy. “At least you get robes, and you can put a hot water bottle in your casket.”

“They don't look anything like the shepherds on our Christmas card,” said Carola disparagingly. Their first Christmas card had arrived, from a retired bobby Yule-tiding it in Spain, and it had become the pattern for Carola's view of the Christmas story.

“Have you heard?” came Chris Carlson's voice suddenly in Charlie's ear.

“What about? Archie Skelton?”

“No,
not
Archie Skelton. About Desmond. He's happy as a sandboy. He's apparently having a whale of a time at rehearsals, and everyone agrees he's doing a fine job.”

“Yes, so he told us.”

Down in the little square of empty lawn, “We Three Kings” signaled the slow arrival into the nativity story of three very dignified small boys, robed and crowned and no doubt warmer than the shepherds as Nancy had said, carrying their caskets very close to their tummies. When their acts of homage were finished, as the carol about them ended too, a further piece of mime showed the Holy Family being warned of King Herod's primitive idea of family planning. There being no carol about the Massacre of the Innocents, they all launched into “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and the little family set off through the gravestones to disappear out of the lighted area. It was interval time, and there was a scramble toward the tables set out beside the front
door of the church, with mulled wine, Christmas cake and homemade biscuits.

“Wait a bit,” said Chris, putting out his hand to prevent them starting with the rush. “The scrum eases quite soon, and there will still be plenty of time to gulp and guzzle before the second half.”

“Is your father here?” Nancy asked Felicity.

She looked vaguely around.

“I've no idea. He's terribly independent these days, thanks to you and to his other new friends here. You may have noticed that he's not awfully into children, whatever he may say, so I didn't ask him to come with us in case he preferred to come with some of you, or stay away altogether.”

“I'll look for him and see that he's all right,” said Nancy, scurrying away into the thirsty mob.

“Implied criticism,” said Felicity.

“Don't you believe it,” said Chris. “Nancy has scaled down her time commitment to your father herself. But on occasions like this she likes to be of use, and that way she shares in the credit for the success of the evening . . . There you are: she's found him already. She's joined the throng of fans.”

They watched Rupert Coggenhoe. He was toward the back of the queue, surrounded by a posse of middle-aged or older women, the little group now being joined by Nancy. Slowly, the women chatting happily, Rupert looking benign but out of things, they moved down toward the mulled wine.

“They're losing interest,” said Felicity. “Scaling down their time commitment, as you call it. You can
tell from the body language. They're not looking at Dad adoringly as they used to.”

“That's perfectly normal and understandable,” said Chris. “A newcomer arrives in a village, and for a time he's the center of everyone's attention, and then they find out that he's really not all that interesting.”

“Don't let my father hear you say that,” said Felicity. “He'd be livid.”

“Actually,” said Charlie, who had been observing the whole group and taking in the interaction, “if you look at him closely his eyes are going everywhere now.
He's
not all that interested in
them
if they're not interested in him.”