A Finer End (10 page)

But there was something special about Faith, some qualities of inner stillness he had never before encountered. Once or twice he thought he’d glimpsed a spark of possibility in her eyes, before she withdrew again into that calm
silence he could not penetrate, and this kept him from giving up.

Impatiently, he stood and paced the confined area of the garden, stopping again at the well. The cover was pulled to one side, enabling him to peer down into the chamber itself. There was said to be a grotto set into one of the walls, large enough for a man to stand in, but he could see no sign of it. Dropping to his knees for a closer look, he didn’t hear Faith coming until she opened the gate to the well garden.

“Don’t fall in,” she teased, coming to stand behind him. “Garnet says it’s the Goddess’s well, and I doubt She’d like some big bloke splashing about in it.”

Faith wore a striped football shirt beneath denim coveralls, and her cropped hair and delicate features looked all the more feminine for it.
Bugger Garnet
, Nick thought savagely, but he didn’t say it aloud. “I was duly worshiping. Hands and knees, see?”

“Nick, don’t joke. It’s a sacred place.”

Rising, he returned to the bench and patted the seat beside him. “No offense intended. Come and sit; you stand all day.”

She obeyed, but kept a chaste distance between them. His desire for her was driving him to distraction, but he didn’t dare cross the boundaries she’d set, for fear of destroying the friendship they’d forged over the past months. Yet the thought that she had crossed those barriers with someone else was maddening, and it was all he could do not to ask her who … or why she continued to protect him.

Not that he had much opportunity to be alone with Faith. Garnet Todd had become both mother hen and fierce watchdog, and she’d made no effort to conceal her disapproval of Nick’s interest. On the few occasions he’d ventured up to Garnet’s farmhouse to see Faith after work, he’d sat uncomfortably in the primitive kitchen with the two of them, feeling like an unwelcome Victorian suitor. Hence this morning’s tryst in the garden.

“Some people think this is the garden Malory meant when he wrote that Lancelot retired to a valley near Glastonbury,” Nick mused, stretching his arm across the bench top, an inch from Faith’s shoulders. “Do you suppose this very place is where Lancelot lived out his days, dreaming of Guinevere in her nunnery? They died within months of one another—did you know that?”

Faith shivered. “That’s too sad. This garden isn’t meant to be sad: it’s a healing place.”

“I suppose it was a sort of healing for Lancelot, if he came to terms with his love for Gwen and for Arthur in the time he had left. And if he had been denied the Grail, perhaps living by a spring said to flow with the blood of Christ was some compensation.”

“I can see him here,” Faith said dreamily, tilting her head back until her hair brushed his arm. “With his little hut in the woods, and the spring flowing out of the hillside.” Her face darkened. “But the other spring would have been always below him, reminding him of the darkness to come.”

“The White Spring?” It flowed from the base of the Tor itself, and if the Red Spring represented the female element, the White Spring was said to represent the male.

“Garnet says it’s the entrance to Annwn, the home of Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of the Underworld. And I can feel … something there … it’s a dark place.”

“Oh, bollocks, Faith.” He touched her chin with his fingertips, turning her face towards his. “You don’t really believe that, do you? It’s just a fairy story.”

“How do you know?” She twisted her face away and sat up straight. “The Druids were in tune with the earth itself, and there’s nothing more powerful.”

“But it’s myth, Faith! Symbolism. It was their way of explaining the world. No one’s meant to take it literally.”

“Is what’s happened to Jack a myth? Do you not believe that’s real?”

“Yes, but—”

“If Edmund can speak to us across nine hundred years, how can you set limits on what’s true?” Faith stood and faced him, her eyes bright with anger.

“But that’s different—”

“Is it?”

“Of course it’s different. Glastonbury Abbey was a real place, and monks really did live there. Edmund was a real person—”

“Can you prove it?”

“I don’t need to prove it. I’ve experienced it.”

“Then how can you say other people’s experiences aren’t valid?” she shot back.

He stared at her. This was not going at all the way he’d intended. “Look, Faith, meet me tonight. We can talk about it, but right now we’re both going to be late for work.”

“I can’t. Garnet wants me to study.”

“Study what? The Old Religion?” He heard the loathing in his voice.

Faith’s chin went up defensively. “The
first
religion. You know the Christian Church just built on what went before. Even Simon says so.”

“That’s not the point. You need to be doing normal, ordinary things. Finishing school. Taking your exams. Thinking about what you’re going to do with your life—and how you’re going to take care of your baby. You need to go home, Faith.” As he said it, he knew it was a mistake, and worse, if she were to take his advice he would very likely lose her altogether.

“Don’t patronize me, Nick Carlisle,” she spat at him. “And don’t tell me how to live my life. I’ve done all right—”

“Only because Garnet took you in, and I suspect she had her reasons—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Garnet understands me, and she knows I have something to do,
something important—I just can’t see what yet. So just bugger off, okay?” She spun round, opening the gate and clanging it shut behind her.

Jumping up, he called out, “Faith, I’m sorry—” but she ran down the path, away from him.

H
AVING GIVEN
F
AITH
chamomile tea and tucked her in bed for a nap, Garnet walked down the hill towards the café, for once oblivious to the beauty of the mild afternoon. Buddy had sent the girl home after lunch, insisting that she take the afternoon off, and Garnet needed to know exactly what had transpired that morning.

She was thankful to find the café empty and Buddy cleaning tables after the lunch rush. When she entered, he smiled and motioned her to a seat with a flourish of his cloth.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, darlin’. It’s been a bugger of a day.” His Texas drawl had never faded, although it was regularly interspersed with English slang.

“And you’re culturally confused,” Garnet replied. There was something about Buddy’s lanky frame and graying ponytail that still made her think of the Wild West, although he swore his only contact with cows had been on a plate and that he wouldn’t know what to do with a horse if it bit him.

“Tea?” he asked. “You look like you could use the real thing.”

“Yes, please,” Garnet said gratefully, and waited until he’d made two mugs and brought them to the table.

“How is she?” he asked, sitting across from her.

“Sleeping, I hope. What happened this morning, Buddy?”

“Hell if I know. She came in five minutes late—first time she’s ever done that—puffy-eyed and silent as a newt. Dropped things all morning like her fingers had been greased, then I found her crying in the soup.” He shook his head. “Anybody could see the poor girl wasn’t fit to work, so I sent her home. She didn’t like it, though.”

Garnet sighed. “I never thought I’d be looking after a teenager, and a pregnant one at that. She left the house early this morning; I just assumed she was coming in to help you.”

“Think she met someone? But who?”

“Nick Carlisle would be my guess, damn him. Although I’ve never seen Nick get her in such a state.”

“Maybe it was someone else. What about the baby’s father? Has she ever said anything to you?”

“Not even a hint. But I wonder … Faith told me last night that Winnie Catesby intends to talk to her parents. It may be that’s what has her so out of sorts.”

“The priest?”

“You make it sound like Winnie has a disease, Buddy.” Garnet laughed in spite of her worry. “She means well.”

“Then let her send the girl home to her mom. It’d be a burden off you.”

“I can’t.” Garnet said it flatly.

“And why the hell not? Sounds like the sensible solution to me.”

“It would be, except that it’s not safe.”

“Not safe?” Buddy frowned. “You think her dad would hurt her?”

“I don’t know. She’s never said so, not flat out. But there’s something not right in that family.”

“Anybody laid a hand on that girl’d have me to answer to, dad or not,” Buddy bristled.

“You’re a good man, Buddy, not like some. But it’s not as simple as that.” Garnet tried to gather into words what she felt with such certainty. “Faith is a pivot, a magnet, for forces much more powerful than her father. She and her baby are in dire peril—I’m more sure of that than anything I’ve ever known. Faith has to stay with me—it’s the only way I can protect her.”

“And the boy you’re so riled up about—Nick? Is he part of this danger?”

“I don’t know. But he is a distraction, and that’s something Faith can’t afford right now.”

Buddy fidgeted with his mug, then reluctantly met her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not … overreacting?”

“I don’t
want
to be proved right, Buddy. And I don’t
care
what anyone thinks. I’m not willing to risk Faith if I can help it. Are you?”

“No … I … well, I’ve gotten used to having her around, if you want to know the truth. If anything happened to her …”

What a pair they were, thought Garnet. Childless, never married, no family. And this slip of a girl had come into their lives and pierced them like an arrow.

“Just look after her, Buddy, when she’s with you. Promise me that.”

It was the best she could do.… But she was terribly afraid it would not be enough.

Faith’s family lived in the town of Street, just two miles from Glastonbury across the sluggish trickle of the River Brue. Whenever Winnie drove across the bridge, she found it hard to imagine that it was here King Arthur was said to have seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin; perhaps in those days it had been a more prepossessing spot.

Street was home to the Clark Shoe Company. One of the more enlightened of Victorian employers, Clark’s had provided good working conditions and comfortable housing for their factory workers, and the town had carried that air of forward-looking prosperity into the present. It was quite a contrast to Glastonbury’s ragtag appeal, but it was Glastonbury that Winnie preferred.

Faith had admitted reluctantly that her name was Wills, and had given Winnie an address in a comfortable housing estate near the Street police station. At half past five Winnie stopped her car in front of the Wills house. It sat at the end of a quiet close of similar brick, semidetached homes that looked as if their owners had participated in a “tidy garden” contest. There was neither an untrimmed shrub nor a weed to be seen, and Winnie found it vaguely depressing. Nor was there any sign of life: no bicycles, no
roller skates, no one digging in a well-manicured flower bed.

As she neared the front door, however, she saw signs of neglect that had not been visible from the street—weeds sprouting in the beds, parched petunias and begonias that had been allowed to wither. Winnie rang the bell, and after a moment a woman of about her own age opened the door. The woman wore smart business clothes, and would have been pretty had she not looked drawn with worry or exhaustion.

“Mrs. Wills? Could I speak to you for a moment?”

“I’m sorry, but we’ve already donated at our church.” She started to close the door.

“Mrs. Wills, it’s about your daughter.”

The woman stared at her, her hand flying to her throat in the classic gesture of shock that Winnie had seen too often.

“She’s all right, Mrs. Wills,” Winnie hastened to reassure her. “May I come in, please?”

Mrs. Wills moved back like a sleepwalker, then sank onto a sofa in the small, formal front room. There was a faint smell of cooking potatoes in the air. “Is she … is the baby—”

“Faith is healthy as a horse, and hasn’t had any difficulties or complications with the pregnancy.” Winnie sat in a nearby chair. “My name’s Winifred Catesby, Mrs. Wills, and Faith asked me to come and see you.” That might be stretching the truth a bit, but Winnie didn’t see any harm.

“Where—where is she?” Mrs. Wills started to rise, as if to go to her daughter that instant.

“It’s Maureen, isn’t it?” said Winnie as she laid a gently restraining hand on her arm. “Maureen, Faith wanted you to know that she was safe and well.”

“But she’s coming home? She is coming home, isn’t she?”

Winnie had known this would be difficult. “Not just now, Maureen. She seems to be content where she is for the present, but she wanted you to know that she misses you, and that she misses her brother and sister.”

Maureen Wills put her face in her hands. “You don’t know—you can’t imagine what it’s been like,” she choked out. “Losing your baby, not knowing if she’s alive or dead. And Gary—Gary won’t even allow us to speak her name—It’s been terrible for Meredith and Jon.…” She raised her face, blotched and tear streaked. “How could she do this to us?”

“Maureen, kids make mistakes. We all make mistakes, but this one isn’t easy to put right. I’m sure Faith never meant to hurt any of you.”

“Then why is she so stubborn? If she’d just told us what happened, who the father is, or if she’d just been reasonable about having an—” Maureen broke off abruptly, with a glance at Winnie’s collar. “I never thought … when Gary told her she was legally an adult, that if she was going to disrespect us that way, she could fend for herself. I never thought she’d go.”