A Finer End (9 page)

“Not much to tell, unfortunately.”

Winnie studied her friend’s face. “You look a bit transparent round the edges.”

Fiona shrugged. “It’s not that I expect to control what I paint—that’s never been the case—but nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“You’re still painting the little girl, then?”

“They’re so dark, these paintings. There’s no happiness in them. I’ve begun to dread the urge to paint. And Bram hates them; I can tell—”

The banging of the back door silenced her.

“Sorry I’m late, Fi,” Bram Allen said, coming into the kitchen and kissing his wife’s cheek. “Waiting on an international call. Winnie,” he added, favoring her with a perfunctory nod. “Good to see you.”

As Fiona readied her husband’s meal, Winnie watched the couple with a stirring of envy. Married more than twenty-five years, they still seemed as devoted as newlyweds. Did she and Jack have such a future ahead of them? Or would Jack’s involvement with Simon lead him down a path she couldn’t follow?

She had been happily self-sufficient until she’d met Jack Montfort, unaware of any void in her life. So why, now, did the thought of a future without him fill her with such desolation?

They had made themselves comfortable in Jack’s kitchen—Winnie and Jack, Nick, Garnet Todd, Simon, and the girl, Faith. The heat wave that had plagued southern England for weeks had abated, and there was a crispness that presaged autumn in the breeze that blew through the open windows. From where Winnie sat, she could see the slope
of the Tor rising beyond the neglected back garden, a solitary sheep grazing in the green grass.

Lazing over cups of tea, they indulged in the sort of desultory chat associated with warm summer afternoons. Jack sat with a notepad ready.

Suddenly, his pen began to move across the paper. Jack continued his conversation with Simon, seemingly unaware of the actions of his own hand. As often as Winnie had experienced the phenomenon, she still found it uncomfortably eerie, and, in spite of herself, the word
possession
came to mind.

As soon as Jack stopped writing, Simon began to translate.

Brother Francis has given me my own carrel. We work on the north side of the cloister where the light is best, and my carrel is near a window, a much-coveted spot. Brother Francis has set me the Abbot’s own missal to copy, as I have learned so quickly, but warns me against the sin of pride
.

Simon looked up from the page, frowning. “Then there are a couple of lines I can’t make out at all—then something … something … 
meadowsweet
, I think.
The scent of meadowsweet
. Then … 
much rain … Glaston rises from the flooded plain … an island in the mist. Supplies come by boat from Abbey holdings further afield, but our visitors are few, and this suits me well
.”

“Have you noticed he’s suddenly giving us the present tense?” asked Winnie.

“I don’t know that linear time means much to someone in Edmund’s … uh, condition,” said Jack.

“Really, Jack, there’s no need to spare Winifred’s sensibilities by avoiding the word
ghost
or
spirit
,” said Simon. For once, Winnie had to agree with him. Who was she to quibble over dogma, if Edmund, who had been a Catholic monk, seemed to have no objection to
being
a ghost?

“Winnie’s right,” said Garnet. “It is a change—it’s as if the past has become more immediate to him. Is there anything more, Simon?”

Simon glanced round the table, but Nick was watching Faith, who was gazing at Garnet. Clearing his throat, he waited until he had their attention, then took up the notepad again.

Nothing interrupts the rhythm of our days, long in the summer twilight. Down the night stairs for Matins, the stone cool under our feet. We sing the Office in that state between sleeping and waking … then are we closest to God
.

The times are now ripe for the glory to return. You must strive to restore all that was lost.… It was my sins brought such misfortune upon us.…

“That’s all.” Simon looked up, and Winnie came back to the present with a start. For a moment, she had seen the Great Church, illuminated by candlelight, and heard the voices raised in worship. The longing she felt for this vision was so intense she found herself blinking back tears.

Had the others felt it too? Faith’s face was luminous. Their eyes met, and an acknowledgment passed between them.

“What exactly is it that we’re supposed to strive to restore?” Jack sounded exasperated. “Not to mention how to go about it,
if
we knew what it was.”

Winnie said hesitantly, “I—I might have an idea.…” They all turned to stare at her. Would they think her barmy? But she knew it didn’t matter.

“I don’t understand how.… But he … Edmund … I could feel his joy, and a sense of—I guess you would call it complete harmony. I don’t know how else to describe it. Everything felt right with the world and with God. I think that’s what he wants you to know—that this is possible.”

Garnet leaned forward abruptly, raking them all with her intense gaze, and a sudden air current lifted the sheer curtain behind her. “And nowhere is this more true than in Glastonbury, one of the sacred power centers of the earth. Edmund has opened a window for us, a channel, a way to pull that energy into the present.”

“But how?” Jack frowned. “And that still doesn’t explain why it should come through me.”

“I know Simon hasn’t found a direct family connection,” mused Winnie. “But I can’t help feeling there
must
be a genetic component.”

Jack rubbed his chin as he thought, an unconscious gesture that Winnie always found endearing. “My father’s family does go back in these parts as far as anyone can remember. But I don’t have the foggiest idea how to follow it from my end.”

“If there’s a connection, Simon
will
find it,” insisted Garnet. “I know it’s hard to be patient—”

“You can’t expect us to sit round waiting for Simon until Doomsday,” snapped Nick. “He’s not the only one with access to genealogical records—”

“No one’s suggesting we leave avenues unexplored,” Jack broke in, forestalling outright hostilities. “I’ve some elderly relatives I could have a word with. That seems as good a place to start as any, don’t you think, Simon? More tea, everyone?”

Winnie hesitated, glancing at her watch. She felt a great need to block out the emotional undercurrents of the group so that she could absorb what she had just experienced. “I think I’ll go to Wells for Evensong. Jack?”

“Sorry, darling, I can’t. I’m meeting with some clients at six.” He touched her arm lightly. “You’re sure you won’t stay?”

“I’d like to come with you, if that’s all right,” offered Faith, much to Winnie’s surprise.

“Of course,” Winnie said with genuine pleasure. She’d been hoping to have a word with the girl without appearing too much the interfering priest, and she had just been handed the perfect opportunity.

Historically, Wells had long been Glastonbury’s rival, with much building at the Abbey spurred by progress at Wells, and vice versa. As the west front of the cathedral came into view across the green, Winnie tried to imagine that the
Abbey had once looked very like it, but it seemed impossible to superimpose the magnificent front and towers of the intact cathedral against the ruins that remained at Glastonbury.

“The ladders are my favorite thing.” Faith stopped to look up at the carved stone saints climbing to heaven.

“Mine too,” Winnie agreed. “You’ve been here before, then?”

“Lots of times.”

When Faith didn’t offer anything further, Winnie glanced at her watch. “I think we’ve time for a cup of tea in the refectory, if you’d like. Are you hungry?”

Faith gave her a shy smile. “Always.”

As they entered the main doors of the cathedral, Winnie felt a lift of delight, as she always did, at the sight of the great scissor arch supporting the towers. Some historians theorized that Glastonbury had once had an arch like that, and it suddenly occurred to Winnie that they might ask Edmund—a sure sign that she was becoming as batty as the rest of them.

They turned right, passing through the gift shop and into the refectory, where Faith accepted a cheese roll and insisted on herbal tea. “Garnet says I mustn’t have any caffeine,” she explained. “It’s bad for the baby.”

“Do you get on well with Garnet?” Winnie asked when they were settled at a table overlooking the quiet green square of the Cloisters.

“She’s been brilliant. And she knows ever so much about everything. Have you seen her tiles?” Faith took an enormous bite of roll.

“Yes, in several of the churches I visit. They’re beautiful.”

“She knows all about the Old Religion, too, and about how Goddess worship was incorporated into the Christian Church as worship of the Virgin Mar—” She stopped, giving Winnie a horrified glance, as if suddenly realizing Winnie might not approve of these views.

“I daresay she’s right,” Winnie interposed gently. “It’s an interesting idea. You said you’d come to Wells often?”

“I sang in the choir at school,” Faith explained. “We came to hear other choirs, and once we were even invited to sing ourselves.”

Did she detect a wistful note in the girl’s voice? “You must miss that.”

“It was … It made me feel sort of … outside myself, I suppose.” Faith gave a small shrug, as if embarrassed by her admission.

“Like today? You felt it, too, didn’t you?”

Faith nodded. “It was really weird—like I was there, in the church, and I could hear them singing.”

“I don’t think the others had the same experience.” Winnie drank her tea, which had gone lukewarm, while she thought. “I can’t explain it. I’m not even sure I believe this whole thing.”

“Maybe you needed convincing.” The look in Faith’s dark eyes brooked no dissembling.

“Maybe I did. But what about you?”

Touching her belly, Faith said, “I think it might have something to do with this. Since the baby—it’s like the world’s more
intense
. I see better, hear better—everything seems to have another layer.”

A hormonally boosted increase in perception? Winnie wondered. Or something more? “Faith, about the baby—do your parents know where you are?”

The girl pushed away her empty plate and cup. “My dad—They said they never wanted to see me ever again. That I was a disgrace to them.”

Oh, dear God, thought Winnie. “People often say things in anger that they don’t mean. I’m sure your parents have spent the last few months regretting every word, and that they’re worried sick about you.”

“I can’t go back. Not after that. You don’t know my dad. And my place is with Garnet now.”

Winnie thought she’d glimpsed a hint of tears in Faith’s eyes, but the girl’s chin was set in a stubborn line. She wouldn’t push her luck, but perhaps she could at least open negotiations. “Would you let me talk to them?”

Faith started to shake her head before Winnie had even finished her sentence.

“I wouldn’t tell them where you were,” Winnie continued. “I wouldn’t tell them anything you didn’t want me to—only that you’re all right.” Seeing Faith waver, she added with a grin, “You can trust me to keep a promise—it’s part of my job description,” and was rewarded with a hesitant smile.

“Could you—could you tell my sister and my brother that I miss them? And my mum?”

“Of course. You give me the address and I’ll go see them first chance I get.” Looking round, Winnie realized the refectory was almost empty. “We’d better go, or we’ll miss the service.”

Returning to the front of the cathedral, they made their way down the left-hand side of the nave to the rope that blocked entry to the Quire until time for the service to begin. There was a sizable crowd waiting, and after a moment the verger released the barrier and ushered them into the stalls.

There was a visiting choir that evening, as the cathedral choir was on August holiday, and Winnie saw with pleasure that they were singing the Bach
Magnificat
, then Parry’s
Songs of Farewell
, two of her favorites.

After the usual rustle and shuffle of people adjusting positions and shedding belongings, a hush fell as the choir processed in and took their seats.

Surrounded by the rich, dark wood of the stalls and the glow of lamplight, Winnie felt shielded from the outside world, sealed in a nucleus that rendered time and space meaningless. As the music rose about them, she glanced at the young woman beside her. Faith’s countenance was
suffused with such joy and longing that Winnie’s heart ached, and she knew that this child was one innocent she would protect with all the weapons of her calling.

Chalice Well Gardens lay in the gentle valley between Chalice Hill and the Tor. The gardens rose, level by level, until the last, an enclosed, leafy bower that housed the well itself. Water the color of blood filled the five-sided well chamber, then flowed through an underground pipe into the Lion’s Head pool below at an unceasing twenty-five thousand gallons a day and a constant temperature of fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit.

Nick sat on a bench near the well, waiting for Faith, who had promised to meet him for a half hour before they both had to be at work. He contemplated the well’s intricate wrought-iron cover, designed just after the First World War by Frederick Bligh Bond; funny how old Bond kept cropping up, once you’d made a connection with him.

The carving was an ancient symbol called the
vesica piscis
, two interlocking circles said to represent the interpenetration of the material and immaterial worlds, or the yin and yang where the conscious and unconscious meet.

It was also said to represent the blending of male and female energy … perhaps a propitious sign for this meeting, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up. He told himself often enough that it was utterly stupid to be in love with a pregnant schoolgirl; he of all people should know better. But it made no difference. And what did he think he would do if she
did
return his feelings? Marry her and take care of mother and infant? Absurd. He barely managed to feed himself and pay the rent on his caravan.