The Sibyl in Her Grave (14 page)

24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex

8th September

Dear Julia,

Yet another thing I’d like your advice about—you’ll think I’m becoming a perfect nuisance. Not exactly a legal problem—there’s something I’d like to find out and I thought you might know if I could. It’s because of the gravestone.

You see, Derek Arkwright, the young man I told you about, has become quite a regular visitor down here. He comes down on Friday evening and stays at the Vicarage until Sunday morning. He and Maurice spend Saturday driving round the countryside looking at churches and gardens and Roman pavements and so on.

And we all like him very much. Maurice in particular, of course, but not only Maurice—I like him, Griselda likes him, even Ricky likes him, though one wouldn’t think that they had much in common.

Everyone except Daphne, who still has this extraordinary antagonism towards him. Whenever they meet—which we all do our best to avoid happening, but it sometimes does—she practically bristles, like a dog with someone it dislikes, and sits there glowering as if she were trying to put the evil eye on him. It’s really quite embarrassing.

She goes on saying that he’s a treacherous and dangerous person and whenever he’s here there’s a
shadow over Maurice’s name in the Book. That means that he’s going to do Maurice some kind of terrible harm, though exactly what she never manages to specify. The worst she’s been able to think of so far is that he encourages Maurice to drink too much—she makes dark comments on the number of empty wine bottles to be put in the dustbin after Derek’s been staying.

What she really minds, I dare say, is that when Derek’s here she can’t go running over to the Vicarage to tell Maurice about her great spiritual dilemma. Which in my view is a very good thing—she’s really been spending far too much time there. Some people are getting quite the wrong impression—I’ve been asked more than once whether invitations to Maurice ought to include Daphne. And Mrs. Tyrrell has stopped going there to clean because she thinks Daphne’s doing the housework, and she won’t have Maurice paying her for work he doesn’t need.

Ricky doesn’t go round there anymore either—he used to drop in quite often. “If you go round to see an old mate for a noggin or two and a chat about the Test Match,” says Ricky, “you don’t want to find bloody Daphne sitting there looking at him like a lovesick cow and behaving as if he was some kind of bloody saint and we all ought to kneel in his presence.”

You may think, quite rightly, that that isn’t a very nice way of putting it, but I’m afraid I do know what he means—it somehow just doesn’t seem possible to have a normal conversation with Maurice while Daphne’s there, and nowadays she almost always is. He’s too softhearted to send her away, of
course, but I’m sure he’s more embarrassed than anyone about it—though I suppose any man, even one as nice as Maurice, can’t help feeling a little bit flattered by such unquestioning devotion.

I don’t at all mean that she’s in love with him—certainly not in the sense of wanting anything physical. The fact is, I think, that she’s rather frightened of sex—she’s more unattractive physically than anyone could be without actually trying—and part of what she likes about Maurice is that she can feel safe with him without feeling rejected. She has this peculiar idea, you see, that he’s taken some kind of vow of celibacy. She seems to think that’s why he’s never married—”Because for Maurice God would always come first, wouldn’t He?”

But all the same, it was turning into a rather awkward situation, so I’m inclined to look on Derek as something of a godsend. At least, I would be if it weren’t for the gravestone.

It’s true that we still don’t know very much about him—not even what he does for a living. Not rough work, certainly—one can tell by his hands. One can’t quite imagine him working in an office, but he can’t be unemployed—his car’s less than two years old and although his clothes are mostly denim they look quite expensive. I suppose he might have a large private income, but he doesn’t have quite the accent I’d associate with that—though young people have such extraordinary accents nowadays that one can never be quite sure.

When one asks him outright what he does, he just smiles engagingly and says he wants to go on being a man of mystery. I expect it only means that it’s something he thinks is unglamorous—perhaps
he’s a travelling salesman or something like that—and doesn’t want to tell us about. But Daphne, of course, thinks it means he does something shady.

We don’t know exactly where he lives, either—he says he leads such a nomadic existence that it isn’t worth giving anyone an address or telephone number. He
has
given Maurice the address of a friend, though, who he says will pass on messages in an emergency, so I don’t think he’s planning to defraud Maurice of his life savings and disappear without trace.

Which I gather is the sort of thing that Daphne is expecting. She keeps implying, at any rate, that he must have some kind of ulterior motive for coming down here. She doesn’t believe, she says, that he’s a bit interested in stained-glass windows.

I suppose it’s a little surprising that Derek wants to spend his leisure time with someone so much older than himself, however charming and intelligent. But what ulterior motive
could
he have? After all, it isn’t as if Maurice were rich—he has what he’s paid by the Church and a modest private income from a family trust. If Derek were some sort of confidence trickster, what on earth could he hope to make out of Maurice that would be worth coming down here every weekend and pretending to be interested in things he isn’t?

When one says that to Daphne, though, she just beats her little fists on the table, and says, “Oh, you’re all so
trusting.”

Being the fount of all wisdom doesn’t prevent Maurice from also being, in Daphne’s eyes, as credulous and gullible as a four-year-old child. She
sometimes talks as if he and I had both spent our entire lives wrapped up in tissue paper and never once had anything to do with anyone the least bit wicked. Which in fact is not the case.

She also keeps saying that she doesn’t understand what Maurice likes about Derek. Well, if she really doesn’t, then it’s hardly for me to tell her—but she must be even more naive than she accuses me of being.

Anyway, now Maurice and Derek are going on holiday together. Derek has a friend, apparently, who has a flat in the south of France and has offered him the use of it for the next three weeks or so. He’s invited Maurice to drive down there with him, with plenty of stops on the way to look at cathedrals and eat nice meals, and Maurice, as you’d expect, is enchanted at the idea. And they leave tomorrow.

Daphne, of course, doesn’t know. Maurice has told her that he’s going on retreat, and allowed her to imagine that this means he’s going to stay in some kind of monastery and spend his time in prayer and meditation.

I don’t want you to think that I’m worried about it, because I’m not. I’m quite sure everything Daphne says about Derek is complete piffle, and there’s no reason to feel at all worried about Maurice going on holiday with him. Apart from the gravestone.

You see, I was walking through the churchyard yesterday, and for no particular reason I happened to stop and look at the gravestone of Derek’s great-grandfather—the one he’d been looking for when we
first met him, on the day of Isabella’s funeral. It doesn’t take much looking for, actually—it’s quite close to the pathway up to the church door, and the inscription is very clear—Jeremiah Arkwright Died 26 February 1927 Aged 52 Years.

I found myself thinking it was a little odd that it didn’t say anything about his children. Gravestones don’t always, of course, but usually they do—Dearly Loved Father of Charles and Alice or something like that. Unless, of course, they’re for someone who didn’t have any children.

But if Jeremiah Arkwright didn’t have any children, then he can’t have had any grandchildren. And in that case, Derek can’t be his great-grandson, can he? And if he isn’t, why should he say he was?

It’s ridiculous, but I’d somehow feel much happier if I could be sure that Jeremiah Arkwright had at least one son. Do you happen to know of any way of finding out?

Yours with much love,
Reg