Grace had noticed the church while on duty and before returning to her lodgings she visited it. Standing within sight of the Roman ruins, the steeple of the Victorian era building rose grandly toward the heavens, a contrast to Noddweir’s Saint Winnoc’s with its humble, squat tower.
Sandbags protected the narrow windows of this church, giving the tall building the appearance of a fortress under siege. She went up stone steps worn into a slight depression toward the center by the passage of its congregations over the decades. A handbill pinned to the notice board on the smoke-blackened wall next to the double doors announced a dance at seven Saturday night. Refreshments would be served and a collection made to benefit the Red Cross. A large painted board attached to the far corner of the church pointed to the air raid shelter in the crypt.
She went into the church, stepping into a dim, icy pool of cold. It was evensong. The vicar, rosy-faced and grey-haired, read by candlelight to empty pews.
No, not quite empty. In a back row a shabby man slept, out of the wind, blanketed by a two-week old Chronicle headlined with the Japanese declaration of war. A pair of women huddled in the shadows far apart from each other.
Grace sat in the back, across the aisle from the sleeping man. She tried to imagine she was in Saint Winnoc’s, tried to feel the certainty and peace sacred words had once given her.
She had grown up a believer. Her mother had told her about God and, if her mother said there was God, that was good enough for little Grace. She did not question Him any more than she questioned wind or sun or rain or the mysterious power of growth. In Noddweir’s small stone church He remained nearby, but where was He in this big cold space? Where was He in city streets where the air itself felt different—not an invisible breath of the eternal perfumed with flowers and growing things or in winter the reassuring smell of earth blanketing the life which drowsed until spring. The gray city was too clearly a product of human endeavour in the material world.
The sleeping man snored and shifted, rustling his newspaper covers. Grace glanced toward him, then to the tiny congregation. For no good reason she had the impression one woman was her grandmother’s age, the other the age of Grace’s mother when she went away.
She was a child back in Noddweir. She could feel her mother’s firm grip on her mittened hand, smell the grayish green herbs piled on the kitchen table at which her grandmother sat.
“Dragging the poor child off to church again, Mae?” Her grandmother waved a pestle in their direction. “You’d do better to leave her with me to learn my persuasions.”
“Let’s not go through this again, Mother. You know how I feel about those spells and nostrums of yours.”
“What’s wrong with my persuasions, then? Jesus healed the sick, didn’t he?”
“Mother, really!”
Martha pointed the pestle at them. “You’re of the blood, Mae. It’s in the family. You can run away from it, but you’ve no business taking the gift from your daughter.”
Her mother’s grip tightened until Grace’s hand hurt. “We’re going. We’ll both pray for you, won’t we, Grace?”
When the service had finished, Grace approached the pulpit. The vicar stepped down, fussing with the papers in his hand, and looked up with obvious surprise.
“Welcome to St Martha’s. Peter Elliott.” He offered a hand and looked at her quizzically. “Is there anything wrong?”
“Wrong? No. I was surprised. Martha is my grandmother’s name. I didn’t notice on my way in. What a strange coincidence.”
“If you believe in coincidences. And yourself?”
“Oh, sorry. Grace Baxter.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you, Constable Baxter? How may I be of assistance? I hope it’s nothing too serious.”
In the countryside the local vicar knew everything that went on in the neighborhood. Was it the same in the city?
“Unfortunately, it is rather serious. It’s about the woman found dead across the way.”
“Yes. Of course. I should have realized that’s what you were here about.” There was a furtiveness in the way he looked at her, turning his head slightly to the side rather than meeting her gaze straight on.
“I was hoping you might have seen something.”
He shook his head. “I live behind the church and retire early. Those of us holding the fort at home have many extra tasks to accomplish and I for one find it more tiring than I once did. Take, for example—” He pointed to a bucket set beside the doorway. “The ladies of St Martha’s do the cleaning turn and turn about, all things in their season, and so on. This afternoon scrubbing the floor was my duty. It’s hard on my knees. They’re afflicted with arthritis, an illness I often think was created in the devil’s laboratory.”
“Do you have much trouble with crime locally?”
The vicar invited her to take a pew and sat down beside her. They were alone now, except for the sleeping man who occasionally gave a fitful snore amplified in the silence and emptiness.
“Crime? No more than most poor parishes in big cities. Morally speaking, the war has brought many dangers for young people, especially girls posted to war work away from their homes. And then there’s the black market. We’ve also had problems with ladies of easy virtue being a little too obvious at their work. They like to loiter around the ruins.”
“We’ll do our best to make the ladies keep moving.”
“If you could only order that accursed temple to move too! A fine thing to see from the front steps of a church. At least God’s house is still standing. There’s a lesson to be learned from that if people would open their eyes and see.”
“The war tests people’s faith.”
“Does it test yours? I’ve found that despite so many off to fight, or evacuated or relocated for various reasons, my congregation is bigger. On Sundays, that is. At evensong I often feel like poor Eddi in the poem.”
“And am I the donkey or the ox listening to you now, vicar?”
“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to imply…You know Kipling?”
“The poem was one of my mother’s favorites.”
“You inherited your faith from your mother?”
“Yes. “
“The war may test it. You must hold fast. I hope you will find comfort here.”
When Grace remained silent he gave a slight smile and continued. “St Martha, you know, was the woman who served at the meal for Jesus in Bethany. I’m not thinking of my own service to the community, but of those who live in the surrounding streets, who serve others in their different capacities. Working class and proud of it, and I am proud of them, including those I only see in the street and never in a pew. My church dates from the late nineteenth century and I’ve conjectured its dedication is an example of subtle Victorian ecclesiastical humour.”
Grace saw the vicar shiver. His hands were bone-white with cold. “I’m sorry. You must have been standing in here for a long time”
She stood up quickly. The vicar got up more slowly.
“I would be glad to talk longer but I must open the church hall. It’s a meeting of the Benwell Ladies’ Benevolent and Social Club tonight. They always have a speaker. Since the war started it’s usually a government official. There seems no end of government officials ready to educate us about the war effort.”
“I was told that a man named Rutherford lectures at the church. Has he spoken to the ladies? Do you know him?”
“Oh, dear no.” The vicar laughed nervously. “I mean ‘no’ he hasn’t lectured to them. But, yes, I do know him. It was another group he used to talk to. They concentrated on mythology and folklore. At first, I mean. But then they moved on to more arcane beliefs. Witchcraft! Seances! When it was brought to my attention I had to turn them out. Those are not fit subjects to be discussed on church property.”
“And Mr. Rutherford was involved?”
“Oh, very much so. He used to lead the group but then fell out with them or they fell out with him, I’m not clear which. Is it surprising with everyone’s temper on edge with lack of sleep?”
“Do you know anything about Mr. Rutherford?”
A cloud passed over the vicar’s affable demeanor. “He keeps to himself. When I’ve tried to talk to him he’s avoided me as if I were Satan himself.” Again he gave her a sideways look.
“A strange man with strange interests, it seems,” she said.
“We’re all created differently. I don’t want to give the impression it’s all darkness and dread here. We shall celebrate a wedding next week, a cause for joy in these evil times. Speaking of folklore, here’s a prime example for you. It’s the local custom to toss pennies to children when the wedding party leaves for the church. Not many pennies nowadays, I admit, but a charming gesture nonetheless.”
“I can tell you are very fond of your parishioners.”
“I am, indeed. I fear certain of my lambs have strayed, and yet I think you’ll be impressed how my parishioners help out neighbours in need without being asked. You’ll find they have rough tongues and tend to be judgmental, but when misfortune strikes, they’re around unasked with kind words, bringing food and offering help in any fashion they can, from loaning baptismal gowns for the new baby to laying out the dead.”
The snores from the man sleeping on the pew became a fitful moan. There was the crinkling sound of shifting newspapers.
“Poor soul,” Mr. Elliott said. “I’ve been trying to find a place for him to stay. I don’t have the heart to throw him out.”
“I must let you go, Mr. Elliott.”
“Please, feel free to come and talk to me if you are troubled. Or even if you are not.” He stared past her and winked. No. It was his eye glinting in the candlelight.
His glass eye.
That accounted for his odd manner of looking at her.
The vicar had one glass eye and how long had Grace talked to him before noticing?