Haweswater by Sarah Hall

a large brandy in one hand. It was eleven thirty in the morning. Ella was insistent.
    – ‘Twoud be a shame to let down yer flock, let them wander the fells in certain danger.
    – Well now, Mrs Lightburn, this cold is a stinker. It could have me knocked out a week or more.
    The Reverend sneezed for emphasis, thinking that he had never before met a flock more able to care for itself.
    And Ella turned abruptly and strode away up the stony path to Whelter Farm, her breath frosting above her, leaving the vicar to his brandy and thoughts of a long weekend in bed with a good book. She returned an hour later, however, with a pan of foul, oily broth, tasting vaguely of chicken, as the Reverend soon found out, and with some strict instructions.
    – Remember, no more brandy, vicar, it thins the blood badly in this cold, not to mention thinning the spirit! And no milk. And no bread.
    Her eyes were wide, sending ripples across her forehead in their wake, they were piercing blue and unavoidable. She left with directions to heat a cup every half hour and she would return with another batch in the morning.
    The Reverend Wood managed a good recovery almost overnight. By the time the morning arrived, bringing Ella with a fresh pan of stock, he was fit enough to be dressed, to refuse the pan vehemently with protestations that it must be a miracle how much better he felt, and that the soup would be wasted on him now. Yes, a full recovery he had made!
    Alas, his garden fuchsias did not manage to recover quite so well after receiving a substantial dose of broth over them that February. They were sadly not forthcoming the following summer.
    The vicar did not particularly appreciate such devotion. He considered the woman to be excessively fraught with the desire to be close to God, and whilst he himself did not fault a deep love for the Lord, he felt that decent limitations were needed. There was something about the woman which did not sit right with the vicar. The confidence her faith allowed her was too inflated, to his mind. He had also heard disjointed pieces of an alarming tale about the birth of the Lightburns’ first child, which added to his suspicions that she may indeed be harbouring tendencies towards religious hysteria, and he often found himself picturing her wide-eyed and perspiring with a poisonous snake in each hand, in the fashion of those fervent reptile handlers in the American Appalachia about whom he had read. He had not pressed Ella herself on the issue, being slightly nervous of her reaction, but had gleaned all the missing sections of the story from other villagers over the five years of his administration, subtly, for he was not one for gossip, the majority of the tale being supplied to him by the woman who ran the local store, the village tattle-tale.
    Reverend Wood would have liked to cancel Ella’s cleaning duties, especially since her wage came from the money directly allocated to him for the upkeep of the parish church. He would even have taken a polishing cloth in his own hand himself if it would guarantee her safe retirement. But she had been there at the church longer than he. Her position seemed unquestionable and he did not quite know how to executesuch a plan. And besides, his nerve always seemed to falter in her presence, as if he were a tiny mouse on the ground, addressing a mighty eagle perched over him, giving measly reasons as to why his existence should continue.

    In the centre of the village stood a row of tiny cottages, and in the last, the one with the tumbling chimney, was a tiny shop, which took up no more space than the corridor between the front door and the sitting room. It was run by a woman called Sylvia Goodman, known to all in the village as Gobby. She had converted her hallway into rows of shelves, containing provisions, shoe wax, paraffin, string, boxes of flour, tins of fish and other mixed items. She was notorious for handing out district news with every purchase of sardines or tooth