choir? They’re making amazing progress, and attracting a lot more members. I looked in on them the other evening, and thought what a magician he is. He could get music from a chorus of cats.’
‘No thanks, Derek, not for me. I couldn’t stand all the chatter. The woman in the bread shop told me that peculiar woman Beryl Johnson has just joined, you know, the one who lost her mother a while back, and was so hysterical at the funeral. It’d do her more good than it would me.’
Derek froze. He stared at the packet on the sideboard, a small, square box that had come byrecorded delivery. He mustn’t open it in front of Daphne. He scooped it up with the other mail and winked at her.
‘Better get the office work done before supper, then we’ll have a nice, quiet evening.’
‘Aren’t you going to open that?’ she asked.
‘Oh, it’ll only be a sample of something we don’t need from the diocesan office,’ he said, and left the room before she could answer. In his stone-cold study – the central heating of the vicarage was kept to a minimum – he picked up the silver paperknife on the desk, and cut the brown paper to find his fears confirmed. It was a red box with a well-known jewellers’ name engraved on it, and it contained a gold tiepin, with a single diamond in the centre, nestling on a black velvet lining.
There was also a letter, and his initial reaction was to tear it up unread, but caution dictated that he should check the contents in case there were any threats or indications as to what she might do if he ignored her. Taking it out of its envelope and holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a stinging insect, he shook it open.
‘Dear Reverend Bolt, dearest Derek,’
he read.
Forgive me, I have to write because I cannot speak to you as I would prefer. Derek, you are starving me. All I ask is a crumb from your table, a word, a note, a letter, a telephone call,
anything, just to acknowledge me and sustain me from one day to the next. Wear the tiepin and let me see it!
Out of the question, he thought. How could the woman expect him to take such a risk, a clergyman, and a married man with a family? The letter continued as if answering him.
I understand your obligations to family life, but I swear to you that Mrs Bolt cannot possibly love you as I do, nor with a quarter of my devotion to you. Every hour of every day your beloved face is before me. At night upon my bed I meditate on you, I hold you in my arms, I feel your body’s warmth as I go to sleep, and in the morning when I wake – oh, Derek, you are still there with me!
For heaven’s sake, she’s obsessed, she’s mad, he thought, and what might she do? He groaned inwardly. I can’t possibly wear the tiepin, which must have cost at least a hundred pounds, possibly two, and I’ll have to keep it in the safe. Suppose Daphne – ought I to confide in Daphne in case she finds out? What a disaster. And there was more.
If you only knew how much I long – oh, how I long for a sight of you, those glimpses of
you in church, praying that you will send one brief glance in my direction, a crumb, a scrap from your bounty, one Good Morning among the many you have to say to those who do not appreciate it. You even deny me a handshake, a touch freely given to all except the one who pleads with you, begs you—
A few more lines in the same vein ended with ‘
your constantly devoted Beryl who beseeches you for an answer
.’
Derek glanced at his watch: Daphne was preparing supper and would soon be calling him to the kitchen table where they ate informally when alone. What on earth was he to
do
? He screwed up the letter in his hand and shoved it and the jewellers’ box into the wall safe where he kept St Matthew’s petty cash. Damn the woman, he would no longer be able to look in on Jeremy North’s Christmas choir rehearsals, not without awkwardness and embarrassment, with her hungry eyes following his every move.
He glanced through
‘No thanks, Derek, not for me. I couldn’t stand all the chatter. The woman in the bread shop told me that peculiar woman Beryl Johnson has just joined, you know, the one who lost her mother a while back, and was so hysterical at the funeral. It’d do her more good than it would me.’
Derek froze. He stared at the packet on the sideboard, a small, square box that had come byrecorded delivery. He mustn’t open it in front of Daphne. He scooped it up with the other mail and winked at her.
‘Better get the office work done before supper, then we’ll have a nice, quiet evening.’
‘Aren’t you going to open that?’ she asked.
‘Oh, it’ll only be a sample of something we don’t need from the diocesan office,’ he said, and left the room before she could answer. In his stone-cold study – the central heating of the vicarage was kept to a minimum – he picked up the silver paperknife on the desk, and cut the brown paper to find his fears confirmed. It was a red box with a well-known jewellers’ name engraved on it, and it contained a gold tiepin, with a single diamond in the centre, nestling on a black velvet lining.
There was also a letter, and his initial reaction was to tear it up unread, but caution dictated that he should check the contents in case there were any threats or indications as to what she might do if he ignored her. Taking it out of its envelope and holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a stinging insect, he shook it open.
‘Dear Reverend Bolt, dearest Derek,’
he read.
Forgive me, I have to write because I cannot speak to you as I would prefer. Derek, you are starving me. All I ask is a crumb from your table, a word, a note, a letter, a telephone call,
anything, just to acknowledge me and sustain me from one day to the next. Wear the tiepin and let me see it!
Out of the question, he thought. How could the woman expect him to take such a risk, a clergyman, and a married man with a family? The letter continued as if answering him.
I understand your obligations to family life, but I swear to you that Mrs Bolt cannot possibly love you as I do, nor with a quarter of my devotion to you. Every hour of every day your beloved face is before me. At night upon my bed I meditate on you, I hold you in my arms, I feel your body’s warmth as I go to sleep, and in the morning when I wake – oh, Derek, you are still there with me!
For heaven’s sake, she’s obsessed, she’s mad, he thought, and what might she do? He groaned inwardly. I can’t possibly wear the tiepin, which must have cost at least a hundred pounds, possibly two, and I’ll have to keep it in the safe. Suppose Daphne – ought I to confide in Daphne in case she finds out? What a disaster. And there was more.
If you only knew how much I long – oh, how I long for a sight of you, those glimpses of
you in church, praying that you will send one brief glance in my direction, a crumb, a scrap from your bounty, one Good Morning among the many you have to say to those who do not appreciate it. You even deny me a handshake, a touch freely given to all except the one who pleads with you, begs you—
A few more lines in the same vein ended with ‘
your constantly devoted Beryl who beseeches you for an answer
.’
Derek glanced at his watch: Daphne was preparing supper and would soon be calling him to the kitchen table where they ate informally when alone. What on earth was he to
do
? He screwed up the letter in his hand and shoved it and the jewellers’ box into the wall safe where he kept St Matthew’s petty cash. Damn the woman, he would no longer be able to look in on Jeremy North’s Christmas choir rehearsals, not without awkwardness and embarrassment, with her hungry eyes following his every move.
He glanced through
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