A Postillion Struck by Lightning (8 page)

“What sort of things do you mean?” said Angelica.

“Well, once we bought her a china lighthouse with ‘Eastbourne'
written on it and a sort of shield thing. Didn't we?” she asked me. And when I agreed she rattled on skipping over the planks of the white bridge … “And once we bought her a dear little china shoe, didn't we? With little blue flowers on it and it just had ‘Made In England' on it. But we bought it in Seaford.”

We crossed the bridge and up the path, over the main road, and through the gate into Great Meadow. The paraffin tin was rather heavy.

“I think you were very brave about the Witch,” I said. Angelica opened her mac and pulled up her sock which had slipped down. “She's just a poor old woman with troubles of her own,” she said. “She was very pleased we helped her. And it was rather nice to see her shell. I don't suppose many people have seen that.” My sister hummed her humming-not-listening song.

And there was the house, and the wooden fence and the privy roof and Lally pegging out some washing. She waved and called out something about the sun and trying to dry off a few things—but we weren't really listening. Angelica clambered over the fence and wandered off to help Lally with the laundry basket. My sister sniffed and swung back and forth on the gate. “Hummm,” she said. “Well, it's very easy not to worry about witches if you're going to be a Nun. Very easy indeed.” The gate squeaked a bit and she slipped off and helped me carry the paraffin. “Very easy indeed it is,” she mumbled. And did a snort.

I clonked the two buckets gently on to the kitchen floor so that the water wouldn't spill over the polished bricks. I was a bit puffed because it was quite a long way from the pump. It was my morning job to fill four buckets “for the morning wash”, as we called it… and then I had to do four more after lunch. My sister never had to. She just carried the milk in a white enamel can from the dairy down at the Court. It was quite a long way too; but not near as heavy as eight buckets of water.

They were still sitting at the breakfast table. Lally was talking to Angelica about her packing and some washing. My sister was building a spilly hill in the sugar bowl, dribbling sugar all over the tablecloth. Lally hit her and spilled a lot more. “Now look what you've done, Miss Fiddler,” she cried, “can't keep still for a minute … sugar all over the place, now we'll be smothered in ants. Angelica, tell your mother I couldn't get the stain out of your green cotton. If you'd come to me sooner I might have managed. But damsons is damsons and they stay.” She took up the pile of ironing and set it on the dresser. “That's ready for you when you start packing this evening … and now,” she said, looking at us all, “what are you going to do with yourselves? Angelica? What would you like to do on your Last Day?”

Angelica looked a bit startled, I suppose that Last Day sounded a bit deathly or something, but as she was the guest it was up to her to decide.

“I really don't mind,” she said helpfully.

Lally started sweeping up the breakfast things and clattering them on to a tray. “Well make up your minds and get out from under my feet, all of you,” she said.

The sun was hot even though it was early. There was still dew on the big spikes of larkspur outside the kitchen door. We sat under the apple tree to decide. “We could go grass sledging up at Wilmington,” said my sister. “We make a sledge out of a big old tin tray, and put some rope on it and then we take it up to the very top of the Long Man and slide all the way down … right down to the Royal Oak almost … it's very exciting.”

Angelica didn't say anything. She was busy plaiting three grasses together.

“Sometimes you fall off,” said my sister. “Once He fell off and cut His knee to the bone … show Angelica where you cut your knee to the bone,” she said. But Angelica didn't seem interested.
She stared up into the apple tree as if there was an angel there. “It bled terribly. Or we could go to the cave or the dew pond. Only you could fall in the dew pond and if you do no one can ever get you out because it's very deep and goes to a point in the middle. We saw a drowned sheep there once. And the cave is a bit frightening. There are bats.”

Angelica said, “I don't like bats, thank you.”

We were quite silent for a minute and then I had a good idea. “Let's go to the church, then, and show her the altar and where the murder was. Shall we?”

My sister was on her feet in a minute and so was I and Angelica rather scrambled up and followed us down the garden path to the lane. I thought it was best just to go, otherwise we should have been there all day or something silly. And we were both rather longing for Angelica Chesterfield to go home to London and stop bothering us. We had to keep on thinking of things to amuse her. She never thought of anything herself. Only reading. And that was very dull and selfish of her.

We turned left into the lane and clambered up to the top where there was a great field of corn growing. And a little path waggling through it. And in the middle of the field, with great, huge trees all round it, was the Smallest Church In Sussex. Our house was the rectory. But all we had to do was change the water and the flowers in the vases once or twice a week. On the altar. Well, they weren't vases for the flowers. Jam jars. But we put white and blue crepe paper round them so they looked rather pretty. And my sister always picked the flowers and arranged them herself. Sitting in the sun on a gravestone singing a hymn-sounding-song.

There was a little wooden fence all round the church, with a squeaky iron gate and inside the gate was the churchyard. All the tombs and gravestones were squinty, like people standing on a ship in a storm. Leaning in all directions and covered with moss. There was no one buried there who was new. The newest one was called Anne Stacie Departed This Life 1778 aged 78. We thought that was very interesting, but Angelica didn't. The door was always open and inside there was a lovely cool feeling and a smell of floor polish and candles. It was very, very small. Sometimes the Rector, Mr Eric Bentley, came up and preached a sermon. One Sunday in the month. And we all went. And there was another for the Harvest. And then lots of people came with
sheaves of corn and apples and bread and things. And it was lovely. Usually there were only about twelve or fifteen people there: it only had room for twenty anyway. And hikers used to come and people from as far away as Lewes or Polegate. It was too small inside for an organ so there was just a piano at the back and Winnie Maltravers playing hymns and singing very loudly, shaking her bun, so that we waited for it to start falling down round her shoulders, which it always did—in long grey wisps like a horse's tail.

On these days Lally wore her Best Brown and a hat with ivy
leaves on it which she bought one day in Seaford. It was a bit like a pudding basin and came right down to her eyes so that she had to tilt her head backwards to read the hymn book … only she never wore glasses so she just sang “la la la la” all the time, pretending she could see the tiny printing. Which, of course, with that hat, she couldn't.

Our mother gave us a penny each for the collection when it came round during “The Lord is My Shepherd” and it was interesting to see how much was in the plate to send to the African Orphans somewhere. Never very much. Because the hikers were a poor looking lot and no one ever gave more than a sixpence or a threepenny-bit. But Mr Bentley sent it all off to Africa once a month or so, with the collection from his big church in the village.

“This is the smallest church in England,” said my sister, “and that's the altar where the murder was.” She was speaking in a rather whispery way, not because of the murder but because you do whisper in church … even if it is very small. Angelica had made the sign of a cross and done her bob in the aisle and then we went and sat in one of the wooden pews. There were lots of little humpty cushions covered in carpet and some rather old hymn books. Angelica picked through one but didn't seem to take any notice of the word Murder at all. My sister got a bit irritated.

“About the murder,” she said in the whispery voice, leaning very close to Angelica and putting her hand on the hymn book to stop her looking, “… about the murder. Well… it was ages ago and there was this Vicar, you see, and he had a very pretty wife and she was much younger than he was and didn't like churches and that sort of thing very much. And they were always having terrible rows and things. And one day he came into the church and found her kissing a man. Here. Right where we are sitting.” She stopped for breath and stared at Angelica. Who didn't say anything at all. Just looked back. My sister started piling the hymn books on top of each other. “The church was much bigger in those days of course … huge they say.”

Angelica said, “Who said so?”

“The people in the village. Mrs Fluke and Miss Maltravers and people. But the vicar took a candlestick from the altar and hit the man who was kissing his wife and killed him. And then he set fire to the church with the candles and they were burned
to death. And that's why the church is so small. Only this bit was left.”

The pile of hymn books fell down and they scattered all over the floor so we had to grovel about looking for them and putting them back on the pew shelves. It seemed a silly way to spend a Last Day … with the sun outside and Angelica not caring anyway. She was on her hands and knees under a bench and I heard her say she didn't believe it anyway. Not a word. And she crawled out and brushed down her skirt. My sister was red in the face and rather angry.

“Oh! Look! How sweet!” she said. “I've got a holy picture, it must have come out of the books. It's so pretty, it's a lady with some roses and a heart with red spokes pointing out.” She slid it into a book and went off to look at the flowers on the altar which were looking a bit mouldy because we hadn't changed them since Angelica had come to stay. I wandered out and sat on one of the stones and peeled some moss off the word “resteth” with a bit of twig and Angelica did her cross and bob and came out too and squinted into the sunlight.

“I don't think it's really true, that story,” she said, sitting down beside me. “I expect it is just a legend or something, don't you?”

I said I didn't know but it was true anyway, and we'd heard it lots of times and that when they got the bodies out of the church they were just ashes and they put them into a box together and took them down in a cart to the village, all mixed together like Hundreds and Thousands, and Angelica laughed a barking laugh meaning I was silly. So I shut up. But my sister came out and lay in the grass. “Now what shall we do?” she asked crossly. No one spoke. The day was very still. Not even a little breeze to make the poppies nod. Grasshoppers were clicking away and a pigeon was cooing up in one of the elms. It was the sort of morning for doing nothing on … so we just sat still. I went on picking away at “resteth” and found “in” under a lump of yellow lichen. My sister sat up, put her face to the sun.