The Fox in the Forest (3 page)

He made himself beans on toast. He was a man for whom food was not important, who became embarrassed indeed if it was dressed up for his consumption with too much care and ceremony. Yet tonight, he would have liked to have a fuller meal than this; above all, he would have liked it to have been prepared and served to him by his wife.

Watching the television without seeing it, he wondered again where Clare was at that moment.

5

The Old Vicarage in Woodford was an architectural embodiment of changing times; sociologists, of which there was a merciful scarcity in Woodford, could have dwelt upon the fact at tedious length.

Even after the sacrifice of some rooms to the demands of en suite bathrooms and more spacious servants’ quarters, it had six bedrooms and four reception rooms. Its ivy-clad elevations bespoke a permanence, a faith in solid money and sensible investments. The grounds were large enough and mature enough to have full-grown copper beeches at their boundary. In spring, the magnolias held their purple-flushed cups confidently aloft and huge Pink Pearl rhododendrons made fifty-foot-high pyramids of opulent bloom on the closely mown front lawn. In summer, the spacious lawns at the rear called out for cucumber sandwiches and afternoon tea.

In these dead days of winter, there was little colour evident in the long borders, but the huge Victorian conservatory, in decline for many years, had recently been restored to its pristine glory. Hyacinths filled the place with heavy, exotic perfume, and the bowls of paper-white narcissi would be out for Christmas Day. The temperature was kept at sixty degrees, comfortably above the level at which the last vicar who had lived here had been able to keep the house itself.

The Old Vicarage had long since ceased to be owned by the Church of England.

Peter Barton did not hesitate between the high wrought-iron gates because of envy. He had no regret for times past, no desire to live here with the comfortable social position of his predecessor a hundred years earlier. When he confronted the sparse audience for his Sunday sermons, he had an occasional nostalgia for the teeming pews of Victorian England, but he knew how he would have been appalled by the poverty and exploitation of that era. His grandfather had been an early Labour Party man, and he was proud of that, though there were some environments where he bit his lip and concealed it.

The Old Vicarage, ironically enough, was one of them. But the people here meant well enough, he told himself resolutely as he marched up the long drive. He was seen before he arrived at the broad mahogany door. The maid, Mary Cox, was one of his parishioners. She smiled a shy welcome and ushered him into the drawing-room. Colonel Harry Davidson, JP, was holding forth at length on the penalties appropriate to young offenders, but he broke off to greet his vicar affably enough. “Come and sit down, Peter. We’re just rustling up some t-tea.” He had a slight speech impediment which caught him out when a t came at the beginning of a word; it went oddly with his general air of control.

Davidson was a Gloucestershire man, but he had been away from the county for over twenty years in the service of his country. Woodford had been glad he had chosen the Old Vicarage when he retired a few years ago, and not only because money and employment were always welcome in a village where both were in short supply. Harry Davidson had managed to distinguish himself in the Falklands, leading a landing party in the crucial action at San Carlos in 1982. He said modestly that he would have retired as a major had he not been in that place at that time, but Woodford was glad of a whiff of military glory.

His army pension would never have stretched to the Old Vicarage, but Colonel Harry had made a good, late marriage when he came back from the Falklands. Rachel was from a relatively minor Swiss banking family, but she brought with her considerable riches. She was striking rather than pretty, but she had the equable personality and intelligence which her husband was shrewd enough to recognize as more valuable to him in the setting he now dominated.

Two-thirty was a strange time for tea, but she had long since reconciled herself to the English habit of offering it at any hour as an assurance of welcome. So she now pushed a plate of scones towards the young vicar, who she thought looked drawn and strained. “Sit down and get warm, Peter, for goodness’ sake! You look as though you need it.” Her Swiss accent was scarcely detectable now.

He was more glad of the hot tea and the newly baked scones than he knew. Perhaps it was the feeling of being cosseted that his human weakness really appreciated. “I was hoping the four of us might form part of a fund-raising group.” He looked round hopefully at the Davidsons and Mrs Graham, the widow who had been listening to the Colonel when he arrived.

“I don’t see why not,” said the Colonel comfortably. “Which church fabric is in need of repair now?” He waved aside the offer of more tea from his wife.

“I wasn’t thinking of our buildings. Sooner or later we’re going to have to abandon one of them — probably St Thomas’s at Ashbridge — but we can debate that in a larger assembly in due course. It’s the famine in Ethiopia that should perhaps be our immediate concern.”

Davidson frowned. “None of us likes looking at pictures of starving children, I agree. But Ethiopia seems in danger of becoming a perennial problem. Are we sure that all this aid gets through to where it’s needed? Some of these African governments simply can’t be t-trusted.”

“I think organizations like Oxfam and Christian Aid know the score on that,” said Peter firmly. “They’ve a lot of experience of ensuring that money and food get through to where they can do most good. It’s just the scale of the problem that threatens to overwhelm them. It needs vast sums to make much impact; I’m glad to see the Princess Royal is throwing her weight behind the Appeal.” He aimed this last shaft at Mrs Graham, a determined royalist, though he took care not to look at her. He was delighted to see her responding out of the corner of his eye.

Rachel Davidson said, “The young people would be interested. If someone could organize a disco in the village hill, I’d provide them with refreshments.” She took up her silver cake-server and slid two more pieces of scone deftly on to Peter’s plate.

Her husband had enough sense to realize when he was out-numbered. He prided himself on his capacity for swift decisions, not recognizing that it could sometimes be a weakness as well as a strength. “Well, if you’re all happy to give the project your energies, we might as well get on with it,” he said, cheerfully enough.

Cut your losses early and people don’t even realize you’ve been defeated. It was the most valuable lesson he had picked up from the course on managerial skills the Army had offered him to prepare him for civilian life at forty-five. He used the tactic often on the Rural District Council; not that as Chairman he had to concede defeat very often there.

Peter was relieved to find his objective so easily achieved: he had expected quite a struggle to carry the day. It was agreed that he should mention the crisis and the fund which was to be their local response at his sermons at Midnight Mass and on Christmas morning. The two women came up with ideas of their own, and the Colonel promised to pass the hat round at the conclusion of the Boxing Day hunt. Peter watched the logs burning cheerfully in the wide inglenook fireplace, sipped his second cup of tea, felt pleasantly drowsy and supported.

He had not realized quite how drained he was until Mrs Graham said to him conventionally, “And how is Mrs Barton? Looking forward to Christmas?”

“Er, yes, I think so. I’ve been too busy to see much of her these last few days.” He managed a weak laugh. He could not tell them that she had not come home last night and he did not even know where she was. “Well, I must be going. I want to get over to Ashbridge to set up a similar collection for Ethiopia.”

“But you didn’t bring your car,” said Rachel Davidson.

So he had been observed as he thought as he walked up the drive. “No. Clare’s out in it, actually. But I’ll walk over to Ashbridge: it won’t take me very long.” He moved towards the door.

Davidson sprang up. “You’ll do no such thing, Vicar. Arthur will run you over there in my car.” Ignoring Peter’s protests, he seized the internal phone and explained what was required to his chauffeur-handyman, who lived in the flat over what had originally been the stables. “He’ll have you over there in t-ten minutes.”

“But I may be a couple of hours. Really, it’s not necessary, I’m quite used to—”

“Nonsense.” Harry Davidson was in the masterful mood he regarded as his military vein. He enjoyed taking control, especially when he knew the two women thoroughly approved of his magnanimity. “Arthur will wait and bring you back when you’re ready. He’s nothing better to do, I’m sure. Or better still, he can walk back through the forest, and you can bring the car back at your leisure. You can d-drive the Rover OK? It’s an automatic.”

“Yes, but I couldn’t possibly ask Arthur —”

“Of course you could. And if you couldn’t, I could. Do him good to get a bit of exercise. He gets too little in the winter. He’ll be running to fat.” He sniggered to the ladies at his jest: Comstock was as lean and hungry in appearance as any Cassius. “Besides, he can get back here in daylight, whereas you’d be in the dark by the t-time you’ve finished over there.”

It was true that Peter did sometimes wonder how Arthur Comstock managed to fill in his days. With odd jobs around the house and grounds, he supposed, though he knew the Davidsons had a full-time gardener. The chauffeur looked cheerful enough when he collected him at the front door three minutes later, though Peter wondered how far this was a front for his employer.

Ashbridge was five miles away by road, on the other side of the wide tongue of forest which separated the villages. On foot, it wasn’t much over two miles, if you took the road through the forest which was barred to cars. That was the way Peter had planned to use, the way on which Arthur had been directed to return by his imperious employer.

Peter chatted to Arthur Comstock as they drove through the landscape with its thin covering of snow. He found him polite but uncommunicative. Knowing that Arthur had been a regular soldier like his employer, he tried that track. “Cold enough today for it to be the Falklands!” he said rather desperately.

Arthur, negotiating a tight bend carefully in the big Rover, took a few seconds to reply. Then he said, “You’re right there, Padre.” He clung to the Army address, treasuring the memory of his service like many long-time regulars. “But the sickness was worse than the cold — I’d never been at sea for any length of time. I was only an RASC Sergeant in the UK at the time when the war blew up.”

“You weren’t with Mr Davidson in the Army? I somehow got the impression you’d been with him in the Services.”

“Faithful batman sort of thing? I’m afraid that went out a long time ago, Padre. I just saw the job advertised here and went for it.”

“Yes, of course. Stupid of me.” At thirty-one, Peter could be no more than fourteen years younger than the man beside him; he suddenly felt immeasurably less experienced than this worldly-wise veteran. As they ran into Ashbridge, he caught the chauffeur stealing a look at his watch. “Did you have something else planned for this afternoon? I’m sorry you were hauled out like this. It wasn’t my doing, it was Mr Davidson who insisted.” Peter resolutely refused to use the title of ‘Colonel’ which was almost universally accorded to the man whom he was determined was now a civilian.

He felt weak explaining himself like this, but Comstock seemed to appreciate the thought. For the first time in a quarter of an hour, he was prepared to reveal a little of himself. “It’s only that my sister’s coming down from Yorkshire for Christmas. I was hoping to meet her bus in Cheltenham.”

“What time is she due in?”

“Four o’clock. But she’ll just have to wait a while.”

“No, she won’t! Why didn’t you mention it earlier, you silly devil — pardon the unclerical expression. Look, there’s no problem. You take the car back as soon as you’ve dropped me off at St Thomas’s, and I’ll walk through the woods when I’ve finished in Ashbridge. That way, I needn’t rush, and it’s what I intended to do before Harry thrust transport upon me, anyway.”

“But it could be dark when you finish. I can’t —”

“You can and will.” It was a relief for a man who spent so much of his time being diplomatic to assert himself so decisively. “I know the tracks through the forest well enough, and I have a torch here if I need it.” He patted the pocket of his anorak. “You can pay me back by helping me to get a collecting box for the famine appeal into the Crown. Drunken heathens are often the most generous givers. I’ll explain to Mr Davidson that I insisted you left me, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Oh, it’s not that.” The thought that he might be considered in fear of his employer seemed to decide Harry. “All right, if you’re sure. I’ll go straight through to Cheltenham when I’ve dropped you. If you change your mind and want a lift just ring my flat — I’ve got my own number.” They came to a halt outside the old church and he put on the handbrake while he scribbled the number on the back of a petrol receipt.

Peter Barton watched the rear lights of the Rover as they wound away from him over the undulating lane. They seemed unnaturally bright on that dim afternoon. When he turned the other way, the drunken tombstones seemed almost threatening in the cheerless shadow of the church.

He walked briskly to the first house beyond it, trying unsuccessfully to thrust away conjecture about the whereabouts of his wife.