Pictures of Perfection. Reginald Hill
The Reverend Laurence Lillingstone paused for laughter.
His audience, which was himself in the pier-glass set in his study wall, laughed appreciatively. So too, he hoped, would the ladies of the Byreford and District Luncheon Club. ‘Not too heavy,’ Mrs Finch-Hatton had said. ‘Save your fine detail for the Historical Association.’
He had nodded his understanding, concealing his chagrin that the Mid-Yorkshire Historical Association had just rejected his offer of a talk based on his researches into the Enscombe archives. ‘Sorry,’ the secretary had said, ‘but we’ve got old Squire Selwyn doing his ballad history. Don’t want to overdose on Enscombe, do we?’
Dear God! What sort of world was it where serious scholarship could be pushed out by a music-hall turn?
The handsome face in the glass was glowering uncharitably but as he met its gaze, the indignant scowl dissolved in a flush of shame.
What right had he to mock old Selwyn’s verses when God who knows everything knew it wasn’t serious scholarship that drove him to his own historical researches, it was serious sex!
He’d thought he’d put all that behind him when, after a highly charged episode during his curacy, he had taken a solemn vow of celibacy.
This was of course purely a private matter as the Church of England imposes no such restraint upon its ministers. But when he was offered the living of Enscombe, he felt duty-bound to apprise the Bishop of his condition … ‘in case such a rural community might expect eventually to have a vicar’s wife to run the MU, help with the WI, that sort of thing’.
The Bishop, of the Church’s worldly rather than otherworldly wing, replied, ‘You’re not trying to tell me you’re gay, Larry?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘I’m relieved. Not that I’ve anything against gayness. Some of my best friends ought to be gay.’
‘But you don’t think Enscombe is ready for such an imaginative appointment?’ smiled Lillingstone. ‘Not even after putting up with the Voice of the People for so many years?’
‘Charley Cage, your predecessor, was my predecessor’s predecessor’s revenge on the Guillemards. Shortly after his elevation to the episcopate back in the ’thirties, he gave way to pressure from the then Squire to move the then incumbent, Stanley Harding, on. Later, as he grew into the job, he much regretted this weakness, so when, just before his own retirement in the ’fifties, the living became vacant again, he looked around for someone whose views were likely to cause the Guillemards maximum pain, and lit upon young Charley.’
‘What was Stanley Harding’s crime?’
‘Oh, social awareness, Christian charity, the usual things. But worst of all he had the temerity to marry the Squire’s daughter!’
‘Good Lord! And the Bishop got his own back with Cage.’
‘This is only my own theory, you understand,’ laughed the older man. ‘In fact, it rather backfired. The old Squire died and his son, the present Squire, got on rather well with Charley. At least they never fell out in public. But to get back to your non-gayness, I’m relieved because old Charley was in every sense a confirmed bachelor, and I feel that after forty years, the blushful maidens of Enscombe deserve at least a level playing field.’
‘I haven’t made my vow lightly,’ said Lillingstone, slightly piqued.
‘Of course you haven’t, but the strongest oaths are straw to the fire i’ the blood, eh?’
‘Saint Augustine?’ guessed Lillingstone.
‘St Bill, I think. No, you’ll do nicely for Enscombe, Larry. But be warned, it’s a place that can do odd things to a man.’
‘Such as?’ inquired Lillingstone.
The Bishop sipped his Screwdriver and said, ‘Old Charley used to claim, when the port had been round a few times, that after the Fall God decided to have a second shot, learning from the failure of the first. This time He created a man who was hard of head, blunt of speech, knew which side his bread was buttered on, and above all took no notice of women. Then God sent him forth to multiply in Yorkshire. But after a while he got to worrying he’d left something out – imagination, invention, fancy, call it what you will. So he grabbed a nice handful of this, intending to scatter it thinly over the county. Only it was a batch He’d just made and it was still damp, so instead of scattering, it all landed in a single lump, and that was where they built Enscombe!’
Lillingstone laughed appreciatively and said, ‘I wish I’d known Cage.’
‘He was worth knowing. He died in the pulpit, you know. No one noticed for ten minutes. His dramatic pauses had been getting longer and longer. He was extremely outspoken both on his feet and in print. For recreation, or as he put it, to keep himself out of temptation (though he never specified the nature of the temptation), he was writing a history of the parish. You’re a historian yourself, aren’t you? If you feel the flesh tugging too strongly, you could do worse than follow Charley’s example. All the archival stuff’s at the vicarage. It’ll need sorting out before our masters sell the place from under you.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ said Lillingstone. ‘But if Cage’s work was well advanced …’
‘Oh yes. He showed me various drafts. Fascinating, but much of it utterly unpublishable! No, you take my advice, Larry. There’s nothing like the dust of the past for clogging an overactive internal combustion engine!’
The young vicar had taken this as a joke till a few days after his induction when his desire to meet those of his flock who hadn’t been at the church (i.e. the majority) took him through the door of the Eendale Gallery.
He had been instantly aware that there were paintings here of a quality far above that of the usual insipid watercolours of local views which filled much of the wall space. One in particular caught his eye, a small acrylic of his own church, stark against a sulphurously wuthering sky, with the angle of the tower so exaggerated that it looked as if the building had been caught in the very act of being blown apart.
The Gallery had been empty when he entered and so rapt was he in studying the picture that he did not hear the inner door open.
Then someone coughed gently and a voice said, ‘Need any help?’
He turned and saw the Scudamore sisters, or rather he saw Caddy, and he knew instantly he needed more help than anyone here below could give him.
It was a coup de foudre, a surge of longing so intense he felt as if every ounce of his flesh was on fire.
He stammered thickly, ‘The church … I’d like to look at the church …’
Kee Scudamore, whom he’d registered merely as a pale presence, bland and bloodless alongside the vibrant carnality of Caddy, said, ‘The church? Perhaps you should ask the vicar.’
He heard himself say idiotically, ‘I am the vicar’, and the smaller, darker, infinitely more luscious girl put a paint-stained hand to a mouth made to suck a man’s soul out of his body, and tried to stifle her giggles.
‘You mean the painting? Of course,’ said the cool blonde.
She moved past him, unfolded a set of steps, mounted, and unhooked the picture.
He had left with the painting wrapped in brown paper under his arm. It had cost him more than he could afford, but what was money when he was already aware of the incredibly high price he was likely to pay for his visit?
He was in love, a man who had nothing to offer, a man bound by a vow no one could release him from. He didn’t doubt that if he consulted his friend, the Bishop, he would be offered all the reassurance which that pragmatic prelate could muster. It is better to marry than to burn, would be trotted out. But it all depended where you were going to burn! He wasn’t sure just how much credence he gave to a physical hell, but he knew he had a belief to match