You Owe Me Five Farthings: Jeremy Swanson Mysteries, #2

By Jane Anstey

Mike Swanson finds a mysterious book at the Christmas Fayre, setting in motion a train of events that will put his life in danger and force his parents to reconsider their future, while Rose, trapped in a failing marriage, longs for love of her life Simon, in this sequel to St Martin's Summer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781613093771

Book preview

One

Rose knelt at the altar rail and put out her hands for the communion bread like a starving waif reaching out for food. Jeremy looked at her with concern as he handed her the wafer and then the chalice, and wondered what new misfortune had befallen her.

She was the only communicant in St Martin’s church that morning, which was not unusual, especially on a bitterly cold December day. As parish priest, Jeremy very often celebrated weekday early morning communion services on saints’ days entirely for his own benefit, most of his parishioners being busy with family or on their way to work. He had begun speaking the words of the service to the semi-darkness of an empty church as usual that morning, when he saw Rose slip into a pew near the door and kneel silently. Her lips did not move in the responses, and her lovely face looked ravaged and worn.

After he had finished the administration, she stayed kneeling at the rail, clinging to it as though claiming the ancient right of sanctuary. He began the final post-communion congregational prayer and she spoke it with him line by line from memory until suddenly, near the end, her voice broke and she fled, running from the church as though pursued, and vanished into the churchyard. Hurriedly replacing the paten and chalice on the altar, he went after her, but when he looked down the lane she was nowhere to be seen.

I can’t think what can have upset her so much, he said to his wife as they ate breakfast together in the rectory kitchen. She’s had an awful few weeks, one way and another. What now?

Liz adjusted nine-year-old Chris’s school jumper, handed him his pen and homework folder and ushered him out of the door, closely followed by his more organised twin, Bethan. They were old enough to walk the hundred yards to the village school together without her supervision. She poured more coffee thoughtfully and handed it to Jeremy.

Was it the prayer itself, do you think?

He frowned. How could that be?

"It’s a very offering prayer, isn't it, Remy? Offering of ourselves, I mean."

‘We offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice’, he quoted. M’m. I see what you mean.

Seems to me that Rose is probably no stranger to the idea of being a sacrifice.

Jeremy reflected that Liz knew her friend well and had probably hit the nail on the head. But that didn’t explain why Rose was struggling with the idea of sacrifice particularly, just at that moment. Her son Robert was making a good recovery from last month’s ordeal, and according to Chris, his classmate was back at school and seemed all right. Could Clive, Rose’s husband, be the problem? Jeremy couldn’t believe he could have relapsed so soon from the new resolutions he had made to reform his philandering ways and make a new start with Rose, but who knew? Then there was Simon Hellyer, like Rose a member of the St Martin’s bellringing band, who had become a close friend of hers in recent months––perhaps more than a friend. It didn’t seem likely that Simon would have deserted Rose or otherwise upset her when she had so much else to deal with––he seemed to Jeremy a reliable kind of person and clearly very concerned for her wellbeing, though his presence might, Jeremy supposed, have complicated matters for her. But that left the mystery unsolved. What on earth had happened to bring Rose to the edge of breaking down this morning?

ROSE ARRIVED HOME FROM early communion to find Clive and Robert having breakfast together. Robert was still in his pyjamas instead of being dressed for school.

I need to go to work now, Rose, Clive told her. I’m sorry. Are you able to take Robert to school?

Yes, all right, she said absently, hardly noticing Clive’s unusually considerate question. In a way, it was a relief to have something practical to deal with. She was still shaken from the burst of emotion that had assailed her at the end of the communion service.

Don’t forget to have some breakfast yourself, Clive reminded her.

She looked at him blankly and then nodded.

I don’t want to go to school today, Mummy, Robert whined immediately.

Rose sighed. Her son could be very stubborn on occasions, and the whine indicated that he was feeling determined. Clive sketched a wave and left them to it.

It took much persuasion and a phone call to Fran, his teacher, before Robert would consent to leave the house. Rose reminded him that it was the school carol service in church that afternoon, and promised she would be there. Fran had agreed it wasn’t sensible for him to take part as he’d missed a lot of rehearsals earlier in the term, but Rose had convinced him that he would enjoy sitting in the audience with her.

And there are lots of Christmas art and craft activities going on at school this morning, she reminded him brightly. Surely you don’t want to miss those?

Robert’s face had begun to wear a mulish expression, but she remained firm. There had been so much disruption to his school life recently––he had had two days off after his trip to hospital last week, on top of all the time he had spent away from school in November––that she wanted to get him back into some kind of routine before the end of term. And she needed some time to herself, as well, to try to bring her own raw emotions to some kind of equilibrium.

She walked along the lane with her son slowly, Robert dragging his feet in his unwillingness to engage with school. Chris and Bethan will be in class, won’t they? she reminded him, trying to encourage more positive thoughts

He nodded, brightening slightly at the thought of being with his friends, and by the time he went into the classroom––a little late but in time to be marked in the register––he seemed more cheerful. Rose blessed the twins silently for their stalwart and enduring support, and set off home.

Her mind was turning on her own troubles as she walked home to Sundials, and it was with considerable surprise that she saw Maddie, her neighbour and Robert’s occasional babysitter, waiting outside to waylay her as she passed. Maddie was looking flustered and unhappy. Her hair was awry and her make-up smudged, and she had clearly been crying.

Rose, I need to speak to you. Have you time to come in for a minute?

Rose summoned some neighbourly concern with an effort. She really had enough to deal with already, she felt, without trying to be sympathetic to Maddie. But that was selfish and unworthy, and she tried to look concerned and interested instead.

Come and have some coffee with me, she invited. I need to be at home in case Fran rings. Robert wasn’t too keen to go into school this morning and I want to be sure I’m there to take the call if he has to come home again.

Maddie nodded at once and followed her into the Sundials kitchen, where Rose made her a cup of instant coffee and put it on the table, trying not to remember how Simon and she had sat there, not so long ago, chatting, with the same mugs in front of them.

I have to tell you something, said Maddie, her head bowed into her handkerchief.

What on earth can Maddie have to tell me? wondered Rose.

I know Clive wouldn’t say anything, her neighbour went on miserably. He protected me, and wouldn’t answer police questions about that evening, I know. That’s why I had to go and tell them.

Rose looked baffled. What could Maddie have to do with Clive being questioned by the police? He hadn’t actually been arrested, and no charges had been made against him in the end, so she’d thought the matter was closed. But as Clive had stayed away from home for the whole time he was being questioned, she didn’t feel she knew much about it.

That evening I was babysitting for you, Maddie mumbled. When Robert disappeared—

Yes? said Rose, trying to sound encouraging, though her heart had sunk. She remembered that evening all too well. She had gone to Simon’s house for the Tower AGM, but none of the other bell-ringers had turned up, so she had ended up alone with Simon, and had very nearly gone to bed with him. And while she was there, and Maddie was babysitting, Robert had slipped out of the house on his own and witnessed something that had brought on the terrible silence and emotional withdrawal from which he had only just recovered. What further revelations did Maddie have about that momentous evening? No one else knew what had so nearly happened between herself and Simon. She had confided in no one, and she knew he wouldn’t have said anything. What did Maddie know, or guess?

Clive came home while you were out at the Tower meeting, Maddie explained, between sobs. And...and...oh, Rose, I can’t think how it came to happen, what I was thinking of. But Clive and I—

She stopped, but Rose had caught her drift. "Oh, Maddie, you can’t mean—"

Yes, confirmed Maddie, blushing. "I’d always admired Clive, but I never thought he’d fancy me. And then that evening it seemed that he did. I was such a fool, I know that now. Wicked, too, when you and I have always been friends."

Friend? thought Rose savagely. I never thought of you as that. A trusted neighbour, perhaps. And now I see you weren’t even that.

You left Robert on his own in the house! That dereliction of duty to Robert was much more serious to her than anything Maddie and Clive had done together—Clive’s unfaithfulness with others had been something she’d always suspected, even in earlier years when she hadn’t actually known about it. Because Robert was alone, no one had prevented him going out that night, and seeing—"I trusted you, Maddie," she snapped, her face white with anger.

Poor Maddie recoiled at this unaccustomed fierceness. I know, she whispered. I’m sorry, Rose. I don’t know what came over me.

Like a blow over the heart, Rose realised that when Clive had seduced Maddie (it was sure to have been that way round, she knew), she herself had been in Simon’s arms in the cottage at Two Marks. To leave Robert on his own in the house had been criminally negligent on Maddie’s part, but she was hardly in a position to criticise the babysitter for her sexual weakness.

It’s done, Maddie, she said, with resignation. Robert might have slipped out anyway while you weren’t looking––it’s what he intended to do. And he’s all right now, that’s what matters.

Oh, Rose, thank you for looking at it that way, cried Maddie, gushing tears as well as emotion.

Don’t expect Clive to take things any further, though, will you? Rose told her. Because he won’t. He always has plenty of fish to fry. She could hear the cold bitterness in her own voice. Clive had promised to become a reformed character, and eschew other women, but in the light of Maddie’s revelation, she wondered how likely this was to happen.

Maddie nodded. I knew that, she said. "I knew it the next day, really, that it was just a one-night stand. But then Clive disappeared like that, and I didn’t know what to do. I had to tell the police about it in the end because it gave him an alibi for the evening when Brian Warrendon died, and they went on questioning him until I told them. I couldn’t have them charge him with murder. I told Remy, and he insisted we go to the police. But Rose––don’t you care?"

Rose sighed. No, not really, she admitted. Not now. But I’m glad you told me, Maddie. It’s always best to be honest about these things, don’t you think?

Maddie stared at her. After a moment, when it was clear to both of them there was nothing more to be said, she got up and went home.

After her neighbour had gone, Rose sat for a while, turning her empty mug round and round in her hands. At first she felt numbly miserable, punch-drunk from all the emotions of the past few weeks. Then she re-ran her conversation with Maddie and found it even more depressing than it had been live. Why didn’t she care about what had happened between Maddie and Clive? Clive really had seemed contrite about his sexual liaisons and only a few days ago had promised a fresh start for them both––and she had accepted both his contrition and the promise. She ought to care about what had occurred, even if it was in the past. She worried suddenly that she might have given up Simon, who really mattered to her, and who she was sure cared deeply for her in his turn, for the sake of a relationship that might turn out to be moribund.

She cast her mind back to her last meeting with Simon, in the cold, windy churchyard after ringing practice. She had told him that their relationship, such as it was, must end, and with it all the promise of a love that neither of them had looked for. His deep distress at her decision had wrenched at her heart, and he had gone away without speaking afterwards, without looking back. But at home she had found Robert waiting for her, and her sacrifice had seemed worth it then, because he needed her; but now, after Maddie’s revelations of Clive’s casual infidelity, and her own total indifference to them, she wasn’t so sure.

I’m in love with Simon, she thought. But I can’t go back on my decision. I promised to stay with Clive for Robert’s sake, and I will. I must. But what if we can’t forge something new together? What if my marriage turns out to be the same lonely wasteland it was before? I don’t think I can bear that. Oh God, what shall I do?

CLIVE, CARRYING OUT his part in the projected fresh start upon which he and Rose had agreed, was at that moment breaking the news to Olivia, his personal assistant, that their relationship must henceforth be purely platonic and business-oriented. It was his first day back in the office after several weeks off, so it wasn’t difficult to engineer a few moments with her under the pretence of catching up on what had been happening at work while he was absent. Their relationship, as far as he was concerned, had always and entirely lacked any kind of emotional commitment on either side. She would possibly be put out, he thought, at the loss of status and the removal of the perks she had been entitled to as business hostess and perhaps piqued at her return to a purely professional role, having shared so much more with him out of working hours. But he could not believe that she had invested much emotional capital in their relationship or would care particularly that it had come to an end.

Her reaction, therefore, caused him considerable surprise.

"You’re doing what?" she demanded furiously, when he broke the news.

Trying to rescue my marriage, he repeated, slightly taken aback. I promised Rose that I would end my relationship with you straight away. But of course I want you to stay on as my PA, he added quickly.

"Oh, you do, do you? I suppose it doesn’t matter in the least what I want?"

This sarcasm touched him on the raw, for he had never previously been on the receiving end of her contempt. What was more, before the events of this autumn, he would not have taken anyone’s scorn seriously enough for it to hurt him, and few people would have dared to vent it on him, anyway. But in the recent changed circumstances of his life, he felt suddenly vulnerable, unsure of his own standing in his family, and even with the company that employed him, after the amount of time he’d had to take off last month. Struggling with his own difficulties, he completely failed to understand the reasons for her anger.

Olivia, I’m sorry, he began, shaken into uncharacteristic apology.

Don’t be a fool, she said, recovering her normal cool demeanour, but retaining the scorn that had stung him. It was fun while it lasted, but if you want out, that’s okay with me. I’m not staying here, though. You can find someone else to watch your back. From tomorrow.

He was silent, trying to think of a way to persuade her. He didn’t love her and never had, but she was an important part of his business life. Who else would manage to keep all the competing balls of their working lives in the air the way she had? On the other hand, if she wanted to leave, it was probably better to stand back and let her do just that. He’d have to make do with a temp for a bit while he found someone new. What the company would say, or do, if she simply walked out, he didn’t know, but that wasn’t his problem. Without another word, he picked up his briefcase and laptop and set off for the afternoon’s meeting without her.

Olivia watched him go, outwardly at least unmoved. Let him sink or swim on his own. Their arrangement in and out of working hours had suited him as well as it had her until his recent family crisis had brought him up short. But he had never encouraged her to get involved in his personal life, indeed had positively repulsed her a few weeks ago when she had tried to take their relationship to a different level. Clearly he had forgotten that overture of hers and was assuming that nothing had changed. Well, it was too late to expect her to help him now. To work with Clive decorously in the office and keep her hands off him at office parties and in hotel rooms on nights away on business would be a travesty of the successful partnership they had had.

Damn Rose! She could have sworn the woman had neither the allure nor the guts to hold on to Clive if he once made up his mind to leave her. But the truth was that Clive wanted to stay with his family. The recent dramas involving his young son, not to mention Clive being questioned by the police in a murder investigation––everyone at work had heard about both events because he had been off sick for weeks as a result––seemed to have knocked the stuffing out of him. But she couldn’t see him sticking to it. He might think right now that being a model husband and father would make him feel less guilty about his failings in the past, but it wouldn’t last. However, she wasn’t about to hang around and try to pick up where they had left off.

Her respect for Clive had been gradually eroded by the events of the past few weeks and had disappeared entirely this morning. But to surprise had been added a barely acknowledged anxiety. If life circumstances had caused Clive to fall apart like this, no one was immune. Of all the hard-headed, successful people she had met, she would have thought him the most likely to have stood up to such pressure, and she couldn’t understand why he had not, all of which made her uncomfortable. A diminished, vulnerable Clive held no interest for her. She simply wanted to get away from him, from the whole creaking set-up, as fast as she could. She had enough annual leave left to make her departure now, this morning, and then she could look for a new job in the new year. There were plenty more fish of Clive’s kind in the sea. One of them might be willing to be hooked permanently, if she played her cards right...and if that was what she wanted.

She found a plastic crate, put it on her desk and started to pack her belongings. There wasn’t much to take with her. She had never decorated her office with knick-knacks, plants and other clutter. And anything that would remind her of her working life at this company was better left behind. Outside in reception she could hear the girls giggling; no doubt they had been eavesdropping. She stuffed a box of tissues into a corner of the crate viciously and shut her ears.

Two

Jeremy attended the village school’s annual Christmas presentation in the church the following afternoon––more in the character of parent than as rector of the parish, though he was always asked to give a short talk at some point in the proceedings before handing out to the infant classes the small presents provided by the Parochial Church Council. The churchwardens had left the heating on all day especially for the occasion, so the building felt unusually warm and welcoming. The teachers and their pupils had decorated inside with holly wreaths and candles, while an enormous tree dominated the side aisle, adorned with tinsel, baubles, and coloured lights in traditional fashion, making the church look very festive. The presence, unusually, of real snow outside had made the children rather excitable, but apart from that, everything went off very well.

The school presentation included various musical and poetic renditions on Christmas themes, with a few tangential offerings to fill up the hour’s performance. In one of those, the younger children sang the old nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons that mimicked the melody of the City Church bells of Restoration London. As Jeremy listened, he found himself musing on the second line, You owe me five farthings, said the bells of St Martin’s, and from there his thoughts moved on to the nature of personal debt and particularly our debt to God. As created beings, he thought, we owe God everything. And as sinners, even more so. But we will never be rich enough to pay Him. But if grace is a free gift, then should we even try? A tangled skein of philosophy, this, he had to admit, as quite often happened when he started asking theological questions of himself.

The annual school presentation normally aroused in him feelings both warm and optimistic, as befitted the beginning of the Christmas season. But today there moved a worm of doubt about the warm optimism of Christmas, and with it the germ of an idea as to the theme of his preaching over the Christmas period. An uncomfortable theme, it would be—and one that would almost certainly cause offence to some––but perhaps that was precisely the point.

Liz, unaware of the turmoil of his thoughts and enjoying his unaccustomed presence beside her in the pew, saw with maternal resignation that Bethan’s hair was escaping from its pigtails and Chris’s jumper was inside out––he must have taken it off at some point and then put it on again, but why?

On the other side of the church sat Rose and Robert, tucked away almost behind a pillar in the side aisle. Outwardly composed but inwardly weeping as she sat listening to the melody of the City Church bells in the nursery rhyme, Rose found the words evoking rather different thoughts from those that had come to Jeremy. She had not considered, when she told Simon that they could no longer even be friends, that this separation might mean her leaving the bellringing band. She realised she owed them a great deal more than the five farthings of the song, and that when the bells called her again to ring them, she would go. It was partly that she felt an obligation to the ancient art of campanology and her fellow ringers in the tower. Ringers were always in short supply in rural areas, and they had spent such time and effort teaching her to ring, even though she knew she would never be all that proficient. She appreciated, too, Jeremy’s point about the bells’ powerful witness to the world that the Church still called parishioners to worship, however little they wished to hear the summons, and however deaf they were to its demands. Yet she wondered uneasily how easy it would be to face Sunday service ringing––and Simon––again.

Robert held her hand tightly as they sat together in the pew. Just then she was his lifeline, and he was finding it hard to let go of her and swim even in the safe and shallow pond represented by his class at the village school. He had discovered in the last few weeks that life wasn’t the quiet, secure, uneventful bubble he had grown used to, but a dangerous and unpredictable vortex of emotion, isolation and fear, where unexpected horrors might be awaiting you along familiar country roads, or vengeful human monsters might attack you in your sleep; where the night was filled with terrors and nightmares, and only a very few people could be trusted. In all of those horrors, his mother had been there for him, and he knew she would always be. But he was afraid he had somehow made her unhappy, for she had not smiled much in the last few days, and he had heard her crying once or twice when she thought he was out of earshot. That troubled him, and he couldn’t work out what was wrong, although he didn’t really see how it could be his fault. Worse still, he didn’t know what he could do to help her––except to give her his own childish love in return for her steadfast adult presence. So he clung tightly to her hand, and hoped that both of them would come safely together through their present troubled waters and find peace and security again.

ON SATURDAY, ROSE SUGGESTED they visit the local garden centre to see Santa Claus––whose grotto filled up, from a retail point of view, that slack time of winter between autumn pruning and spring planting. A visit to Santa’s grotto had always been his favourite treat during the pre-Christmas period in the past. Surely, Rose thought, it would help rouse him from the lethargy into which he still too often lapsed when tired or stressed, and give her a much-needed fillip too?

But Robert, to her surprise, flatly refused the offer, asserting in rather a querulous voice that he would rather stay at home. She persuaded him to accompany her to buy a Christmas tree before they sold out, but he was fretful and pettish on the journey and refused to make any attempt to enjoy the lights and decorations with which the garden centre had decked itself in its attempt to attract seasonal custom, although in previous years he had always revelled in them.

When she told Clive about this, on their return, he was far from sympathetic. You’re babying him, he observed, with only a degree less than his old level of scorn. He’s eight years old, for God’s sake. He probably doesn’t believe in Father Christmas any longer––I’m sure none of his classmates do. He may have enjoyed it all in the past, but that’s no reason to think he will now. Take him ice skating or something instead.

Maybe, said Rose, refusing to be browbeaten. I just thought it might cheer him up.

Clive snorted. I’ll take him to a Bisons hockey game at Basingstoke in the new year. That’s more of the kind of thing a boy of his age enjoys, and it’ll give him a bit of kudos at school.

Rose looked at him in surprise. Clive didn’t usually show much interest in sports of any kind––and nor, for that matter, did Robert. He’s not all that keen on ice hockey, she pointed out.

For a moment, there hung between them some remnant of the argument about Robert’s personal and social development that had caused such a rift earlier in the year––a rift that had closed over during the traumatic events of the past few weeks without ever being properly healed. For a moment, Rose expected a reopening of the half-submerged dispute about whether and when Robert should go away to boarding school. But to her surprise, Clive just shrugged and turned away, leaving the argument in abeyance.

What has got into Clive? thought Rose. Could he have given up the boarding school idea altogether? Might Robert be allowed to stay safely at the village school, and then go on for secondary education to Northchurch College, in the local town? Perhaps she should take him to the College Christmas Fayre instead of Santa’s Grotto. That would be a more grown-up activity, in Clive’s terms, and she might find the last-minute presents that she had hoped to get at the garden centre. But on the other hand, Simon, who taught at the College, might be there, and she couldn’t face that––not yet.

NORTHCHURCH COLLEGE Christmas Fayre, held traditionally on the Saturday following the end of the Christmas term, had a local reputation and was well supported by people from the surrounding area, many of them looking for last-minute presents at bargain prices. The college was popular in the area, providing a venue for film shows, live amateur theatrical productions and concerts in a rural area not greatly blessed with such amenities. The icy conditions of the previous week had begun to relent which, along with the efforts of the county’s gritter lorries, made the roads less daunting to drive over, and the stallholders were expecting a good turnout.

Mike Swanson, who was a pupil at the college, persuaded his mother to drop him at the Fayre on her way to do the grocery supermarket shopping in the town.

Doesn’t Dad usually take you? Liz asked, as she picked up the shopping bags and tore the week’s list off the pad in the kitchen. "What’s happened