Hiding From the Light. Barbara Erskine
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amused to see when he had first arrived that the lady from the paper shop had assumed he would read the Telegraph, so he had gone in to thank her, congratulate her on her business acumen in snaring a new customer and tactfully amended the order to The Times – it was time to set out.
The rectory stood back in its garden down a long gravel drive at the end of Church Street. It was not the old rectory, of course – that had burned down a hundred years before – but an old house none the less, acquired by the church in the 1920s as a fit home for a parson and his then large family. It was a big house for one man, but Mike had been enormously pleased to find his new parish was not one of those which had decided a characterless modern bungalow was a fitting habitation for its rector.
It was a pleasant Georgian-fronted building, painted a pale Suffolk pink, the interior probably Elizabethan and heavily beamed. He would try and find out about some of its earlier history one day when he was not so busy. The garden, he had noted sadly, was, apart from a few lovely trees, more or less devoid of interest. It was not very big, which was probably just as well, given the fact that he suspected he would have little time to give to it and there would be no money from either his own pocket or the diocese for a gardener. Wonderfully, he had managed to secure the services of a cleaning lady two mornings a week. Probably not for long. He doubted if he could afford her forever. It had been a shock when he realised just how small in real terms his stipend would be as a country parson. He gazed at the grass. It was as always neatly mown and as always he wondered who on earth had done it. One of the PCC perhaps, choosing a moment when they knew he would be out, or one of the other kind people who had offered him their services when he had first arrived in the parish. Many had offered help. The two food baskets – to stave off starvation, he supposed – which had greeted his arrival, had from time to time been discreetly replaced and two ladies had offered to cook him the occasional meal.
He grinned to himself. Several people, including the bishop, had warned him about the ladies. An unmarried, good-looking rector in his early forties – Mike was broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed – would be a major target once they had decided amongst themselves that he wasn’t gay!
Slamming the door, he headed for the gate. Church Street was, up here at the top, actually more of a lane. Beyond his house, the church itself sat serenely in its churchyard sheltered by three huge yew trees, a surprisingly rural setting when one considered that Manningtree was actually a small town – the smallest town in England, so someone had told him – and that over the hedge he could see lines of old roofs rising gently up the hillside.
This early, the road was deserted. He strode down it purposefully, passing between houses much like his own, except that where it descended into the centre of the town they were terraced and what gardens they had were hidden by high walls. Down on the corner where Church Street met the High Street the last two houses had been converted into double-fronted shops, but a glance at the roofs showed that they too were as old as the rest of the street. One of them, he had noticed, had been empty since he moved in.
In the High Street he turned east, round the corner and down to the River Stour to walk along the road which bordered the narrow strip of salt marsh and the mudflats which were such a characteristic of the river at this point. He passed a solitary dog walker who acknowledged him with a raised hand and continued on his way. He loved this walk. Strolling along under the sycamores which lined the road to Mistley, the second half of his parish, he followed the pavement which on his right ran parallel to the long wall which once had bounded the great Rigby estates, a feature which had given the road its name, ‘The Walls’, whilst on his left lay breathtaking views of water, mud and sky. He stopped and stared for several minutes. The tide was out, the river estuary mostly mud, the low Suffolk coast on the far side hidden in the early morning mist. The shore was blue and mauve with sea lavender and tiny yellow-centred asters and as he walked slowly on he became aware of multitudes of birds running about on the mud. He wasn’t very good at bird identification but he could recognise a seagull when he saw one, and swans, and what he thought might be oystercatchers, with their smart black-and-white plumage and red bills.
He was heading for the second of the churches in his sprawling parish of Manningtree with Mistley, the one which, he admitted wryly to himself, fascinated him probably far more than it warranted. When he had first arrived he had asked to be shown it several times. He knew of course that it was a ruin, but surely, he had thought, there would be something to see. He knew he was a bit of a romantic, a side of himself he tried sternly to keep under control, but he did feel, quite strongly, that even a ruined church would still have an aura of sanctity about it. Perhaps he would be able to hold the occasional service in the ruins. He had not at the time had the chance to put this idea to anyone locally and perhaps that was just as well. His first few requests to see it had somehow not been heard. And this lack of response had intrigued him. He had investigated its history and found amongst other things that it might have been the burial place of the notorious Witchfinder General. He had of course gone looking for it himself at the first opportunity. What he found had disappointed him, but he had driven past on a rainy day. Today he was on foot and it was a glorious morning and he wanted to see if he could find out why the church had been allowed to fall into decay. Why it had been demolished.
Cutting through the centre of Mistley with its irresistible combination of Victorian industrial buildings, old Maltings and quay, its famous Adam Towers and swan fountain, its lovely houses and cottages, he made his way inland up a short track towards the path across the fields. He loved Mistley. The centre of the village was very small and these days so quiet it was hard to picture it as the bustling town it had once been.
The ruins of the old church lay up a narrow road beyond New Mistley, opposite the lane up which he strolled. Beyond, across the shoulder of the hill, he could see glimpses of the broad estuary, the water brilliant blue beneath the clear sky. There was a wind out there. He could see a white sail tacking out towards the sea, but inland it was very still, and the air was growing hotter. He could smell the wild honeysuckle in the hawthorn hedges, and the hot floury scent of the stubble in the fields.
He paused, looking round. There was still no one about. It was extraordinarily quiet. Turning slowly he found himself wishing suddenly that he had a dog to walk. It would be company on his early-morning strolls. In the distance he could see the huddled roofs of the small hamlet of Old Mistley, while behind him sprawled the houses of the new developments. But here, in the fields he was completely alone.
The site of the church was unmarked. All he could see was the brick wall which had surrounded the churchyard. It was almost buried under brambles and nettles now and behind it was what looked like a small orchard or paddock. There was no sign of the church itself at all. Within living memory, so he understood, the tower had still been standing and had been used to conduct funerals, then it had been declared unsafe and demolished. The site had been sold.
On the opposite side of the road was a pink-washed cottage, set back behind a wild tangled hedge. Its windows were dark and bare of curtains. A drunken-looking For Sale sign lounged beside the gate.
‘Can I help you?’
A stocky, bearded man had appeared in the lane behind him, two black labradors waiting patiently at his heels. The man’s eyes were hard with suspicion.
Mike shook his head. ‘I was just looking. I wondered if anything remained of the old church.’
‘It’s long gone.’ The man’s expression did not invite confidences and Mike found himself biting back his intention of introducing himself.
‘A shame,’ he said mildly.
‘Damn good thing. Evil place! You keep out of there. It’s private property.’ Whistling to his dogs, the man walked on up the road.
Mike exhaled loudly. Evil? No, how can it be, it’s church property, he wanted to shout. Mine! But of course it wasn’t true. Not any more. He watched the retreating back for a minute or two, then resumed his inspection of the site. As far as he could see there were no yew trees, no grave stones, no sign at all that there had ever been a church there except for the wall, and, he squinted through the nettles, the twisted remains of a gate lying below what had once been a gatepost deep in the undergrowth.
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