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“Because I do all the parish chores that you find so abominably dreary?” Thomas said, grinning.
“You are my curate, so it is your duty,” James said smugly, and swept off to take up his station on the church steps.
The truth was, he had no idea how he would contrive without Thomas to do everything that was needful for the good order of the parish. James was happy to turn up on a Sunday and read through a brief sermon he had extracted from a book, when he remembered, but to Thomas fell all the parochial care of the sick or poor or needy. For that he was paid the princely sum of one hundred pounds a year, room, meals and laundry included, while James spent his days in idleness and took in the full tithes of the parish, to the sum of fourteen hundred pounds a year. It was grossly inequitable, and yet Thomas, good man that he was, thought himself fortunate to be so well placed, for many curates made no more than fifty pounds a year and had to find their own lodgings and darn their own socks, too.
Before too long, the parishioners began to arrive, and James had the amusement of their expressions of surprise at seeing their rector not merely in attendance, but actually early for the first time ever. But he was rewarded, for a few minutes before the appointed hour for the service, and before Mr Frye, the sexton, had even begun to toll the bell to hurry along the latecomers, the Fletcher party arrived. They had walked from the Park, James was impressed to see, in a long and well-dressed train, with a few servants following behind them. Not the familiar servants, but perhaps these were the valets and lady’s maids they had brought from the north.
James’s attention was distracted by Mrs Reynell, who teased him coquettishly about his early appearance.
“Whatever can it be that calls you to your duties with such eagerness, Rector?” she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
Mrs Reynell would be considered a most desirable wife for many men, being a young widow of some considerable fortune, still in looks and unencumbered by infants, but James was not enticed. He would never be enticed by anyone who pursued him so determinedly, and had not a thought in her head beyond the limited scope of her house, her servants and her clothes. She was rattling away about some bonnet or other, a new one, seemingly, which she deemed important enough to keep mentioning. But he could not be interested in bonnets, except one, perhaps. His eye scanned the arriving troop of Fletchers… where was she? Was she even there? Yes! There she was, in a deep blue velvet pelisse and a plain straw bonnet with mismatched ribbons. He grinned when he saw her.
“We meet again, Miss Fletcher,” he cried out, as the group advanced on him.
She looked, saw him, her eyes widened. “Mr Plummer! But you are… the parson!” Merriment lit her face. “I had no idea! I thought you were the gamekeeper, you know, and I know my mistake onthatscore, but I had not the least idea that you were in Holy orders. What a tease you are, to tell me nothing about yourself.”
“I beg your pardon, but I could not resist, you see. Especially when you said it would probably be your fate to marry the local clergyman.”
“Oh!” Her eyes widened in amusement. “I did say that, didn’t I? What a good joke, not to tell me that isyou. But you need not worry, sir, for I shall not hold you to it.” And she laughed outright, then.
There was a gentle cough from an older lady in the party, who was smiling determinedly. “Julia, dear, where are your manners? Do, pray, introduce us.”
“Oh — of course, you haven’t met, have you? This is Mr James Plummer, younger son of Sir Owen and Lady Plummer, and vicar of this parish.”
“Rector,” he murmured.
“Rector? What’s the difference? They are both clergymen, and so—”
“Julia,” the older lady said in a firm tone.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Mama. This is my father, Mr Harry Fletcher. My new Mama. My sisters, Rosie, Angie, Bella. That is my oldest brother, Will, over there, talking to that young lady. And this is my other brother, Johnny. My aunt, Miss Paton. And this is Miss Crabtree, Bella’s governess.”
“No need to introduce the governess, Julia,” Mrs Fletcher murmured, the fixed smile never leaving her face.
“Why ever not?” Julia said, turning surprised eyes on her stepmother.
“Never mind that now, dear,” Mrs Fletcher said hastily. “Is there someone to show us to our pew, Mr Plummer?”
“It would be my pleasure to do so,” James said, rather pleased with this opportune suggestion, for he had been wondering how he might prolong the conversation without being too obvious.
He led them into the church slowly so that they might admire the fine arched nave, the carved font and the stained glass window commemorating the marriage of Squire Bellingham to the Lady Hermione Winfell in the year 1638, the high water of that family’s fortunes. The squire had been so thrilled to have secured the hand of a duke’s daughter that he had spent half her dowry on a memorial to record this triumph for posterity.
Mr Frye, who had just arrived, rushed to open the pew door. The ladies filed in and disposed themselves on the generously padded seats, and the two young men after them, but Mr Fletcher looked searchingly at James.
“Have we deposed your own family from this pew, Mr Plummer?”
“It is the Chadwell Park pew, and therefore it is yours, sir. My father would have it no other way. That is the Manor’s pew, directly opposite yours.”
“ Much obliged to you, Rector. I look forward to your sermon. What is your text for today?”
“Um… it is not based on any specific text, rather it covers a broad spectrum of philosophical points,” James said, floundering, for he had quite forgotten what he was to say. From the back of his memory, a fragment emerged. “The theme is resolution.”
“Resolution. Interesting. Thank you, sir.”
James had no further excuse to linger, so he bowed and made his way back to the church door to receive another swathe of astonished parishioners, and to deflect the determined Mrs Reynell, who was more persistent than a wasp at a picnic.
His sermon went well, once he had quickly conned it to remind himself of the subject. He found himself unusually eloquent when he could look down from the pulpit and see the expressive face of Miss Julia Fletcher gazing up at him. Her countenance was never still, he found. Many of his congregation stared back at him blank-faced, or looked down at their prayer books, or simply gazed into space, looking bored. Well, he understood that. A few even fell asleep, and he understood that, too. Sunday was the only day of rest for the hard-working men and women of the parish, and if they took the opportunity for a little extra unofficial rest, who was he to blame them? They might sleep through his sermons if they chose.
