so early, it would reveal only the dark, swollen edge of the moors, and the web of branches near at hand, and a section of the drain-spout, and the sparrows hopping along the guttering in search of food. She would see the same old world; the one in which she had to live. I can’t bear it, she thought; not one more day. Her hands crept to her throat; then to her temples and the cloth of her veil; then to the nape of her neck; then searched out the pins.
Fludd took the pins from her one by one, and laid them in a line on the edge of the kitchen table. He set his long fingers on either side of her head and lifted off the vice of her white cap. She had only the strength she needed to make her decision, to give in to him; she felt weak now, limp and cold and beyond resisting anything. He took out the safety-pins from her linen inner cap, and set them on the table beside the straight pins. With one neat firm pull, he freed the drawstring, and lifted off her cap and dropped it on the floor.
“You look like a badly cut hedge,” he said.
She felt a blush creep over her exposed neck. “Sister Anthony does it. Once a month. Everybody. Even Purpit. The scissors are rusty. We don’t have our own. I’ve often wished for a pair. It’s against holy poverty.”
Fludd ran his hand over her head. The hair, an inch long in places, grew this way and that; here was a neglected tendril growing into curl, here was a bald patch, here was a bristly tuft fighting its way upward like a spring shoot fighting for light and air. “What was it like?” he said.
“Brown. Quite ordinary brown. It had a bit of a wave.”
It seemed to him, as far as he could judge in the poor light, that the proportions of her face were altered now. It was smaller and softer; her eyes were less watchfully large, and her lips had lost their pinched nun-look. She seemed to have melted away, and remoulded herself into some other woman whom he had never met. He kissed her on the mouth; less sacramentally now.
At nine o’clock McEvoy came to the back door with a wheelbarrow. Agnes jumped out of her skin when she heard his knock. She wiped the washing-up suds from her hands and hurried to the door.
“Mr. McEvoy. Who is minding your shop?”
The tobacconist removed his checked cap respectfully. “A dear friend,” he said.
“Have you got ropes there too?”
“I have everything requisite. I think the barrow is the way to manage.”
“I suppose you have told everybody?”
“Nothing of the night’s events has passed my lips. The parish will know soon enough.”
“The Children of Mary will know tonight.”
“The nuns will know earlier, no doubt. If Father Fludd is willing and able, we can have all the saints back on their plinths in an hour or two.” He smiled faintly. “When we buried them, there was quite a crowd to help us. Digging things up is not so hard as digging them in, is it?”
It was harder for me, Miss Dempsey thought. “I will call Father Fludd,” she said. “He was up as usual to say Mass. He is having some tea now.”
She did not offer McEvoy a cup, but left him waiting by the door. The snow had vanished; there was a raw cold. She called Fludd, as she made her way through to the kitchen; heard him quit the sitting room, banging the door after him, and greet McEvoy, and leave by the front door, exclaiming as he did so over the wheelbarrow, its timeliness and convenience. She took her duster from the pantry and went into the sitting room which the curate had just vacated. Hurrying out to McEvoy, he had placed his teacup carelessly on the mantelshelf. She reached out for it, and caught sight of herself in the oval looking-glass. Her face was dead white, weary; her eyes looked sore. But all the same, her wart had gone.
Father Angwin sat in the confessional; he felt safe there. He drew his velvet curtain across the grille and listened fearfully to the thumps and scrapes from the nave. When the bishop comes, he thought, perhaps I can take refuge here. He wouldn’t drag me out, would he? And do violence on me, like Thomas a Becket and the knights?
Father’s mood swung, between distress and jubilation, between terror and mirth. Why should the bishop come, he thought? There are no confirmations this coming year. He shows no relish for our company. Unless malicious persons like Purpit inform him of our schism, it can just go quietly on its own way. Perhaps in time I might become an antipope.
He wished Miss Dempsey would bring him refreshments.
When the door opened, with a gentle creak, he jerked out of his daydream. “Fludd?”
“No. He is putting St. Ambrose up.”
“Ah. My penitent.”
She knelt, with a soft rustle.
“How is your temptation?” He was afraid to hear the answer.
“A question,” she said.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“Father, suppose a building collapsed. And in the ruins there are people buried. Can the priest give them absolution?”
“I think he could. Conditionally. If they were rescued, of course, they would have to confess their sins in the ordinary way.”
“Yes, I see.” A pause. “Is there any kind of absolution you can give me?”
“Oh, my dear,” Father Angwin said. “You are a girl who has stayed out all night. You could hardly make use of absolution now.”
It had not in fact occurred to Miss Dempsey to take refreshments to Father Angwin, for she did not know where to find him. She sat in her room, eating a caramel toffee. It was most unusual for her to suspend her activities in the course of the day. There was always something one could polish. And if ingenuity were really exhausted, one could turn mattresses.
But now she sat quietly, her eyes distant, crimping her gold toffee-paper into tiny folds. From time to time she touched her flawless lip. Certain lines ran through her head:
Sweet Agnes, Holy Child,
All purity;
O may we undefiled
Be
