Tomorrow's ghost

* * *

The great quire of the abbey stretched ahead of her - quire and retroquire, monks'

quire and presbytery, which had once been the glory and the wonder of the Thor Brook valley, and far beyond - and the High Altar, once gilded and jewelled, under which the miraculous bones of St. Biddulph had lain, which no virgin could look upon with safety, because they guaranteed pregnancy even to the most barren -

* * *

'Where, Daddy?' Virgin Frances had looked for the high altar.

* * *

Where, Daddy? thought Frances again, desperately.

But there was only the long sweep of broken pillars, like jagged teeth, rising higher and higher out of the smooth turf, each with its swirl of dead leaves around it, until the towering walls of the roofless transepts reared up, and the perfect open circle of the rose window framing grey sky where once the Virgin and Child had been enthroned in glory

-

Where?

* * *

Frances ran down into the wide empty quire of the lay brothers, between the dark woods of the hillside, almost leafless, on her left, and the labyrinth of abbey ruins on her right.

The emptiness mocked her and terrified her. Paul - the rain ran down her face - Paul!

As though called by that soundless cry Paul Mitchell emerged from behind one of the slender columns of the opening into the south transept, beside the high altar's site.

Another movement caught her eye, away beyond the pillars in the labyrinth.

Colonel Butler walked out on to the green square of the cloister quadrangle, unmistakeable under his golfing umbrella. Now they were both in the open: she could see them both. And now he, whom she had summoned, only had to make his choice -

that was the story's ending.

* * *

She saw him rise out of the ruin of summer's growth on the hillside under the eaves of the trees, ten yards from her, his rifle lifting for the heart shot. He hadn't seen her, she was half-masked by a broken pillar. The choice was still hers: she could shout

Paul - there!

But that would be too late for Colonel Butler. Or she could shout Down, Colonel Butler! And that would be just one second too late for Paul -

* * *

The choices were gone in the same instant of their imagining, as the rifle rose.

There had never been any choices, only the true ending.

* * *

Frances stepped into the open.

'O'Leary - ' she pointed at him ' - you're dead!'

* * *

That would give Paul and Butler the time they both -

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Where she lay close to the stump of the third pillar in the ruined quire, it was quiet now.

For a moment it had been noisy - she had not truly heard the noises, but she was aware that there had been noises - but now there was only the steady swish of an infinite number of raindrops on stone and grass and leaves around her, where she lay.

Then she was aware that she had heard the noises at the exact moment when she had been punched such a terrible blow on the chest, so that the grey sky and the greyer stonework and the green grass had cartwheeled - no one had ever punched her so hard, it had quite knocked the breath out of her.

So now her eyes were full of tears, blurring green and grey into indistinguishable shapes of colour; but that was only natural, that she should cry after being hit so hard, to make her so breathless.

* * *

Daddy - I hurt - Daddy -

* * *