The Lamp of the Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page A

– one even more poorly attended than this, with its handful of delegates from local societies: the Women’s Institute, the Young Farmers’ Club, the tourism association. A couple of shop owners had shown up to voice mild fears about competition if the church went into the giftware business. But nothing serious, nothing likely to cause undue worry for Ted Clowes and the
pro
faction.
    ‘I think the point is, Mr Chairman…’ Again, it was Jenny Box, née Driscoll, one of the few with no obvious reason to be here, who came to Merrily’s aid. ‘The real point is that commercial enterprise would surely conflict with the sanctity and peace that the church must be allowed to provide at all times. If I want to go in and say a prayer, I may not wish to do so in front of a coachload of holidaymakers choosing picture postcards.’
    And Jenny Box
did
go into the church and pray alone. Merrily had seen her several times and walked delicately past with a quiet smile, making herself casually available, in case this woman needed help. No particular response so far, and she didn’t want to be thought of as courting the newest Ledwardine celeb.
    The truth was that, while much of the village – especially the growing retired faction – recognized Mrs Box from daytime ‘lifestyle
’
TV or had shopped at Vestalia, Merrily had never even seen daytime TV, except by accident, and couldn’t afford Vestalia. She was faintly embarrassed because the face of Jenny Box, from the start, had meant nothing to her.
    But…’ Ted was looking pained. ‘If you look at Hereford Cathedral, it’s had a sizeable shop for years, virtually next to the nave.’
    ‘But not
in
the nave,’ Merrily said. ‘And the cathedral’s just a tiny bit bigger than Ledwardine church, and if you do want to pray there you can always find a quiet corner somewhere, or an empty chantry.’
    ‘Well, if…’ James Bull-Davies pushed fingers through his thinning hair. ‘… If you’re talking about a
quiet
place, there’s always the Bull Chapel, isn’t there?’
    Merrily said nothing. Even she had found it hard to pray in the Bull Chapel.
    Again, Mrs Box dealt with it. ‘I accept it’s your family’s traditional resting place, Mr Chairman, but I don’t think I’m alone in finding that chapel just a tiny bit sinister, with that forbidding old tomb and the effigy of the man whose eyes seem to follow you around. Sorry, I suppose that’s silly of me.’
    James gazed at Jenny Box, as he had several times tonight because, although he’d probably never seen her on TV either, Mrs Box was magnetic, her beauty soft and blurred under red-blonde hair just short of shoulder-length. There was very little make-up on her pale, regretful face, but even the livid lighting couldn’t insult her skin. She lived in a narrow, three-storey house on the edge of the village, near the river – alone, it seemed, although there was said to be an estranged husband somewhere.
    ‘Right, OK,’ James conceded surprisingly. ‘Point taken. We require a degree of separation, so I think we have to come back to Ted’s suggestion of the vestry. Reasonable enough size. Not as if we’re going to be selling country clothes or picnic hampers or what have you.’
    ‘Well… it’s a possibility.’ Merrily had already thought about it; she didn’t use the vestry much any more, not since the night it had been broken into. Now she kept all her clerical gear at the vicarage, and there was a cupboard in the body of the church for communion wine and stuff. ‘I mean, I suppose I could spare it, but I can’t speak for a future minister.’
    ‘Not our problem,’ James snapped. ‘Future chap can sort him
self
out. Or herself. Be many years, anyway, before you think of moving on, I trust, vicar. Nothing to stop us sticking a couple of counters and a till in the vestry meantime, is there?’
    ‘It’d need better lighting for a start, James. And some structural alteration, I’d guess.