The Lamp of the Wicked Read Online Free PDF

Costly?’
    ‘But it’s an
option
,’ said James. ‘At last we have an option. Thank Gord for that. We’ll get it costed out, report back. Yes?’ He looked at Merrily; she shrugged.
    When they came out, half an hour later, without anyone having raised the possibility of installing a mobile-phone mast in the spire, Merrily wasn’t entirely surprised to find Jenny Box, in a brown Barbour and a white scarf, waiting for her on the cindered forecourt.
    ‘Look, thanks for…’ Merrily gestured vaguely at the hall behind them. She felt short and inelegant in the old navy-blue school duffel coat that Jane had rejected as seriously uncool. ‘I get a little flustered in there sometimes. I think it’s the lighting, but if I turned up in sunglasses, somebody’d be putting it around that I’d been beaten up.’
    Jenny Box didn’t smile. Uncle Ted Clowes came over and put a patronizing hand on Merrily’s shoulder. ‘I think you’ll find it makes a good deal of sense, my dear. Tourism’s going to be very much the future of Ledwardine, we all have to accept that.’
    ‘Not the whole of the future, I hope, Ted.’
    ‘Well, there
is
another possibility.’ He glanced warily at Jenny Box. ‘But we’ll talk about that again. Goodnight, ladies.’
    Ted put on his hat and strolled away. A walkover, then. Merrily was aware that Jenny Box’s expression had stiffened. For the first time tonight, in the thin light from the tin-shaded bulb over the doors of the village hall, she looked her probable age: forty-three, forty-four?
    ‘Crass auld fool.’ An unexpected venom thickened her accent. ‘Sell his own grandmother.’
    Merrily said nothing. The two of them walked away from the hall, into Church Street and up towards the square. The air glistened with moisture and the deserted village centre looked film-set romantic under a mist-ringed three-quarter moon.
    ‘So how much are you thinking you’d need?’ Mrs Box’s voice had softened again without losing any of its insistence. ‘For the church.’
    ‘Well, I can’t really…’ Merrily hesitated. It was the first time she’d spoken more than superficially to this woman.
    ‘Per year, say. How much per year, to maintain the church without the need of this tourist shop?’
    It was a serious question, and there was no walking away from it. Merrily shook her head. ‘I don’t really know what a shop would turn over in a year.’
    Mrs Box stopped on the edge of the deserted square. ‘Tell me, have you asked God?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘For the money. For the resources. Have you asked God?’
    ‘Erm…’
    Jenny Box smiled faintly, indicating that she wouldn’t pursue it now. Directly in front of them, the small medieval building known as the Market Hall squatted on its stocky oak pillars. Mrs Box stood with her back to it, hands thrust deep into the pockets of her Barbour, a firmer, tougher proposition than she’d been in the hall.
    ‘You were absolutely right, of course,’ she said. ‘Women, as a rule, aren’t terribly good at preaching. Listening is what we do best. That’s why women priests are so important. Women listen, and so women
receive
. I’m not talking feminist nonsense, but the time’s come. Don’t you feel that?’
    ‘I think we can all receive, women
and
men,’ Merrily said carefully. They were alone on the square, lit by bracket lamps projecting from gable ends. Mrs Box glanced over her shoulder.
    ‘That man – Clowes. What he said about us all having to accept that tourism’s the future, it makes me feel quite ill. Look at this place… it’s getting like the Cotswolds – most of the people here born elsewhere, virtually all the businesses owned by outsiders.’
    Merrily said nothing. Across the square, the lighted panes in the leaded windows of the Black Swan seemed as comfortably irregular as the moon-washed cobbles. She used to think of Ledwardine as an indestructible organism that ate and gradually digested change.
    ‘Oh, I know