The Rainbow Years Read Online Free PDF Page B

immediately answer Muriel’s voice was rushed.‘You are, aren’t you, lass?’ she added, not waiting for a reply. ‘She’s heart sorry, Father, but . . . but like I said, she was led on, fooled by this man. He—’
     
    ‘I think Bess can speak for herself, Mrs Shawe.’
     
    Bess’s chin had fallen again, her eyes on her hands in her lap, but now her head shot up at the icy tone. Her cheeks flaming once more, she said, ‘All sin is equally grievous to God surely, Father? Isn’t that what the Bible says?’
     
    The priest sat up straighter, his eyes narrowing. The heavy silence which now fell on the kitchen was broken only by the sound of Muriel clasping and unclasping her hands in the background, and it was this which made Bess say, ‘I’m sorry, Father.’
     
    ‘This man, this . . . gentleman. I take it he wasn’t from these parts?’
     
    ‘No, Father.’
     
    ‘But he was of the faith?’
     
    Bess looked steadily at the priest. ‘He was married, Father. With a child.’
     
    ‘That isn’t what I asked. Was he of the true religion?’
     
    Bess swallowed hard but didn’t lower her gaze. ‘He had no religion, Father. He was an atheist.’
     
    This time the silence stretched and lengthened until Muriel, unable to bear it a moment longer, gabbled, ‘Won’t you have another girdle cake, Father? An’ there’s more tea in the pot.’
     
    Father Fraser motioned away the offer with an abrupt movement of his hand. His eyes hard on Bess, he said, ‘I think it is as well I shall be here when your father arrives home. As big a shock as your condition will be to him, his greater sorrow will be in knowing you have scorned the Church’s teaching on consorting with those whose eyes are blinded.’
     
    Did he really believe that? Bess stared at the priest. And then they heard the back door open and footsteps in the scullery. Wilbur walked into the kitchen. She saw his eyes flash round the room before they came to rest on the face of Father Fraser, and as ever a pious note crept into his voice when he said, ‘Father, I didn’t know you were paying us a visit the day.’
     
    ‘For once it is a visit which gives me no pleasure, Wilbur.’
     
    ‘Oh aye?’
     
    ‘Sit down, my son.’
     
    It was a moment or two before her father obeyed the command; he had sensed something serious was afoot. Just the fact that Father Fraser was sitting in the kitchen would have alerted him to the severity of the crisis. The priest was usually ushered into the hallowed front room on his visits to the house, the fire which lay dormant between such occasions being lit immediately in the colder months.
     
    ‘Now,’ Father Fraser sat up straighter, bringing his hands onto his knees, ‘prepare yourself as best you can for a great shock, Wilbur.’
     
    He was enjoying this. Bess found she was quite incapable of movement; she had been from the moment her father had returned home, but her mind was more than making up for the stillness of her body. It told her Father Fraser was experiencing a covert but deep satisfaction at her downfall. She had been an irritating thorn in the priest’s side for some time, what with missing Mass and so on, and more than once he had spoken scathingly from the pulpit about the new ideas which were being bandied about and how the war was going to be the ruination of many a young girl. He must be relishing the knowledge he’d been proved right in her case.
     
    Wilbur remained immobile as Father Fraser talked on but his face became a mottled red and his whole body seemed to swell. Muriel was standing by the range, her hand across her mouth. She could have been carved in stone.
     
    When the eruption came it took the priest by surprise, so much so he nearly fell off his chair. Wilbur leaped to his feet with a cry which sounded almost inhuman. Not so Bess. She had been waiting for her father to react.As Wilbur lunged at her, she took sanctuary behind the bulky figure of Father Fraser, knowing her