The Mezzotint Chapter 3 Harriet Part 3

The Vicar discharged a tremulous, exhausted sigh, as if he’d just extracted himself from a lengthy session in the confessional with a particularly industrious ‘fille de joie’.

Once again an enforced silence lowered itself on the little vestibule they were sitting in, either born of respect or simply of pity for the tragedy the vicar had shared with Creest.  As Creest motioned to excuse himself, considering further conversation could only have been banal compared to what had preceded it, a huge thump emanated from behind his chair forcing Creest to leap from the upholstery.

The vicar also rose, rather more dignified, and together they moved to the rear of the chair.  A large volume had slipped from the small bookcase on the wall and landed face down but, remarkably, the leaves had spread outward prior to landing as if the book itself had committed an act of literary suicide.  Its spine was clearly displayed.  Creest recognized it as a Buddhist text - The Dhammapada.    

Creest stepped back and allowed the vicar to pick it up.  He read the open page and then handed it to the professor.  On one of the open pages a passage had been underlined with a pencil:

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts.  If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage”

‘A favourite quote vicar?  Use it in your sermons do you?  And I thought you were staunch Church of England’

‘Oh no, I picked it up after a book sale at one of our church fetes.  No offers, even at 10p.  It’s actually quite profound in parts.  Funny though, I can’t remember ever marking out a particular passage even if it made an impression.  I have an over-fondness of books I suppose.  I hate to see them defaced in any way, well except for the toll inflicted by time which, after all, takes no prisoners’.

‘A psychic judgement on Philippe perhaps?’

‘For what?  He had never seemed to me to be anything other than a kind and loving father and neighbour.  But it does trouble me’

‘So you’ve said, despite the years between’

‘No, I mean the bad things that happen to good people.  That’s the hardest part of this job or calling or whatever it’s deemed to be.  That awful phrase that devotees always use –“Why has God done this to me” – as if they are exempt from the cruelties of the earth simply because they claim to have more faith then others’

‘It could be that’s why they’re chosen’

‘Meaning?’

‘That faith is therefore stronger and can survive the blow’

‘Some but others…well that’s another story for another day’

 ‘Another, before you go?’ the vicar motioned toward Creest’s glass.

‘No, no I have an important mission today’

‘Yes, of course, well enjoy your dinner’

He offered the vicar his goodbyes.  As he closed the gate at the end of the footpath leading away from the sacristy he turned and looked at the church beyond.  He knows I’m going to Hope’s for dinner.  The sky had darkened and accentuated the profile of the church as if it had been lifted from a Roger Corman film and he shivered.  The terrible history of Harriet’s family had affected him, but there was more.