"It's about one of your former parishioners, sir. Miss Penhow of Morthams Farm."

"Yes, yes. Rebecca told me. May I ask what your interest is?"

"I'm here on behalf of Miss Penhow's niece Fenella Kensley." Rory adjusted the truth a little: "We're engaged to be married."

"I'm sure congratulations are in order," Mr. Gladwyn said automatically. "But-forgive me-I'm not sure how I can help you. I've not seen Miss Penhow for more than four years, and in fact she only lived in Rawling for a short time. I barely knew her. As I'm sure Miss Kensley knows, she moved abroad."

"Well that's it, you see." Rory hesitated, choosing his words with care. "Miss Kensley hasn't heard from her aunt for several years and naturally she's rather worried. Miss Penhow hasn't written since she moved down to Rawling."

"These things happen," Mr. Gladwyn pointed out. "Relations sometimes do drift apart from one another, especially if they move."

"There's also some sad news to pa.s.s on. Miss Penhow's brother died-almost certainly she won't have heard."

The Vicar had been standing with his back to the fire. But now he sat down at the desk in the window embrasure. He picked up a pipe and his tobacco pouch and swung round to face his visitor. "I know there was some concern about Miss Penhow's whereabouts. I talked to the police about it a few years ago. You see, I received a letter from Miss Penhow more than six months after she left Rawling."

"That must have been near the end of 1930. Mr. Kensley died in 1932."

Mr. Gladwyn nodded. "She felt embarra.s.sed at writing directly to her relations-or to Mr. Serridge, her-her friend. You see there was an...an affair of the heart. It seems that she had met someone and decided on the spur of the moment to move abroad. The police examined the letter very carefully, and after that they were quite satisfied that there was nothing mysterious about Miss Penhow's departure."

Rory thought it depended on whether you wanted there to be a mystery. The police could not have had much to go on. A woman who had not lived long in the area was suddenly no longer there. There was no body. There were no anxious relatives pestering the authorities about their missing loved one. And presumably there had been no evidence of financial irregularity either.

Mr. Gladwyn lit his pipe. As he dropped the match into the ashtray on the desk he contrived to look at his wrist.w.a.tch in a way that wasn't obviously rude but made its meaning quite clear.

"I wonder if I might see the letter, if you still have it?" Rory said.

The Vicar studied him through the smoke. "I suppose there's no harm in it. If it would clear the air, as it were. But it is a private letter. Though I've no objection myself to your seeing it, I have to think of others."

"Miss Kensley is now Miss Penhow's nearest relation, sir."

"I'm surprised the police have not told her that her aunt wrote to me."

"They did indeed. But I know she's still very concerned-increasingly, as time goes by without more news. I'm keen to relieve her mind, as I'm sure you understand. The point is, she has convinced herself that this letter is a forgery."

"That's nonsense."

"She may well be mistaken, sir, I quite agree. But if I could see the letter and compare it with a sample of Miss Penhow's handwriting which I have, it would allow me to set her mind at rest. Of course I would treat the contents as confidential. But perhaps you'd rather I didn't see it at all."

Rory allowed the implication, that the Vicar might have something to conceal, to hang in the smoke-filled air. Mr. Gladwyn struck another match and applied himself to relighting his pipe.

"I've nothing to hide, Mr. Wentwood," he said at last. "And naturally I don't want Miss Kensley to suffer unnecessary pain. Very well, I will let you see the letter here in this room for ten minutes on condition that you discuss it only with Miss Kensley, and even then only if you see fit. I must warn you the contents may be painful to her. It's not the sort of letter I should like a daughter of mine to read."

"I shall bear that in mind, sir," Rory said. "Thank you."

The Vicar opened the lowest drawer of the desk on the left-hand side and removed a buff folder. He took out an envelope and motioned to Rory to draw up a chair to the desk. He removed a letter from the envelope and held it out to Rory. It consisted of a single sheet closely written on both sides.

Grand Central Station New York City USA December 3rd, 1930 My dear Mr. Gladwyn I expect you are surprised to hear from me after all this time. I hope you won't mind my writing to you. This is a very difficult letter for me to write, the more so because I have a favor to ask. Perhaps I should have written to Joseph, rather than you. After all, it is he whom I have wronged. But I thought the truth would come better in person from you, a man of the cloth, than through a letter. I have hurt him enough without that. As I have cause to know, a tender heart beats beneath that rough exterior of his. I am afraid you will have realized by now that Joseph and I are not married. We would have been if Joseph had not had a living wife who refused to divorce him. I must admit that my conscience was not easy with this, though I never doubted the sincerity of Joseph's love for me. Out of the blue, just after we had moved into Morthams Farm, I received a letter from an old friend, a sailor I might have married many years ago had my aunt agreed. But he was poor and I was foolish. I made a mistake I have bitterly regretted ever since. Everything happened very quickly. It did not take me long to discover that my friend's feelings hadn't changed, and nor had mine. He was free. So was I. At last I could right the wrong I had done so many years before. Please tell Joseph that I am now married, and on the threshold of a new life with my husband. Ask him to forgive me. I know I have wronged him very deeply, but I know in the long run this will be the best thing for both of us. I remember Joseph telling me once that a clean break heals sooner. I hope this will be true in his case too. I pray he will be able to forgive me. I send him my warmest good wishes-and to you, of course. Yours sincerely, P. M. Penhow "May I see the envelope?" Rory asked.

Mr. Gladwyn pa.s.sed it to him without comment. It was addressed to him at the Vicarage; it had a franked American stamp and a New York postmark.

"You see? All above board."

"Yes, sir."

Rory sat back in the chair and ran his fingers through his hair. "May I compare the letter with a sample of handwriting I have here?"

"By all means. Though the police have already done that. They brought in one of their experts. They seemed perfectly satisfied."

Rory unfolded the sheet of paper that he had found in his chest of drawers. He laid it side by side with the New York letter on the desk and methodically compared individual characters. There was a strong family resemblance between them, though there were small differences in their formation, and the handwriting of the letter from New York was smaller, squeezed to fit one sheet of paper. But there were also minor but equally obvious variations between Miss Penhow's hurried draft letter to Mr. Orburn and her more carefully written commentary on the parable of the Prodigal Son.

"Well?" said Mr. Gladwyn. "What do you think?"

"That they could easily have been written by the same person."

"Precisely." Mr Gladwyn stood up, perhaps hoping to encourage his visitor to do likewise. "You've met Mr. Serridge, I take it?"

"Yes."

"I've seen something of him in the last few years. And what I've seen inclines me to give him the benefit of the doubt in a case like this. It is true that Miss Penhow left rather suddenly. But their relationship was unorthodox from the start, I'm afraid. We have a perfectly reasonable explanation of why she left."

"Isn't it strange that she's not been in touch with Miss Kensley or any of her friends?"

"I don't think so. You forget-this is a woman previously of good character who has been tempted into doing something of which she now feels greatly ashamed. She is trying to build a new life. The last thing she wants is reminders of the old." The Vicar looked at his watch again, and this time he made no attempt to conceal what he was doing. "I'm not naive, Mr. Wentwood-I fancy I can see as far into human nature as the next man. But remember your Bible, eh? Cast not the first stone."

Rory stood up. "Mr. Serridge still lives at Morthams Farm?"

"Yes, indeed. Though he spends a good deal of his time in town. These haven't been easy years for farmers, as I'm sure you know, but he's made quite a success of Morthams since he bought it from Captain Ingleby-Lewis." There was a tap on the door and the maid appeared with a coal scuttle. "Rebecca, would you show Mr. Wentwood out?"

During Lydia's first morning at Shires and Trimble, she learned how to place files in alphabetical order in drawers and how to moisten stamps and put them on envelopes. Her instructor, the junior clerk Mr. Smethwick, had pale, flaky skin and was very particular about how things should be done in the office. Stamps, for example, should be placed so their borders were as nearly aligned as possible with the edges of the envelope. Ideally the gap between the edge of the stamp and the border of the envelope should be about a sixth of an inch above and to the right of the stamp.

"These little details matter, Mrs. Langstone," he said. "It tells the client we are a firm that knows how to keep things straight, a firm he can trust with his business."

"But how can you be certain of that?" Lydia asked. "The client might not notice at all, or they might even think we were being rather too fussy."

"Nonsense. If you don't mind my saying so, Mrs. Langstone, you can tell that you've never worked in an office before."

The typist chipped in, "I bet there's not a lot you don't know about the secret workings of the mind, Mr. Smethwick."

Mr. Smethwick hesitated, visibly uncertain whether or not this should be taken as a compliment, and then smirked as his riposte came to him: "Then all I can say is you'd better watch what you're thinking."

Miss Tuffley gave a shriek of laughter, which won her a disapproving stare from Mr. Reynolds, the senior clerk.

Mr. Shires himself did not come into the office. Mr. Trimble did not appear to exist. Mr. Reynolds ruled supreme in Mr. Shires' absence. He was too wrapped up in his own work to talk to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. But Miss Tuffley more than made up for his silence by chattering non-stop whenever her red nails were not dancing noisily on the typewriter keys, and sometimes even then. It soon became clear that she knew more about the cinema-the films, the actors, the gossip-than anyone else Lydia had ever met.

The office boy, who was usually entrusted with the envelopes and stamps, was ill. The work was tedious and oddly tiring. Lydia tried to avoid looking at the clock on the wall above Mr. Reynolds' high desk. She would not have believed it possible that time could move so slowly. At a little after eleven o'clock there was a variation in the monotony in the form of a stout woman in a pinafore who brought round a tray of tea, after which Mr. Smethwick taught Lydia how to answer the telephone. It was important to master the correct salutation: "Shires and Trimble. Good morning," with the emphasis firmly on the adjective, to create a mood of optimism and hope. According to Mr. Smethwick, one's intonation should create the impression that one was mentally in a state of high alert and also smiling in a welcoming way.

At one o'clock Lydia went to the cloakroom to fetch her hat and coat. There was a pause in the rattle of the typewriter keys in the general office. She heard Miss Tuffley's voice raised in argument with Mr. Smethwick: "...herself as Lady Muck. If you ask me she's..." Typing drowned the rest of the sentence and reduced Mr. Smethwick's reply to a low rumble. Lydia settled her hat on her head and went back to the general office. Mr. Smethwick asked her to post the letters she had so carefully stamped. "Think you can manage that, Mrs. Langstone?"

She went downstairs and opened the street door. She was so tired and angry she wanted to cry. Outside lay freedom, albeit for only an hour. She paused in the doorway to savor the gray pavement, a taxi, the east wall of the chapel and a gray sky. So that's what paradise looked like. An absence of Shires and Trimble.

As she stepped onto the pavement, the taxi's rear window slid down. A thin and very elegant woman stared at Lydia, who came to an abrupt halt.

"h.e.l.lo, Lydia," said the woman, and the dream of freedom died a premature death.

"h.e.l.lo, Mother," said Lydia.

Rawling's solitary pub was called the Alforde Arms. Rory ate bread and cheese by the fire in the saloon bar, and washed down his lunch with half a pint of bitter. In India, he would often daydream about this sort of day-a simple lunch in a village pub, logs smoldering on a hearth, a muddy walk under a gray, wintry sky swirling with rooks.

While he ate, he summarized to himself what he would report to Sergeant Narton when they met this evening. It wasn't a great deal: the Vicar had received a letter from New York which purported to be from Philippa Penhow; she could indeed have written it; and if it was genuine it offered a plausible explanation for her disappearance and her silence, particularly if one allowed for the shame she must have felt in allowing Serridge to seduce her in the first place. There was also the fact that Mr. Gladwyn seemed to like Mr. Serridge. Finally-and this was the only really disturbing piece of information he had acquired-Captain Ingleby-Lewis had sold Morthams Farm to Serridge. Lydia Langstone's father was somehow involved in this. He had a disturbing sense that the boundaries of the whole affair had shifted, and that even his own role in it might not be what he had a.s.sumed it was.

After lunch, he ordered a second half-pint. The landlord was ready to chat, though some of his attention remained with the farm laborers talking in the other bar.

"You on holiday or something?" the man inquired.

"Yes-just a day trip. I fancied stretching my legs and getting a bit of country air."

"I thought you were a townie. You can always tell. From London, maybe?"

Rory agreed that he was.

"Strange that," the landlord said, resting his elbows on the counter between them. "Your idea of a day out is coming down here. Our idea of a day out is going up to town."

"The gra.s.s is greener, eh?" Rory picked up his gla.s.s and began to turn away.

The landlord was not going to be deflected so easily. "What I say is, human beings are born dissatisfied. They always want something else, something they haven't got."

"That's very true." Rory glanced out of the window: the light was already fading and there were spots of rain on the gla.s.s. "Though at present I must admit I don't feel much enthusiasm for walking back to Mavering."

"You're making for the station?"

Rory nodded.

"That won't take you long," the landlord said. "Twenty minutes' brisk walk, if that."

"Took me rather longer on the way here."

"Which way did you come?"

Rory described it as best as he could.

"That's the long way round."

"Somebody gave me the directions."

"If you carry on down the road and take the field gate on the left, there's a much shorter route. Unless it's closed for some reason." The landlord turned his head and bellowed at the laborers in the public bar: "Jim? Nothing wrong with the footpath to Mavering, is there?"

"Which one?" came an answering bellow, and another roar of laughter.

"The one by Nartons', you daft fool."

"There weren't this morning. That's the way I came."

"Nartons'?" Rory said abruptly. "What's that?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Narton's place," the landlord said. "The path's on the left, just beyond it. Follow that, and you come out by Mavering church, same way you came but much sooner. That'll make life a bit easier for you, eh?"

"You're looking fearfully pale, dear," Lady Ca.s.sington said. "Are you sure you're eating properly?"

"Yes, thank you, Mother," Lydia said. "I haven't got long-I want to find something to eat and I need to post these letters."

Lady Ca.s.sington glanced down at the pile of neatly stamped envelopes that lay between them on the rear seat of the taxi. "You've actually got a job?" She made it sound like an unsightly skin condition.

"Yes."

"How odd. Marcus hasn't stopped your allowance, I know that for a fact-he told me himself. Think yourself lucky, my dear. Some men would have had no hesitation whatsoever."

"I don't want his money."

"Nonsense. Anyway, you should be at home. I simply don't know where you've found all these silly ideas. A woman's place is by her husband's side."

"You didn't stay by yours," Lydia pointed out.

Lady Ca.s.sington stared at her.

"My father's, I mean," Lydia said.

"That was quite different. Circ.u.mstances alter cases. You've seen what sort of man your father is."

Lydia stared out of the window at students carrying piles of library books and wearing brightly colored scarves. The taxi was driving north through the quiet squares of Bloomsbury. Lady Ca.s.sington screwed another cigarette into her tortoisesh.e.l.l holder. When she next spoke, her voice was gentler.

"Marcus says he told you he's joining the Fascists."

Lydia nodded.

"They're obviously rather impressed with him-he's just the sort of recruit they're looking for. I saw Tom Mosley the other night, you know, and he told me that if they had more young men like Marcus they could be forming a government in eighteen months. Fin thinks Mosley's quite the coming man and it'll do us no harm as a family to have someone on the inside. Marcus will be working with Rex Fisher at first, I understand, so he's in safe hands."

"How is Fin?" Lydia asked, trying to deflect the conversation from Marcus to her stepfather.

"Very well, thank you. He sends his love, by the way. He's frightfully pleased about Marcus, of course."

Lydia listened to her mother's voice running on and watched the students. She wondered what it would have been like if she had been able to go to university. She could have had a proper job afterward. She could have earned 500 a year and had a room of her own. Her life would be full of people who led interesting and uncluttered lives, unenc.u.mbered with the routines, obligations and possessions that filled the existence of families like the Langstones and the Ca.s.singtons.

"Talking of Rex Fisher, by the way," her mother went on, "I think he's rather interested in Pammy."

Lydia blinked. "But he's old enough to be her father."

"Nothing wrong in that. Fin's older than me, after all. I think it can make a marriage more stable if the man's older."

Lydia thought that stability was the last thing that her sister wanted from life. She said, "Do you think Pammy likes him?"