Chapter 4: Church

David slipped into the back of the church unnoticed just as the service was starting. During the service he was wondering what sort of a welcome he would receive after an absence of three years if he joined the rest of the congregation for coffee in the church hall. Start as you mean to go on, he thought, If I am here hunting for a bedmate I should make myself agreeable to all the eligible ladies while I choose, and if necessary pursue one or more of them.

The one noticeable change to the service was in the versicles and responses which were sung instead of spoken, and while the responses were from the whole congregation the versicles were sung by a young woman whom David had never met, but who had a truly beautiful, if untrained, contralto voice. His assessment was that she was in her mid-twenties, so he discarded her as a target immediately.

At the end of the service as he left the church the new Vicar greeted him with a cheery, “Welcome. I’m Martha, the Vicar of All Saints. Are you staying in the area for long?”

That rather upset him, though he couldn’t say why. David’s response was intended to put this female Vicar in her place. “I live here. Your predecessor, the Father Newenham buried my wife here three years ago and I haven’t been to church since then. Have you been in post long, Mrs. Martha? Sorry, I don’t know the correct honorific for a female Vicar, and Mother Martha seems odd though Father Newenham seemed perfectly normal.”

The Vicar’s blushes were spared when the churchwarden came bustling up and said, “Mr. Ransome, it’s so nice to see you again. We have missed you since...”

“Thank you Mr. Price. I don’t believe I thanked you for the beautiful funeral at the time, I’m sorry.”

“I can well understand that, and no apology is needed. I see you have met our new Vicar. She has been with us for only three months.”

David asked, “Out of curiosity, where did Father Newenham go?”

“He was translated to become Bishop of Worcester well over a year ago. Then we had a long interregnum before Martha came to us.”

David could not help but hear the undertone of disapproval in the churchwarden’s voice. “Is coffee still in the church hall?”

“Yes, do join us,” said the Vicar.

“Can I have a quick word, Martha?” asked the churchwarden.

“Excuse me please, Mr. Ransome, though we usually use Christian names in this congregation now?” the Vicar said, obviously wondering what David’s name was.

“I detest that modern informality between people who have hardly met,” said David as he moved towards the church hall.

The churchwarden waited until he had moved away a few yards and then said, “Vicar, you must not antagonise him. He used to donate a lot of money to this church. It was he who got the altar area refurbished and that triptych you dislike so much restored and it cost him thousands. We need people like that.”

“Does that mean I have to call him Mr. Ransome?”

“For the support he could afford to give this church I would call him anything he wants,” was the response that made her even angrier, “And I would go out of my way to please him in little ways, like choosing his favourite hymns, especially on the anniversary of his wife’s death.”

“Well, Stuart, you know that I, for one, won’t kow-tow to him. What is his name anyway?”

“Don’t ask me. He has always been Mr. Ransome to me,” he said, lying by omission.

“You must know if his wife was buried here?”

“If I ever did know I have forgotten,” Stuart Price lied, desperate to revitalise his church’s funds.