Chapter 1

“Photy ... Photy-graphy.” The woman stumbled over the strange word as she said it. She had done her best to say it but her master looked annoyed. She hated when he looked annoyed because sometimes he would pick up a stick or worse, usually a riding crop, and hit her.

She knew there was no point in complaining. The Reverend Rixton was an important man in the village, and Martha Caddow was lucky to have a job, even if was only dusting and polishing day after day around the vicarage.

“No, idiot,” frowned the old man. Exasperated, he ran his bony fingers through his white hair. “Not photy at all! It’s pho-to. Pho-tog-raphy. Got it? Now say it properly.”

“Yes sir,” bobbed the middle aged woman. She was unsure why she should have to say it, but the good Reverend told her she had to say the word. He’d already taught her that the big box on the funny three legs was a ‘Camry’—no, a ‘Camera’—and on no account must it be touched. Only he could do that. Martha didn’t know what it was but maybe it was to do with the church so that meant you obeyed, otherwise the devil would get you. However she didn’t like how the box on the three legs had an eye and it never blinked when the man took its hat off.

If it didn’t have a hat over its eye it would watch the woman as she busied herself round the room, so she tried not to look at it as she worked. But now she had to stand in front of it. She did not feel comfortable. The woman fidgeted even though the Reverend had told her to stand still, but then Martha was cold. Having no clothes on was causing her a little distress.

The man was close to pulling the hat off the camera’s unblinking eye, too, so the thing would see Martha’s belly and tits and even the big patch of hair at her slit.

“This is important,” snapped the Reverend Rixton. “Stop moving and stand still, woman! I am going to take your picture. It is called photography and it is new.” The man sounded proud. “I am the first person in this part of the county to have a camera and take pictures.”

“Won’t the constable have something to say about taking things, sir,” Martha blurted out.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous!” The old man shook his head. Women were so exasperating, he told himself before continuing. “I’m not taking anything from you, though I doubt you have anything I would want. No, woman. It’s a phrase. Like ... like taking the air after dinner. I am not taking anything, just ... Oh it doesn’t matter. You must stand still for two minutes, Martha. That means you do not move. Photography is very new and exciting and this camera captures—that’s just a word we use—a picture of you. Like a painting, but it isn’t a painting.”

Martha felt confused. It was taking without stealing and it was a painting that wasn’t. She was sure she would never learn so many new words if things weren’t so complicated enough in life. ‘I dusts and the dust moves,’ was what she told people. That’s all there was to life.

“Do you understand, Martha?” The old man frowned. His voice carried an irritated edge. She knew when the Reverend got annoyed he would look for his stick or riding crop. Not that he rode; he said he was too old to get on a horse. Creature of the devil, he had said. Wouldn’t be needed soon now they had the railways. That was civilisation, not horses dropping manure everywhere and biting. Nonetheless a riding crop was, he maintained, something a gentleman should have at hand.

If she was honest, Martha wasn’t sure what a gentleman was. It had the word ‘gentle’ in it but she hadn’t really seen the good Reverend be gentle. Not with her. Just orders and demands. Do this, do that, do it now. Except she didn’t have to do anything much now, expect stand still. That would normally mean a beating if he caught her doing nothing, though now he was insisting she did nothing.

She shivered a little, as she was cold with nothing on. Shivering worried her. It didn’t trouble her being naked; she had done that before for the old man as part of her job at the vicarage, though she wasn’t sure it was a necessary part of the job. She could stroke his stiff thing just as easily with her clothes on, and she’d have an apron to catch his seed as he called it and not spoil her dress. But she might have to move even if she could avoid shivering. She took a deep breath and spoke. “What if me nose itches an’ I want to scratch it, sir?”

“For heaven’s sake, woman,” snapped Rixton. “Then you let it itch. If you move you will come out all blurred.”

Coming out blurred sounded frightening to the woman. “Never been blurred,” she muttered, though she had no idea what that meant. But if it was the Reverend saying it, it couldn’t be good. Like his sermons on Sunday, full of hellfire and damnation. Never much goodness came out of anything he said.

“Wouldn’t me girl be better than me, sir?” Asked the woman. “I mean, you asked me to take my skirts off and I don’t think I’m pretty without anythin’ on me. Not like our Alice.”

The Reverend pursed his lips. The woman may be stupid but she had a point. She was rather overweight, and saggy. He wasn’t sure how a woman of her lowly class could get overweight, given how little they put on the table at meal-time. Laziness, probably, he decided. They should work harder. By God, they would if he had his way. But, while he had enjoyed having intercourse with Martha — purely in his line of saving souls so he could sample the vicissitudes of the flesh and confirm how easy it was for so many to sin — he had seen her naked before and knew there was not much worth capturing for posterity. However there was something far more appealing about her girl.

Not really a girl in the strictest sense. She was 15, or perhaps 16. Martha wouldn’t know so he didn’t ask her. These poor people didn’t seem to understand time, Rixton believed, for how often did they come to him and ask how old someone in their family was? How many times was he obliged to consult the parish register and tell someone they were at such-and-such an age? Even saying to them: “And please remember it, but after the new year add another one to the number.” Never worked. They still came back.

Such a simple thing like adding was beyond most of them, he would complain. But, this woman was right: her daughter Alice would be a better subject for this photograph.

“Very well, put on your clothes and fetch Alice here,” said the Reverend. “Bring her here at once, while we still have the light.”

Gratefully, if only because her nose really did itch, Martha pulled her skirt and top on. She would go at once to where Alice was working at Throwsop’s farm and fetch her. Hopefully remembering to tell old Throwsop that the girl was wanted for the good of the church.

Throwsop’s farm was nearly a mile away, and it would take time for the woman to get there and back. Rixton cursed himself: he should have got Martha to make him a cup of tea before she went. He didn’t like to be kept waiting without something to pass the time. But, there was the matter of the light. Some things were more important than a drink.

The Reverend went to the window and stroked his chin as he stared out at the garden and beyond to the patchwork fields and scattered copses of woodland. Not towards the village, with its ramshackle houses and dirty ways. That was behind him, as he liked to think of it. The sort of place that could never be saved no matter how many sermons he piously read to them.