The Essex Serpent(35)
The small village summoned up a hearty congregation: there was almost (she thought) a kind of festival air, or the good humour brought on by the prospect of a common enemy. Unnoticed in her seat, she heard them whisper of the Trouble, and the serpent, and something seen the night before when the moon had been full and red; certain crops had failed early; there was yet another sprained ankle. A young man who rivalled Ransome for blackness of suit and graveness of aspect put out his hand to any who passed his pew, and made remarks about the Judgment, and the Last Times.
The bells ceased tolling, the people fell silent, and William crossed the nave. When he reached the pulpit steps, a Bible beneath his left arm and (so Cora thought) a look of shyness about him, the door was flung open and there stood Cracknell. He was preceded by such a long dark shadow, and such a powerful smell of damp and mud, that a woman who’d forgotten her glasses shrieked ‘It’s here!’ and clutched her handbag to her breast. Evidently enjoying the effect, the old man paused on the threshold until he could be certain he’d been seen, then walked to the front of the church and sat with folded arms. He’d put on another coat above the mossy one he always wore; it had a fur collar, in which earwigs scuttled in alarm, and many brass buttons.
‘Good morning, Mr Cracknell,’ said William, without surprise: ‘And good morning to you all. I was glad when they said unto me: let us go to the house of the Lord. Mr Cracknell, once you’re comfortable, we’ll begin with hymn number 102, which I know is a favourite of yours. We’ve missed you, and your voice.’ He reached the pulpit, and closed himself in. ‘Shall we stand?’
Cracknell, scowling, considered sulking in his seat and refusing to join in, but had always been admired for his sweet tenor and couldn’t resist the melody. Since he’d already broken his resolve not to darken the church doors in protest at the hand the Almighty had dealt he might as well be hanged for a goat as for a kid. The loss of Gog a few days before (found tipped on her side, her yellow slotted eyes rolled back in horror and no wound anywhere) had given him a new resolve: the Trouble was no rumour conjured out of air and water, but had flesh and bones, and was nightly creeping nearer. Only that morning Banks reported having seen something black, slick, just beneath the water’s surface, and up at St Osyth the day before a boy had drowned on a clear day. For the life of him Cracknell could make no link between the small sins of a small village and divine judgment, but divine judgment it certainly was; and if the vicar wasn’t going to give the call to repentance he’d best do it himself.
Fortunately for the Reverend Ransome, Cracknell had chosen a seat warmed by a shaft of sunlight, and between the spring heat and his two coats he sank into a slumber that punctuated the collect with his snores and murmurings.
From her dim corner Cora watched the congregation bow for prayer and stand for song; she smiled at babies held over their mothers’ shoulders and pawing at children seated behind; she heard how the preacher’s voice altered a little as it moved from prayer to verse. Beside her on the wall a scuffed plaque read David Bailey Thompson, Choirboy 1868–1871, RIP; and she thought: Was it that he lived or sang only those three brief years? At her feet the parquet floor lay in the pattern of a herring-bone and the pale wood glowed, and all the stained glass angels had the wings of jays. Something in the second of the hymns – the melody perhaps, or a line or two half-remembered from childhood – touched a place she thought had scarred over, and she began to cry. She had no handkerchief, because she never did; a child saw her tears in astonishment and nudged its mother, who turned, saw nothing, and turned away again. The tears would not stop, and Cora had nothing but her hair to wipe her eyes; only the preacher from his white stone vantage point saw her; saw the deep breaths with which she tried to suppress a sob, and how she tried to hide her face. He caught her eye and held it, and his look was one she could not remember having ever received from a man. It was not amused, or acquisitive, or appalled; had it in no hauteur or cruelty. She imagined it was how he might look at James or Joanna, if he saw them in distress; yet could not have been, because it was a look divided between equals. It was brief, and his gaze moved on, out of delicacy and because the music had ended, and since it was too late to conceal her disgrace Cora let the tears fall.
At the end of the service, her good humour recovered enough that she was able to laugh at herself and at the damp marks on the front of her dress, Cora kept her seat until Will was safely crowded at the door with well-wishers and children. She had no real objection to being seen in her sadness, but was afraid she might be offered pity, and would rather bide her time until she could make her way back to Martha and the safety of her ammonites and notebooks, which had never once made her cry. Deciding it was safe to leave, she slipped out of the pew at its darkest side and encountered – plainly awaiting her – Cracknell in his fur-collared coat.
‘How do,’ he said, delighted at having startled her. ‘A stranger in our midst, I see. What’re you doing here in them green boots of yours?’
‘I may well be a stranger,’ said Cora, ‘but at least I was on time! Also: my boots are brown.’
‘Right enough,’ said Cracknell: ‘Right enough.’ He flicked an earwig from his sleeve. ‘You’ve heard tell of me I expect, and quite rightly too, since the Parson over there’s an especial friend of mine and one I cherish somewhat having little else left worth the cherishing.’ He gave her his hand, and his name.