39. VICAR WITH A VANDYKE BEARD

Poor old Ursula has another funeral to arrange...

“He didn’t know it, he couldn’t have, but he had a dreadfully thin skull,” said Ursula quietly to Jane. She was in the village shop that had once been hers and her face was pale and drawn, her fifty-six years looking more like ninety as her sense of loss and grief persisted.

She had been back from the coast for a couple of days and they had been two days of nightmare darkness.

“We didn’t have any storms of any kind here,” said Jane, not sure what she should be saying and aware that nothing would truly comfort her friend.

“It only lasted for minutes and it was over,” explained Ursula, “but it only took that one battering by hailstones like I’ve never seen hailstones before to take his life. The pathologist said it was nasty but most people would have survived it with no trouble. But not Cardew. I wish I’d have known about his skull. I would have draped myself over him to protect him instead of the other way round.”

“I’m so dreadfully sorry,” murmured Jane, “and so is Susan.”

“How is Susan?” asked Ursula, needing to draw her mind away from her own deep and painful grief.

“Oh, she’s well enough. She’s gone to the wholesale warehouse in Brumpton to pick up a few things,” smiled Jane, “she can do that much on her own, and she’s learned to drive at last, so she can do stuff like that. It all adds to her self-confidence.”

“I’m pleased it’s working out,” Ursula assured her, “but I’ll have to go. There’s so much to sort out, and I don’t know where to begin. I’ll be at Snooty Academy for the rest of today, going through my things. The new term starts next week, but I’m going to collect my personal stuff today. There isn’t much: all the furniture belonged to Cardew and I’m going to leave it to the school. I don’t want any of it. I’ll be living at my home, in my own room, and that’s filled with memories too now that both my parents have … passed away. What a bloody awful year it’s been!”

“What about the funeral?” asked Jane, thinking poor soul, it’s been nothing but funerals for her, this year…

“I’ll see the vicar this morning. Just another heartache among so many,” sighed Ursula, “but I must keep strong or I fear that I’ll fold altogether, and then I’d be no good for man nor beast. Anyway, give my love to Susan and tell her I’ll see her sooner or later. Primrose should be at the Academy, I suppose, doing whatever it is secretaries do before new school years begin, so I’ll see her.”

The vicar was in. She knocked the door to the large, rambling vicarage and didn’t have to wait long before it was opened by the Reverend Jude Pernicle. He was a sprightly man in his middle years, with a loose dog-collar and a small grey pointed Vandyke beard. But his eyes twinkled as he held out one hand to her.

“Mrs Pinkerton,” he said, demonstrating that he knew the names of his parishioners even if they weren’t regular church goers, but he had officiated at two funerals not so long ago, and that may have gone some way to explaining his familiarity with her name.

She nodded. “I’ve come...” she began, but couldn’t complete the sentence as salt tears forced their way from her already red eyes and ran down her cheeks in tiny rivulets of sorrow. Putting her grief into words made it all the more painful.

“I was so sorry to hear of your recent loss,” he told her, gently letting her know that he understood her reason for knocking his door.

“I’m sorry...” she stammered, “I should...”

“You should come in and have a cup of tea,” he assured her, and waved her in. “Mrs Pumpkin, tea for two, if you’ve got the time: Mrs Pinkerton is in need of refreshment...”

“Is that you, love?” called Doris Pumpkin, “I was heartbroken to hear what happened at the sea-side! Hailstones, I heard, as big as eggs?”

“Tea please,” repeated the Reverend Pernicle, intent on silencing his verbose house-keeper, “unless you’d fancy something a little more spiritual?” he added to Ursula, eyes twinkling.

“No, tea would be fine,” she replied.

“I won’t say anything trite like the Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, because I doubt he has much to do with the weather and its storms,” continued the Reverend, thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t like to blame any supernatural force, be it God or the Devil for what happened at the coast when you were there,” he added, “and I believe half a dozen little ones in their swimming costumes were hurt too?”

“It was Cardew who was killed,” she told him sharply. She knew there had been scared children and a few drops of blood further along the beach, but that wasn’t death and even if it had been it would certainly not have been so important a death as Cardew’s.

“Of course,” he nodded, his beard managing an intriguing little twitch which caught her eye and immediately put her in an unwelcome dilemma because the whimsy of it angered her and the sight of it made her want to smile.

She suppressed the smile.

“He was a good man,” she said, somewhat sharply, “and I will miss him for the rest of my life, I know that I will. But I suppose I’d better arrange the funeral. His body has been brought to Brumpton already.”

“What about a week today?” asked the vicar, suddenly business-like as Mrs Pumpkin brought in a tray with tea and biscuits on it, which she put on a coffee table and then walked back out.

“Th...thanks,” stammered Ursula.

“There is always a method in his madness,” said Jude, controlling his beard with one hand, “He takes a soul here and gives a life there. It is the miracle of our time on Earth, this marvellous giving and taking.”

“Pardon?” interjected Ursula.

“He has many rooms in his celestial home,” the vicar told her, his face serious, “and he will already be ushering your beloved Cardew into one of them, stripped of his worldly weaknesses and ready for the great battle!”

“You what?” asked an incredulous Ursula who thought she had never heard so much nonsense in her entire life.

“The Afterlife, which we all dream of, where we can rest in light and peace for eternity,” sighed the vicar, “the one great reason for this short and brutal Earthly life that we all must suffer.”

“You pompous prat!” exclaimed Ursula, astounded at the total lack of sympathy in the lecture that the Reverend Jude Pernicle, and standing up, intent on storming out. “I’ve never heard of so much nonsense! I wasn’t so sure about whether there’s a God or not in his Heaven when I got here, but you’ve just convinced me that there isn’t! Rooms in a celestial home indeed!”

“You don’t believe?” asked the Reverend, his eyes still twinkling.

“In God? In Heaven and Hell? I do not!” Ursula said quite devoutly. “All I want to do is have my late husband buried with as little pomp and circumstance as possible, if you don’t mind, because personal grief is pomp enough!”

“Oh, that’s easy,” nodded the vicar, “you see, I don’t believe in the garbage either, I only mention it at times of loss because it helps some people as they grieve, but I don’t think there’s one jot of evidence to support the existence of any one of the gods that man has worshipped since he first crawled out of the jungle or wherever he had his birth. But I do believe there’s a lot of good a man of any god can do in the world, if he preaches kindness and love and, yes, says the odd prayer!”

“You do?” asked Ursula, shocked.

“Quite. So shall we do the right thing and return Mr Pinkerton’s flesh to the earth from which, in a tortuous route of natural change and metamorphosis it came, and then take care of the rest of our lives with the diligence that life on Earth deserves? Shall we do that, Mrs Pinkerton? In love and hope and with all things positive driving us?”

And as he spoke that beard of his worked a strange little miracle all of its own, and made Ursula smile.

© Peter Rogerson 18.08.18