Episode Seven

 So, what next? The villagers have their say...

That evening in the Crown and Thistle it was exactly as Marie Templeton had predicted. All talk was about the new arrival. As swiftly as she pulled the pints and poured the sherries new theories about who the young woman could be flowed across the bar. Marie cursed her lack of knowledge. It was the duty of a landlady, she always thought, to know everything that was going on in the village and to keep her regulars up to date. As it was, she knew very little but the chatter around the bar provided no end of ideas, most downright ludicrous but rather entertaining for that.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” George Richards piped up.

“Oh good, another daft notion,” Marie muttered to her husband Bob as she polished George’s special glass. She pulled the handle of the beer pump and half filled the glass, waiting for George’s permission to make it a full pint. Sibyll Richards wouldn’t approve of more than a half pint during the week but George on occasion could be a rebel and order a whole pint. This evening he shook his head and paid for a half. Marie turned her back as he began to speak and put the coins in the cash drawer.

“Well, she walked up towards the church, see. Now I know the vicar ent the brightest of souls in ways of the world but we all know the sort of girls that wear skirts like that. I reckon…”

“Don’t tell me you think she’s Reverend Pritchard’s fancy piece?” Evan Lewis butted in. The bar erupted in laughter and even Marie had a giggle at the thought of Reverend Pritchard with that type of girl. Or even any type of girl really.

“Now don’t be daft, Evan. I didn’t mean like that. I mean she’s a …” he dropped his voice to barely a whisper, “ a fallen woman.”

“Where do girls like that fall from then?” Edward Smith asked. “I’ve been around the world a bit and one’s never fallen near me!”

The regulars erupted into more laughter and George Richards slammed his glass on the bar, jammed his hat on his head and stood up, knocking the barstool over as he did so.

“If that’s all the respect I’m getting, I’ll take myself off home!”

“You won’t get any respect there George, Sibyll don’t respect no-one, least of all thee.”

George Richards’ shoulders slumped. There was truth there and it stung him. The whole village knew that Sibyll wore the trousers in their marriage and it was a source of shame that they did know. He left the bar, head hanging low, feet dragging on the stone floor.

“That was unkind,” Marie said. She folded her arms across her ample bosom and stared until every eye was lowered, every head bowed.

“But she could well be a fallen woman, Marie,” Edward said. “Laverage girls don’t dress like that, do they?”

“I’m sure I’ve seen some of the older girls in similar skirts, going into Hambleford for the dancing,” said Bob Templeton. “It’s the fashion these days. Good job I don’t have a daughter, I wouldn’t let her out in something like that, I can tell you.”

“But she didn’t stop at the church, did she? She walked on, up to the big house. Edwin was passing on his motorbike and saw her going up the drive, didn’t you Edwin?”

Edwin Wright drank deeply, placed his glass slowly on the bar and blinked twice.

“That I did.”

“So she’s not a fallen woman after the vicar, she’s summat to do with Mrs Howard.” Edgar Wright mirrored his brother’s movements and nodded his head for emphasis.