prayer, she clutched onto the traditions of her childhood like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to the small remains of his ship.
Please be there, God. Oh, please be there, because I can’t face nothing. I can’t face all that I am being reduced to dust. I don’t want to believe that George is in the ground. He’s so much bigger than that. There has to be an immortal part of him that lives on somewhere. After all, he climbed mountains. He was a brave adventurer. I can’t believe that the adventure is over and my larger-than-life George is rotting in a coffin beneath the ground. What was it all for? George was a good man; he deserves more than that. Please God, be up there somewhere. I want to believe in you, I really do. I want to think of George in heaven. I want to believe there’s a place for me, too, because I’m frightened of being left alone. Tears squeezed through her lashes, and she pressed her clenched hands to her mouth. Oh, God, I’m frightened of being alone in the dark .
She remained there on the hassock for a long while, listening to her breathing and the decelerating beats of her heart. At length the silence began to soothe her troubled soul, and the soft vibrations that filled the church from many centuries of candlelight and prayer eased her distress. When she sat up, she felt strangely uplifted. Gone was the terrible fear. In its place there remained a strange sense ofresignation—a feeling that someone stronger was going to take care of everything.
She walked outside and squinted in the brightness. She looked down at her watch; it was now just after six p.m. She had been in there for over an hour, so no wonder her eyes were taking time to adjust. As she set off down the path she noticed, to her horror, her mother-in-law chatting to Reverend Morley beneath the wooden gable of the church gate. They were so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t notice her. Antoinette froze and frantically tried to think of another way out. The only exit was through the gate, where her car was parked on the verge, but there had to be an escape route behind the church.
She turned around slowly, so as not to catch their attention, and walked as softly and swiftly as she could around to the back of the church. Once out of sight she strode faster, disappearing into shadow, and hurried across the grass to a high wall that bordered someone else’s property. Cut into the wall was a rusted iron gate. She peered through and marveled at the sight of a lovingly tended garden. It was very big, with a well-mown lawn, borders of neatly trimmed perennials, and burgeoning plants. Against the wall was a herbaceous border, and along the right side clusters of daffodils and tulips were beginning to rise out of the compost and shine in the evening sun. The house at the far end was a pretty Georgian building with a red-tiled roof upon which a couple of pigeons perched together, as absorbed in each other as the Reverend Morley and Margaret Frampton.
Antoinette didn’t know who lived there. She wasn’t in the habit of socializing with the village, and many houses like this one were hidden down driveways and behind towering trees and shrubbery. It didn’t look as if the owner was there, at least not outside, so she sneaked through the gate, which she found to her relief to be unlocked.
With her heart beating wildly she crept around the periphery of the garden. She felt like a criminal—though, on reflection, anything was better than having to stop and talk to her mother-in-law. As shemade her way around she was arrested suddenly by the unmistakable smell of Daphne odora . She paused to inhale the sweet, jasmine-like scent of the shrub already in flower, and her heart filled with pleasure. She took another luxurious breath, savoring the scent in her nostrils. Since George’s death she hadn’t been in her garden. She wasn’t even sure whether hers were out yet, which was unusual for Antoinette, because she considered Daphne
Please be there, God. Oh, please be there, because I can’t face nothing. I can’t face all that I am being reduced to dust. I don’t want to believe that George is in the ground. He’s so much bigger than that. There has to be an immortal part of him that lives on somewhere. After all, he climbed mountains. He was a brave adventurer. I can’t believe that the adventure is over and my larger-than-life George is rotting in a coffin beneath the ground. What was it all for? George was a good man; he deserves more than that. Please God, be up there somewhere. I want to believe in you, I really do. I want to think of George in heaven. I want to believe there’s a place for me, too, because I’m frightened of being left alone. Tears squeezed through her lashes, and she pressed her clenched hands to her mouth. Oh, God, I’m frightened of being alone in the dark .
She remained there on the hassock for a long while, listening to her breathing and the decelerating beats of her heart. At length the silence began to soothe her troubled soul, and the soft vibrations that filled the church from many centuries of candlelight and prayer eased her distress. When she sat up, she felt strangely uplifted. Gone was the terrible fear. In its place there remained a strange sense ofresignation—a feeling that someone stronger was going to take care of everything.
She walked outside and squinted in the brightness. She looked down at her watch; it was now just after six p.m. She had been in there for over an hour, so no wonder her eyes were taking time to adjust. As she set off down the path she noticed, to her horror, her mother-in-law chatting to Reverend Morley beneath the wooden gable of the church gate. They were so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t notice her. Antoinette froze and frantically tried to think of another way out. The only exit was through the gate, where her car was parked on the verge, but there had to be an escape route behind the church.
She turned around slowly, so as not to catch their attention, and walked as softly and swiftly as she could around to the back of the church. Once out of sight she strode faster, disappearing into shadow, and hurried across the grass to a high wall that bordered someone else’s property. Cut into the wall was a rusted iron gate. She peered through and marveled at the sight of a lovingly tended garden. It was very big, with a well-mown lawn, borders of neatly trimmed perennials, and burgeoning plants. Against the wall was a herbaceous border, and along the right side clusters of daffodils and tulips were beginning to rise out of the compost and shine in the evening sun. The house at the far end was a pretty Georgian building with a red-tiled roof upon which a couple of pigeons perched together, as absorbed in each other as the Reverend Morley and Margaret Frampton.
Antoinette didn’t know who lived there. She wasn’t in the habit of socializing with the village, and many houses like this one were hidden down driveways and behind towering trees and shrubbery. It didn’t look as if the owner was there, at least not outside, so she sneaked through the gate, which she found to her relief to be unlocked.
With her heart beating wildly she crept around the periphery of the garden. She felt like a criminal—though, on reflection, anything was better than having to stop and talk to her mother-in-law. As shemade her way around she was arrested suddenly by the unmistakable smell of Daphne odora . She paused to inhale the sweet, jasmine-like scent of the shrub already in flower, and her heart filled with pleasure. She took another luxurious breath, savoring the scent in her nostrils. Since George’s death she hadn’t been in her garden. She wasn’t even sure whether hers were out yet, which was unusual for Antoinette, because she considered Daphne
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