A Tangled Web by Ann Purser Read Free Book Online Page A

flock to tend, and he was pretty sure he would be good at it.
    This lack of humility was tackled during his training, which he completed with honour, and after serving his curacy he had gone to a vacancy in the Church in Wales, to a town where his Welsh blood and his charming manner had made him the success he had hoped for.
    Sophie was a different matter. She could not settle into the narrow, confined life of many of the housewives in her husband's parish. She hated housework, did not consider herself her husband's chattel, and loved to roam around an open landscape, not caring what she looked like and happy not to be speaking to anyone.
    She did what she considered was required of her as the minister's wife, and expected his parishioners to respect her right to be herself. This they did not always do, and after three years a kind of uneasy compromise had settled on the parish. She agreed to take part where she could be useful and interested, and Nigel agreed to defend her against any criticism of being stand-offish and English.
    'Worth finding out more, anyway,' said Sophie, beginning to think that the Midlands were not so very far from Yorkshire, and when she and Nigel found Tresham on the map, she saw the MI was quite handy for a quick dash up to see her elderly parents.
    'Round Ringford's not marked,' said Nigel, looking up the gazetteer, 'so it must be pretty small.'
    'Population's only twelve hundred for the three parishes,' said Sophie. 'Which one has the vicarage?'
    'Doesn't say,' said Richard, reading the advertisement again, 'but my guess is that if the patron lives at Ringford Hall the vicarage will be in Round Ringford. It all sounds very feudal, Soph, do you think I could cope?'
    'Very well, Nigel,' said Sophie wryly, 'you'd be in your element- sherry at the Hall, striding about the village in your canonicals, wowing the old ladies, absolutely in your element.'
    'You're right,' said Nigel, accepting this with enthusiasm. 'I shall write off straight away.'

 
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    Ellen Biggs and Ivy Beasley were walking slowly down the avenue from the Hall, shaded from the hot sun by the cool, dark green canopy of branches above them. As they emerged into the heat of the full sun, they stopped as always on the stone bridge to look at the clear, rippling water, and the village shimmered around them. A group of children, specks of bright colour, livened up the yellowing grass as they played in vivid summer clothes on freshly painted climbing frames and swings, their play area fenced off from the likes of the Jenkins terrier.
    'Things have come to a pretty pass, Ellen,' said Ivy Beasley, 'if Mr Richard is about to foist a woman vicar on us. Poor Reverend Collins would turn in his grave.'
    'Don't believe a word of it,' said Ellen, shaking her head. 'Where'd you get that from, anyway?'
    Ivy Beasley tightened her lips, signifying a vow of silence on sources, and reluctantly began to take off her grey cardigan. 'It's enough to fry you alive today, Eilen Biggs,' she said. 'Do you want to come in for a cool glass?'
    Eilen looked at Ivy, stem-faced and devoid of any colour in her grey skirt and strict white blouse. Eilen herself was carefully dressed in a striped skirt of many colours and a blue and white flowery open-necked blouse, with cool, wide flapping sleeves and an odd assortment of brass buttons. 'To cheer it up a bit,' Ellen had said to an astonished Ivy. 'With your scraggy old neck,' Ivy had said, 'you'd do better with a decent high collar, Ellen Biggs.'
    The two women crossed over to the Green and continued their stroll, following the footpath, which led almost directly to Victoria Villa. A single car moved slowly through the village, otherwise there was nothing much happening. All the silage had been gathered in, shiny black plastic bags of concentrated goodness for the winter cattle, and it was too early for harvest machinery to grind into action with its attendant dust and noise.
    'That's a skylark, ain't