The People on Privilege Hill by Jane Gardam Read Free Book Online Page B

inch of the Common,” said Mr. Jones. “I’m never afraid.”
    But most days he was invisible; lurking inside his house. Sometimes he even missed Sunday church, which was why it was not until Christmas time that he caught on to the news that his vicar was moving to a parish in the north of England. Mr. Jones said nothing, but after Evensong that dark night he was seen by the vicar’s wife standing across the road from the vicarage in the rain. She ran out without her coat, pulled him into the house and in the little hallway held his cold, gloveless hands. The vicar appeared and said, “Oh God! We’ve prayed, we’re still praying that this ridiculous business will be dropped before we leave. We didn’t want you to know we were going until you’re settled again. Mr. Jones, we shall not ever desert you. I shall be at your trial. I promise.”
    â€œTrial?”
    He told Mr. Jones (yet again) the date fixed at Quarter Sessions. He reminded him there would be a jury. He said that his Counsel was excellent. That there was money enough to pay her. That everyone was totally supporting him.
    â€œI’m not sure,” said Mr. Jones.
    â€œStay with us tonight.”
    But Mr. Jones preferred to go home.
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    In the rain, now turned to sleet, he went padding away and as he came to the church he saw that there were lights inside it. The Christmas lights, for it was still Epiphany, the feast of the Three Wise Men at Bethlehem. Turning off church lights had been his dominion for half a century and his reaction was immediate and automatic. This was somebody else’s disgraceful negligence. He turned into his house where there was still a church key behind the front door next to the dogs’ lead and hurried back again. He unlocked the church, switched on the light inside so that he would be able to see his way out again, as he had done a thousand times. He walked down the south aisle to switch off the tree. How very careless. How dangerous. Never happened before. And the light inside the Christmas crib was on, too, and the usual torch hidden in the hay around the holy family. The whole church could be ablaze by morning.
    A barefoot child was looking at the crib. He was examining in his hand one of the little carved kings.
    â€œHow dare you!” Mr. Jones astonished himself with a parade-ground voice. “What are you doing here? This is holy ground. You behave as if you owned the place. Put down the Wise Man.”
    The child replaced the figure in the stable, and disappeared.
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    The weather worsened. Mr. Jones kept within doors. Some people began to be kind. They left him Christmas cake and mince pies and leftovers from the turkey at his back door. One or two of the grand neighbours even asked him to their New Year’s parties. He did not reply. The vicar’s farewell party in the church hall took place without him. The vicar sent letters from his new parish, and reminded him that he was not alone and would not be alone at his trial.
    The neighbours began to notice an extended darkness over Mr. Jones’s house. The curtains stayed drawn in the daytime. There was scarcely a light. Nobody answered the doorbell. Someone among the grand neighbours said at a party that they had seen the police raid. Hundreds of pornographic books had been seized. Someone else said they had heard that Mr. Jones believed he was Jane Austen, and one of the male “partners” said that he had been jogging one evening just after Christmas and Mr. Jones had burst out of the church shouting, “I have seen the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Or something of the sort.
    â€œMad,” they said. “But if it’s not true what they say about him . . . If the jury like him—he’s a charmer after all—and he gets off, he’s going to collect a fortune for slander.”
    â€œIt won’t help him,” said another man of the world. “There’ll