25. The Prisoner

THE POETESS part 25

I’ve always had this doubt about religions, especially the men (and more recently also women) who claim to be in some kind of connection with a wizard in the skies. I mean, if he existed up there, what would I be doing hiding away in this pandemic parlour of mine? Wouldn’t he have waved his magic wand or said the right words or something, and the damned virus be dealt with by a benevolent deity?

Anyway, that’s today and this was years ago. So what was this man of the cloth doing ringing my doorbell and asking me for help?

“Me?” asked Rosie, “Why? Are you lost? This is the only house down this lane.”

“No,” he smiled, oozing more oil, “are you Miss Pinkerton? I hate to disturb you, but the local librarian suggested you might be able to help…”

“Really?” she said, “I hardly know the woman!”

“May I come in?”

At least he was polite and asked permission, and he ended up in my kitchen while I resumed giving attention to my already cooling cup of tea.

“I wonder … have you a spare cup?” he asked, his eyes devouring my tea.

“Of course,” replied Rosie, pouring him one, mashing a tea bag in a mug, “What do you want?”

“I was told you take in lodgers occasionally…?”

My first reaction was to ask him to leave, but having invited him in I suppose I had to hear him out. But the last thing I wanted was a clergyman under my roof, chanting thanks to his Lord for what he was about to receive from a Chinese take-away…

“Only in a dire emergency,” Rosie said, hoping to forestall any further information.

“And this may be one,” replied the clergyman with a grim smile. “Let me tell you about little Annie Dengle.”

“If you must,” muttered Rosie.

“I think I must,” he said, diluting the oil in his pulpit voice with a a trace of ice, “Annie was a parishioner of mine and she fell under the spell of an older man. You see, she was only fifteen at the time, and sixteen now, and what I would suggest is the perfect example of a lost soul. This older man should have known better. He should have realised how young she was and treated her with both deference and respect. But he didn’t, and the net result is she became pregnant. I suppose it’s not too unusual for a child of fifteen to have a baby, but Annie’s folks were mentally ill-equipped for the experience.”

“You say an older man did it to her?” asked Rosie, “what’s he doing to help?”

“At the moment he’s in prison, so society has punished him,” nodded the clergyman, “and he’s truly sorry for what he has done. He lost control of his baser instincts, only once, he assures me, but the result was catastrophic for little Annie. For nine months she carried within her the issue of his weakness. Her parents cast her out, they were a highly moral and God-fearing couple…”

“A pregnant child? Cast her out? Moral, you call it? What planet do you come from, Reverend?” demanded an appalled Rosie.

“I know what it sounds like,” he sighed, “but Annie’s parents are good Christian souls, believe you me. They even support an African education charity! But the whole idea that their friends and neighbours would know about their wayward daughter is something they couldn’t bear, and they asked the girl to find alternative accommodation. And that’s where I came in. My wife and I took her in, gave her a room of her own, and my wife, I can assure you, knows how a pregnant woman feels because we’ve got two sons! The man, the father of Annie’s soon-to-be-born child was taken before a court and sent to prison, which is only right and proper.”

“At least I can agree with you there,” murmured Rosie.

“Quite. But let me continue, over a year ago Annie gave birth to a still born infant, and was distraught. She had prepared for the birth, with the assistance of my good wife, and was actually looking forwards to raising a new life. But the poor scrap of flesh was dead before it was born. There was nothing anyone could do for it. Meanwhile, Annie returned to the vicarage and we agreed she could remain with us for as long as she wanted to. She’s still there, recovering from her grief and working for her living at a large store in town. Nobody knows her story, and she wants it to stay that way.”

“Not Woolworth’s?” asked Rosie. The Brumpton branch of Woolworth’s was big enough to employ more staff that she would ever get to know, she was aware of that much.

“Yes,” smiled the Reverend Boniface, “what made you think that?”

“It’s where I work,” she told him. “Don’t worry, I won’t start talking about it if I chance to find out who she is. So where do I come in if your Annie is happy with you?”

“I must be totally honest,” sighed the vicar, “and hold nothing back. The man who is in prison for raping her, and remember she was under-age so that’s the right word for it, was, like me, a man of faith. He was, in fact, my curate, and lived with my wife and I at the Vicarage, which is a sufficiently large building for three people to rattle around like peas in a pod without troubling each other. But Annie’s in his room now and there she must stay because that’s what she wants. Anyway, he has been defrocked and must stay away from ecclesiastic buildings and I don’t want him anywhere near Annie.”

“I should think not!” exclaimed Rosie.

“Which brings me to the whole point of everything I have said. Anthony Boniface, the man who assaulted Annie, is to be released from prison tomorrow and I have said I will find somewhere for him to stay. And when I asked the question the lady at the library suggested you.”

Rosie stared at him in horror. “You mean … you want me to have a rapist living under the same roof as me? Never! Not in a million years!”

The vicar shook his head sadly.

“I know it’s a hard thing for me to suggest, but he’s a decent man. He really is, and no threat to anyone. And I have said I will try to find a roof for him to stay under, at least until something permanent turns up.”

“And is that possible?” asked Rosie.

“Of course. Everything’s possible, everything under the sun. You see, to further complicate matters, Annie has forgiven him. And more than that: she is preparing to marry him when she’s eighteen, if she still feels the same way about him. I know he’s been painted as the villain, but I rather like the man and Annie freely admits that she was fifty percent to blame for what happened.”

“She was a child and he was a man,” growled Rosie.

“She might even ask you to be a bridesmaid,” said the Reverend Boniface, “when she knew I was coming here she told me to say that! So have you room for a foolish man?”

© Peter Rogerson 31.03.21

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