Sweet Sorrow by David Roberts

Author:David Roberts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781849013789
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2011-12-19T17:14:34+00:00

Frieda was rather less effusive when she said goodbye to Verity than when she had greeted her. There were no kisses – just a perfunctory handshake – and she seemed glad to see the back of her. Maybe, Verity thought, she felt she had revealed too much about herself. As a commissionaire opened the swing doors for her, a man wearing a clerical collar stepped back to let her pass. It was Paul Fisher, Rodmell’s vicar – the last person she expected to see at the BBC. For a second or two she couldn’t think who he was.

‘Mr Fisher! What are you doing here?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Hello, Lady Edward. I might ask the same of you.’ He seemed embarrassed and she was sure he would have pretended not to notice her had it been possible.

‘What a coincidence!’ she exclaimed. ‘We were talking about you at breakfast. After he dropped me at the station, Edward was going to meet the girl you very kindly suggested might be able to help with Ada and Jean.’

‘That was a very Christian act – taking in the Gates children.’

‘Not Christian,’ Verity could not resist correcting him. ‘It was what anyone would do in the circumstances – even a Communist.’

Fisher looked as though he was about to start an argument but seemed to think better of it.

‘So what are you doing at the BBC?’ he asked.

‘I’m being interviewed next week about the Spanish Civil War and I was talking through the arrangements. And you?’

‘I’m taking the Daily Service tomorrow and some next week as well. My friend Pat M’Cormick, the vicar at St Martin-in-the-Fields, put my name forward. He took the very first service here.’

‘Goodness. I’m impressed. I shall certainly listen even though I’m not one of the faithful.’

‘I’m well aware of that, Lady Edward.’ He sounded so disapproving that Verity recoiled as though he had hit her. She recovered herself and tried to be friendly. He was Edward’s friend, she reminded herself, and she had no wish to quarrel with him.

‘Please call me Verity. Everyone does. I didn’t mean to offend you. Do you think I talk too much about being an atheist?’

‘It’s not that,’ Fisher responded defensively. ‘It’s just that I’m a friend of Tommie Fox, as you know, and he told me how you wouldn’t let him bless your wedding. He was very hurt.’

His look of reproach stung Verity to the quick. She resented being rebuked by someone who had no right to chastise her and felt herself become angry – her normal reaction when corrected.

‘I won’t try to convert you if you don’t try to convert me!’ she said with an effort at good humour.

‘This is no time for levity, Lady Edward,’ he said, ignoring her request to call her by her first name. ‘We live in a godless age and we face unimaginable evil. How can we hope to overcome our enemies if we cannot overcome ourselves?’

‘You are very severe, Mr Fisher. Did not Christ say forgive your enemies, turn

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