Page 59 of The Armor of Light

‘I’m a funny kind of Methodist. I’m not good at following rules.’ Spade shrugged. ‘The best thing about Methodists is that they think the heart matters more than the rules.’

‘And you believe that, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘So do I.’

‘You’d better join the Methodists.’

She smiled. ‘What a scandal that would be. The bishop’s wife!’ She turned and picked up a small pile of freshly laundered choir robes that she had put down on the font. ‘I must stow these in the vestry.’

He did not want the conversation to end. ‘I assume you don’t do the laundry yourself, Mrs Latimer.’

Of course she did not. ‘I supervise,’ she said.

‘Well, you can supervise me if I carry the robes for you.’ He took the bundle from her and she let it go willingly.

She said: ‘Sometimes I feel that half my life is about supervision. If it were not for books I don’t know what I’d do to fill the time.’

He was interested. ‘What do you like to read?’

‘I’ve got a book about the rights of women, by Mary Wollstonecraft. But I have to keep it hidden.’

Spade did not have to ask her why. The bishop would disapprove strongly, he felt sure.

‘I like novels, too,’ she said. ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.’ She smiled. ‘You remind me of Tom Jones.’

The two of them walked across the nave. Nothing much was happening, but he felt tension between them like an unspoken secret.

He had not forgotten that moment in his sister’s shop, more than two years ago, when she had caught him admiring her figure and had raised her eyebrows, as if intrigued rather than offended. That look was vivid in his memory. He had told himself to forget about her, but he had failed.

He followed her through a low door in the south transept. The vestry was a small, bare room containing a bookshelf, a looking-glass and a large oak box called a cope chest. She lifted the heavy lid of the chest and Spade carefully laid the robes inside. Arabella scattered some dried lavender to keep away the moths.

Then she turned to him and said: ‘Twelve years.’

He looked at her. There was a moment of sun outside, and a beam from a small window fell on her hair, picking out the auburn lights, which seemed to gleam.

He said: ‘I was remembering how much fun everything was when we were naive youngsters. Innocent delight. It’ll never happen again.’

‘You were in love with Betsy.’

‘Love is the best thing in the world to have, and the worst to lose.’ For a moment he felt terrible grief, and he had to fight back tears.

‘No, you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Even worse is to be trapped and know you will never have it.’

Spade was startled, not by what she had said – which he and others might have guessed – but by the fact that she had made such anintimate confession. However, he was curious as well as surprised, and he said: ‘How did that happen?’

‘The boy I wanted married someone else. I thought I was broken-hearted, but I wasn’t, really, I was just angry. Then Stephen asked me and I said yes because it would be a poke in the eye for the boy.’

‘Stephen was much older.’

‘Twice my age.’

‘It’s hard to imagine you being so rash.’

‘I was foolish when I was young. I’m not very wise now, but I used to be worse.’ She turned away and lowered the lid of the chest. ‘You asked me,’ she said.

‘Sorry to be nosy.’