A Finer End

you?’
    Touching her belly, Faith said, ‘I think it might have something to do with this. Since the baby — it’s like the world’s more intense. I see better, hear better — everything seems to have another layer.’
    A hormonally boosted increase in perception? Winnie wondered. Or something more? ‘Faith, about the baby — do your parents know where you are?’
    The girl pushed away her empty plate and cup. ‘My dad— They said they never wanted to see me ever again. That I was a disgrace to them.’
    Oh, dear God, thought Winnie. ‘People often say things in anger that they don’t mean. I’m sure your parents have spent the last few months regretting every word, and that they’re worried sick about you.’
    ‘I can’t go back. Not after that. You don’t know my dad. And my place is with Garnet now.’
    Winnie thought she’d glimpsed a hint of tears in Faith’s eyes, but the girl’s chin was set in a stubborn line. She wouldn’t push her luck, but perhaps she could at least open negotiations. ‘Would you let me talk to them?’
    Faith started to shake her head before Winnie had even finished her sentence.
    ‘I wouldn’t tell them where you were,’ Winnie continued. ‘I wouldn’t tell them anything you didn’t want me to — only that you’re all right.’ Seeing Faith waver, she added with a grin, ‘You can trust me to keep a promise — it’s part of my job description,’ and was rewarded with a hesitant smile.
    ‘Could you — could you tell my sister and my brother that I miss them? And my mum?’
    ‘Of course. You give me the address and I’ll go and see them first chance I get.’ Looking round, Winnie realized the refectory was almost empty. ‘We’d better go, or we’ll miss the service.’
    Returning to the front of the cathedral, they made their way down the left-hand side of the nave to the rope that blocked entry to the choir until it was time for the service to begin. There was a sizeable crowd waiting, and after a moment the verger released the barrier and ushered them into the stalls.
    There was a visiting choir that evening, as the cathedral choir was on August holiday, and Winnie saw with pleasure that they were singing the Bach Magnificat, then Parry’s ‘Songs of Farewell’, two of her favourites.
    After the usual rustle and shuffle of people adjusting positions and shedding belongings, a hush fell as the choir processed in and took their seats.
    Surrounded by the rich, dark wood of the stalls and the glow of lamplight, Winnie felt shielded from the outside world, sealed in a nucleus that rendered time and space meaningless. As the music rose about them, she glanced at the young woman beside her. Faith’s countenance was suffused with such joy and longing that Winnie’s heart ached, and she knew that this child was one innocent she would protect with all the weapons of her calling.
     
    Chalice Well Gardens lay in the gentle valley between Chalice Hill and the Tor. The gardens rose, level by level, until the last, an enclosed, leafy bower that housed the well itself. Water the colour of blood filled the five-sided well chamber, then flowed through an underground pipe into the Lion’s Head pool below at an unceasing twenty-five thousand gallons a day and a constant temperature of fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit.
    Nick sat on a bench near the well, waiting for Faith, who had promised to meet him for a half-hour before they both had to be at work. He contemplated the well’s intricate wrought-iron cover, designed just after the First World War by Frederick Bligh Bond; funny how old Bond kept cropping up, once you’d made a connection with him.
    The carving was an ancient symbol called the vesica piscis, two interlocking circles said to represent the interpenetration of the material and immaterial worlds, or the yin and yang where the conscious and unconscious meet.
    It was also said to represent the blending of male and female energy... perhaps a propitious sign for this meeting, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up. He told himself often enough that it was utterly stupid to be in love with a pregnant schoolgirl; he of all people should know better. But it made no difference. And what did he think he would do if she did return his feelings? Marry her and take care of mother and infant? Absurd. He barely managed to feed himself and pay the rent on his caravan.
    But there was something special about Faith, some quality of inner stillness he had never before