The Telling

come in and go upstairs without acknowledgement, if she hadn’t been vexed beyond patience at finding her washday made a public spectacle.
    We were still sitting up when the ten o’clock bell rang out. The linen was folded and put away; the fire had died down, and we had opened a window to let out the fug of heat. We were as dumb as moles, fatigued beyond complaint. We sat on the rug, and passed a jar of goose fat back and forth, digging out a lump and rubbing it into our hands. Sally had finished one basket, started another, and abandoned it. It now lay like a jackdaw’s nest under the dark window.
    Above us, the creak and rumble of the meeting went on, and I suppose we listened to that, or rather listened for a change in it, for any sign that it was nearing an end. I was glad of the silence between us, the mute passing of the jar felt like something from when I was a child. The day had done me in. I held only one clear thought in my head: I had to sleep. If they did not leave soon, I would lay my head down on the rug, and close my eyes, and not care if half the county were to troop past and see me lying oblivious on the floor.
    At the half-hour bells, the noise from above altered; furniture scraped on the boards, and clog soles clattered and thumped, and the voices became separate and distinct as the door opened overhead, and the men began to spill down the stairs, their faces cast into sharp shadows by the rush-lights. Mam waited until the last of them was out of the door, and then, shrunken with weariness, she climbed the stairs to her room, and went to bed. Sally and I stumbled out of our clothes and heaped our bedding on the floor.
    Sally breathed quietly, her head pillowed on her arm. Hair-thin threads of light slipped here and there between the boards above. My mouth kept on opening, but I didn’t speak out loud. Her breath was coming deeper, slower; she was drifting further into sleep. I could see blank spaces on the ceiling where no light penetrated. I picked out the pattern of our old room: our bed, the blue and white rag rug in front of the fireplace, the chest, the washstand, and another black shape that for a moment I could not identify: the box. I licked the tea-scald, the blisters from the iron. Mam’s patience was not inexhaustible. What if she were to hear what the Reverend Wolfenden had asked of me? And why, after all, could he possibly need to burn so many candles? Why did he need the light so late?
    *
     
    Morning sun did not reach this side of the house; in the dim light the leather of the Reverend’s chair seem to glow; the deep swirling walnut of the desk had a soft bluish sheen, like silk. The books, lining the walls, were bound in warm tan leather; here and there the gold lettering caught a little light, so that it seemed that tiny candles gleamed and flickered all about the room. I had always liked dusting in there. Before that day, dusting had been the only reason for me to be there.
    The carpet gave under my slippered feet, like moss. The Reverend’s brow creased as I spoke, his chin drawn back into his neck, so that the folds of flesh stood out over his collar. As I told him what I knew, he drew his chin further back; if he continued like this, I thought, he might disappear into his own skin; the rolls of loose flesh would close around his face, like water. When I had finished, he thrust his chin back out again.
    ‘You had no indication of the contents?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    The Reverend nodded, pressed his lips tight in thought. ‘And Mr Moore did not speak of it to you?’
    ‘Sir, I am not in his confidence.’
    The Reverend nodded again, and did not seem to notice how the colour rose to my cheeks.
    ‘You must make an effort to become so. Find out what was in the box, and when you know, come and tell me.’
    ‘Sir –’ My voice failed; I cleared my throat. ‘Sir, I was able to tell you this only because half the parish could have told you; the box was delivered in full public view. As for anything else, I am at a loss, sir, I don’t know how I could go about it. He is a man who one does not easily approach.’
    The Reverend’s look was assessing, but did not seem unkind to me; it was a long moment before he spoke.
    ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I understand. If you leave early this afternoon, you will find him absent; he’s hardly likely to have another holiday so soon. You shall find out for me what is in that box. Then when I summon you again, you shall tell me what