Read Online Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey - Free Book Online Page A

standing, pacing across the small kitchen, twisting the tea towel between his hands.
    ‘Charles, you’re worrying me. What’s the matter? Is it something about the meeting – you’ve been moved to a different parish—’
    As the idea occurred it took root, so that she was already beginning to think through the implications, looking for possible reasons why he might be breaking it to her like it was bad news. Nancy, obviously; if it was somewhere far away – Scotland perhaps, or the wilds of Cornwall – it would be hard not being able to see her, but other than that . . .
    ‘Not quite.’ He sighed and sat down opposite, clasping his hands together and dropping his forehead down onto them for a moment. Then he looked at her, with a directness that was both resigned and slightly challenging.
    ‘The thing is . . . I’ve joined up. I know that as a clergyman I didn’t have to, but I felt I couldn’t not, you see.’ He smiled sadly, imploring her with his eyes. ‘You’re looking at the Reverend Charles Thorne, Chaplain to the Forces, 4th Class. I’m to report for duty at Chester in ten days’ time.’
    He was waiting for her to say something, but her mind was blank with shock, echoing with silence as if in the aftermath of an explosion. Which, in a way, it was, she thought numbly.
    A direct hit at the heart of her marriage.
    ‘It has not been easy. I have searched my soul and spent many long nights questioning God about this path that He has set me on. I would not be being honest with you if I said that I was not afraid, was not unwilling, was not desperate for God to tell me that there was another way in which I could serve Him – here, in King’s Oak, with those I care for . . .’
    Sitting in her usual pew Stella was suddenly reminded of Chamberlain’s speech on the wireless at the start of the war. She wondered if Charles was about to say, ‘No such undertaking has been received,’ and had to press her hand to her mouth to stifle the hideous threat of laughter. Since that night in the kitchen it was as if her emotional switchboard was being manned by an incompetent operator, who kept plugging in the wrong responses.
    ‘But God’s purpose is clear,’ Charles concluded solemnly from the pulpit. ‘I have heard His call, and I have answered it.’
    His arms were braced against the pulpit’s wooden rim, and as he finished speaking he dropped his head down, allowing the full impact of his words to sink into the stunned congregation. For once, no one shuffled impatiently or knitted or dozed. Glancing surreptitiously around, Stella could see that the news had taken them as much by surprise as it had her. Only Reverend Stokes, sitting beside her as Charles’s successor, appeared unruffled. Possibly he was so deaf he hadn’t heard a word.
    It was a powerful sermon, well delivered. For a moment, looking at the shaft of autumn sunlight falling on Charles’s bent head she was relieved to feel a glimmer of the pride and aching concern she knew were more appropriate feelings for a wife whose husband was going to war than the bewilderment, hurt and anger she’d been guiltily lugging around all week like a suitcase full of dirty laundry.
    ‘Let us pray.’
    There was a rustling and creaking as, like sleepwalkers stirring, everyone shuffled forward onto their knees. Stella folded her hands together but kept her eyes open, staring at the spots on her dress.
    ‘Almighty and most merciful Father, who sees all things and knows the secrets of our hearts, we pray to you for those who must fight, even when to do so goes against that which they believe in and takes them far away from those they hold dear. We pray also for them – the people left behind – whose courage, faith, steadfastness and devotion are equally tested, and ask that you watch over them. Keep them safe in body, strong in spirit, sure in the knowledge of your love.’
    It’s not God’s love I want to be sure in the knowledge of, Stella thought