A Knock At The Door

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy hummed a cheerful tune to herself as she wandered around the house, completing small housework tasks. It was a cliche, she knew, but she was humming 'All Things Bright and Beautiful', one of the most cheerful, fun hymns to sing that had ever been written. At least in her opinion. The blonde paused her habitual ceaseless movement for a moment in order to fill the kettle and flick on the switch. As she listened to the familiar sound of the water beginning to boil, Lucy opened a cupboard and pulled out a tin of biscuits. As she pulled off the lid, she carefully considered the contents for a moment before selecting a chocolate digestive and setting it on a saucer, then she replaced the tin's lid and returned it to the cupboard. Stifling a yawn (the result of a long sermon-writing session the night before), she picked up the kettle just as it boiled and sent the hot water cascading over the teabag that awaited it in her cup. Adding milk, removing the teabag and setting down the kettle with the ease of long practise, she picked up the cup and walked through to her cosy living room.

[Janet Weston]

Though so many years had gone by, it still felt a little strange to be knocking at the door of the house that had been her childhood home, though her father had long been retired, and had passed away even before Reverend Parr had arrived. Janet was happy enough that the vicarage was in good hands, however, and more than a little pleased that their new vicar had been a young woman. Some tongues had certainly wagged, but it was the 21st century, after all, and souls were souls, and for her part Janet had never known there to be anything particularly holy about men, alone--and she had grown up surrounded by clergymen, and in days when a woman in the pulpit of the Church of England was almost unimaginable.

Janet had to laugh at herself as she caught herself still thinking of Lucy as the 'new' vicar...but, by some standards, seven years was scarcely any time at all...and it certainly seemed to have flown. Lucy had been the one to manage everything so nicely when Janet had been arranging matters for Bertie's funeral, and though Janet had always liked the young woman, she was especially fond of her after that. It had been a terrible time, in her husband's final illness, his death, and the aching and empty days which had followed; but Lucy had always made time to see her, with an excellent instinct and delicate discretion in handling people's moods and emotions.

The door opened, and Janet Weston smiled her greeting.

"I hope I haven't come at a bad time," she said hastily. "I was just passing and wanted to drop off the rota for next month's altar flowers--Daphne Wyndham finally settled on tulips in memory of her late mother's birthday."

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy had just set down her cup, and had been about to seat herself in an armchair when the knock at the door came. With the good grace of one who was used to it, she left the room that she had just entered, walked briskly down the hallway and pulled open the beautiful wooden door that was the centrepiece of the vicarage's facade, probably as old as the church and just as solidly constructed.
"Oh, hello Janet!" Lucy greeted her visitor with pleasure as the doorway framed the other woman's friendly expression. Lucy would always remember how welcoming and encouraging Janet had been when she first arrived in the village. She had been a little disconcerted to find that certain members of the community still lived far enough in the past that they disagreed with female vicars on principle. As an influential member of said community, and a woman firmly rooted in the modern world, Janet's support had been instrumental in changing the attitudes of certain other villagers.
"Janet, it's never a bad time to visit a vicar, and even if it was, I'd make an exception for you, my dear. Always a pleasure to see you." And though it was a part of her standard pleasantries, Lucy really meant it.
"Oh gosh, yes. Poor Daphne, how is she? I must drop round and see her some time this week." Lucy became so involved in her thoughts of Daphne and her unfortunately departed mother, that for a moment, she quite forgot where she was. When she came back to earth, she was a little flustered at the realisation of what had just happened.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! I just drifted off for a moment there! And I'm keeping you standing on the doorstep- would you like to come in? The kettle's just boiled." Lucy offered, eager for a chance of some socialisation.

[Janet Weston]

Janet wisely held her tongue and only smiled as Lucy's thoughts seemed to wander for a moment.

"Oh, I wouldn't say no to a cup of something hot," she said, seeing as Lucy had insisted she was not intruding. "Hasn't the weather just been vile, lately? If it was a pretty bit of snow I could bear it better, but this rain and wind is intolerable!"

Stepping in at Lucy's invitation, Janet shrugged off her coat and hung it on the coat-stand next to the door, fishing the folded rota out of her pocket and handing it to the vicar.

"...though I must admit it's pretty good for business down at the pub. A couple of logs on the fire and everyone who isn't already curled up beside their own fireplace finds their way to mine--with the added benefit of drinks."

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy smiled and retreated thankfully into the warmth of her hallway, away from the icy winter wind, stepping to one side to allow Janet to enter.

"Disgusting weather." Lucy agreed, closing the door hastily to keep in the heat as soon as her visitor had entered. "Rain, wind, sleet... Just about everything except the snow! I must say, I'll be glad when it's getting towards summer again. Winter holds no attraction for me after Christmas is over."

The vicar opened a second door and showed Janet into her sitting room, taking the folded rota with a smile of thanks as she did so.
"Yes, it must be good for business. The congregation tends to shrink as the weather gets colder. I keep saying we need some form of heating in there, but you know what the Church is like with money. It's the root of all evil, so they try to prevent their vicars from coming into contact with any of it!"

Walking over to the log fire that smouldered apathetically in her grade, Lucy encouraged it into something that bore a closer resemblance to a blaze, then turned to face the pub's landlady.
"I'm afraid I can only offer you tea, coffee or hot chocolate." Lucy said apologetically.

[Janet Weston]

"Oh, goodness," chuckled Janet. "Well I certainly don't expect a soy mochaccino or whatever it was somebody tried to order at the pub the other day. Tea is just fine for me, thank you, dear."

Janet beamed at Lucy as she took a seat at one end of the comfortable sofa which had been crammed into the tidy but cozy little sitting room.

"Happy to see you keep a good blaze going," she said. "Always lifts the spirits, no matter how dreary the day."

[Lucy Parr]

"Tea it is, then." Lucy responded cheerfully, casting an analytical eye over her own abandoned tea and determining that it would still be drinkable. "Milk, sugar?"

The vicar automatically glanced over at the flames in the hearth, then looked back at her guest.
"Oh, I wouldn't be without one. Keeps the whole house warm, more environmentally friendly than central heating and you can watch those flames flickering for hours." One of her favourite things about the Vicarage here was its gorgeous fireplace.

[Janet Weston]

"Milk, please."

Janet folded her hands over her knee with a fond smile of nostalgia spreading across her face as she gazed into the glowing embers, time falling away in places until she felt as if she were a little girl, again.

"...my father had his study at the back of the house--you know the room...and of course if someone came by and needed to discuss anything important he'd see them in there--but he'd always work in here when he could, with my mother popping in and out and me playing on the rug or reading a book. He said he liked the activity, that it helped him to focus, somehow, the way silence and stillness helps others--I never quite understood what he meant...but then perhaps it's something to do with a father's point of view."

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy nodded at the request for milk and trotted briskly through to the kitchen, poured another cup of tea from the kettle, which was still hot, and returned to the living room, setting down the cup in front of Janet and succeeding in making a mess of her perfectly-organised papers by tossing the rota right on the top of her income tax forms. Finally, she seated herself in her favourite armchair and leaned back, ready to listen. As a relative newcomer to the village, Lucy loved listening to Janet's stories of life there and major events in years gone by. It was a fascinating experience.
"Yes, I know the room." Lucy agreed. "I use it as a little library- it gets the light in the afternoons, and it's a lovely space; bright and airy. I understand what he meant, I'm the same way. I'm not lucky enough to have a family and I don't suppose I ever will be, but I just can't stand silence. I have to have the radio on, or a fire going."

[Janet Weston]

Janet raised an eyebrow as she took up her mug and sipped at her tea.

"Gracious, you're a little young yet to give up on having a family, Lucy," she said, her tone a little wry, but still gentle. Of course she understood that some things were just not meant to be--she and Bertie had never had the children they'd once imagined having--but family wasn't just about children; and there was nothing in biology, however faulty, which made marriage impossible. "I dare say there will be any number of eligible beaux coming to town with this rigmarole from the BBC."

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy laughed and raised her eyes to the heavens.
"Oh, don't get me started on the BBC! I've had nothing else but the BBC ever since we found out they were coming! People complaining, people saying what a good idea it is and why didn't anyone think of it before, people wanting to borrow the church for half an hour for a 'Ban the BBC' meeting... It just goes on and on!" The vicar ran a hand through her hair. "I'm not sure that any of these eligible young actors with their million-pound bank accounts and fifteen Aston Martins will be interested in a vicar working on a Church of England salary in a little Cornish village." Lucy was resigned to this kind of thing by now; she had buried herself in a tiny village on the coast, made up chiefly of elderly people. This had severely limited her chance for romance, to say the least.

[Janet Weston]

Janet had to laugh heartily at Lucy's impression of the whole spectrum of villagers, from those agog at the idea of being anywhere near anybody On the Telly, and those who felt it was a sign of the coming apocalypse. Pennys were all one and the same...and somehow everyone was also entirely different from their neighbour...and yet they all got along, somehow. There was more, perhaps, that held them together than drove them apart.

Not that it didn't make for some lively debates in the pub, most nights.

"Men are sometimes unfathomable creatures," she said. "Anything could happen! ...if nothing else, you could have a lovely outing in an Aston Martin."

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy smiled wryly at Janet's remark. "Don't I know it!" she agreed wholeheartedly. "My last boyfriend didn't speak to me for six months before he asked me on a date! He didn't have an Aston Martin, though. If he had, we might have lasted longer." Lucy laughed. "But you didn't come here to talk about my love life, did you? I'm sorry, I've been monopolising this conversation." Lucy had a habit of doing that, as she had noticed increasingly over the past few years. She suspected that it was because of her job. Every Sunday, plus Christmas Day, Easter, etc., she stood in the pulpit and talked pretty much continuously for half an hour or more. No-one interrupted, no-one made comments... It was just her. Talking. It had been her idea of bliss when she first started, but familiarity breeds contempt, as they said, and so it had been with Lucy. She had been embarrassed to find that more and more, she would speak continuously for long periods of time before actually remembering that the other person was there. An occupational hazard. She wondered if it was the same for actors. She'd have to ask one of the droves that seemed to be honing in on Penchurch lately. Preferably a young good-looking one, since, whatever she might have said to Janet, Lucy certainly hadn't given up on romance.

[Janet Weston]

"Dear, a keen interest other people's love-lives is the only thing close to a love-life that I am ever likely to have," said Janet. "Not that I'm looking for one," she added hastily. The well-meant offers from friends to be Set Up with some nice chap they knew--a bachelor uncle or a widower accountant--were beginning to trickle into Janet's life, and she met each of them with the firmest No Thank Yous that politeness would allow. She'd been lucky, once, to find Bertie--and unlucky, then, to lose him. The thought of tempting fate any further by throwing herself back into dating at the age of--well, at her age--was simply exhausting. Not to mention vaguely ridiculous, given what she'd seen 'dating' become over the decades which had elapsed since she'd gotten happily married.

"...what, six months, and not a word until he asked if you fancied getting a drink or something?"

[Lucy Parr]

"Nope, not so much as a good morning!" It had been a source of some irritation to Lucy, who tried to get on well with everyone. It had also made his eventual query quite a shock, though not at all an unpleasant one. It had, unfortunately, lasted only a few months, but they had been a good few months. Some of the best months of her life.
"Men are strange. Sometimes I think they're an entirely different species!" Lucy had never been good at understanding men. Possibly, that was why she had gone through so many of them during her time at home and during her studies. Or maybe it was because she was boring, a fact that she was under no illusions about.