“True,” said Bill, “but she speaks it fluently.”
“Go on about the tearoom,” I said to him. “Sally Cook told me that Tillcote folk would steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes. What did Christine Peacock say about them?”
“She told me that Teddy Bunting can’t stand Tillcote’s rector,” said Bill.
My eyebrows rose. “I thought the vicar liked everyone.”
“He does,” said Bill, “with one exception. He feels that Mr. Gunninger is more concerned with showmanship than he is with pastoral care. Or, as Christine put it . . .” Bill launched into a passable imitation of Christine Peacock’s West Midlands accent. “‘Mr. Gunninger is one of those hellfire and damnation types, the sort of preacher who likes the sound of his own voice and the rustle of pound notes in the collection plate.’”
“Ouch,” I said, wincing. “Not a glowing review.”
“It gets worse,” said Bill. “Mr. Gunninger charges a small fee to open his church for anyone, including his own parishioners, between services.”
My jaw dropped. Theodore Bunting allowed his parishioners to slip in and out of St. George’s whenever they pleased. In Finch, the church was regarded as a place for worship and contemplation, not as a profit-making venture.
“I’m with Teddy Bunting,” I said stoutly. “Mr. Gunninger sounds like a very disagreeable man.”
“Oddly enough,” said Bill, “Mr. Gunninger is the only Tillcote resident Christine or anyone else in the tearoom could name. They grumbled about ‘this bloke’ or ‘those ladies’ or ‘that lad’ from Tillcote, but the offenders were otherwise anonymous. Our neighbors seem to regard Tillcote folk as generic demons rather than real human beings.”
“The ladies in the churchyard recognized Arthur Hargreaves’s name,” I pointed out, “though they didn’t seem to know much about him.”
“They don’t seem to know much about anyone in Tillcote,” said Bill, “but they think the worst of them all the same.”
“Derek sees it as a case of small-town rivalry run amok,” said Emma. “No one remembers how the feud started, but everyone feels compelled to keep it going. It’s the same old story, isn’t it? An us-versus-them mentality. Some people need to have an enemy in order to feel good about themselves.”
“Arthur Hargreaves isn’t my enemy,” I said stubbornly. “And I don’t care who knows it.”
“You will,” said Emma, “once you start getting the stink-eye.” She straightened her legs and stretched luxuriously. “Time for me to go, I think. If I leave now, I should be able to finish my evening chores before it gets too dark to see the water troughs.”
“One more question?” Bill asked.
“Go ahead,” said Emma.
“Lori and I have lived here for ten years, but we didn’t find out about the feud until today,” he said. “Why hasn’t anyone educated us?”
“More to the point,” I chimed in, “why didn’t you educate us?”
Emma ducked her head sheepishly.
“To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten about the feud,” she said.
“How could you forget about it?” I demanded. “It’s West Side Story in the Cotswolds!”
“Avoiding Tillcote has become second nature to me,” Emma replied. “It’s as automatic as breathing. You wouldn’t expect me to explain breathing to you, would you?”
“I guess not,” I conceded.
“What about the rest of our neighbors?” Bill asked. “Why haven’t they drilled it into us?”
“The villagers don’t talk about Tillcote if they can help it,” Emma explained. “I suppose it’s another way of demonstrating their superiority. Why waste your breath on a place that’s beneath your notice?” She pointed at me. “If you hadn’t forced the issue by bandying the Hargreaves name about, you’d still be living in blissful ignorance.”
“I’m all for blissful ignorance,” I said, “but not if it gets us into trouble. Is there anything else we should know about the feud?”
“Nothing springs to mind,” said Emma. “If something does, I’ll give you a call.”
“Please do,” I said. “I’d rather be educated by you than by Peggy Taxman.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Emma said. She got to her feet. “Now it really is time for me to go. Thanks for the tea and the trail review.”
“Thanks for returning the boys’ book,” said Bill, “and for filling us in on the feud.”
“Better late than never, eh?” she said ruefully.
Bill, Stanley, and I walked Emma to the door, then split up. Stanley padded into the living room to colonize Bill’s favorite armchair, and Bill and I went on toy patrol, our name for the daily round of hit-or-miss tidying that brought a semblance of order to the cottage.
Job done, we went upstairs, looked in on the children, and retreated to the sanctuary of the master bedroom. Though it wasn’t yet nine o’clock, we were ready to call it a day and went straight to bed. I was halfway to dreamland when the baby monitor indicated that Bess was awake.