subject for my disfigured friend. I proposed, as the ancient Greeks had done, that perfection of physical form was somehow an expression of well-balanced internal virtues, and it was to these that I was drawn in Alice.
“Then I am obviously entirely without virtue,” Miss Stark observed.
“Heavens above! I didn’t mean to imply that!” I objected. “Your physique was damaged by your terrible accident, so it cannot be judged on such a basis!”
“Regardless, I think any such evaluation is flawed at the outset,” she replied. “And the girl’s beauty makes her all the more dangerous.”
“Miss Tanner isn’t dangerous!”
“Your inexperience blinds you.” She ran a finger over her goggles. “What a shame these only filter light. I wish you could look through them and see what I see in the girl.”
“Which is what?”
“Rupert Hufferton.”
“Pah! Back to your conception of causeless evil!”
My friend shook her head and limped out of the room, quietly saying over her shoulder, “If God is good and no one is evil by nature, then you, as a priest, have just one option remaining.”
“And what is that?”
“Give the Devil his due, Reverend. Give the Devil his due.”
In hindsight, I can acknowledge that I probably knew all along that Miss Stark was correct in her assessment of Alice Tanner. I was aware there was something rotten inside the girl and was cognisant that I was on a course for disaster—yet I couldn’t pull myself back from the brink. In truth, the unfamiliar and irresistible force of bodily desire propelled me, and I was helpless to resist it. So I took my daily walks, exchanged pleasantries with the girl, and every day fell deeper under her spell.
I don’t want to dwell on this for too long. The memory is embarrassing.
The trap was sprung on the first Monday of June in ’87. I was next to the allotment, at the side of the road, making small talk across the fence, when a heavy hand slapped down on my shoulder and yanked me around. Oliver Tanner stood there, his eyes blazing, his breath stinking of whisky, and his mouth twisted into an ugly smirk.
“Here now, what are you up to, my lad?” he demanded.
“I’m just—I’m just—”
“Is he bothering you, Alice?”
“Yes, Dad. He bothers me every day.”
I looked at her in astonishment. “Alice! What do you mean?”
Tanner shook me hard and growled, “Shut up, you! I’ll hear my daughter!”
“He’s always a-comin’ here,” the girl said, and looked at me with scorn in her eyes. “Always pushin’ ’imself at me with ’is foolish sweet talk an’ flattery. I’m sick of it!”
My heart hammered violently. “What? But—no—this isn’t true! Alice, why—?”
“Has he ever laid hands on you, girl?” Tanner snapped.
She looked down and quietly replied, “He tried. I ’ad to run away.”
It was a scandalous lie, and it was spoken with ease.
Tanner gripped me by the collar and practically lifted me off my feet. He thrust his face into mine.
“You’d do that? You’d touch my daughter with your filthy damned hands?”
“I didn’t! I never—I never—”
He shook me again and my teeth rattled. I wasn’t scared—I was too dumbfounded. My brain had frozen with the shock of it. I simply couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
“Stop yammering and explain yourself, or by God, I’ll knock you into Kingdom Come!”
Alice laughed. “He’d like that! He’s a vicar, ain’t he? Don’t do ’im any favours!”
Tanner snorted and grinned. “She don’t come free, my lad. If it’s a taste of Alice you’re after, you’ll have to ruddy well pay for it!”
“P-pay?”
“Aye, pay. There ain’t nothing for nothing in this life, and that includes the liberty you’ve already taken! How much does he owe us, Daughter?”
“I’d say fifty nicker, Dad.”
“But—what?” I spluttered. “This is outrageous! Fifty pounds? That’s a fortune! What for? I haven’t done—”
Again, I was shaken.
“You’re calling my girl a liar, are you?” Tanner roared. “You want me to tell the whole bloody town what you’ve been up to?”
“No! I only—I mean—I love her!”
“What?”
“I love her, Mr. Tanner. I haven’t—I wouldn’t do anything to harm her!”
The blacksmith released me and stepped back. He put his hands on his hips, doubled over, and roared with laughter. “Hah! What do you think of that, Alice? The scoundrel loves you!”
The girl walked a short distance away, clambered over a stile, returned to us, and looked me in the eyes. She said, in a tone of such cruelty that I felt claws of ice digging into my chest, “You love me, Reverend Fleischer? You think I might find ’appiness with a dusty old bookworm—a