Free Original Sin by P. D. James Page A

women but with none of the gentleness or reticence of a Barbara Pym heroine, applying a ruthless kindness to the problems of the village from bereavements to recalcitrant choirboys, her life as regulated in its pleasures and duties as the liturgical year which gave it shape and focus. And so had Blackie’s life once had shape and focus. It seemed to Blackie that she had no control over anything, her life, her job, her emotions, and that in dying Henry Peverell had taken with him an essential part of herself.
    Suddenly she said: “Joan, I don’t think I can go on at Peverells. Gerard Etienne is getting intolerable. I’m not even allowed to deal with his personal calls. He takes them on a private line in his office. Mr. Peverell used to leave our door ajar, propped open with that draught-excluder snake, Hissing Sid. Mr. Gerard keeps it shut and he’s had a high cupboard moved against the glass partition to give himself more privacy. It’s not very considerate. It cuts off even more of my light. And now I’m expected to house the new temp, Mandy Price, although all the work for her has to be routed through Emma Wainwright, Miss Claudia’s PA. She ought to be sitting in with Emma. Now that Mr. Gerard has had the partition moved my office is cramped even for one. Mr. Peverell would never have agreed to a partition that cut the dining room across the window and the stuccoed ceiling. He hated the partition and fought against it when the alterations were first made.”
    Her cousin said: “Can’t his sister do something? Why not have a word with her?”
    “I don’t like to complain, particularly not to her. And what could she do? Mr. Gerard’s the managing director and the chairman. He’s ruining the firm and no one can stand up to him. I’m not even sure that they want to, except perhaps for Miss Frances, and he’s not going to listen to her.”
    “Then leave. You don’t have to work there.”
    “After twenty-seven years?”
    “Long enough for any job, I’d have thought. Retire early. You joined their pension scheme when old Mr. Peverell set it up. I thought at the time that was very wise. I advised it, if you remember. You won’t get a full pension of course, but there’ll be something coming from that. Or you could take a nice little part-time job in Tonbridge. That wouldn’t be difficult to find with your skills. But why work? We can manage. And there’s plenty to do in the village. I’ve never let the PCC make use of you while you’re at Peverells. As I told the vicar, my cousin is a personal secretary and spends all her day typing. It’s unfair to expect her to do it in the evenings and weekends. I’ve made it my business to protect you. But it would be different once you were retired. Geoffrey Harding is complaining that acting as secretary to the PCC is getting too much for him. You could take that on for a start. And then there’s the Literary and Historical Society. They can certainly do with some secretarial help.”
    The words, the life they so succinctly described, horrified Blackie. It was as if, in those few ordinary sentences, Joan had pronounced a life sentence. She realized for the first time how unimportant a part West Marling played in her life. She didn’t dislike the village; the rows of rather dull cottages, the shaggy green beside a malodorous pond, the modern pub which triedunsuccessfully to look seventeenth-century with a gas-fired open hearth and black-painted beams, even the little church with its pretty broach spire evoked no emotion as strong as dislike. This was where she lived, ate, slept. But for twenty-seven years the centre of her life had been elsewhere. She had been glad enough to return at night to Weaver’s Cottage, to its comfort and order, to her cousin’s undemanding companionship, to good meals elegantly served, to the sweet-smelling wood fire in winter, the drink in the garden on warm summer nights. She had liked the contrast between this rural peace and the