Free A Tangled Web by Ann Purser

churchwardens, most of 'em.' She poured second cups all round.
    'Rubbish, Ellen Biggs!' said Ivy hotly. 'It's not a job I'd say thank you for, and I reckoned that Reverend Brooks was very pleasant, considering.'
    'Considering what?' said Doris, licking the sticky white icing from her fingertips and making a mental note to give Ellen some paper napkins for Christmas.
    'Considering he'd been listening to all kinds of nonsense from people who never go to church, except to gawp at the new man,' said Ivy, sending a poisonous dart at old Ellen, who deflected it with the ease of long practice.
    'All the parish were invited,' she said, 'and Reverend Brooks said to me that he would think of himself as the pastor of the whole village, not just the churchgoers.'
    'He addressed no more than two words to you, Ellen Biggs,' said Ivy Beasley, flushing with annoyance, 'you having been a fixture at the coffee table all evening, eating your way through refreshments provided by someone else!'
    Doris Ashbourne stood up, brushing crumbs from her smooth navy skirt. 'If you two are going to bicker all afternoon, I'm going home,' she said. 'I've got better things to do.'
    Ivy and Ellen were silent for a moment, then Ellen said, 'Oh, all right, Ivy, he never said it to me. But you do provoke on purpose, don't yer?'
    Ivy's face was set. She continued to sit in silence, and the other two chatted of gardens and the price of vegetables at the shop and why they weren't fresher, considering they were surrounded by good growing land, and then Ivy put down her plate with a clatter.
    'Well, if you want to know what I think of the new parson,' she said, 'I think we'll be very lucky if he decides to come. Course, we don't know what his wife's like, but I thought he was a very nice man.'
    Praise such as this from Ivy Beasley was so unexpected that Ellen sat down with a bump in her chair, widening the split in the threadbare upholstery.
    'What 'as come over you, our Ivy?' she said, but Doris chimed in quickly, 'I quite agree, Ivy, a very nice man indeed. He seemed to get to know everybody at once, and listened to what you had to say.'
    'Well, I don't know I'm sure,' said Ellen Biggs. 'Ow much is it to join the Reverend Brooks's fan club?'
    A clap of thunder drowned Ivy Beasley's reply, and old Ellen struggled to her feet. 'You'd best be off 'ome,' she said, 'else I'm goin' to be stuck with the pair of you for hours.'
    They hurriedly took the tea things out to Ellen's tiny kitchen, and then Ivy and Doris, glancing apprehensively at the lowering sky, began to walk quickly back towards the Green. The rain was heavier, and streaks of lightning flashed over the Hall, lighting up the village with eerie electricity. 'Need a lift, ladies?' said a voice. With the rumbling thunder in their ears, Doris and Ivy had not noticed Bill Turner's old van drawing up behind them. 'Hop in the back quick,' he said, 'you won't be there for more 'n a minute.'
    It was no time to argue, and the women scrambled into the back of the van, pulling the doors shut behind them. The rain beat harder down on the roof of the van, and Doris said, 'You came along just in time, Bill, we'd have got soaked to the skin.'
    Ivy Beasley sat on a paper sack of rabbit mix and stared at the floor of the van. As it drew up outside Victoria Villa, she leaned forward and carefully picked up something from the floor. 'What you got there, Ivy?' said Doris, but Ivy Beasley shook her head. 'It's nothing,' she said. 'Just thought I saw a coin down there, but it was only a stone.'
    Why, then, wondered Doris Ashbourne, did you pick it up and put it in your pocket, Ivy Beasley, answer me that ...

 
     
    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    'I saw Joyce Turner in the garden after dinner,' said Jean Jenkins to her husband as they sat having their tea. 'She were still in that scruffy dressing-gown- I don't know how she has the nerve . . . anybody could see her over the fences.'
    'Shouldn't think anybody would want to look,' said Foxy,