âCursed is he that perverteth the judgement of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow.â
from the Service of Commination, in the office
for Ash Wednesday in The Book of Common Prayer.
âThe Manor of Roth is not mentioned in the Domesday Book â¦â
Audrey Oliphant, The History of Roth
(Richmond, privately printed 1969), p. 1.
Then darkness descended; and whispers defiled The judgement of stranger, and widow, and child â¦
.....
With flames to the flesh, with brands to the burning, As incense to heavân the soul is returning
from âThe Judgement of Strangersâ by the Reverend
Francis St. J. Youlgreave in The Four Last Things
(Gasset & Lode, London, 1896)
We found the mutilated corpse of Lord Peter in the early evening of Thursday the 13th August, 1970. He was the first victim of a train of events which began towards the end of the previous summer when I met Vanessa Forde â or even before that, with Audrey Oliphant and The History of Roth.
Every parish has its Audrey Oliphant â often several of them; their lives revolve around the parish church, and in one sense the Church of England revolves around them. It was inevitable that she should be a regular visitor at the Vicarage, and it shamed me that I did not always welcome her as warmly as I should have done. It also irritated me that the Tudor Cottage cat treated the Vicarage as his second home, braving the traffic on the main road to get there.
âMiss Oliphant practically lives here,â said my daughter Rosemary at the end of one particularly lengthy visit. âAnd if she doesnât come herself she sends her cat instead.â
âShe does an awful lot for us,â I pointed out. âAnd for the parish.â
âDear Father. You try and find the best in everyone, donât you?â Rosemary looked up at me and smiled. âI just wish she would leave us alone. Itâs much nicer when itâs just the two of us.â
Audrey was in her late forties and unmarried. She had lived in Roth all her life. Her house, Tudor Cottage, was on the green â on the north side between Malikâs Minimarket and the Queenâs Head. Its front garden, the size of a large bedspread, was protected from the pavement by a row of iron railings. Beside the gate there was a notice, freshly painted each year:
YE OLDE TUDOR TEA ROOM
(Est. 1931)
PROPRIETOR: MISS A.M. OLIPHANT
Telephone: Roth 6269
Morning Coffee â Light Meals â Cream Teas
Parties By Appointment
I had known the place for ten years, and in that time trade, though never brisk, had steadily diminished. This gave Audrey ample opportunity to read enormous quantities of detective novels and to throw herself into the affairs of the parish.
One evening in the spring of 1969, she appeared without warning on my doorstep.
âIâve just had the most wonderful idea.â
âReally?â
âIâm not interrupting anything, am I?â she asked, initiating a ritual exchange of courtesies, a secular versicle and response.
âNot at all.â
âAre you sure?â
âNothing that canât wait.â I owed her this polite fiction. âI was about to have a break.â
I took her into the sitting room and, making a virtue from necessity, offered sherry. Audrey was a small woman, rather plump, with a face whose features seemed squashed; it was as though her skull, while still malleable, had been compressed in a vice â thus the face would have been splendidly in proportion if the eyes and the cheekbones and the corners of the mouth had not been quite so close together.
She took a sip of sherry, allowing the wine to linger in her mouth before she swallowed it. âI was in the library this afternoon and some schoolchildren came in to ask Mrs Finch if she had any books on local history. And it turns out that thereâs a certain amount on neighbouring towns and villages. But very little on Roth itself.â
She paused for another sip. I lit a cigarette, guessing what was coming.
âThen it came to me in a flash.â Her heavy jowls quivered with excitement. âWhy not write a history of Roth? Iâm sure lots of people would like to read one. And nowadays so many people are living here who have no idea what the real Roth is like.â
âWhat an interesting idea. You must let me know if there is anything I can do. The parish records, perhaps? I wonder if Lady Youlgreave might have some useful material. She ââ
âIâm so glad,â Audrey interrupted. âI hoped youâd want to help. Actually, a collaboration was what I had in mind. It seemed to me that we would be ideally suited.â
âI wouldnât say ââ
âBesides,â she rushed on, âthe history of the village canât be separated from the history of the church and the parish. We could even have a chapter on famous inhabitants of the past. Francis Youlgreave, for example. What do you think?â