AMOS RAN INTORupe Underwood on the High Street and realized they had not met for a while. The Methodists had at last split from the Church of England, and Rupe was probably among those who had decided to stick with the Established Church. Amos asked him directly: ‘Have you given up on us Methodists?’
‘I’ve given up on Jane,’ Rupe said sourly. He tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. ‘Or rather, she’s given up on me.’
This was important news to Amos. ‘What’s happened?’
Rupe’s handsome face twisted in a grimace of disappointment and resentment. ‘She has jilted me, that’s what. So you can have her. I won’t even be jealous. She’s all yours, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘She cancelled the engagement?’
‘We were never formally engaged. We had an “understanding”. Now we don’t. Goodbye, she said, and God bless you.’
Amos felt sorry for Rupe, but at the same time he could not help being filled with hope. If Jane no longer wants Rupe, he wondered, is there a chance that she might want me? He hardly dared to think about it. ‘Did she say why she was breaking it off?’
‘She didn’t tell the truth. She says she has realized that she doesn’t love me. I’m not sure she ever did. The truth is that I haven’t got enough money.’
Amos still did not understand. ‘But something must have happened to change her feelings.’
‘Yes. Her father resigned from the Anglican clergy. He’s no longer a canon of the cathedral.’
‘I know, but—’ Then it hit him. ‘Now he’s poor.’
‘He’ll be living on whatever the Methodist congregation can scrape together to pay him. No more fancy clothes for Jane, no maids to dress her and do her hair, no more embroidered undergarments.’
Amos was shocked by the mention of undergarments. Rupe could not know anything about Jane’s undergarments, could he? But they had been a sort of couple for a long time. Perhaps she had permitted liberties.
Surely not.
Amos decided not to think about it. ‘Has she fallen for someone else?’ he asked.
‘Not as far as I know. She flirts with everybody. Howard Hornbeam is probably the richest bachelor in Kingsbridge – perhaps she’ll set her cap at him.’
It was possible, Amos thought. Howard was not very bright, and certainly not handsome, but he was amiable, unlike his father. ‘Howard’s a couple of years younger than Jane, I think,’ he said.
‘That won’t hold her back,’ said Rupe.
*
On Sundays, after the morning services in the town’s churches and chapels, some Kingsbridge folk were in the habit of visiting a graveyard. Amos occasionally felt the impulse to spend a few minutes remembering his father, and went from the Methodist Hall to the cathedral cemetery.
He always paused at the tomb of Prior Philip. It was the largest monument there. Philip, a twelfth-century monk, was a figure of legend, though not much was known about him. According toTimothy’s Book, a history of the cathedral started in the Middle Ages and added to later, Philip had organized the rebuilding of the cathedral after it was destroyed in a fire.
Amos looked away from the monument and saw Jane Midwinter at another grave a few yards away, dressed in sombre grey. Since his conversation with Rupe he had been hoping for a chance to talk to her. This was a most inappropriate moment, but he could not resist the temptation. He went to stand beside her and read the tombstone:
Janet Emily Midwinter
4th April 1750
to
12th August 1783
Beloved wife of Charles
and mother of Julian, Lionel, and Jane
‘With Christ, which is far better’
He tried to picture Jane’s mother, but it was hard. ‘I hardly remember her,’ he said. ‘I must have been ten when she died.’
