Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [151]
She knelt on the chill stone floor, and tried to read the Latin that bordered the figure. Tracing the incised letters with her fingers, she could make out part of the inscription. Something about peace . . .
The door of the church scraped open, and Francesca looked over her shoulder to see the rector just stepping into the shaft of sunlight that pointed, like an accusing finger, in her direction.
“Miss Hatton!” William Stevens exclaimed, shocked to find her on her knees in the middle of the church. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Good afternoon— No, I’ve just come to look at the brass. I don’t think I’ve ever really examined it before. Can you read the words here?”
He came toward her, limping. He had been wounded at Mons, his face raked and part of a foot cut away by shrapnel as he ministered to the wounded and the dying. A man of perhaps thirty-two, old for the shredding flail of war. And sent here to a secure and undemanding living while he healed in spirit as well as flesh. There were whispers that he walked the churchyard late at night, talking to the dead. Francesca thought perhaps he simply found it hard to sleep without dreaming.
“It’s Medieval Latin,” he was saying. “I’m no scholar. I’ve often wondered myself how it should best be translated. See, there’s an abbreviation. I know that much. And that word is peace—and there is the word for sin . . .”
“I expect he lived a rather brutal life,” she observed. “And needed whatever forgiveness he could find.”
“Most likely. At a guess, it reads, ‘For the sins of my youth, I have paid. God accept my soul and grant it peace.’ ” He grinned. “It depends on where you start deciphering it. But it’s a prayer we could all make.”
“It’s always been called the Somerset Brass. Do you know why?”
“Not really. But I’ve heard that this church was scraped together from bits and pieces languishing elsewhere. Your grandfather could have told us, I’m sure. The flagstones in the choir are said to be from a convent in London. The brass here is from Somerset—and that baptismal font from Essex.”
“Essex—” she echoed.
“Yes. A good many villages vanished in the plague years, you know. People died, houses and churches fell to rack and ruin. And of course not much later there was Henry the Eighth letting Cromwell loose on the monasteries. I shouldn’t be surprised if these things were rescued and brought here by the founding family to give the sanctuary some air of age. A baptismal font was not a common thing, you see—in the old days, it gave a church status to have the right to baptize. A mark of religious significance.”
“I didn’t know that.” She rose, dusting her hands and the front of her skirt. “But why Somerset—and Essex? Did the Valley have ties with such places?”
“Lord, no, not to my knowledge. Although, as I said, whoever gave us the church may have done.”
He paused, as if not wanting to change the subject until she was ready. “About Friday—”
“The funeral.” Francesca sighed. “I understand Mr. Branscombe has made all the arrangements.”
“But you may change whatever you like,” Stevens assured her. “I don’t expect—given the war—that we shall see a great throng here for the service. What’s important is that it should please you.”
“That’s kind.” Her eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. “I should like to be sure the music includes his favorite hymns—”
“I’d thought of that, and believe I’ve managed to do rather well.” Stevens’s scarred face smiled, giving the sinister set of its lines in repose a warmer appearance.
“Thank you.” Looking around her, Francesca said, “We have no memorials to my cousins, do we? I’d thought my grandfather would have seen to that.”
“Your grandfather had a difficult time coming to terms with their loss. Especially young Harry. I don’t think he needed reminders in brass or stone. Would you care to see to it?”
“Yes. By all means. Would black marble be out of place here, do you think? Black for mourning