3

Humphrey didn't like whispers. It felt exclusionary and reminded him of his school days, stood in his ill-fitting PE kit, in pouring rain, waiting for the other kids to decide which one of them would take him on their team. Both sides always wanted the other to take him and it often led to mass brawls. He always felt somewhat responsible for the cut lips and black eyes that the others sported afterwards, glaring at him, blaming him for their loss. It was, to be fair, usually his fault they lost.

Today, however, he found himself experiencing a gauntlet of opposing views to the Great Turnips and Cucumber Theft. He had heard nothing else but chatter and gossip about it the entire day before and most of this day, to the point where he had not even managed to catch up with events in his newspaper. Three days in a row in which he had failed to read a single column. Not even the comic strips.

On the one hand, he suffered the hissed recriminations for his wicked pilfering. On the other, awe-filled praise for his bold stand against the failure of common decency. He wanted to scream at them all that he hadn't touched the blasted vegetables. That he was, in fact, an innocent bystander in the entire episode. But, with typical self-deprecation, he merely attempted to smile at those who praised him while steadfastly avoiding the eyes of his accusers, bowing his head and wishing he had a hat with a wide brim to hide his face.

Now, however, he faced a greater threat. As he trudged towards the village hall, whispers of "It's just not cricket", and "Good show!" following in his wake, he had to prepare himself for the challenge ahead. Within those four walls of the run-down, seen-better-days hall, he would have to face the one man he wished he would never have to meet again. It was a small village. Their meeting was, in almost every way, inevitable.

The door, with peeling green paint and a sign that had fallen from one nail, forcing it to hang vertically, proclaimed the village hall open. His hand hesitated. He liked hesitating, it gave him time to think. Only, this time he couldn't find anything to think about, other than the issue that touched everyone's lips. Inside, Cornelius Haughton awaited.

With one last glance over his shoulder, seeing almost the entire village watching the drama about to unfold, he frowned. As one, everyone, that he knew were watching, suddenly found other things immensely fascinating. The clouds in the sky. The feral, ginger village cat. Neighbours that they greeted as though they had not met in a long time, instead of only talking to them seconds before. Not one of them had the sheer gall to watch for the, possible, probable, upcoming altercation. Not a one.

He couldn't put it off any longer, pushing open the door and taking that last, fateful step. And ran into Audrey as she came from the heating room-cum store room-cum kitchen, wiping her hands upon an old ragged cloth, her greying hair falling before her eyes. Without a second's hesitation, she wrapped an arm about his shoulder and gripped him in a one-armed hug that threatened to break his clavicle.

"You, old boy, are in for it." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder then tucked the cloth into her back pocket. "I decided to fix that heating that's been giving us trouble. The valve on the gas containers is on its last legs. And I'd rather do anything else than sit in there. He is ... not happy. Oh, and there's a little surprise, too."

"Look, I'm certain everything will be fine." He tried to disentangle himself from Audrey's arm without making it obvious and felt grateful when she released him, slapping him hard on the back. "I'll just explain that it wasn't me and he'll accept it, I'm certain. He's a reasonable man."

Audrey's laugh almost made the walls of the dilapidated building rattle. She knew, as well as he, that Cornelius was not, in any meaningful definition of the word, reasonable. He tended to see reasonable people as soft, wishy-washy, political agitators and, at worst, young. Cornelius hated all those kinds of people and he never tried very hard to not show it.

Passing through the short corridor, Audrey pushed Humphrey through the open door, where three people sat in silence. Three people, not the two he expected, feared, would sit around the committee table. That, alone, threw off the long, carefully-planned defence that Humphrey had, only this second, decided upon. He felt his mouth moving uncontrollably as Audrey barged past to drop into her seat, the chair scraping against the floor as she pressed her weight upon it.

Cornelius glared. He glared a lot of the time. Most of the time. Almost all of the time, as far as Humphrey remembered. Only, this time, Humphrey could almost feel the intensity of that glare. Could feel the brute animosity that seemed to travel through the air, thick with barely restrained aggression, towards him, punching him, metaphorically, in the stomach. He gripped the wool of his cardigan, wishing he had never joined the committee.

To the left of Cornelius, Frida, the youngest of the committee members, by age, but oldest by attitude, sat with her crocheting in her lap, blissfully unaware of the ill-contained fury that filled the man beside her. She seemed content, but, then again, Frida always seemed content. Content and not quite there at any one time. Sweet, everyone called her. Oblivious, according to Humphrey.

And, to the right of Cornelius, sat the newcomer. A person that Humphrey had already met, much to his regret. A person that had no reasonable right to sit upon these proceedings. Especially considering that she, not Humphrey, was the most likely candidate for the vegetable theft of which everyone believed him guilty. The old woman. That old woman. And she grinned beneath that hooked nose as she saw Humphrey enter and, shakily, take his seat at the table.

"Humphrey." Cornelius seemed to put every ounce of venom he could muster into that one, single word.

"Cornelius." With a great deal less animosity, Humphrey acknowledged the committee chairperson. "We appear to have a guest. Hello. Again."

Through pursed lips, fighting himself to ask all the questions that now rolled through his mind, barging aside his well thought out, detailed, pertinent and fact-filled defence against the oncoming accusations, Humphrey picked up his copy of the minutes of the last meeting. As he made the bare minimum of reading, his eyes continued to flicker from the page, to Cornelius and the old woman.

"Yes. Well, we've needed a new committee member for some time now. We already voted to accept her. Three votes for. Your vote, Humphrey, was not needed." He said that as though Humphrey's very existence was not required, which Humphrey thought was a little uncalled for. "Thankfully, we will no longer find ourselves hung with two votes each. Democracy will be imposed properly, now, with the aid of Mrs ..."

"Ursula." The old woman rubbed a finger under her nose, sniffed and nodded to everyone at the table. "I don't be holding with all this formality, thank you very much."

"With the aid of ... Ursula, we will now move forward. No longer bound by differing ideas and opinions. We will have order!" Cornelius stood, slamming both hands upon the surface of the table in an attempt to appear imposing and statesmanlike. "Speaking of which, I bring forward a vote of censure upon our colleague, a Mister Humphrey Bennet of Little Plimpton, accused of brutally removing the prize-winning vegetables from my doorstep in a blatant attack against both myself and the sanctity of the village's traditional, and vitally important, festivals. Wanton theft and destruction of property. I accuse you, Humphrey! How do you plead?"

All eyes fell upon Humphrey. All eyes except Frida's, who had noticed a flickering string of daylight that played like a butterfly upon the wall opposite from her. It held her attention and the child-like smile sat in complete contrast to the bristling, seething man beside her. Cornelius continued to glare at Humphrey.

"But it wasn't me! I didn't touch them!" He looked around the faces at the table, almost begging for one, at least one, to believe him. Even Audrey could only shake her head with a half-hidden smile. "I mean, yes, I thought they were disgusting and you should have thrown them away weeks ago, but I didn't take them. In fact, I'm pretty certain it was her. Yes, she did it!"

All those eyes whipped away from Humphrey as he pointed a finger towards the old woman, Ursula, who now appeared to diminish even further in size. Shoulders hunched beneath the lace shawl upon those shoulders. The thick, woollen dress seemed to hang from her frame and she looked older than ever. Old, old eyes blinking as though Humphrey had physically struck her. All the eyes whipped back to him and he found himself feeling guilty, even though he was as certain as he could be that he was right.

"Well I never!" Ursula's voice fell upon the silence. Croaking, tear-filled, saddened. She blinked. "To think as I, a newcomer to this fine, upstanding village, should find myself accused of such a heinous crime. I ... well ... I should go to the foot of our stairs. I am that shocked and hurt."

"What? That's not how she talks." He remembered the day he had met her, where she had seemed as strong and full of life as anybody. Her voice held far more timbre to it, that day. "She said it to me. That she'd get rid of those blasted vegetables!"

"Did I?" While everyone looked at Humphrey, Ursula took the opportunity to give him a little wink and smile, before returning to her more dishevelled, frail look.

"Right! That's it! I can't throw you off this committee, you bought pretty much everything in this village hall and you're the only one that knows how to use the computer." Everybody's eyes whipped around to the sad-looking, years old PC that sat, forlorn, in the corner of the room. "But, know this, Humphrey. This will not go unanswered. There will be consequences. Repercussions. You took something from me, something important and I shall have my revenge. If you won't apologise, and make some, not-insubstantial monetary recompense, then I have no option. From this point on, there exists a state of war between us! And may god have mercy on your soul."

With that, Cornelius stood, hooking thumbs into his tight, bulging corduroy waistcoat. Attempting to imitate Churchill, if Humphrey were anyone to judge. Lifting his chin in the air, Cornelius began to stride from the room with such dignity that even Frida noticed, laying her crochet work in her lap and clapping enthusiastically as Cornelius stormed from room.

Diminished only by the fact that he had to return to the table to finish the committee meeting which still hadn't gone over the minutes of the previous month's meeting. The cogs of bureaucracy, after all, needed constant oiling.