Edvane Stories

Story Glory was a free-to-enter monthly writing contest. Each month set a prompt — a phrase, a situation, a constraint — and writers submitted short stories built around it. The best were collected into a booklet. There was a winner’s prize each month. Entry cost nothing.

I entered Booklet 2’s contest with a dark fable. The prompt was the inclusion of a specific line of dialogue:

The prompt

“I didn’t hear a thing.”

The line suggested concealment, complicity, wilful ignorance. I set my story in a Victorian milieu and built it around a woman whose charity was a mask for something considerably less charitable.

And then, without warning, the publisher, the booklet, and the purchase links all vanished. The editor, known only to me as Deb, became unreachable, and the website and all socials were taken down.

So I republish it here…

In St Barrow’s, charity was given at the church door, where God might see it and, more importantly, where no neighbour could pretend he had not. Every Sunday, when the final hymn had faded into coughs, scraping boots and the restless mutter of people pretending not to loiter, Mistress Agnes Grimshaw took her place beneath the entry arch with her black purse folded between both hands. Nathaniel Pym, the rector, stood beside her smiling.

The purse was small, plain and never empty, but it did not open for hunger alone. A lame thatcher came for bread, a poorhouse girl for shoes, Meg Waters for coal, and each was made to say the appointed words clearly before the clasp would click, loudly enough to be heard at the back. “I stand in want before this parish, and acknowledge Mistress Agnes Grimshaw as my benefactress.” Then, and only then, came the coins.

Judith Cox had watched that purse open for others and had sworn, in the privacy of her cottage, that it would never open for her. She was past fifty now, though parish life had put more years into her face than the calendar had owned. Her husband, Matthew, had been three winters in the churchyard, and what he left behind was only tools no one wanted, a Bible with his name in it, and a rent book that did not rest easy just because a woman slept alone. For a time Judith had managed. She took in mending, sold the brass candlesticks, then Matthew’s Sunday coat, then the blue china dish that had been her mother’s. She ate toasted stale bread at the fire and called it supper. But rent day came on Monday, and Mr Prowse, who collected for the landlord, had already told her there could be no further patience.

Mistress Grimshaw knew, of course.

By Sunday morning, Judith understood that the cottage would be saved only at the price of herself. After the service, she did not rise immediately. She waited while the congregation shuffled past her pew. When at last she stepped onto the porch, the churchyard seemed unnaturally full.

Mistress Grimshaw stood beneath the arch with the purse ready in her hands. “Mrs Cox,” she said, gently enough for all to admire. “You have come to me at last.”

“My rent is due,” she said.

The purse did not stir.

Mistress Grimshaw sighed. “There is a proper form, as you know.”

Judith swallowed. “I stand in want before this parish, and acknowledge Mistress Agnes Grimshaw as my benefactress.”

The clasp remained shut.

The rector leaned closer, his voice soft but public. “A little clearer, Mrs Cox. The purse must hear you.”

Judith lifted her chin. “I stand in want before this parish, and acknowledge Mistress Agnes Grimshaw as my benefactress.”

The clasp sprang open. Bright coins slid into Mistress Grimshaw’s palm, each one stamped cleanly with the name JUDITH COX.

By Monday noon, Judith Cox still had her cottage, but St Barrow’s had her poverty. Mr Prowse took the rent with his usual clean-handed displeasure, counting each coin twice although the purse had never been known to cheat. He paused when he saw her name stamped across the silver, then tucked the money away with the look of a man storing gossip for later use.

Before the church bell marked evening prayer, one of Judith’s coins lay in the baker’s till. Another passed from the apothecary to the butcher’s wife. A third found its way to the alehouse, where it was turned over beneath a thumb and shown about with solemn pity. By evening, women at the pump were speaking of how near Mrs Cox had come to losing her roof. By Tuesday, Mistress Grimshaw had been praised for saving a respectable widow from the road. The rector called it Christian duty. The churchwardens called it an example. Mistress Grimshaw only lowered her eyes and allowed the praise to settle where she liked it best.

Judith had paid her rent, but the price of the payment went on spending itself. Her need had become coinage.

That night, Judith laid the last of the fire low and sat with the rent book open on her knees, though there was nothing in it she did not already know. Her name had passed through St Barrow’s all day, changing hands more often than kindness ever had. The purse had not bought her roof alone. It had bought her blushes, her lowered eyes, the story of Matthew’s debts and every hungry winter she had survived without asking. Mistress Grimshaw had paid the landlord, but Judith had paid the parish.

At first she thought the magic lay in shame. Then she remembered the clasp sitting stubborn as stone until the proper words were spoken. The purse had opened only for want. Judith sat very still. Mistress Grimshaw had a want too, larger than rent and sharper than hunger. She wanted bowed heads, grateful tongues, Sunday praise, and the pleasure of seeing honest people made small before her.

By morning, Judith knew what must be asked of the purse.

The next Sunday, Mistress Grimshaw stood again beneath the entry arch, polished by piety and expectation, while the rector thanked God for those whom He had blessed with means and mercy. The parish listened with lowered faces, but Judith saw how many eyes slipped towards the purse.

When the prayer was done, Judith stepped forward.

Mistress Grimshaw smiled. “More rent, Mrs Cox?”

“No,” Judith said. “A reckoning.”

A rustle passed through the porch. Judith held out her hand, and perhaps because the purse knew the shape of her need, or perhaps because it was tired of being held by cruelty, the little black thing leapt from Mistress Grimshaw’s grip into hers.

Judith turned it towards its mistress.

“Let this purse answer the want it knows best.”

The clasp clicked and opened.

Coins poured onto the church stones, not bright this time but dull and cold, each stamped with a name. MEG WATERS. TOM BLYTHE. ELLEN WARD. Names rang out in silver until the churchyard seemed paved with every shame Mistress Grimshaw had ever purchased. Then came the voices. Old and young. The voices of St Barrow’s poor, speaking the appointed words as they had spoken them at the church door.

Then came the black coins.

AGNES GRIMSHAW.

Again.

AGNES GRIMSHAW.

Again and again, striking her shoes, climbing her skirts, clinging to her gloves and throat. Mistress Grimshaw tried to scream, but the coins filled her mouth with her own name. When they fell away, only the purse remained, lying open on the stones.

Reverend Nathaniel Pym stood white-faced among the coins. He had heard Meg Waters ask for coal. He had heard Tom Blythe ask for bread. He had heard Judith Cox ask for rent. He had heard Mistress Grimshaw choking on her own name.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” he said.

And so St Barrow’s learned that charity given for praise is not charity at all, but a debt the giver must one day repay.

I welcome polite comments. If you enjoyed this tale then you might also enjoy Emmie and the Black Orchard