One file, two people. They function as a unit on the road and are handled together here. If Mrs Chambers develops at the table (she has the more interesting role of the pair), split her out into her own file at wrap-up.
Description
Middle-aged, earnest, and travelling east on missionary service. They keep to themselves, retire early, and have the settled air of a couple who worked out their division of labour thirty years ago and have not revisited it since.
The Reverend is the softer of the two by a considerable margin. He is well-meaning, easily unsettled, and constitutionally unable to leave a thing alone once it has bothered him.
Mrs Chambers runs the marriage. She has nursing experience and the flat competence that goes with it, and when she tells her husband not to get up, he does not get up.
Background
Bound east on missionary work. Neither of them has ever seen a desert before and both are handling it better than Pelham.
Motivations
To get where they are going. To not be involved in whatever this is.
Connections
- Gerald Hewitt — the reason they retire early.
- Wadi al Tih — where they hear the footsteps.
Appearances
Outcome (Session 6)
At Ashby’s confession the Reverend came apart, apoplectic, demanding that justice be served and that God’s law not be mocked in front of them all. Mrs Chambers quietly took his arm and calmed him, allowing that divine justice would find its way regardless, and he subsided under her hand as he always does. The two of them were the only travellers who wanted the killer punished, and the wider caravan’s indifference left them outnumbered and unheeded. They travel on east, wanting only to be clear of the whole sordid business.
Relationships
- Located at Wadi al Tih — Travelling east with the caravan; present at the halt
- Knows Gerald Hewitt — Retired early on the murder night, as they retire early every night, largely to get away from him