by P. D. James
In his boyhood it had been fashionable to despise Victorian architecture and he had viewed the house with a proper if half-guilty disdain. The architect, probably over-influenced by the original owner, had incorporated every fashionable feature: high chimneys, oriel windows, a central cupola, a southern tower, a castellated facade and an immense stone porch. But now it seemed to him that the result was less monstrously discordant than it had seemed to the eye of youth and that the architect had at least achieved a balance and a not unpleasing proportion in his dramatic mixture of medieval romanticism, of Gothic revival and pretentious Victorian domesticity.
He had been awaited, his arrival looked for. Even before he had closed the door of the car the front door opened and a frail limping figure in a black cassock came carefully down the three stone steps.
He recognized Father Martin Petrie instantly. The recognition came with a shock of surprise that the former Warden should still be in residence he must be at least eighty. But here unmistakably was the man whom in boyhood he had revered and, yes, loved. Paradoxically the years fell away yet asserted their inexorable depredations. The bones of the face were more prominent above the lean and scrawny neck; the long swathe of hair crossing the brow, once a rich brown, was now silver-white and as fine as a baby’s; the mobile mouth with its full lower lip was less firm. They clasped hands. For Dalgliesh it was like holding disjointed bones encased in a delicate suede glove. But Father Martin’s grasp was still strong. The eyes, although shrunken, were the same luminous grey and the limp, a relic of his war service, was more pronounced, but he could still walk without a stick. And the face, always gentle, still held the unmistakable grace of spiritual authority. Looking into Father Martin’s eyes, Dalgliesh realized that it wasn’t only as an old friend that he was being welcomed; what he saw in Father Martin’s gaze was a mixture of apprehension and relief. He marvelled again, and not without guilt, that he had stayed away for all these years. He had returned fortuitously, and almost on impulse; now he wondered for the first time what exactly was awaiting him at St. Anselm’s.
Leading him into the house, Father Martin said, “I’m afraid I must ask you to move your car onto the grass behind the house. Father Peregrine dislikes seeing cars parked in the front courtyard. But there’s no hurry. We’ve put you in your old set: Jerome.”
They entered the wide hall with its floor of cheque red marble, its great oak staircase leading up to the galleried rooms above. Memory came flooding back with the smell of incense, furniture polish, old books and food. Except for the addition of a small room to the left of the entrance, nothing seemed to have altered. Its door stood open and Dalgliesh could glimpse an altar. Perhaps, he thought, the room was an oratory. The wooden statue of the Virgin with the Christ child in her arms still stood at the bottom of the stairs, the red lamp still glowed beneath it, and there was still a single vase of flowers on the plinth at its foot. He paused to look at it and Father Martin waited patiently at his side. The carving was a copy, and a good one, of a Madonna and Child in the Victoria and Albert Museum, he couldn’t remember by whom. It had none of the doleful piety common to such statues, no symbolic representation of the agonies to come. Both mother and child were laughing, the baby holding out his chubby arms, the Virgin, hardly more than a child, rejoicing in her son.
As they mounted the stairs, Father Martin said, “You must be surprised to see me. Officially I have retired, of course, but the college has kept me on to help with the pastoral theology teaching. Father Sebastian Morell has been Warden here for the last fifteen years. I expect you’d like to revisit old haunts, but Father Sebastian will be expecting us. He’ll have heard your car, he always does. The Warden’s office is the same room as when you last visited.”
The man who stood up from his desk and came forward to greet them was very different from the gentle-faced Father Martin. He was over six feet tall and younger than Dalgliesh had expected. The light brown hair, only slightly tinged with grey, was brushed back from a fine high forehead. An uncompromising mouth, slightly hooked nose and long chin gave strength to a face which could have held a too-conventional if austere handsomeness. Most remarkable were the eyes; they were a clear dark blue, a colour which Dalgliesh found disconcertingly at odds with the keenness of the look which they fixed upon him. It was the face of a man of action, perhaps a soldier, rather than an academic. The well-tailored cassock of black gabardine seemed an incongruous garb for a man who exuded such latent power.
Even the furnishings of the room were discordant. The desk, holding a computer and printer, was aggressively modern, but on the wall above hung a carved wooden crucifix which could have been medieval. The opposite wall held a collection of Vanity Fair cartoons of Victorian prelates, the bewhiskered and shaven faces, lean, rubicund, etiolated or mildly pious, confident above the pectoral crosses and the lawn sleeves. On each side of the stone fireplace with its carved motto were framed prints of people and landscapes which presumably held a special place in the owner’s memory. But above the fireplace was a very different picture. It was a Burne-Jones oil, a beautiful romantic dream exuding the artist’s famed light which never was on land or sea. Four young women, garlanded and wearing long pink and brown dresses of flowered muslin, were grouped round an apple tree. One was sitting with a book open before her, a kitten cradled in her right arm; one had laid a lyre lightly aside and was gazing pensively into the distance; the two others were standing, one with a raised arm plucking a ripe apple, the other holding open her apron to receive the fruit with delicate long-fingered hands. Dalgliesh noticed against the right wall another Burne-Jones object: a two-drawer sideboard on high straight legs with castors, and two painted panels, one of a woman feeding birds, the other of a child with lambs. He had a memory both of the picture and the sideboard, but surely they had been in the refectory on his previous visits. Their shining romanticism seemed at odds with the clerical austerity of the rest of the room.
A welcoming smile transformed the Warden’s face, but was so brief that it could have been no more than a spasm of the muscles.
“Adam Dalgliesh? You’re very welcome. Father Martin tells me that it’s been a long time since you were last here. We could wish your return was on a happier occasion.”
Dalgliesh said, “I could wish it too, Father. I hope that I shan’t have to inconvenience you for too long.”
Father Sebastian motioned to the armchairs one each side of the fireplace, and Father Martin drew up one of the chairs from the table for himself.
When they were seated, Father Sebastian said, “I have to admit that I was surprised when your Assistant Commissioner rang. A Commander of the Metropolitan Police sent to report on the handling by a provincial force of a matter that, although tragic for all those intimately involved, is hardly a major incident and that has been the subject of an inquest and is now officially closed. Isn’t that a little extravagant of manpower?” He paused, then added, “Or irregular?”
“Not irregular, Father. Unconventional perhaps. But I was coming to Suffolk and it was thought it would save time and perhaps be more convenient for the college.”
“It has at least the advantage that it brings you back to us. We shall, of course, answer your questions. Sir Aired Treeves hasn’t had the courtesy to approach us directly. He didn’t attend the inquest we understood he was abroad but he did send a solicitor to hold a watching brief. As I remember, he expressed no dissatisfaction. We have had very few dealings with Sir Aired and haven’t found him an easy man. He never made any bones about his dislike of his son’s choice of profession it would not, of course, be regarded by Sir Aired as a vocation. It’s difficult to understand his motives in wanting to reopen the case. There are only three alternatives. Foul play is out of the question; Ronald had no enemies here and no one stood to gain by his death. Suicide? That is, of course, a distressing possibility, but there was no evidence either in his recent behaviour or in his conduct here to suggest that degree of unhappiness. There remains accidental d
eath. I would have expected Sir Aired to accept the verdict with some relief.”
Dalgliesh said, “There was the anonymous letter which I think the Assistant Commissioner spoke to you about. If Sir Aired hadn’t received that I don’t expect I should be here.”
Taking it out of his wallet he handed it over. Father Sebastian glanced at it briefly, then said, “Obviously produced by a computer. We have computers here one you see in my office.”
“You have no idea who could have sent it?”
Father Sebastian had hardly glanced at it before handing it back with a gesture of contemptuous dismissal.
“None. We have our enemies. Perhaps that’s too strong a word; it would be more accurate to say we have people who would prefer this college not to exist. But their opposition to us is ideological, theological or financial, a question of Church resources. I can’t believe that any would sink to this crude calumny. I’m surprised Sir Aired took it seriously. As a man of power he can’t be unused to anonymous communications. We shall, of course, give you any help we can. No doubt you will want first to visit the place where Ronald died. Please forgive me if I leave Father Martin to accompany you. I have a visitor this afternoon and other rather urgent matters awaiting attention. Evensong is at five o’clock, if you wish to join us. Afterwards I have drinks here before dinner. We don’t serve wine at meals on Fridays, as I expect you remember, but when we have guests it seems reasonable to offer them sherry before the meal. We have four other visitors this weekend. Archdeacon Crampton, a trustee of the college; Dr. Emma Lavenham, who comes once a term from Cambridge to introduce the students to the literary heritage of Anglicanism; Dr. Clive Stannard, who is using our library for research; and another police officer, Inspector Roger Yarwood of the local force who is at present on sick-leave. None of them was present at the time of Ronald’s death. If you are interested in knowing who was in residence at the time, Father Martin will be able to supply a list. Are we to expect you for dinner?”
“Not tonight, Father, if you’ll excuse me. I hope to be back for Compline.”
“Then I shall see you in church. I hope you will find your rooms comfortable.”
Father Sebastian got to his feet; obviously the interview was over.
Father Martin said, “I expect you’d like to visit the church on the way to your rooms.”
It was obvious that he took Dalgliesh’s agreement, even enthusiasm, for granted and indeed Dalgliesh wasn’t unwilling. There were things in the little church that he had looked forward to seeing again.
He said, “The van der Weyden Madonna is still above the altar?”
“Yes, indeed. That and the Doom are our two main attractions. But perhaps the word attractions isn’t quite appropriate. I don’t mean that we encourage visitors. We don’t get many and they always come by appointment. We don’t advertise our riches.”
“Is the van der Weyden insured, Father?”
“No, it never has been. We can’t afford the premium and, as Father Sebastian has said, the picture is irreplaceable. Money doesn’t buy another. But we do take care. Of course, being so isolated helps and we now have a modern alarm system operating. The panel is inside the door leading from the northern cloister to the sanctuary, and the alarm also covers the main south door. I think the system was installed well after your visit here. The Bishop insisted that we take advice on security if the painting is to remain in the church and, of course, he was right.”
Dalgliesh said, ‘I seem to remember that the church was open all day when I was here as a boy.”
“Yes indeed, but that was before the experts decided that the painting was genuine. It distresses me that the church has to be kept locked, particularly in a theological college. That’s why, when I was Warden, I installed the small oratory. I expect you saw it to the left of the door when you came in. The oratory itself can’t be consecrated because it’s part of another building, but the altar is and it does provide a place for the students to go for private prayer or for meditation when the church is locked after services.”
They passed through the cloakroom at the rear of the house, whichl gave access to the door to the north cloister. Here the room wasl bisected by a row of coat-hooks above a long bench, each hook with a receptacle underneath for outdoor shoes and boots. Most of the hooks were empty but about half a dozen held brown hooded cloaks. No doubt the cloaks, like the black cassocks the students wore indoors, had been prescribed by the formidable founder, Agnes Arbuthnot. If so, she had probably remembered the force and bitterness of the east winds on this unprotected coast. To the right of the cloakroom the half-open door to the utility-room gave sight of four large washing machines and a drier.
Dalgliesh and Father Martin passed from the dimness of the house into the cloister and the faint but pervasive smell of High Anglican academe gave way to fresh air and the sunlit silent courtyard. Dalgliesh experienced, as he had as a boy, the sense of moving back in time. Here, red brick embellished Victoriana was replaced by stone simplicity. The cloisters with their narrow and slender pillars ran round the three sides of the cobbled courtyard. They were paved with York stone behind which a row of identical oak doors led to the two-storey student accommodation. The four apartments for visitors faced the west front of the main building and were separated from the church wall by a wrought-iron gate behind which could be glimpsed the empty acres of pale scrubland and the richer green of the far fields of sugar beet. In the middle of the courtyard a mature horse-chestnut was already showing its autumnal decrepitude. From the foot of the gnarled trunk from which sections of bark were breaking away like scabs, small branches had sprouted, the young leaves as green and tender as the first shoots of spring. Above them the huge boughs were hung with yellow and brown and the dead leaves lay curled on the cobbles as dried and brittle as mummified fingers among the polished mahogany of the fallen chestnuts.
Some things, thought Dalgliesh, were new to him in this long-remembered scene, among them surely the rows of unadorned but elegantly shaped terra cotta pots at the foot of the pillars. They must have made a brave show in summer but now the distorted stems of the geraniums were woody and the few remaining flowers only a puny reminder of past glories. And surely the fuchsia climbing so vigorously over the west-facing wall of the house had been planted since his time. It was still heavy with flowers but the leaves were already fading and the fallen petals lay in drifts like spilt blood.
Father Martin said, “We’ll go in through the sacristy door.”
He drew out a large key-ring from the pocket of his cassock.
“I’m afraid it takes me a little time to find the right keys. I know I ought to know them by now, but there are so many of them, and I’m afraid I shall never get used to the security system. It’s set to give us a whole minute before we have to punch in the four digits but the bleep is so low that now I can hardly hear it. Father Sebastian dislikes loud noise, particularly in the church. If the alarm is set off, it makes a terrifying jangle in the main building.”
“Shall I do it for you, Father ?”
“Oh no thank you, Adam. No. I’ll manage. I never have difficulty in remembering the number because it’s the year Miss Arbuthnot founded the college, 1861.”
And that, thought Dalgliesh, was a number that might easily occur to the mind of a prospective intruder.
The sacristy was larger than Dalgliesh remembered and obviously served as vestry, cloakroom and office. To the left of the door leading into the church was a row of coat-hooks. Another wall was occupied with ceiling-high fitted cupboards for vestments. There were two upright wooden chairs and a small sink with a draining-board beside a cupboard whose Formica top held an electric kettle and a cafetiere. Two large tins of white paint and a small one of black, with brushes in a jam jar at their side, were neatly stacked against the wall. To the left of the door and under one of the two windows was a large desk fitted with drawers and holding a silver cross. Above it was a wall-mounted safe. Seeing Dalgliesh’s eyes on it, Father M
artin said, “Father Sebastian had the safe installed to hold our seventeenth-century silver chalices and paten. They were bequeathed to the college by Miss Arbuthnot and are very fine. Previously, because of their value, they were kept in the bank but Father Sebastian felt that they should be used and I think he was right.”
Beside the desk was a row of framed sepia photographs, nearly all of them old, some obviously dating back to the early days of the college. Dalgliesh, interested in old photographs, moved over to look at them. One, he thought, must be of Miss Arbuthnot. She was flanked by two priests, each in cassock and biretta, both taller than herself. To Dalgliesh’s fleeting but intense scrutiny there was no doubt which was the dominant personality. So far from seeming diminished by the black clerical austerity of her custodians, Miss Arbuthnot stood perfectly at ease, fingers loosely clasped over the folds of her skirt. Her clothes were simple but expensive; even in a photograph it was possible to see the sheen of the high-buttoned silk blouse with its leg-of-mutton sleeves and the richness of the skirt. She wore no jewellery except for a cameo brooch at her neck and a single pendant cross. Beneath the strong upward sweep of hair which looked very fair, the face was heart-shaped, the eyes with their steady gaze wide-spaced under straight and darker brows. Dalgliesh wondered what she would have looked like if ever this slightly intimidating seriousness had broken into laughter. It was, he thought, the photograph of a beautiful woman who took no joy in her beauty and who had looked elsewhere for the gratifications of power.