by P. D. James
“Over-zealous?” Father Sebastian fell back on a familiar bromide.
“I suppose he thought he was doing his duty.”
“Duty? It was nothing to do with duty! He thought he could make a case and a reputation. It would have been quite a coup for him, wouldn’t it? Local vicar accused of murdering his wife. Do you know what harm that kind of allegation could do, in the diocese, in the parish? He tortured me and he enjoyed torturing me.”
Father Sebastian found it difficult to reconcile this accusation with the Yarwood he knew. He was aware of conflicting emotions; sympathy for the Archdeacon, indecision whether or not to speak to Yarwood, concern not to worry unnecessarily a man he suspected was still fragile both physically and mentally, and the need to get through the weekend without antagonizing Crampton further. All these worries came incongruously and ludicrously together in the overriding question of the placement at dinner. He couldn’t seat the two police officers together; they would want to avoid any obligation to engage in professional chat and he certainly didn’t want it at his dinner-table. (Father Sebastian never thought of the refectory at St. Anselm’s in terms other than ‘his’ dining-hall, ‘his’ dinner-table.) It was obvious that neither Raphael nor Rather John could appropriately be seated either next to the Archdeacon or facing him. Clive Stannard was a dull guest at the best of times; he could hardly inflict him on Crampton or Dalgliesh. He wished that his wife were alive and in residence. None of this would be happening if Veronica were alive. He felt a prick of resentment that she had so inconveniently left him.
It was then that there was a knock on the door. Glad of any interruption, he called, “Come’, and Raphael entered. The Archdeacon took one look at him and said to Father Sebastian, “You’ll see to it then will you, Morell?” and went out.
Father Sebastian, although glad of the interruption, was not in the mood to be welcoming and his “What is it, Raphael?” was curt.
“It’s about Inspector Yarwood, Father. He’d prefer not to have dinner with the rest of us. He wonders if it’s possible for him to have something in his room.”
“Is he ill?”
“I don’t think he’s particularly well, but he didn’t say anything about feeling ill. He saw the Archdeacon at tea and I gather he doesn’t want to encounter him again if possible. He didn’t stop to eat so I followed him back to his room to see if he was all right.”
“And did he tell you why he was upset?”
“Yes Father, he did.”
“He had no right to confide in you or anyone else here. It was unprofessional and unwise, and you should have stopped him.”
“He didn’t say very much, Father, but what he did say was interesting.”
“Whatever he said should have remained unspoken. You’d better see Mrs. Pilbeam and ask her to provide some dinner for him. Soup and a salad, something like that.”
“I think that’s all he wants, Father. He said he’d like to be left alone.”
Father Sebastian wondered if he should speak to Yarwood, but decided against it. Perhaps what the man wanted, to be left alone, was the best course. The Archdeacon was due to leave next morning after an early breakfast as he wanted to be back in his parish to preach at the ten-thirty Sunday Parish Communion. He had hinted that someone of importance was to be in the congregation. With any luck the two men need not see each other again.
Wearily the Warden made his way down the stairs to the students’ sitting-room and his two cups of Earl Grey tea.
The refectory faced south and was almost a replica in size and style of the library with the same barrelled roof and an equal number of high narrow windows, although these were devoid of figurative coloured glass and held instead panes of delicate pale green with a design of grapes and vine leaves. The walls between them were brightened by three large pre-Raphaelite paintings, all the gift of the founder. One, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, showed a girl with flaming red hair seated at a window and reading a book which with imagination could be construed as devotional. The second, by Edward Burne-Jones, of three dark-haired girls dancing in a swirl of golden brown silk under an orange tree, was frankly secular, and the third and largest, by William Holman Hunt, showed a priest outside a wattle chapel baptizing a group of ancient Britons. They were not pictures which Emma coveted, but she had no doubt they were a valuable part of St. Anselm’s heritage. The room itself had obviously been designed as a family dining-room but one, she thought, intended for ostentation rather than practicality or intimacy. Even the traditionally large Victorian family would surely feel isolated and discomforted by this monument to paternal grandeur. St. Anselm’s had obviously made few changes in adapting the dining-room for institutional use. The oval carved oak table still held place in the centre of the room, but had been lengthened in the middle by six feet of plain wood. The chairs, including the ornate armed carver, were obviously original and, in place of the customary hatch into the kitchen, the food was served from a long sideboard covered with a white cloth.
Mrs. Pilbeam waited at table with the help of two ordinands, the students taking this duty in turn. The Pilbeams ate the same meal, but at the table in Mrs. Pilbeam’s sitting-room. Emma, on her first visit, had been intrigued how well this eccentric arrangement worked. Mrs. Pilbeam seemed to know by instinct the exact moment when each course in the dining-room was finished and made her appearance on time. No bells were rung and the first and main courses were eaten in silence while one of the ordinands read from a high desk to the left of the door. This duty, too, was taken in turn.
The choice of subject was left to the ordinand and the readings were not necessarily expected to be either from the Bible or from religious texts. During her visits Emma had heard Henry Bloxham read from The Waste Land, Stephen Morby give a lively reading of a P. G. Wodehouse Mulliner short story, while Peter Buckhurst had chosen The Diary of a Nobody. The advantage of the system for Emma, apart from the interest of the readings and the revelation of personal choice, was that she could enjoy Mrs. Pilbeam’s excellent cooking without the need to make small talk, the ritual turn to one side and the other.
With Father Sebastian presiding, dinner at St. Anselm’s had something of the formality of a private house. But when the reading and the two first courses were over, the previous silence seemed to facilitate conversation, which normally carried on happily while the reader caught up by taking his meal from the hot plate and the company finally moved for coffee into the students’ sitting-room, or through the south door into the courtyard. Often the talk carried on until it was time for Compline. After Compline it was customary for ordinands to go to their own rooms and keep a silence.
Although by tradition each student took the next vacant chair, Father Sebastian himself arranged the seating of the guests and staff. He had placed Archdeacon Crampton on his left, Emma beside him, with Father Martin on her other side. On his right was Commander Dalgliesh, next to him Father Peregine and then Clive Stannard. George Gregory dined only occasionally in college, but tonight he was present, seated between Stannard and Stephen Morby; Emma had expected to see Inspector Yarwood but he didn’t arrive and no one commented on his absence. Three of the four students in residence took their seats and, like the rest of the company, stood behind their chairs ready for grace. It was only then that Raphael entered, buttoning up his cassock. He muttered an apology and, opening the book he was carrying, took his place at the reading desk. Father Sebastian spoke a Latin grace and there was a shuffling of chairs as they settled down to the first course.
Taking her seat next to the Archdeacon, Emma was aware of his physical nearness as she guessed he was of hers. She knew instinctively that he was a man who responded to women with a strong if suppressed sexuality. He was as tall as Father Sebastian but more sturdily built, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, and with strong handsome features. His hair was almost black, the beard just beginning to fleck with grey, his eyes deep-set under brows so well shaped that they could have been plucked. They gave a discordant hint of
femininity to his dark, unsmiling masculinity. Father Sebastian had introduced him to Emma when they arrived in the dining-room and he had grasped her hand with a strength which conveyed no warmth and had met her gaze with a look of puzzled surprise, as if she were an enigma which it behoved him to solve before the dinner was over.
The first course had already been set out, baked aubergines and peppers in olive oil. There was a subdued clatter of forks as they began to eat and, as if he were waiting for this signal, Raphael started to read. He said, as if announcing a lesson in church, “This is the first chapter of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers.”
It was a work with which Emma, who liked Victorian novels, was familiar, but she wondered why Raphael had chosen it. Ordinands did occasionally read from a novel, but it was more usual to choose a passage complete in itself. Raphael read well, and Emma found herself earing with almost over-fastidious slowness as her mind occupied itself with the setting and the story. St. Anselm’s was an appropriate house in which to read Trollope. Under its cavernous arched roof she could picture the Bishop’s bedroom in the Palace at Barchester and Archdeacon Grantly watching at his father’s deathbed, knowing that if the old man lived until the Government fell as was hourly expected he would have no hope of succeeding his father as Bishop. It was a powerful passage, that proud ambitious son sinking to his knees and praying that he might be forgiven the sin of wishing his father would die.
The wind had been rising steadily since early evening. Now it was battering the house in great gusts like bursts of gunfire. During the worst of each onslaught Raphael would pause in his reading like a lecturer waiting for quietness from an unruly class. In the lulls his voice sounded unnaturally clear and portentous.
Emma became aware that all movement had ceased from the dark figure beside her. She glanced at the Archdeacon’s hands and saw that they were clenched round his knife and fork. Peter Buckhurst was silently circulating with the wine, but the Archdeacon clamped his hand over his glass, white-knuckled, so that Emma half-expected it to smash under his palm. Watching the hand, it seemed to loom and become almost monstrous in imagination, the black hairs erect along the ridge of the fingers. She was aware, too, that Commander Dalgliesh, sitting opposite, had momentarily raised his eyes to the Archdeacon in a speculative glance. Emma couldn’t believe that the tension, so strongly communicating itself to her from her companion, couldn’t be felt by the whole table, but only Commander Dalgliesh seemed aware of it. Gregory was eating in silence but with evident satisfaction. He seldom looked up until Raphael began reading. Then he occasionally glanced at him with slightly quizzical amusement.
Raphael’s voice continued as Mrs. Pilbeam and Peter Buckhurst silently cleared the plates, and she brought in the main course: cassoulet with boiled potatoes, carrots and beans. The Archdeacon then made some attempt at recovery, but he ate almost nothing. At the end of the first two courses, which were to be followed by fruit and cheese and biscuits, Raphael closed the novel, went to the hot plate to collect his plate, and took his seat at the end of the table. It was then that Emma looked at Father Sebastian. His face was rigid and he was staring down the table at Raphael who, it seemed to Emma, was resolutely refusing to meet his eyes.
No one seemed anxious to break the silence until the Archdeacon, making an effort, turned to Emma and began a rather stilted conversation about her relationship with the college. When was she appointed? What was it that she taught? Did she find the students on the whole receptive? How did she personally think the teaching of English and religious verse related to the theological syllabus? She knew that he was trying to put her at ease, or at least making an attempt at conversation, but it sounded like an interrogation and she was uncomfortably aware that in the silence his questions and her answers sounded unnaturally loud. Her eyes kept straying to Adam Dalgliesh, on the Warden’s right, to the dark head bent towards the fairer. They seemed to have plenty to talk about. Surely they wouldn’t be discussing Ronald’s death, not here at dinner. From time to time she sensed Dalgliesh’s gaze fixed on her. Their eyes briefly met and she turned quickly away, then was angry with herself for the moment’s embarrassed gaucherie and turned resolutely to endure the Archdeacon’s curiosity.
Finally they moved into the sitting-room for coffee, but the change of venue did nothing to revive the conversation. It became a desultory exchange of platitudes and, long before it was time to get ready for Compline, the company broke up. Emma was one of the first to leave. Despite the storm she felt the need for fresh air and exercise before bed. Tonight she would give Compline a miss. It was the first time in all her visits that she had felt so strongly the need to get free of the house. But when she left by the door leading to the south cloister, the force of the wind struck her like a physical blow. Soon it would be difficult to stand upright. This was not a night for a solitary walk on a headland that had suddenly become unfriendly. She wondered what Adam Dalgliesh was doing. Probably he would feel it courteous to attend Compline. For her it would be work there was always work and an early bed. She walked along the dimly-lit southern cloister to Ambrose and solitude.
It was nine twenty-nine and Raphael, entering the sacristy last, found only Father Sebastian taking off his cloak before robing for the service. Raphael had his hand on the door leading into the church when Father Sebastian said, “Did you choose that chapter of Trollope deliberately to upset the Archdeacon?”
“It’s a chapter I’m fond of, Father. That proud ambitious man actually kneeling by his father’s bedside, facing his secret hope that the Bishop will die in time. It’s one of the most impressive chapters Trollope ever wrote. I thought we might all appreciate it.”
“I’m not asking for a literary appreciation of Trollope. You haven’t answered my question. Did you choose it to discomfort the Archdeacon?”
Raphael said quietly, “Yes, Father, I did.”
“Presumably because of what you learned from Inspector Yarwood before dinner.”
“He was distressed. The Archdeacon had more or less forced himself into Roger’s room and confronted him. Roger blurted something out and told me afterwards that it was in confidence and that I must try to forget it.”
“And your method of forgetting was deliberately to select a chapter of prose that would not only be deeply upsetting to a guest in this house, but that would betray the fact that Inspector Yarwood had confided in you.”
“The passage, Father, wouldn’t have been offensive to the Archdeacon unless what Roger told me was true.”
“I see. You were applying Hamlet. You created mischief and you disobeyed my instructions about how you should behave to the Archdeacon while he was our guest. We have some thinking to do, you and I. I must consider whether I can in conscience recommend you for ordination. You must consider whether you are really suited to being a priest.”
It was the first time Father Sebastian put into words the doubt which he had hardly dared acknowledge, even in thought. He made himself look into Raphael’s eyes while he waited for a response.
Raphael said quietly, “But have we really any choice, Father, either of us?”
What surprised Father Sebastian was not the reply, but the tone in which it was spoken. He heard in Raphael’s voice what he saw also in his eyes, not defiance, not a challenge to his authority, not even the usual note of ironic detachment, but something more disturbing and painful; a trace of sad resignation which was, at the same time, a cry for help. Without speaking Father Sebastian finished robing, then waited for Raphael to open the sacristy door for him and followed him into the candle-lit gloom of the church.
Dalgliesh was the only member of the congregation at Compline. He seated himself half-way down the right aisle and watched as Henry Bloxham, wearing a white surplice, lit two candles on the altar and the row of candles in their glass shades along the choir stalls. Henry had shot back the bolts of the great south door before Dalgliesh’s arrival, and Dalgliesh sat quietly, expecting to hear at his back the grinding creak of
its opening. But neither Emma nor any of the staff or visitors arrived. The church was dimly lit and he sat alone in a concentrated calm in which the tumult of the storm seemed so distant that it was part of another reality. Finally Henry switched on the light over the altar and the van der Weyden stained the still air with light. Henry genuflected before the altar and returned to the sacristy. Two minutes later the four resident priests entered, followed by the ordinands and the Archdeacon. The white-surpliced figures, moving almost silently, took their places with an unhurried dignity and Father Sebastian’s voice broke the silence with the first prayer.
“The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end. Amen.”
The service was sung in plainsong and with a perfection born of practice and familiarity. Dalgliesh stood or knelt as appropriate and. joined in the responses; he had no wish to play the part of a voyeur. He put all thoughts of Ronald Treeves and of death out of his mind. He was not here as a police officer; he was required to bring nothing with him but the acquiescence of the heart.
After the final Collect but before the blessing the Archdeacon moved from his stall to deliver the homily. He chose to stand in front of the altar-rail rather than to move down to the pulpit or reading desk. Dalgliesh reflected that it was just as well, since otherwise he would be preaching to a congregation of one, and almost certainly to the person he was least concerned to address. The homily was short, less than six minutes, but it was powerful and quietly delivered, as if the Archdeacon were aware that unwelcome words gained in intensity if softly spoken. He stood there, dark and bearded, like an Old Testament prophet while his surpliced audience sat, their eyes not turning to him, as still as if they were images in stone.