The Black Seraphim

by Michael Gilbert

  Since their move had brought them to within easy earshot of the present Archdeacon, James felt that this might have been more tactfully expressed. Lady Fallingford swept him past and introduced him to the spindly lady in a violet frock who was still wearing the white queen’s paper crown set at a rakish angle.

  “Did you see that?” said Andrew Gould to David Lyon. “Penny thought she’d got her hooks into Dr Scotland and then Lady F. pinched him.”

  “Penny’s a cow,” said David. “Let’s go and talk to Masters.”

  Len Masters, the junior verger, was behind one of the long tables serving tea. The boys admired him because he opened the batting for the Melset Cricket Club and liked him because he did not report them for minor infractions of discipline.

  James could see that Penny was waiting to recapture him as soon as Lady Fallingford let him go. He was dangerously en prise. He needed a blocking piece. One of the black bishops was chatting up the Dean’s daughter. James knew his face well, but the name had escaped him. Think. Brookes, of course. Henry Brookes, the Chapter Clerk. The solid woman beside him was his wife, Dora. A woman of many talents. An arranger of flowers and an excellent cook. The plates of cakes on the table were probably her handiwork. He remembered, too, that she had been at some time a nurse. When the matron had succumbed to an epidemic which was decimating the school, Dora Brookes had stepped in and substituted competently for her.

  As soon as Lady Fallingford released him, James sidled across and introduced himself.

  “Nice to see you back,” said Brookes. “I gather that Lawrence Consett’s giving you a bed for the time being. When he has to throw you out, we’ll be happy to put you up – did he tell you? We’ve a spare room now that Alice is gone.”

  “He did tell me and it’s very kind of you.”

  “Do you know Amanda? Her father is the Dean. It was old Dean Lupton in your time, of course. He retired two years ago and died very soon after.”

  “I can’t think why it was,” said James, “that everyone always referred to him as ‘poor Dean Lupton’. But they always said it as though it was rather a joke.”

  “That’s because he spent all his time being sorry for himself,” said Dora Brookes, in the robust tones of someone who classed illness as a sign of weakness.

  “He’d no particular reason to be sad,” agreed Brookes. “The Deanery is an excellent house and the stipend is good. Better than Salisbury or Winchester. And he had private means as well.”

  “And he got on with the rest of the Chapter,” said Amanda.

  James had been examining her covertly. His first reactions were medical. He thought she could have done with more flesh on her bones.

  “I imagine that’s important,” he said.

  “Most important.”

  “And not difficult with a bit of give and take,” said Brookes.

  “That depends on who does the giving and who does the taking. In the old Dean’s day it was a lot easier, I believe.”

  “Oh. Why was that?”

  Amanda glanced across the room at the little group by the window. It was composed of theological students and its focal point was Archdeacon Pawle. He seemed to be telling a story. As he spoke, the contours of his plump face shifted, hills changing to valleys, valleys to hills. The only fixed points were two shrewd black eyes.

  “Like currants in a suet pudding,” said Amanda.

  “What are?”

  “His eyes, don’t you think?”

  “My dear!” said Dora Brookes. “You mustn’t take any notice of her, Doctor. She says the most terrible things. The fact is, she doesn’t like the Archdeacon.”

  “Who does?” said Amanda.

  “A lot of people admire him greatly. He’s done wonders for the administration of the Cathedral since he took over from Henn-Christie, who never really thought about money at all. Isn’t that right, Henry?”

  Her husband, who had clearly been thinking about something quite different, said, “What’s that? Yes. Splendid man, very thorough.”

  “He’s not a clergyman,” said Amanda. “He’s an accountant. When he says his prayers at night – if he does say them – I expect he finishes up, ‘And may my profit and loss account come out on the right side and my balance sheet balance.’”

  Henry Brookes laughed. His wife said, “I’m sure he’s a good man at heart.”

  “If there’s any goodness in him,” said Amanda, “it’s buried deeper than the sixpence in the Christmas pudding.”

  “Your mind seems to run on food,” said James.

  “Oh, it does. Sometimes I dream about it. I’m sure that food’s the most important thing in most people’s lives. Women, anyway. Much more important than sex.”

  “Amanda, really,” said Mrs Brookes.

  “You’re a doctor. You understand about these things. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “I’m a pathologist. If I was a psychiatrist, I might be able to answer your question.”

  Amanda said, “Funk,” and grinned. The grin exposed a row of gappy teeth and turned an ordinary face into an attractive one. Now that he was close to her, James could see that he had been wrong about her hair. It was not blonde. It was long and a very pale auburn.

  “Why is it,” she said, “that doctors never give you a straight answer to a straight question? Like politicians.”

  “The same reason in both cases. They don’t want to frighten you.”

  Amanda said, “Oh?” and thought about it. At that moment there was a diversion. A door at the end of the room swung open and a man came limping through. He was six feet tall and carried himself in a way which gave effect to every one of his seventy-two inches. His hair, which was snowy white, hung down on either side of his deeply seamed face. A beaked nose, a mouth drawn tight, as by a purse string, a chin which continued the straight ascetic line of the nose with none of the flabbiness on either side which is normal in men past middle age. It was a face, thought James, which had experienced suffering, but got the better of it.

  The crowd parted as he came forward, supporting himself on a rubber-tipped stick. He made straight for Amanda, stooped forward and presented her with a ritual kiss. Amanda accepted it with becoming demureness, managing to wink at James as she did so. She said, “This is Dr Scotland, Daddy. He used to teach at the school. He’s come down here to recuperate.”

  “And what better place to do so than in the backwater of a cathedral close? Did the game go well?”

  “The Archdeacon was mated in sixteen moves.”

  “Splendid, splendid.”

  The Dean had made no attempt to lower his voice. If the Archdeacon heard the exchange and the laugh which followed from the little group which had gathered around the Dean, he gave no sign of it. His eyes twinkled as merrily as ever, his bland voice continued its discourse.

  The Dean said, “I shall have to drag you away from this delightful entertainment, my dear. We have letters to write.” He turned to James. “Amanda is my secretary. In the old days the Dean had a staff of seven. A secretary, a butler, a housekeeper, two maids, a gardener and a coachman. Now Amanda is factotum.”

  “Not totum, Daddy. Don’t forget Rosa.”

  “True. We have a half-share of Miss Pilcher. We must count our blessings. A terrible woman, but a worker.”

  He offered his arm to Amanda. The crowd fell back. Two of the choristers competed for the honour of holding the door open. When he had gone, the room seemed half empty.

  “I’m on duty at the school until six,” said Peter. “After that, I think we might drift down to the town and find a drink.”

  “An excellent idea,” said James. “Let’s do just that.”

  At half past ten that night he was sitting in front of the open window of the school cottage. “What I’d forgotten about,” he said, “was the silence.”

  “When I go back to London for the holidays,” said Peter, “it takes me a couple of days to get used to the noise there. Our family house is in St. John’s Wood, which is recko
ned to be pretty quiet, but this—this is out of the world.”

  They could just hear, as if it were the humming of distant bees, the cars passing the Bishop’s Gate on their way through Melchester to the south. The Cathedral bell beat out the quadruple strokes of the half-hour.

  Oh—child—of—God. Be—brave—go—on.

  “What did the Dean call it? A backwater?”

  “But not, at the moment, a backwater of peace and calm.”

  “So I gathered. What’s the trouble?”

  “In the days when I was reluctantly receiving instruction in science, I was taught that there are certain elements which are harmless by themselves – inert is, I believe, the technical description – but if you combine them, you get a mixture which is volatile and explosive.”

  “The Dean and the Archdeacon.”

  “Ten out of ten.”

  “I must say the Archdeacon did look a little bit bloated. A Bishop Bonner, do you think?”

  “Bonner?”

  “The man who burned a lot of other bishops in Bloody Mary’s reign. His cheeks were said to be glutted with the flesh of martyrs.”

  “Lovely,” said Peter. “I’ll try that on the boys. Glutted with the flesh of martyrs. They’ll enjoy that. They don’t care much for the Archdeacon.”

  “He doesn’t seem popular in some quarters. Why is that?”

  “His only known vice is gluttony. He lunches frugally, but in the evening he eats and drinks enough for three. Personally, I rather like him.”

  “Not a very good life, medically speaking, I thought. But that’s no reason for unpopularity.”

  “I agree. Everyone loved Falstaff.”

  “When I asked Amanda, she said that the Archdeacon was really an accountant.”

  “I suppose it is a fault for a clergyman to think more about money than he does about his soul. But someone’s got to do the thinking. A cathedral is a business. It owns a lot of property and employs a lot of people. Someone’s got to find the money. It won’t drop down like quails and manna from heaven. The old Archdeacon, Henn-Christie, was a sweetie. But I doubt if he could add two and two.”

  “And is the Dean also a mathematical simpleton?”

  “I don’t think he’s simple in any way at all. He’s a tough character. Before he came here, he’d spent most of his life on missionary work in the remoter parts of Africa and India. The boys seem to have got hold of some pretty odd stories about it all. Exaggerated, I don’t doubt. But he’s certainly a man who’d put sanctity above silver.”

  “And if it came to a straight fight, how would the Chapter line up?”

  “At the moment, the Dean’s got the edge. Francis Humphrey, the Subdean, is on his side. And so is Tom Lister. He’s the old boy we saw performing this afternoon.”

  “The chess champion.”

  “Right. And he’s not only good at chess. He’s the only real scholar Melchester’s got. He reads Greek and Aramaic and Syriac and any other old language you can put your tongue to. You ought to look at his entry in Who’s Who sometime. Dozens of books on comparative philology and things like that.”

  “All of which, no doubt, you’ve read.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did get hold of one, out of the sixpenny box in the marketplace. Perfect bedside reading. After one page I invariably fell into deep slumber.”

  James laughed and yawned at the same time. He felt tired, but he was not sure that he was quite ready for sleep.

  He said, “All right. That makes it three to one. So what about number four?”

  “Number four’s Canon Maude. He doesn’t count. He’s just an old softy.”

  James laughed and yawned again. He decided that perhaps he was ready for bed. It had been a long day.

  As he drifted into sleep, his thoughts kept wandering back to the chessboard. In his imagination the pieces on it grew to more than human size. Black knights and white knights pranced on real horses around the keeps of formidable castles from whose battlements kings and queens looked down.

  At one of the slits in the wall stood a girl with hair that was more auburn than blonde. It was long hair. It hung down almost to the ground, as though it was inviting James to use it as a rope and climb up it.

  By the time the Cathedral clock beat out the strokes of eleven, he was asleep. It was the earliest he had got to sleep for a long time.

  Two

  At the age of fourteen James had imagined, for a few months, that he might become a professional organist. He had a natural ear for music, and a friend who played the services at the local church had encouraged him to practise. At the end of a short flirtation with music, his common sense had shown him the gulf which is fixed between an amateur who can play an instrument and a professional who does play it, and the colourful ambition had been discarded. But he had retained his love for the most solemn and powerful of all musical instruments.

  In the year he had spent at Melchester, he had made a friend of the little Canadian sub-organist, Paul Wren. He noted from the service sheet that, though still shown as sub-organist, his name now stood alone, and James assumed that Paul’s predecessor, Dr Tyrrel, had been promoted. As he took his place in the Choir stalls for matins, he was able to see the back of Paul’s head and to catch an occasional glimpse of his face in the mirror beside the console.

  The Jubilate was Purcell in B flat and the Te Deum Vaughan Williams in G. There was no doubt about the mastery of Paul’s playing. It spread strong invisible threads from the organ loft to the choir. James thought he had never heard them sing better.

  The responses were being intoned by a young clergyman whose face James recognised. He finally placed him as the white bishop. His voice had a strong male clarity, a great improvement on the Vicar Choral of six years before who had bleated like a sheep. The sermon was preached by Canon Maude, who forgot to switch on the microphone in the pulpit. It was only when the head verger managed to turn it on for him that his words became audible. From what they then heard, James thought that they had lost very little.

  After the service the officiating clergy and the regular members of the congregation, most of whom had seats in the Choir, trooped through the cloisters and into the Chapter House. Betty Humphrey, the Subdean’s wife, Dora Brookes and Julia Consett were pouring a brown liquid from large jugs into plastic mugs. It tasted vaguely like coffee.

  Francis Humphrey, catching sight of him, came across and said, “I meant to invite you, but forgot. We’ve a recorder party tomorrow at six, on the West Canonry lawn, if the weather stays fine.”

  “Lady Fallingford mentioned it. I was wondering exactly what a recorder party might be.”

  “Nothing to do with tape recorders, I can assure you. They’re sort of wooden flutes. Have you never seen one? My wife and I take the treble and tenor, and Miles Manton, our Cathedral architect, takes the bass. The accompaniment is a viola da gamba. What Shakespeare calls a viol de gamboys. Paul plays that and coaches all of us, too.”

  “He’s a remarkable musician. He was only assistant organist when I was here last. I was glad to see that he’s got the top job now. What’s happened to Dr Tyrrel?”

  “He’s gone to Kings. I agree with you about Paul. I only wish it was the universal opinion.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “The Archdeacon doesn’t entirely approve.”

  James noticed that when he said this, Canon Humphrey turned his back on the company. They were in a corner of the room and the clatter of voices screened them.

  “Why on earth? The man’s a genius.”

  “Several reasons. The Archdeacon’s a traditionalist. His musical taste seems to begin and end with Stanford in B flat. Paul likes to experiment sometimes with something a little more modern. There I support him. There’s been plenty of good church music written this century.”

  “I’m sure you’re talking scandal,” said Penny Consett. “Otherwise why are you both standing in the corner like a couple of naughty boys?”

  “We were talking mu
sic, not scandal,” said Canon Humphrey. “Dr Scotland was saying how much he enjoyed Paul’s playing.”

  “Isn’t he sweet?” said Penny. “Just like a hamster with a little blonde beard. Much nicer than Tyrrel the squirrel.”

  “You appear to be anthropomorphic,” said James.

  “Gracious! I hope it isn’t catching.”

  “An anthropomorph is someone who thinks of animals as people and people as animals.”

  “Most of them are, when you come to think of it. The Archdeacon’s exactly like a—”

  Canon Humphrey coughed loudly. The Archdeacon, who had surged up behind them with a coffee cup balanced in one hand, said, “Dr Scotland, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Come to revisit the scenes of your youth? Not thinking of resuming a scholastic career?”

  “Just for a month’s holiday.”

  “An excellent notion.” He swung around on Penny. “Tell me. What am I exactly like?”

  Penny had the grace to blush. Then she said, “We were just saying that most people were like different animals. I was going to say that you were like a grizzly bear.”

  “Not bad. Not bad at all.” His little black eyes twinkled. “Ah. Here comes our organist. None of your modern trash today, I was glad to note, Wren.”

  “I never play trash,” said Paul shortly. He pushed past, toward the coffee table. The Archdeacon looked after him thoughtfully. A grizzly about to pounce? James wondered.

  The crowd was thinning out now. James hung around unobtrusively. He wanted a word with Paul and managed to time his exit so that they reached the door together. Paul looked at him blankly for a moment, then smiled.

  He said, “James. I hardly recognised you. You look at least twenty years older.”

  “The sturm and drang of medical life. Someone was telling me that you’d got a new console.”

  “Not new. But the old one’s been pretty comprehensively rebuilt. It was finished just before Tyrrel left. Would you like to see it?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

  He followed Paul up the narrow winding stairs into the organ loft: a snug cabin, with curtains shutting it off on three sides and on the fourth the gleaming bank of five manuals and the hundred ivory-headed stops like a hundred little serving maids in mob caps waiting for orders.