by Hazel Holt
“I wonder what she died of,” I said. “She looked perfectly healthy when I saw her in the dry cleaners. I told you. That day when I tried to talk to her about you.”
“Yes.” David wasn’t really listening to me. He reached toward the sugar bowl and had already put two more spoonfuls into his coffee when I reached over and took it away from him.
“David! You’ve already put goodness knows how much sugar in that cup already! Here, I’ll pour you another one—you can’t possibly drink that!”
I got up and fetched another cup. “There! And you really ought not to fill it with sugar—so bad for you. Look, I’ll put some sweeteners in and see if you can tell the difference.”
David laughed. “You always were a bossy girl and you haven’t got any better with age! Actually, it’s Nana’s fault I have a dreadfully sweet tooth—Francis, too. It’s one of the few things we have in common. She always put masses of sugar in things, tea, coffee, Horlicks, and lots of sweet cakes and puddings. People did in those days. Actually, this coffee’s quite okay—I can’t tell the difference.”
“Good,” I said, “the beginning of a healthy lifestyle. Here, take this pack of sweeteners, I’ve got some more, and keep it in your pocket in case you want any when you’re out.”
“I still can’t take it in,” David said, “that Nana’s gone and all my troubles could be over.”
“It does seem like a miracle,” I said, “the U.S. cavalry galloping to the rescue just in the nick of time.”
“It’s the blessed sense of relief—I’d really got to the end of my tether. I feel quite light-headed. We must go out for dinner this evening to celebrate! Oh dear,” he gave a rueful grimace, “what an awful thing to say! Poor Nana! I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It is a blessing,” I said, “perhaps even for her. She was getting very confused, you know, and I don’t believe anything on earth would have got her away and into an old people’s home where she could have been properly looked after. She’d just have gone on getting dottier and dottier and living in terrible squalor, like those cases you read about in the papers.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Still, I was fond of the old dear, in a funny kind of way, and she was a link with the past—the last one, really, unless you count Francis, and I don’t because all my memories of him are pretty beastly. Which reminds me, I’d better ring him now and get it over with. Actually, Sheila”—he hesitated and then went on—“would you mind very much if I asked him to come over here to talk about things—I do so loathe going to the deanery and seeing him surrounded by all the pomp and majesty of the church. I always feel it puts me at a disadvantage!”
“Yes, of course. Invite him to tea, if you like. Or dinner, if you’d rather.”
“Tea, I think. Dinner would be much too much of an imposition on you.”
He went out into the hall again and I busied myself putting cups and plates into the dishwasher and clearing the table.
“Tea tomorrow,” David said, coming back into the kitchen, “if that’s all right with you? And, yes, it was Francis who put the notice in the Gazette, and it was very irresponsible of me to go away and not leave a telephone number, and why didn’t I get in touch with him the moment I arrived in Taviscombe? Oh yes, and he has several things it is imperative he discuss with you about the auction as soon as possible. I think that’s everything.”
“Oh dear,” I said, “I’d hoped to avoid another session about that wretched auction—I had planned to leave tea all ready for you both and go out somewhere to avoid him. Oh well, never mind. Perhaps he’ll be so involved with your affairs and the house and everything, he won’t have time for me.”
“You hope!” David laughed. “Now then, is there anything I can do?”
“No, you go and read the paper or something—oh no, I tell you what—could you pop out and get me some eggs? I’ve only got a couple left and if I make a sponge and a walnut cake I’ll need some more. I shall have to make the scones tomorrow, of course, so they’ll be fresh ...”
“Sheila,” David said sternly, “you’re not to go to all this trouble for Francis!”
“Oh, it’s not for Francis,” I replied, “well, not as such. It’s for my own amour propre—I can’t be seen to fall below the proper standard! I always have to do the same when Mrs. Dudley (you know, Rosemary’s terrible old mother) descends on me.”
“I think I know what you mean,” David said doubtfully, “and it will be lovely to have all that delicious cake, but it seems an awful lot of work.”
“Well, actually, I’ve got an absolute pig of a book to review about Trollope—the author hasn’t a vestige of humor, so you can imagine how dire it is—and I’m frantically finding excuses for not getting down to it!”
Francis was in a very affable mood, presumably pleased at the prospect of getting his hands on the house at last.
“I thought we’d have tea first,” I said, “and then you and David can have a chat on your own.”
After I had been put through a rigorous examination about my progress with the auction preparations, and after Francis had suggested various alternative ways of doing what I had already done, he sat back expansively and proceeded to tell us how clever he had been in various ways. He always did this when the brothers were together and I was careful not to catch David’s eye, since it was something we joked about.
“As I expect you know, the cathedral’s income last year was derived from five separate sources: 33.6 percent from grants, 9.2 percent from trust funds, 21.4 percent from donations and alms-giving and 6.3 percent from bequests. However, it is not generally realized that the final 29.5 percent comes from investments and commerce, and that is where I flatter myself I have been able to make a major contribution. Furthermore, by cutting back on last year’s expenditure of 10.4 percent on administration and PR I have made a substantial saving ...”
I could see that David had already switched off and was staring pensively out of the window.
Taking advantage of a brief pause in Francis’s monologue, I said, “More tea for anyone? Cake?”
Francis passed me his cup and continued. “Since the annual expenditure is in excess of one million—our music alone accounts for 16 percent of that figure ...”
I passed him the sugar bowl and assumed what I hoped was an expression of intelligent interest while he went droning on.
Eventually I was able to put the tea things onto the trolley and retreat to the kitchen. As I put the remains of the cake into tins and gave the few remaining scones to the birds (they’re never very nice the next day) I wondered how David and Francis were getting on. I did hope that David was standing up for himself, though, from what I had gathered about old Mr. Beaumont’s will, now that Nana was dead, the house and any bit of money that remained was left jointly to the two of them and they both had to agree to every step that was taken. I hoped this would be enough to protect David’s interests, since Francis was very devious and if there was any way he could get a bigger share he’d certainly try to do so.
The dogs, whom I had shut out of doors because of Francis, reminded me with insistent barking that it was their mealtime and so I let them in. Foss also stalked in, furious at having been excluded from his own domain, and jumped up onto the worktop, where he walked up and down, complaining bitterly that the dogs were being fed before him.
I was just cutting up some raw kidney (his favorite food) when Francis came into the kitchen. Casting a disapproving eye at Foss, he said, “I have to go now, Sheila. I shall be in touch with David again quite soon. I gather he will be with you for some days yet. Thank you for a delightful tea.” He held out his hand. My hands were covered in blood from the kidney and, flustered, I rinsed them at the sink, dried them hastily and imperfectly and shook the proffered hand. As usual, I felt Francis’s disapproval washing over me.
“Good-bye, Francis,” I said, placatingly, trying to retrieve some sort of credibility, “I’ll certainly get in touch with Canon Bywater as you suggested.”<
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He gave me a cold smile, his glance taking in the untidy kitchen, the dogs pushing their empty bowls hopefully around the floor and Foss, who had hooked a large piece of kidney off the cutting board into the sink, where he was crouched, chewing it ferociously with his head on one side.
“Good-bye, Sheila. It has been most pleasant.”
“Give my love to Joan,” I said, shepherding him into the hall, “and to Mary, too.”
I closed the front door behind him and leaned against it, breathing a sigh of relief, then I went into the sitting room to see how David had fared.
“Well! He really outdid himself today—those dreadfully boring figures and banging on about how clever he’d been in getting in all that money and what the bishop said ...”
I became aware that David was sitting hunched up on the sofa looking miserable. I went over and sat down beside him and said gently, “David, what’s the matter? What’s happened?”
He looked at me sadly.
“Isn’t it funny,” he said, “just when you think things are going well at last, just when you think your troubles are really over, just when you’ve pasted a great big grin on your face, Fate comes along and kicks you in the teeth.”
“David, what on earth are you talking about?”
He gave a weary little smile. “Francis doesn’t want to sell the house. I’m right back where I started.”
Chapter 7
I stared at him in amazement.
“What do you mean, doesn’t want to sell?” I asked. “I thought he was frightfully keen.”
“Not anymore. He says the housing market’s depressed and we wouldn’t get a good price. He says we must hang on until things improve.”
David was so depressed he didn’t even bother to mimic Francis’s magisterial tones. “He says we’d lose thousands of pounds.”
“That’s as may be,” I replied, “but he knows what your situation is, how badly you need the money!”
“You know Francis,” David said with an attempt at lightness, “always ready to consider his own needs before anyone else’s.”
“What about that man who wanted to turn it into a nursing home?” I demanded. “I thought he was prepared to pay a decent price.”
“I asked about him—apparently he found somewhere else.
I’m not surprised, really, there are quite a few suitable houses on West Hill.”
“Well then, what about some builder who could put up bungalows and starter homes or whatever in the grounds?”
“I asked about that too. Apparently the building trade’s in a bad way and they’re getting a bit sticky about planning permission. Oh, he had an answer for everything!”
We sat in gloomy silence for a while, then I said, “And there’s no way you can go ahead on your own?”
“No way.”
“Wouldn’t the bank take your share as security or something?” I asked. “I mean, now that you actually possess it, now that Nana’s dead.”
“Not really,” David said. “They’ve been quite good really, waiting so long. I don’t think the promise of selling sometime would cut much ice with them now. I think they’d have to see the house actually on the market before they’d agree to hold off for a bit.”
“There must be something,” I said. “We’ll ask Michael, when he comes home, if he can find some sort of legal loophole.”
But Michael, when David explained the trust to him, was not hopeful.
“It’s what we in the profession call a melamine job,” he said.
“A what?”
“Unbreakable. I honestly don’t see any way out of it. Your only hope is to try and persuade Francis to change his mind.”
David sighed. “Well, you know how impossible that is!”
“Is there no sort of pressure you could exert over him?” I asked hopefully.
“I suppose you could threaten a sit-in in his cathedral,” Michael suggested.
“He’d only have me thrown out by the vergers,” David said.
“Actually,” I said, “you could try a bit of subtle blackmail. I mean, you could let him know that you’d be telling people—influential people—just how badly he’s behaved toward you. I mean, as dean he is supposed to be a practicing Christian! His brother’s keeper—lit. and fig.”
“I don’t think I know any influential people,” David said.
“Of course you do,” I said, “and I’m really tapped into the network down here. My friend Anthea, for instance, knows the bishop quite well and there’s nothing she likes more than spreading a bit of gossip.”
“It might be worth a try,” Michael said encouragingly. “Anyway, you’ve nothing to lose.”
“It’s not as though you liked Francis,” I went on, “and even he, egotist that he is, must see that it wouldn’t do his image any good for that sort of talk to get about.”
“We-ell,” David said doubtfully, “I suppose I might try. The trouble is, will I be able to carry it off? You know how I seize up when I try to talk to Francis!”
“We could work it out for you, like a script,” Michael suggested, “then all you’d have to do would be to act the part of someone talking to his brother. Simple!”
“I tell you what,” I said. “I promised Francis I’d go over to the deanery and look at some letters and things he’s had about the auction, and I need to involve Joan a bit more so that the local ladies don’t get too huffed about me doing too much. I’ll suggest that you come with me—just to have a little chat.”
“Oh, all right, then,” David said resignedly. “As you say, I’ve nothing to lose.”
Joan seemed pleased to see David. I’d forgotten that she had always liked him.
“It’s been such a long time since we saw you,” she said, her face quite lighting up with pleasure.
David was very sweet with her, making jolly conversation about nothing in particular so that she became quite relaxed and cheerful. Until Francis came in, that is. Then she reverted to her old uncertain self. It was really very sad to see the effect he had on her. David caught my eye and I could see that he, too, was struck by this.
“Well now,” Francis said briskly to me, “I have most of the things I want you to see in my room in the cathedral, so if you come too, David, when Sheila and I have finished our business, she can come back here to have tea with Joan and you and I can have our little chat. I have to remain on call, as it were, in the cathedral, since I am expecting a visit sometime from the precentor—so tiresome, he couldn’t give me an exact time, not a very efficient man, I fear.” He turned to Joan. “Sheila will be about half an hour, so you can have tea at four o’clock.”
Joan murmured assent and we obediently followed Francis out of the deanery and made our way through the close to the cathedral, Francis talking all the while about the restoration work, how much it was going to cost, the problems involved in finding such enormous sums, and, of course, how he, financial wizard that he was, was going to raise them. Culminster is not one of the great cathedrals of the southwest. The original Gothic building is marred by some rather heavy Victorian restoration work, but there are still many fine features. The arcading in the chancel is very beautiful and Pevsner praised the west front and maintained that the plate tracery in the Lady Chapel (foiled circles in groups of three—at least, I think that’s what he said, I don’t have a copy by me) may well have been executed by the same craftsmen who worked on the chapter stair at Wells.
We didn’t enter the cathedral by the great west door but through a smaller one around at the side that I’d never noticed before. This brought us in halfway down the nave, already full of tourists. Some, milling about uncertainly, lifted their gaze from the printed booklets they were earnestly studying at the sound of Francis’s voice ringing out as he continued his monologue as we made our way past the tombs of long-dead bishops. David and I had unconsciously lowered our voices as we entered the cathedral, but Francis, on his own home ground, saw no reason, I suppose, to speak in hushed tones, and
I was reminded of Trollope’s remark, in The Small House at Allington, about people who are accustomed to talking in churches.
We passed the door marked Vergers’ Vestry, which has always intrigued me, and made our way into the south transept to the stairs that led up to the library and muniment room.
“I have a small office up here,” Francis said as we made our way carefully up the narrow, winding stone stairs. “I find it convenient to work from here so I can keep an eye on things. A hands-on approach, I believe it is called nowadays.” We emerged from the stairway into a large room with stone vaulting, with a massive oak door, leading through to the library, which stood open. In front of this door was a refectory table on which were piles of pamphlets and brochures, a beautifully arranged posy of flowers and a small cash box. Sitting at the table was a woman selling tickets for an exhibition in the library to a couple of tourists.
“You will find all the information about the documents in the cases and the chained Bible and so forth in this booklet,” she was saying. Then, catching sight of me, she waved vigorously and I realized that it was someone I knew.
“Hello, Monica,” I said, “fancy seeing you here!”
“Oh, I come in two afternoons a week—some of the Friends take it in turns. Good afternoon, Dean,” she said, “quite a lot of people in today.”
“Splendid, splendid,” Francis said in his blandest ecclesiastical manner. “Keep up the good work, Miss—er—Mrs.—er ...” He strode on and we followed him.
“I’ll see you when I come back,” I said hurriedly to Monica as I passed, “we’ll have a chat then.”
Francis didn’t go into the library but through a door on the other side of the room that bore the simple legend “Dean.”
“Right, then, here we are,” he said as we followed him in.
It was a largish room that also had stone walls and a vaulted ceiling. There was one large, arched window set in a massive stone frame, looking out onto the roof of the cloisters below. The whole tone of the room was medieval, ecclesiastical, monkish even, so it came as something of a shock to find that the main piece of furniture was a modern office desk on which reposed, as if on a shrine or altar, a very new, state-of-the-art computer. There were filing cabinets against the walls and a smaller desk, which held an electric kettle and a tray with cups and saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl and teapot, as well as several plates of sandwiches and cakes, neatly covered with cling-film. There was also the small glass containing Francis’s indigestion mixture.