by Frank Baker
If I hated that Sunday evening service, I hated the stuffy Sunday morning service almost as much. The truth is, cathedrals aren’t meant for crowds. The less people you have in them, and the less chairs, the better. Even if you don’t find people and chairs, you find tombstones and monuments to old generals or bishops nobody has ever heard of. It’s all a great mistake. If I were a dean I’d do something about it. But deans aren’t what they were.
The times when I really loved the Cathedral were weekdays when you could look right down the great nave, seeing perhaps only one tripper creeping from pillar to pillar with a guidebook, a vigilant verger stalking him and ready to net him if he so much as sneezed. In winter you’d see nothing at all except the light from one gas-globe plunged smokily into the remote and vast darkness of the nave roof. Then you really felt that Evensong and the Cathedral meant something. Heralded by old Dyack and his pitch-pipe, Tallis in the Dorian Mode would float down the aisles; a motet by William Byrd weave its intricate pattern upon the dark silence. At such times I believe we all felt, even the boys, a relationship to the great roof that soared away above us and to the wonderful old monks and people who’d built it all, and wrote that glorious music, centuries ago.
The usual handful of queer people regularly haunted the Cathedral. Amongst them was Colonel Temperley, who had a very roving face and a very purple nose. The boys called him the Purple Emperor. He loved music, this old buffer; particularly jammy things like the oboe solo in Stanford’s Nunc Dimittis in A major. At such moments he would weep; you expected him to roll right down the nave in his ecstasy. Afterwards, he’d tip any of the boys who cared to dog his footsteps, a half-crown or two.
Then there was Miss Linkinghorne. I am told by a friend that you can find a Miss Linkinghorne in every cathedral in the United Kingdom. But I like her so much I am going to put her in. She was an elderly lady whose outstanding eccentricity was to dress always in the colours of the Church’s seasons. During Advent and Lent she would wear purple, which was very suitable; but then would occur Whitsun or a Martyr’s day, and lo–she would appear in scarlet. In the long Trinity period, from about June to November, she was decently garbed in shades of green; at Easter, Christmas, All Saints and such major festivals, she blossomed out in white or cream. At Easter, adorned also with primroses, actual and artificial (I believe she somehow connected Lord Beaconsfield with the Resurrection), this purity of costume did not appear incongruous. But I never thought the effect was so happy on Christmas Day when she contrived somehow to make herself look like a snowman. She was very thorough in all her colour schemes, carrying it down to such details as gloves, handbag, even handkerchief. In the hall-stand in her house were five parasols: white, purple, green, red and black (for Good Friday, not rain). She talked excessively of Jerusalem, and once a year had the choristers to a party which had become the season’s best joke.
Dear Miss Linkinghorne! My heart goes out to you–and to other persons, less noteworthy–canons, minor canons, choristers, vergers, bedesmen and lay-clerks–who almost daily were to be found in Beauvais’ ancient building. I could tell stories of all of them; stories that would not be believed. How old Canon Hepple, for example, wandered up to read the Litany with a mouse-trap trailing from his cassock. But this is the history of Miss Hargreaves, not of Cornford Cathedral.
One Saturday afternoon towards the end of September, I came out of a cinema with Henry, Marjorie and Jim. Marjorie and I had patched up our quarrel and I was in a very light-hearted mood. The film had been a comic, and we were all talking about an absurd hat which one of the female characters had worn.
‘Nowadays,’ I said jokingly, as we turned into Dumper’s for tea, ‘girls haven’t the courage to wear something out of the way like that. You’re all fettered by fashion.’
‘If we did wear such hats,’ said Marjorie, taking me seriously as usual, ‘you men wouldn’t be seen dead with us.’
‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I’d be proud to be seen out with you in something really original for a change. Girls are all too much alike.’
I winked at Henry, who was ordering crumpets and tea.
‘That’s right,’ he agreed cheerily. ‘You want to learn to brighten things up a bit, you girls. That’s what you’re here for, anyway. Pity you didn’t study Miss Hargreaves more.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. I glared at Henry and studied the menu card. Connie’s name hadn’t once passed our lips in the last week or so. It was mad of him to revive her again just when people were beginning to forget her.
‘How about having some meringues,’ I began.
But Jim, who really never could get her knife out of Miss Hargreaves, said bitterly, ‘To hell with Miss Hargreaves!’
Of course that set me off. Certainly, to hell with her; but not at Jim’s behest.
‘There’s not the slightest need to be unkind about the poor old thing,’ I said.
The tea and crumpets came. In a few minutes the conversation had swept me along against my will and we were all arguing hotly. It was utterly maddening. I didn’t want to talk about Miss Hargreaves. But I never could bear to hear her attacked.
It broiled up to a proper row.
‘You’re absolutely potty about her,’ said Marjorie. ‘I call it rather indecent the way you went on. I was sorry for her.’
‘I don’t need you to be sorry for her!’ I snapped. ‘Anyway, I’m not a little bit potty about her.’
‘Oh, yes, you are! Just because you won’t talk about her that doesn’t mean to say you’re not always thinking of her. I know perfectly well when you’re thinking of her. A sort of soppy air comes over you.’
‘You screamed her name in your sleep last night,’ said Jim.
‘It’d be a good thing if you kept your ear away from my bedroom door.’
‘Of course,’ remarked Marjorie airily, ‘you’re really peeved to death because she’s gone away and not written to you.’
I laughed scornfully.
‘What piffle! Why, if I wanted her back, she’d come back. I don’t want her back. I’m glad she’s gone. I made her go, anyway. And as I did it solely for your benefit, I’d be grateful if you’d stop nagging.’
‘Oh, so I nag, do I?’
‘Nag! You’d nag the wool out of the woolsack.’
‘I wish you two would shut up,’ complained Jim. ‘Everybody’s looking at you.’
So they were. And listening. When we stopped talking the room was as quiet as the North Pole. Henry rose and went to the pay-desk to settle the bill. I followed him moodily.
‘You do get sizzled up about Connie,’ he said irritably.
‘It was mad of you to bring her name up like that,’ I told him.
‘It slipped out. Anyway, that was no reason for you to get so worked up. You just don’t seem able to keep calm where Connie is concerned. It’s ridiculous.’
‘I can’t help it, Henry. Somehow, I simply can’t bear her to be attacked. I believe I’d give anything to see her again. Just once so as I could know she was really real.’
‘Whistle and she’ll come to you, my lad,’ remarked Henry lightly.
We all went out into the street and stood watching a flame of sunset over the market buildings. It made me feel rather ashamed of myself. Sunsets always do.
‘I’m sorry, Marjorie,’ I said.
But she was chillily silent as we walked home. I tried to talk lightly; to pretend we hadn’t really quarrelled. I stuck my hands in my pockets and whistled casually in the way one does when trouble is near at hand. I sometimes think that that fellow who faced the fat bulls of Bashan closing in on him must have known a thing or two about whistling.
I shan’t forget Michaelmas Day that year. It was a beautiful afternoon, very warm. The great west doors were wide open at the bottom of the nave, and through them, firing the thousands of chipped colours in the mighty window that Cromwell had smashed, streamed the sun, dark gold and growing deeper as Evensong went on. I was feeling happy, loving the
Cathedral, loving everything. From one of the little windows high up in the choir clerestory a ray of sun struck upon King John’s tomb. The Doctor started quietly to play the introduction to the Magnificat (it was Stanford in A), increasing his registration bar by bar until that thrilling moment came when we all crashed in at the words ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’. Colonel Temperley clung to the wooden pillars of his Miserere seat, dabbing his eyes with a check handkerchief. Miss Linkinghorne, veiled in warm tones of red, gently waved her fingers to the beat of the music. A stray honorary canon tried to look over Archdeacon Cutler’s copy, but receiving no encouragement, turned aside petulantly. The Precentor, as usual, was writing something in his diary. Archie Tallents turned to Slesser, bowed and cooed sweetly. Meakins, always on time and never caring how long the Gloria was, approached the Dean’s door and, undoing it, waited with his wand over his shoulder. The Dean rather wearily snapped his horn glasses into their case, blew his nose with an enormous silk handkerchief, and followed Meakins up, past the pool of sunlight, to the lectern.
We sat down for the second lesson, and I studied my copy of the anthem. And I saw another Angel ascending in the East, having the sign of the living God.
Wonderful words. Almost automatically I looked east, up the choir to the great reredos.
The sign of the living God?
Well, I don’t know whether you could call a hat a sign, but I certainly never had seen a hat like that before.
Archie Tallents, who missed nothing that went on in the Cathedral, wrinkled his brow and gazed up to the Bishop’s Throne, near the south door to the choir.
‘The Angel has ascended in the east,’ he murmured.
It was true. Reposing calmly in the rich cushions under the carved canopy of the throne, sat Constance Hargreaves. On her head was a truly remarkable hat; a strange and very wonderful hat. It was cylindrical in shape, taller than a topper, with barely any brim, made of some smooth cream-coloured fur and softened by many veils. On anyone else it would have looked quite ridiculous. But somehow, as usual, Connie got away with it. You couldn’t laugh; you could only hold your breath and wonder. Sublimely unconscious of the attention she was attracting (the Bishop’s Throne is the most conspicuous seat in the Cathedral; more than a seat, it is really a house, with its own door, roof, and stalls for chaplains, amply furnished with octavo leather-bound prayer-books and tasselled cushions) sublimely unconscious of the–attention she was attracting, Miss Hargreaves sat in this sacrosanct place, idly gazing through her lorgnettes at the emblems of Our Lord’s Passion in the roof.
‘Ye gods!’ exclaimed Slesser.
‘And fishes great and small!’ added Archie.
‘That ’at,’ said Dyack, ‘would ’old about ten bloody pints.’
And I heard Baker, the solo-boy, say, ‘Mr Huntley’s friend’s come back again. Won’t he be pleased?’
A chorister giggled; the four probationers tittered. The clatter of a lozenge tin was heard; a service-book came tumbling out of Baker’s scob. The Dean hesitated, looked round sharply, then hastily went on with the lesson. Meakins stared up to the throne, half rose, sat down again, frowned and importantly adjusted his gown.
The lesson ended. We rose for the Nunc Dimittis. So did Miss Hargreaves. It was now clear that Meakins was prepared for action. Rushing the Dean home again, he gave a twist to his white moustache and set off at almost a sprint for the episcopal quarters. The boys, all eyes turned upon him, struggled weakly to reach the top F sharp in the Nunc Dimittis. Meakins had got to the throne; we could see they were arguing, though we couldn’t, of course, hear what they said. After a few seconds Miss Hargreaves, looking very angry, limped ostentatiously down the choir, making far more noise than was necessary with her sticks, and finally seated herself in the Canonry stalls, bang in front of Miss Linkinghorne. In order to advertise her disapproval for all of us, she sat down during the rest of the Nunc Dimittis; she did not even rise for the Gloria, only slightly bowed her head. And I can tell you, it’s not easy to remain seated for the Gloria in Cornford Cathedral. People don’t like it at all.
Archie turned his large head to me and cooed, ‘Lord now lettest Thou Miss Hargreaves?’
‘Depart in peace,’ I sang. But I couldn’t see her doing that.
I suffered afterwards in the lay-clerks’ vestry. Archie had no mercy. Everything was brought up. Dr Pepusch, Sarah, the Duke of Grosvenor, the harp, the bath, the visit to the organ-loft. I was spared nothing.
‘Always knew you were one for the girls,’ said Slesser, ‘but old ladies–that’s vice, Huntley! Pure vice!’
‘Don’t you take any notice of these nasty remarks, dear,’ said Archie; ‘remember you have to live up to a nine-foot hat and be brave.’
‘Might ’a’ been a mitre from the size of it,’ buzzed Peaty. He is a little alto with a voice like a starving fly in a bottle. Sir Hugh Allan, who once attended Evensong, mistook him for a bassoon.
Archie put his head round the door and looked out into the transept.
‘The Queen of the May is waiting for my Norman,’ he said.
At this point Pussy Coltsfoot, one of our ancients, who always made the same sort of noise, whether he sang or spoke, asked whether we had observed the woman with the queer hat sitting in the Bishop’s Throne. Being deaf, he had heard nothing of the talk.
‘Huntley’s girl-friend,’ shouted Slesser above the organ. (The Doctor was wallowing in an endless Rheinberger sonata.)
‘I didn’t notice a bend,’ murmured Pussy. ‘It seemed quite straight to me. Like a drainpipe in the snow.’
‘Concubine,’ hummed Peaty right in his ear. ‘Huntley’s concubine.’
‘You needn’t be disgusting,’ I said. I don’t know about you, but I loathe that word ‘concubine’.
Wadge, the other tenor, a pleasant fellow who has a habit of putting in aspirates in unlikely places (he has a favourite solo in which he sings ‘Thou crownest the h-year’) turned and patted me on the back. ‘A faithful female friend is very nice for a h-young man,’ he said.
‘Wonder if that bloody ’at folds up?’ growled Dyack.
The voluntary had finished; it was time to go into choir for the full practice. Already the boys were trooping in with piles of music. I peered round the door. There she was, prowling up and down, tapping the pavement tiles critically with her stick. You immediately felt they were second-rate tiles; you would have said that she had always been used to walking on the best Roman tiles.
The Precentor came in. ‘Hurry up, gentlemen,’ he said. He looked at me with a slight smile. ‘Friend of yours waiting for you, I imagine.’ He went out, giving the others a vile leer. I don’t like that man.
Archie was just going out. I called him back. ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘there’s been some ghastly mistake. I want you to understand, Archie, that I do not know this damned woman. Somehow she’s managed to hook herself on to me.’
‘Hook, dear? You supplied the eye?’
‘Don’t joke. It’s terribly serious. If she comes up and tries to talk to me, I’ve simply got to ignore her. I want you to help me, Archie. Walk out with me and talk loudly all the time. I shan’t look her way.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Blow out your chest. Scowl and be a man. Take a deep breath and look at her boots. Glare critically at her boots and you’re safe. Come on, dearie.’
Together we left the vestry and started to cross the transept. She was standing by Bishop Creighton’s tomb, examining some alabaster cherubs, and for a moment didn’t notice us.
‘Quick!’ I hissed. ‘Quick!’
But she was too sharp for me. Whipping round, she cried out and tottered towards us.
‘Dear Norman!’ she cried jubilantly. ‘It is so nice to see you again. What a truly beautiful anthem! Though I cannot imagine why you were not given the solo. Surely–’
‘No talking allowed in the transepts,’ said Archie severely. ‘Haven’t you seen the notices?’
‘Notices? What notices?’
Archie looked round him. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Meakins has taken them away to be cleaned. But the order still stands. Nothing but singing allowed in the transepts. Come along, Huntley.’
‘Ridiculous! Ridiculous!’ exclaimed Miss Hargreaves, flushing angrily. She followed us, talking all the time. ‘I have been in a score of cathedrals and never yet have I been told not to talk in the transepts. I shall report the matter to the Dean.’
‘The Dean himself made the transept by-law,’ said Archie, ‘and he will not tolerate it being broken.’
‘I shall write to Grosvenor about it,’ she snapped.
I bit my lip and said nothing.
‘My dear lady,’ said Archie, allowing her to catch up with him for a moment, ‘transept talk is strictly forbidden, even to royalty. Read the notices when they have been cleaned.’
‘We are now in the aisle,’ she said triumphantly.
‘Aisles, too,’ said Archie. ‘Except on Sundays.’
Slesser joined us, blithely humming ‘h-where did h-you get that hat?’
‘Norman,’ panted Miss Hargreaves, in a voice that broke my heart, ‘Norman–how can you–’ God! How unbearable it was! I hurried on, loathing myself.
‘We are all very busy now,’ said Archie. ‘The music of the Cathedral must come first.’
Baker was standing by the choir gates, his hands in his cassock pockets, an insolent smile on his face. Still she followed us. At the gates she was stopped by Meakins. Hurriedly we went inside.
‘Now, now,’ we heard Meakins saying, ‘we’ve had enough of you.’ (Oh, it was intolerable to hear her spoken to like that.) ‘No, you can’t come into choir. Sitting in the Bishop’s Throne–never heard of such a thing!’
‘I had no intention of trespassing upon the dear Bishop’s Throne,’ we heard. ‘I have never willingly sat on a throne, and I never will. Here is my card. I am a friend of Mr Huntley’s; a close friend. Kindly move. I abominate fuss.’
‘There’s a practice on, Ma’am. You can’t come into choir.’