The Salisbury Manuscript

by Philip Gooden

  A tall woman appeared in the lobby behind the maid.

  ‘Ah, Mr Ansell, isn’t it? Mary Mackenzie. You’ve come to see my husband.’

  Tom was gratified that Mrs Mackenzie remembered him after what had been only a single supper visit.

  ‘That’ll do, Bea. Take Mr Ansell’s coat and hat and I will show our guest in.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am,’ said the servant without much grace. She took the overcoat and hat, then moved off down the hall.

  Mary Mackenzie extended her hand. She had a strong, bony grasp, which suited her height and slightly masculine features.

  ‘Mr Mackenzie’ll be glad to see you. He doesn’t take well to being shut up all the time.’

  ‘I am sorry that he’s laid up,’ said Tom.

  ‘Not as sorry as I am. I’m used to having the house to myself during the day.’

  She gave a barking laugh so that Tom was unsure whether she was genuinely irritated. She gestured him to follow her. In keeping with the castle-like exterior of the house, the hall beyond the lobby was panelled in dark oak on which were arranged small circular shields and pairs of crossed swords which Tom recalled from his first visit and which, to his eye, had a distinctly Scottish look. They had their own special name. Claymores, was it?

  ‘I suppose you imagine that these are all heirlooms, Mr Ansell?’ she said, noticing his glance. ‘These swords and shields which are all dinted and tarnished. All this military paraphernalia.’

  ‘They certainly look, ah, well established,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I can tell you that Mr Mackenzie bought them all in one fell swoop from a Scottish gentleman who had gone bankrupt. My husband has made only one trip north of the border in his entire life and that was to purchase these items. Mr Mackenzie would like to think that he has military forebears, martial ancestors. But you can take it from me that he does not.’

  Tom was faintly surprised at the disrespectful tone in Mrs Mackenzie’s voice but he was accustomed enough to the way that wives talked about their husbands, and vice versa. He wondered if Helen would ever talk like that about him after they’d been married for as many years as the Mackenzies had been. He hoped not. He vowed he would never refer to her disparagingly. First of all, naturally, they had to get married. Or rather, Helen had to agree to marry him. And before that, he had to propose. The dragon-lady’s acquiescence would be desirable though not essential. As for Helen, Tom thought she was on the verge of agreeing . . .

  ‘What? I beg your pardon.’

  He realized that Mrs Mackenzie had said something to him. He was so wrapped up in visions of Helen consenting to marry him that he hadn’t been listening.

  ‘I asked whether your father was a military man. He was, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ said Tom. He wondered how Mrs Mackenzie was aware of this. ‘But I scarcely recall my father. He died when I was small. I can remember a tall man in a blue uniform but not much more.’

  ‘How romantic,’ said Mrs Mackenzie. ‘Did he die on campaign?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. He was on his way to the Dardanelles when he caught a fever on board ship. He was buried at sea.’

  ‘Perhaps I should not say this but that also sounds romantic. You were not tempted to follow your father and serve your country?’

  ‘My father’s profession sometimes seems to belong to another age,’ said Tom. ‘The war in the Crimea was a long time ago.’

  ‘To you perhaps. But you are young, Mr Ansell. So, the age of heroes being past, you decided to take up the dry business of law?’

  ‘There can be blood and fury and death in the law too, Mrs Mackenzie. All the emotions of a battlefield but drawn out and buttoned up.’

  ‘No blue uniforms though?’

  ‘Not those, no.’

  Mrs Mackenzie nodded her long face, though Tom could not tell whether it was in agreement or mild mockery. ‘Well, each to his own. You will find my husband in his snuggery if you go up those stairs there at the end. The first door you come to. Knock loudly for he may be napping.’

  Thanking Mrs Mackenzie, Tom went down a short passageway which led off the hall and up a flight of spiral stone steps. He was in the turreted area of the house. Gas lights set in elaborate sconces reinforced the impression of being in a corner of a cramped castle. On a landing Tom rapped at an oak door whose stout ribs and redundant ironwork might have been designed to repel a siege by a bunch of medieval marauders. If David Mackenzie had been asleep it must have been a light one for almost straightaway there was an answering ‘Come in.’

  At first Tom thought that a portion of the London fog had been piped up from town and into the room since he could hardly see to the far side. As his eyes adjusted and as the pipe smoke began to eddy through the open door, he made out the figure of the only active partner in Scott, Lye & Mackenzie sitting in a wing-chair close to an open fire.

  ‘Be quick, Ansell!’ said Mackenzie. ‘Shut the door. Keep the warmth in. Sit down. Have a drink.’

  Tom wondered that his employer could recognise him through the fug. David Mackenzie levered himself slightly upwards on the arms of his chair. His right leg, encased in a plaster cast, was resting on a stool. He was well equipped for a prolonged siege with a pipe in one hand, a glass in the other and a newspaper on his lap, and further supplies of tobacco, brandy and water on a table next to the wing-chair. Tom made some comment about how sorry he was to see him in this state.

  ‘It’s nothing, dear boy,’ said David Mackenzie, seeming pleased at Tom’s concern. ‘The result of a foolish accident. The ground was slippery, you know.’

  The only active partner in Scott, Lye & Mackenzie looked like a favourite uncle with his broad face and monk’s tonsure of white hair. But Tom knew that appearances could be deceptive. Mackenzie was sharp enough when it came to law business. He nodded benevolently but his ears missed nothing. He outlined a client’s chances succinctly.

  ‘Have a drink, I say. Help yourself to a glass from over there and then help yourself from this.’

  Mr Mackenzie picked up the decanter and poured himself a generous measure. Tom would have preferred to drink tea or water or nothing at all – the debris of a pie which he’d bought at a coster’s stall on the way up to Highgate sat greasily in his stomach – but it wouldn’t do to refuse his employer. He fetched a glass from the sideboard and lined the bottom with brandy, adding plenty of water. He sat down on the opposite side of the fire to Mackenzie. Feeble daylight penetrated through the leaded window but a stronger illumination came from the gas jets on either side of the fireplace.

  ‘What d’you make of this?’ said Mackenzie, tapping the newspaper on his lap with the stem of his pipe. ‘Of the Claimant case?’

  The criminal trial of the Tichborne Claimant was drawing to a close during these autumn days. At least, it was generally believed that it must be drawing to a close soon since it had begun in the spring and had already broken records for occupying court-time with a single case. But Tom sometimes wondered why it shouldn’t go on for ever. Just as things seemed to be winding down, the Claimant’s counsel introduced some sensational claim or wild accusation against the presiding judge. The case was amusing to those engaged in the law, not least because the judge who was on the receiving end of counsel’s accusations was the Lord Chief Justice, but it had extensive appeal beyond the law and could be relied on to sell the papers.

  ‘Is he genuine or isn’t he?’ said Mackenzie.

  ‘Surely there can be no question that he isn’t,’ said Tom.

  ‘Not a niggling doubt?’ said Tom’s employer, tapping the paper for emphasis. ‘Doubt is our business, you know. Doubt is the lever which can move legal mountains.’

  Tom nodded. He sometimes felt that he should produce a notebook and write down David Mackenzie’s little asides, or perhaps it was rather the feeling that Mackenzie would have liked him to do so.

  ‘However, I haven’t summoned you here today to chew over the Tichborne Claimant case, Tom,’ sa
id Mackenzie, folding the paper and dropping it on the carpet. While Tom was waiting to hear why he had been summoned, his employer picked up a back-scratcher from the table by his elbow. He inserted the end into the gap at the top of the plaster that encased his leg, and wiggled it around. Judging by the look of satisfaction, almost of ecstasy, that wreathed his round face, he must have succeeded in reaching the itch. He replaced the back-scratcher on the side table and said, ‘How are you on the Church?’

  ‘I, er, I . . . am not quite sure what you mean.’

  ‘Can you tell your cope from your chasuble, and could you tell either of them from your alb?’

  ‘No, not even if my life depended on it.’

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said Mackenzie. ‘In fact, I don’t think you’ll have much discusssion about copes and chasubles with Felix Slater. He’s a canon residentiary at Salisbury Cathedral, which is where you are to go. Slater is distinctly “low”. He’d probably flee at a whiff of incense. He’s a stiff, somewhat cold individual, to be honest. Still, he comes from a family which has a very long association with us and we can no more choose our older clients than . . . than . . .’

  ‘Than parents can choose their children,’ completed Tom.

  ‘Very good. Older clients can certainly be as trouble-some and demanding as children. Not that Felix Slater is particularly old. And I shouldn’t be too hard on him. He is a worthy and respectable man.’

  ‘So what am I to do in Salisbury, Mr Mackenzie? Is it connnected with a will?’

  ‘Why no, not directly, though there is something to be passed on, a ‘delicate’ something. Let me explain, but first why don’t you help yourself to another drink. And top up my glass while you’re about it, Tom.’

  Once Tom had refilled their glasses, David Mackenzie proceeded to explain. It appeared that Canon Felix Slater’s father had died quite a few years ago at the age of ninety, died peacefully in his sleep. George Slater – also a client of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie – had not only reached a venerable age but was a venerable-looking figure too, twinkling, benign and white-haired (at this point Tom wondered whether Mackenzie was, consciously or otherwise, referring to himself). If you’d glimpsed old Mr Slater in the street, tapping his way along with a cheery greeting for his neighbours and a smile for the children, you’d have taken him for a retired clergyman. You’d have assumed that the son, Felix, was merely following in the family tradition by going into the Church. But George Slater was a far from devout individual. In fact, in his youth he’d had a reputation as a very dissolute man.

  ‘It was a time of dissolution, of course,’ said David Mackenzie, pulling complacently on his pipe. ‘Not long after the beginning of a new century, the period of the Regency. Why, they got up to things we could hardly imagine these days, let alone countenance. So you might say that George Slater was doing no more than was expected of him. He mixed with writers and poets and fellows like that, and you certainly can’t expect any better of them.’

  ‘But he settled down later?’ said Tom, wondering where all this was leading.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. George Slater settled down, if marriage is settling. And, if it is, then presumably the more marriages, the more settled. George got through three wives – nothing sinister there, I hasten to add. He outlived them all but they died of natural causes. Felix, who is now a Salisbury canon, was one of two surviving children of these matches and he never got on with George. He was the second son by the second wife. I have always suspected that he chose the Church as a kind of reproach to his father and his father’s way of life. George was a non-believer. He had a tendency to talk about his atheism as loudly as that Bradlaugh fellow does now. Father and son were opposites in other ways too. Certainly, Felix is a rather crabbed and priggish person. The name means ‘happy’ in Latin, you know, and I think he was called that in optimistic hope by his father. George was an expansive and good-humoured fellow – or so he seemed to me in his later days. By the time I knew him, he was married to his third wife. There was quite a difference in age. He seemed attentive enough to her while she seemed fond enough of him. But who can tell with a marriage, who can tell, eh?’

  Tom pulled some vaguely sympathetic face while wondering, again, whether Mr Mackenzie was referring to himself (and Mrs Mackenzie).

  ‘I’m telling you this, Tom, not because it has any immediate bearing on your task but because I think that you need to know something of Canon Slater’s history and the history of the family. This is a strange business, one that requires tact and discretion. Normally, I’d travel down to Salisbury myself but as things are . . .’

  David Mackenzie glanced down at the leg propped up on the stool. Outside it grew gloomier, or perhaps it was that the air in the room was becoming more opaque on account of smoke from the pipe.

  ‘George Slater had an estate in Wiltshire, outside Salisbury. It’s an old house, goes back earlier than the Civil War. The family money came from wool originally. Almost everybody’s money in Wiltshire came originally from wool, you know. The estate has now passed to his older son, Percy, who was the older son by his second wife, the only one who produced children. Percy was a son in the mould of the father though I fear he’s gone into decline. A lifetime of drinking and idling on the expectation of coming into money has done him no favours. He was a client of our firm at one time but he had a falling-out with Scott or possibly with Lye. I don’t know what it was about, before my time, but he was encouraged to take his business elsewhere.

  ‘Anyway Percy too has got through a couple of wives and it is the present one, Elizabeth, who would be the lady of the manor if she chose to spend much time down there. But I believe she doesn’t like the country and spends all the year in town.

  ‘Felix, the younger son, the Salisbury cleric, did not receive very much after the death of father George, and almost everything which was left went to Percy. But one of the items that Felix took – or that was bequeathed to him, I am not certain which – was a trunkful of old documents and papers. I have the impression it has taken several years since their father’s death for this trunk to travel the few miles to Salisbury. There was nothing of much value or importance in the trunk. I imagine that Percy Slater one day got around to glancing inside it, and decided that the contents might as well go to his younger brother, who takes an interest in history and tradition. You are with me so far, Tom? You look . . . distant.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s just that it’s rather warm in here. And I was thinking that from what you are saying . . . there must have been an article of value inside the trunk after all.’

  Tom had been thinking no such thing but felt he had to make some response. The atmosphere inside Mackenzie’s snug was soporific and he wondered when his employer was going to get to the point.

  ‘There was an article of value in the trunk,’ said Mackenzie. ‘If this was a story, it would have been a revised will bequeathing the estate to Felix. A dramatic codicil which changed everything. But instead it was a handwritten manuscript. A kind of life story.’

  ‘Whose life story?’

  ‘George Slater’s. At some point the old man had decided to pen an account of his early days, or at any rate those days before his latter period of respectability. Now, I said that George had been friendly with writers and the like. He’d known Lord Byron and Percy Shelley and the rest of that gang. In fact, I think that Percy Slater had been christened in honour of the poet. But George Slater had mixed with other people apart from titled poets. Others less reputable, men and women both. He seems to have, er, sown quite a few wild oats in his youth, a whole field of them, as it were. Then, recollecting all this in tranquillity, he decided to write it down. It was this account which Felix Slater found among his father’s effects in the trunk.’

  ‘You’ve seen it, Mr Mackenzie?’

  ‘Heavens no. So far Canon Slater is the only person to have seen it – and read it. And what he has read does not make him think any better of his late father.’


  ‘It is scandalous, is it?’ said Tom, quite awake now.

  "Bad and dangerous’ was the expression used by Felix Slater in a letter to me. I’m not sure whether he was referring to his father or to the contents of the manuscript or both.’

  ‘Surely if old Mr Slater is dead and if he lived a respectable life these many years, then there can’t be much harm in an account that reaches back half a century? And if he went to the trouble of writing his early history then he must have intended it to be read or even published.’

  ‘Do you keep a diary, Tom?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s wise. I speak as a lawyer who is cautious about what he commits to paper. Some would say it’s a woman’s habit, anyway. People write up their diaries every day but many would be horrified to think of them being seen by any other eyes.’

  ‘Well then, if Canon Slater is so disturbed by this document, why doesn’t he just destroy it? Burn it.’

  ‘Here we come to the nub of the matter. Felix Slater may not have much time for his father’s memory or much patience with the brother who presently lives on the family estate. But he does look on himself as the inheritor of tradition, a repository of all that’s best in the Slater family. His grandfather – that is George’s father – was apparently a devout and upright man, a churchman like Felix. And Felix has a nephew, the son of Percy, who is also a man of the cloth. So the Canon regards himself and his nephew as being in the family line while his father and brother are the aberrations. All this is to say that he has a respect for what is handed down to him. He would not consider destroying this legacy of his father. It may not represent the best in the Slater line, it may even be among the worst things, but Felix can’t bring himself to burn it. Nor does he wish to consult his brother Percy, who should rightfully have some say in the matter.’

  ‘So what does Canon Slater want to do with it?’ said Tom, clearer now about where the conversation was heading.