The Salisbury Manuscript

by Philip Gooden

  ‘Henry, I have been thinking of something I should like to do when I am better.’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’

  ‘I have been reading in the papers about these Americans who have been preaching and singing in Liverpool and Edinburgh.’

  ‘I have read about them as well. Moody and – and – somebody else.’

  ‘Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey. Mr Moody preaches the Gospel while Mr Sankey plays the organ and sings hymns. He has a fine, strong voice. Together, they have brought many people to Christ. I would give anything to hear them preach and sing.’

  ‘Liverpool and Edinburgh are a long way off, Constance.’

  ‘But they are to visit London. The papers said so. London is not so far by train.’

  ‘Well, we might consider the trip. As you say, when you are better, my dear.’

  ‘Only consider.’

  ‘We will go to London then, I promise, if this Mr Moody and Mr Sankey make an appearance there.’

  Cathcart didn’t remind his wife that she had barely stirred from her room for the last six months. This was a promise he was most unlikely to be required to keep. He glanced around. Apart from the narrow bed and table next to it with with a bible and a stack of tracts, the room – the sickroom – was sparsely furnished: an armchair, a wash-stand and a chest of drawers cluttered with little boxes and bottles, all containing the many medicines which Grace had charge of. Grace was a combination of nurse and lady’s maid. She slept in a small room next door.

  Constance was pleased with her husband’s promise and reached forward to pat his hand where it rested on the bed-cover. Under the white crown of a bed-cap, her large eyes fixed on his. They were the most notable feature of her pallid face. Great dark pools in which he had once taken pleasure in drowning himself.

  They chatted a little more about the day. He told her that, by an extraordinary chance, he had met the son of an old friend from his campaigning days in the Crimea. He explained that Tom Ansell was in Salisbury on some legal mission. Talking about the encounter, Henry Cathcart grew lively, as Constance had been when she mentioned Moody and Sankey. She was quite interested and said, ‘You must bring him here. I should like to meet this Mr Ansell if my health permits. I should like so much to glimpse someone who reminds you of your dead friend.’ Then she seemed to grow tired and suppressed a yawn.

  Henry stood up and leaned forward to kiss his wife on the forehead. As he was about to leave, Constance suddenly said, ‘Mrs Slater called at the house yesterday. Grace told me she did. You didn’t mention it to me when I saw you last evening.’

  Henry Cathcart paused, his hand tight on the door-knob. He said, ‘I didn’t mention it because you were tired, Constance. In fact, you were almost asleep when I came up. I didn’t want to bother you with unnecessary news.’

  ‘But I always want to hear who has visited you, Henry. No news is unnecessary news. It is very tedious being isolated up here. Everyone forgets about you and the world goes on turning as if you weren’t here at all. I wonder you did not mention Mrs Slater’s visit.’

  ‘She came to give me some advice on fabrics and colours,’ he said. ‘As she has done before. It is very useful having someone who is able to tell me about the latest fashions, useful for business.’

  ‘But Mrs Slater is the wife of a cathedral canon, isn’t she?’ said Constance. ‘I don’t know what she should have to do with the latest fashions.’

  ‘Well, there it is,’ said her husband. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’

  He closed the door quietly but firmly. In a moment Grace, always on the lookout for the welfare of her mistress, would be up to see to Constance, to prepare her for another restless night, to dose her with something or other, to turn out the gas lights, no doubt to say a final prayer.

  Constance Cathcart’s illness was a mystery to her husband, to her doctor and to herself as well. She’d never been strong even in the early days of their marriage but it was only in the last couple of years that she had suffered from bouts of debility and ‘nerves’ which were bad enough to keep her confined in her room for much of the time. And recently she had hardly emerged from there at all. The doctor was a frequent visitor, often spending longer in her room than her husband, and followed later in the day by his ‘boy’ bringing the prescribed medicines. Henry Cathcart left all these visits in the hands of Grace. He devoted himself to his shop business, which seemed to expand and prosper even while his wife languished and declined.

  Tonight, as he made his way to his bedroom several doors away from that of his wife, his mind wasn’t on Constance but on Amelia Slater. What he’d said to Constance was true enough, that he valued Mrs Slater’s opinion on the latest styles and fabrics. He’d not given much thought to the idea that it was odd, or inappropriate, for the wife of a cathedral canon to have views on fashion. And, if he had, he’d probably have put it down to the fact that Amelia wasn’t quite English, that she had grown up in foreign parts.

  But the conversation had taken a quite different turn on her latest visit, the one that Constance had found out about from Grace. The two of them, Henry and Amelia, had been looking at a catalogue of mourning wear for women. Cathcart had been considering expanding the department in his store which sold mourning outfits. He had in mind a smaller version of Jay’s or Peter Robinson’s in London, a local place to which all the widows of Salisbury would naturally turn in their bereavement.

  They were in the drawing room. The door was closed. Mrs Slater was an occasional visitor but she was not there often enough to excite comment from the servants. Or so Henry hoped. They were standing at a table on which the catalogue was open. On one page was an image of a child in mourning costume, on the other was small-waisted woman in a well-fitting black dress made of crape.

  ‘I would like bombazine,’ said Amelia. ‘It wears better than crape.’

  ‘Crape goes limp, true,’ said Henry, ‘but bombazine is more expensive.’

  ‘Or pure silk, which is better than both,’ said Amelia, smoothing her hands over her waist, which was not as slim as the woman’s in the picture but still nicely shaped and graspable. Henry Cathcart was conscious of her closeness, of the movement of her hands.

  ‘I hope it will be many years before you are faced with the choice of wearing pure silk or bombazine, Mrs Slater.’

  ‘Every woman dreams of how she will look as a widow, Henry.’

  Henry felt a little jolt at her use of his first name. He thought of his wife upstairs. It was the late afternoon, and the end of a miserable foggy day. Constance would be either resting or being attended to by Grace.

  ‘It is not a happy dream though,’ he said. ‘To dream of being a widow, Amelia.’

  ‘I think of it often,’ she said, and touched him on the arm.

  He didn’t know what came over him, whether it was her touch or her words, but he kissed her, at first on her cheek and then, as she did not pull back, on her lips. They stayed like that for an instant then drew apart. Amelia was slightly flushed. She smiled slightly and, more self-possessed than he was, said again, ‘I think of it often, Henry. Of being a widow.’

  Before Amelia Slater left, Henry gave her a little nosegay of flowers. He took them from a display in the drawing room. It was an impulsive gesture, one which he almost regretted afterwards. It was this nosegay which Amelia was wearing when she encountered Tom Ansell outside The Side of Beef later on that foggy evening. And it was inside the same hostelry that Cathcart had first seen Tom, the spit of his dead friend. Cathcart dined from time to time at The Side of Beef, when he tired of eating alone. On that evening he’d eaten little. Nor had he said a great deal, apart from quizzing the landlord. Nor did he sleep much that night, recalling Thomas Ansell, thinking of the teasing words of Amelia Slater.

  Northwood House

  The train journey from Salisbury to Downton was short, scarcely more than ten minutes. Tom Ansell spent the time turning over the question to which he would soon, presumably, get some sort of answer. Why did Percy Sla
ter wish to see him? Tom would have been perfectly justified in turning down the request since the older brother was no longer a client of his firm. According to David Mackenzie, he’d had a falling-out with one of the other partners. Tom might have telegraphed to London for Mackenzie’s opinion but he’d not have been certain of getting a reply by the time fixed for his meeting. Besides, Tom believed this was a matter where he could act without consulting his employer.

  He wondered how Percy Slater had got to know of his visit to Salisbury. The obvious answer was through Walter Slater, whether the son had accidentally let something slip or had deliberately informed his father – though why he’d do that, Tom couldn’t think. Tom was curious to meet this man who was apparently so different from his churchefied brother and son. The tone of the letter was civil enough if a bit peremptory. It didn’t show any of the feebleness or decline which – according to his brother – Percy Slater was subject to.

  The train chugged through the flatter landscape which lies to the south of Salisbury. An early sun had been swallowed up by clouds rolling in from the west. The train reached the small town of Downton a couple of minutes before it was scheduled to arrive. Tom got off, together with a trio of women who’d been doing some shopping in Salisbury. Shopping for drapery or clothes, he assumed, since their bags were marked Cathcart’s. It was beginning to rain and the women made a show of opening their umbrellas.

  On the stand outside the little station was a four-wheeled clarence with a bay horse in harness. The coachman nodded at Tom as a sign to approach. He was a slight man, hunching himself against the rain. He had a small, disagreeable face with a great dimple in his chin, as though someone had tried to bore a hole in it. He was wearing a billycock hat.

  ‘Mr Ansell?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Slater sent you?’

  ‘Get in,’ said the coachman, after a moment adding as an afterthought, ‘sir.’

  Tom climbed in and the carriage pulled away. They turned into a wide street and almost immediately had to halt because of a herd of cattle jostling in front of them, the animals under the control of a diminutive boy with a switch. They crossed a bridge over a river. Through the ill-fitting windows of the clarence, his nose was hit by the acrid smell of a tannery. The road began to climb slightly and the houses and cottages accompanying them petered out. Tom had no idea how far they were going. He looked out at the leafless trees which crowded the sides of the road. The window-glass was smeary with dirt and rain. The upholstery of the seats was frayed and the springs protruded so that it was difficult to find a clear patch to sit on. Whatever Percy Slater spent his money on, it wasn’t to give himself a comfortable or striking means of conveyance.

  After a time they began to pass a low wall on their left. Tom, by now in carping mood, noted that the wall was broken down in places. The carriage turned into an entrance and passed a single-storey lodge with blank windows and a corkscrew chimney. Though it was a cheerless morning there was no smoke coming from the chimney, no gatekeeper, no sign of life at all. Beyond the gate and on either side of the drive stretched acres of grass dotted with trees and bushes.

  Tom wasn’t aware they’d reached the main house until the carriage veered past its facade. He glimpsed a large covered porch, with steps and pillars. They rounded the corner and pulled up in a walled yard. The driver clambered down and stood by the coach door but didn’t otherwise move. Tom opened the door himself and stood in the rain.

  The driver was a head shorter than Tom. He jerked his dimpled chin in the direction of a side entrance.

  ‘It’s open. Just go inside and call. Nan’ll hear you. She knows you’re coming.’

  Tom did as he was told while the coachman began to attend to the horse. As he’d said, the side-entrance was not locked. Tom stood in a flagstoned lobby. It struck colder and damper inside than out in the open. There was no one in the lobby. He felt slightly foolish and also irritated – after all, this visit to Northwood House was not being made at his suggestion. Perhaps he should demand to be taken back to Downton station, without troubling his host. He remembered that he hadn’t thought to check the railway timetable for his return.

  There was a touch at Tom’s elbow. A woman was standing there. He hadn’t heard her approach. She was old and tiny, all wrinkles. She was wearing a black shift-like dress, also old and creased. This was Nan, he supposed.

  ‘I am here to call on Mr Slater.’

  He had to repeat himself several times since she was hard of hearing. Eventually she said, ‘Mr Slater is in the smoking room. This way.’

  Her voice didn’t rise much above a whisper. But she moved decisively enough down the passageway which led from the lobby. They passed a kitchen and various store-rooms before going through the baize-covered door separating the servants’ area of the house from the family rooms. On the other side of half-open doors Tom saw sheets draped over the furniture, swathed chandeliers, dust and decrepitude everywhere. What had David Mackenzie and Felix Slater said about Percy’s wife, Elizabeth? That she spent her time in London. He wasn’t surprised.

  The door of the smoking room was ajar. Nan extended a twig-like arm as a gesture that Tom should go in. She didn’t announce him but by this stage Tom wasn’t expecting anything so elaborate. A man was sitting in a window-seat gazing out at the grounds, at the rain. He turned his head, reluctantly as it seemed, to look at Tom standing in the entrance to the room.

  ‘You must be Mr Ansell,’ he said, ‘Well, you are welcome to Northwood.’

  This was the most effusive greeting Tom had received so far this morning and he felt almost encouraged by it. Percy Slater detached himself from his place by the window. He picked up a walking stick which was resting against the cushioned seat, although Tom observed that as he made his way across the room he scarcely used it. It seemed to be more of a theatrical prop than a literal one.

  The man in front of him didn’t bear much resemblance to Felix, although there was the same set to the jaw. But this Slater was fuller, much fuller in his body, and more slack in the face. Where the Canon had a pale complexion, his brother was ruddy with a nose covered in broken veins. Not quite so tall as the churchman either, Tom thought, and without a trace of the bird-like characteristics of the other.

  ‘It is a long time since I have met a representative of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie,’ said Percy. ‘Indeed, when they handled my affairs there was no Mackenzie in the picture. Drink, Mr Ansell?’

  Tom had already caught the whiff of alcohol and seen a bottle of sherry together with some drinking glasses and a pile of magazines on a table near the window. ‘Thank you,’ he said, following a dictum of Mackenzie’s that one should always respond positively to the hospitality of a client – or even a non-client, in this case. Leaning his stick against a convenient chair, Percy Slater poured Tom a glass and refilled his own.

  Tom glanced around. The room was sparsely furnished apart from a glass-fronted cabinet containing a couple of shotguns and, opposite, a single wall which was covered in sporting prints. The prints looked fresh but everything else, the drapes, the chairs, the occasional tables, had a worn and battered appearance. Percy held out the glass of sherry and Tom went across to take it. He noticed that the magazines piled on the table by the window were a mixture of Bell’s Life and Sporting Life. Percy saw where he was looking.

  ‘You a betting man, Mr Ansell?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘Wise probably. I was sitting in that window-seat just now and watching the progress of two drops of rain down one of the panes. A fitful, zigzag progress but always down, down, down. They will reach the bottom eventually like all of us. I thinks to myself, if there was someone here with me, I’d lay a bet on which drop would reach the bottom of the pane first. I suppose you wouldn’t care to take that bet, Mr Ansell?’

  There was an almost wistful quality to the question as if he already knew what the answer would be. Tom shook his head. There were some invitations from a client, or a non-client, which you were not compe
lled to accept. Percy Slater settled himself into a battered armchair near a coal fire which was giving off more smoke than warmth. He indicated that Tom should sit in an equally battered armchair on the other side of the fireplace. Slater kept his walking stick cradled between his legs.

  ‘Yes, wise probably,’ he repeated, ‘wise not to be a betting man. Wise to husband your resources. Between ourselves, that was the reason that I . . . dispensed with the services of your firm. It was Alexander Lye who was responsible for my decision – is Lye still alive, by the way?’

  ‘Though Mr Lye is getting on now, he still comes into the office,’ said Tom, not elaborating on how Mr Lye turned up only to sign the papers pushed in front of him.

  ‘Lye – always thought that was an excellent name for a man of law. Anyway, Alexander Lye made some comment to me about my betting habits. I couldn’t be doing with it. I already had enough of that sort of thing from my father. Lye’s words were to do with a loss which I incurred at Dwyer’s. You wouldn’t remember Dwyer’s, Mr Ansell. Sold cigars and cheroots in St Martin’s Lane but their real business was taking bets. Well, they took too much on the favourite for the Chester Cup, back in ’51. A favourite isn’t the favourite for nothing. The results used to come in from Chester quite late in the day so they had the leisure of a whole night to strip the place of all the movables and by the morning there was nothing left but the shell of a shop. The shell of a shop, I say.’

  Percy Slater seemed half amused, half angry at the memory as he shifted in his chair. His walking stick waggled in sympathy.

  ‘Took twenty-five thousand with them. Not all mine, of course. Fact, I got off quite lightly. But it was enough to cause Mr Alexander Lye to make a few unwelcome remarks about my betting habits – as if it was my fault that Dwyer’s was a bunch of rogues! I did not choose to be lectured at and took my business elsewhere.’