by AnonYMous
Sir William was waiting for us, standing on the porch wearing a disreputable greenish tweed jacket; he was leaning on his cane with the silver dormouse handle and he looked frail. Bess, his elderly black and white sheep dog, was lying at his feet. Victoria was out of the car and hugging her father almost before I had stopped. I moved more slowly, checking that the handbrake was on properly. Leaving the luggage in the boot, I followed the pair of them, Victoria clinging to her father’s arm, through the stone passages to the Great Hall.
I was astonished to discover that we were actually going to sit there rather than in Sir William’s usual lair of the old housekeeper’s room. In the past, despite the magnificent fireplace and the enormous portraits of distinguished Dormouse forebears, the hall had been uninhabitable. An icy blast straight from the North Pole had blown continuously through the ill-fitting lead of the stone mullion windows. It seemed as if every draught in Shropshire would gather round the feet of unfortunate visitors and even the faithful Bess would sneak away from her master for the comfort of the housekeeper’s old wood-burning stove.
All this had changed while we were in Virginia. Sir William had always been a highly competitive games-player. In his later years he had become interested in blackjack and after studying a scientific treatise on the game which I had bought him as a Christmas present, he had become an expert. Admittedly his first foray in casino gambling had been a fiasco. He had arrived in Las Vegas prepared to enjoy himself and break the bank. Unfortunately his skills were quickly spotted. He had been hauled into the manager’s office and informed in unmistakeable terms that he was no longer welcome in any of the Nevada casinos.
He had been more circumspect on his next attempt. Wearing a large stetson hat and a Hawaiian shirt, he and Victoria had presented themselves in one of the smaller Atlantic City casinos. Sir William made a point of losing a little money, before he settled down to what he described as ‘an amazingly lucky run … Eh? What!’ He repeated this performance in a different establishment every night for a fortnight with highly gratifying results. He was substantiallythermo-technology richer when he came home than when he arrived and the money had been spent on an extensive programme of repair. The roof no longer leaked; the walls had been repointed; the furniture had been mended and the final glory was a magnificent new central heating system … a master-piece of thermo-technology. For the first time in its history, it was possible to be warm in every room in the castle.
We both chorused our approval of the new arrangements. Victoria practised sitting on every chair in the room and was astonished to find that not a single one collapsed under her. Then, while she was taken on a tour to admire the mysteries of the new boiler-room, I went back to the car to gather together our things. Lugging two heavy suitcases, I followed Victoria and Sir William down a long corridor where blood-stained Welsh and English flags were suspended high over our heads. We then went up a flight of stairs and down another long passage until we found ourselves at the other end of the building. We mounted a further stone circular staircase up to a landing at the top. This was the guest room that looked across open fields. The bathroom was down the hall. We had stayed there many times before, but we could not believe how comfortable it had become. There was a new carpet and the curtains actually covered the windows. The bed was soft, the water was hot and there was a cashmere blanket draped over an armchair. It might have been a boutique hotel.
Our long day had included a transatlantic flight. Bleary-eyed, Victoria and I unpacked and made our way back. We found Sir William in his usual cosy study, the old housekeeper’s room. Billy and Selina were already occupying the main part of the castle, but they had gone off to Selina’s brother’s cottage in Tuscany for a short autumn holiday. Sir William’s room looked much as usual. The furniture was old and battered. There was a mahogany long case clock with a brass face and one wall was lined with books. In front of the stove was my father-in-law’s special leather armchair and an old brown velvet sofa. Both looked as if they had been clawed continuously by the family cat since the time of the first baronet back in the early 1800s.
Sir William himself had taken off his tattered tweed coat and had put on a musty maroon smoking jacket. To our amazement he was sitting on a new seat. It was a strange contraption covered with an unfortunate knobbly brown tweed. ‘Saw this in The Field,’ he announced. ‘Damned clever! Just what I need now I’m getting a bit stiff!’ He pushed down on a lever and the chair thrust him upright. ‘That’s the ticket!’ he muttered. ‘D’you want a go?’
‘Really, Daddy,’ Victoria sniggered. ‘It’s hideous.’
‘Just the thing to get me up,’ he said. ‘I’m not as young as I once was, you know.’
Victoria poured sherry from an old crystal decanter with a tarnished silver label as Sir William complained about his various physical ailments. ‘Memory’s bad too,’ he sighed. ‘Can’t remember the proper method for blackjack any more. I keep forgetting to count the cards. Damn and blast – whole system’s shot to pieces! Maybe I ought to go into a home. I don’t want to be a nuisance to Billy and Selina.’
‘I’m sure you’re not,’ Victoria said.
As usual, Bess was stretched out by Sir William’s feet. He stroked her ears as he announced, ‘if I do go somewhere, they’ve got to take us both. I’m not leaving my dog behind. We’re a package deal,’
‘We’ll find you a nice place,’ Victoria said. ‘That’s one of the reasons we’ve come down to Shropshire. Harry and I want to buy a new house anyway and we want you to be somewhere near. We’ll see if we can find you somewhere warm and comfortable with nice nubile young nurses to look after you… and of course Bess will go with you.’
‘You’re a good girl!’ conceded Sir William. He pressed the lever for the umpteenth time and enjoyed the sensation of being evicted from his armchair.
Over the next fortnight we looked at several cottages, but none was exactly right. Then, when Selina and Billy returned home, we took a break ourselves and drove down to the Cotswolds for the weekend. One of Victoria’s school friends, Vanessa Mandril-Fortescue and her husband James lived just outside Upper Buttercup in a charming Georgian double-fronted house and Victoria was eager to see them again.
Several years ago James had retired from his job in the City and was doing some part-time consultancy. When we arrived on the Saturday afternoon, he was sitting under a large magnolia tree wearing old flannel trousers, a rumpled tweed jacket and a panama hat. He was speaking loudly into a mobile telephone about the drop in the stock market. Vanessa greeted us carrying a tray with a pretty tea pot, cups and a large chocolate cake. Sitting outside in the afternoon sun, Victoria looked longingly at the mellow stone cottage behind us. ‘Really Harry,’ she said, ‘we should have done this long ago.’
‘There’s a very pretty converted chapel for sale just outside the village,’ Vanessa said. ‘Just Harry’s kind of thing. There’s a picture of it in this week’s Country Life. Shall I get it?’
Vanessa and Victoria started talking about houses and James turned his attention to me. ‘So old boy,’ he said, putting his mobile in his top pocket, ‘you’ve finally retired. About time. I understand you made a packet at that college of yours in the States. Though you’ve never seemed to have much to worry about on that score. I wish I were in the same boat. This part-time consultancy job hasn’t been going so well this past year …’
James began a long ramble about the difficulties of the monetary world, the dangers of recession and the catastrophic fall in the market. I had always found financial affairs paralysingly boring and, after our drive down and the excellent chocolate cake, was having difficulty staying awake. Happily, my host did not seem to notice. Then, in the middle of James’s lament about the unpredictable behaviour of the Nikkei index, my mobile telephone rang. I woke with a start, reached into my inner pocket and mumbled ‘Hullo …’
To my astonishment, it was a call from the Archbishop of Cannonbury’s chaplain. He apologised for disturbing me an
d said he had been given my number by Sir William. ‘Professor Gilbert,’ he said, ‘the Archbishop has something he would like to ask you about rather urgently. He wonders if you might be free to come to his club, the Acropolis, on Monday at about four for tea.’
‘For tea?’
‘He’s due to go there after giving a speech about homosexuality in the House of Lords.’
‘We’ve just arrived in the Cotswolds,’ I said. ‘But yes, that would be all right. Can you give me some idea what it’s about?’
‘I don’t think I can go into detail,’ he said. ‘But there seems to be a problem at St Sebastian’s. And the Archbishop wants to talk to you about it.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll be there.’
Not surprisingly, I was curious about this call. I had known the Archbishop since we had been students together at Cambridge. We still exchanged Christmas cards, but we seldom met. Although we were both ordained clergymen, I had chosen an academic career while he had risen to dizzy heights in the established Church. I wondered what he could possibly want to consult me about. Still St Sebastian’s was my old stomping ground. Perhaps there was some problem with the university.
We had a delightful couple of days in the Cotswolds with our old friends. Then on the Monday, when Victoria returned to Shropshire, I took the train from Upper Buttercup station to London. It was lunch-time and I ate some very nice smoked salmon sandwiches which Vanessa had packed up for me. I was surrounded by tweedy ladies going up to town to do some early Christmas shopping and a few serious businessmen talking urgently into their mobile telephones. Opposite me was a smartly-dressed young woman with dyed blonde hair. Her fingernails were painted a shocking pink and she was reading a copy of the Daily Recorder. I could not help but notice that on the front cover was a picture of a scantily dressed young woman brandishing a very large whip. Underneath was the headline: ‘MISS STRICT STRIKES BACK’.
When the woman left the train at Reading, she disposed of the newspaper in the luggage rack. No one seemed to be looking so I took it down and prepared to enjoy whatever scandal was being reported. I have to admit that even I was a little disconcerted. It turned out that young Miss Strict was a graduate of St Sebastian’s University. When she left, she had amassed considerable debts which she decided to clear by taking a part-time job as a dominatrix at a high-class escort agency. (This was the newspaper’s description of her place of work, not mine.) I thought it was unfortunate that any new graduate was so burdened by debts that she would even contemplate taking up this sort of career. When I was at Cambridge, students had grants to finance their education.
But there was worse to come. Apparently, during the course of her duties, Miss Strict had recognised one of her clients as someone who held a high position in St Sebastian’s Cathedral. Seizing the chance to make even more money, she had reported the whole story to the Sunday Enquirer. As a result the unfortunate cleric had to resign. This was not the end of the story. It turned out that her family were furious that she had given the Enquirer her real name. They felt humiliated by the whole affair and there was a sad interview with Miss Strict’s mother who was a clerical officer at a hospital in Wolverhampton. She was mortified and was ready to disown her daughter and her activities altogether. Miss Strict herself was defiant. She told the Daily Recorder that she had earned forty thousand pounds from her escapade. As a result, she was now debt-free; she had given in her notice to the agency and she intended to put down a deposit on a small flat in London.
I have to say that I was appalled that a young woman would think of paying for her education in such a way. That, of course, did not excuse the clergyman, who, in its mealy-mouthed way, the Recorder had refused to name. The editor of the paper was obviously furious that the Enquirer had scooped the story first and its leading article was sanctimonious in its condemnation of Miss Strict’s avarice and lack of charity. It was full of sympathy for the unfortunate clergyman who had been led astray by this bold young bluestocking.
As a supposed expert in Christian ethics, I spent the rest of the journey pondering the rights and wrongs of the situation. Was the Recorder right to condemn young Miss Strict? Could Miss Strict’s activities be justified on the grounds of the greatest happiness of the greatest number? Should the Sunday Enquirer be condemned for pandering to people’s prurient interests or was it to the public good that hypocricy and vice be revealed? And what was the moral status of the Recorder in prolonging the story? These were hard questions even for the emeritus holder of the Thomas Jefferson Porpoise Distinguished Chair of Theology and I was still thinking about them when I passed through the noble portals of the Acropolis Club.
I went straight up to the drawing room where the Archbishop was hiding behind a copy of the Church Times in a dark corner. In front of him was a plate of half-eaten tea cakes. When I greeted him, he jumped to his feet and shook my hand. ‘Good to see you Harry,’ he said. ‘It’s been too long. I know you and Victoria have just got back from Virginia and I feel bad calling on you so soon, but I really am at the end of my tether.’ He signalled to a waiter to bring over another pot of tea and some more tea cakes and we sat down.
‘You’d better see this,’ he said, as he pulled a newspaper cutting out of his pocket. It came from the Sunday Enquirer and it was the whole sad story of Miss Strict and her client. It turned out that the unfortunate St Sebastian’s cleric was no less a person than the cathedral Provost himself.
‘Oh dear!’ I said.
‘Oh dear is right! There’s no choice. I’ve got to discipline him. He’s got to go and I’ve got to find someone to take his place.’ He drew his leather chair nearer mine and lowered his voice. ‘Look, Harry,’ he continued, ‘I know you’ve just arrived back in this country and I’m sure you’re looking forward to retirement. But, you see, now St Sebastian’s Cathedral doesn’t have a Provost and the university doesn’t have a Visitor. And it’s rather a critical time. The university is facing a quality inspection and the gossip is that there may be trouble. The whole cathedral Chapter is very upset what with one thing and another. They didn’t exactly get on with each other even before this crisis. What we need is a steady hand on the tiller. I wondered if you might consider a little proposition …’
‘You surely don’t want me to be the Provost, do you?’
The Archbishop hesitated. ‘Well actually Harry, yes I do. At least for a short time, just as a temporary measure. To tide us over the difficulty. Until we can can fill the post in the long term. We really are in a bit of a fix …’
I was flabbergasted. I had never had any ambition to rise in the Church. I was looking forward to retirement. It was time to bow out and cultivate a garden, not to embark on some new exhausting post, fraught with conflict and difficulty. But the Archbishop was shrewd. He knew just how to play me.
‘It’d only be for a year or so. Just to sort things out. And, as you know, the Provost’s House is really rather splendid. Pevsner describes it as one of the most beautiful houses in England. Victoria would love it and she is the perfect person to make it as beautiful inside as it is outside, Anyway we need you. You’d be doing me, and more importantly, the dear old Church of England a real favour.’ The Archbishop picked up a tea cake and bit into it. Butter escaped and dripped down his cassock. He looked me straight in the eye. ‘Think about it, Harry,’ he said. ‘I could almost say it’s your duty. Look at it as an act of solid Christian charity.’
The Archbishop could not stay long. He had to go back to the House of Lords to collect a group of visiting bishops. We parted with expressions of mutual esteem and I promised I would consider his proposal. ‘Please … Please … We need you …,’ he said as he climbed into his chauffeur-driven car.
Somewhat dazed, I rang Victoria. Mobile telephones were banned in the club rooms, so I had to use a grubby little cubicle by the entrance desk. Despite the smoking ban, there was still a ghostly smell of stale tobacco. Inevitably, Victoria had not yet arrived back at the castle, so I left a message on h
er voicemail. But I needed to talk to somebody so I telephoned my old friend Magnus Hamilton.
Several years ago, Magnus and I had been colleagues at St Sebastian’s University where he taught Hebrew and Old Testament. Although he had come to the university with superlative references from Oxford, his research had dried up and over the space of nearly thirty years he had published little except acerbic reviews of other scholars’ work. At the same time, he was a very brilliant teacher; he was adored by his students who imitated his mannerisms and adopted his catch-phrases. It was hard to believe, but under his tuition, Hebrew was the most popular undergraduate course in the whole Theology department. Sadly his abilities were not recognised by the university authorities. As far as they were concerned, research was the only thing that counted and Magnus had remained a junior lecturer for his entire career.
Then, to everyone’s amazement, he won an indecently large sum of money on the premium bonds. He promptly decided to retire from full-time work. He booked himself on a round-the-world cruise and Victoria had taught him ballroom dancing before he left. He had found his vocation. He was a huge hit with the elderly ladies on board and was in constant demand as an escort and dancing partner. Unlike the University of St Sebastian’s, the Trans-World Shipping Company recognised talent when it saw it. As soon as the voyage was finished, he was offered a regular job as a gentleman host.
Since then, he had been employed on several different cruise ships. He complained constantly about being pursued by the octogenarians, but when another summons from the Company came, he could not resist. After packing his dinner jacket in his leather suitcase, and checking that his shoes were still comfortable, he would set off. Invariably, he returned laden with a selection of elegant little souvenirs from his admirers – gold cigarette cases, thin platinum watches, a rainbow of thick silk ties and elaborate sets of silver hairbrushes in pigskin cases.