The Office of the Dead

by Taylor, Andrew

  I’m not sure this was a good idea. One morning, shortly after we’d finished the move, Mr Treevor emerged from the bathroom as I was coming down the stairs from my room. He laid his hand on my arm and looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers.

  ‘There’s funny things happening in this house,’ he confided. ‘They’ve got the builders in. They’ve been changing my room. It must be at night because I’ve never actually seen them at work. I’ve seen one of them in the hall, though. Furitve-looking chap.’ He padded across the landing towards his room. At the door he glanced back at me.

  ‘Better keep your eyes skinned, Rosie,’ he hissed. ‘Or there’s no knowing what they’ll get up to. Can’t be too careful. Especially with a pretty girl like you.’

  Rosie?

  14

  I have to admit the Cathedral came in handy when it was raining. You could walk almost the length of the High Street under cover. Or you could cut across from the north transept to the south door and avoid going right the way round the Cathedral outside. And sometimes if the choir was practising or the organ was playing I’d sit down for a while and listen.

  That’s where Peter Hudson found me.

  It was raining heavily that morning, silver sheets of icy water sweeping across the Fens from the east. I had been to the Labour Exchange in Market Street. The woman I talked to disapproved of me. Was it my-lipstick? The tightness of my skirt? The fact I’d forgotten to bring my gloves? I suspect she labelled me as louche, dangerously sophisticated and a potential husband-snatcher. Which tells you as much about the competition as it does about me.

  At present the Labour Exchange had only two jobs for which I was suitably qualified. They needed someone behind the confectionery counter in Woolworth’s. Or, if I preferred, I could earn rather more if I worked shifts at the canning factory on the outskirts of town. Neither of them had anything to be said for them except money, and there wasn’t much of that on offer either.

  I was beginning to think I’d have to go back to London. I didn’t want to do that, partly because I thought Janet needed me but more because I knew I needed her. It wasn’t just the breaking up with Henry. It was as if every mistake I had ever made in my life had come back to haunt me. It was rather like when you leave a hotel and they present you with a bill that’s three times larger than you thought it was going to be.

  I entered the Close by the Boneyard Gate from the High Street and ducked into the north door of the Cathedral to get out of the rain. Actually, it wouldn’t have taken me much longer to stay in the open and reach the Dark Hostelry. But Janet was there and I wanted a moment or two by myself to catch my breath and decide what I was going to say to her.

  Walking into the Cathedral was like walking into an aquarium, as if you were moving from one medium to another. Here the air was still, cool and grey. Gotobed, the assistant verger, gave me a quick, shy smile and scurried into the vestry. The building smelled faintly of smoke, a combination of incense and the fumes from the stoves that fired the central heating. I remember these stoves far better than anything else in the Cathedral. They were dotted about the aisles like cast-iron birdcages. The stoves were circular, domed, about the height of a man but much wider. Perched on top of each one was a cast-iron crown which would have fitted a very small child.

  The choir was rehearsing behind the screen dividing the space beneath the Octagon from the east end. I couldn’t see them but the sound of their voices welled into the crossing and poured into transepts and nave. Gotobed came out of the vestry, but this time he didn’t look at me because he was on duty, carrying his silver-tipped wand of office and conducting Mr Forbury in a procession of one back to the Deanery.

  I sat down on a chair, wiped the rain from my face and tried to think. Instead I listened to the sound of the voices spiralling up into the Octagon below the spire. The nearest I came to thinking was when I found myself wondering what Henry was doing at this moment, and where, and with whom. He must have found another woman by now, someone else willing to make a fool of herself because he flattered and amused her.

  Then I noticed Canon Hudson coming out of the vestry. To my annoyance he came over towards me. That was one of the problems of Rosington. I had been used to the anonymity of cities.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Appleyard. Enjoying the singing?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is but it’s very restful.’

  ‘We’re rather proud of our music here. If you’re here over Easter, you should –’

  ‘I don’t think I will be,’ I said roughly, the decision suddenly made.

  ‘You’re leaving us?’

  ‘I need to find a job. There’s nothing down here. Or rather, nothing that appeals.’

  He sat down beside me and folded his hands on his lap. ‘And what exactly are you looking for, Mrs Appleyard?’

  ‘I don’t really know. But my husband’s left me so I’m going to have to make my own living now.’ I wished I could take the words back. My private life was none of his business. Janet had told other people that my husband was ‘away’. I glanced at my watch and pantomimed surprise. ‘Oh! Is that the time?’

  ‘Difficult for you,’ he said, ignoring my attempt to wind up the conversation. ‘Am I right in thinking you’d prefer to stay in Rosington for the time being?’

  ‘Well, it’s a possibility.’

  ‘You say you have no qualifications.’

  ‘Apart from School Certificate.’

  ‘And have you ever worked?’

  ‘Only in my father’s shop for a few years before I married. He was a jeweller.’

  ‘What did that entail?’

  I nearly told him to mind his own business, but he was such a gentle little man that being unkind to him seemed as wantonly cruel as treading on a worm. ‘It varied. Sometimes I served in the shop, sometimes I helped with the accounts. I did most of the inventory when we sold the business.’

  The music spiralled round and round above our heads. Just like me, it was trying to get out.

  ‘How interesting,’ Hudson said. ‘Well, if you really are looking for something local, in fact I know of a temporary part-time job which might fit the bill. It’s actually in the Close and to some extent you could choose the hours you work. But I don’t know whether it would suit you. Or indeed whether you would suit it.’ He smiled at me, taking the sting from the words. ‘I want someone to catalogue the Cathedral Library.’

  I stared blankly at him. Still smiling, he stared back.

  ‘But I wouldn’t know where to start,’ I said. ‘Surely you’d need a librarian or a scholar or someone like that? It’s not the sort of thing I could do.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s obvious.’

  ‘Mrs Appleyard, what’s obvious to me is that it could suit us both if you were able to help. So it’s worth investigating, don’t you think?’

  I shrugged, ungracious to the last.

  ‘Why don’t you have a look at the library now? It won’t take a moment.’

  He was a persistent little man and in the end it was easier to do what he wanted than to refuse. He fetched a key from the vestry and then took me over to a door at the west end of the south choir aisle. He unlocked it and we stepped into a long vaulted room.

  Suddenly it was much lighter. On the east wall, high above my head, were two great Norman windows filled with plain glass. A faded Turkish runner ran from the door along the length of the room’s long axis towards a pair of tables at the far end. On either side of the runner were wooden bookcases, seven feet high, dividing the room into bays. The temperature wasn’t much warmer than in the Cathedral itself, which meant it felt chilly even to someone inured to the draughts of the Dark Hostelry.

  ‘Originally the room would have been two chapels opening out of the south transept,’ Peter Hudson said. ‘It was converted into a library for the Cathedral in the eighteen-seventies. No one knows for sure, but we think there must be at least nine or ten thousand books here, possibly more.’

&n
bsp; We walked the length of the room. I looked at the rank after rank of spines, most vertical, a few horizontal, bound in leather, bound in cloth. The air smelled of dust and dead paper. I already knew I didn’t have the training to do a job like this and probably not the aptitude either. But what I saw now was the sheer physical immensity of it.

  One night at Hillgard House, Janet and I had sneaked out of our dormitory, slipped down the stairs and out of a side door. The sky was clear. We were in the middle of the country and in any case there was a blackout because it was wartime. We lay on our backs on the lawn, feeling the dew soaking through our nightdresses, and stared up at the summer sky.

  ‘How many stars are there?’ Janet murmured.

  And I’d said, ‘You could never count them.’

  Terror had risen in me, a sort of awe. Facing all those books in the Cathedral Library I felt the same awe, only once removed from panic. Like the night sky, the library was too big. It contained too many things. I just wasn’t on the right scale for it.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think this will work.’

  ‘Let’s sit down and talk about it,’ Hudson suggested.

  At the end of the room were two large tables and an ill-assorted collection of what looked like retired dining chairs. Behind the tables was a cupboard built along the length of the wall. Hudson pulled out one of the chairs and dusted it with his handkerchief. I sat down.

  ‘It’s such a big job, and anyway I wouldn’t know how to do it. I expect a lot of the books are valuable. I could damage them.’

  He dusted another chair and sat down with a sigh of relief. Clasping his hands on the table, he smiled at me. ‘Let me tell you what the job would entail before you make up your mind.’

  ‘Aren’t there medieval manuscripts? I wouldn’t have the first idea how to read them.’

  ‘The Cathedral does possess a few medieval manuscripts and early printed books. But they’re not here. They’re either under lock and key in the Treasury or they’re on loan to Cambridge University Library or the British Museum. Nothing to worry about there.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You see, this library is a relatively recent affair. What happened was this – in the nineteenth century Dean Pellew left the Cathedral his books, about twelve hundred volumes. That’s the nucleus of the collection. He also left us a sum of money as an endowment. So the chapter has a separate library fund which is there for buying new books and which can also be used for paying an assistant to manage the day-to-day work of the library. When the endowment was set up it was arranged that one of the canons should be the librarian and oversee the running of it. My immediate predecessor took over in 1931. He died in office last year so he had a long run for his money. But he didn’t do much with the library.’ Hudson smiled at me. ‘And for the last ten years of his life, I doubt if he gave it a thought. Somehow it came to be understood that Cathedral librarian was one of those honorary posts. We’ve got enough of those on the Foundation, heaven knows. And then I took over.’

  ‘Janet said there’s a possibility the books might be given to the Theological College Library.’

  He nodded. ‘The dean and chapter have decided to close the Cathedral Library. It’s not been formally announced yet but it’s an open secret. The legal position’s rather complicated – it’s a question of diverting the endowment to something else relating to the Cathedral. And then there are the books, which is where you would come in. They’re hardly ever used here, and frankly it’s a waste of space having them here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought space was a problem in this building.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. It’s our duty to make the best use of our resources we can. But to go back to the books. One possibility is that we give some or all of them to another library, and yes, perhaps the one at the Theological College might be appropriate.’

  I noticed he did not mention the possibility that the Theological College might close.

  ‘Or we may sell some or all of them. But we can’t really decide what to do until we know what we’ve got. There’s never been a complete catalogue, you see.’ He stood up and lifted down a heavy foolscap volume from a shelf. He blew off the dust and placed it on the table. ‘Dean Pellew’s original collection is listed in here. Just authors and titles, nothing more, and I’d be surprised if we’ve still got them all. And then over the years there’ve been one or two half-hearted attempts to record acquisitions as they were made. Some of them are in here.’ He tapped the book. ‘Others are in the filing cabinet by the door.’

  Hudson sat down again. He took out a pipe, peered into its bowl and then put it back in his pocket. I wondered what he would pay me and whether it would be enough to allow me to stay on in Rosington. He was going bald on top. Next I wondered whether he and his wife were fond of each other, and what they were like when they were alone together. Her name was June. She was one of the few ladies in the Close who not only recognized me but said hello when we met.

  ‘Couldn’t you get someone from a bookshop to look at the books?’

  ‘We could. They would certainly do a valuation or us, I imagine. But we don’t even know if we want to sell them yet. And if we wanted a catalogue, we’d have to pay them to do it.’ He hesitated, and added, ‘There’s another reason why I’d like the books catalogued before we make up our minds what to do with them. There are a few oddities in the library. I’d like a chance to weed them out.’

  ‘What do you mean exactly?’

  ‘Apparently my predecessor found a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Household Management. One or two novels have surfaced as well. Perhaps my predecessors muddled up some of their own books with the library’s.’

  ‘Look, it’s very kind of you, but I still don’t think I’d be suitable. I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  He beamed across the table. ‘Personally I’ve never found that a good reason not to do something.’

  Hudson was persistent, even wily. He proposed I try my hand after lunch at half a dozen of the books under his supervision. If the results were satisfactory to me and to him then he suggested a trial period of a week, for which he would pay me three pounds, ten shillings. If we were both happy after this, the job would continue until the work was finished. All it needed, he said, was application and intelligence, and he was quite sure I had both of those.

  The week passed, then another, then a third. It was easier to carry on with it than to try to explain to Hudson yet again why I wasn’t suitable. The money was useful, too. I worked methodically round the room, from bookcase to bookcase. I did not move any of the books except when reuniting volumes belonging to a set. I used five-by-three index cards for the catalogue. On each card I recorded the author, the title, the publisher and the date. I added a number which corresponded to the shelf where the book was to be found and I added any other points which seemed to me to be of interest such as the name of the editor, if there was one, or the name of the series or whether the book contained one of Dean Pellew’s bookplates, and had therefore been part of the original endowment.

  It was surprisingly dirty work. On my first full day I got through several dusters and had to wash my hands at least half a dozen times. At Janet’s suggestion, I bought some white cotton dusting gloves.

  I reserved a separate table for the books which were in any way problematical. One of these was Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which I found halfway through my second week sheltering in the shadow of Cruden’s Concordance. I flicked through the pages, feeling guilty but failing to find anything obscene. So I borrowed it to read properly, telling my conscience that it wouldn’t matter two hoots to Hudson if I found it today or next week.

  I watched the cards expanding, inching across the old shoebox I kept them in until that shoebox was full and Canon Hudson found me another. My speed improved as I went on. The first time I managed to dust and catalogue fifty books in a single day, I went to the baker’s and bought chocolate eclairs. Janet and Rosie and I ate them round the kitche
n table to celebrate the achievement. As time went by, too, I needed to refer fewer and fewer queries to Canon Hudson.

  At first he came in once a day to see how I was getting on. Then it became once every two or three days or even longer. There was pleasure in that too.

  ‘You’ve got a naturally orderly mind, Wendy,’ he told me one day towards the end of April. ‘That’s a rarity.’

  Henry would have laughed at the thought of me in a Cathedral Library. But the job was a lifeline at a time when I could easily have drowned. I thought it came to me because of the kindness of Canon Hudson, and because I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Years later I found out there was a little more to it.

  It was in the early 1970s. I met June Hudson at a wedding. I said how much the job in the Cathedral Library had helped me, despite everything, and how grateful I was to her husband for offering it to me.

  ‘It’s Peter who was grateful to you, my dear. At one point he thought he’d have to catalogue all those wretched books himself. Anyway, if anyone deserves thanking it ought to be Janet Byfield.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was her idea. She had a word with me and asked if I would suggest you to Peter. She said she hadn’t mentioned it to you in case it didn’t come off. But I assumed she’d have said something afterwards.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She never did.’

  That increased my debt to Janet. I wish I knew how you pay your debts to the dead.

  15

  Then there was the business about the bishop’s invitation. It was delivered by hand through the letter-flap from the High Street while Janet and I were having tea in the kitchen. She ripped open the envelope, which had the arms of the see on the back, read the note from Mrs Bish and pushed it across the table to me. She had asked the Byfields to dinner.

  ‘That means he’s asked us,’ Janet explained. ‘David will be pleased.’