‘What’s he like?’
‘He was the Suffragan Bishop of Knightsbridge before he came here.’ Janet blushed as she usually did when she was going to say something unkind. ‘And some people say he was better at the Knightsbridge part than the bishop part.’
‘You mean he’s a snob?’
On that occasion she wouldn’t say more. But after meeting the bishop once or twice I knew exactly what she meant. Like so many people in those days, he secretly felt that the Church should be a profession confined to gentlemen. His chaplain was a young man named Gervase Haselbury-Finch, who looked like Rupert Brooke and had a titled father, qualifications which as far as the bishop was concerned made up for his lack of organizational abilities. I don’t mean to imply there was anything improper about the bishop’s behaviour, not in the sense that makes tabloid headlines. He was married and had three grown-up children.
‘The bishop likes to have little chats with David,’ Janet went on. ‘He says things like, “I’m expecting great things of you, my boy.” He’s very much in favour of keeping the Theo. Coll. going and he thinks that David would make a marvellous principal. So that’s something in our favour. A very big something.’
‘Is that how they choose someone?’ I said. ‘Because the bish likes their face?’
‘Well, there’s more to it than that. Obviously. But it helps.’
‘It’s not exactly fair.’
She made a sour face. ‘The Church isn’t. Not always.’
‘It’s like something out of the Middle Ages.’
‘That’s exactly what it is. You can’t expect it to behave like a democracy.’
Later that evening we discussed the invitation over supper. David already knew about it because he had met the bishop at evensong. The only other people invited were the Master of Jerusalem and his wife. It turned out that the bishop had been at Jerusalem College too.
‘I haven’t anything to wear,’ Janet said.
‘Of course you have.’ David smiled at her. ‘Wear what you wore for the Hudsons. You’ll look lovely.’
‘I always wear that.’
‘They’ll notice your face not your dress.’
‘Your mother had a very pretty dress at our engagement party,’ Mr Treevor put in. ‘I wonder if she’s still got it. Why don’t you ask her? Are there any more baked beans?’
Afterwards David took his coffee to the study and Mr Treevor went upstairs. Janet shook a small avalanche of powdered Dreft into the sink and turned on the tap so hard that water sprayed over the front of her pinafore and on to the tiled floor.
‘What’s up?’ I said.
‘It’ll be ghastly. They’ll make me feel like a poor little church mouse. I can never think of anything to say to the bishop. He pretends I must be frightfully intellectual because he’s read some of Mummy’s translations. So he tries to have conversations about the theme of redemption in Dostoevsky’s novels and the irrationality of existentialism. It’s dreadful. Meanwhile the women look at my shoes and wonder why they clash with my handbag.’
‘Don’t go,’ I said.
‘I’ve got to. David will be so upset if I don’t. The bishop wants me to come, you see, and the bishop’s word is law. And what about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’d much rather stay at home.’
I hadn’t been included in the invitation – I’m not sure the bish knew of my existence, not then. This suited me very well. Someone had to keep an eye on Rosie and Mr Treevor. Anyway, in my bedroom I had the bottle of gin and the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley’s Lover. What more could a girl want?
‘I suppose I could wear my blue dress. But there’s that stain on the shoulder.’
‘You can borrow my shawl if you like.’
In the end, though, Janet didn’t go after all. On the day of the dinner party she developed a migraine. She had had them occasionally since we were children, usually when under strain. When I came back for lunch and found her flat out on the sofa, I made her go to bed and arranged to collect Rosie from school. David came in later, with just time to bathe and change before going out again. I told him what had happened, and said there was no chance that Janet would be well enough to go out to dinner.
‘I’ll go up and see her,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she’s feeling better.’
‘She’s not. And if you try and persuade her she is feeling better, it’ll only make her feel worse.’
‘That’s plain speaking.’
I sensed the anger in him. I even took a step backwards and felt the edge of the hall table pushing into the back of my thigh. ‘That’s what we do up in Yorkshire, David. Honestly, I don’t mean to be rude, but I know what she’s like when she has these migraines. And this one’s a stinker.’
‘I’ll go and see her now.’
‘But please let her stay in bed.’
He stared at me. There was so much anger in his face now that just for a moment I was frightened, physically frightened. He could strangle me now, I thought, and no one could stop him.
‘I’ll see how she is,’ he said in a tight voice.
‘While you’re upstairs, perhaps you could say good night to Rosie. She was asking after you earlier.’
The jab went home. I saw it in his face. He went upstairs without another word. I felt guilty because I had been unkind to him and angry for being scared. I tend to attack when I feel defensive. I told myself that it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve what I’d said about Rosie. David knew, and I knew, that Janet thought he should try to spend a little more time with her. He doted on her as he doted on Janet. But he was a busy man, convinced of the importance of what he was doing and in his heart of hearts he was a complete reactionary. Looking after children was something that you left to women. That was what they were for, along with the other marital duties which he probably assumed had been ordained by God and man since time immemorial. I wonder now if David was a little scared of young children. Some adults are.
The upshot of that was that Janet didn’t go to dinner with David and David didn’t say good night to Rosie. I went up later after he had left the house and found Rosie still awake.
‘Your light shouldn’t be on,’ I said.
She stared at me without saying anything. She was a child who knew the power of silence.
‘What are you reading?’
Rosie angled the book towards me. It was a big illustrated volume called Tales from the New Testament, an impeccable choice for a clergyman’s daughter. It was open at one of the colour plates. The picture showed the Angel Gabriel talking to the Virgin Mary. The caption read, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.’
She looked up at me with bright, excited eyes. ‘He looks like Daddy. The angel looks like Daddy.’
‘I suppose he does a bit, yes. Except the angel’s got fair hair and it’s rather long.’ I tried to make a joke of it. ‘And, of course, Daddy doesn’t wear a white dress or have wings.’
‘He sometimes wears a sort of white dress in church.’
‘Yes, I’m sure he does.’
‘Grandpa said he saw an angel.’
‘What?’
‘He told me. He looked out of his window and there the angel was, walking in the garden.’
‘How interesting. Now, why don’t I read you a story, just a quick one, and then you can settle down?’
I read her the story of the feeding of the five thousand, which I chose on the grounds that it was short and contained no angels whatsoever. Some children like to sit with you, or on you, while you read to them. Rosie preferred me to sit in the chair by the window. She said it was so she could watch my face.
Later, when the story was over, I tucked her up and kissed the top of her head.
‘Auntie Wendy?’
‘What?’
‘Was Lucifer an angel?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He’d be a sort of naughty angel. A wicked one who lives in hell.’
‘You’ll have to ask Daddy. He’ll know.’
‘Yes,’ Rosie said. ‘He knows all about God and things like that.’
Mr Treevor had settled into his new home surprisingly quickly. As long as there were no major deviations from the routine he had established he seemed quite content. Janet worried that he might try to repeat his mock-suicide attempt but there were no more incidents like that. (Janet asked him on several occasions why he’d done it. Twice he said it was a joke to amuse Rosie. Once he couldn’t remember doing it at all. And the last time he said it was to see how much people loved him.)
If anything Rosie rather liked him. Perhaps it was because he was the nearest available man in the absence of a father. Sometimes he would go and say good night to her and an hour or so later Janet would find them both asleep, Rosie in bed and Mr Treevor in the armchair by the window. It was rather touching to see them together, asleep or awake. They didn’t communicate much and they made few demands on each other, but they seemed to enjoy being in the same room.
The next day when the migraine had subsided, I told Janet what Rosie had said.
‘An angel? Daddy must have been dreaming.’
‘Most people settle for gnomes in the garden. I think an angel’s rather classy.’
‘Perhaps it was the milkman. He usually wears a white coat.’
‘But he doesn’t come to the garden door.’
‘Daddy’s getting a bit confused, that’s all,’ Janet said. ‘Dr Flaxman said this might happen.’
Nowadays they would be able to narrow it down and perhaps delay the dementia’s progress with drugs. Mr Treevor could have had a relatively early onset of senile dementia, either Alzheimer’s or Multi-Infarct Dementia. Alzheimer’s can be a pre-senile dementia as well. He wasn’t a drinker so it can’t have been alcoholic dementia. Other dementias can be caused by pressure in the brain, perhaps from a tumour, or by rare diseases like Huntington’s or Pick’s. But Pick’s and Huntington’s usually start when their victims are younger. If it was Huntington’s it would have shown up when Rosie had the tests when she was an adult, even if she was not a carrier. The other main dementias, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Aids dementia, developed later than 1958.
The worst thing, Janet said, was he knew what was happening. Not very often, but sometimes. He wasn’t a fool by any means. And occasionally he was capable of acting completely rationally. That was why we took the story of the robbery seriously.
It happened while he was alone in the house. David and I were at work. Janet had gone to collect Rosie from school. When they got back they found Mr Treevor in a terrible state, trying to phone the police.
According to him, he had been dozing in his room when he heard somebody moving around downstairs. Thinking it was Janet, he had gone on to the landing and called downstairs, asking when tea would be ready. He heard footsteps, and the garden door slam. He looked out of the window and saw a man walking quickly down the garden and through the gate into the Close.
‘He’s been here before,’ Mr Treevor said when he was retelling the tale for us at supper. ‘I’m sure of it. He’s stolen several of my things in the last few weeks. Those maroon socks, you remember, Janet, the ones Mummy knitted, and my propelling pencil.’
‘The pencil had fallen down the side of your chair,’ Janet reminded him.
He waved aside the objection. ‘There’s a ten-shilling note went from my wallet. That’s what he took today.’
Janet glanced at me. I had been there yesterday morning when he’d produced a ten-shilling note and given it to Janet because he had a sudden urge for a box of chocolates.
‘This man,’ David said. ‘What did he look like?’
‘I only saw him from the back. Just a glimpse. A small dark man.’ Mr Treevor stared thoughtfully at David and added, ‘Like a shadow. That’s it, David, tell the police that. He was like a shadow.’
16
Early in May the weather became much warmer. I no longer had to wear a coat and two cardigans when working in the library. The big room filled with light. The index cards marched steadily across the shoeboxes and everywhere I looked there was evidence of my industry. I felt better in other ways, too. On some days I hardly thought about Henry at all.
One Tuesday afternoon I was sitting at the table when I heard the door opening at the other end of the room. I assumed it was Canon Hudson or Janet or even Mr Gotobed, the assistant verger, who had a habit of popping up unexpectedly in the Cathedral or the Close. I turned in my chair and found myself looking up at David.
‘I hope I’m not interrupting you. The dean’s trying to track down a model of the Octagon, and there’s a possibility it may be in here.’
I screwed the cap on my fountain pen. ‘Not that I’ve seen, I’m afraid. But please have a look.’
He glanced round the library and smiled. ‘It’s looking much more organized than when I last saw it.’
‘So it should be,’ I said. ‘Now what about this model?’
‘The dean thought it might be in one of the cupboards.’
He nodded towards the long cupboard behind the table where I worked. It was about six feet high and built of dark-stained pine. Canon Hudson had told me that before the room was converted to the library, it had been used as the choir vestry and the cupboard had probably been built to house cassocks and surplices. It was full of rubbish now, he’d said, and when Gotobed had a spare afternoon he would investigate it properly. I’d tried the doors but they were locked.
David produced a key and unlocked the nearest door. Then he opened the other two, pulling open the three sets of double doors so the whole cupboard filled with light. What I noticed first was the skeleton of a mouse lying at the foot of one of the doors. Dust was everywhere, soft and gritty. I saw a bucket, a small mountain of prayer books, an umbrella stand, a stack of newspapers, an object like a wooden crinoline with a torn surplice draped over it, a clump of candlesticks, some of which were taller than me, a lectern, empty bottles and a cast-iron boot-scraper. I bent down to pick up one of the newspapers. It was a copy of the Rosington Observer from 1937.
‘There we are.’ David lifted the ragged surplice from the ecclesiastical coat hanger. ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? I wonder who made it.’
‘Is that it?’
He shot me an amused glance. ‘Were you expecting something more lifelike? This shows what you don’t see – the skeleton supporting the whole thing.’ He flapped the surplice at the model, dislodging some of the dust. ‘It’s very elegant. A mathematical figure in wood. If I get the dust off, do you think you could help me lift it out?’
I ended up doing the dusting myself. Then we lifted the model out of the cupboard. It stood like the skeleton of a prehistoric animal on the library carpet.
‘It’s as if it’s got eight legs,’ I said.
‘Each of them rests on top of one of the pillars below. They’re beams supporting almost all the weight. Amazing, really – nearly sixty feet long, and they taper from just over three feet at the base to twelve inches at the top where they meet the angles of the lantern.’
His long fingers danced over the wooden framework. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I really didn’t try. I was too taken up watching how his hands moved and the expression on his face.
‘And then look how they twisted the lantern itself round so its sides are above the angles of the stone Octagon below. It splits the weight of each angle of the wooden Octagon between two pairs of these main beams that run down to the piers of the stone Octagon. Its legs, as you said.’ Suddenly he broke off, frowning. ‘But there should be a spire. Where do you think it’s got to?’
I pointed into the cupboard at what I had assumed was an umbrella stand. Admittedly it was a peculiar shape for the purpose but it did have a broken umbrella jammed into it. With a cry of triumph David lifted it out. I applied the duster and then he raised it on top of the model of the Octagon. It slotted into place. We both stood back to admire it. The whole model now stood over six f
eet high. Nearly two feet of this was the slender framework of the spire, also octagonal.
‘It’s based on the Octagon at Ely,’ David was saying. ‘Ours is five or ten years later and rather smaller. In one sense it looks as if Ely was the apprentice work. Ours is much lighter – physically lighter, and also the windows in the lantern are larger. And we’ve got a spire which here is an integral part of the design.’
He was like a boy in his pleasure. It had never struck me before how attractive enthusiasm can be, the sort of enthusiasm that reaches out to other people.
‘What are you going to do with this?’ I asked him.
‘We’re planning an exhibition. The dean thinks we should do more to attract the tourists. Without the income we get from them it would be very difficult to run this place. Do you think I could leave it in that corner for now? He’ll want to come and see it. But would it be in your way?’
We moved the Octagon where he suggested. David glanced at the table where I worked, which was underneath one of the windows.
‘How are you getting on?’
‘I’m nearly halfway, I think. I had to have a week off over Easter.’
‘Any surprises?’
‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’
He stared at me, then threw back his head and laughed. ‘What did you do with it?’
‘I gave it to Canon Hudson.’ I decided not to mention that I had read it first. ‘Apparently it’s the unexpurgated 1928 edition and it might be worth something.’
‘But we’d have to sell it anonymously.’ He gestured towards my card index. ‘I’d like to have a look through there sometime, if I may.’
My excitement drained away. Indeed, up to that moment I hadn’t been aware I was excited, only that I was enjoying myself. But now it was spoiled. Suddenly it seemed improbable he was interested in what was in the library for its own sake. Perhaps this was something to do with his campaign for the Theological College.
‘I’m sure Canon Hudson wouldn’t mind,’ I said.
‘I’d better leave you to your labours.’
The Office of the Dead Page 8