‘Talking of your brother,’ Lempriere said with an amiable and chatty air not habitual with him, ‘I’ve asked him too—as you probably know.’
‘I didn’t know. How nice of you.’
This didn’t sound promising. Lempriere busied himself unconcernedly with sherry, and then found it necessary to confer with his servant at some length. I realised that I was expected at once to take a full part in the entertainment.
‘The end of Tamburlaine was a bit of a shambles, wasn’t it?’ I said to Matthew. ‘But it was great fun while it lasted. Had you done much acting before?’
‘None at all. But Mark and I were just told we must have a go at it.’
Here at least was Mark’s name. I supposed that the pressure or compulsion had come from Junkin and other senior persons – and then I suddenly thought that perhaps it had come from Penny, who had been in Oxford long enough for that. As this speculation came to me I think something mildly telephatic happened. Matthew and I hadn’t been exactly easy, and now I could feel his discomfort grow. Penny was in both our heads. I had to consider how to cope with this. The Sheldrakes were very young, absurdly young, and not in the remotest degree hardened amorists. If they had been in bed with Penny (severally, as I now felt with some relief it would have had to be) they would judge it dreadful and demeaning to have to traffic socially with her former husband, even although he belonged to an era when they were still at their private school. If I was to establish any confidence with them I had a long way to go.
Mark arrived. I believe he would have said ‘I’m Mark Sheldrake’ if it hadn’t been on his brother that his eye fell first. For a moment, he stiffened and simply stood. There could be no doubt that the brothers were literally not on speaking terms. Lempriere’s temerity in inviting each to luncheon without telling the other appeared for a second or two in an almost lurid light. But that was absurd. A short period of masked social embarrassment was the worst we could be in for, and I had some faith that my posited ‘correctness’ in the Sheldrakes would stand the test. It was even just conceivable that the enterprise might pay off.
But no approach to frankness was remotely possible yet. I couldn’t say, ‘Look, I’m not entitled to mind, and I very much don’t mind, if you’ve both been making love to Penny – but it does seem to have got you into a silly sort of fix.’ As for Lempriere, I was now sure that he wasn’t going to acknowledge by a flicker any consciousness that he and I weren’t in the company of other than two devoted siblings. And here he had his known habits on his side. Everybody in college was aware that he entertained in this way a good deal, troubling himself very little as to whether he had ever set eyes on his guests before or not.
And the luncheon did at first run on these lines. Lempriere talked a good deal; he made me talk; he made the boys talk too. I found without surprise that he possessed an unerring sense of how to recommend himself to young men. He was never other than the much older man, and never other than the fellow-collegian either. He was authoritative rather than deferential, but anything either youth ventured was received with consideration and brisk requests for amplification on one point or another. He told anecdotes of eminent people without a hint of name-dropping and of simple people on his Northumberland estate without condescension. He moved from one topic to another – and would then go back and show that he remembered precisely what Matthew or Mark had said ten minutes before. They weren’t boys who needed to be told that this is how gentlemen talk, but I think they were drawn to remember how it is civilised to behave at somebody’s table. Sitting facing each other at this one, they had begun by ignoring each other and speaking directly only to Lempriere or myself. Later, they appeared to decide simultaneously that this wouldn’t do; they talked a little to one another, but with the particular sort of politeness one accords to a stranger. This was sufficiently absurd, but I think Lempriere felt he was making progress. He redoubled his efforts – although not obtrusively – glancing rapidly now at Mark and now at Matthew in an effort to increase their interplay.
I think it must have been this swift looking from one youth to the other that, towards the end of the meal, almost proved Lempriere’s undoing. He became oddly confused, showed signs of losing his grip on the situation. And the reason was plain to me. Matthew and Mark Sheldrake were inexperienced lads, who had been drawn into a silly and rather shameful quarrel for the amusement of a seductive and malicious middle-aged woman. As such, they were to be brought to their senses and persuaded that there are certain ways in which one just doesn’t behave – or not when one has the good fortune to belong to the college one does. This was all perfectly clear to Lempriere, and he knew exactly what to do. But Mark and Matthew were also demigods (it is the term for which one has to settle), and here they were, as like as two peas (or roses on a branch), one on Lempriere’s right and one on his left. And this, for it was very simple, was becoming too much for him. If one can imagine a Gustave Aschenbach who has encountered in Venice not only Tadzio but a twin brother of Tadzio’s as well, one is imagining something like the experience now overtaking my elderly colleague. No donkey between carrots – to put the thing more coarsely – was ever in greater plight.
He recovered himself, as it had been certain he would do. What, if anything, Mark and Matthew had been aware of, I don’t know. I imagined them as likely at once to be uncomfortably conscious of any sort of unacceptable admiration. But this may not have been so now. Lempriere, for one thing, was as incapable as the Sphinx (or Aschenbach, one imagines) of a loose or lascivious glance. And the twins may have been so accustomed to stirring adoration whether dim or lively that they had ceased to register the phenomenon long ago unless it took on some outrageous form. Moreover they were probably preoccupied in wondering whether this was after all an innocent social occasion, promoted in ignorance of their being at odds with one another, or whether – polite chat being over – they were due for admonishment on the score of an unbecoming bearing to one another upon public occasions. Despite the extreme amenity of Lempriere’s manner – or partly, even, because of it – they might judge it really conceivable that something as archaic as that was in the wind. In which case they’d have to work out what was the adequate response to so arbitrary an intrusion into their personal affairs.
I wasn’t, however, to be afforded this interesting spectacle. The luncheon came to an end; coffee had been drunk; the moment had arrived when the Sheldrakes might decently rise, express their thanks and depart unscathed. But Lempriere nipped in ahead of them, getting to his feet himself.
‘I’m sorry I can’t join in the walk,’ he said. ‘A touch of gout, as a matter of fact. But Mr Pattullo will do a Long Field with you.’
‘Mr Pattullo’ was perhaps a shade formal; the rest of this speech confidently conveyed the assumption that a walk round Long Field on these occasions was a law as immutable as Medes or Persians ever enacted. In no time I was out in the quad with the two young men.
They could still have rebelled, murmuring to me (as less terrifying than Lempriere) information on inescapable early- afternoon engagements. I could sense them communicating on this as by bush telegraph, which did at least represent the re-establishment of some process normal between them. They apparently decided that the walk had to be. We set out.
I had a good deal to think of myself. Lempriere had lobbed the ball into my court without notice, and no doubt retired for some customary nap. I was expected (as the ultimately responsible party – for hadn’t the lady in the case been my wife?) to sort the twins out. It was a challenge not absolutely to be declined.
We crossed the Great Quadrangle in silence, a Sheldrake on either side of me. It was a configuration which promised to maintain itself round the very large stretch of semi-rural Oxford which calls itself, for some reason, a field. Trusting to the silence as being for a short space judged companionable, I devoted myself to hearing my own voice on my inward ear. ‘This is a bit of a plot, you know. That can’t be denied, although I could plead I haven’
t been enlisted very willingly. But here goes, my dear Matthew and Mark. If I may so address you? Good. You’ve got yourselves into a jam – that’s the nub of the matter – and I’m not unfairly to be credited with a certain inside knowledge – as a matter of anterior experience of my own, shall we say – of just how it has come about . . . ‘
This was an impossible speech; it sounded like some bogus-colloquial performance out of Henry James. I was reminded of those never actually uttered outbursts which, although different in tone, Ninian and I had discovered ourselves as sometimes meditating the delivery of in a family circle. Better continued silence than anything so impertinent. That, or more small-talk of our lunchtime order. As we went through Rattenbury gate I made some remarks on the architecture of the building. We continued for a little with that sort of thing. Once or twice I detected Mark and Matthew as glancing one at another. It was something they were almost able to do above my head. They were, in a fashion, coming together in face of the interference they couldn’t feel as other than impending. Without my uttering the fact, that is to say, they had concluded that there was indeed a bit of a plot. But if I was thus an adversary I felt that this didn’t in itself sum up quite all that was between us, common to all three of us. Penny was that too. Quite what, if anything, this portended, I didn’t know. But I decided that during the rest of our walk down to the river a continued reflective silence should for the most part obtain. The twins seemed to be of the same mind. So it was with only a few desultory exchanges that we reached a turn on the path and continued along the river bank.
‘Lempriere’s seat’s in the sun,’ I said. ‘We might sit down on it.’
‘Mr Lempriere’s seat?’ Matthew asked politely. ‘Did he present it to us?’
‘No, the inscription tells you who did that. I think it’s the inscription that makes him fond of the seat.’
‘The Oxford College Servants’ Rowing Club,’ Mark read aloud. ‘It sounds as if they have one club between them. Do you know who they row against, sir?’
‘Cambridge college servants, I believe. Perhaps House of Commons ones as well. I don’t really know.’
‘It has an old-world ring,’ Mark said.
‘Ring out the old, ring in the new would be in order, to my mind,’ Matthew said. ‘It’s a social anachronism.’
I made no comment on this rather unexpected egalitarian statement. We sat down. Surprisingly, Mark and Matthew were now both on my right hand.
‘Look, Matthew, Mark, there’s something I feel I ought to say— or just tell you. You can stop me if you think it’s cheek. Call it a short narrative of a cruise, quite a long time ago, down the coast of Calabria . . . ‘
But that wouldn’t do either – although not quite so bad.
‘The river turns a bit dull after Eights,’ I said. ‘Nothing but those shocking motor cruisers.’
Both boys were now looking at me, and I couldn’t be certain it wasn’t gratefully. Mark stretched himself lazily as he sat; Matthew instantly did the same. I decided it would be over-dramatic to get up and leave them to it. We sat sunning ourselves for a time, and then walked back towards college.
‘Do you know Italy?’ I asked of either twin indifferently.
‘Not very well, I’m afraid.’
Matthew and Mark had produced the same words simultaneously.
‘I went there for the first time in my first long vac. It was with a nice Australian called Fish. We’d bought a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which wasn’t easy to come by in England at that time. Fish used to read it aloud to me at night. He thought it was very funny. I remember his coming to a bit where Mellors goes over the top to Connie about things that have happened to him in bed. Connie says, “You do seem to have had awful experiences of women.” I was quite upset, and made Fish chuck the book into his suitcase. It’s a moment that sticks comically in my head. We were both young and innocent and so on, but had got rather involved with things that summer term. Fish is back in Australia now, growing millions of sheep. I can’t say I think Lady Chatterley is Lawrence at his best.’
‘Of course not,’ Mark said. It’s The Rainbow that’s that.’
‘No,’ Matthew said. ‘It’s Sons and Lovers’
This seemed a satisfactory disagreement. We parted in the Great Quadrangle, after I had made a suitably indefinite suggestion that the young men should drop in for a drink some time. They walked away together, divagated on their several paths, simultaneously halted, turned, and exchanged some casual remarks while for a few paces moving backwards. It was an almost precise re-enactment of the occasion on which I had first glimpsed them together. That evening they were sitting side by side in hall.
XXI
Dear Mr Pattullo,
It was very nice seeing you in college again, and I greatly appreciated being shown Piero della Francesca’s Madonna of the Astrolabe. I never thought I’d see it again so soon – and in the East End of London! But here it is, safely in the little crypt in St Ambrose’s that is used as the chapel for our Mission. (At least I hope ‘safely’ is right. It’s a little worrying, really.) I haven’t seen Dr Wyborn, who of course must have brought it to us, but I want to tell him how much I, at least, appreciate and reverence it, and how kind I think it is of the college to let it come here, where beauty is so sorely needed.
I have left the Discount House, and written the letter we were talking about, and now I am doing the sort of Latin that is needed for reading Law.
Yours sincerely, Peter (P. L. Lusby)
P.S. I hope I am acting properly in writing this to you. P.L.L.
My first thought on reading this letter – astonishment apart – was that Peter had done well in a tricky situation. What he had written was perfectly proper if all was fair and above board, and at the same time his postscript showed that this was something he was not so guileless as to feel assured of. I read the letter twice, gulped my breakfast coffee, and went straight over to the Lodging. The Provost received so early a call without surprise, and read the astounding communication with every appearance of calm.
‘It goes to show,’ he then said grimly, ‘the prudence of those eighteenth-century divines who recommended being religious without enthusiasm.’
‘I suppose so, Provost. It also shows that you were right in supposing that the picture’s disappearance might be a domestic matter. But we’re not confronted with a mad undergraduate.’
‘We’re confronted with a mad fellow, which is a great deal worse. Just how do you imagine he got away with it?’
I’ve been thinking about that as I crossed the quad. He had the habit of taking a look at the Piero several times a day. Presumably he was opening that common room door to do so in the very instant of the blackout. So, just on impulse, he picked up the picture and made off with it.’
‘It must have been precisely that, Duncan. Moreover, poor Wyborn’s theology has its primitive side. He would be capable of judging that sudden electrical failure to be a special act of Providence, pointing him to the course he immediately took. But why, in heaven’s name, this particular church as the recipient of the divine bounty? St Ambrose’s! I never heard of it.’
‘I think, it’s in Bethnal Green – which, as you see, is Lusby’s address. And the Mission centred there is probably something that Wyborn has much at heart.’
‘Anything of the kind is greatly to his credit, no doubt But this is a crisis, Duncan, and immediate action is required. I shall ring up the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, and ask that a discreet and unobtrusive guard be at once mounted over the picture. If professional thieves got wind of this insane exposure of a priceless thing, its safety would not be worth a moment’s purchase. And I shall take the first train to town and retrieve the painting myself. With good fortune, the whole thing can be hushed up. It must be hushed up! And poor Wyborn must be placed in the hands of his doctors at once. Perhaps we can get him into the Warneford straight away. They have great experience there with demented dons, one must suppose.’
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‘But, Provost, Wyborn mayn’t be in the least mad.’
‘Not mad!’
‘Not in any valid clinical sense. It might be represented that he is doing no more than going out and preaching to the poor and illiterate. Taking the Gospel story to them. That’s what that sort of picture was originally painted for.’
‘My dear Duncan, the Piero is simply not his property to do anything of the kind with. It belongs to the college. And this is no time for idle debate.’
I accepted this merited rebuke in good part, although Peter’s ‘where beauty is so sorely needed’ was quite genuinely in my head.
‘Are you sure,’ I asked, ‘that the vicar, or whoever he is, of St Ambrose’s will let you walk away with it?’
‘It is incomprehensible that he has not already communicated with me. We can only suppose that he is totally unaware of what this picture is, as, of course, everybody else will be in a humble neighbourhood of that sort. Except Lusby, indeed, and thank God for the boy! But, no doubt, the susceptibilities of this ignorant priest ought to be considered. Some quiet approach is desirable. Something in the nature of a deputation, shall we say? I can pick up the Bishop of London on my way. He is an old friend.’
I almost said ‘Or his boss the Archbishop from across the river’, this because the oddity of the situation had a little unsettled me. But I was preserved from frivolity by the ringing of the Provost’s telephone bell.
‘Yes, by all means,’ the Provost said into the instrument. ‘Now?’ This came with an inflexion of civilly muted surprise. ‘Certainly, certainly. I have Duncan Pattullo here. We happen to have been talking about it. Most interesting. Pray do.’ The Provost put down the receiver. ‘Burnside,’ he said. ‘Our admirable archivist once more. Oddly enough, he is eager to communicate the discovery of something important about the Piero.’ ‘It can hardly be anything particularly opportune.’
The Madonna of the Astrolabe Page 29