The Archivist

by L P Fergusson

  ‘Is he a jerk?’

  ‘I don’t know. I like the boy, but Claire pretty well supports him financially. She sensed she didn’t have my full attention, but it’s nothing. It’ll pass. I’ll call her back later when she’s calmed down a bit. Anyway, where were we?’

  ‘Much simpler stuff. The earl’s archivist has just had someone sacked for doing something she didn’t do.’

  Sam laughed. ‘It’s up to BS how he pursues that one.’ she said. ‘I’ll be gone from here the moment the exhibition is done.’

  ‘Gone?’ She had dropped it in so casually, and a heavy feeling of sadness washed over Max. ‘You can’t go.’ She had joined him by the fire once more and he reached out and took her by the hand, pulling her towards him with the slightest of pressure. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you went.’

  Sam looked down and said quietly, ‘Max, don’t.’ She drew him over towards the sofa. They sat and she patted his hand before releasing it. ‘We’re the very best of friends, but we both have complicated private lives. I’ve got Claire, you’ve got Charlotte. And we live at opposite ends of the country.’ She sighed. ‘Besides, friends isn’t a bad way to be: friends don’t have crises and arguments, friends don’t split up, friends don’t tear each other to pieces. You meet a friend after ten years and you’re glad to see them even if they haven’t been in touch for all that time – meet an old lover after ten years and you approach them with a sense of dread.’

  ‘I’m very grown up. I could risk it.’

  ‘Stop it, Max, please.’

  ‘Bull shit,’ he said quietly, staring down at the recently released hand.

  She pushed away from him into her corner of the sofa and carried on breezily, ‘My pressing problem now is what to do about the Dywenydd Collection. Whether things are missing or mislaid, or even stolen and sold, my brief is to curate the collection – the complete collection – and I can’t find it all. I’ll have to talk to the earl – or snitch, as you so pertinently put it last night.’

  Max winced at the word. ‘Warn BS first,’ he said. Sam wrinkled up her nose and shook her head. ‘He’s a nice old boy,’ Max added.

  ‘Is he? I’m beginning to wonder. I’ve seen a rather different side to him over all this.’

  Max persevered. ‘Give the fellow a chance.’

  ‘A chance to do what? I’m not pointing a finger at anyone. You’re the one who came up with the notion that he’s had stuff away. That’s not my problem. I haven’t been brought in here like a private detective to find a thief. I’m simply here to do a job.’

  ‘Tell him first.’

  Sam looked away towards the fire, deep in thought. Eventually she said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give him a copy of the missing things and tell him that I’m going to have to talk to the earl. Would that lift me above the rank of whistle-blower in your eyes?’

  So my opinion of you is important, Max thought with satisfaction, taking it as an indication that the ‘let’s be friends’ speech was not a complete rebuttal. His spirits lifted. ‘I think that would be the kindest thing to do. Who knows, I may be wrong – I hope I’m wrong. It may make the old boy pull his finger out and track everything down, then we’ll all be happy. Anyway, I’m bored now. I’m fed up with beating around the bush, so I’m just going to come straight out with it.’ Max was amused by Sam’s troubled look. ‘When am I going to get a private view of that bloody exhibition of yours?’

  Sam seemed relieved. ‘You in tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m not working, but I’ll come in for that. Private viewing, mind. I don’t want Noel up there acting as chaperone.’

  They talked on until it was late and Max left, as he knew he would have to. He stopped at the fish and chip shop on the way home and ate in the car while the food was still hot. Monty was waiting for him on the other side of the front door when he let himself in. The dog bounced off merrily into the house to collect his toy and flung it at Max’s feet. ‘What have you been up to?’ Max said as he tussled with him. ‘Not blithering the plimby I hope.’ Monty growled and ran off down the hall shaking the plimby in his small jaws.

  He poured himself a whisky and as he sipped it, put together a plateful of cheese and cold meats with two thick slices of bread and butter on the side. Despite the hour and his late snack on the way home, he was feeling extremely hungry. Carrying his plate through to the sitting room, he settled down on the sofa. Monty leapt up beside him and watched each mouthful of food make the journey from plate to Max’s mouth. When Max finished the plateful, Monty lost interest in him and began to remove an eye from his toy. ‘Life is so simple for you, isn’t it?’ Max said as he worried the fur on the dog’s neck. ‘Do you ever lie awake at night and wonder what it’s all for?’ Monty stopped chewing the toy and looked up at him. ‘No. And you shouldn’t, old chap. You really shouldn’t.’

  - 23 -

  Sam was trying to decide if the smotherbox in the style of William Kent looked better open or closed. If she displayed it closed the leather interior, painted in an elaborate Italian baroque design of acanthus leaves and phallic buds, remained hidden; if open, the gilded mask and shell motifs could not be seen.

  It was quiet in the exhibition, the only sound an occasional ticking which came from the floorboards moving a little as they heated and expanded – she had asked the electricians to leave the underfloor heating running. Every now and then the rising wind outside moaned in the chimney stacks overhead. A breeze came down towards her – the door at the foot of the stairs must have been opened – and then she heard footsteps coming up the spiral staircase. Leaving the smotherbox open she closed the cabinet and locked it before going through to meet Max. His hair had been tousled by the wind and he was eating a chocolate bar.

  ‘How on earth,’ he said, ‘are you going to get visitors up those steps? They’re lethal.’

  ‘Luckily that’s not my worry. You hungry?’

  ‘Can’t stop eating.’

  ‘I think they’re going to have timed entries so people aren’t coming up at the same time as others are leaving, but no one seems to have given any thought to disabled access.’ She could see Max wasn’t listening. He was staring around, the chocolate bar held like a microphone in his hand.

  ‘This is incredible!’ he said. ‘This is the real deal. It’s as if I’ve walked on to the set of a Jack the Ripper film. I love it. I want this room.’

  ‘But do you want the tour?’

  ‘Yes please,’ he said. He finished his chocolate bar and stuffed the paper wrapper into his pocket.

  ‘OK. Well, the visitors come in first to this gentleman’s club bit,’ Sam said. ‘It’s not finished, there are some sofas to come up, but these wonderful mahogany cabinets were already here, so I wanted to start the story with the man who locked the whole collection away from prying eyes, but being Victorian, of course he did it in style. Visitors can open the drawers.’ She pulled one out and beckoned Max over.

  ‘Goodness, what pretty things. What are they?’

  ‘Those are Burmese bells,’ Sam said, her fingernail tapping on the glass which protected the treasures beneath, ‘or ben wa balls. This set is made from hammered silver – they’re Chinese, those are Perugian marble, and those ones there are tooled leather stuffed with sawdust.’

  ‘What are they used for?’ Max asked.

  ‘Read the card!’ Max looked across at her, his eyes bright with amusement.

  ‘Christ! My mum had one of those,’ and he pointed down at a pair of instruments with ornate porcelain handles at one end and small wheels with evenly placed radiating sharp needles at the other. ‘She said she used them for sewing.’

  ‘I’m sure she did. They’re tailor’s tracing wheels, called Wartenberg wheels by the medical profession but these are here because the inventory describes their use as sex toys. It’s one of the few things from the realm of SM which I thought was appropriate for the show. There are the Japanese butterfly clamps too, but the workmanship on them is so exquisite I co
uldn’t resist, especially as they came as a set with these beautiful little weights: the black ones with the flowers on are cloisonné beads, those are lampwork beads made of opal glass and these are faux pearls. I think they’re lovely.’

  ‘I like the dice.’

  ‘Great, aren’t they? They still make a version now – I think there’s even an app – but these are incredible, mother of pearl, the lettering picked out in gold. I had a bit of trouble deciding which words to have face up: kiss and lips seemed the best choice.’

  ‘I can still see blow on the edge of that one,’ Max said, tilting his head to get the right angle. He looked at her again with a roguish grin.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, shutting the drawer, ‘you can prowl through the rest of the drawers some other time. Right, back to the tour. I want to get people thinking about why these clubs began to spring up when they did, like the Medenham Monks ...’

  ‘I’ve had such a sheltered upbringing.’

  ‘It was popularly known as the Hellfire Club. Come on through.’ She led him down a narrow and dark passage to the next room, which was laid out like an eighteenth-century tavern, stopping in front of a portrait of a youth with a weak chin. He was wearing a loose turban of silk, and his clear skin and hairless chest visible through the unbuttoned shirt made him look effeminate. Max stood beside her, leaning in towards the painting and in the airless room she caught the vanilla smell of chocolate on him, ‘This fellow is Philip, Earl of Wharton, and he’s credited with starting the Hellfire Club. There’s little evidence of debauchery – it was much more to do with mocking religion and getting drunk.’

  ‘It’s rather a good painting. Was this in the original collection?’

  ‘No, this is on loan from the Royal Collection. It’s by Rosalba Cerriera, a woman who made a name for herself with miniatures. She was a Venetian painter. I agree, it is rather a nice portrait. It’s about the only help we’ve had from the earl – he pulled some strings for us. The next little room we come to takes the story further,’ and they continued along a tunnel lit only by electric candles which guttered as if the flames were real. It opened up into a cave apparently carved from rock. ‘This is meant to look like the inner temple underneath West Wycombe, where Francis Dashwood continued Wharton’s legacy. Although the ninth earl missed this era by several decades, a lot of the stuff he acquired had been made during it. Here we have a dining table set with the sort of food that was served at the Hellfire Club – Breast of Venus, Devil’s Loin – and Dean the butler did these brilliant napkins for me following the instruction in the inventory. We’ve named them the peniform fold.’ Each place setting was adorned with a crisp linen napkin rising up from the side plate like an erect phallus. ‘The glasses are from the collection, more phalluses and this set of crockery is hilarious.’ Sam reached over the rope and retrieved one of the plates for Max to look at.

  ‘What is it about nuns?’ he said.

  ‘Female guests, i.e. prostitutes, were called nuns by the club. Perhaps it’s a homage to that, or just that era’s fixation with virtuous women beset by marauding rakes.’ Sam placed the dish back on the table with care. ‘Mind you, it’s back now.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘There’s a huge fiction market for stories of female submission. It seems potty that we live in an era when feminism has triumphed and yet those very same women have an insatiable appetite for stories where the heroine is the pliant foil to a powerful and sadistic man.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely. Ever since women have been able to download books and read them discreetly on e-readers, sales of erotica have increased by thirty percent.’

  ‘Men are reading them, surely.’

  ‘No, it’s mostly women and the plots are often versions of Pride and Prejudice but with lashings – literally – of sado-masachistic sex.’

  ‘I can’t stand Austen,’ Max said. ‘Let’s get back to the Hellfire Club. Weren’t they into that far healthier obsession of devil worship?’ Sam chuckled and shook her head. ‘Not much evidence of that. They mocked the Church and religion, and there were rumours around that time of Black Masses and sacrifices, mostly coming out of France, but Dashwood’s lot were more into debauchery and wenching. The next room is about the Beggar’s Benison.’

  ‘Again, I know it’s rude, but no idea why.’ Max rested his shoulder against the gypsum rock wall. He had an extraordinary knack of looking as if he was following every word she said and she found it disarming. His eyes seldom left her face: if he was not looking into her eyes, his gaze would drift no further than her mouth and then back up to engage with her once again. ‘Tell me what the Beggar’s Benison is,’ he said.

  ‘Well, according to folklore, James V was travelling in Scotland in disguise and came to a river which he could not cross, but a beggar girl took pity on him and carried him across the Dreel Burn. He gave her a gold coin for her troubles, and clearly for something else, because the blessing, or benison, that she bestowed on him was: May your purse na’er be toom, and your horn aye in bloom.’

  Max’s eyes twinkled through the half light. He was laughing at her. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the most ghastly Scottish accent I’ve ever heard.’

  She was within touching distance of him and she pushed the heel of her hand on to his shoulder as a reprimand. Max caught her by the wrist and drew her towards him and as she came closer to his face the light in the room seemed to dim further and a voice behind her said, ‘What on earth is going on here?’ She turned to see the entrance to the room blocked by BS Moreton, one hand on his hip, the other resting on the head of his stick.

  ‘Hello, BS,’ she said. ‘I was showing Max round.’

  BS stumped into the room, which he seemed to occupy with his bulk. ‘That is most irregular,’ he said. ‘We can’t have you bringing every Tom, Dick and Harry up for a private view when you feel like it. What about security?’

  Sam was sufficiently confounded that she didn’t answer. It was Max who spoke first. ‘My fault, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘I implored her in a most ingratiating way to bring me up here.’ Sam could tell that BS wasn’t going to respond to Max’s irony.

  ‘Then I suggest you take yourself back down,’ he retorted. Max looked at Sam and she nodded her approval of the suggestion. She followed Max back through the exhibition and touched him on the hand before BS caught up with them. ‘I’ll call,’ she said.

  ‘Good luck,’ Max answered.

  Sam felt less intimidated by BS in the larger room. She had decided she must speak out, but the moment Max had gone, BS launched into her. ‘I have to say I am incredibly disappointed in your behaviour,’ he said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I had assumed a professional such as yourself, a woman of your age, would be inured to these salacious images, but I find you up here, alone with another employee, about to engage in goodness knows what sort of profane behaviour.’

  Sam wanted to burst out laughing, the suggestion was so ludicrous. ‘I have a flat in the building,’ she said. ‘Why would I bring Max here to seduce him?’

  ‘Good grief!’ BS said angrily.

  ‘Max isn’t just any old employee, he’s a good friend of mine and when I tell you what he’s discovered you may well be grateful to him because it proves something beyond a shadow of a doubt about the person who wrote the letters.’

  ‘You had no right to speak to him about those.’

  Sam paused to control the frustration that she could feel rising up – she didn’t want the interview to end in a slanging match. ‘The point is, he spotted the date on the letter that was sent to me, and Maureen could not possibly have franked it in the office at the Hall. She was in Scotland at the time it was franked.’

  ‘Of course she sent them.’

  ‘She could not have sent mine, and the probability of two people being involved is vanishingly small.’

  ‘She would have asked someone in the office to put it in the franking tray after she had gone.’
>
  ‘Far too risky. She wouldn’t do that. The very act would create another witness. If the letters ever became public – and the author of those letters would always have that possibility in mind – it would be a matter of minutes before someone made the connection.’

  Sam could see that BS was getting agitated. He had pushed himself away from the cabinets on which he had leaned when he first came in and was now pacing up and down, looking at the tip of his cane as it struck the boards. He turned to face her again and said, ‘Maureen is manipulative. Why should we believe she was in Scotland? Have you checked? No, I thought not.’

  ‘But you could, and you should. I have to tell you, BS, that I am pretty angry with you. You put me down on that rota as a guide instead of Maureen.’

  ‘That was Bunty. Bunty does the rota.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s her writing. Go and look.’

  ‘Under your instruction.’

  BS huffed. ‘Well, that’s as may be, but it’s for the best.’

  ‘When I spoke to Maureen – ’

  ‘You spoke to Maureen?’

  ‘Yes, and she had some quite malicious things to say about me.’

  ‘There you are. I keep telling you, that’s what she’s like.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Sam said, ‘this is hopeless.’ She saw BS lift his chin a little as if he was winning the argument, however risible his hypothesis. ‘Just sort it out, BS. I beg you.’ He stared back at her with a cussed look. She took a deep breath. ‘Unfortunately, that is a minor problem compared to this one,’ and she walked over to her briefcase, pulled out one of the folders she had prepared and handed it to him. He took it from her, balancing the handle of his cane in the crook of his elbow and flicked through the pages, then he reached into the top pocket of his shirt for his spectacles and began to read. After a few moments he let the file flop closed again. ‘I haven’t got time to go through this,’ he said casually. ‘I have a mountain of work waiting for me in the office.’ He raised his stick and pointed around the room. ‘It’s finished,’ he said. ‘The exhibition is complete, and you’ve done an excellent job, my dear. You don’t need anything else, do you?’ He smiled blandly at her.