‘It didn’t disappear. I took it. I was sure Dean knew that. When we opened the private apartments for tours, I felt that she was a bit – how shall I put it – racy for public viewing, so I took her out of the cabinet and down to the muniments room. I’m sure I spoke to Dean about it. I must have, or someone would have thought it had been stolen,’ and BS gave a snort to underline the foolishness of the notion.
‘So let me get this right. You have had an extremely rare, erotic Meissen figurine hidden down in the muniments room and no one except yourself knew?’
‘Not hidden. I hadn’t got round to discussing with Lord Duntisbourne where he would like the figure displayed.’
‘The private apartments opened ten years ago. That figurine has been in your possession for ten years.’
‘No. Not at all. It’s here, in the Hall. I can retrieve it instantly.’ Keane sighed and glanced up at the earl, who flicked his ash into the fire with an irritable tap of his finger.
Keane returned to the list and appeared deep in thought. BS shifted his weight on to his stick to relieve the pressure in his knee. He thought he was parrying the questions rather effectively, but then he saw Keane turn the final page of the file and draw out an envelope from the back of it. He recognised the laid vellum with a jolt, and mild nausea washed up into his chest as an uncomfortable feeling of weightlessness opened in the pit of his stomach. He watched as Keane drew the letter out. ‘The problem is,’ Keane said without looking up, ‘I received a letter this morning which makes an accusation against you ...’
‘For pity’s sake,’ BS interrupted, ‘that’s another of those poison pen letters, isn’t it? You can’t possibly take that seriously. Those letters are a pack of lies, aimed at me. We’ve discussed this, we’ve talked about this.’ He stopped himself for fear it sounded as if he was gabbling, then he raised his left hand, dropped his head and slowed his speech. ‘The good news, however, is that I now know who’s been writing them.’
‘Do you?’ said Keane.
‘Indeed. By analysing the speech, the content, and the intent of the writer over the many months this scurrilous campaign has lasted, I have managed to identify the perpetrator. It is one of the guides – a woman called Maureen Hindle. I’m dealing with it. I have dealt with it. It’s a hoax, a vicious prank. There’s no substance to anything that harridan writes.’
‘In isolation I was prepared to believe you. Unfortunately, this particular letter ties in with the problem under discussion.’
‘How can it?’
‘It says that you have sold a number of the items on this list.’
‘Sold them? That’s an outrageous accusation, and completely without foundation. This woman has run a campaign of fraudulent lies against me for months. This is just another one of her mad notions.’
‘She’s very specific.’
‘Completely unsubstantiated accusations. She’s making the whole thing up. I can guarantee there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing on my part, whatever that virago says.’
‘You don’t know what she’s said. I’m afraid it really is rather damning.’
‘Let me see it then.’
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary. There are some names here.’ Keane replaced his reading glasses and returned to the letter. ‘A man called Strickland who ran a second-hand bookshop in Shrewsbury, and a contact he made on your behalf – a fellow called Zubriggen from Switzerland. Do either of these names mean anything to you?’
Sweat as sharp as needles pricked BS’s armpits and he felt the palms of his hands tingle with a burning sensation. Simon Keane’s face swam in front of his eyes as if it was coming in and going out of focus, framed by a sort of blackness that seemed to wash in from the corners of the room as if dusk had suddenly fallen outside, although he knew it was dusk when he arrived. To his left he heard the earl bark something at him and Keane was out of his seat, had him by the elbow, and he felt himself being lowered into a chair. He let go of his stick and it fell to the ground with a clatter as the silver handle dashed against a piece of furniture.
‘Dean. Get this man a glass of water,’ he heard the earl bellow, and moments later he felt a cool tumbler being pressed into his hand. He sipped at it and the light began to return to the room, his heart thumped with less violence, and he subsided into the back of the chair. Raising his eyes he saw Keane in front of him, kneeling; the earl had come forward too, but remained standing. This nasty turn, although unpleasant, had changed the dynamics in the room. Both men looked perturbed. Keane had an expression which could almost be described as sympathetic and the earl also showed concern, but BS didn’t see much compassion in his expression, more a desire to get him out of the private apartments if he was going to be ill.
‘Are you all right?’ Keane asked. ‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes, thank you, sir. I’m not very good at standing for any length of time, after my illness.’
‘Of course, of course. Thoughtless of me.’ Keane sat back on his chair next to him. He seemed indecisive. ‘Look, BS,’ he said, ‘I agree with you, in principle, about anonymous letters, but I have to follow this up. I’ve already got a number for this man Strickland and we’ll have an answer by the end of the day, I’m certain of it. I am sure you would feel impelled to do the same in my position.’ BS nodded meekly.
Finally the earl spoke. ‘I simply don’t understand how you have managed to make such a hash of things,’ he said irritably, ‘but I’ve got to tell you, Moreton, if you go on behaving like a damned fool, sooner or later everyone’s going to start believing you are a damned fool.’
After he was dismissed, BS asked Dean if he wouldn’t mind him sitting in the butler’s pantry for a few minutes before leaving. ‘You look like you could do with a bit of a stiffener,’ Dean said. ‘Can I fetch you a whisky?’
‘I don’t think I’d better. I’ve got to drive,’ BS said. ‘I’ll just sit here in the quiet for a few minutes, and then I’ll be off.’
‘I’ve got to supervise the table,’ Dean said. ‘Come and find me if you need anything, but use the back stairs.’
BS sat at the table and stared down at the wooden floor. He was still feeling a bit sick, but he didn’t think he was going to be sick. He checked the distance to the sink just in case. He could see the top of the wooden lining box that sat in the kitchen sink to protect delicate glasses when they were being washed by hand, the tray of detritus left from the earl’s afternoon tea standing beside it. The earl’s Labrador down in its kennel gave a howl – it must have heard Dean moving around upstairs and was calling to go out for its evening walk.
BS felt winded. He didn’t think for a minute that they would be able to track Strickland down and even if they did, he still thought he would be able to deal with that, although with a heavy heart he was beginning to accept that his post here was in serious jeopardy. The earl wouldn’t want a fuss – any interaction with the law would bring the journalists out, and the earl would move heaven and earth to prevent another scandal appearing in the Daily Mail. It was those names, Strickland and Zubriggen – they were his apocalypse for another reason. There was only one other person in the world who knew the names of the men he had dealings with, and it wasn’t Maureen Hindle.
His gut gave a great lurch. He knew the truth and it tore him like silk. It had been in every line of those terrible letters; but to accept that they had been written by the person who had watched him and known him for forty years flayed him. Half-truths he had told down the years crowded in, a thousand spurious excuses and lies, insignificant at the time, mortified him now. Had he always judged the gravity of his misdemeanours by the severity of the punishment?
Ever since Maureen Hindle left his employ, he had been certain she was writing the letters. He had carried his certainty around with him like a talisman, moulded each piece of new evidence into his conceit, had worn his conviction smooth until it sat comfortably in his consciousness. He didn’t want to let it go. He didn’t want to accept that his own
wife was the moving finger, and having writ, moved on to pile more dishonour and shame on to his head. He shuddered as the rest of the quote flooded back, ‘Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.’
And why? If she hated him so much, why had she stayed? And if she wanted to stay, why had she done this to him? Then it struck him like an epiphany. What had she said? ‘I thought when those letters started that you would have the good sense to stop ...’ God almighty, was that her plan? And this final letter to Keane, to get him away from the Hall, and back home, was that to force his hand? Of course, it made complete sense. Why, oh why, couldn’t it be Maureen Hindle?
Wearily he pushed himself up on to his feet. He was too tired to work out what to do, too depressed to do anything except go home, ignore it, see if he could live with it. Intense emotions eventually waned. He would attend Mass, confess, and gradually the magic of absolution would soothe him as it had done so many times in the past. He toyed with the idea of challenging Patricia, but felt it would be disingenuous and could lead to another horrible scene. It would be better if he pretended that he didn’t know. And what about Maureen? Was he going to have to crawl on his belly to her? Have her back in the Hall again, watching him with those kohl-black eyes? Patricia had always hated Maureen Hindle, suspected him of a liaison – the guide’s downfall must have been the climax of her achievement. Perhaps he could leave things as they were on that front. Sam Westbrook was the only person who could prove he had something to do with Maureen’s sacking, and she was leaving in the next few days.
Save for a sliver of brilliant sky above the tops of the Black Mountains, it was dark by the time Dean let him out through the undercroft. The air smelt of vegetation, approaching spring, and a single blackbird was calling from a high perch somewhere close by, but none of these signs cheered him. He made his way across the great courtyard, the ferrule of his stick striking the stone flags, the sound echoing around him, and as he approached the dark arch through to the car park, he heard a car door open on the other side. He stopped and listened. He heard footsteps coming in his direction, recognised the click of a female shoe, and from the archway a figure appeared swathed in dark clothing against the chill of the evening, and he knew by the way her arms clutched her coat shut, her shoulders hunched to minimise her height, that it was Maureen Hindle. She stopped several feet away.
‘What do you want?’ he said aware that his voice echoed around the buildings.
‘I want my job back. You did it. Bunty told me you’d been interfering with the rota. You got rid of me, but I don’t know what I’ve ever done to you to make you want to get rid of me.’
‘Maureen, Maureen,’ he said. Momentarily he allowed himself to see her one last time in the role he had given her, the poison-pen-letter writer. He didn’t want to cast her as anything else. ‘Oh Maureen, why couldn’t it have been you? Why can’t it still be you?’
His words seem to galvanise her to the spot. ‘What did you say?’ she breathed softly, her breath forming a cloud of vapour as it rose eerily in front of her face.
‘Why couldn’t it be you?’
To his horror she began to stumble towards him, and as she stretched her arms forward, her coat boiled open like the caparison of a medieval horse charging into battle. He braced himself with his stick and tried to fend her off with his free hand, but she was all over him, clinging like ivy, running her hands up and down his body, her face, wet with tears, seeking out his, her hands on his face trying to turn his lips towards hers. He caught a smell like the handkerchief drawer of an old lady – stale perfume, cloying and heavy, mixed with the scent of greasepaint coming off her skin. He was gripped by a sickening sense of doom and with sudden violence he shook her off with a groan, turned and took three paces away from her to face the wall, placed his hand on the rough stone and leant forward to avoid his shoes. His stomach gave a huge lug and he vomited and wretched and spat. He heard a squawk of misery, of disgust, and Maureen sobbing and blundering back towards the arch, the sound of her feet hurrying away, the slam of a door, the high-pitched revving of an engine and grind of a gearbox before the silence of the night closed in and he knew he was alone again. With another groan he pushed himself away from the wall and looked down at the glistening pool at his feet. Is this the final humiliation, he thought – vomiting in the great courtyard of Duntisbourne Hall?
- 28 -
BS stood facing the wall for a few minutes until he was certain his stomach had disgorged all it could. He swallowed with difficulty, his saliva sour and burning as it crawled down the back of his throat. He longed for a draught of cold water to clean his palate. He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped it around his lips and beard, finally possetting into it a tart mouthful of saliva before pushing the damp fabric back into his pocket with a shudder of disgust.
He heard the clattering cry of a pheasant out on the other side of the arch and turned slowly to make sure that he was alone, that Maureen had indeed gone. He looked over towards the private apartments – the lights from the windows bathed that corner of the courtyard in a sulphur glow. As he watched, a shadow moved away from a window on the first floor and he felt an uncomfortable certainty that it was the earl, and he had witnessed his humiliation. He knew this could not be true, that it was not possible to observe a scene unfold in the darkness from a lighted room.
He heard the sound of a door opening above and footsteps descending the first flight of stairs. Fright gripped him anew – he did not want to see Sam Westbrook. Resting his hand on the wall, he navigated his way back from the archway and round into the shadow of the north wing. He heard her pass, travelling in the opposite direction towards the car park. Her footsteps were careful – she must be carrying a heavy weight, packing up to leave. He looked skyward. The clouds had sped away and uncovered a white moon which seemed to be racing in the opposite direction. He heaved a breath of worry and frustration. His car was in the car park. He was trapped. How long would she take to pack?
He shivered. The earlier gales had moved on but the night wind, although light, was from the north-east. He could smell frost in the air, icy particles blown down the spine of the Black Mountains. He had to find shelter somewhere to wait things out until he could reach his car. Moving a few more paces along the walls of the old stable yard, he reached the door of the chapel. In the darkness he began to feel along the shaft of each key on the bunch clipped to his belt hook. As he did so he reflected that the earl and Keane could not be overly concerned with the situation. After all, they had let him keep his keys. Eventually his fingers located the quatrefoil head of a large key and, running his hand beneath the door handle, he found the keyhole with a finger, and inserted it. He used both hands to turn it in the hope that he could control the speed of the bolt and minimise the sound, but as the mechanism sprang open, the sound boomed out across the courtyard. He listened until the echo died away, and hearing no other sound he opened the door and let himself in.
The moon was shining through a window high in the wall above his head and by its light he made his way over to the pews on the left-hand side. Being a Protestant chapel, the atmosphere differed from BS’s usual place of worship, but nonetheless he hoped he would be comforted to be in the presence of God. He sat down and laid his stick beside him, then shifted forward in his seat so that he could rest his elbows on the pew in front. He looked up at the monstrous sculpture in front of him, the marble rendered translucent by the light of the moon. When Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, the French sculptor, had accepted the commission, the ninth earl was already morbidly obese and crippled with gout, but he depicted a much younger man in the sculpture, recognisable as the ninth earl only by the weakness of the chin. Everything else about him signified magnificence, intellect, discovery. Entwined around his manly leg was the figure of his second wife, Fanny, her flowing Grecian costume slipping coquettishly from her shoulder. His first wife, the poor, bullied Augusta, was depicted as th
e loyal wet nurse gazing up at the earl with adoring eyes as she suckled the son she could never give him. The tableau was supported by a commanding angel on either side, one about to trumpet out the fame of the earl, the other poised with quill in hand to write his history. At the foot of the sculpture peered a hideous beast from mythology, signifying envy, who looked up at the earl with begging eyes as his sarcophagus crushed her.
Where was God in this place? BS asked himself. The huge sculpture occupied most of the end wall of the chapel, dwarfing the simple altar table in front. It was impossible to worship even a Protestant God in this chapel when every eye was turned to gaze up at a man who in his own time was known as a philanderer and a pornographer – a man who had plundered the treasures of the Hall and replaced them with erotica. But as he gazed at the depiction, an uncomfortable thought came into his head. Did this travesty embody another truth? When all his secrets were laid bare, would his adoring colleagues regard his image in the same way as he regarded the statue of the ninth earl? Would they remember BS Moreton striding along the corridors of power at the right hand of the Earl of Duntisbourne? Would they remember him as a man of letters, a man of principle, a man of strong moral fibre? Or would they speculate what other secrets lay hidden behind his external persona? He had few illusions about human nature and knew how pleasing the downfall of a great man was to the English psyche.
If God was here with him now instead of this weak-chinned Georgian earl dressed like a Spartan, could he truly confess? He felt he probably could. In the past he had confided many of his misdemeanours in the confessional, but sitting here now, in this cold Protestant chapel in the moonlight, he realised that although he had confessed, he had never truly repented. Was he an adulterer? He didn’t think of himself in those terms. Was he a thief? Of course not, the inner voice of habit answered, but as he lifted his eyes up towards the earl he knew his inner voice lied, and another voice filled his head and he said out loud to no one in particular, ‘I am so, so sorry.’ A film of moisture bathed his eyes and the statue shifted and swam until he blinked and it was still again.
The Archivist Page 24