Midnight in Westminster Abbey

by Sean Dennis Cashman

  Her bedsit room in the flat was still cold. Caroline was used to going to bed wearing her daytime clothes. She called to her familiar, “Dear, dear pussy are you here? Come close, jump up and we can snuggle together for warmth till morning.”

  And with a murmured, “Miao,” the little black cat did just that.

  “No, pussy—not down under between my legs. We can’t risk a black fur ball finding its way into somewhere inconvenient.”

  Having moved the little stray cat just inside the top of the grubby duvet, Caroline slept comfortably with the warm pussy nestling happily beside her world-weary face.

  TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

  Henry V stood forcefully in the way of Charles II as the merry monarch was about to take his accustomed place in the Westminster Abbey choir stalls for the royals’ conference summoned to discuss the fate of Charlie and his children.

  “Whether we sovereigns like it or not, we need such a man as commodities trader Charlie Chancer—some mortal who can delve into the abbey’s funds, extract them without trace,” Henry V began.

  “And then disappear or get eliminated by royal decree,” Charles II responded with his customary bitter smile.

  “It’s you who want us to extinguish the lives of this nice New York family,” persisted Henry V. “It seems their vigorous young lives—father, son and daughter—have no value. If you ever had any true love, felt any human emotion in your complex life, you would think differently.”

  Before Henry V could pursue his argument, George II appeared. He had already told Henry V of their late wives’ messages and advice. By putting one jerky finger to his lips, he signalled to Henry V to hold his breath. It would be better to speak out in the full meeting. Henry’s words would then count far more. Besides, behind them there was now a queue of kings and queens jostling with one another to get into the meeting. And so in twos and threes the sovereigns sidled into the chapel of Henry VII.

  As chairman Charles II sat on an ornamental mahogany chair set before the altar but facing the choir stalls.

  Not all the sovereigns were at the session. Mary, Queen of Scots, was excluded because she had never been queen of England. Worse, she had died a traitor’s death. Richard III could not attend because he was not a resident of Westminster Abbey. The boy kings were not there because the adults considered them too young. Besides, Edward V and his brother still had their enforced gardening duties.

  The remaining nine kings and the four queens regnant sat in order according to the date of their accession down Charles II’s left from Henry III then up again on his right to George II.

  The sovereigns all wore priest-like cassocks as suited their appearance at a conference in a church. The different dynasties were colour-coordinated: a mix of muddy, leaf, and elm green for the Plantagenets; the Tudors in subdued ochre, orange and vermillion; and the Stuarts (including George II as an honorary member) in a mix of duck and navy blues tinged with silver.

  As secretary, expert diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer sat unobtrusively to the side in a modest chair. At the other side the Silver Unicorn stood to attention, a silent guardsman of the proceedings. His eyes and ears missed nothing. His nostrils neither, for a heavy smell of incense flooded the chancel. The unicorn noted with amusement that, whether Catholic or Protestant, the kings and queens savoured the heavy odour. The unicorn as a good Scottish Congregationalist sniffed the smell with evident disapproval.

  Charles II wanted to bring the situation with Charlie Chancer to a head. The kings had captured him. Charles II simply wanted to use his irritating kids as hostages until Charlie had moved funds from Westminster Abbey into one of Queen Philippa’s accounts and into one of Queen Caroline’s accounts outside; then get rid of him and consider his extermination as nothing more than unavoidable collateral damage.

  The monarchs’ surface costume uniformity did not mean there was any political consensus among them. The kings and queens, whatever they might say, were still often at loggerheads with one another behind the scenes. Charles II regarded Edward I as dull-brained. Edward III regarded Henry VII as craftiness incarnate. Elizabeth I thought William III was petty. In her heart of hearts Mary I still thought Elizabeth I was evil incarnate. And everyone thought James I was malicious and that Henry III was timid and lazy. So it was fortunate that the monarchs rarely came together to discuss a common problem and take decisive action.

  Charles II guessed that the other sovereigns had been talking behind his back. It was also clear that they had already deputed Henry V as their spokesman. Both Edward I and Henry VII might have enough nerve and authority to stand up to Charles II but not enough knowledge about modern money management. With Henry V, they could at least count on his star power and willingness to take risks in debate.

  Sensing the way the political wind stirred by Henry V was blowing among the other sovereigns, Mary I did what (according to her critics) she had never done in life. She stood up for common decency. She spoke as if to the gallery in a music hall.

  “Human life is never straightforward. Charlie Chancer and his kids may be confused but they are decent human beings. These moderns’ contrary emotions of love and hate; their conflicting values of courage, compassion and determination may be too puzzling for us to interpret. And [turning to face Charles II directly] you may not understand or appreciate conflicting human emotions. And—take my word for it, sonny—your oh so lovely lady friends all came to curse your flinty heart after their troubled relationships with you. Contrary emotions still bubble away in the teeming mass of humanity that lives outside these walls. Don’t expect living humans to play by your rules. Instead, use their different talents. But don’t extinguish them and their talents. You may need them next time.”

  Mary paused for breath. She had surprised herself.

  “My, my, Mary, Mary, queen contrary,” snapped Charles II. “How does your garden grow? I thought you wanted an endless supply of human youngsters to tend your rose garden in the cloisters.”

  “Then you thought wrong,” Mary I snapped back.

  Determined to recapture the higher moral ground, Henry V said firmly, “I—and some of our colleagues here—are for persuading Charlie Chancer to help us. And we should do so by letting him think it’s his idea. Then, when he has done what we ask, we should let him and his kids walk free.”

  Elizabeth I stopped chewing a sweet and cried out, “Hear!” Hear!" Sensing a profound shift towards his and Henry V’s way, George II told the little assembly, “You see, besides wanting his kids back, Charlie Chancer desperately wants to have a normal relationship with Georgie—that’s his son by his second marriage—the one that ended in divorce. He says all his efforts have been impeded by his ex-wife. According to Charlie, she’s managed to brainwash Georgie into believing he shouldn’t be with his father, etcetera, etcetera. Charlie hopes that in this stolen week in London, Georgie will come to know him and to love him. He also thinks that over time, Georgie will realise what his mother has done to them both and he hopes Georgie will reject her.”

  “Fat chance,” was Charles II’s terse reply.

  Charles II was surprised, given their histories in life, that some of the kings were such softies when it came to Charlie’s kids. He was even more surprised that the fate of Charlie’s kids seemed to have touched the hard hearts of the hard-as-nails queens even more. But then Charles was not a model of fatherly constancy.

  “How do you know all this?” Edward I asked George II.

  “From my conversations with him when he was in the psychiatrist’s chair. And from the web press reports dear Caroline found for us.”

  “You took advantage of him?” asked Charles II with mock surprise.

  “You wouldn’t have it any other way,” answered George II with a grin.

  The unicorn smiled silently as he watched Geoffrey Chaucer. As secretary Chaucer was taking notes sure enough. But he was not taking notes to write minutes later. He was noting the foibles of human nature for possible future stories.

&nbs
p; “What on earth does all this guff about fathers and sons mean?” asked Edward I. “Aren’t these moderns supposed to show more empathy with children and to be much better informed on children’s needs than we ever were?”

  “And what happened to ‘in the best interests of the child’?” added womaniser Charles II with more insincere incomprehension.

  Queen Anne had listened to the kings’ little dialogue. She thought—but did not say—“Only a king who had disposed of his unwanted extra children in the empty tomb of republican revolutionary Oliver Cromwell could be such a hypocrite.”

  Once again, George II told the others, “It will be better to treat Charlie Chancer with respect before we dispense with him.”

  “Like he has us?” sneered Charles II. “He and his brat daughter call me Mr Slime—me the host with the most. It should be simple: compel this Chancer fellow to move the monies. Then extinguish him and his kids.”

  “No,” insisted George II. “A dead human body will be discovered sooner than you think. And before that happens there is the distinct possibility that humans on the outside of the abbey will alert the police to the fact that a father, son and daughter have gone missing.”

  Edward I took the same view as Charles II. He said, “But if we kings let the Chancer family trio go, it’s certain that they will squeal—tell all and sundry what they have seen of our secret ceremony and any shenanigans afterwards.”

  Having tried earlier to sway the court of royal opinion with an argument based on human sympathy, Mary Tudor now took a different tack. She urged the little conference to free the Chancer family because the alternative—death—would work out worse for the royals.

  “There are enough spiritualists in the world—not to mention prying investigative journalists who will delve here and there into a dark story about a man and his family dying mysteriously in Westminster Abbey. These pests will, by persistence, certainly unearth tell-tale clues and we will no longer remain secret.”

  Ever the monarch with her finger on the financial pulse, Elizabeth I said, “If we kings do nothing—worse, if we do not utilise Charlie Chancer—we will not get our nifty little fingers on the necessaries—the abbey’s funds.”

  Charles II decided that, if he was not going to get his way with the elimination of the entire Chancer family, his fall-back compromise position should be to use and eliminate Charlie but let his children go free.

  “Some of my dear cousins here argue for Charlie Chancer on the grounds that he is crafty and skilled—as he demonstrated with his highway billboard campaign against his ex-wife. Surely this suggests that what he did against her indicates that he can do something similar against us. Our only preventative recourse is to snuff out his life after he has done what we need.”

  General embarrassment.

  Rising and striding over to a large choir stall where Ginny and Georgie were sleeping peacefully, Henry V gently pulled away the red blanket covering them. He simply held out his arms as if to say, ‘The Innocents’—something that disturbed the royal congregation. They grasped the unspoken parallel between the American youngsters there and the unfortunate Princes in the Tower whose lives had been snuffed out centuries ago by royal malevolence.

  Henry V wanted to end the argument his way. He said, “What are we to say to these darling children if we keep or kill Charlie and let them go free? ‘We’re sorry for your loss’. And if we kings kill off Charlie and thus make his kids orphans, the fuss will be even greater. Sweet cousin Mary Tudor is right. Looked at coldly, if two children are alive but their father has disappeared inside Westminster Abbey and is then found dead, there will be a great brouhaha. And what will a police investigation throw up? Everything! Us!”

  All Charles II was willing to say now was, “It was a big mistake for our dear cousin, George II, to play at psychiatrist with Charlie and, even worse, for him to get involved with the inconvenience of human compassion.”

  “Henry V is right,” said Queen Anne. “What do you think the scabrous English press would make of an original ‘Orphans in the Underworld’ story if we give them the opportunity? Not another ‘American Tragedy’—that’s old hat. No: ‘An Aristocratic Tragedy’ with us hitting the headlines as none of us has done for hundreds of years. Is that what you want, dearest Uncle Charles?”

  Charles II knew better than to put the matter to a vote and risk losing, so he simply said, “Very well.”

  No one except Charles II noticed Henry VII’s eyes widen with delight and then narrow as he considered how best to get his knobby hands on some unsuspecting page boy. But within his shrivelled soul, Charles II groaned. But he cheered up again when he decided he would act as the kings and queens wanted—get Charlie to do what they wanted: let Charlie think it was his idea to help them: and then let him and his kids go free. But this was not going to happen, Charles II thought, until he had tortured Charlie psychologically first.

  Over the centuries, the Silver Unicorn had had ample time to take a focused and detailed look inside the royals’ insulated world where they still reran their arid ambitions. It was like watching old B movies on an obscure TV channel. As the kings started to disperse, Charles II turned to the unicorn and said, “We may live in showy tombs but that isn’t enough for the most ostentatious royals. We’re ludicrously self-absorbed, hopelessly neurotic and unrepentant characters.”

  Charles II smiled his sinister smile. The little assembly did disperse and the kings and queens returned to their extra-curricular activities. Before she left, Mary I returned to the sleeping youngsters and with great delicacy covered their comely bodies again with the precious red coverlet.

  As he watched the sovereigns leave, the unicorn thought hard. Having heard his beloved master plot human deaths, he now saw Charles II in a not so flattering light. He had been startled to learn of stern Mary Tudor’s sudden compassion. The tenor of the meeting suggested to the unicorn that this particular assembly of kings represented everything that was antiquated and outmoded in English government: it was a self-perpetuating oligarchy all right.

  The unicorn wanted to help the Chancer family. So did equally silent Geoffrey Chaucer. James VI and I had been uncharacteristically silent, however. He was weighing up his options, ready to pounce when the time was right.

  HIGH STAKES IN THE L-SHAPED ROOM

  When someone unseen switched on the lights in the L-shaped room, Charlie found himself facing two kings. Concerned for the safety of his kids though he was and silenced by his harsh solitary confinement for goodness-knows how long, Charlie drew quiet sardonic amusement at the incongruous conjunction of the two kings.

  The one he did not know was tall and handsome in flowing medieval robes. He had exquisitely coiffed locks of hair tumbling over his shoulders. The other one—George II as Charlie remembered him—was tubby with a scruffy pate now hidden by a white wig curled at the sides. He wore a pale blue satin suit with knee breeches, white stockings and black buckled shoes. Charlie remembered that he had unintentionally offended ‘Psy George’ by identifying him correctly earlier that night. George II’s wrinkled face and crooked smile were forgettable. But he was the second patriarch of the Hanoverian kings and he was very conscious of his position.

  Charlie knew about English pantomimes—shows for families at Christmas. These spectacles were based on traditional fairy stories upon which producers imposed a mishmash of recycled scenery and costumes, tired musical numbers, vaudeville routines and corny dialogue. What Charlie was facing with these two cartoon-character kings would have been funny in a pantomime—if only the plight of his kids were not so serious.

  Charlie racked his brains to identify the second king. He tried to recall kings’ faces from pictures in guide books and images on fridge magnets in tourist shops. The taller king he did not know was greyer than the other as if his very visage was fading. One of his eyes drooped. That was it! He must come from the Plantagenet dynasty. Charlie looked around for clues in the room.

  Charlie saw that it mixed char
acteristics of a treasurer’s office and a security vault. There were several well-ordered desks. Charlie guessed that around the corner of this L-shaped room there was a bank safe. He stared in astonishment at the battery of modern technology in the sparkling office: not only computers and printers but also TV monitors, radios and CD players—not to mention stacks of CDs and DVDs and shelves of various PC software packages. There was a smell of leftover, half-eaten sandwich lunches.

  “This room could sure do with being aired—and with air freshners,” Charlie thought.

  Charlie was sure he was being surveyed on CCTV and probably audio-recorded by hidden microphones. Was this a set up? But for what? Charlie saw pictures on one wall—photos of grave effigies. Of course, that was it: his grey-haired captor was a renowned hammer: Edward I, hammer of the Scots.

  But what did these two kings know and what did they want?

  “What did you expect?” George II asked rhetorically in his German-accented English as he saw Charlie Chancer staring at the modern high-tech equipment. “Of course we exist even if we do not live in your modern age. And we stay au courant with current affairs.”

  The French expression au courant sounded grisly in George II’s German accent.

  Reading Charlie’s thought, George II continued, "The visitors to Westminster Abbey wear modern clothes. They bring in, and sometimes leave behind, all sorts of things: mobile phones—that you Yanks call cell phones—and tablets, as well as hats, watches, badges, masks—and gloves, plenty of gloves—etcetera, etcetera.

  “And both in front of, and behind, the scenes on our CCTVs, radios and regular TVs we see news programs, soap operas, reality shows, dark-arts sports shows and sitcoms. And we have our own PCs for managing the running of the abbey, etcetera, etcetera. We not only hear the music of Henry Purcell and Hubert Parry but also rock and roll, punk, heavy metal and rap, the Great American Song Book and even international opera broadcasts. You name it. We have it at the flick of a finger or a twist of the knife.”