The Office of the Dead (10 page)

Wine had a curious effect on Canon Osbaston, like water on a wilting plant. After two glasses of sherry and the first glass of Burgundy he moved on to a higher and more active plane of existence. As something of a connoisseur of the effects of alcohol, I watched with interest.

Osbaston had a big, unwieldy body, a long scraggy neck and a small bald head. My first impression was that he was like a tortoise, and this was not just because of his appearance. It was also because of the way he moved. You felt he should be encouraged to spend the winter in a cardboard box in the garage.

By the time we reached the veal cutlets, we were all rather merry. There were only the four of us round the table. John Treevor was capable of casting a blight on any social occasion, but fortunately he had been persuaded that he would be more comfortable having a tray upstairs. David was charming – he wasn’t in competition with Osbaston, quite the reverse. I had fortified myself with a slug of gin beforehand so I was ready to relax and enjoy myself. So was Janet once the main course was on the table. With the second glass of Burgundy, Osbaston told an elderly joke involving chorus girls which was actually quite funny.

‘Delightful to see such charming young ladies in the Close,’ he boomed across the table to David. ‘That’s what the Theological College lacks, you know – a woman’s touch. Mrs Elstree does her best, I’m sure, I don’t want to imply she doesn’t. But it’s not the same. Mark you, there’s bags of room for a family in the principal’s quarters.’ He nodded and if nods were words this one would have said,
A nod’s as good as a wink
. The little head swivelled to face Janet. ‘Which reminds me – how’s young Rosie?’

‘Asleep, I hope. She’s very well.’

‘A lovely name for a lovely child.’ He swallowed more wine. ‘It always reminds me of that story about dear old Winnington-Ingram when he was Bishop of London. Do you know it?’

‘I’m not sure I do,’ David said.

‘I had it from his chaplain. The bishop was a great believer in cold baths, you see, and their moral value. One day he was talking in the East End and telling his audience how splendid it was to have a daily tub. Most of them didn’t even have running water in their own homes, but I doubt if that occurred to the old boy. “And when I get out of my bath,” he told them, “I feel rosy all over.” At which a voice at the back of the hall pipes up, “’oo’s Rosie, then?”’

We laughed enthusiastically. David turned the conversation to the previous occupant of the Principal’s Lodging, a married man with a family.

‘Yes, one of the daughters kept the library in order. What was her name? Sibyl, I think.’ Osbaston inclined his head to me. ‘Just as you are doing here in the Cathedral Library, Mrs Appleyard. Do you think librarianship is a job that women are particularly suited to? One could define it as a specialized form of housekeeping applied to books. It requires efficiency, a tidy mind. Splendid womanly virtues. Don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ I said. ‘In my experience, men tend to be both inefficient and untidy.’

His little brown eyes gleamed in the candlelight. ‘Too true, Mrs Appleyard, too true.’

David got up to fetch the second bottle of Burgundy from the sideboard. Janet looked anxiously at me. I raised my glass to her and drained the rest of the wine.

Osbaston leant towards me. ‘Once you’ve finished with the Cathedral Library, Mrs Appleyard, perhaps we should ask you to put our library in order for us.’

‘So you’ve suffered from male librarians as well?’

‘I think you’d find we’re a little better organized than the Cathedral Library.’ He turned back to David. ‘The last time I was in the Cathedral Library I happened to open Lowther Clarke’s
Liturgy and Worship
to check a reference and I found half of it had been eaten.’ There was a rumbling from deep in his interior. ‘Mice, I suppose. I expect they found it pretty hard going. But undoubtedly edifying. No, Mrs Appleyard, you’d find our library much less daunting.’

‘If the libraries are merged,’ David said, ‘Wendy’s help could be particularly useful.’

‘Doesn’t that depend on Canon Hudson?’ Janet said.

Osbaston nodded. ‘And on others. We mustn’t count our chickens, eh?’

‘No news on that front, I suppose?’ David asked, gesturing with the bottle towards Osbaston’s glass.

‘Not as far as I know. I gather Peter Hudson’s rather taken up at present with the exhibition. Another of the dean’s bright ideas.’ While Osbaston’s glass was being refilled he switched his attention to Janet and me. ‘Trollope was perfectly right, I’m afraid. Cathedral closes are breeding grounds for eccentricity. Present company excepted. Let’s hope the dean doesn’t make an exhibition of
himself.
Ha, ha.’

Janet smiled politely.

I said, ‘I gather some of the canon librarians have been a little eccentric. Francis Youlgreave, for example.’

‘Oh, him.’ Osbaston waved David and the bottle towards me. ‘Mad as a March hare. Of course, he wrote poetry, which may explain it. Have you read any of his stuff?’

‘I don’t think I have.’

‘There’s quite a well-known one, “The Judgement of Strangers”. Let’s see, how does it go?’ His voice dropped in pitch.
‘Then darkness descended; and whispers defiled The judgement of stranger, and widow, and child.
Something along those lines.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘No one’s quite sure. My predecessor claimed it was based on a story Youlgreave found in the Cathedral archives. Something to do with a woman heretic being burnt at the stake. Can’t say I’ve ever come across it.’ Osbaston sipped his wine. ‘Pity he didn’t stick to poetry. He would have been all right then.’

‘What do you mean?’ Janet asked. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Went round the bend, my dear, had to resign. Unfortunately it wasn’t something that could be hushed up. But they must have seen it coming. If only they’d managed to persuade him to take leave of absence. The trouble was, they say the dean was a bit of a weakling, afraid of his own shadow. And I think there might have been a family connection between them. Anyway, Youlgreave was allowed to stay in residence far longer than he should have been. There were complaints, of course, but it’s actually quite hard to get rid of a canon. We’re protected by statute, you see. Finally the poor fellow lost all touch with reality and he simply had to go. Caused quite a scandal at the time, I believe.’

‘But what did he do?’ I asked.

‘He preached a sermon in favour of ordaining women priests.’ Another rumble of laughter erupted from deep in the interior. ‘Can you believe it?’

After dinner David took Osbaston into the drawing room and gave him a glass of brandy while Janet and I cleared the table and made the coffee.

‘It seems to be going quite well,’ Janet said as she piled plates into the sink.

‘If Osbaston has any more to drink we’ll probably have to carry him home,’ I said. ‘Who’d have thought it?’ I noticed Janet was leaning against the draining board. ‘Are you OK?’

She glanced back at me. ‘Just tired.’

I made her sit down at the kitchen table. All the standing up couldn’t be good for her and she had been up since half past six. I suggested she went to bed but she wouldn’t hear of it.

‘It would be rude.’

‘It would be common sense.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m all right. I’ll be fine after a little rest.’

I gave up. It had always been impossible to deflect Janet from something she considered to be her duty. Probably the woman they burnt at the stake suffered from a similar mentality.

I picked up the tray and we went into the drawing room. Osbaston and David broke off their conversation as we came in. They looked like conspirators. I wondered if they’d been scheming about the Theological College. Ever the little gent, David sprang up to take the tray from me.

‘I was just telling David,’ Osbaston said, rolling the brandy round his glass, ‘my housekeeper can remember Canon Youlgreave.’

‘Really?’

He eyed me in a speculative way I suddenly recognized. It was as if someone had thrown a glass of icy water in my face. The sort of life Henry and I had led contained a great many men who looked at me as Osbaston did. ‘It’s not that surprising,’ he said, settling his glasses on his nose. ‘I’ve never dared ask Mrs Elstree how old she is but she can’t be much less than seventy. Youlgreave must have died about fifty years ago.’

‘It’s hard to think of someone alive actually knowing him. He’s like a character out of history, somehow.’

Osbaston allowed one of his rumbles to emerge. ‘You must come and meet her. Why don’t you all have tea with me tomorrow? Mrs Elstree makes very good –’

There was a loud crash above our heads. Janet was into the hall first, with the rest of us close behind.

Mr Treevor was standing at the head of the stairs. His feet were bare and his greasy hair stood up around his head. His pyjama jacket was undone, revealing a tangle of grey hair, and his trousers sagged low on his hips.

‘Daddy, what’s wrong?’ Janet cried. ‘Are you all right?’

‘There was a noise, footsteps, just like before,’ Mr Treevor said in a thin whine. ‘I went to see if Rosie was all right but I couldn’t find my glasses. I must have – must have knocked something over. Janie, where are my glasses?’

As if on cue, Rosie began to cry.

In the end I talked to David about Janet. He didn’t like it and nor did I. I was beginning to feel like an interloper in their marriage, in more ways than one.

It was after breakfast the next day, Sunday, which happened to be the fifth anniversary of my marriage to Henry. No one else remembered this and I did my best to forget it. David came back from celebrating the early communion service full of the joys of this world and the next. While he worked his way through two cups of coffee, two boiled eggs and several rounds of toast, Janet pecked at a slice of bread and butter. After I’d washed up I cornered him in his study where he was reading a book and making notes.

‘Janet’s not well,’ I told him. ‘She needs to rest.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘She tired herself out yesterday killing the fatted calf. And she was tired beforehand. And then there’s her condition.’

His eyes were drifting back to the book on his desk.

‘She’s pregnant, David. And in the first three months women are particularly delicate. If she works too hard there’s a danger she might lose the baby.’

That got his attention. ‘I hadn’t realized. In fact …’ His voice tailed away and I laid a private bet with myself that he had been about to say,
In fact I’d forgotten she was pregnant.
He looked at me. ‘What do you advise?’

‘I think she should go back to bed. She’s getting ready for church at present. Tell her you think she ought to rest. It’s what she needs. I can do lunch. There are plenty of leftovers.’

‘Do you think she’ll be well enough to have tea with Canon Osbaston?’

‘She’s not
ill
, David. She’s just tired and I really think she needs a day off. Rosie and I can come if you want.’

In one way it worked out very well. Janet spent most of the day in bed and the rest of us muddled along reasonably happily. In retrospect, I think Rosie may have been withdrawn. Usually she enjoyed being with her father but when we walked to the Theological College for tea with Canon Osbaston, it was my hand she decided to hold. None of this seemed significant then and even now I wonder if I’m reading too much into it. That’s the trouble with trying to remember things – you end up twisting the past into unrecognizable shapes. I just don’t know what happened the previous evening. If anything.

I do know the weather was wonderful that afternoon. I haven’t imagined the feeling of sun on my arms as we walked through the Close and down to the Porta. Ink-black shadows danced along the pavement. We passed Gotobed planting pansies in his window box. He pretended not to see us. He was a large man who hunched his shoulders as if trying to make himself small. His face was delicate, with big ears and a tiny nose and chin. I thought he looked like a mouse and perhaps felt like one too. He would talk to me when I was by myself but I think he was scared of David. He was certainly terrified of the head verger, a swarthy man named Mepal who rarely spoke, but I think everyone was a little afraid of Mepal, including the dean.

Immediately outside the Porta was Minster Street, which ran along one side of a small green before plunging down Back Hill to the station and the river. On the other side of the green stood the Theological College, a large redbrick building surrounded by lank shrubberies like coils of barbed wire.

David guided us up the drive and round to the lawn at the back. Four pink young men were playing lawn tennis. A little further on, four more were playing croquet. The Principal’s Lodging, a self-contained wing of the main building, was beside the croquet lawn.

Canon Osbaston was dozing in a wing armchair in front of open French windows. The room behind him was long, high-ceilinged and densely populated with large brown pieces of furniture. He must have heard our footsteps on the gravel because his eyes flickered open and he struggled out of the chair.

‘Must have nodded off. Meant to have the kettle on before you arrived. Is Janet with you?’

‘She’s a little unwell,’ David said.

‘Nothing serious, I trust. Such a pleasant evening.’ He leered at me. ‘I wonder if you would give me a hand making the tea, Mrs Appleyard? I’m afraid it slipped my mind yesterday evening, in the – ah – heat of the moment, that Mrs Elstree has Sunday afternoons off. She visits her widowed sister, I believe.’

‘Perhaps Rosie can help as well,’ I said. ‘Many hands make light work.’

In the end, all four of us went into the kitchen. I felt as though I’d awakened a Sleeping Beauty. I wished I could find a way to send him to sleep again. We found that Mrs Elstree had left everything ready for us in the kitchen. Ten minutes later, we were sitting in deckchairs on the lawn.

We drank lapsang souchong and ate most of a Victoria sponge. It was warm in the sun and I felt pleasantly tired. Osbaston found Rosie some paper and a pencil and once she had finished her cake she sat on the lawn in the shade of a beech tree and drew.

The young men played croquet and tennis, and watching them gave me something to do with the forefront of my mind. Occasionally some of them would wander over to have a few words with Osbaston or David. More than one of them looked at me in a way that gave me pleasure. I might have no taste for elderly clergymen but after the dreariness surrounding the end of my marriage it was nice to be admired again, even by theological students.

David and Osbaston were talking about the syllabus for next year – something about the pros and cons of increasing New Testament Greek at the expense of Pastoral Theology. It was one of those lazy conversations full of half-sentences which happen when people know each other very well, so much so that each is usually aware what the other is about to say. I looked at David through half-closed eyes.

Before I knew what was happening, I found I had drifted into a daydream in which I was married to him and Rosie was our daughter. That was enough to make me sit up with a jerk. I hate the way the mind plays tricks when you’re relaxing. I went into the house to powder my nose. By the time I came out the tennis and the croquet were finished and it was time to go. The men were turning their thoughts towards evensong.

‘You must come and meet Mrs Elstree some other time, Mrs Appleyard,’ Osbaston said. ‘In the meantime I found something else which might interest you.’ He pottered through the French window into his drawing room and came out a moment later with a hardback book bound in blue cloth. ‘I thought I’d seen something about that fellow Youlgreave recently, and I was right. I looked it out after breakfast this morning. Do borrow it, if you’d like. I’ve put a marker in.’

I took the book and opened it automatically to the title page.
The Journal of the Transactions of the Rosington Antiquarian Society 1904.

‘I think it may be what gave him the idea for that judgement poem,’ Osbaston said. ‘You remember, the story about a heretic being burned? Take it with you, my dear, and study it at your leisure.’ He edged a little closer to me. ‘Perhaps we could discuss it when you come and meet Mrs Elstree.’

I smiled at him. ‘Thanks.’ I looked around for a diversion and found Rosie. ‘What a nice drawing. May I see it?’

With obvious reluctance she gave it to me. David and Osbaston came closer and together we looked down at the sheet of paper in my hands. It was a child’s drawing with no sense of perspective or proportion. After all, Rosie wasn’t yet five, though in some ways she was very mature for her age. The pencilled figures were like stick insects with a few props attached. But you could see what Rosie had been getting at. A man wearing a white dress and a pair of wings was about to plunge a sword shaped like a cake slice into a small person with long hair cowering at his feet.

‘Let me guess,’ said Canon Osbaston, his head swaying towards Rosie. ‘Could this be the sacrifice of Isaac?’ He frowned and a heavy forefinger stabbed the man with the sword. ‘But in that case this must be Abraham, despite the wings. After all, it can hardly be the Angel of the Lord.’