David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

So this morning he had determined to take matters into his own hands. He had a visitor due to call on him in his study at eleven o’clock. The two scholars, he reflected sourly, asking for remission of his sins even as the thought crossed his mind, the two scholars could go to hell.

Lord Francis Powerscourt had returned to the cathedral, sitting quietly at the back of the nave. His forehead had been expertly bandaged by Dr Blackstaff in Fairfield Park the night before. He had a stout walking stick of Johnny Fitzgerald’s to help him with his bad ankle. Johnny had taken great delight in explaining the secrets of this particular staff.

‘See here, Francis,’ he had said happily as he fiddled with the top. ‘This handle here unscrews. Inside is a secret phial, this glass container thing.’ He drew out an object that looked like a very thin tumbler with a cork stopper at the top. ‘In times of pain and difficulty, Francis, a man may find consolation in a drop of medicinal whisky or brandy, whichever you prefer. I never understood why they didn’t make this glass container longer. It can only go about a quarter of the way down the bloody walking stick. They could have made it much longer. Then you could get nearly a full bottle in there.’

The two old ladies had passed Powerscourt earlier, nodding politely to him on their way to the Communion service in the Lady Chapel. He wondered if the consumption of so much sacred bread and wine might provide the secret of eternal life. The workmen had cleared away most of the debris from the night before. A new collection of masonry was being prepared for ascent into the higher regions.

Powerscourt wondered for the fifth time if the murderer had come back in the early hours of the morning to search for his corpse, if he had prowled all the way round the nave and the transepts and the choir looking for his victim. Or had he waited until the cathedral opened early in the morning before checking on his prey? The very first service of the day at seven thirty must have been a strange event, Powerscourt thought, the Dean or the Precentor or one of the canons reading the Order for Morning Prayer with the dust lying thickly over the choir stalls and broken slabs of masonry stone acting as hazards for the unwary across the great transept. He felt sure the service would have carried on as though nothing at all had happened. Worse things must have been endured in the past, Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers in the Civil War looting all the gold and the silver they could find, tearing down the statues, Thomas Cromwell’s Commissioners come to take a record of every valuable that could be stolen from the abbey before it was dissolved.

Powerscourt had arranged to meet Patrick Butler here after his meeting with the Bishop.

That young man was feeling uncharacteristically uncertain as the footman led him along the corridors that led to the Bishop’s study, the walls lined with portraits of previous officers of the cathedral, surveying the present in their purple robes from the distant past. What did you do when you met a bishop? Did you bow? Did you kneel? Did you have to kiss his hand? He wasn’t quite sure.

In the end the Bishop solved the problem for him, rising from his chair behind the great desk and shaking Patrick Butler warmly by the hand.

‘Mr Butler,’ said the Bishop, ‘how kind of you to call on me at such short notice. I am most grateful.’ He ushered them both into the two armchairs on either side of the fire. Patrick Butler had no idea why he was here. Perhaps it was to do with the accident in the cathedral the night before. But he didn’t think it likely that the Bishop would have asked for a meeting to talk about that. The day-today running of the minster was much more the province of the Dean.

‘Am I not right in saying, Mr Butler, that you are on friendly terms with Mrs Herbert, Mrs Anne Herbert, who lives on the edge of our Cathedral Close here?’

Patrick Butler blushed slightly. Surely he hadn’t been summoned here to talk about Anne? Was the Bishop of Compton going to question him about his intentions?

‘That is absolutely correct, my lord,’ he replied.

‘I knew her first husband very well, you know,’ said the Bishop, smiling across at the young man like a benevolent uncle. ‘I believe I am godparent to the first child. I’m afraid I keep forgetting his birthday.’

‘That’s easily done, my lord,’ said Patrick Butler. Anne had never told him the Bishop was godfather to one of the children. Perhaps she had forgotten as well.

‘Rest assured, Mr Butler,’ the Bishop was beaming now, ‘that if certain things should come to pass we should be only too happy to place the cathedral at your disposal.’

Patrick Butler hadn’t thought about proposing marriage to Anne Herbert for at least three days. Was he being pushed towards matrimony by this prelate of the Church, nudged towards the altar by the weight of Bishop, Dean and Chapter? He blushed again.

‘Forgive me, my dear Mr Butler, I did not ask you to come here to pry into your affairs or to interfere in any way. Forgive me if I have said more than I should. We are all so attached to Anne, you see, and eager for her happiness. But enough. Let me tell you the real reason for my invitation.’

The Bishop rose from his armchair and fetched the red folder containing the documents found in the crypt.

‘I thought this might be of interest to your readers. In here, Mr Butler, is a document that was discovered by the workmen carrying out repairs in the crypt.’

‘Is it old, my lord? Is it valuable?’ The normal procession of headlines began to flash through the editor’s mind. Secrets of the Compton Crypt. Priceless Manuscript Found by Minster Masons.

The Bishop smiled. ‘It is certainly old, Mr Butler. I do not yet know how valuable it may prove to be. I must emphasize the preliminary nature of my conclusions at present. Nothing is yet definite or definitive. But I believe it to be a journal or a kind of diary kept by one of the monks in the years leading up to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.’

‘Would that be 1538, my lord?’ asked Patrick Butler who had been fascinated by the Reformation in history classes at school. He had had a special weakness for the burning of the martyrs and the priests’ holes.

‘Absolutely right, young man. Very good. If it is what I think it is, it should give us a unique insight into the last days of the abbey that stood here then.’

‘Is it written in English, my lord?’

‘Latin, Mr Butler, Latin, rather ungrammatical Latin in some places, I fear. Our monk might not have been the brightest boy in the class, if you see what I mean.’

‘Would it be possible for me to have a look at the actual manuscript, my lord? I’m sure our readers would want to have a sense of the appearance of the thing.’

The Bishop opened his red file and held the first page up for Patrick Butler’s inspection. ‘You can certainly look at it, Mr Butler, but I must ask you not to touch it. You would have to be wearing very fine gloves for that, I’m afraid.’ Untouchable by Human Hand flitted across Patrick Butler’s brain.

‘Could I make a suggestion, my lord? With your permission, we could serialize it in the Grafton Mercury. ’

‘Serialize it, Mr Butler? I’m not quite sure what you mean.’

‘We could publish it in instalments, my lord, over a number of weeks. I’m sure more and more people would buy the paper to find out what the old monk was saying.’

The Bishop still looked doubtful. ‘Isn’t there a problem with that, Mr Butler?’

‘Problem, my lord? I don’t think so. It would be tremendous, a great honour for the paper.’

‘I don’t wish to sound disrespectful towards your readers, Mr Butler, but how many of them do you think would understand it?’