David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

After six and three-quarter hours the train finally arrived at Bristol Temple Meads. A cab brought Powerscourt quickly to 42 Clifton Rise, a respectable-looking house at the bottom of a hill. A maid showed Powerscourt into the little drawing room. Patrick Butler was certainly right about one thing, Powerscourt said to himself, looking at the Blessed Virgin Marys and the religious tapestries on the walls, the family Ferrers owed their religious allegiance to Rome rather than Canterbury.

‘Lord Powerscourt, how very kind of you to call.’ A handsome middle-aged woman came into the room and ushered him into a chair. ‘Now would you like some tea?’

‘Mrs Ferrers,’ Powerscourt could not imagine this person to be anybody other than Mrs Ferrers, ‘I am sure you have made the journey from here to Compton by train. There were times when I thought I could have walked it quicker. Tea would be delightful.’

‘Now, Lord Powerscourt, you must be having a terrible time investigating these horrid murders back there in Compton! So upsetting to read about them in the newspapers!’

The adjectives, Powerscourt noticed at once, were delivered with remarkable force. Terrible and Horrid were underlined three or four times in Mrs Ferrers’ diction. He wondered briefly how Mr Ferrers coped with it.

‘They are certainly most distressing,’ said Powerscourt diplomatically. ‘And they must be deeply worrying for you with your son so close to the centre of events.’ He just managed to resist the temptation to stress the word deeply.

‘I’m sure all the mothers find it a great anxiety at this time, Lord Powerscourt. Anthony, that’s my husband, and I have been most concerned.’ Even simple words like great and most could be struck with the force of a great bell. She began pouring the tea.

‘Forgive me, Mrs Ferrers,’ said Powerscourt, his eye drawn to a picture of the Pope on the opposite wall, ‘I have no wish to pry into your family’s personal or religious affairs. But I must confess I am curious as to why Augustine comes to be singing in a Protestant choir.’

Mrs Ferrers laughed. ‘Lots of people have asked us that. But it is perfectly simple really. Augustine, how should I put this, he is a dear dear boy, Lord Powerscourt, but he is not very bright. He was our seventh child.’ Powerscourt noted the massive emphasis on the word seventh as if it had some cabbalistic significance. ‘My husband says we had too many children and there weren’t enough brains to go around. The one thing Augustine excelled at was singing. There aren’t any choirs in Catholic cathedrals where he could be well paid, but Compton does pay moderately well, considering it’s a rural place. Augustine has been on the reserve list for the vicars choral for some time and when that poor man Arthur Rudd died, they sent for him.’

Powerscourt took a cup of tea and a slice of chocolate cake. ‘Were you worried about him going there,’ he asked, ‘with all the trouble?’

‘Oh No,’ replied Mrs Ferrers with a mighty stress on the No, ‘Father Kilblane said he would be perfectly safe there. Father Kilblane is our parish priest at St Francis of Assisi up at the top of the hill.’

Did he indeed? Powerscourt said to himself. How could a Catholic priest in Bristol be sure that one of his flock would be perfectly safe in Compton where the roll call of the dead and the disappeared was so long? Was he privy to the secrets of the cathedral?

‘Did Father Kilblane say how he was so sure?’ he asked.

‘He didn’t give any reasons, Lord Powerscourt. He gave us his word that Augustine would be as safe in Compton as if he were still under our own roof here in Clifton.’

‘Just one last question, if I may, Mrs Ferrers, and then I shall be on my way. Did the Cathedral authorities in Compton raise any objections on the ground of Augustine’s religious beliefs?’

‘I don’t think so, Lord Powerscourt. Father Kilblane fixed it all up with the Dean or the Archdeacon, I can’t remember which.’

Powerscourt felt the ground shifting slightly under his feet. He thought he should make his excuses and leave as soon as he decently could. The last thing he wanted was any message going back from Bristol to Compton about his inquiries. He wondered if there was some perfectly innocent explanation. Perhaps Father Kilblane had been at school with the Dean or the Archdeacon or had had some dealings with them in the past. Perhaps he was the priest who served Mass on Sundays at Melbury Clinton. Christ, Powerscourt said to himself, I’d better stop speculating in here with Mrs Ferrers.

‘Is he an experienced man, Father Kilblane?’ Powerscourt tried to make it sound as innocent as he could.

‘Oh No,’ Mrs Ferrers replied. ‘He’s quite young, I should say in his late twenties or early thirties. I think he came to the priesthood slightly later than some. He was at the English College in Rome for three or four years. There was a rumour, but I’ve never heard it confirmed, that he was a convert from the Anglican Church.’ Mrs Ferrers eyes lit up at the mention of conversion. ‘He’s been with us for about a year and a half.’

His eyes reeling from the Virgins on the walls, his ears still ringing with the force of Mrs Ferrers’ adverbs and adjectives, Powerscourt took his leave of 42 Clifton Rise. God in heaven. A Catholic priest advising a member of his flock to take up a position singing the heretic hymns and anthems in a Protestant cathedral. A Catholic priest who felt able to assure the family that their son would be safe in a city rent with murder and dismemberment. Did he know the dark secret of Compton Minster? Part of Powerscourt dearly wanted to make the short journey up the hill to question Father Kilblane in his sanctuary at the Church of St Francis of Assisi. But he felt it was too dangerous. Cambridge next, he said to himself, at least I shall feel on surer ground in Cambridge.

Anne Herbert had her private suspicions about why Patrick Butler should be taking her to Glastonbury for the day. Never before, in all the months she had known him, had he proposed an expedition out of Compton, not even to the seaside some twenty miles away. She had dressed in sensible rather than fashionable clothes, fearing that any trip to Glastonbury with Patrick might involve the ascent of Glastonbury Tor. He had chatted happily on the train, regaling Anne with details of the first excerpt of the monk’s diary from the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries which was to be published in the Grafton Mercury the following week.

‘The Bishop seems to have done a splendid job with the translation, Anne. I rather feared it would all be very dry and boring. We don’t know the fellow’s name so he’s just referred to as the monk of Compton. He seems to have spent a lot of time complaining about the food and the sloppy habits of his superiors.’

Now they were standing on the edge of the field that contained the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. ‘The farmer doesn’t mind people wandering about,’ Patrick assured Anne. ‘I checked in that hotel where we had our coffee. Just have to be careful not to disturb the sheep.’

Glastonbury Abbey had once been one of the richest and grandest abbeys in Britain. It was famed throughout the kingdom for its relics and its collection of gold and silver ornaments. Now most of it had disappeared. Grass, moss and lichen had spent three hundred and sixty years creeping over the walls so they were now a dark green colour. The local birds had taken sanctuary here, rooks and starlings and sparrows building their nests in masonry that had once been nave and cloister. The sun was shining but a bitter wind swirled around what was left of the walls. The windows, once graced with the most elaborate stained glass the sixteenth-century craftsmen could produce, now gave vistas of distant hills or other sections of ruined wall. The doors through which the abbot and the monks had processed to their daily round of services now gave entrance to flocks of wandering sheep.