David Dickinson: Death of a Chancellor

‘It’s the Dean,’ she said authoritatively. ‘The Dean told you.’

Patrick Butler looked impressed. ‘How on earth did you guess that? It’s not actually the Dean in person but you’re as close as could be.’

‘Don’t think it could have been the Archdeacon,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you’re lucky if you get the time of day out of him. I know, it’s the Bishop. It’s the Bishop!’

Patrick Butler clapped his hands vigorously and smiled right into her eyes.

‘Absolutely right. Gervase Bentley Moreton, the Lord Bishop of Compton Minster, told me himself about five or six months ago.’

‘But won’t he be cross with you, Patrick? Won’t you get into trouble?’

Patrick picked up his newspaper from the kitchen table and waved it about. ‘Where in this article is there any mention of the Bishop? Have I written that the Bishop told the Grafton Mercury this exciting piece of news? I have not. And he did not tell me at the time that it was confidential or anything like that. And the information would have come out at some point in the future. It’s just that we have got it first. It’s a world exclusive for the Grafton Mercury, Anne! It’s tremendous!’

Anne smiled at the enthusiasm of her friend. ‘But when did he tell you? He wasn’t drunk or anything, was he?’

Patrick Butler smoothed out his paper and put it back on the kitchen table. ‘It was all rather odd, really. It was at a cricket match at the end of last summer. The Friends of Compton Cathedral Eleven were playing a team from Exeter. The Bishop wasn’t enthroned in state in the pavilion or anything like that, he was just sitting on the grass like any ordinary mortal, watching the match. Compton were batting, with Chancellor Eustace well set batting at number four. He was a very tidy batsman, Anne, if you know what I mean. Nothing violent, nothing agricultural about his play. He just stroked the ball about, a flick here, a nudge there, the odd cover drive that looked completely effortless. He had just placed the ball way into the outfield and they were running three. The Bishop tapped me on the shoulder, I remember. “You’d never think now, looking at John Eustace play cricket, that he is one of the richest men in England.” Then he told me about his parents and all that stuff. The really odd thing was what happened when he got to the end of his story.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Anne.

‘Well, I wonder now if it mightn’t have been an omen. All the time he was batting you would have said Eustace was going to bat for ever, that he’d never get out. But the minute the Bishop finished his story, he was clean bowled next ball.’

Augusta Cockburn stared angrily at her breakfast in the dining room of Fairfield Park. Her fury was as cold as the scrambled eggs in front of her. The toast was limp and soggy. Her tea was almost cold. War had been declared between the servants of the late John Eustace and the living presence of his sister. The vote in the servants’ hall the previous evening, Andrew McKenna the Speaker of this tiny democracy had been unanimous. In less than twenty-four hours Augusta Cockburn had insulted every single member of the household. Now she was paying the price. She looked again at this insult, this degradation of a breakfast. They’ll all have to go, she said to herself. Every single last one of them, out the door and with no references to help them in a hostile world.

The footman, at least, was managing to uphold the sullied banners of propriety.

‘Dr Blackstaff, madam, is waiting in the drawing room.’

This was going to be another trial. She had met the doctor on previous visits. She had not cared for him, sensing perhaps that he was much closer to her brother than she would ever be. He, in his turn, did not care greatly for Mrs Augusta Cockburn. Dr Blackstaff had developed over the years a particularly annoying habit of asking whereabouts she was currently living. ‘Still in Chelsea?’ he would inquire with a smile. When, reluctantly, she reported yet another retreat, another withdrawal of her living quarters to a less socially desirable part of the capital, he would repeat the last address as though the area contained, if not the plague, then at least elements that might not be entirely respectable. ‘West Kensington?’ she remembered him saying at their last encounter, ‘West Kensington?’ as though he could scarcely believe the place existed at all.

But this morning Dr Blackstaff seemed to be on his best behaviour. He was wearing a dark grey suit of impeccable cut in place of the usual tweed. He began by offering his most sincere condolences for such a tragic bereavement. He went on to explain that the Dean had taken charge of the funeral arrangements. It was only right in the circumstances that the Chapter of Compton Minster should oversee the last rites of one of their own. The Dean, he went on, liked taking charge of arrangements for almost everything. That, probably, was why he was Dean in the first place. The service itself was planned, subject, of course to Mrs Cockburn’s approval, for the Wednesday afternoon the following week. The delay was because the Dean had managed to locate John Eustace’s twin brother James in New York. He was returning on the fastest transatlantic liner available and would be back in time to attend the funeral service in person. The cathedral authorities, Dr Blackstaff went on, intended to say farewell to her brother with the ecclesiastical equivalent of full military honours. There was talk of a memorial plaque in the north transept under the cathedral’s finest stained glass window, hundreds of years old. The burial itself would be in the graveyard of the little church just behind the house where they were sitting. It had been the wish of Eustace himself.

For the first time since she had been in Fairfield Park Augusta Cockburn was impressed. She might have to fire all the servants in the house. But it seemed that the Dean and Chapter could be left in post for a little longer.

‘I am very happy with these arrangements,’ she said. ‘Things seem to have been very competently handled.’ She graced the doctor with a thin suspicion of a smile. ‘But forgive me, doctor, if I ask about my brother’s last hours. It is only natural for his closest relatives to want to know everything possible. And you were the last person to see him alive.’

Dr Blackstaff was well prepared for this, possibly too well prepared. Andrew McKenna had given him a blow-by-blow account of his inquisition by Augusta Cockburn. ‘It was as if she didn’t believe a single word I said,’ he had told the doctor. ‘She’s got eyes that seem to look right into your head.’ Blackstaff had considered blinding Mrs Cockburn with medical science. He had checked out in his medical books a fleet, a veritable armada, of terms relating to heart conditions that only the fully qualified would understand. Then he thought he would probably have to explain every single one of them. He resolved on a different approach. He had practised it over and over again till he felt prepared for anything.

‘Let me speak as a friend as much as a doctor,’ he began, his eyes fixed on a Dutch painting over the mantelpiece. ‘Over the years your brother and I had grown very close. I think I can truly say that he was my closest friend in Compton as I was his. Of course he was close to many of the people in the cathedral but I always felt he found it more relaxing to talk to somebody who came from a different, a less exacting world.’

Why isn’t he looking at me? said Augusta Cockburn to herself. She too stole a quick glance at the painting on the opposite wall. It showed a domestic scene in an Amsterdam household, a group of servants cleaning a great hall under the watchful eye of a person Augusta presumed to be their mistress. She noticed that they had missed a very obvious pile of dust on one of the dressers. Really, she thought, even then standards were dropping fast. More staff to be fired.