David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

God in heaven, Powerscourt said to himself. Whose God? Whose heaven? Anglican or Roman Catholic? Not one but two of them. Not just the Dean but the Bishop as well. They must have been Anglican back then or else how could they have reached their present lofty positions in Compton Minster? But suppose they had been planning to convert to Rome even then, or maybe shortly afterwards, seduced perhaps by the beauty of Newman’s prose and the luminous certainties of his faith. In that case they had been sleepers, moles burrowing deep into the Anglican hierarchy, for over twenty years. Hold on a minute, he said to himself, still staring as if hypnotized at the seating plan. It could all be a coincidence, an accident. The Dean and the Bishop could have been Anglicans all along. Maybe they still were. Then he remembered the Archdeacon and his furtive trips to Melbury Clinton on Thursdays. Perhaps there was not one but three of them. But what was the point? Why should they dissemble for so long about their true allegiance? Was there an end point, a time when the pretence could stop? An extravagant, an impossible thought shot through his mind. He put it to one side.

The bells of Oxford were ringing outside, Balliol following Trinity, Wadham following Hertford, the torch passed on down to New College and Queen’s and Magdalen with its deer park by the river. Powerscourt suddenly realized that he had been staring at the menu and the signatures for a couple of minutes at least. He returned it with a smile to Christopher Philips.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘my mind was far away.’

‘You looked, Lord Powerscourt,’ Philips replied, ‘as if you were wrestling with some mighty problem. They say, you know, that Newman stayed in college for three or four days. Apparently he grew very friendly with some of the people he met at the dinner.’

‘Really?’ said Powerscourt. ‘I don’t suppose we know which people, do we?’

‘One of them was certainly the man Moreton,’ said Christopher Philips, totally unaware that he was setting off another depth charge in Powerscourt’s brain. ‘They say they had a lot in common with their interests in early biblical scholarship.’

‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m sure they must have had a lot to talk about.’

The rehearsal for Handel’s Messiah was at its end. Vaughan Wyndham, the Compton choirmaster, and his choir were folding up their scores, the musicians returning their instruments into their cases. It was going well, the choirmaster thought. In a few days’ time when they had finally mastered the more difficult sections of ‘Unto us a Child is Born’, he could have a full run-through of the entire oratorio.

Lady Lucy Powerscourt leaned forward and began a conversation with the two choirboys she had spoken to before. She was just about to invite them to tea when a loud voice interrupted her.

‘Lady Powerscourt,’ said Wyndham. ‘Perhaps we could have a word after everybody has left.’ The voice, Lady Lucy thought, was harsh, the tone rather menacing. Surely you could talk to one of these dear little boys, who always looked so frightened, without the intervention of higher authority?

‘Forgive me, Lady Powerscourt,’ said the choirmaster when they were the only two people left in St Nicholas’ Church. ‘I have seen you on previous occasions trying to converse with the junior members of my choir. It is strictly forbidden.’

It sounds as if he is German, Lady Lucy thought, memories of the word verboten coming into her mind from German lessons with her governess. ‘And why is that, pray?’ she said. ‘I do not mean them any harm. I was only going to invite them to tea.’

‘At this time, Lady Powerscourt, the choir have a great deal of work to do. Not only are they working on the Messiah. They are also learning a lot of new music for the thousandth anniversary of the cathedral. They must not be disturbed in any way.’

‘I would not wish to interfere with their progress,’ said Lady Lucy, wondering why the man had laid such emphasis on the new music for the thousandth anniversary. Maybe she should tell Francis about it.

‘If you interfere any further, or try to talk to any of the boys again, I shall have no alternative, Lady Powerscourt.’

‘No alternative to what?’ said Lady Lucy, thinking the whole conversation was rather incredible.

‘I shall have no alternative,’ said choirmaster Wyndham severely, ‘but to expel you from the choir.’

With that he stalked out of the church. Lady Lucy had never been expelled from anything in her entire life. She did not propose to start now.

The plaster primroses commemorating Rosebery’s family name were in full bloom outside his front door in Berkeley Square. Leith the butler, famed throughout Rosebery’s acquaintance for his encyclopedic knowledge of the train timetables of Britain and Europe, opened the door and showed Powerscourt into the library. Rosebery and Powerscourt had been friends since their schooldays and Rosebery had been an invaluable ally in many of Powerscourt’s previous cases.

‘Come in, Francis, take a seat. I shall be with you in a second.’

Rosebery was finishing a letter at the great desk by the window that looked out into the square. ‘I’m trying to buy a library from a fellow down in Hampshire,’ he said, adding an ornate signature to the bottom of his letter. ‘He has an invaluable collection of documents and books relating to the Civil War. The only problem is that he thinks they are worth a lot more than I do.’

Powerscourt saw that portraits of the Rosebery children had replaced the racehorses on either side of the black marble fireplace. Maybe the horses were out of favour.

‘Now then . . .’ Rosebery seated himself opposite his friend. ‘Thank you for your letter. I think I can help with one or two things. This disagreeable business of exhuming a body down in Compton. I take it you now have the relevant papers from the police? You do? Then I shall have it for you tomorrow.’

Powerscourt handed over a couple of letters that had been waiting for him in Markham Square.

‘I mentioned it to Schomberg McDonnell the other day,’ said Rosebery, sounding rather pleased with his ability to manipulate the system. Schomberg McDonnell was the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary. ‘He said that after your invaluable service to the Crown in South Africa, an exhumation order was but a small thing to ask. He will obtain the necessary signatures.’

Powerscourt wondered if he could avoid the exhumation, the body brought from the grave in the middle of the night, the crowbars opening the coffin before its time, the medical people poring over the cadaver. He wondered if there was another way.

‘I am most impressed, Rosebery,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘I have two questions for you. Have you ever heard of an organization called Civitas Dei?’

Rosebery looked at his friend very carefully. ‘You are moving in deep and dangerous waters, Francis. Yes, I have heard of it, when I was Foreign Secretary, I believe. There was a briefing paper on the organization from some of our people in Rome. They suspected that they acted as outriders, the auxiliaries, the unofficial wing, if you like, of the Jesuits and the College of Propaganda in the Vatican. Their function was to perform in the dark what the Church could not countenance in the daylight. If anything was discovered about their activities, it could, of course, be denied.’

‘But what is their purpose, Rosebery, what are they for?’ said Powerscourt, realizing that whenever anybody talked about Civitas Dei, they were grasping at shadows.

‘Nobody knows for certain,’ Rosebery replied, staring at the books on the opposite wall. ‘I don’t think they are going to nail a proclamation with ninety-five theses on to the door of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, if you see what I mean. Their objectives are to increase the power and influence of the Catholic Church by all means at their disposal. And people say they are none too scrupulous about the means, either. The former Ambassador to Rome, Sir Roderick Lewis, lives just round the corner from you, Francis. He would know more than I do. Or maybe not. But I could drop him an introductory note if you think that would help your inquiries? Could you call on him tomorrow morning?’