David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

Powerscourt looked up and saw that Johnny Fitzgerald had come in and was reading the Grafton Mercury on a chair by the garden. There was a final sentence, straight from McKenzie’s heart. ‘Local food inedible. Much worse than Afghan.’ Powerscourt smiled. The unfortunate McKenzie suffered, indeed he had suffered all the time Powerscourt had known him, from a weak stomach. It was his only failing. Powerscourt remembered him surviving six weeks of an Indian summer on a special diet of hard boiled eggs for breakfast, hard boiled eggs for lunch and yet more hard boiled eggs for supper. Johnny Fitzgerald always maintained that McKenzie only attained dietary peace in his native Scotland where he survived on home-baked scones and a regimen of lightly boiled fish with no sauce.

‘William’s been having trouble with the food in Rome, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Johnny. ‘He’s a lost hermit, that William McKenzie, he’d be perfectly happy with bread and water for the rest of his life.’

There was another letter waiting for Powerscourt. ‘Here we go, Johnny,’ he said, ‘I think this is a reply from the Lord Lieutenant. I don’t hold out much hope here.’

‘Read it out, Francis, why don’t you. I’ve reached the Births Marriages and Deaths section of our friend Patrick’s paper. I think I might get through another few hours of life without any more of that.’

‘“Dear Powerscourt,”’ the recipient read, walking up and down the room, ‘“thank you for your letter. I am most grateful to you for bringing your views to my attention.”’

‘Frosty start, Francis,’ said Johnny. ‘Don’t think you’re about to receive an open invitation to Lord Lieutenant Castle or wherever the bugger lives.’

‘Here we go, Johnny, second paragraph. “I have played cricket with the Bishop of Compton. I have hunted with the Dean. Both of them and their senior colleagues have been frequent guests at my table. I have had the honour of receiving Communion from their hands and instruction and enlightenment from their sermons. Five out of my six daughters were baptized in their font and three of them were married at their altar.”’

‘Five out of six daughters, Francis? Is this the case of the son that got away?’

Powerscourt continued. ‘‘’I do not intend to insult the probity or the intelligence of either of these elders of the Church by laying your preposterous charges before them. I regard them as beneath contempt.”’

‘That sounds pretty clear to me, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, staring cheerfully at his friend. ‘Don’t think his Lord Lieutenancy agrees with you. Would that be a fair interpretation of the letter so far?’

‘There’s more, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, holding the top left-hand corner of the letter in his right hand as if it smelt. ‘Third paragraph coming.’

‘I reckon this is where he says you’re out of your mind, Francis. Terribly sad really.’

‘“Permit me to say -”’

‘People always say that when they’re about to be really unpleasant.’

‘Really Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m not at all happy with all these interruptions. You may have to go to the back of the class. “Permit me to say how perturbed I was to discover that such a distinguished public servant, with such an exemplary record of achievement and success, had come to a point where he was unable to distinguish between the wilder fantasies of his own imagination and the realities of the true facts of the situation. Believe me, Powerscourt, I have seen this kind of thing before. During my long service in India I saw how the great heat in Oudh or the Punjab could rot men’s minds and rob them of their sanity. It is most unfortunate. I have known a good many promising officers afflicted in this fashion.”’

‘Pompous old bugger,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘Do they select these people because they’re stupid?’

‘The Lord Lieutenant, as I’m sure you know, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt sternly, ‘is the local representative in Compton of the King Emperor himself. So there.’

‘Does the Lieutenant – he sounds much better like that, Francis, don’t you think, – have any more words of wisdom? I suspect he’s going to recommend you to some dreadful spa in Germany.’

‘Last paragraph, Johnny, here we go. “I feel I would be derelict in the execution of my duties if I did not offer you some advice.”’

‘Here comes the bloody spa, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald triumphantly.

‘“The seaside resorts,”’ Powerscourt wagged his finger at his friend, ‘“to the south of Compton are highly regarded as places of recovery and recuperation for those afflicted in mind and body. The sea air can help disperse the malevolent humours that infect the brain. Others speak of the beneficent influence of twenty-mile walks. I can recommend most highly the services of a near neighbour, Dr Blackstaff, while you are away from the care of your own man in London.”’

‘At least you’ve missed out on the cold baths, Francis. It could have been worse. And you’ve escaped the spa with the Germans in lederhosen.’

Powerscourt held up his hand again. ‘Here comes the parting shot, Johnny. You’ll like this bit.’ Powerscourt turned his letter over. ‘“Finally, Powerscourt, let me say how saddened I was by the contents of your letter and the revelations within it about your state of mind. I wish you a speedy recovery. Yours et cetera et cetera et cetera.”’

‘Tremendous, Francis, tremendous!’ Johnny Fitzgerald was laughing heartily by the window into the garden. ‘Do you think the other two will be as good as that? I haven’t given up hope of the spa yet, you know, Francis. There’s still a chance.’

Powerscourt folded the letter up and put it back in its envelope. ‘This will always be one of my dearest possessions, Johnny,’ he said. ‘I may have to make special dispensation for it in my will. The British Museum? The library of my old college in Cambridge? We shall see. You ask about the other two. I don’t think they will be as bad as this one. The Archbishop’s man may be slightly more polite. I suspect he’s the only chance of a recommendation of Bad Godesberg or Marienbad as a place of recovery and recuperation, to quote the Lord Lieutenant’s very own words. Schomberg McDonnell will be the most respectful, I’m sure.’

‘So do we just wait and let this mass defection take place, Francis? There must be something we can do.’

‘There is, Johnny. Tomorrow I have to go to London to meet William. Perhaps I could buy him a square meal. Or perhaps not. I’ll be back on Tuesday night. In the meantime could you do a couple of things for me?’

‘Just as long as I don’t have to talk to that bloody Lieutenant Lord person, Francis. Otherwise I’m at your disposal.’

‘Could you ask Patrick Butler to find out from his future father-in-law the stationmaster if there are any special trains coming down to Compton for the celebrations? And if so when they are due to arrive and so on.’

‘No problem,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald cheerfully. ‘And the other thing?’

‘The other thing,’ said Powerscourt, staring out into the garden, ‘is more difficult. I want you to get hold of some explosives.’

London seemed very noisy to Powerscourt. In Compton ten or fifteen people almost constituted a crowd. Carriages rushing through the streets were rare. The inhabitants never seemed to be in a great hurry. But here the streets were packed with people, hordes of them rushing in and out of the underground railway stations, the carriages stretching back along the King’s Road towards Sloane Square, moving at a snail’s pace, the passengers inside seething with fury at the long delays in reaching their destinations. Even the birds seemed to be in a hurry.