David Dickinson: Death of a Chancellor

Johnny Fitzgerald was recovering fast in the upstairs room of Anne Herbert’s cottage, entertaining her children with tales of four-eyed giants who lived in caves in the Punjab and six-legged horses who galloped at incredible speed across the veldt in South Africa. The Bishop of Exeter had arrived to take charge of the ecclesiastical proceedings. The Catholic Bishop from Rome and his party were sent back to the eternal city, escorted by the police as far as the Dover boat. The Bishop and the other members of the Chapter who had converted were to be dispersed around the Catholic churches of England and Wales. The Chief Constable was preparing a report for His Majesty’s law officers on the strange events at Compton. Patrick Butler had scarcely been seen since the service of dedication, working around the clock on a special edition of his paper. Powerscourt had written again to Mrs Augusta Cockburn, naming her brother’s murderer and telling her that he had been brought to a kind of justice. There would, he said, be no trial with its attendant publicity. He passed on the opinion of Mr Drake, the Compton solicitor, that it was unlikely that the legal wrangling about the will would be complete before Christmas. In Drake’s view maybe even next Easter would be too soon.

‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee O Lord,’ Canon Gill and Richard Hooper were taking the service, spoken not sung in the absence of the choir, ‘and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.’ The two old ladies who had attended all the earlier services were back in position. Powerscourt looked at Lady Lucy, now fully recovered from her ordeal in the crypt. Tonight, over dinner at Fairfield Park, he was going to propose an expedition to St Petersburg, a place as remote from Compton as he could imagine. In the morning they were to return to London.

Richard Hooper was reading the Nunc Dimittis. ‘Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.’ His clear tenor voice rang out across the wooden angels and the wooden instrumentalists that adorned the choir stalls. Powerscourt was drawn once more to the names on the back. Fordington and Writhington. Grantham Borealis. Alton Australis. Yetminster Secunda.

‘May the Lord bless you and keep you.’ Canon Gill’s soft voice caressed the great cathedral as he spoke the closing prayer. ‘May the Lord make the light of his countenance shine upon you and be gracious unto you and give you his peace.’

Hurstbourne and Burbage. Minor Pars Altaris. Netherbury in Terra. Shipton in Ecclesia.

‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.’

Perhaps they’re a message, Powerscourt thought, a message from the distant past into the unknowable future, inscribed here on the wood of centuries. Beminster Secunda. Lyme and Halstock. Wilsford and Woolford.

And their names liveth for evermore.

Winterbourne Earle. Gillingham Minor. Chardstock. Teynton Regis. Bishopstone.