Appointed to Die (3 page)

Claire Fairbrother leaned across her husband. ‘If you don't mind me saying so, Judith, I don't see how any sane, thinking person could bring a child into the world these days. It's totally indefensible, as far as I'm concerned. The world's resources will only stretch so far, you know. When Philip and I were married, we decided from the first not to have any children, and we've certainly never regretted that decision.'

Judith Greenwood, whose chief sorrow in life was her failure thus far to conceive a child, looked down at her plate and refrained from saying that if everyone thought that way, there would soon be no population at all.

* * *

During the dessert, Lucy Kingsley became aware of her hostess's eyes on her. It was not, she realised, a particularly friendly gaze. ‘This is delicious,' she commented brightly, leaning across Jeremy Bartlett. ‘What sort of chocolate did you use?'

Rowena's smile was chilly. ‘I always use Swiss chocolate.'

‘Would you consider giving me your recipe?'

‘I never share my recipes,' Rowena replied sharply.

Lucy felt it wise to change the subject; she took her cue from the ongoing discussion across the table, and the photograph she'd noticed on the mantelpiece of a young girl with dark curly hair. ‘You have children, Mrs Hunt?'

‘Yes, a daughter. She's away . . .' Lucy noticed a fractional hesitation, ‘at school . . . right now.' There was a slight emphasis on the word ‘school'.

‘How long have you been running the Friends of the Cathedral? My father tells me that you do a splendid job of it.' Lucy smiled in what she hoped was a friendly and encouraging way; Rowena unbent slightly.

‘Over six years now. Since just after my husband died. It enabled me to stay in the Close, and to keep the house,' she explained.

‘Oh, I see. Your husband was a clergyman, then?'

‘He was the Precentor for a number of years. Canon Greenwood's predecessor. He died very suddenly while singing Evensong – a massive heart attack.' Rowena looked down at her beautifully manicured nails and added quickly, ‘He was much older than me, of course.'

‘Yes, of course. You must have been a child bride,' Lucy said solemnly, and was rewarded with a gratified smile at last.

After the cheese and biscuits, the time finally arrived to leave the men with their port. Rowena had brought a very good bottle up from the cellar, mostly for the benefit of Jeremy, who would appreciate such things, and for the absent Canon Brydges-ffrench, a known connoisseur of fine wines. The other men, she thought scornfully, judging from the way they'd treated the sherry and the wines with dinner, probably wouldn't know the difference between vintage port and a £3.99 bottle from Tesco. Rowena was not averse to a glass of port herself, taken in privacy; perhaps there would be some left over.

‘Well, ladies,' she said deliberately, watching Claire Fairbrother bridle at the perceived insult, ‘it's time for us to retire to the drawing room. Jeremy, would you like to do the honours with the port?' She set the decanter down in front of the architect.

‘Oh, I think I'll skip the port tonight,' he said easily, rising from the table and stretching. ‘I've had enough to drink already.'

‘But you don't have to drive,' Rowena protested.

‘No, but I'd like to keep a clear head.' He took her hand and raised an eyebrow at her with a faintly ironic smile. ‘Rowena, it's been a lovely evening, and I've enjoyed myself very much, but if you'll kindly excuse us, I've promised Miss Kingsley a tour of the cathedral by moonlight. And I think the moon will be setting rather soon, so we'd better be on our way.'

Rowena Hunt was speechless.

CHAPTER 2

    
Walk about Sion, and go round about her: and tell the towers thereof.

    
Mark well her bulwarks, set up her houses: that ye may tell them that come after.

Psalm 48.11–12

It was a warm Saturday evening in early July, one of the exquisitely long evenings of mid-summer; the sun had barely set as Lucy Kingsley and Jeremy Bartlett came out of Rowena Hunt's Georgian town house into the Cathedral Close. The moon was high in the sky, a pale silver disc, scarcely visible yet in the darkening sky as the shadows gathered around the ancient stone building which dominated the centre of the Close.

Lucy looked up. ‘I thought you said that the moon would be setting soon.'

Her companion grinned conspiratorially. ‘I lied.'

‘But why?'

‘Let's just say that I find Mrs Hunt a bit overwhelming sometimes. I get the strangest feeling that she has designs on me. And I'd much rather be with you,' he added.

She let that pass. ‘So, what are you going to tell me about Malbury Cathedral?'

‘How much do you know already?' Jeremy led her through Rowena's gate and out into the Close; they were nearly opposite the east end of the cathedral.

‘Not much,' she admitted. ‘I've been here before, of course. I grew up in the diocese – my father's parish was about twenty miles from here. But Ludlow was nearer for shopping, so we didn't come to Malbury all that often.'

‘A little history, then, to begin?' he suggested, indicating a convenient bench which faced the cathedral.

‘All right,' Lucy sat down gracefully.

‘Stop me if I'm telling you things you already know. I tend to get carried away when I start talking about the cathedral.' He settled down beside her. ‘It was founded as an abbey in 1088. Benedictine, dedicated to St Malo. The monks claimed that they had the saint's body, or at least a substantial portion of it, although Bath Abbey claimed the same thing.' Jeremy grinned. ‘There was a lot of that sort of thing going on at the time. Anyway, in the original Norman east end, there was a large shrine to St Malo.'

‘Remind me about St Malo,' Lucy interrupted reluctantly, ashamed of her ignorance.

‘Oh, he was the apostle of Brittany. A bishop in the sixth century. But he was a Welshman, so he's always been popular round these parts. An odd man, by all reports – he liked to sing psalms, loudly, as he travelled about on horseback on his missionary journeys.'

‘Sounds like a fun chap.'

‘He had a few enemies, reportedly. But, as I said, the monks here built a huge Norman church and abbey, which they dedicated to him.' Jeremy gestured at the massive square central tower. ‘The tower's the best bit that's left, of course. Though the Victorians did mess about with it, as they were wont to do.' The Victorian crenellations looked, in the deep blue twilight, like great discoloured teeth. ‘A century or so later, after his martyrdom, Thomas à Becket became an extremely popular saint, and the monks decided to honour him as well, so they changed the dedication to St Malo and St Thomas à Becket. That's when they put in the great window in the south transept, the Becket window.'

‘It's still there, isn't it?'

‘Yes – it's the cathedral's greatest treasure.' Jeremy pointed to the left, at the south transept. ‘But I'm afraid it's a bit difficult to see from the outside. See that wall that runs right up to the transept? That's my garden wall. It was put up in the last century, when they built the choir school – which is now my house. So you can only see the window properly from my front garden. Or,' he added with a wry smile, ‘from my bedroom window. That's the best view of all of the Becket window. Perhaps I could interest you in looking at it sometime.'

Again Lucy let it pass, refusing to be drawn. ‘Perhaps.' She looked at the cathedral, pushing her hair back from her forehead, and changed the subject. ‘What about the east end? It's very Perpendicular, isn't it?' The east window, which faced them, was a soaring pointed traceried arch, and the flying buttresses stood out against the night sky.

‘Oh, yes, quite late Perp. During the Wars of the Roses, after the battle of Ludlow in 1459, the Lancastrians were rampaging about a bit, as Lancastrians were often inclined to do. Some of them came here, and for whatever reason they took a dislike to old St Malo. They tore down his shrine, and made rather a mess of the whole east end. So after that the east end was rebuilt in high gothic style. It's really quite splendid, with the fan vaulting in the retro-choir. The monks never rebuilt the shrine. They recovered St Malo's head, though, and put it in a gold reliquary at the High Altar. It was a marvellous thing, apparently, shaped like a head and encrusted with jewels.'

‘That didn't survive the Reformation, did it?'

‘No, and that's part of the legend of Malbury. When the Abbey was dissolved in 1538, the reliquary was the main thing the commissioners were after. But one of the monks, a Brother Thomas, hid it from them. They threatened him with death, but he said that he was willing to give his head to save St Malo's head – he was ready for martyrdom, it seems, like his namesake Becket. They took him at his word, and executed him on the spot. Chopped his head off.'

Lucy shivered slightly. ‘They found the reliquary anyway?'

‘Yes, of course. His sacrifice was in vain. Another monk lost no time in turning it over to them. It was duly destroyed, melted down, and the jewels went into Henry VIII's coffers.' Jeremy paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. ‘The building didn't fare too well, either. Before Brother Thomas's defiance, there had been some indication that the church itself might be spared, that it might be one of the abbey churches that Henry named as cathedrals in 1540. But there wasn't a chance of that after Brother Thomas's wasted martyrdom. They let the townspeople have it as a parish church – for a price, of course – but not till after they'd knocked down the last three bays at the West End. That's why it's such an odd truncated shape now – there are only two bays of the nave left.'

‘So when did it actually become a cathedral?'

‘In 1868, when the Malbury diocese was formed out of parts of Worcester, Hereford and Lichfield. And that,' he said with a smile, standing, ‘is the end of your history lesson, Miss Kingsley. Now would you like a tour of the Close?'

The road curved around the east end of the cathedral, so from where they stood they could see much of the Close. ‘As I said,' Jeremy began, ‘over there, behind that wall, is my house. You can just about see the roof from here. The wall goes straight across the road, so that's as far as you can go in that direction. You can't actually get to it from the Close – you have to go round the west end.'

‘How inconvenient for you!'

‘It is a bit, but I don't often need to come into the Close, and I can go through the cathedral, when it's open.'

‘You don't have a key?'

Jeremy laughed. ‘I'm only the humble architect. They don't trust me with a key.'

‘That building next to your wall looks very old. Or is it pseudo-gothic?' She pointed at a long stone building, two storeys high, with a number of windows but no visible doorway.

‘No, that's actually the only bit of the Abbey buildings that survived. It was the monks' infirmary. I'm not sure why they didn't tear it down – I think it was used for storage for years. Around 1870 they converted it to a schoolhouse. Then in the 1920s, when they made the old Deanery into offices, the infirmary-cum-schoolhouse became the Deanery. The entrance is around on the side.'

‘It's vacant now, I presume?'

‘At the moment, though an announcement is expected any day now. We could have a new Dean installed by the early autumn.' Jeremy shook his head, bemused. ‘I don't know how much you know about the cathedral politics, Lucy, but most people are banking on Canon Brydges-ffrench being appointed – Malbury Cathedral isn't exactly forward-looking, and that would be the best way of preserving the status quo. And I must say that Canon Brydges-ffrench himself is rather counting on it.'

‘I'd gathered that much. Miss Marsden seems to think there's no question that it could be anyone else. That's what she told me before dinner.'

‘Miss Marsden . . . well. She's rather counting on it, too,' he laughed. ‘She rather fancies being Mrs Dean.'

‘Oh. I see.'

‘Not that it's necessarily going to happen, whether he gets the appointment or not,' Jeremy added, smiling cynically. ‘He's been putting her off for years, from what I hear.' He pointed to the house on the curve of the Close to the left of the Deanery, an eighteenth-century red brick house with stone dressings. ‘Evelyn Marsden lives there, next to the Deanery. She's been there for yonks.'

‘And here?' Directly opposite the east end of the cathedral was a range of three houses, built of red brick in the 1920s in neo-Georgian style. The centre house was small, one-storeyed with dormers; the two flanking houses were larger, and two-storeyed, though in proportion they were slightly pinched looking.

‘Canon Brydges-ffrench lives in the one on the right, next to Miss Marsden. The one in the centre belongs to the organist, Ivor Jones. And the Precentor's house is on the left,' explained Jeremy. Next came the row of Georgian town houses that they had so recently left, set back from the Close and angled to the south-west. Each of the three houses had its own handsome black iron gate, but subtle differences in their exteriors, reflecting the respective personalities of their inhabitants, saved them from uniformity. Lucy's father's house was the first, on the right; in the few months that he had been there he had done little to differentiate his dwelling, apart from the rather half-hearted terracotta pot of wilting petunias and alyssum outside the door. Next door, though, a wooden statue, clearly African in origin and depicting a mother and her suckling child stood vigil over the entrance, betraying that this was the home of the Canon Missioner, as did the hectically-coloured printed blinds at the windows. Rowena Hunt's front door, in contrast, was flanked by two tastefully sculptured bay trees in elegant containers, and there were Holland blinds in all the windows.