Appointed to Die (30 page)

‘But, Arthur! It means I will have to leave the Close! And I have nowhere else to go!'

‘I am very sorry, my dear. I wish there were some way out, but I can't see one.'

The utterance was flat, and drained of emotion, but the sentiment it expressed gave Evelyn the impetus she needed. She stood very still for a moment, screwing up her courage; the knuckles on her clasped hands were white. ‘There is one way out,' she said in a very quiet voice. ‘I could come here to live.'

At first he looked merely puzzled, as though she had suggested joining the circus or emigrating to Australia. ‘What on earth are you talking about?'

‘I could come here to live,' she repeated, suddenly shy. She went on, increasingly agonised, ‘I always knew that as long as your mother was alive, it wasn't possible. But I'd always understood that when she was . . . gone, that you . . . that I . . . that we might . . . marry.'

‘Marry?!' The look on his face, the tone of his voice, registered the most complete and utter incredulity. ‘But how absurd!'

Evelyn wished at that moment that the floor might open up and swallow her forever. She paled, then flamed red, whispering painfully, ‘I'm sorry, Arthur. I thought . . .'

He stared at her. After a moment he said, with gentle dignity, ‘There seems to have been some misunderstanding. Such a thing is out of the question, naturally. But the blame must be mine – if I have done anything to mislead you, Evelyn – and I clearly must have done – I apologise most sincerely.'

Before she could react, there was an almighty crash as Todd Randall, trapped behind the sofa sorting through a pile of books since their conversation began, attempted to creep out and tripped over still another stack of books. ‘I'm sorry,' he said sheepishly.

Mortified, Evelyn Marsden fled. ‘I'm so sorry, Arthur. I'll let myself out,' she murmured over her shoulder.

Todd looked guiltily at the Subdean's stricken face. ‘I'm really sorry about that. I should have said something sooner to let you know that I was there, but I didn't realise . . .'

‘Oh, that's all right, Todd.' Canon Brydges-ffrench gave him an abstracted, forced smile. ‘I don't mind. But Miss Marsden . . .'

The young man thought quickly. ‘Perhaps it would be better for me to go away for a few days, don't you think? When the coast is clear, I'll sneak up to my room and grab a few things. I can go to London.'

‘Yes, perhaps that would be best,' the Subdean agreed.

So Todd departed, leaving Arthur Brydges-ffrench alone at his desk. Broodingly, he opened the box of crème de menthe Turkish Delight that was always near to hand, and selected one of the last few pieces; in a few minutes the box was empty.

CHAPTER 29

    
I will pay my vows unto the Lord, in the sight of all his people: in the courts of the Lord's house, even in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord.

Psalm 116.16

Driven partly by his craving for Turkish Delight and partly by an unformulated need to get out of his house and breathe some fresh air, Arthur Brydges-ffrench set off for the Cathedral Shop in the early afternoon.

As he came out of his house, he stood for a moment looking across towards the cathedral – his cathedral, the one passion of his life. It was a raw November day, heavy with a damp chill fog that had never lifted, and the cathedral appeared as nothing more than a huge formless bulk in the mist, its well-loved details blurred into nonexistence. Yet in the Close there was activity. He passed Judith Greenwood hurrying along; she acknowledged him with a wave, although, walking with his head down, he was scarcely aware of it.

A moment later, though, he encountered Jeremy Bartlett, who was heading in the opposite direction, and Jeremy was not about to let him pass unchallenged.

‘Canon Brydges-ffrench!'

He looked up, startled, and hesitated momentarily. ‘Oh. Hello.'

Jeremy stepped in front of him to block his path. ‘I've just seen Rupert Greenwood in the cathedral,' he stated.

‘Oh?'

‘And he told me that you've turned the music festival books over to the Dean.'

The Canon snapped out of his preoccupation. ‘Yes . . . um. That's correct.' He cleared his throat apologetically.

‘Why the bloody hell did you do that?' Jeremy blazed. ‘I told you to stall him!'

‘But I
did
stall him as long as I could.' In spite of the chill air, the old man felt himself going uncomfortably hot, and he fumbled for his handkerchief. ‘He kept insisting.'

‘The accounts weren't even prepared!'

Canon Brydges-ffrench coughed to cover his agitation, then protested feebly, ‘I told him that. And he said that if I couldn't give him the accounts, he'd have the books instead. I couldn't see how I . . .'

‘So you just bloody gave them to him?' demanded the architect. ‘Without even telling me?'

The Canon had never seen this side of Jeremy Bartlett before, and it frightened him. ‘Yes, well. I suppose I should have told you. But there didn't seem any point in alarming you . . .'

‘No point? My God, Canon, you're a bloody old fool!' His volume was low but his tone was passionately intense. ‘And has the Dean perchance taken a look at the books?'

‘I don't know. I don't think so. At any rate he hasn't said . . .'

Jeremy took a deep breath. ‘Then you can be sure he hasn't looked at them. If he had, we'd have heard by now. There are holes in those books that you could drive a lorry through. As you well know.'

‘Yes. Well.' The Subdean looked over Jeremy's head, refusing to meet his eyes.

For a moment the architect stood still, thinking. ‘Are the books at the Deanery?' he asked suddenly, in a more controlled voice.

‘I don't know. That is, I suppose so.'

Jeremy's anger flared again. ‘I just don't believe that you could have been so idiotic!' he snapped. ‘And now—' He broke off as Rowena opened her front door and came towards them.

‘Good afternoon, Rowena,' said the Canon with a gusty sigh of relief at his deliverance.

‘Arthur,' she began, but he was already in motion.

‘Later, my dear,' he piped over his shoulder as he hurried on in the direction of the shop.

Rowena looked at Jeremy quizzically. ‘What was that all about? You sounded rather angry.'

He regained his composure quickly, smiling at Rowena with conscious charm. ‘Oh, nothing. You know what a funny old bird he is.'

Noting the way his fists were clenched, she remained unconvinced. ‘I think you're holding out on me,' she said, her tone lightly teasing. ‘I thought that we had an understanding.'

‘Indeed we do.' They walked along together in the direction of the Deanery. Jeremy wondered, but didn't ask, where Rowena was going; she had a carrier bag, but he couldn't tell what it contained. Pausing in front of Evelyn Marsden's house, Jeremy looked up at her first floor window. ‘She's watching us, you know,' he said conversationally.

‘Poor old thing,' Rowena replied with transparently false sympathy. ‘You've got to feel sorry for her – nothing better to do than spy on other people.'

‘And knit,' he added, quirking an eyebrow. ‘Like Madame Defarge at the guillotine. So who's going under the blade first – you or me?'

‘Oh, please!' She gave an extravagant shudder and Jeremy laughed at her reaction. ‘Seriously, Jeremy,' she went on. ‘I think we need to have a talk. There are several things . . .'

‘Yes, of course,' he said. But he was not looking at Rowena as he said it; he was looking over her shoulder at the Deanery, and his expression was speculative.

When Arthur Brydges-ffrench arrived at the Cathedral Shop, he discovered that, unusually, Victor was there alone.

Victor was also uncharacteristically subdued, greeting the Canon with no more than a hint of his customary exuberance. Knowing what the cleric was likely to have come for, he ordinarily made some joke in questionable taste regarding the delights of certain Turks he had known, but today he said merely, ‘Your usual, dear?'

‘Yes, please.'

‘You're in luck – my last box,' Victor remarked, reaching under the counter. ‘There's been an absolute run on the stuff in the last few days. I would have thought you'd be well stocked, since I assumed they were all buying it for you. No one else in his right mind would eat it, Arthur dear.'

The Subdean frowned, puzzled. ‘But no one's given me any. You're sure Bert hasn't just moved the supply without telling you?'

‘Oh, no. I'm telling you, I've sold it all.' He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Saturday morning it was Miss Marsden. Then in the afternoon I sold a box to Rowena Hunt, and later on one to that architect bloke. Now
he
's a rather dishy number,' he added with a hint of his old twinkle.

‘How odd.'

‘Then this morning I sold a box to the Dean.' At this Victor looked decidedly pained, glaring accusingly at Canon Brydges-ffrench. ‘He said that you were coming to supper tonight and he wanted to surprise you.'

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Yes . . .'

‘I hoped that he'd got it wrong,' Victor said stiffly. ‘I must say, Arthur, I never thought that you'd sell us out to that dreadful man.'

The Subdean recoiled. ‘Sell you out? What makes you think I would sell you out?'

‘Well, you
are
going to supper with him, aren't you? Doesn't that mean you've joined his camp?'

‘He has invited me for a meal,' replied Canon Brydges-ffrench cautiously. ‘I haven't joined anything.'

‘There are rumours . . .' Victor hesitated. ‘There are rumours that you're going to resign. It's not true, is it?'

‘I should think that you would know better than to believe everything you hear in the Close,' the Canon countered. ‘But why . . .'

Victor could contain himself no longer. ‘He told us that our lease was not going to be renewed! When he came to buy the Turkish Delight!'

‘Oh.'

‘Bert – why, Bert was beside himself! He's had to go home and take some tranquillisers, the poor darling. I mean, it's outrageous! After all the years we've been here, after all we've done.'

The Subdean lowered his eyes. ‘Victor, I'm sorry.'

‘And Dorothy too! She came in later to tell us that he's giving her the boot as well! Can you imagine?!'

‘It's a very bad business.'

‘Dorothy may manage to beat him – after all, she's got the entire diocesan Mothers' Union behind her. They're more than a match for that puny, miserable sod of a Dean. But think of
us
, Arthur! Bert has a very nervous disposition, and my heart can't take this kind of strain. It could kill us both, to be thrown out in the streets with nothing to our names.' Victor fixed him with a piteous stare, like some Victorian waif selling matches in the snow. ‘Can't you do something to stop him, Arthur? Something to help us, to save our lives? I implore you! After all, we've always been friends, haven't we?'

Arthur Brydges-ffrench put his money down on the counter and picked up the Turkish Delight. ‘I'm so sorry, Victor. I've spoken up for you in Chapter meeting, but there's nothing more I can do.' Trusting himself to say no more, he escaped quickly into the Close.

He thought of going into the cathedral, but didn't want to run the risk of meeting anyone; he had the idea of nipping in through the Dean's door, privately, to his stall. He felt in his cassock pocket for his keys, but remembered, belatedly, that he had loaned them to Jeremy Bartlett the day before so that the architect could take down the display in the library at his leisure. He'd asked Todd to get the keys back, but the events of the morning had driven such a trivial matter from his mind – and from Todd's as well, presumably – until just now. Besides, coming such a short way, he'd come out without a coat, and now realised that he was chilled. Shivering, clutching his box of sweets to his thin chest, he turned back towards home.

Sweets. The Dean had bought him a box of sweets. ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness,' he thought. There was something apposite about Samson's riddle: the strong Dean bringing forth a box of Turkish Delight, a peace offering. The hirsute Dean, hairy like Samson. Was his strength in his hair? And would he end up pulling the cathedral down around his ears out of selfish ambition, as Samson had done in selfless sacrifice with the house of his captors? It was in itself a riddle, and it gave Arthur Brydges-ffrench an idea.

His steps quickened; when he arrived home he went straight to his study and found a reasonably clean sheet of blank paper under a pile of books. Uncapping the heavy gold fountain pen which he used each morning to do the
Times
crossword puzzle, he sat down at his desk and began to jot some notes in his crabbed, nearly illegible hand, pausing only to remove the cellophane wrapper from the new box of Turkish Delight.

A short time later, Bert walked through the Close, passing the Cathedral Shop with hurried steps and looking circumspectly over his shoulder to make sure that he had not been observed by Victor. He was so intent on stealth that he failed to see the woman in the Close until she was practically on top of him. ‘Hi there, mate,' hailed Val Drewitt. ‘Where's your other half?'

Startled and guilty, Bert jumped. ‘Don't do that!' he gasped. ‘You nearly frightened me out of my skin!'

Val chuckled in amusement. ‘Caught you, did I?' She looked at him speculatively. ‘What are you up to, then? Cheating on Victor?'

He blinked. ‘What do you mean?'

Nudging him in the ribs, Val gave a ribald snort. ‘Who is it, then? Not the Dean – I don't think he's your type, is he?' She laughed uproariously for a moment. ‘And not that cow Rowena Hunt — she's
certainly
not your type!'