The Black Seraphim (3 page)

“I’m on duty at the school until six,” said Peter. “After that, I think we might drift down to the town and find a drink.”

“An excellent idea,” said James. “Let’s do just that.”

At half past ten that night he was sitting in front of the open window of the school cottage. “What I’d forgotten about,” he said, “was the silence.”

“When I go back to London for the holidays,” said Peter, “it takes me a couple of days to get used to the noise there. Our family house is in St. John’s Wood, which is reckoned to be pretty quiet, but this—this is out of the world.”

They could just hear, as if it were the humming of distant bees, the cars passing the Bishop’s Gate on their way through Melchester to the south. The Cathedral bell beat out the quadruple strokes of the half-hour.

Oh—child—of—God. Be—brave—go—on.

“What did the Dean call it? A backwater?”

“But not, at the moment, a backwater of peace and calm.”

“So I gathered. What’s the trouble?”

“In the days when I was reluctantly receiving instruction in science, I was taught that there are certain elements which are harmless by themselves – inert is, I believe, the technical description – but if you combine them, you get a mixture which is volatile and explosive.”

“The Dean and the Archdeacon.”

“Ten out of ten.”

“I must say the Archdeacon did look a little bit bloated. A Bishop Bonner, do you think?”

“Bonner?”

“The man who burned a lot of other bishops in Bloody Mary’s reign. His cheeks were said to be glutted with the flesh of martyrs.”

“Lovely,” said Peter. “I’ll try that on the boys. Glutted with the flesh of martyrs. They’ll enjoy that. They don’t care much for the Archdeacon.”

“He doesn’t seem popular in some quarters. Why is that?”

“His only known vice is gluttony. He lunches frugally, but in the evening he eats and drinks enough for three. Personally, I rather like him.”

“Not a very good life, medically speaking, I thought. But that’s no reason for unpopularity.”

“I agree. Everyone loved Falstaff.”

“When I asked Amanda, she said that the Archdeacon was really an accountant.”

“I suppose it
is
a fault for a clergyman to think more about money than he does about his soul. But someone’s got to do the thinking. A cathedral is a business. It owns a lot of property and employs a lot of people. Someone’s got to find the money. It won’t drop down like quails and manna from heaven. The old Archdeacon, Henn-Christie, was a sweetie. But I doubt if he could add two and two.”

“And is the Dean also a mathematical simpleton?”

“I don’t think he’s simple in any way at all. He’s a tough character. Before he came here, he’d spent most of his life on missionary work in the remoter parts of Africa and India. The boys seem to have got hold of some pretty odd stories about it all. Exaggerated, I don’t doubt. But he’s certainly a man who’d put sanctity above silver.”

“And if it came to a straight fight, how would the Chapter line up?”

“At the moment, the Dean’s got the edge. Francis Humphrey, the Subdean, is on his side. And so is Tom Lister. He’s the old boy we saw performing this afternoon.”

“The chess champion.”

“Right. And he’s not only good at chess. He’s the only real scholar Melchester’s got. He reads Greek and Aramaic and Syriac and any other old language you can put your tongue to. You ought to look at his entry in
Who’s Who
sometime. Dozens of books on comparative philology and things like that.”

“All of which, no doubt, you’ve read.”

“As a matter of fact, I did get hold of one, out of the sixpenny box in the marketplace. Perfect bedside reading. After one page I invariably fell into deep slumber.”

James laughed and yawned at the same time. He felt tired, but he was not sure that he was quite ready for sleep.

He said, “All right. That makes it three to one. So what about number four?”

“Number four’s Canon Maude. He doesn’t count. He’s just an old softy.”

James laughed and yawned again. He decided that perhaps he was ready for bed. It had been a long day.

As he drifted into sleep, his thoughts kept wandering back to the chessboard. In his imagination the pieces on it grew to more than human size. Black knights and white knights pranced on real horses around the keeps of formidable castles from whose battlements kings and queens looked down.

At one of the slits in the wall stood a girl with hair that was more auburn than blonde. It was long hair. It hung down almost to the ground, as though it was inviting James to use it as a rope and climb up it.

By the time the Cathedral clock beat out the strokes of eleven, he was asleep. It was the earliest he had got to sleep for a long time.

At the age of fourteen James had imagined, for a few months, that he might become a professional organist. He had a natural ear for music, and a friend who played the services at the local church had encouraged him to practise. At the end of a short flirtation with music, his common sense had shown him the gulf which is fixed between an amateur who can play an instrument and a professional who does play it, and the colourful ambition had been discarded. But he had retained his love for the most solemn and powerful of all musical instruments.

In the year he had spent at Melchester, he had made a friend of the little Canadian sub-organist, Paul Wren. He noted from the service sheet that, though still shown as sub-organist, his name now stood alone, and James assumed that Paul’s predecessor, Dr Tyrrel, had been promoted. As he took his place in the Choir stalls for matins, he was able to see the back of Paul’s head and to catch an occasional glimpse of his face in the mirror beside the console.

The
Jubilate
was Purcell in B flat and the
Te Deum
Vaughan Williams in G. There was no doubt about the mastery of Paul’s playing. It spread strong invisible threads from the organ loft to the choir. James thought he had never heard them sing better.

The responses were being intoned by a young clergyman whose face James recognised. He finally placed him as the white bishop. His voice had a strong male clarity, a great improvement on the Vicar Choral of six years before who had bleated like a sheep. The sermon was preached by Canon Maude, who forgot to switch on the microphone in the pulpit. It was only when the head verger managed to turn it on for him that his words became audible. From what they then heard, James thought that they had lost very little.

After the service the officiating clergy and the regular members of the congregation, most of whom had seats in the Choir, trooped through the cloisters and into the Chapter House. Betty Humphrey, the Subdean’s wife, Dora Brookes and Julia Consett were pouring a brown liquid from large jugs into plastic mugs. It tasted vaguely like coffee.

Francis Humphrey, catching sight of him, came across and said, “I meant to invite you, but forgot. We’ve a recorder party tomorrow at six, on the West Canonry lawn, if the weather stays fine.”

“Lady Fallingford mentioned it. I was wondering exactly what a recorder party might be.”

“Nothing to do with tape recorders, I can assure you. They’re sort of wooden flutes. Have you never seen one? My wife and I take the treble and tenor, and Miles Manton, our Cathedral architect, takes the bass. The accompaniment is a viola da gamba. What Shakespeare calls a viol de gamboys. Paul plays that and coaches all of us, too.”

“He’s a remarkable musician. He was only assistant organist when I was here last. I was glad to see that he’s got the top job now. What’s happened to Dr Tyrrel?”

“He’s gone to Kings. I agree with you about Paul. I only wish it was the universal opinion.”

“Isn’t it?”

“The Archdeacon doesn’t entirely approve.”

James noticed that when he said this, Canon Humphrey turned his back on the company. They were in a corner of the room and the clatter of voices screened them.

“Why on earth? The man’s a genius.”

“Several reasons. The Archdeacon’s a traditionalist. His musical taste seems to begin and end with Stanford in B flat. Paul likes to experiment sometimes with something a little more modern. There I support him. There’s been plenty of good church music written this century.”

“I’m sure you’re talking scandal,” said Penny Consett. “Otherwise why are you both standing in the corner like a couple of naughty boys?”

“We were talking music, not scandal,” said Canon Humphrey. “Dr Scotland was saying how much he enjoyed Paul’s playing.”

“Isn’t he sweet?” said Penny. “Just like a hamster with a little blonde beard. Much nicer than Tyrrel the squirrel.”

“You appear to be anthropomorphic,” said James.

“Gracious! I hope it isn’t catching.”

“An anthropomorph is someone who thinks of animals as people and people as animals.”

“Most of them are, when you come to think of it. The Archdeacon’s exactly like a—”

Canon Humphrey coughed loudly. The Archdeacon, who had surged up behind them with a coffee cup balanced in one hand, said, “Dr Scotland, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Come to revisit the scenes of your youth? Not thinking of resuming a scholastic career?”

“Just for a month’s holiday.”

“An excellent notion.” He swung around on Penny. “Tell me.
What
am I exactly like?”

Penny had the grace to blush. Then she said, “We were just saying that most people were like different animals. I was going to say that you were like a grizzly bear.”

“Not bad. Not bad at all.” His little black eyes twinkled. “Ah. Here comes our organist. None of your modern trash today, I was glad to note, Wren.”

“I never play trash,” said Paul shortly. He pushed past, toward the coffee table. The Archdeacon looked after him thoughtfully. A grizzly about to pounce? James wondered.

The crowd was thinning out now. James hung around unobtrusively. He wanted a word with Paul and managed to time his exit so that they reached the door together. Paul looked at him blankly for a moment, then smiled.

He said, “James. I hardly recognised you. You look at least twenty years older.”

“The
sturm
and
drang
of medical life. Someone was telling me that you’d got a new console.”

“Not new. But the old one’s been pretty comprehensively rebuilt. It was finished just before Tyrrel left. Would you like to see it?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

He followed Paul up the narrow winding stairs into the organ loft: a snug cabin, with curtains shutting it off on three sides and on the fourth the gleaming bank of five manuals and the hundred ivory-headed stops like a hundred little serving maids in mob caps waiting for orders.

James settled down on one end of the bench with a contented sigh and said, “You know, I’d be happy just sitting here all day. It’s like being on the bridge of a ship. How I envy you. I saw, by the way, that you’d got the top job now.”

“Temporarily.”

“Surely not.”

“I’m afraid so. The powers that be don’t approve of me.”

“You mean the Archdeacon? I’d heard something about that.”

“He’s a bastard,” said Paul. “A clever bastard and a busy bastard, but a bastard nonetheless. You know what he’s got against me? I’ve got the wrong letters after my name. I’m not A.R.C.O; I’m A.R.C.C.O.”

“That sounds even more impressive.”

“Not to him. I’m an associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. Get the difference?”

“When you play the way you do, it shouldn’t matter if you were a member of the Timbuktu College of Organists.”

“I’m not sure that it really does matter all that much. But he uses it as a handle to get at me for other things. You heard what he said just now. None of your modern trash. When we did the Joubert
Te Deum
– and the choir really sang it beautifully – all he said was: ‘Joubert – South African, isn’t he? Another of your colonial maestros.’”

“Why does he do it?”

“What really sticks in his throat is that my promotion was backed by the Dean.”

“No love lost there,” agreed James.

“If you searched the ecclesiastical firmament with a powerful telescope,” said Paul solemnly, “I doubt you could find two men further poles apart. You probably think I’m biased. Maybe I am. I happen to like the Dean. He’s not perfect. Far from it. He’s tough and ruthless and devious as all come, but I reckon he puts his faith and his church first. It’s led him into some pretty wild places before he came to roost in this hen run.”

“So I heard. India and Africa.”

“His last posting was in Ethiopia. That’s where he got into bad trouble with guerrillas. They broke his leg for him. But he got back at them somehow. There are about six different versions of the story. I’d like to hear the truth sometime.”

“I must admit,” said James, “that it’s hard to visualise Archdeacon Pawle living a missionary life among savage tribesmen.”

Paul said, “Let’s be fair. If
his
idea of religion is a round of boring tea parties, that’s his lookout. No. What I object to is his notion of turning religion into a business proposition. Do you know, he had the nerve to say to me: ‘People like to hear the things they’re used to. That’s what most of them come to church for. If you play all this modern stuff, you’ll never bring in the paying customers.’ Paying customers. Good God! Just as though a cathedral was a stall in a circus and he was outside beating a drum and shouting: ‘Roll up, roll up. You want the old stuff – we’ve got it!’”

His little beard bristled and he looked so indignant that James couldn’t help laughing. He said, “You mustn’t take it too seriously, Paul. If he’s a musical Philistine, that’s his misfortune. Most people in a place like Melchester would be on your side over a thing like that. They appreciate good music.”

“Unfortunately, most people don’t have a say in the appointment of the Cathedral organist. The Archdeacon does. And he’s got a nephew at Worcester who’d like the job.”

“And who has all the appropriate letters after his name?”

“That’s right.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then James said, “I suppose you couldn’t . . . I mean, people would think it odd if they heard you practicing.”