The Unburied Read online

  ‘Pretty contemptible,’ I said, turning to the two ladies. ‘You see, when Freeth was himself Dean a few years later he used the forged deed to close down the college and appropriate its endowments for his personal benefit.’

  ‘How shameful,’ Mrs Sisterson murmured.

  ‘Isn’t it possible’, Mrs Locard suggested, ‘that he foresaw the Civil War and wanted to keep the Foundation’s property from being sequestrated by Parliament?’

  ‘You’re very generous, but everything we know about him shows that he was extremely greedy,’ I objected.

  Dr Sisterson glanced at the sleeping children and smiled. ‘As the father of a large and very young family myself, I find it hard to condemn him even if his motives were entirely worldly.’

  I was startled for a moment until I saw that he must be joking. I went on: ‘To go back to Burgoyne’s story. He had been trumped by Freeth – and he was furious – but he did not abandon the struggle and very soon after he was able to play his own trump card. He managed to obtain promises for half of the necessary money from his uncle and other members of his family. Some of it would be spent on a memorial in the Cathedral dedicated to the previous Earl – his grandfather.’

  ‘The Burgoyne monument!’ Mrs Locard exclaimed.

  ‘Indeed so,’ I acknowledged. ‘When Burgoyne put this new proposal to the Chapter, Freeth saw immediately that the combination of the memorial and a large subvention for the restoration of the cathedral would constitute an indefeasible claim to the deanship on the part of Burgoyne himself. And yet it was hard to refuse such a gift. But the canons still baulked at the portion of the expense which would have to come from their own pockets. Then it was that Burgoyne made what turned out to be his fatal mistake – as Dr Sheldrick puts it. He asked Gambrill to draw up revised figures for doing the smallest amount of work necessary to save the spire. Gambrill was horrified at this betrayal by his ally. He insisted on taking the Treasurer up the tower to show him how unstable many of the timbers were by rocking them with one hand, and he pointed out how easily one of them might be made to come crashing down. Burgoyne, however, stuck to his decision. The Mason was only mollified by hearing of the Treasurer’s plans for the memorial which, it was understood, would be made by him and which he decided would be his masterpiece.

  ‘Now Burgoyne had Gambrill argue before the Chapter that the collapse of the spire would destroy not only the cathedral – a prospect which they were able to contemplate with some equanimity – but very probably some of the houses in the Close. Faced with this danger to their own lives and those of their households, the canons agreed to surrender from their own income the balance of the money that was required.

  ‘Burgoyne and Gambrill had got their way, and Dr Sheldrick writes that Gambrill triumphed over the Sacrist, losing no opportunity to outwit him, deceive him and humiliate him in front of the workmen with the consequence that the canon, never a man of robust health, fell ill and had to resign his duties.’

  ‘My heart goes out to that poor man,’ Dr Sisterson exclaimed with a smile.

  ‘Poor Dr Sisterson,’ said Mrs Locard. ‘You cannot be looking forward to tomorrow’s Chapter meeting.’

  ‘Indeed not. I will have to break the news that services in the Cathedral will be seriously disrupted for an indefinite period.’

  He heaved a comical sigh which ended in a broad smile and a request to me to continue the story.

  ‘Burgoyne and Gambrill now had a free hand to do as they wished. In the months that followed, however, differences between them began to emerge. Burgoyne kept refusing to give Gambrill authority to repair the spire and instead required him to devote his resources to work that the Mason believed to be of much lower priority: for example, preparing for the removal of the communion table to the centre of the building.

  ‘The antagonism between the two men was held in check – or so at least it appeared – by Thomas Limbrick, Gambrill’s foreman. He was the son of the man who died in the accident in which Gambrill was injured and many in the town said that giving him employment showed Gambrill’s generosity – though some attributed his action to other motives. Limbrick was a hard-working and able young man who had the trust of both the Treasurer and the Mason and was therefore in a position to smooth the difficulties that lay between them.

  ‘Burgoyne now had what he desired: the Cathedral was being restored and would be reopened in a manner that would hugely strengthen his position. Yet he seemed far from happy and it began to appear that something was troubling him for although he had always been extremely fastidious, he now appeared on occasions unshaven and dishevelled. He was late for meetings of the Chapter, increasingly neglectful of his duties and even abstracted during services. Once or twice while preaching he broke off as if he had lost the thread of his thoughts. He took to pacing restlessly about the town during the hours of darkness and was stopped by the watch several times – to their profound confusion – before they grew accustomed to him and learnt to recognize him, in the utter darkness of the nights in those days, from his great height and his tall hat and clerical garb.’

  ‘Moreover, his habit of sobriety was apparently discarded,’ put in Dr Sisterson, ‘and he appeared on several occasions the worse for liquor.’

  ‘Indeed? Dr Sheldrick makes no mention of that. Everyone in the town wondered what secret passion might be tormenting the Canon ...’

  ‘He was in love,’ Mrs Sisterson said softly.

  We all glanced at her in surprise and she smiled at her husband who blushed and glanced down.

  ‘Well,’ I went on, ‘although people gossiped about a woman, nobody ever saw him in the company of one. Dr Sheldrick, however, now reveals for the first time the true explanation.’

  ‘He does?’ Dr Sisterson said in surprise. He glanced towards his wife who at that moment was giving her full attention to the slumbering child in her lap.

  ‘The truth is that Burgoyne was going through a spiritual crisis occasioned by his discovery of a secret offence, something so dark and shocking that it threw into turmoil all his assumptions.’

  ‘Indeed? Dr Sheldrick says that?’ Dr Sisterson looked at Mrs Locard as he asked me: ‘And what does he say this secret was?’

  ‘Financial corruption on the part of Freeth. Burgoyne was overwhelmed with dismay when he realized how corrupt Freeth was.’

  ‘I see,’ Dr Sisterson said, leaning back with a smile. I wondered if he had expected something else. ‘But did he not already believe Freeth to be greedy and corrupt?’

  ‘Yes, but the extent and deliberateness of what he discovered shocked him immeasurably. And he also discovered, Dr Sheldrick suggests, that the trusted Gambrill was deeply implicated in Freeth’s misappropriations.’ I could see that he was sceptical and I myself found Dr Sheldrick’s revelation somewhat unconvincing. ‘Then what do you think caused this sudden change in his demeanour?’

  ‘I believe he did indeed discover something that profoundly disturbed him, but I don’t believe it was Freeth’s financial dishonesty.’

  ‘What do you think it was?’

  He glanced at the two ladies whose attention was at that moment taken up by the child in Mrs Sisterson’s arms, and spoke quietly. ‘I can only conjecture and I have no wish to slander even a man who has been dead more than two centuries.’

  I looked at him in surprise but he pursed his lips and shook his head very slightly to indicate that it was not a subject he could pursue in the presence of the ladies, so I went on: ‘In the April of that year, Burgoyne made a long visit to London. When he returned he admitted to Gambrill that he had decided to have the memorial executed by Italian workmen in the capital. Gambrill was deeply angered by this insult to his own craftsmanship. A day or two later, he announced that the spire had become so dangerous that he was going to bar access to the tower to everyone except himself and his workmen. Burgoyne, though infuriated by what he saw as an attempt to force him into releasing monies for its repair, could not challenge the Mason’s experti
se and had to accept that restriction. So Gambrill sealed off the stair at the bottom of the tower by means of a stout door, the key to which only he and one of the canons held.

  ‘If Gambrill had been angered by Burgoyne’s decision to commission the memorial in London, his indignation was as nothing compared to his fury when, a few weeks later, he learnt where Burgoyne intended it to be placed: the most prominent position possible, just on the chancel side of the crossing. In order to do this Burgoyne intended to take out the pulpitum. Of course the other canons protested but by this date the political situation in the country had swung decisively in Burgoyne’s favour. Archbishop Laud was in the Tower, from which he would shortly be taken to be executed, and the victorious Calvinists were insisting upon the removal of all barriers between the congregation and the celebrants. The Chapter could do nothing. When Gambrill learnt from Limbrick what Burgoyne had ordered him to do he was horrified.’

  ‘So he must have been,’ Dr Sisterson said warmly. ‘The dismantling of so ancient and beautiful a part of the Cathedral – the building he loved and to whose preservation he had devoted his life and even sacrificed his eye – must have seemed an act of desecration.’

  ‘Dr Sheldrick has a rather different explanation. He claims that Gambrill was a clandestine Catholic – as were many in the sleepy old town. That placed him in grave danger of financial ruin and even imprisonment, but it also meant that in his judgement the Cathedral was still a Catholic place of worship which had illegally fallen into the hands of men dedicated to the destruction of everything that it represented. There was a scandalous scene in the Cathedral when the Mason bearded the Treasurer and loudly reproached him for the damage he was doing. Burgoyne stalked from the building and Gambrill pursued him into the Close and up to the very back-door of his house continuing to shout at him until Limbrick intervened to pull him away. That moment probably sealed the fate of both men.

  ‘Gambrill, of course, had either to resign his post or do as Burgoyne ordered and with a family to support he could not afford the grand gesture. Burgoyne would have dismissed Gambrill from his post, but there was no other mason in the town who could be entrusted with the work, and Burgoyne recognized that Gambrill was a conscientious and skilled craftsman.

  ‘And so Gambrill removed the pulpitum, replacing it with wooden boarding to keep the nave sealed off while the spire was unrepaired.

  ‘Now Limbrick became the intermediary by whose means Burgoyne and Gambrill entirely avoided having to deal directly with each other. At least, so it was supposed. Much later, when events turned out as they did, some people said that Limbrick had in fact made difficulties between the two men for his own purposes while cleverly appearing to be trying to do the opposite.

  ‘From this time onwards Burgoyne never again came to watch Gambrill and his men at work in the Cathedral. Instead he renewed his former visits to the building during the hours of darkness and although it was assumed that he went there in order to examine Gambrill’s work without having to meet him, it was noticed that his visits began to last longer and longer and sometimes he returned the great key to Claggett, the head-verger, only at dawn. The old man was often awake all night for he was seriously ill.

  ‘Burgoyne’s conduct was causing more and more speculation. His housekeeper described later how he stayed awake all night pacing up and down his room or prowling around the Close as if wrestling with some fearful dilemma. Later, when people learnt what at this time was not known, some of the townsfolk claimed that they had seen him many times at night standing on the north side of the Close and looking over the back wall of the gardens into the windows of the houses that fronted the High Street. Some said afterwards that he was looking into Gambrill’s house and debating whether to destroy his happiness and that of his wife and children. Others said that he was a lonely and envious man who resented the domestic content of his enemy. Others suggested yet other motives.

  ‘All of this came to a head two weeks before the Great Storm. That Sunday Burgoyne was the preacher at the main service in the Cathedral. He ascended to the pulpit looking pale and gaunt, and people in the congregation began to mutter among themselves, for his strange conduct over the past weeks was widely known. But when he started to speak his voice was strong and his words flowed without a break. He began by inveighing against sins of corruption and talked passionately of the damnation that awaited a man who yielded to temptation and persisted in his sinful ways without repentance. And then he said he was speaking of a particular man who was among them at that moment and whom he was indicting for his secret offences – offences whose nature he did not reveal. He seemed so intent upon some hidden meaning that some of his hearers thought he was showing signs of mental alienation. Much of what he said was not understood by those listening but his words were remembered: There is one among us now who has entered this house of God with sinfulness and pride in his heart, though he wears the outward garb of sanctimony. He alone among this assembly knows what darkness he nourishes in the privy mansions of his being. He alone knows how he has wandered out of his way into the foul and strange path that leads to the sty of pestilential filth.

  ‘When he stepped down from the pulpit he left the townspeople and his fellow-canons stunned. In the days that followed nobody could talk of anything else. A number of people were suspected of various offences and the atmosphere of the town became quite poisonous with rumour. It was noticed that Gambrill remained silent when the topic was brought up, and this laid him under suspicion – though no more than many others. Freeth, in particular, gave clear evidence by his nervous demeanour that he believed he himself was the man referred to by Burgoyne. And if Dr Sheldrick is correct about his financial improprieties, he had good reason for this fear.

  ‘The following Sunday a large proportion of the population of the town – squeezed into the Choir and even overflowing out of the door – was present when Burgoyne rose to preach. His words became more precise, though they were still vague enough to puzzle his listeners. Burgoyne said: Woe unto the man that in the mountainous pride of his ignorance thinketh to hide his shame. Though he be raised up in the sight of men and ween his sin to be hidden when he wrestles foot to foot with his Enemy in the high places and is cast down, yet shall his wickedness be laid bare before the eyes of men. Yea, even in the dark places shall his sins be blazoned forth. The truth shall find him out. At that moment Gambrill drew attention to himself by his demeanour. He turned pale and was seen to be trembling as Burgoyne announced that the following Lord’s Day he himself would make manifest the sinner in that very place.

  ‘All eyes turned to Gambrill who, looking as if he had seen his own death, suddenly stood up and forced his way through the crowd to the door. Many of Burgoyne’s hearers, who had trembled to think that he might mean them, were relieved by this conduct. Yet Burgoyne made no charge against him.

  ‘In the course of the week that followed, a space for the memorial was hollowed out in the wall where the pulpitum had been. The memorial itself arrived from London on the Tuesday, and when Gambrill saw the wagon carrying it come rumbling and clattering into the Close, he told Limbrick that he was horrified as much by its ugliness as by its weight, and said that he feared for the consequences once it was sealed into the wall.

  ‘Saturday dawned as an unseasonably sultry and oppressive day of low clouds and short angry bursts of fierce rain. Old men shook their heads and forecast a violent storm, and some of them muttered and grumbled over the state of the spire. By the close of work that day, Gambrill – ever the conscientious workman however much he resented what he was being required to do – had made all ready. The heavy slab had been raised to the top of the scaffolding under the crossing-tower ready to be lowered on Monday into its final position on the wall about twelve feet up. Gambrill ordered work to end early on account of the imminent storm, for as the sun set, the clouds seemed to be boiling around it like a witches’ brew.

  ‘As he often did, Burgoyne came to Claggett’s house at about
ten o’clock – just as the wind was rising. The old man was gravely ill by now and his wife and daughters were busy with him, but his young maidservant handed the great key to the Canon. An hour or two later the storm burst over the town in its full rage, launching a bombardment of hailstones as big as thrushes’ eggs and stripping off roof-tiles and sending them flying through the air like leaves, breaking windows, and even knocking over chimney stacks. Amid all the noise and confusion of doors and shutters banging and glass breaking and thunder rumbling, old Claggett lost consciousness and it became clear that he was dying. A surgeon was sent for and a servant was also dispatched to the house of the Precentor who had been a particular friend of the old man. In the excitement of all this, nobody remembered that Burgoyne had not returned with the key.

  ‘As the tempest reached its height, at about two o’clock in the morning, those who were sleeping – or trying to sleep – in the houses around the Close heard a terrible noise and the whole of the Upper Close shuddered. Several of the canons and under-vergers hurried out to see what was amiss and found that the roof and upper storey of the ancient Bell Tower above the main gate had collapsed. As a frightened little crowd – Freeth, the Precentor and even the old Dean – stood surveying the ruin and offering up thanks that it was unoccupied at night, they heard another crash. This time, to their horror, they realized that it came from the Cathedral. They scanned the building as far as they were able to in the thick darkness and saw that the spire appeared to be intact, but nobody was prepared to venture into the building while the storm still raged. Now it was learnt from Claggett’s servant-girl that Burgoyne had not returned the key. Even so, none of those present offered to go in and look for him.’

  Dr Sisterson stood up and crossed to the window which he opened. ‘I can imagine why not. It’s a peaceful night now. But imagine a storm raging.’