The Unburied Page 18

  ‘Not directly,’ he replied, glancing up curiously. ‘But one of his duties is to oversee the Headmaster’s conduct of it.’

  ‘And has the Headmaster’s conduct been questionable?’

  ‘It has certainly been questioned.’

  I was longing to quiz him: what accusations had been made against Dr Sheldrick and why was he apparently being forced to resign if he had merely been negligent in his supervision of the Headmaster? Was there a connection with the mysterious theft from his house on Tuesday evening? But it was clear that I was putting the young man in an increasingly awkward position. I permitted myself one carefully phrased enquiry: ‘It is Dr Locard who has been foremost in insisting that the Chapter take action?’

  He smiled. ‘Dr Locard has shown characteristic resolution in what he sees as his duty.’

  ‘I can believe that he is very resolute,’ I said. ‘And I believe he has a somewhat sceptical vision of human nature.’

  ‘Perhaps at times too sceptical.’ He stopped and looked at me nervously. ‘If I may speak for a moment with perfect frankness, relying on your discretion ...’

  He broke off.

  ‘You may rely on it completely,’ I responded.

  ‘I believe that Dr Locard has a tendency to over-complicate matters, and especially the motives of others.’ He paused for a moment and then said cautiously: ‘His scholarship is somewhat combative because of that. For example, with the greatest respect to him, I’m not sure that I agree with his interpretation of Pepperdine’s letter.’

  ‘Indeed? You don’t accept that Pepperdine tried to mislead Bullivant?’

  ‘I think he unintentionally pointed towards the undercroft simply because of the ambiguity of what he wrote.’

  ‘So where do you believe he found the manuscript?’

  ‘On the upper floor.’

  ‘But almost all the manuscripts up there have been catalogued.’

  ‘Almost all. But if it turns out not to be among those that are still uncatalogued, you will have lost very little since if it is in the undercroft, you won’t find it in the next day or two except by the merest accident.’

  His logic was impeccable. I wondered if Dr Locard had deliberately pointed me in the wrong direction, and then it occurred to me that the young man certainly suspected that that was the case. ‘You have given me excellent advice. I’m very grateful.’

  He could not hide his pleasure and insisted upon accompanying me to the upper floor. There he showed me which shelves held the uncatalogued manuscripts and it was immediately obvious that I could search through them in two or three days. It was so much pleasanter up here – dust-free, light, clean and very much warmer. The conditions in which I was working as well as my prospects for success had been transformed.

  I began taking down heavy bound volumes of manuscripts and depositing them on the table and searching through them. After a couple of hours I had examined four and was becoming weary of sitting. I stood up and walked round the table to stretch my legs and as I glanced at the books in the section that had been catalogued, my eye fell on three large folios on one of the uppermost shelves. I climbed onto a chair and saw, written on the spines in a hand characteristic of the late seventeenth century, the words: ‘Records of the Chancery Court of the Liberty of St John’ followed in each case by a set of dates: 1357–1481; 1482–1594; and 1595–1651. They must refer to the long-abolished court – the equivalent of a magistrate’s – which had jurisdiction over the Cathedral Close and I wondered if I might find a reference to the incident in which Limbrick’s father had died and Gambrill been injured. In the hope of satisfying my curiosity and as a brief respite from my labours, I lifted the third volume down and opened it upon the table.

  I leafed quickly through it and saw that for each adjudication someone – presumably the clerk of the court – had written a brief account of the charge, the evidence given by witnesses and the decision of the Chancellor. I found the date 1615, which I reckoned must be the earliest that the incident could have occurred, and began to read more slowly. And then, under the year 1625, I found what I had been looking for: Alice Limbrick, relict of the late Deputy Mason of the Cathedral, had laid an information against John Gambrill that he did ‘by negligence or malice’ bring about the death of her husband, Robert Limbrick. She alleged that they had quarrelled because Gambrill had conceived the desire to take for himself the office of Mason, which office had been promised to her husband, and had therefore accused her husband – without good cause – of cheating the Cathedral authorities and endangering his fellows by supplying wood of poor quality for the timber bracings.

  There then followed a brief account of the accident given by two fellow-workmen who had seen it and by Gambrill himself. Presumably because the three gave the same account, the clerk had not differentiated between their testimony. Gambrill and Limbrick had been working on the vaulting of the tower above the central crossing when the accident had occurred: They were raising dressed Stone by their Engin when by the slipping of the Knot on a Rope, John Gambrill missed his Footing and fell, to the Destruction of Robert Limbrick who was on high and was thereby grievously injured, his Body broken in an Hundred Places. The account was strangely unclear but Gambrill’s fall must have brought down the other man in some way.

  The Chancellor found that Gambrill had no case to answer. But the clerk had recorded that Limbrick’s widow did not accept that finding and that, with the intervention of the Chancellor himself, Gambrill offered to make up the quarrel by taking on her eldest son, Thomas, who was then aged twelve, as an apprentice without requiring a premium. The resemblance to the words of the inscription struck me. And in particular, the word Engin which appeared in both and about which an idea was beginning to form. In the early seventeenth century the word could designate three things: ingenuity, a conspiracy, or a piece of machinery. Here it was clear that some kind of mechanical device was being referred to, while the inscription was much more enigmatic in its allusion to the Guilty ... by their own Engin brought to Destruction.

  That was the end of the record. Idly I turned over the leaf in order to ensure that there was nothing more, and found a page which was not bound into the volume but loosely inserted. I stared at it for several seconds before I realized that I was looking at a folio of manuscript from a very much earlier period – about the eleventh century, I judged, from the style of the somewhat inelegant protogothic bookhand. I read the first words – Quia olim rex martyrusque amici dilectissimi fuissent – and felt my heart beat faster. I quickly read on and recognized, as I had guessed, the story of the siege of Thurchester and the martyrdom of St Wulflac. With an extraordinary calm, I told myself that I had found what I had been seeking: part of an early version of Grimbald’s Life. My judgement had been vindicated. The work had indeed existed before Leofranc had done anything to it.

  Nobody had looked at it for more than two hundred years. It suddenly came to me that the folio was here because Pepperdine had consulted this volume of records after his accidental discovery of what I now thought of as ‘the Grimbald manuscript’. He had simply left the folio where I had found it because he had had so little interest in what he dismissed as the age of darkness before the Conquest. He had searched for the Chancery Records because, like me, he had become interested in the story of Burgoyne and Freeth. He must have realized that the Treasurer’s death was in some way connected with the early life of his assumed murderer and like a good historian, he had gone to the available sources. Dr Sheldrick, it occurred to me, had failed to do so and had thereby lost an opportunity to pique Dr Locard by finding the manuscript under his rival’s nose.

  At that moment I heard someone bounding up the stairs and without pausing to reflect, I closed the volume with the manuscript still where I had found it and pushed it back onto the shelf.

  Young Pomerance burst in to tell me that he was closing the Library. I turned and followed him unthinkingly and made small talk while my thoughts were elsewhere. Why had I hidden th
e manuscript? Would I have done so if it had been Dr Locard or even Quitregard who had approached? Why had I not shouted out to Pomerance that I had found what I was seeking and told him to fetch Dr Locard? Perhaps it was because the secrecy in which the manuscript had dwelt for so long was too powerful to break without reflection and ceremony. Or did I have another motive of which I was not fully aware?

  I left the Library in a trance, fortunately without seeing either Dr Locard or Quitregard.

  Thursday Afternoon

  As I walked out into the dark Close and began aimlessly to take a course, someone came forward from the shadows beside the entrance. It was Austin. I had completely forgotten that we had an appointment.

  Should I tell him of my discovery? Something made me decide not to. He was pale and seemed nervous.

  We greeted each other with some meaningless formula and I fell into step beside him as we made our way round the Close. I walked mechanically, not knowing where we were going or remembering why he had come to meet me. We walked in silence for Austin seemed as preoccupied as I was. I tried to think of something to say, but everything seemed trivial in comparison with my discovery. Somehow I had to get through the coming evening and the long night until the Library opened again in the morning. How unfortunate that it opened early only on Thursdays. I would have to wait until half-past eight!

  We made a complete circuit of the Cathedral in silence and then suddenly Austin exclaimed: ‘We’re too early. He is not ready for us.’

  I had to force myself by an effort of the will to think what he was talking about. I saw that we were standing at the back-gate of the New Deanery and then I remembered: we were having tea with Mr Stonex.

  I pulled out my watch and read its dial by the light of a gas-lamp a few yards away. ‘On the contrary. The old gentleman said half-past four and that is exactly the time now.’

  ‘Nevertheless, he’s not ready so we’ll go to my house for a few minutes,’ Austin said, already striding on ahead.

  Puzzled, but not able to deploy enough of my mental resources to think about it, I tagged along beside him as we continued our circuit of the Cathedral. It was getting dark and we saw nobody. I recalled how punctual the old man was, according to Quitregard, and was the more perplexed. As we passed the Chapter House, the dim glow through the windows created dark shadows among the buttresses as if a figure were hidden there. The light, together with the muted sounds of a piano and voices raised in harmony, indicated that the choir was practising. As we rounded the corner of the transept, I remembered that this was where the apparition of the night before had been standing and asked: ‘Does he limp?’

  Austin started and turned towards me in alarm: ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, just that I’m intrigued by his story.’

  ‘His story? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Burgoyne. Does his ghost limp?’

  He seemed to scrutinize my face. ‘Burgoyne didn’t limp,’ he said, almost angrily. ‘It was Gambrill who was lame. You’ve confused them.’

  I didn’t bother to correct him.

  ‘What on earth makes you think of that now?’ he demanded.

  ‘I merely wondered if people have reported that the ghost limps.’

  ‘The ghost?’ he almost hissed.

  ‘The ghost of Burgoyne.’

  He stopped and looked at me. ‘What are you talking about?’

  I was in a quandary and could say nothing. I could hardly tell him what I believed I had seen, only a few yards from where we now were, in the early hours of the morning. How could I have accounted for my being there at that time?

  We walked a few steps in silence and as we reached the door of his house, I said: ‘I’ve been thinking about the idea that a spirit is restless because its body is not buried. And so I’ve been wondering if it really is Burgoyne who haunts the Close, for since his corpse was buried, why is his ghost walking?’

  ‘What in heaven’s name are you babbling about?’ Austin asked as he removed his greatcoat.

  ‘The corpse. The body of the murdered man.’

  ‘The murdered man?’ he stammered, looking at me in dismay.

  ‘I’ve been saying that it has struck me as puzzling that Burgoyne’s ghost walks since he was buried.’

  ‘That’s a story, for heaven’s sake. You can’t believe all that nonsense.’

  ‘But they also say, don’t they, that the ghost of a person walks if his murder has not been avenged. I suppose Burgoyne was unavenged since Gambrill fled unpunished.’

  ‘Why on earth are you drivelling on about this?’

  ‘My dear fellow, only for the sake of saying something.’

  ‘Well if that’s all you can think of, perhaps you’d do better to hold your tongue.’

  Then he turned away and, quickly tugging at the cord of the gas-mantle to bring up the flame, mounted the stairs ahead of me. I picked up a candle, lit it and followed him. When we entered the sitting-room, I placed the candlestick on a low table and seated myself in front of the fireplace, but Austin crossed to the window where he squeezed himself into the corner, pulling the curtains but holding back a corner so that he could peer out. I picked up a book and tried to read since he seemed not to be in the mood for conversation. Austin took out and looked at his watch several times in the three or four minutes that passed.

  What would happen to the manuscript now, I wondered? Although I would take the credit for having found it, it would not necessarily be to me that its publication would be entrusted. Dr Locard would presumably be the person who decided its fate. Could I bear to think of it being put into the hands of an ignorant blunderer, or, worse, of someone determined to discredit its importance? Of Scuttard, even! From my rapid perusal of it, I could see that it was highly susceptible to misinterpretation.

  And then it was that perhaps the most shameful moment of my life occurred. It came to me that since I had put the manuscript back where it had lain for two centuries, nobody need know that I had found it. Or, rather, that I had found it there. It would be the simplest thing in the world to claim to have found it among Pepperdine’s papers in my own college library. There was no reason why he should not have purchased it from the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Thurchester Cathedral. In that case the manuscript’s fate would lie entirely and exclusively in my own hands. But what was I thinking? I had a momentary, insane vision of myself smuggling the manuscript out of the library. Unthinkable. Quite unimaginable. That would be to sink lower even than Scuttard. And besides, since Dr Locard would know that I had hoped to find it there he would realize immediately what I had done.

  Suddenly Austin exclaimed: ‘We must go!’

  To my astonishment he hurried from the room and down the stairs and quickly threw on his coat and stood waiting impatiently for me at the door while I cautiously descended the ill-lit stairs.

  So we retraced our steps and a couple of minutes later arrived back at the New Deanery. Since I was later required to describe everything in detail and there were crucial conflicts of evidence, I will now recount precisely what I saw and heard – although it was only by reflecting later on what had occurred that I was able to understand it.

  We passed through the back-gate into the back-yard and knocked on the door. It was opened instantly and standing there was the figure I had seen the previous day.

  ‘I am delighted to see you, Dr Courtine,’ the old gentleman said with a smile and nodded familiarly at Austin. He shook our hands and invited us in. I noticed that Austin was trembling. The house was cold but it seemed to me that that could not account for it.

  As I entered I said: ‘I’m very excited to think that this was William Burgoyne’s house.’

  ‘And Freeth’s,’ our host said. ‘Don’t forget Freeth, who is a much better known figure in our history.’

  ‘But remembered more for the manner of his death than anything he did during his life,’ I riposted and he nodded vigorously. ‘For the things he did were shabby and mean-spirited, whereas
Burgoyne was a much more admirable figure: a scholar of brilliance cut down in his prime.’

  As I was speaking, we passed through a big old kitchen with sculleries and pantries leading off it, and then into a dark passageway. ‘Shabby and mean-spirited indeed,’ our host agreed, turning towards us as we came to another door. ‘Take off your hats and coats,’ he said. While we were hanging them up on a row of pegs, he added: ‘We will have tea in the houseplace. It’s much cosier than the dining-room.’ Then he led us through another door and we found ourselves in the big main room which, in the old style, had a door straight onto the street. It was a true ‘houseplace’ – a cross between a dining-room and a kitchen with a big range along one side on one of whose hobs a kettle was boiling. A vast dresser took up almost the full length of one wall and there was a handsome old clock by the street-door and a huge oaken table in the middle of the room with four or five chairs round it.

  ‘I have a housekeeper but she is not here during the afternoon so we will have to manage for ourselves,’ Mr Stonex said as we entered.

  In the light of what Quitregard had told me, I was astonished to see that the room was in great disorder. Scattered about on the floor were a coal-scuttle, tongs, a poker, two ewers, a bucket and a number of empty preserve-jars. The drawers of the dresser were pulled open and their contents – cutlery, napkins, place-mats, and so on – were spilling out. On the dresser everything was in disarray – cups, plates, saucers, dishes lying higgledy-piggledy. A cupboard door was half-open and I could see that everything inside it was similarly topsy-turvy. Most striking of all was a big old sideboard against the wall which was heaped up with deed-boxes, bundles of letters tied up with red ribbon, papers, legal deeds, receipts, etc. These were piled up and spilling across its surface in such profusion that some of them had fallen onto the floor. Rather incongruously, in among the confusion was a child’s slate with something written on it and some pieces of chalk lying beside it. In the midst of this disorder, the oaken table in the centre of the big room was an island of order with a fine damask tablecloth upon it on which were three places neatly laid for tea with plates containing bread and butter and two large cakes – one of fruit and the other chocolate – as well as some smaller ones.