Death of a Chancellor

24

By four o’clock in the morning Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald were nearly halfway to the cavalry camp at Bampton. It was a clear night with a silver crescent of a moon. The road took them past a number of villages sleeping peacefully under the stars.

Powerscourt was thinking about the murderer. Chief Inspector Yates had told him as they left Anne Herbert’s house that the final checks had been carried out on the movements and the alibi of the butcher Fraser. The police were convinced the man was totally innocent of the murder of Edward Gillespie. And all their inquiries among the murky undergrowth of moneylenders in Bristol and Exeter who might have had dealings with Arthur Rudd had been fruitless. The murderer must reside inside the great circle Powerscourt had drawn around the Cathedral Close in his notebook weeks before. But which of them was it? The Bishop with his service record in the Guards? The Dean with his passion for efficiency that would have been disturbed by defectors who changed their minds? The Archdeacon with that passion for the faith he had demonstrated so eloquently up there on his scaffold the night before? The choirmaster who had threatened to expel Lady Lucy from his choir? The mysterious member of Civitas Dei, Father Barberi, regular visitor to Compton, London and the College of Propaganda in Rome? Five of them, Powerscourt thought, three murders, two attempted murders, himself and Lady Lucy, to their name. Maybe they hadn’t finished yet. Maybe it would take one more murder before the killer was unmasked.

‘What do you know about these cavalrymen, Johnny?’ said Powerscourt, panting slightly as the horses moved uphill. ‘Did you borrow the explosives from them?’

‘I got the explosives from the infantry over at Parkfield. I’d met one of the officers before. The cavalry are part of the Compton Horse. The commanding officer is a man called Wheeler, Colonel Wheeler.’

Two miles further on, Powerscourt signalled Johnny off the road. They moved into a clump of trees by the side. Powerscourt peered back the way they had come. ‘Listen, Johnny,’ he whispered, ‘can you hear anything? I’ve thought for some time that someone was following us.’ They waited for a full five minutes, straining to catch the sound of another horseman on the road at this time of night. All they heard was the wind sighing through the trees and various small animals scuttling around in the field behind them.

‘Would you like me to go back, Francis, and see what I can find?’ Johnny Fitzgerald was always eager for action. Powerscourt shook his head. They could have been spotted conversing with the Chief Constable in Anne Herbert’s house. They could have been followed back to Fairfield Park and then on to the road. For months, for years, this murderer had been plotting and killing to secure this day when the cathedral would be rededicated to the Catholic faith. If it took a midnight ride and another couple of dead bodies to keep that secure Powerscourt had no doubt that the murderer would carry on with his deadly campaign. Still they heard nothing.

‘Let’s just give it a couple of minutes more,’ Powerscourt muttered, advancing to the very edge of the trees to stare back at the road. A disturbed owl hooted angrily in protest. Johnny was looking at his watch, doing mental calculations about how long it would be before they reached Bampton and roused the cavalry. Another owl sounded off in the distance, back the way they had come. That seemed to make up Powerscourt’s mind. He gestured them back on to the road once more.

Less than a mile from Bampton disaster struck. Johnny Fitzgerald’s horse, which had carried him steadily all through their journey, suddenly stopped. Its legs gave way and it sank slowly to the ground. Johnny looked at it closely. ‘Damn! I don’t know what’s the matter with the poor animal, Francis,’ he said, ‘I think she’s had it for the time being. You’d better go on alone. I’ll wait till she’s better. And I was just thinking about a proper breakfast with those cavalrymen. They always like to start the day with a decent spread.’

Powerscourt too peered closely at the horse. He would have been the first to admit that his knowledge of the workings of horses was limited. ‘You can’t stop here, Johnny. It’s out of the question. Leave her here and hop up behind me. We’ll ask the cavalry if they can send somebody out to bring her in for repairs.’

Shortly after half-past seven, under a pale blue sky flecked with pink at the eastern corner, a weary Powerscourt and Fitzgerald presented themselves to the sentry on duty at the barracks.

‘Colonel Wheeler is in the officers’ mess, sir,’ he said to Powerscourt, ‘Please come with me.’

Military architecture had never been one of England’s glories, Powerscourt reflected, as they were led across a dreary parade ground. Around it were nondescript military constructions, the cheapest the War Office could get away with, and handsome stabling for the horses off to one side. It seemed that the horses had better accommodation than the humans.

‘Colonel Powerscourt, Major Fitzgerald to see you, sir!’ The sentry raised his hand in a textbook salute. The Colonel was alone in the officers’ mess, seated at a top table that would hold about a dozen officers, enjoying a generous breakfast. He looked to be in his late forties with an enormous moustache and greying hair.

‘You look, gentlemen,’ he growled, ‘as if you haven’t been to bed. Better have some breakfast before you tell me your business. Lance Corporal! Bring another two chairs! And a couple of As at the double!’ Colonel Wheeler showed them into their seats. He scratched his head.

‘Powerscourt, Powerscourt. You the fellow who was in India? And then in South Africa?’

Powerscourt nodded. ‘We both served in those locations, Colonel.’

‘Goddamit, man, you’ve both seen more active service in your lifetimes than this regiment has in a hundred years! See these pictures on the walls?’ He waved a fork carrying half a mushroom around his officers’ mess. ‘See all these officers commanding the Compton Horse? Look carefully and you’ll find the significant fact.’ The Colonel paused and gave his full attention to a couple of kidneys. ‘Do you see it? Let me tell you. Look at the bloody uniforms. Those four colonels over there,’ he pointed dramatically at the left-hand wall, ‘fought with Marlborough. Blenheim, Oudenarde, those sort of places. The other six,’ Colonel Wheeler waved his fork once more, this time bedecked with tomato, at a collection of veterans on the opposite wall, ‘they all went to Portugal in the Peninsular Wars, lucky devils. Fought their way right across Spain with Wellington into France. Talavera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse. Sent home after Toulouse. Too far away to be called back for Waterloo. Too far away to be called up for the damned Russians in the Crimea or the bloody Boer in South Africa. We’re the forgotten regiment, Powerscourt. Miracle the bloody War Office remembers to pay us.’

At that point two enormous breakfasts were placed in front of Powerscourt and Fitzgerald. Eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, kidneys, mushrooms, fried bread.

‘A is the full experience,’ the Colonel explained happily, ‘B doesn’t have the fried bread, C doesn’t have the kidneys and so on.’

‘So G would just be eggs and bacon on their own,’ said Johnny, tucking into bacon and mushrooms.

‘May I talk as I go, Colonel?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘There is very little time. You will see why as I explain.’ He took Wheeler through the events in Compton, the murders, the plans to defect to Rome, the bonfire the previous evening, the intention to rededicate the minster to Rome that morning and to celebrate Mass in what had been a Protestant cathedral at midday.

‘Goddamit, man,’ the Colonel had turned red, ‘this is monstrous! This is a Protestant country! Catholics have their own places for conducting the Mass or whatever they do. What’s wrong with those, for God’s sake?’

The Colonel found temporary consolation in a combination of egg and tomato. Powerscourt looked quietly at his watch. It was five minutes to eight.

‘The Chief Constable is short of men, Colonel. He sent us here to seek reinforcements.’

The Colonel stared at Powerscourt. He laughed bitterly. ‘Whole century goes by, Powerscourt. Compton Horse rots quietly down here, not invited to any parties at all, no chance to destroy His Majesty’s enemies. When the call comes we’re to turn into bloody policemen and arrest a couple of canons and a rural dean. Never mind, Powerscourt. This regiment won’t let you down. How many men d’you need?’

‘Thirty,’ said Powerscourt firmly, ‘forty if you could manage it.’

The Colonel uttered an enormous roar that might have been Lance Corporal. He devoted his full attention to finishing his breakfast. Tomatoes, eggs, sausage, kidneys disappeared at breathtaking speed. Powerscourt wondered if he would suffer from indigestion on the ride back to Compton.

‘Lance Corporal!’ he bawled as the man appeared in the doorway at the end of the room. ‘Get those bloody officers out of bed and in here at the double! Order the buggers’ breakfast for them! Can’t hang about while they dither about whether to have the kidneys or not. Find the Regimental Sergeant Major! Tell him I want thirty-five men ready to ride out at eight thirty sharp! Move!’

Compton Cathedral was packed to the rafters. All of those who had come from right across southern England to the bonfire were now filling the pews in the nave, standing in the two transepts and the ambulatories. The candles that had illuminated the night had been replaced with fresh ones to illuminate the day. The pillars in the nave glowed gold for the consecration of the cathedral and the ordination of a bishop. One of the men who had come from Rome was presiding over the service, clad in his bishop’s robes, the ring clearly visible on his finger. The congregation were on their knees.

‘Sancte Michael, Sancte Gabriel, Sancte Raphael,’ two cantors sang, working their way down the Litany of the Saints.

‘Ora pro nobis, Ora pro nobis, Pray for us,’ the faithful repeated.

Gervase Bentley Moreton, one-time Anglican Bishop of Compton, about to become the Catholic Bishop of Compton, had strips of cloth, anointed with oil, wrapped around his forehead. He was lying prostrate on the ground while the roll call of saints continued.

‘Omnes sancti Pontifices et Confessores, Sancte Antoni, Sancte Benedicte, Sancte Dominice, Sancte Francisce, All you holy bishops and Confessors, Saint Anthony St Benedict, St Dominic, St Francis’ and the reply rising up from the kneeling multitude, ‘Ora pro nobis, Pray for us.’

The Compton Yeomanry had not kept to their timetable. Two of the young officers Colonel Wheeler wanted in the expedition could not be roused from their beds. Only a terrible dressing-down from the adjutant brought them on to the parade ground, ten minutes late.

‘I shouldn’t worry too much about the delay.’ Powerscourt said diplomatically to their commanding officer as they finally rode out, the troopers side by side along the road. ‘Mass is at twelve. It shouldn’t be over till one at the earliest. We’ve got plenty of time.’

The Colonel snorted. ‘Disgraceful behaviour, disgraceful. Damned good mind to confine them to quarters for a month. No more balls and parties then, what?’

Johnny Fitzgerald was riding right behind the Colonel on a borrowed horse. He remembered the time, early on in their career, when he and Powerscourt had nearly missed a parade altogether owing to overstaying their welcome at the Viceregal Ball in Simla.

‘Tell you what, Powerscourt,’ said the Colonel, the ride restoring his spirits, ‘do I get to bag the Bishop? That would be the nearest thing in this campaign to capturing the enemy colours, I should think. What chance of that?’

‘Nothing is impossible,’ said Powerscourt, wondering what exactly was going on in the cathedral at this moment. He had no idea what form the consecration of a cathedral would take.

Patrick Butler was watching the spectacle, mesmerized. He was writing almost continually in the small notebook hidden inside his missal. Anne Herbert beside him was thinking that her first husband would be turning in his grave. Hands were now being laid on Moreton’s head by the Bishop sent from Rome. There was a prayer of consecration. Then the congregation stared at Moreton as he kissed a copy of the Gospels and fresh clothes were brought for him.

‘What’s going on now?’ Patrick whispered to his next-door neighbour, a white-haired old lady from Southampton.

‘He’s only wearing an alb and stole at present,’ she muttered, pleased to be able to explain the intricacies of the service to an unbeliever. ‘They’re going to clothe him in dalmatics that a deacon wears and a chasuble, a priest’s vestment over the top of that.’

Patrick Butler wondered if dalmatics came from Dalmatia, wherever that was, but felt it better not to ask. The choir were singing an anthem now, the long litany of the saints sent back to their eternal rest. A pectoral cross was now hung round Moreton’s neck, white gloves were put on his hands and the Bishop’s ring was placed on the index finger of his right hand. The crozier or Bishop’s staff was handed over. It was a few minutes after eleven o’clock.

The Colonel’s cavalcade was now about eight miles from Compton. One or two villagers had come out of their houses to stare as they passed, the red uniforms and the gleaming horses a spectacular sight on Easter Sunday morning.

‘Powerscourt,’ said the Colonel, ‘please forgive me. Never at my brightest first thing in the morning. Attention has to be devoted to breakfast. Did you say that all these bloody parsons had defected to Rome? Every last deacon and prebendary?’

‘I’m afraid so, Colonel,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully. ‘Even the cathedral cat can now recite the Mass in Latin.’

‘God bless my soul.’ The Colonel was shaking his head as he trotted along the country lanes. ‘One of them going mad I could understand. Two at a pinch. But all of them!’ The Colonel stopped suddenly and looked back at his little column. ‘It’s as if,’ he said, slapping his horse firmly on the thigh, ‘all of my officers’ mess were to defect and join up with the wretched infantry, the damned foot sloggers! It’s not just treachery, it’s damned bad form!’ And with that he rode on to arrest the renegades.

Patrick Butler felt they must be nearing the end. The Bishop was seated now and the zuccheta or purple skull cap was placed on his head, followed by the mitre. Lady Lucy, sitting on the other side of Anne Herbert, felt the whole thing was a bit like a coronation though she doubted if Britain’s new sovereign would be crowned with quite so much incense. And though the cathedral was packed with the faithful she doubted if the streets of Compton would be filled with loyal subjects of the new administration in the cathedral. Almost all these people at the service were visitors. The citizens of Compton had stayed at home again, waiting for time and officialdom to give them back their cathedral. Now Bishop Moreton had made the sign of peace to his fellow Bishop and the attendant clergy and was moving down the main aisle, blessing the congregation as though he were the Pope himself. When he had been led back to the sanctuary by the Bishop from Rome he was formally seated on his cathedra. Gervase Bentley Moreton, until twenty hours before the Protestant Bishop of Compton, was now the Roman Catholic Bishop of Compton. As the choir began to sing Mozart’s Coronation Mass the Chief Constable slipped quietly out of the west door. He paced up and down the paths that criss-crossed the Cathedral Green staring at the roads that might bring reinforcements. Was Powerscourt coming? Had the cavalry refused the mission? Without them the Chief Constable simply did not know what he was going to do.

The Compton Horse were now a few miles from the city that bore their name. Every now and then the Colonel would look back to check that his little troop were in their proper formation.

‘Don’t suppose you know how long the campaign will last, Powerscourt?’ he said as the spire of the minster came into view. ‘Short engagement, or long siege? Bloody boring things sieges, so they tell me.’

‘I doubt if it will last more than a couple of days,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But without your assistance the whole affair would have been a complete fiasco.’

‘Never thought we’d end up guarding a flock of treacherous parsons,’ the Colonel continued. ‘Don’t suppose we’ll be adding it to the regimental colours.’

‘I’m sure that your role will be recognized,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if they would be in time. Johnny Fitzgerald had ridden ahead to find out how long before the service would end.

‘I’d better detach a couple of fellows to sort out the commissariat,’ said the Colonel. ‘I feel as though I could manage a bite of luncheon quite soon.’

The Bishop was addressing his congregation. Anne Herbert was feeling deeply irritated that all these men, who had cared for her so well after the death of her husband, were now desecrating his memory. Lady Lucy was wondering where Francis was and if he would arrive in time. Patrick Butler was trying to hear what was happening outside. Once he heard the horses’ hooves rattling on the stones outside, he said to himself, he would slip out the side door. He checked once more the spot where the Chief Constable and Chief Inspector Yates had been sitting. They were not there.

The Bishop was holding up the box containing the words of the monk of Compton, recently serialized in the Mercury. ‘This casket,’ he told his congregation, holding it well aloft above the ornate pulpit, ‘contains the link between Compton’s past and Compton’s future. It was discovered in our crypt earlier this year. It contains what I believe to be the last writings of a monk who dwelt here in the days before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. Those of you who live in or around Compton may have read my translations of the earlier sections of the document in our local newspaper. For the visitors to our cathedral on this special day, our one thousandth birthday, I would merely say that it is like a diary, the fears, the reflections, the last words of this monk, whose name we do not know, as his end approached and he went to the scaffold for his faith.’

The Bishop paused briefly. Patrick Butler listened hard for noises outside. There were none.

‘These are the last words of the monk of Compton before he was led away and put to death. “Tomorrow they are coming for me. It will be my last day on earth before I go to meet my father in heaven. They have brought me clean clothes. I would not have chosen to be hung drawn and quartered for my beliefs. But I cannot betray my conscience and my God by subscribing to a faith I do not believe in. I shall fix my eyes on Christ on the cross. May my blood flow in memory of his. May my wounds echo the sufferings of our Saviour in his last hours. May my agony contribute to the final victory of Christ over his enemies. And for my tormentors, secure in the faith of our fathers, I pray that the Lord will forgive them, for they know not what they do.”’

The Bishop put away his notes. The congregation were very still. Patrick Butler heard no noises coming in from outside. The Bishop raised his arms high above his head.

‘May the martyred monk of Compton act as a bridge between our glorious heritage of six hundred years in the true faith and the fresh dawn of a new Catholic beginning we are witnessing here today. For today is Christ risen. Today the stone has been rolled from the sepulchre of his dark entombment. Today is this cathedral risen from its own long entombment in the false religion so brutally imposed on God’s people all those years ago. True religion cannot depend on the lusts of princes or the arrogance and greed of their ministers. True religion cannot depend on the fancies of a Parliament or the passing whims of an electorate that may be moved more by the lures of Mammon than by the faith of our fathers. True religion could never depend on the body of men now sitting in the House of Commons, a body peopled by ever-growing numbers of professed atheists and a host of unbelievers. Thou art Peter, our Lord said, and upon this rock will I build my Church. That rock, that Church have survived intact across the years since those words were uttered in Jerusalem. The authority of Christ’s true Church stretches out across the centuries in an unbroken line to us here in Compton today. It is an authority above and beyond the reach of politicians and the fashionable doctrines of this unhappy world. That authority, slowly accumulated over the long ages of the Church’s life, is stamped on the patterns of our worship and on the conduct of our lives.’

Patrick Butler was still scribbling furiously in his notebook. Lady Lucy wondered if the Bishop was longing for martyrdom like the monk of Compton. Anne Herbert was wondering if the new cathedral authorities would apply to Propaganda for the monk to be canonized.

‘Let us give thanks on this day for the Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour. Let us give thanks for the life and example of the monk of Compton, so brutally murdered for his refusal to betray the true faith. Let us give thanks for the Resurrection of our own cathedral, one thousand years old this year. Let us offer up our own sins and our own weaknesses and our own failings to God in his mercy.

‘Let me close by invoking the name of one of the greatest English Catholics of the last century. John Henry Newman was born and baptized an Anglican. He was ordained as an Anglican priest. He became a leader of the Oxford Movement, a doomed attempt to reform the Anglican faith. Shortly before he was received into the Catholic Church he wrote a remarkable essay. At the time he was making a choice, a choice between the soft life of an Oxford academic, the companionship of its fellows, the quiet beauty of its quadrangles, the cloistered havens of its great libraries, the candlelight and the fine wine flowing beneath the portraits of scholars past at High Table, and the very different world of the Catholic faithful, a world he had never met and scarcely knew. Newman’s words reach out to us all from the tiny parish of Littlemore outside Oxford where the future Cardinal wrote them seventy years ago. They call on us to make our choice of faith while we still have the chance. If we do not, the consequences may last for ever. Time is short, wrote Newman. Eternity is long.’

The Bishop bowed his head. A great silence had fallen over the cathedral. Nobody stirred. Nobody changed their position in the pews. Nobody checked the angle of their hat or crossed or uncrossed their legs. Many of them had their eyes closed in silent prayer. Maybe the spirit of John Henry Newman had descended on Compton’s cathedral to deliver a final benediction to the faithful. Then the Bishop turned very slowly and began his descent from the pulpit. The choir rose to their feet and resumed the singing of the Mass. Very faintly outside there came the noise of horses’ hooves. The cavalry had arrived. Patrick Butler began to rise from his feet to find out what was happening outside. Anne Herbert placed a hand firmly on his arm.

‘You can’t leave now, Patrick,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll never see anything like this again in your life. It would be like leaving Hamlet before the last act.’

Reluctantly he sat down again. The Mass carried on. He was wondering if Time is Short Eternity is Long could be fitted as a headline across one page or if he should run it, in the largest typeface his printers possessed, across a double page spread.

Shortly before the end of the service Chief Inspector Yates and five of his officers placed themselves very quietly in a line across the top of the nave. The Chief Inspector watched the Communion ceremony very carefully.

‘Et qui, expletis passionis dominicae diebus,’ sang the choir, ‘You have mourned for Christ’s sufferings, now you celebrate the joy of his Resurrection, May you come with joy to the feast that lasts for ever.’

The service was over. As the clergy moved slowly down the choir Patrick Butler saw that the police were directing them out of the cathedral not by the west door at the bottom of the nave but by the entrance that led past the chapter house towards Vicars Close. He could contain himself no longer. He ran at top speed out of the west door and sprinted off towards the south transept.

As the procession reached the top of the steps leading them out of the minster they were met by a body of eight dismounted cavalry men. Colonel Wheeler and the Chief Inspector ushered them into the chapter house. Powerscourt, standing a few paces behind, thought that the chapter house couldn’t have been this full of clergy since before the Reformation. When they were all seated, the Chief Constable, the Colonel at his side, addressed them.

‘My lord Bishop, Dean, Archdeacon, members of the Chapter, distinguished visitors,’ the Chief Constable nodded to the Bishop from Rome who was scowling furiously in a corner, ‘I have to tell you that you are all under house arrest. You have broken the laws of this country, more specifically, the Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church, and Administration of the Sacraments, passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.’

Powerscourt had remembered on the final lap into Compton with the cavalry that there was an Act of Parliament reproduced at the very beginning of the Book of Common Prayer. He had drawn it to the Chief Constable’s attention shortly before the end of the Mass in the cathedral.

‘Under this Act,’ the Chief Constable went on, sounding, Powerscourt thought, as if he had learned the legislation by heart many years before, ‘it is illegal to hold any service in any church or cathedral other than those contained in the Book of Common Prayer. The Catholic Mass, as you know as well as I do, is not included in that Book. Your fate will be decided by the justices, in accordance with the statutes of the Act of Uniformity, acting in concert with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Until such time you are all under house arrest. You may not leave your residences without permission. You may not leave Compton under any circumstances. The cathedral is closed until further notice.’

As the clergy were led away, escorted by police and cavalry, Patrick Butler found Powerscourt staring at the departing figure of the Dean.

‘Well done, my lord, at least you and Johnny Fitzgerald brought the reinforcements here in time.’

‘Well done, do you say, Patrick? Well done? I failed to prevent all this happening this morning. And there’s another failure to be laid at my door.’

‘What’s that, my lord?’ said Patrick.

‘The Bishop and the parsons may all be locked up, Patrick,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I still have to find the murderer.’