Murder at the Monastery, page 22
part #3 of A Canon Clement Mystery Series
‘Responsibility for office supplies is mine, Father.’
‘May I see?’
‘Of course.’
Paulinus sat at his desk and gave what Neil very quickly found to be an impenetrably technical account of the characteristics of the device. After a while he said, ‘But what’s it for?’
‘What’s it for?’
‘What are you using it for?’ Neil specified.
‘I am writing a sermon.’
‘Why do you need a word processor to do that? Can’t you just write it the normal way?’
‘This allows me to write it line by line and correct it if I make a mistake. I can fix it, or find a more felicitous word, I can change it . . . there is something to be said for writing in a rush, if you are in the Spirit, rather than hesitating as the Spirit’s breath blows through your conscious mind. Do you see?’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ve often thought about the way the materials we use affect how and what we write.’
‘Quite so, think of the shift from scroll to codex.’
‘Oh, yes—’
Neil interrupted. ‘What’s the sermon about?’
‘It is about a saint of the Middle Ages, Elizabeth of Hungary. It is her feast in a week or so. I asked to preach in her honour, for she is a great favourite of mine. A queen who lived like a slave.’
‘She was so harshly treated by her confessor that she died of exhaustion while she was still practically a girl,’ said Daniel.
‘Without a word of complaint, or a twitch of resistance,’ said Paulinus. ‘She obeyed. Blessed is she among women!’
‘Sounds like the victim of a domestic.’
‘That’s what some of the brethren say. And the novitiate. But she was a queen, not a cowed girl.’
‘Still sounds like abuse to me,’ said Neil.
‘To the judgement of the world, perhaps,’ said Paulinus.
‘Yours is a more violent world than I thought,’ said Neil.
‘No more here than anywhere,’ said Paulinus. ‘Just different.’
‘What was that fight at Vespers about?’ asked Daniel.
Paulinus looked and blinked. ‘There was no fight, Father. There was a little squabble between the acolytes – there often is when Darren is on duty.’
‘The postulant. He seems very keen. Very certain.’
‘He is. Weren’t we all?’
‘We had our fights too, when I was in the novitiate. And it was usually the postulant.’
‘What’s a postulant?’ said Neil.
‘An applicant to join the community,’ said Daniel. ‘First, they come as a postulant, then, if they are considered suitable, they join the novitiate. Then, if they can survive that, they become what is called a professed monk. Full membership.’
‘The postulancy is often difficult,’ said Father Paulinus, ‘for people come with unrealistic expectations, or with psychological damage of some kind. We don’t know who they are until we find out, and we can only do that by living with them. So there’s a trial period and if they seem suitable, they continue; if not, they leave.’
‘Darren seems to rub people up the wrong way,’ said Daniel. ‘He caused a row at Benediction after Bede died.’
‘You were there?’
‘Yes. He started a Hail Mary and, I think it was Placid, lost his temper with him and walked out. He kicked him. Accidentally on purpose.’
‘He clashes a lot with Placid. He did again today. Darren knows the ritual to the smallest detail. Placid doesn’t really care about that sort of thing. Neither does Aelred, now. He used to be so diligent, but it faded. Poor man, called to be an abbot when he’d much rather be left alone in a library to read . . . Placid gets impatient with Darren for his obsession with ceremony and Darren gets frustrated with Placid for messing it up.’
‘I’m with Placid,’ said Neil. ‘Why fuss about a hat when half the world is starving?’
‘Because the big things are in the small things, Mr Vanloo,’ said Paulinus. ‘It is not really about a hat, as you call it. It is about doing things the right way. And what the right way is. We are the Church of England. We can’t agree about biscuits, let alone salvation.’
‘But we manage our differences,’ said Daniel, ‘the middle way, with reason and moderation.’
‘We like to think so, don’t we?’ said Paulinus. ‘The English love of moderation. But if you look at that from the outside you see that being so doggedly moderate, refusing to take a position, is itself taking a position. What is the reasonable middle way between right and wrong, good and evil? And we have now the highly divisive’ – he pronounced it deeveesive – ‘issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood. To Placid, it is a simple matter of justice that must be put right, repented of. To Darren, it is to destroy the Church.’
‘Can’t the pope just say something?’ asked Neil.
‘We have no pope, Mr Vanloo, we are Church of England, so there is no final authority of that kind. And if there were, we wouldn’t obey it. I sometimes think trying to be anything – high, low, in between, liberal, Catholic evangelical – in the Church of England is impossible.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we are neither fish nor fowl nor good fresh herring.’
‘Red herring,’ said Neil.
‘Red herring. It is not a Church, it is a personality disorder.’
‘Then why not leave it?’ asked Neil.
‘I could not leave it,’ said Paulinus.
‘Why not?’
‘Can you leave your family?’
‘But you weren’t born into this,’ said Neil. ‘You’re not C of E.’
‘No, my family are what you call Old Catholics. Union of Utrecht.’
‘That’s Holland.’
‘Yes, but my family were in Swabia, Czechoslovakia, Austria-Hungary. There are Old Catholics in many places, not just the Netherlands.’
‘So you are Catholic?’ said Neil.
‘We are ALL Catholics here, just not Roman Catholics. Anglo-Catholics mostly, if you believe such a thing can be, but I am Old Catholic. We are not in communion with Rome. We were, but we went our own way after the First Vatican Council. It is a very complicated story. We are now in communion with the Anglican churches, which is why I am here.’
‘In the Church of England or in Ravenspurn?’
‘After the war we were all displaced, you know, and I came to England. I found my way here and knew at once I wanted to stay.’
‘Do you have family, Father,’ asked Daniel, ‘in Germany or Czechoslovakia?’
Paulinus closed his eyes. At first Daniel thought he was praying, then he said, ‘It is the past, Father. A terrible past. Many lost, many scattered. The turmoil of war. The younger brethren get so anxious, so worried about . . . the ordination of women. I lived through the descent of nations into the madness of war and the collapse of the Reich. I know chaos, and it is not ordaining women priests. Darren would think differently.’
‘And Bede?’ said Daniel.
‘Bede is . . . was opposed to the ordination of women, yes, but if anything it made his relationship with Darren more difficult. Darren thought Bede should be his ally, but he drove him round the bend.’
‘Why?’
‘Bede could be irritating. You saw that in class. He was a clever boy, he always knew better, and very often he did know better. He was a brilliant student at Oxford, and Darren went to a technical college in Ipswich, and Bede was not always patient with him.’
‘But they were of one mind on the issue of women priests?’ said Daniel.
‘Both opposed, but Darren’s opposition was instinctive. Bede’s was theological. Darren could not keep up with that. So Bede was an ally who made him feel weak, not strong. But I wanted to ask you something about Bede, Father.’
‘Yes?’ said Daniel.
‘I wonder if you would offer some spiritual support to his parents. I have left them an assurance of my prayers, and the intercession of St Elizabeth.’
‘Patron of those who have lost children,’ said Daniel.
‘One of them.’
‘And widows?’
‘And the homeless, and lacemakers, and the Order of Teutonic Knights also,’ said Paulinus. ‘And Budapest.’
‘Busy lady,’ said Neil.
‘But you have pastoral gifts for the consolation of the bereaved that I do not have. Perhaps you could spend an hour with them?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Daniel.
‘Now, would you like to have a turn on the KX-W900?’
13
Audrey and Theo were in the library at Champton House. The fire was lit but had not yet given much warmth, so they were sitting on opposite sofas at the end nearest the grate, where logs popped and hissed as the flames intensified. They were drinking aperitifs, to which they had helped themselves from a tray on the sideboard. Audrey’s was a Noilly Prat, which Bernard had got in especially for her on Honoria’s advice, and Theo was having a Campari and soda, because that was the only thing on the tray he felt able to drink.
‘Then you and Neil came to the same conclusion,’ Theo said. ‘Ravenspurn.’
‘I think so. Where else would he go after disappearing in the dead of night? I have written to him there,’ said Audrey.
‘I think you’re right. I know Neil’s gone up there to see him. Honoria told me. Rather an extravagant gesture, I said, from someone in the middle of a murder investigation.’
‘Has he? I wonder if that is wise.’
‘They got their man, so I suppose Neil took some time off.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Oh.’
‘Darling, why do you think Daniel has disappeared?’
‘I couldn’t say, Mum.’
‘I think you could. Don’t say on some mysterious Church errand.’
Theo looked towards the door in the hope that someone would come in and he could escape this conversation. No one came. ‘Dan’s inner life, Mum – always been inscrutable to me.’
‘Yes, I know, he is rather a sphinx, but it is not what he chooses to reveal about himself that I am wondering about. It is what he unintentionally reveals about himself.’
‘You sound like him,’ said Theo.
‘Perhaps something of his method has rubbed off on me.’
‘Or he got it from you. No one can parse the subtleties of a peep-toe on a court shoe like you.’
‘It so depends on the toe, dear. And knowing one’s feet.’
‘I suppose I must ask you what he has unintentionally revealed.’
Audrey had thought about being asked this question and how to answer. ‘I think perhaps he has a crush on his new friend.’
‘Why?’ said Theo.
‘He comes alive when Neil walks into the room. Neil looks at him like an adoring younger brother, like you used to. Only this is not brotherly love.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t think Daniel has ever felt like that about anyone before. And he’s a priest. I thought celibacy was as natural to him as thrift to a Scotchman. So to see him doe-eyed over anyone, let alone a young policeman, is unexpected. Didn’t you notice it?’
‘Can’t see what you’re not looking for,’ said Theo.
‘What’s the view from the lodge?’
‘Alex saw it coming, but sexual proclivities of any kind are so unremarkable to him he wouldn’t think it worth mentioning.’
‘Sexual proclivities?’ said Audrey. ‘A crush, don’t you think?’
‘A crush certainly, but a crush on another man.’
‘It doesn’t mean he’s a homosexual,’ said Audrey.
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘There’s nothing of that in the family.’
‘Uncle Harry,’ said Theo.
‘He wasn’t your uncle, he was your father’s cousin. And anyway, he wasn’t a homosexual.’
‘He was convicted of gross indecency in a lavatory at King’s Cross.’
‘He was under a lot of stress.’
‘Mum, what do you do when you’re under a lot of stress?’
Audrey said nothing and took another sip of vermouth. ‘He was a sensitive man.’
‘He was a bachelor who collected Georgian enamel pill boxes.’
‘Men,’ said Audrey, ‘such lazy creatures.’
‘What does laziness have to do with it?’
‘Can’t be bothered to get out there and put some effort into courting. Did Honoria know?’
‘I don’t think she saw it coming,’ said Theo. ‘Neither did Nathan.’
Audrey took another sip of her Noilly and admired what it came in – a vessel somewhere between a tumbler and a wine glass, with a lovely diamond-cut band round the middle, something she imagined was made specially for vermouth in the Edwardian era. So many lovely things at Champton.
‘A priest is tricky enough,’ she said. ‘Imagine having that conversation with the bishop? But a policeman?’
‘I would quite like to think a bishop would look more favourably on a priest having a passion for a policeman than, say, a gypsy.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean, can you even have a homosexual policeman? Hello, Super, I’ve something to tell you . . .’
‘Neil’s not a homosexual,’ said Theo.
‘Oh – gay then, whatever we must call it.’
‘He’s not gay. He’s not homosexual. He’s not that way.’
Audrey at first could not think of anything to say. She put her glass down and breathed out through her nose – not quite a sigh. ‘So Daniel’s feelings are unreciprocated?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ said Theo. ‘Well, a qualification: his sexual feelings are not reciprocated. Neil definitely feels something for Dan.’
‘Yes, he must. Look at them. Like love-stricken swains. Perhaps Neil has not yet discovered where his interest lies?’
‘Oh, he has, and it is not towards his own sex.’
‘You sound like you speak from knowledge?’ said Audrey.
‘Yes. He and Honoria have been having a passionate affair for months. Top secret, by the way.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘There’s something in me, Mum, that wilts at the thought of discussing sexual intimacies with you.’
‘Good Lord, what will Bernard make of it? A bent gypsy, a squaw and a plod for in-laws!’
‘I am the least censorious of people, as you know,’ said Theo, ‘but we really don’t say things like that now.’
‘Does Neil know Daniel has fallen for him?’
‘He does now. Honoria worked it out and told him.’
‘Of course. So they were love-stricken swains, only not for each other.’
‘Think so,’ said Theo.
‘Poor Dan. No wonder he’s fled to the cloister again. And now that fathead’s gone after him,’ said Audrey.
‘I think that’s rather sweet.’
‘Oh, stab him in the heart and then go and open the wound.’
There was a burst of energy suddenly as Cosmo came hurtling into the library just behind Jove. The cat leapt onto a sofa and from there jumped onto a shelf. Cosmo skidded on the polished parquet and disappeared under the sofa. Jove stood, his back arched, his fur on end, making a sound like someone with a laryngectomy trying to scream.
‘Cosmo!’ shouted Audrey. ‘Come out AT ONCE!’
The little dog emerged from under the sofa, but not in obedience to Audrey’s command. A little wolf, who looked like a toy, he was concentrating on his prey, hackles up, and stamping his paws like a bull in a ring.
‘Cosmo! COSMO!’ shouted Audrey. Cosmo did not even twitch. Then Bernard appeared in the doorway. ‘Cosmo,’ he said, ‘you brave soldier!’ The dog unstiffened and turned towards him, looked back at Jove, still en garde, and turned again to trot towards Bernard, then followed him to the drinks tray. Bernard poured himself a whisky – Teacher’s, Audrey noticed, not the single malt that stood next to it – squirted it with soda and sat down on the sofa opposite Audrey, at the other end from Theo. Cosmo jumped up into the gap between them.
‘Cosmo,’ said Audrey, ‘not on the furniture.’
Neil had quite soon had enough of the demonstration of the capabilities of the KX-W900 and suggested he and Daniel leave Father Paulinus to his sermon.
At the door Daniel said, ‘Oh, one thing . . . if you don’t need me as relief organist, would you mind if I joined you in the choir to sing? I’d forgotten how much I miss it.’
‘Mind? I would be delighted. And we would be honoured. In fact, why don’t you deputise as pre-centor?’
‘You have a succentor – shouldn’t he do that?’
‘Dominic? He won’t mind. And it means I can play the organ. I hardly ever get to play since I’ve been precentor.’
‘It’s been a long time since I cantored here.’
‘You have done it a thousand times. And your voice is beautiful. You know you sing like a monk? But, of course, you learnt how to here. Why don’t you lead Compline later? It’s not difficult, it’s the same every night. You have your cassock? I could find you a scapular.’
‘I’m not a novice any more,’ said Daniel.
‘But you were, Father, you were!’
‘Thank you, I’d like that.’
‘Do you need me to go through it with you?’ Paulinus offered.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Everything you need is in my stall – it’s just Compline with an antiphon for the Nunc dimittis because of Willibrord. It’s at the back of the book. But you know your way around that. I’ll leave a scapular for you in the sacristy. Now I must get back to St Elizabeth, if you will allow me?’
‘Thank you, Father. See you at Compline.’
Paulinus saw them out, then drew the curtains before he returned to his desk – a declaration, thought Daniel, of closure. Aelred’s curtains too were drawn and Daniel held his finger to his lips as they passed. They stopped at the south-west corner to the cloister where there was a bench. ‘Let’s sit,’ said Daniel. ‘I want to be sure Aelred won’t see us.’
