Children of the Archbishop (6 page)

Elderberry wine was at the bottom of it—that much was admitted on both sides. But who had taken it—the visiting curate or the swarthy fortune-teller? The man or the woman? Here evidence rioted in conflict, and even the public analyst's report on a specimen of the brew was ruled inadmissible, because the Vicar's sister had confessed that dismayed by its too obvious potency, she had speedily diluted the remainder.

Shorn of its divergencies, the story was all too plain; too sordid; too heavily laden with original sin. The Rev. Sidney Prevarius, having sportingly paid his sixpence, had gone inside the booth, ostensibly to have his palm read. Such operations are normally silent or, at most, muttered. But a moment later on this occasion a shrill scream had penetrated the canvas flaps, and this was followed by a gasp—some said a drunken oath—and a loud crash as, first, a folding-table folded too completely and gave way and then, in the melée, the little tent itself shut up and collapsed.

By the time the rescue party—two church workers and a cow-hand—had disentangled the guy-ropes and lifted up the billowing canvas an astonishing sight greeted them. The curate and the brunette daughter of a Rural Dean were locked together in a fierce and terrible embrace: her gipsy costume had been ripped open and he had been bitten in the right ear. On the grass at their feet lay a book of raffle tickets, the fortune-telling crystal, a dead goldfish—squashed practically flat, like a bright pink plaice—with its shattered bowl around it and, key evidence for the defence, a custard glass with elderberry wine stains in it.

Both sides were adamant and unbudgeable. He had borne down on her, she claimed. She had flung herself on him, he contended. She had been secretly tippling when he entered. He had drunkenly tottered in, cup in hand. She was desperately struggling to escape when the table gave way. He was fleeing from temptation when he had caught his foot in the tent pole …

None of it mattered now, however. The findings were ultimately in favour of the Dean's daughter and Mr. Prevarius, bearing an imperishable scar on one lobe, was reduced to organist in a charity institution.

As Dr. Trump sipped noisily at his tea he smiled inwardly. He suspected that it might have been for all the wrong reasons that his predecessor had ever taken on such a man. There had probably been sentiment behind the decision. But how right! An organist without references was a pearl among employees. If Dr. Trump ordered him to do anything—stoke the boilers, sweep out the nave, black his boots even—the man could not possibly afford to refuse. And his £110 per annum was an investment. For never in any conceivable circumstances would Mr. Prevarius be bothering him for an increase.

But Dr. Trump had more than the providential ruin of Mr. Prevarius on his mind. He had Dame Eleanor. A remarkable woman, Dame Eleanor. A figure. An institution. Almost, in fact, a syndicate. Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital, she was also Founder of the G.C.S.—Guild of Christian Soldiers—President of the Unmarried Mothers Reclamation Society, Treasurer of the Junior League of Innocence, Campaigns Director for the Abstinence Crusade of Great Britain, and Organising Secretary of the National Association of Voluntary Part-Time Church Workers, the NAVPTCW; she moved speedily and impressively from meeting to meeting, punctual, precise, pugnacious.

From 9.30 a.m. when the two typist corporals attached to headquarters staff of the Christian Soldiers marched into their barracks in Dean's Yard, until ten or eleven at night when the Abstinence Crusaders soberly concluded their late sessions, she was on the go all the time, granting interviews, signing papers, stopping things.

And it was not only her range of works that made her so powerful: it was her connections. One brother was a judge and another was a bishop. Her sister, now dead, had been Principal of a Ladies' College. She herself was the daughter of an under-writer and the granddaughter of an Admiral. One uncle was a major-general and another (deceased) had been an actor. Thus she was able to speak with full tribal authority—saying “Edmund doesn't think so” or “Augusta would never have heard of it”—whenever commerce, war (on land or sea), advanced studies, the stage, theology or the law came into the conversation. And there was ever present the threat that at the first whiff of argument the entire family was ready to rally around her.

Not that Dr. Trump had the slightest intention of attempting
to argue with the lady. Didn't he at this moment owe her everything, even the cup of tea that he was holding to his lips? Wasn't she the patroness who had raised him high above the others when the rest had failed? Wouldn't it therefore be sheer commonsense at least for the time being to agree, to conform, to acquiesce regardless of where her strange exalted views were leading her, him, all of them? Did it really matter so much if ecclesiastical embroidery were made compulsory throughout the girls' side from the age of five? What was the harm, the damage to these future citizens, if stool-ball instead of cricket persisted in the other playground?

Dr. Trump slid out of bed and thrust his feet—his thin, spatulate feet into his new bedroom slippers. They had been an extravagance, those slippers with the little fluffy bauble on each instep. On the other hand, his old ones—his very old ones—were clearly impossible. They smacked too much of the intimately squalid, and would have given the servants the wrong ideas about him. Like his new walking shoes they had been bought not from vanity, but simply to uphold his new position. He felt that he owed them to the late Archbishop.

And, on the lowest showing, the new slippers were so much warmer for praying in. This, however, was a point on which he had battled with himself. Was it right to be comfortable? Was it
good
? He had tried it both ways and still the answer was unclear. If he jumped out of the sheets in the manner of the saints and went straight down on his knees on the little strip of Axminster beside the bed, his toes were left dabbling on the cold oil-cloth. In consequence his prayers tended to be scamped and fidgety. On the other hand, if first of all, he cleared his head with hot tea and then wrapped himself up snugly, he could manage ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes of really hard praying, out loud if he felt like it. And he had finally decided in favour of the hot tea and camel-hair. There was, moreover, no doubt about it: he had been praying better than ever of late. More fervently. More comprehensively. More … more imaginatively.

But this morning he was disappointed in himself. His thoughts, instead of fastening themselves upon the rightful object of all prayer, concentrated on Dame Eleanor instead. And once there, nothing could displace them.

The Board Room of the Hospital was a rather imposing chamber. Panelled up to waist-height in a highly polished red wood that might have been sawn from the trunks of old pillar-boxes, it rose soaring and majestic to an arched Gothic roof that was held together by criss-cross metal stretchers from which three gas-burners of orthodox ecclesiastical pattern were suspended.

The windows, like the roof, were pure Gothic and all three of them were glazed in frosted glass with a thick border of amber, crimson and Prussian blue squares. It was thus impossible at any time of day to see out of the windows. And, even in the cold light of early dawn, the room was flooded with a mysterious multi-coloured magnificence like a private sunset.

The chairs, too, owed much to the Gothic inspiration. Unusually high and narrow, with hard wooden seats, their backs rose up sheer and pinnacled. And a ridge of deeply embossed carving that ran across them at shoulder-blade height made lounging unthinkable. There were in all eight chairs of this design with an even taller, almost thronelike, stall for the chairman. This last was a notable and important piece of woodwork. Rising to a height of nearly five feet, it carried three pinnacles as against the mere two of the others, and had arms as well. This chair, together with a long deal table and a plain stool at the far end for the secretary, completed the furnishings.

This morning only five of the eight chairs had occupants. On Dame Eleanor's right sat Dr. Trump himself. Next to him with his hands nervously gripping the table edge as though to preserve his balance, was perched the Rev. Philip Chigwell, a pale, apologetic creature, curate of St. Mary Magdalene, Putney Hill. Beside him, ancient, stertorous and surrounded by a perpetual aura of medicated camphor, was placed Mr. Chitt, a retired tract publisher. On the other side of the table, the company was similarly arranged. Opposite Dr. Trump was seated Canon Larkin of the National Orphanage Council, a hard-scalped and highly-respected administrator, who was acknowledged to be something of a wizard with charity finance. And last of all, facing Mr. Chitt, sat Miss Emmeline Bodkin, last living descendant of the founder and herself already in her seventy-second year: her electrical acoustic aid in its leather carrying-coat was on the table before her.

Dr. Trump ran his eyes round the assembly and smiled inwardly:
he could see at a glance that with the possible exception of Canon Larkin, he had nothing to fear from any member of the Committee. And even Canon Larkin, tactfully and adroitly handled, might prove a friend, an ally, a supporter.

It was his first board-meeting and he wanted to make a good impression on everyone.

“Could we not begin by opening the window? That is, unless Dr. Trump wants us to be all boxed-up.”

It was Dame Eleanor who had spoken, and Dr. Trump rose hurriedly.

“No, no. Not at all. Quite the contrary. I mean, yes, yes. Just as you prefer.”

He was already half-way over to the window by the time he had finished speaking. Then deliberately he checked himself. It was silly this confusion on his part simply because Dame Eleanor had spoken. She would think him servile and undignified if he hurried. Possibly even unworthy. This, he recognised, was a moment when he should proceed majestically.

But before he had reached the window, Dame Eleanor had spoken for the second time.

“Where on earth's the man off to now?” she demanded of the meeting at large. “Why can't he ring for someone?”

Dr. Trump blushed. To hear himself referred to in this way was dreadful. He must, he realised, be making the worst possible impression: Dame Eleanor would surely despise him. There was, therefore, only one thing to do: assert himself. Accordingly, squaring his shoulders, he advanced boldly and opened the window to its full extent. Then triumphantly he returned to his place.

“So much quicker doing things for oneself…” he began.

But Dame Eleanor interrupted him.

“Too much,” she said. “We might just as well be sitting out in the playground.”

The blush that had begun to fade immediately remounted to its full scarlet and suffused his neck. He rose again and went back over to the window. In an absurd childish fashion, he was, he realised, afraid of Dame Eleanor. Whenever her dark eyes were turned on him, he felt himself a mere choirboy again.

It was from her grandfather, the Admiral, that Dame Eleanor had inherited that particular glance of hers. And Dame Eleanor took after Grandpapa in more ways than one. The overlong nose, the nervous tic of one eyelid, the sideways corner of the mouth,
the pleated and protruding chin, all belonged as much to the bridge as to the board-room. And it was as though deliberately to avoid any possible misunderstanding that she allowed herself to wear so ostentatiously feminine a hat. Small, veiled and frivolous, it was perched on the neat white hair, like a butterfly resting on a spent flower.

But already Dame Eleanor was glancing down at the agenda. And, at the first item, she froze.

“Bathroom,” she said incredulously. “The place is full of bathrooms. What do they want another bathroom for?”

Dr. Trump cleared his throat.

“This one is for the isolation block,” he replied.

He had learnt by heart the particulars of this item and was now confidently reciting them. Hadn't he sat up half the night going over the details?

“The nearest bathroom is in the junior girls' block across the courtyard,” he went on. “And in wet weather …”

Dame Eleanor tapped sharply on the table with her pencil.

“Why should the doctor choose this moment to start bathing fever patients when it's raining?” Dame Eleanor demanded.

There was a pause. Dame Eleanor turned sharply in her chair.

“Well, Dr. Trump, why should he?” she insisted.

“Canon Mallow thought it was necessary,” Dr. Trump began weakly.

“Canon Mallow managed without it for seventeen years,” Dame Eleanor reminded him. “I can't see why he should want it now.”

A dutiful titter, the regulation murmur of applause that runs round a board-room when the chairman has been witty, greeted this last remark of hers, and everyone turned tormentingly towards Dr. Trump. Dr. Trump smiled, too: a faint, dutiful smile. He could see that things were not going to be easy. The board was bunching against him like a pack of wolves.

“Postponed for further examination,” Dame Eleanor said sharply.

She glanced rapidly round the table as she finished speaking, and five heads nodded in turn. Canon Larkin pursed up his lips approvingly. Then Dame Eleanor turned again to the Agenda.

“Now we come to a new kitchen boiler,” she remarked. “You seem to want everything new this morning, Dr. Trump.”

“What was that, Dame Eleanor? What is it that Dr. Trump wants?”

The question came from the elderly Miss Bodkin at the far end of the table. In the dim world of sound, she was perpetually groping, stumbling, falling. And this morning her electrical apparatus was not functioning at all helpfully. It needed a fresh battery, perhaps, or it may have been that something was wrong with one of the little valves.

“Everything new, Miss Bodkin,” Dame Eleanor told her.

“Everything blue?”

“No.
New
.”

“New what?”

“New everything,” Dame Eleanor retorted.