Michael pointed out that books of this kind did not lend themselves to being bashed out overnight, that Michaelmas term was apt to be crowded, and also that he was committed to produce a new Wilberforce the Cat adventure for Christmas. As if on cue, the real Wilberforce padded into the room and sat down on a sheaf of proofs cataloguing his latest exploits, which Michael had been trying to read for his editor.
‘Yes, but you’re used to meeting deadlines,’ said Nell, shooing Wilberforce off the proofs. ‘And it’ll be good to switch roles for once. I’m usually the one who goes yomping off into the wide blue yonder to buy stuff for the shop while you stay smugly at home in the ivory tower.’ She grinned at him, and Michael wondered if he would ever stop finding deep pleasure in seeing her curled into the deep armchair like this, her hair lit to polished bronze by the light of the desk lamp. ‘And here’s another thing,’ said Nell. ‘While you’re delving into the history of the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in the Liège monastery—’
‘I still don’t know what the ill fate was—’
‘No, but while you’re looking, you could see if there are any treasures Morticia Addams might be considering selling. Anything that might have found its way to England from Liège,’ said Nell. Seeing his look, she said, with affectionate exasperation, ‘Michael, darling, Liège is in Belgium. And Belgium means beautiful handmade lace and Flemish tapestries and Delft pottery – all of which would look very nice indeed in the shop. To say nothing of any canvases that might bear the signature of Anthony van Dyck, or Pieter Bruegel or—’
‘Well, all right,’ said Michael. ‘But I’m only there for a couple of days, and I doubt I’d know Delft from Pyrex.’
‘And,’ said Nell, smiling, ‘you’ll be so immersed in the Great War and all that heartbreaking poetry of those young men who fought, that you probably won’t notice a Bruegel if it falls on your head.’ She paused, then with a kind of reluctant anxiety said, ‘Come back safely, won’t you?’
‘I will. Behave while I’m away, won’t you?’
‘To make sure I do, how about if we misbehave tonight?’ said Nell, with the sudden slant-eyed grin that transformed her from a purposeful seller of antiques to a very sexy imp. ‘Just very privately and discreetly, but fairly spectacularly?’
‘Have I got time to feed Wilberforce first?’
‘Five minutes.’
‘Oh, God, where’s the tin-opener.’
The drive to the Fens and Fosse House took place two days later and was against a gathering storm that brewed itself up from the east and cast flurries of leaves and small branches against the car’s windows. Michael eyed the skies with misgiving and tried not to think that invisible, mischievous celestial stagehands were setting the scene for a suitably Gothic backdrop so that Morticia Addams or Madeline Usher could make a grand entrance.
He had set off buoyantly, optimistic that he would find his way to the Fens easily because he had finally succumbed to buying a satnav, which Nell’s small daughter Beth said meant he would never get lost again. The satnav had seemed a good idea, and Michael had managed to attach it to the dashboard, and had diligently followed the polite directions. Unfortunately, when he was about forty miles clear of Oxford it worked loose, and by the time Aylesbury was reached, it detached itself altogether and fell on the floor with a dismal crunch. Michael spent the next twenty miles listening to the now-drunken slur of the electronic voice which appeared to have lost all knowledge of the present whereabouts and might as well be saying, ‘Here be dragons,’ like the old maps on unexplored areas.
After that, he disconnected it, disinterred the road maps from the glove compartment and then, with the idea of getting into the mood of the era he would be researching, switched on a Palestrina tape which the Director of Music had lent him. The voices of the Nunc Dimittis filled the car with eerie beauty, summoning up images of dim, quiet churches, grave-visaged statues, and massive and ancient books with ornate gilt clasps and illuminated pages.
There had not been much time before leaving to find out much about the Palestrina Choir, other than that it had been formed in an ancient monastery in Belgium in 1900 to commemorate the start of the new century, and was named for the sixteenth-century composer of sacred music. One of the reference books had said that the Choir was still remembered, in Liège, as tragic, and until quite recently older inhabitants could be found who would relate how the Choir had sung the accompaniment to its own death throes. This was intriguing, although it could mean any number of things. It could also be a figment of someone’s gothic imagination.
Michael drove through the rather bleak landscape. There were deep, straight drainage canals, and occasionally massive sluice gates – grim reminders of the constant menace of flooding in these parts. At intervals were expanses of mud flats or salt marshes. Strong winds whipped across their surfaces, making thick, oozing ripples. Tiny villages were scattered around, providing a reminder that humans had settled here from a very early era – the Romans and the Iceni, wasn’t it? Michael started to enjoy the feeling of entering an England whose roots went so far back. There was a bleak beauty to the landscape, and seeing a distant church spire against the thickening skies he remembered as well that this was a part of England that was soaked in sacred lore and memory; this was the ‘Holy Land of the English’, with its proliferation of cathedrals and churches, and its tradition of monasteries and reclusive saints and hermits. Hermits and recluses. It brought his thoughts back to Luisa Gilmore who had apparently passed her entire life in this place.