It was a pity, though, that if he had to be sick afterwards, he must needs to so on the Dean’s hearthrug. It’s reputed to be a Persian rug which was presented to the Dean by some visiting Eastern potentate, and the Dean is currently being placated by promises of the best specialist dry-cleaning that can be found for the rug. To help out, I have placed my soul in pawn, Faustus-like, to stop him hauling Wilberforce to the nearest vet’s slaughterhouse, and it took a remarkably long time, which is why I didn’t get your phone message until now. I think the Dean is suitably placated, and even if he isn’t, I suspect Michael’s army of cherubic eight-and nine-year-old readers would form a protest march to stay Wilberforce’s execution, anyway. Your Beth would most likely carry the banner.
Let’s meet at half-past nine tomorrow outside the Bodleian. I’ll need to be back at College for twelve, but if we don’t find your letters, we can arrange a second trip, and if necessary take in the Radcliffe.
Owen
Nell read the email, shook her head over Wilberforce’s exploits, but was pleased that Owen would help with the quest for Hugbert’s letters.
As she went into the kitchen to put together some supper she was glad to think Michael would be returning to Oxford tomorrow. He would probably set off fairly early and be back in good time to have supper in Quire Court. With this in mind, Nell hunted out a favourite recipe book to find something really nice to cook. She might do rainbow trout – she had a recipe for stuffing it with smoked trout and horseradish, which was delicious. There was a bottle of Chablis in the fridge which a customer had given her for finding a beautiful set of needlepoint dining chairs, and she would buy fruit and cheese for dessert.
Michael would be all right in Fosse House, of course. But as Nell ate her supper, she kept glancing at Bodkin’s book, which she had left open at the page referring to the Holzminden sketch and the taint of madness that was supposed to cling to it. She wished she had not read that. She wished, even more, that Michael had not mentioned hearing whispering voices at Fosse House.
Eleven
Michael had no idea how he was going to cope with a second night in Fosse House, and he had no idea how he was going to face Luisa over supper this evening, and again tomorrow morning.
Should he pretend they had never had that unreal conversation on the landing and, instead, talk cheerfully about his work? He had a wild image of determinedly describing the breezy letters from the unknown Chuffy, and of Luisa industriously searching genealogies to find out who Chuffy had been and which Gilmore he might have been writing to, both of them studiously ignoring any sounds that might herald Stephen’s arrival. Or Luisa might not ignore it at all; she might make a light-hearted reference to it: ‘And don’t take any notice of my ancestor, Dr Flint, he usually takes a turn in the garden around this time …’
It was an image that defied credibility, particularly since Luisa would no doubt lead the conversation wherever she wanted it to go. It had been odd, though, to be afforded that glimpse behind the composed facade.
It was half past five, and when he went into the library it was wreathed in shadows. Michael switched on the desk lamp, grateful for the warm pool of light it cast over the leather-topped table which was still littered with notes and old letters.
He had thought work would be impossible, but when he opened the box file containing Chuffy’s letters, he found he was able to step back into Fosse House’s past easily, and even make some half-intelligent notes about Robert Graves and to draft a letter to the Old Carthusian Society about the setting of Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier to music. A recording from so long ago was too much to hope for, but there was a faint chance they might have kept the setting or the score. Even a programme of the event would be a find.
Rifling a second box, he found what appeared to be the basis for an essay – perhaps even a thesis on the Palestrina Choir’s history – which seemed to have been originally drafted in the early 1930s. It looked as if it might be useful, although it was slightly disconcerting to think someone else had trodden the path Michael himself was now treading. Had the unknown writer found and made use of Iskander’s journal? He experienced a pang of the unreasonable, possessive jealousy known to many academics and writers. Iskander’s mine! he thought, then was aware of the absurdity.
The gardens were shrouded in darkness, and Michael drew the curtains, returned to the big table, and continued working. The thesis, which was intelligently and interestingly written, began by describing how in 1899 a community of nuns in Liège had conceived the idea of marking the new century by forming a Choir within their school, and how they had named it for Giovanni Palestrina, the sixteenth-century Italian composer of sacred music.
‘It was to be an integral part of the Convent’s life,’ wrote the unknown essayist. ‘The sisters of Sacré-Coeur had the praiseworthy aim of entering the twentieth century on a strong wave of prayer and goodness, and they saw their long-held tradition of music as a way to do this. This may perhaps be described as idealistic, but it is a good precept in any age.’
Having struck this optimistic note, he – or it might be a she – then turned to the effect the Great War had had on the Choir and its environs.
‘Accounts of 1914 – that troubled, tragic year for Belgium – are fragmentary and not all of them can be relied on. It was an emotional time for the Belgians, but it seems certain that the Convent of Sacré-Coeur, the home of the Palestrina Choir, was badly damaged and some of the nuns were killed in the initial invasion.’
It did not sound as if the writer had read Iskander’s journal, after all. That could mean he or she had found other source material. Michael read on, hoping this would be the case.
‘I was fortunate in finding a letter sent to a Sister Clothilde, the Mother Superior of the Sacré-Coeur Convent,’ the writer explained. ‘It was apparently written a short time after the initial invasion of Liège. By then France had been crushed by the Kaiser’s armies and Belgium was occupied, which makes it remarkable that the letter reached its destination.’
Here he conscientiously added a footnote: ‘This letter, along with other interesting and informative papers, is in a small museum in Liège itself (one of the city’s many museums), and is part of the annals of the city’s tribulations which have been preserved. The text of the letter may have lost a little in my translation, but I hope I have captured the spirit.’ The letter followed: