“I saw him on Graham Norton,” said Miss Robarts, “and he’s a showman, that’s what he is. He’s like one of those American TV preachers. And don’t kid yourself—he’s not building this museum to convince people to believe. He’s building it so that people who already do believe can feel even more self-righteous. If he tells people they’re looking at the apple core from the Garden of Eden, they’ll buy it.”
“Yeah,” said Miss Stanhope, “but if they’ll believe whatever he says, why spend all that money actually looking for real artifacts? Why not just plop an apple core in a glass case and start charging admission?”
“He’s a showman, yes,” said Mr. Crawley, “but I think this guy genuinely believes he’s going to find authentic biblical artifacts. And not all of what he’s doing is crazy.”
“What’s he doing that’s not crazy?” asked Miss Robarts, crossing her arms in front of her chest in the way she always did when she was ready to pick a fight with Mr. Crawley.
“Well, the manuscripts, for one thing,” said Mr. Crawley.
Arthur had been letting the conversation sail past him, and vaguely considering whether it was worth his trouble to try to steer his students back into the waters of English literature, but at the mention of manuscripts he suddenly began to listen.
“That’s why he has representatives in Barchester and Winchester and Salisbury and everywhere else,” said Mr. Crawley. “He wants to digitize every pre-Reformation religious manuscript. And he’s not even that particular, I hear. Apparently wherever he sends his . . .”
“His minions,” said Miss Stanhope.
“Wherever they go,” said Mr. Crawley, “they’re digitizing all the manuscripts, no matter what the subject. And he’s going to put it all on the Web for free. Can you imagine what a resource that will be for scholars?”
“Yes,” said Miss Robarts, “it’s true that even the looniest lunatic might do something worthwhile once in a while. But do you know why he’s digitizing all those manuscripts? And do you know why he’s starting in England?” The others looked at her blankly. “Because he’s looking for the Holy Grail.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Arthur, now fully attentive to the conversation.
“I read it in the Daily Mail,” said Miss Robarts. “They said one of the artifacts he’s looking for is the Holy Grail. He doesn’t just believe the Bible. He believes the whole King Arthur story, too—Joseph of Arimathea bringing the Grail to England, Galahad gallivanting around looking for it. And Jesse Johnson thinks that even though no one has succeeded in finding it in two thousand years, he’s going to uncover it with his billion dollars.”
“The Holy Grail?” said Miss Stanhope sarcastically. “I suppose next he’ll be looking for Cinderella’s glass slipper.”
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, shoving his chair back from the table. “Something has come up and I have to . . . I have to go.”
“Are you all right, Arthur?” asked Miss Stanhope. “You look ill.”
“Miss Robarts, perhaps you could lead the discussion,” said Arthur, shoving his papers into his bag. “The topic, as I’m sure you will recall, was religion in early-nineteenth-century fiction. You seem to be off to a good start. I’ll see you next week.”
Arthur rushed from the room on not completely false pretenses. He did feel ill. The idea that Bethany had been lying to him all this time made his stomach churn. He could picture it: how she carefully staged their first meeting in the chapter house so she could find out everything he knew about Bishop Gladwyn’s portrait and its association with the Grail. She probably already believed the Grail was hidden in Barchester. Somehow Bethany and this sleazy-sounding billionaire coming into Arthur’s town, looking for his dream so that they could take it back to America, made the Grail that much more real to Arthur. And it made Bethany, with whom he had been trying so hard to be friends, exactly what he had feared all along: the devil prowling about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. It was up to Arthur to resist her.
—
Arthur made his way straight to the library, ready to confront Bethany, only to discover the room locked and empty. After letting himself in and locking the door behind him, he set his bag by his usual table and crept over to Bethany’s digitization station. The table was covered with cords and metal boxes. Her purse was gone, along with her laptop, but on the floor, leaning against one of the table legs, was a canvas carrier bag with the words “American Library Association” printed on the side. Without touching the bag, Arthur peeked in. A couple of books, a few magazines, a thick sheaf of papers bound with plastic rings, and a small notebook—hard to tell much without . . . was he really going to do this? Was Arthur going to rummage through Bethany’s things looking for evidence that she was . . . What? A liar? A spy? The devil prowling about? The door to the cloister was locked, he thought, and although he felt considerably worse about going through Bethany’s things without her permission than about the possibility of being caught, the security of the room pushed him over the edge. He picked up the canvas bag and dumped its contents onto an empty table.
Arthur was not given to dramatic gasps, and the sound of air sucking into his mouth as he looked at what fell onto the table made him even more shocked than he already was. Lying in front of him was a rather tatty copy of the same book of Arthurian legends he had loved as a child—only the color of the binding was different. As Arthur well knew, the American edition had been published in green cloth, not blue. In it, he knew, was Arthur Rackham’s illustration of the Sangreal, an illustration Bethany must have seen. But did she see it before or after he had shown her the Collier portrait of Bishop Gladwyn—the portrait from which Rackham had copied his vision of the Grail? Arthur gently opened the olive-green cover. In the upper right corner of the endpaper, in a childish hand, were written the words, “Bethany’s Book,” and below that, in the center of the page, in a more practiced hand, “To Bethany, from Aunt Caroline, Merry Christmas 1999.” She had known about the Rackham connection all along, and yet she had stood there in front of the portrait with Arthur not saying a word.