“Has Daniel been sent down from nursery school?” said Arthur. Daniel was Gwyn’s energetic three-year-old.
“No,” said Gwyn with a laugh, “but it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s become overly fond of kissing girls, apparently.”
“Ah, to be three and in love!”
“We heard from the Heritage Lottery Fund this morning. Our application was rejected.”
“Astounding,” said Arthur, shaking his head. “I suppose they think it’s more important to build a museum of thread bobbins or a center for the study of Cornish pasties.”
“I thought perhaps I could leave a mark as dean,” said Gwyn.
“You leave a mark every day,” said Arthur.
“But not like this would have been.”
For years, Gwyneth had been seeking funding to rebuild the Lady Chapel, destroyed by German bombs in 1941. Under her direction, the chapter and a local firm of architects had spent three years preparing a plan for a chapel that was modern in design—built of local oak, steel, and huge glass panels extending from floor to ceiling on three sides and looking out onto a surrounding garden. Gwyn and the architects had visited several cathedrals as they searched for inspiration, and she had been especially struck by the juxtaposition of the modern cathedral at Coventry with the bombed-out ruins of the medieval building.
“I suppose it’s just as well,” she said. “Half the community loved the design and the other half hated it.”
“I despise modern architecture,” said Arthur. “You know with what a searing passion I loathe the so-called campus of my current employer. But I love your chapel. It will be what contemporary architecture ought to be and so seldom is.”
“The precentor said it looked like a cheap conservatory on a seaside holiday cottage.”
“Yes, well the precentor is a slab of Gorgonzola.”
“Thank you, P. G. Wodehouse.”
“A pleasure,” said Arthur.
“I thought you liked the precentor.”
“I never said I liked the man. I just like the style of worship he brings to the cathedral.”
“I find all the incense and chanting so . . .” Gwyn trailed off.
“You were going to say Roman, weren’t you?” said Arthur.
“Actually I was going to say ancient,” said the dean.
“What better place to keep alive ancient practices than Barchester, where Christianity has been practiced for twelve hundred years.”
“Has it?” said the dean. “I wouldn’t know. You see, the man who is working on the cathedral guidebook has missed his deadline again.”
“In a cathedral with twelve centuries of history, what difference could a few months make?”
“How long have you been working on that guide, Arthur? Because it does seem like something approaching a millennium.”
“I thought we were talking about the Gorgonzola,” said Arthur with disdain.
“Don’t you care for Gorgonzola, Mr. Prescott?” said the dean, and they spent the rest of their walk debating the relative merits of English, French, and Italian cheeses.
“I’m truly sorry about the chapel, Gwyn,” said Arthur as they stood once again in the close outside the deanery, Mag and Nunc circling round them. “Is there no other way to raise the money?”
“If we do it properly, and follow all the rules about the restoration of ancient monuments—do a full archaeological dig and that sort of thing—we’ll need something like two and a half million pounds. So far the generous community of Barchester and our paltry stream of tourists have mustered about a hundred thousand.”
“Did they say why the application was refused?”
“They said they would have preferred an application for an educational or multipurpose building. They don’t want to fund what they call ‘superfluous worship space’ in a cathedral that can’t fill the pews it has.”
“Superfluous!” said Arthur. “Let them come to Compline on a moonlit night in your glass chapel and then talk about ‘superfluous.’”
“What would I do without you?” said Gwyn, smiling and squeezing Arthur’s hand.
“First of all you might have a new cathedral guide by now,” said Arthur. “And second, you might go on na?vely believing that Brie or Romano or chèvre are superior to a good old English Cheddar.”
—
That afternoon, Arthur had a blessed opportunity to leave work early, as the two o’clock meeting of the Campus Sustainability Committee was canceled owing to the fact that all the committee members (excepting Arthur) were going to Manchester for the Conference on Green Technology and Construction. He took the number 42 bus to the city center and walked the short distance to the cathedral, bypassing the path that led to his own cottage for the pleasures of his favorite room in the world.
Arthur had worked in the Bodleian and in most of the Oxford college libraries as an undergraduate. One year he had spent his Easter holidays ensconced in a reading room at the British Library. He had toured the libraries of stately homes and visited fellow book collectors in their own private havens. But nothing compared, in his mind, to what awaited him at the top of the winding stone staircase off the cloister of Barchester Cathedral. The few tourists who strayed far enough from London to visit Barchester rarely noticed the narrow wooden door just past the much larger entry to the chapter house and never suspected what treasures that door hid. Now Arthur turned his key in the lock and stepped inside. He flicked the light on, pulled the door shut, and began to climb.
Slightly breathless from the steep steps, he emerged at the top of the stairs into a long, high-ceilinged room that ran almost the entire length of the east side of the cloister. He stood, by perpetual invitation of the dean, in the library of Barchester Cathedral. The library was overseen by Oscar Dimsdale, a local schoolteacher who volunteered in a variety of capacities around the cathedral. Arthur and Oscar had met in Barchester the summer Arthur was twelve, and had been best friends ever since. Oscar worked odd hours, coming to the library whenever he had the time. He had no training as a librarian, but he kept the books dusted and made arrangements to allow access to any members of the community who wanted to use the collection. Few did. When Arthur had begun working on his guide to Barchester Cathedral some years ago, Oscar, with the permission of the dean, had given him his own key. That Arthur had leave to come to this room whenever he liked seemed a privilege of unparalleled fortune.