“Someday, my friend, someday,” said Oscar, and disappeared down the stairs.
There was much about the eleven o’clock service that kept Arthur away. First and foremost was the crowd—he felt more connected to the cathedral and its history with three people at Compline than he ever could with five hundred. The larger service also meant it was held in the nave, with a modern altar in the crossing. Arthur preferred either the high altar, used for services in the quire, or the peacefulness of one of the side chapels, used for Morning Prayer and Compline. Oscar, of course, would have been quick to point out that the nine o’clock Eucharist on Sundays was celebrated at the high altar. But Arthur carefully avoided services that featured either a sermon or Communion. The first he simply did not care to hear. If the dean had anything interesting to say, she would say it to Arthur on one of their morning walks; if someone else was preaching, particularly the precentor, Arthur could certainly do without. As for Communion—it was the only rite that made Arthur self-conscious about his unbelief. He could not, in good conscience, partake, but not to do so seemed a much too public declaration of his lack of faith. So, as the sermon droned on (it was the precentor this morning) and as the congregants waited their turn at the Communion rail, Arthur read the rest of his manuscript, making occasional marks with the red pen, keenly aware of those two keys staring up at him from his table.
—
“OK, put that thing away,” said Bethany, bursting into the library with an energy Arthur could only attribute to youth and a good night’s sleep. “We’re going to go searching for a lost medieval manuscript full of Grail secrets. I see Oscar brought you the keys.”
“How was the sermon?”
“Good, actually. I think I’m adapting to the notion that a sermon isn’t thirty minutes of screaming and arm waving. There were no roars from the crowd like my dad gets sometimes, but he made some valid points. The precentor is a very thoughtful preacher.”
“He’s good at telling other people what to do, you mean.”
“Now, now, Arthur. If you’re not going to come to the service, you can’t criticize the preacher.”
“I can criticize him; I just can’t criticize his preaching.”
“Come on, we can argue in the car. I want to get going.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“Neither do I. David is loaning us his.” She dangled a set of car keys in front of Arthur as if he were the type to be lured by shiny objects.
“I thought we might walk,” he said. “It’s a lovely day.”
“It’s five miles, Arthur. And then we’d have to walk back. I may seem chipper but I’m still exhausted because someone made me pull an all-nighter on Friday.”
“Fine,” said Arthur, pushing back from the table. “Since you got the keys from Oscar and a car from David, I’m not sure why you even need me to come.”
“I have to have someone around to tell me I’m doing everything wrong,” said Bethany.
“In that case, I’m your man.”
Once Arthur had extricated David’s car from the narrow alley behind the bookshop, the drive to Plumstead Episcopi took about fifteen minutes, but that was long enough for Bethany to read aloud from her latest purchase.
“What is that?” said Arthur as she drew a small green book out of her handbag.
“Black’s Picturesque Guide to Barsetshire,” said Bethany. “Second edition, 1870. I bought it from David last week—since there seems to be a dearth of new guidebooks about this place. It has a section on Plumstead Episcopi.”
“What about my history of Plumstead?” said Arthur.
“Oh, don’t be so self-centered, Arthur. You of all people know how much fun it is to read from an old book. Here’s what it says:
Few parish churches in England are in better repair, or better worth keeping so, than that at Plumstead Episcopi; and yet it is built in a faulty style: the body of the church is low—so low, that the nearly flat leaden roof would be visible from the churchyard, were it not for the carved parapet with which it is surrounded. It is cruciform, though the transepts are irregular, one being larger than the other; and the tower is much too high in proportion to the church. But the stonework is beautiful; the mullions of the windows and the thick tracery of the Gothic workmanship is as rich as fancy can desire.
“When did you say your guidebook was published?” said Arthur.
“In 1870.”
“Two years before the interior of the church was done over by George Gilbert Scott. Do you like High Gothic décor?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen High Gothic décor,” said Bethany. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have it at Jubilee Christian Fellowship Church.”
“Do I detect a hint of cynicism about your home church?”
“Everybody has to find God in her own way,” said Bethany. “I’m just realizing that he speaks to me more in Evensong and choral music and soaring arches than in theater seats and projection screens and rock bands. It doesn’t make me right and it doesn’t make the two thousand people who come to hear my father preach every week wrong. I just think maybe we’re . . . different.”
Arthur turned off the paved road onto a narrow gravel lane that wound for a half mile or so through thick woods before emerging into a small clearing. Before them stood St. Nicholas, the parish church of Plumstead Episcopi. The churchyard was surrounded by a low stone wall, and grass and weeds grew wildly around the gravestones, many of which leaned at alarming angles.
“They usually tidy up before the summer festival,” said Arthur as he pushed the lych-gate through the tangle of flora. He stomped down the grass as he made his way to the south door, hoping to smooth a path for Bethany, who was still wearing a cheerful-looking church dress and a pair of shoes not suited for country walking.
Arthur turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door, and they stepped inside.
“Wow!” said Bethany.
There was almost no stained glass, and sunshine streamed through the windows. On the walls above and to the side of the chancel arch was a triptych of frescoes depicting the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. The precise detail in the flowing hair and garments of Christ and the apostles gave the paintings a Pre-Raphaelite air. The floor of the aisle and chancel were tiled in terra-cotta, black, ivory, dull yellow, and pale blue in elaborate geometric patterns. Every surface dripped with color—the paintings, mosaics of the apostles set into the wall behind the altar, even the organ pipes, vividly decorated with fleurs-de-lis of gold against a rust-red background.
“It seems kind of . . . not that I know that much about it, but it seems Catholic,” said Bethany, after she had stood in silence for a moment or two.