“You went to morning Communion?” said Arthur.
“I’ve been going every morning. It’s in St. Dunstan’s Chapel, which thanks to you, I know was originally a fifteenth-century chantry chapel dedicated to Bishop Draper. It’s tiny—it only fits about five of us, but it’s so beautiful with the fan-vaulted ceiling. It’s like a miniature cathedral. Anyway, they have Morning Prayer in the Epiphany Chapel on one side of the quire and Communion right after in St. Dunstan’s Chapel on the other side. So Arthur can go to Morning Prayer without ever knowing that I’m quietly praying just a few yards away before the Communion service starts.”
“I had no idea,” said Arthur.
“My point exactly,” said Bethany.
“The things about which Arthur has no idea are without number,” said David.
“Anyway, the dean was celebrating this morning and afterward I had a nice long chat with her over coffee and we happened to touch on the subject of your manuscript.”
“And she liked it?”
“She said there might be a few revisions and possibly a bit of trimming, but that could wait until the photos are selected. I gather the precentor has been put in charge of that.”
“Of course he has,” said Arthur, rolling his eyes.
“Apparently,” said Bethany, “Teresa has a friend who’s a professional photographer and she invited her down from London for the party on Friday and this woman has agreed to bring all her equipment and spend a few days shooting the cathedral. I suppose we’ll all meet her on Friday.”
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, “but how will we meet her on Friday?”
“At Teresa’s party,” said Oscar.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” said Arthur.
“And my point is proven,” said David.
“She told me she invited you,” said Oscar.
“Have you stopped checking your e-mail again, Arthur?” asked Bethany. “He never checks his e-mail.”
“Who in God’s name is Teresa?”
“The precentor’s sister,” said Oscar.
“Why does everyone know people but me?”
“Because,” said David, “you’re antisocial and stay hidden away in the library all the time.”
“Oh, thank God you said that, David,” said Bethany. “I was afraid I was going to have to be the one to tell him.”
This comment brought a roar of laughter from David and even a chuckle from Oscar, but Arthur felt chastened. Was he really so far removed from the world?
“Now,” said David, “I propose we move forward with the reading. I believe Bethany has volunteered to fill in for Oscar, who was to have been our host.”
“Thank you, David,” said Bethany, taking a seat and pulling a book out of her handbag. “I’ve brought a little something that I think you’ll find interesting. This is from a book called Lives of Twelve Christian Men. You see, Arthur has convinced me that actual books can sometimes be worth reading. And on rare occasions they might even include information unavailable on my laptop.”
“I think you misunderstand the purpose of our readings,” said Arthur. “They are meant to amuse, or at the very least to entertain.”
“Come now,” said David. “You don’t think Lives of Twelve Christian Men will be entertaining?”
“You said you were looking for it yourself this afternoon,” said Oscar.
“Not for entertainment exactly.”
“I’m sure I shall find it greatly entertaining,” said David, “especially if it annoys Arthur.”
“If you gentlemen would care to stop bickering, I can explain why I chose this particular volume. You, Arthur, may find it pleasant to rest on your laurels after completing the soon to be best-selling Visitor’s Guide to Barchester Cathedral, but as far as I’m concerned, we still have a mystery to solve involving a certain missing manuscript—a manuscript, I might add, that could very well force you to rewrite your entire opening section when it tells you the story of St. Ewolda. And Bishop Gladwyn’s biography holds some tantalizing clues about that manuscript.”
Arthur had been afraid for a moment that Bethany would mention the Grail, but she kept his confidence.
“I’ve read Gladwyn’s biography a dozen times,” said Arthur. “There’s nothing in there about a lost manuscript.”
“How did he ever become a researcher?” said Bethany to David.
“Search me.”
“You have to read between the lines, Arthur. We know there is a manuscript missing from the library. You guessed that it went missing on the night of the Nazi bombing, and maybe it did. But who is the last person we know saw the manuscript? Bishop Gladwyn, who included it in his inventory. So what does the biography tell us about Bishop Gladwyn? Some very interesting things, as it turns out.” Bethany picked up the volume of Twelve Christian Men. The section on Gladwyn bristled with sticky notes.
“You’ve been busy,” said Arthur, nodding toward the pink and yellow place markers.
“Evelyn fell asleep this afternoon and I had an hour or two. The biography’s only thirty pages long.”
“Evelyn?”
“My mother,” said Oscar.
Arthur felt admonished again. He had been friends with Oscar for decades and hadn’t even remembered his mother’s Christian name.
“So,” said Bethany, “I’m going to skip around, because I’ve marked the important bits—or at least the important bits for solving this little mystery.”
“More than a little mystery, I’d say,” said Oscar. “Arthur if you and Bethany can recover the lost Book of Ewolda, that would be something.”
“OK, a little background to start with. Gladwyn was the son of a country rector in rural Barsetshire, someplace called Uffley, but he apparently came to the cathedral often as a boy. He went off to Oxford, took his degree at Lazarus College, and then came back and served as curate for his father until the old man died in 1863. Then he became rector himself, but his eyes seemed to always be on the cathedral. In 1865, he became examining chaplain to Bishop Bridewell and the next year he became a canon of the cathedral. He hired a curate for Uffley and moved to Barchester. Then, in 1870, he picked up another job—I love the way these Victorian clergymen would hold all these different livings, rake in the money, and then pay curates a pittance to do all the work.”
“Actually,” said Arthur, “that practice was dying out by the 1870s. It was the eighteenth century that—”
“Hush, Arthur,” said David.
Arthur hushed.
“Anyway, guess what living he was given. I’ll give you a hint—tiny, almost no money associated with it, but also almost no responsibilities. Plus, tremendously important to our little mystery.”
“St. Ewolda’s of the Missing Manuscript?” said David.
“Practically. He was made rector of St. Cuthbert’s.”
“Why should that make any difference?” said Oscar.