The only way Arthur could avoid Bethany was to avoid the library, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do that for long, but he could last a day or two, and perhaps by then he would be over his foolishness. On Sunday, she hadn’t come to Evensong, so she missed a bit of unexpected drama. Halfway through the Magnificat there was a snapping sound from somewhere high above and all the electric lights flickered out. The choir continued singing in the diminished light, even as the organ, which used an electric blower to fill its bellows, wheezed into silence. When Arthur returned for Compline, there were several electricians’ vans parked outside the west door.
On Monday, Arthur arrived at Evensong at the last possible minute and took a seat on the opposite side of the quire from his usual spot and as far away from where Bethany sat as he could. Power had been restored, so the organist was able to play a postlude, during which Arthur slipped out, though not before glancing over to see her looking at him with a quizzical expression. He was half afraid to take his usual Tuesday morning walk with Gwyn. Bethany was now apparently friends with everyone in Barchester—what if she showed up as well?
Gwyn was a few minutes late, but she arrived at the gate to the water meadows alone, save for the marauding Mag and Nunc, and they set out on their usual circuit. Arthur was so anxious to keep secret his feelings for Bethany that he decided to distract himself by at least hinting to Gwyn about his other secret. It had felt good confessing his interest in the Grail to Bethany; perhaps telling Gwyn would feel the same way.
“Bethany Davis tells me you have seen the Nanteos Cup. I never told you this, but I actually have a . . . well, a fascination with Grail lore.”
“Do you believe the Nanteos Cup is the Holy Grail?” asked Gwyn.
“No,” said Arthur. “It dates from the fourteenth century, I think, but—”
“Well, then,” interrupted Gwyn, “I guess it’s good I never mentioned it to you. My experience with that cup is a deep and intimate part of my faith. It has nothing to do with science or experts on antiquarian artifacts. It’s the reason I became a priest, and I don’t need you scoffing at it.”
Arthur knew better than to continue this line of conversation. As much as he loved debating with Gwyn, he could tell from her tone that this was not a topic for discussion. They walked for a minute or two in tense silence before he spoke again.
“Power restored, I see,” he said.
“Much more than power has been restored, Arthur,” said Gwyn. Arthur could tell by her tone that the awkwardness of the moment had passed—that both had silently agreed that neither needed to justify either faith or a lack thereof. “I should have rung you, but things were a bit hectic, as you can imagine. There’s a little gift for you and Oscar in the library—for all of us really. One of the electricians was prowling around in the gallery above the north aisle following some ancient piece of wiring and he stumbled upon a wooden crate.”
Arthur felt a quiver of excitement, and for just a moment he thought she would say, “The Holy Grail was boxed, labeled, and sitting in the rafters of the cathedral.” But the Grail, it seemed, was a topic best avoided this morning.
“Let me guess,” he said. “The bones of St. Ewolda.”
“Nothing quite that dramatic,” said Gwyn. “It was full of vellum book covers.”
“The covers that were torn off the manuscripts during the Blitz?” said Arthur.
“Oscar thinks a lot of things were stored up there during the repairs after the war and that crate got left behind.”
If there was ever a double-edged sword, thought Arthur, this was it. With the covers restored, the manuscripts would be much more attractive to Sotheby’s, and therefore more likely to disappear forever from the cathedral library. On the other hand, this was the restoration, for now at least, of a part of Barchester’s history.
“So I suppose now the idea of an auction is even more enticing to the chapter,” said Arthur.
“That brings me to the other news,” said Gwyn. “The chapter may have to decide about selling the manuscripts sooner than we thought. We’ve actually had an offer.”
“You’ve had an offer? For which one?”
“For the whole collection. Quite a generous offer when compared to the estimates given by Mr. Mangum.”
“And what is the source of this generous offer?”
“It comes from the gentleman who is financing the digitization project,” said Gwyn. “An American named Jesse Johnson. Apparently, he heard the cathedral is in financial straits and he thought this would be a way he could help out.”
This wasn’t the plan, thought Arthur, feeling a rage boiling up inside of him. Bethany wasn’t supposed to sell the manuscripts; she was just supposed to get Jesse Johnson in a generous mood. How the hell could she do this? Make him be in love with her one moment and infuriate him the next. Because of that woman, the Barchester manuscripts would probably end up in some gaudy mansion in America and he would be left with a glowing screen on which to read the ancient books that he had touched and smelled and stroked and loved for so many years. He was trying to imagine how he could even face her again, when a spasm of guilt shot through him. It wasn’t her fault, he realized—it was his. He had suggested she ask Jesse Johnson to give financial aid to the cathedral. And surely she hadn’t suggested he buy the manuscripts—he just wanted something in exchange for his twenty million dollars. Bethany had done Arthur a favor and the result had been disastrous. Arthur had never imagined that guilt and relief could be so intertwined. Bethany was restored in his esteem, but Arthur may have destroyed the very thing he so wanted to protect. And then he had another terrifying thought—what if Jesse Johnson really was looking for the Holy Grail? Maybe he had seen the Gladwyn portrait and the marginalia in the digitized version of the Barchester Breviary and suspected that the manuscripts held clues about the Grail. If Jesse Johnson, or one of his minions, found the Grail and spirited it out of Barchester, Arthur would never forgive himself
“Surely . . . ,” he said, “surely the chapter isn’t considering selling the manuscripts to America?”
“It’s a very generous offer, Arthur. In fact, it’s almost the exact amount needed to repair the north transept and build the Lady Chapel.” Of course it was the exact amount, thought Arthur. He himself had as much as told the exact amount to that evangelical grave robber.
“And it has to be all of them?” said Arthur. “Even the breviary and the Gospel of John?”