sort of woman who’s capable of blackmail.’ I stood up again. ‘I must get hold of Malcolm.’
‘I do wish you’d have a brandy, old chap. No bishop should try to survive this sort of crisis on sherry alone,’ said Jack solicitously, but I was already rushing off in search of a telephone.
Malcolm proved to be out. I phoned Nigel Farr in Starmouth but he was out too. Finally I tried to speak to Lyle but without success. In frustration I returned to my host.
‘Maybe I should talk to Christie’s and try to arrange for the books to be held back,’ I said. ‘When’s the auction?’
‘I don’t know, but it can’t be imminent because Mary-Lou’s still working on the catalogue. Look, toss back the Tio and let’s eat before you pass out as the result of shock and lack of nourishment.’
We took our places in the dining-room. In the interval between the mulligatawny soup and the roast beef I retired to the telephone again and this time I found Malcolm at home.
‘It can’t possibly be true,’ was his reaction to the news.
‘I’m afraid Jack’s sources really do suggest this isn’t just a preposterous rumour. What do you think’s going on?’
‘A financial mess a mile high, but what beats me, Charles, is how Aysgarth imagines he can get away with this scheme! Does he really think he can sell the St Anselm manuscript on the quiet? As soon as the catalogue’s issued, all the art correspondents will be trumpeting the news in the press!’
‘Meanwhile I’m baffled by the Canons’ silence. Do you think they know nothing of this? I mean, is such ignorance by a Chapter actually possible?’
‘Must be. If they knew, they‘d have tipped us off.’
‘But how can he keep them in ignorance when under the Cathedral statutes he can’t do anything without their consent?’
‘Oh, he wouldn’t let the statutes bother him! Think of how he commissioned that pornographic sculpture single-handed in 1963 – the sculptress only had to bat her eyelashes at him over the dry martinis, and immediately all memory of the Cathedral statutes was wiped from his mind! The truth is Aysgarth’s quite capable of acting on his own and then bullying the Canons into ratifying his actions later.’
‘At least there’s no woman involved this time.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
The operator intervened to ask for more money. ‘Talk to you later,’ I said to Malcolm, and replaced the receiver.
Returning to the dining-room I found the roast beef waiting for me alongside a glass of claret. ‘Sorry,’ I said to Jack. ‘I’ll now stop wrecking our lunch.’
‘I rather think I was the one who did the wrecking. How many strokes did the Archdeacon have?’
‘He somehow managed to stay conscious. Look, Jack, can I ask you to sit on this story for a day or two while I find out exactly what’s going on? I suppose it’s always possible that there’s an innocent explanation.’
‘You mean maybe there’s no financial mess and that Aysgarth’s merely taken a dislike to priceless medieval manuscripts?’
‘I mean,’ I said severely as he shook with laughter, ‘that Douglas’s chum at Christie’s could have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Someone might have said to him: “Forget the St Anselm manuscript,” and he might have thought the sentence was: “We’ll get the St Anselm manuscript.” Maybe the Dean and Chapter are only disposing of a few books of minimal importance.’
‘All right, old chap, check the story at your end, but make sure you keep me posted – and make sure you don’t delay too long or you’ll have all the hounds of Fleet Street baying at your door. Much better for you and everyone else connected with the Cathedral if those vulgar beasts are tastefully scooped by the Church Gazette.’
But before he could sketch further details of this nightmare, I diverted the conversation into another channel.
V
My afternoon committee meeting should have been of interest to me because it concerned my special subject, religious education, but by that time I hardly felt capable of concentrating on it. The committee’s title was The Church of England’s Working Party on Education in Theological Colleges, known as CEWPET (even as CUPID by the facetious new Bishop of Radbury), and I was the chairman. The meeting that day was to discuss an interim report which I was due to make to the Church Assembly later that month, and I intended to announce my unswerving belief that the purpose of theological colleges was to train men for the priesthood by giving them a thorough grounding in Christian history, doctrine, literature and liturgy so that they could proclaim the Gospel cogently and conduct a well-ordered service of worship. This aim might seem very obvious to an outsider, but within the Church fierce debates raged about reforming the traditional syllabus. It was all part of the general debate about how far the Church should modernise itself in order to speak intelligibly to twentieth-century man.
My opponent that day was inevitably going to be that most tiresome of my liberal opponents, the new Bishop of Radbury, whom I now knew was called Sunbeam, and I was far from surprised when, true to form, he made a shamefully florid speech in response to my opening remarks. As far as I could judge, he seemed to be advocating that we should all return to the educational standards of first-century Palestine.
‘… and why not abolish all exams? What’s the point of ordinands cramming their heads with facts which are irrelevant to this day and age? Who cares now about the quarrels of the Early Church? Would our Lord Jesus Christ have passed the university exams in theology? Would he even have passed Religious Knowledge at A-level? Why, I bet he wouldn’t even have wasted time sitting the exam! He’d have been out there in the world caring for people, relating to them, sympathising with them about poverty – political oppression – sexual injustice – oh, and while we’re on the subject of sex, I think we should bear in mind the inevitable ordination of women and put an end to this nonsense about making the theological colleges into single-sex ghettos like the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. It’s my firm belief that women –’
‘No, really, Leslie,’ I interrupted, reflecting that Lyle would have been worrying by this time about my blood pressure, ‘before you start putting cooking and needlework on the curriculum, I’m going to rein you in. We’re still a long way from ordaining women, and fascinating though it may be to picture Our Lord wearing jeans and kicking the educational system in the teeth, I think we should face the fact that if Our Lord were here today he’d preach the Kingdom of God, just as he did two thousand years ago – he’d preach the absolute truths which never change, not the current fashions which are ephemeral. Now, if we can turn to the statistics showing the decline in candidates for A-level –’
‘Excuse me, Bishop,’ interposed the one woman on the committee, a thin woman draped in purple, ‘but I find these graphs confusing.’
‘Women can never understand graphs,’ I said, in such a state of irritation by this time that I failed to think before I spoke. ‘I’ve noticed that before.’
‘I must say, Bishop, I find that a surprisingly offensive remark, particularly coming from a man of your distinction!’
‘I do apologise, Miss
