Clerical Errors

by D M Greenwood

  ‘Gerald, I wonder if I might trespass on your good nature?’ Julia incredulously heard the Archdeacon say to the Dean, the tone, which was mellifluous, floating up the elegant staircase.

  On the other hand their subordinates – that large body of laymen and women who, as assistants or typists, seemed necessary to support what Ian had called the one per cent – addressed these senior clergy by their titles to their faces and even amongst themselves referred to their superiors in this way. At first, Julia had suspected irony but, though she had listened carefully, she did not think, as yet, that she detected any. They were taken, then, were they, these clergy, at their own evaluation? Nothing in Australian society nor in the easy commerce between don and undergraduate which she had witnessed and occasionally shared with Michael at Cambridge, had prepared her for this. The superiority conferred by money or that of being an expert in a field she had glimpsed and credited, but on what, she wondered, apart from their rank, did the superiority of these senior clergy rest? Was it, perhaps, that they were of higher moral virtue than other men? Julia set out to test this hypothesis. She thought, child of an experimental scientist that she was, that she would make the test for herself and not take the easy way out of asking those experts in all matters Anglican, Theodora and Ian.

  It looked as though at least some progress in that experiment might be able to be made soon. It was apparent to Julia that her work was poor. The secretarial course had been very much a crash one. She lacked experience and had no one to advise her. Her typing was slow and riddled with mistakes, the lay–out eccentric. The first secretary, Miss Coldharbour, Canon Wheeler’s immaculate conception, as Ian called her, had on the first day coolly returned Julia’s first batch of letters with mistakes marked in a soft shorthand pencil which proved difficult to eradicate cleanly with a rubber when the corrections had been made. The finished effect was grubby. Miss Coldharbour had glanced at them fastidiously, scarcely concealing a shudder. The same thing happened the following day. Julia felt she might not make the end of the week if this went on. Her, never great, self–confidence was oozing away. She wondered if Miss Coldharbour had the power to sack her or whether she would simply recommend this course of action to Canon Wheeler. Julia resolved to double–check everything she typed today and stay late, if need be, to get up to date. The amount of work was formidable. The idea that a diocesan office might be a gentle or leisurely introduction to office practice was wide of the mark.

  She sorted out the in–tray left for her by Miss Coldharbour: audio tapes for Canon Wheeler, drafts for Miss Coldharbour and a plain manilla folder marked ‘urgent’. She opened it and read the note on top.

  I require two copies of this by noon today

  Wednesday July 8th. CVW.

  Julia glanced at the script and her heart sank. Up to now she had typed only audio tapes for Canon Wheeler and so had no experience of his handwriting. The only legible thing in it was the peremptory note about when it was required. The other five pages, Julia saw, were all illegible. It appeared to be a sermon, of which, unlike a letter, she could not guess the content. The pages swam before her eyes. Here and there a word emerged; she thought she detected ‘the’, ‘and’ and ‘hope’ through the fog of her panic. Who would know how to decipher Canon Wheeler’s execrable hand? She dare not ask Miss Coldharbour. It did not seriously occur to her to approach Canon Wheeler himself. In desperation she thought of Ian and Theodora. Surely they must be familiar with his writing? She took the folder and shot upstairs from her own tiny cell at one end of the double cube. Tentatively she tapped on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Theodora’s firm voice.

  Julia slid into the cramped quarters in which Ian and Theodora worked. Ian was not there. Theodora looked up and Julia explained her dilemma.

  ‘It does look a bit like early cuneiform first time round,’ said Theodora pleasantly. ‘But actually, once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s not too bad. He leaves out the vowels. If you notice, when he speaks he tends to run words together towards the end of sentences and he does the same when he writes.’

  Julia had not noticed.

  ‘If you leave it with me for an hour, I’ll pencil in the vowels and divide up the words at the end of the sentences.’

  A premonitionary reluctance swerved through Julia’s overwrought emotions, but she could see no rational reason to refuse.

  ‘Fine, thank you. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to type up. May I look in about eleven?’

  She clattered back to her office and pounded away at the audio letters for an hour and a half, broken only by a trip to the kitchen for coffee. At a quarter to eleven she galloped back up to the attic room. Neither Theodora nor the script were to be seen. Panic surged through her. Where the hell had Theodora left the script? Where was Theodora? She looked again over Theodora’s desk. Absolutely no trace of the script. She ran downstairs. On the landing outside Canon Wheeler’s door she came face to face with Miss Coldharbour.

  ‘Canon Wheeler would like to see you in his office at once,’ she said distantly. ‘Knock once and enter.’

  Julia could think of no appropriate reply. In fact, when she came to consider, she never felt that there was any reply that she could make to Miss Coldharbour, whose remarks frequently had the air of concluding conversations rather than opening them.

  Julia took two deep breaths, felt infinitely worse and tapped on the mahogany panel of the door. She turned the handle and went in. Canon Wheeler was seated at his enormous desk in front of the ghastly picture of Marsyas. He did not look up as she advanced down the long and beautiful room. She stood in front of his desk.

  At exactly the right moment, just when Julia’s nervousness had reached its height, he looked up and fixed his prominent grey eyes on her, his handsome regular features flushed with temper.

  ‘Would you kindly explain to me why you have allowed a confidential document belonging to me to fall into the hands of a junior member of my staff?’

  He made it sound as though she had given his sermon to the messenger boy.

  Julia flushed deeply, ‘I’m extremely sorry …’

  Canon Wheeler had no intention of allowing her to say anything. He simply raised the volume of his voice slightly and continued as though she had not uttered.

  ‘You appear to be ignorant of the proper way to behave in an office of this kind. I do not feel that I should have to instruct even junior typists that my documents, all my documents, are entirely confidential.’

  ‘But,’ began Julia incredulously.

  ‘Please do not interrupt me. You will not in future, if you are to remain with us, allow any papers of mine entrusted to you to pass out of your care. Do I make myself clear?’

  Julia could trust herself only to nod.

  ‘Would you have the courtesy to answer me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Julia and added, ‘Sir.’

  Having disciplined his typist, Canon Wheeler felt much refreshed. He picked up his phone.

  ‘Gerald? I wonder if you’d care to wander up for a few minutes and we could perhaps move this matter of Gray on a bit? Rather than having the police putting their big feet in it all over the place.’

  He paused and laughed. ‘I had a word with the Chief Constable last night. He’s a bit worried about the Old Man.’ There was another pause. ‘Yes, yes, fine. See you in five minutes then.’

  He pushed the appropriate phone buttons and said incisively, ‘Rosamund, sherry for three at twelve fifteen sharp, here. And ask the Archdeacon to step up now, would you?’

  There was nothing Charles Wheeler liked better than issuing orders. He rightly felt that he did it well. He’d had plenty of experience of orders. His early years had been spent cringing under those of his terrifying and frequently drunken Scottish father. After a rather brutal schooling in Glasgow, he’d moved south with his, by now, widowed mother. Here, little by little, things had changed. The unnatural state of his early years had been reversed. He had managed to haul himself into a p
osition where he gave rather more and received rather fewer orders and proceeded to look around to see how he could get out of the insurance office where economic necessity had landed him and where he had learned only a flashy taste in clothes and stationery. Welcomed in his loneliness into the congregation of a lively evangelical parish church in a northern suburb of London, he had come to see how he might be finally delivered from inconsequence. He immersed himself in parish work and made himself indispensable to the overworked parish priest. The man showed his gratitude by recommending him to the Bishop for ordination. A mature scholarship to Oxford followed, where he acquired more refined snobberies than those afforded by the community of insurance clerks. The not very exacting demands of a theology degree gave him time to make a lot of useful Anglican friends. In fact, he made it a rule never to make any friend who could not be useful to him. He entirely lost his Scottish accent and, after theological college and ordination, preferment had been fast. A minor canonry at a minor cathedral and a chaplaincy to an incompetent bishop had finally produced the reward, at forty two years of age, of a residential canonry at a respectable cathedral. Canon Wheeler’s ambition was a bishopric before he was fifty. He had never heard anyone give more orders than his present Bishop and he dearly wanted to try his hand. The great thing, he decided, was not to get trapped in the cul de sac of being a suffragan.

  Canon Wheeler allowed his eye to wander around the handsome room lit by the full, secure English sunlight and gazed for a moment through the window at the spire of Medewich’s beautiful Cathedral. He was almost tempted to say a prayer of gratitude to the God who had brought him out of Egypt but his contented contemplation was interrupted by the opening of his office door. The soldierly figure, who, confident and elegant in light tweeds, now walked through it was that genuine article for which Canon Wheeler mistakenly thought himself possible to be taken. The Very Reverend Gerald Landsdown, Dean of Medewich, was a member of the cadet branch of the family of the Earl of Medewich and Markham. A competent scholar who had an inbred regard for the pastoral needs of country congregations, he was exactly suited to his place, upon which he never needed to insist, and its responsibilities, which he more than adequately fulfilled. What he thought of Canon Wheeler, if he thought of him at all, he had never, in his gentlemanly fashion, revealed to anyone. Such energy as he had to spare from his clerical duties was expended on the cultivation of orchids for which he enjoyed a national reputation. Today he was wearing a clerical collar, as was, more often than Canon Wheeler, his habit.

  ‘Ah, Gerald, do come in,’ said Canon Wheeler with real warmth. He knew how to value the genuine article, none better. The man’s cousin sat in the Lords with the Bishop. There could not be more genuine worth in human beings in Canon Wheeler’s judgement. Wheeler motioned him to an easy chair and made to put away the handsome leather–bound notebook in which he had been writing. After the Dean, Archdeacon Baggley crept in. Wheeler did not bother to look up.

  ‘How very kind of you to come so promptly,’ he said contemptuously, turning to his bookshelves.

  The Archdeacon reminded himself that an Archdeacon of ten years’ standing was senior to a residentiary Canon of three, but his reminder gave him, not for the first time, no comfort. ‘Hello, Gerald,’ he said looking for a kind word from someone.

  ‘Morning, Dick,’ said the Dean kindly.

  Wheeler, who was junior to them both, who had contrived to have the best set of rooms in the office and who had successfully requested both men to wait on him, cleared his throat to announce that he was ready to start the discussion. The Archdeacon stopped talking instantly and the Dean crossed his long legs.

  ‘I thought we might have a word about the Gray affair and try to move things on a little in that area,’ said Wheeler. Having coined and rehearsed the right phrases he never saw any reason why he should not use them several times, so he concluded, ‘We don’t, I take it, want the police putting their big feet in it all over the place.’

  ‘I understand Gray’s wife’s very cut up about it,’ said the Archdeacon and then flushed at his unfortunate choice of words.

  Wheeler, who never saw any reason not to punish the Archdeacon said, ‘I deprecate your choice of words, Dick.’

  The Archdeacon mumbled.

  ‘Of course this is a truly shocking affair,’ Wheeler continued in a tone proper for instructing young ordinands in the correct way to deal with the conventional tragedies of life. He was getting into his stride. ‘On the other hand, I think we all know that Gray had a problem.’ Wheeler paused meaningfully. ‘The question is, should we, for the good of the diocese, for the good indeed of the Church, keep knowledge of that problem out of the hands of the police or, at least, the press?’

  ‘Are we sure,’ said the Dean, ‘that Gray’s problem, if indeed he had one, is connected with his murder?’

  ‘There can be absolutely no doubt of that whatsoever,’ said Wheeler. ‘I can assure you I have it on the very best authority.’

  ‘Whose?’ said the Dean stung, by the emphasis of Wheeler’s tone, to testiness.

  ‘That, I very much regret Gerald, I can’t reveal even to you.’ Wheeler’s charming smile took the Dean’s intimacy and collusion for granted.

  ‘Do we know where Gray was killed?’ interposed the Archdeacon.

  Wheeler looked at him pityingly. He always pitied people who had to ask for information. ‘The Chief Constable was able to divulge to me that they think Gray was killed last Thursday night. The last time he was seen alive was after Evensong at his church at Markham cum Cumbermound.’

  ‘How long had the head been dead, if you see what I mean?’ the Dean inquired.

  ‘Apparently about eighteen hours,’ said the Archdeacon unexpectedly. Since the others seemed to expect it, he added, ‘Our cleaning lady’ – Canon Wheeler winced at the vulgarity – ‘Mrs Thrigg, told me. She had it from the police,’ he added defensively. Then, since this didn’t appear to be enough either he hurried on, ‘Her nephew is a police cadet. It’s not when I wondered about so much as where?’

  ‘I thought I had made that clear,’ said Wheeler with no attempt at all to disguise his contempt for the Archdeacon. ‘The police simply do not know.’

  The Dean looked thoughtful. ‘I rather gather,’ he said, ‘the police may be looking at Gray’s connection with that man Jefferson. You remember, Dick,’ he turned to the Archdeacon, ‘he knew him when he was a curate at Narborough?’

  The Archdeacon nodded. ‘I really can’t see what they hope to find there. Jefferson came to Church youth work with very solid credentials. His regiment’s chaplain spoke of him in the warmest terms as a man of the highest principles. He ran the Narborough club very competently. It’s not an easy patch. Some of the elements are quite tough. I can hardly see him killing Gray. Indeed I gained the impression he was a firm friend.’

  ‘I also gather,’ continued the Dean, glancing this time at Wheeler, ‘that Gray may have known that rather odd set–up on the wherry where your man Caretaker lives.’

  Wheeler did not care to be connected in any way with anything which was at all unconventional. He felt intuitively that unconventionality was a type of failure, and failure, however distant from himself, might be contagious. He hastened to remove himself from the danger. ‘There may well be something for the police in the Jefferson connection. I really wouldn’t care to speculate. As to Caretaker I think you know my position there. I’m not at all happy with his work. I indicated to the Bishop when I agreed to take the canonry that he didn’t possess the personal qualities I require in my subordinates. I think it may well be necessary for Chapter to terminate his contract with us in the near future.’

  ‘My own impression of Ian is that he’s outstanding as an administrator,’ said the Archdeacon with real surprise.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re quite mistaken,’ Wheeler said rapidly, his tone kind and forgiving. The Archdeacon felt baffled. Wheeler’s speech contained so many errors of fact and so many suppositions of value
which he did not share, that words failed him.

  The Dean interposed. ‘You can’t sack a man because of his friends,’ he said forthrightly, ‘and Caretaker’s family have been in Medewich a long time. His father knew the Bishop.’

  The Archdeacon joined in the defence. ‘And I rather thought Ian was a friend of young Thomas, the Bishop’s son. They must have been up at Cambridge about the same time. In fact, now I come to think of it, wasn’t there some business they were all involved in with young Cumbermound. What’s his name, Geoffrey? Not an entirely desirable young man but I’m sure all that’s in the past now.’

  ‘Not merely is his work increasingly slovenly but his manners are unsatisfactory,’ Wheeler continued as though the Dean and the Archdeacon had not spoken.

  The Dean was not prepared to get into a wrangle with Wheeler about a diocesan servant. Nor did he say that he thought it was unlikely, on the whole, that the Bishop would sack a perfectly competent administrator who happened not to be smarmy enough to some thruster from the Scottish lowlands. If it came to unknown backgrounds, after all, no one seemed to know too much about Wheeler’s.

  ‘What about Gray’s problem, as you call it?’ said the Dean. ‘Do the police know about it?’

  ‘Speaking for myself,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘I very much doubt if Paul had a problem in the sense you mean. You’ll remember when we had to look into that last business, Gerald, at Narborough. I formed the opinion that there was absolutely nothing undesirable in the case. Gray had at the most been a shade injudicious, a little unworldly, perhaps, in his supervision of Jefferson. As for the police …’

  Wheeler clicked his tongue, as much in irritation that the conversation should continue so long without his leading it as in deprecation of the mention of police, and past history discreditable to the Church. ‘I think you can take it from me,’ he said authoritatively, ‘that the police are bound to find out about Gray’s problem, which, if you’ll forgive me Gerald, I fear he really did have.’ He smiled companionably at the Dean once more. ‘We are all men of the world’ – he excluded the Archdeacon from eye contact and addressed himself exclusively to the Dean – ‘so of course we know, do we not, that problems of that sort for young clergy bring with them all kinds of undesirable connections. I’m sure that it’s there that the police will be best advised to make their inquiries. I hope you will agree with me, therefore, that it would be in all our best interests to let the police into our confidence on this one. I’m sure you feel as I do that openness is the best policy in these affairs. If you like I could have a word with the Chief Constable and put him in the picture, should you deem it appropriate.’