The Lost Book of the Grail

by Charlie Lovett

  “Yes, well, my phone is . . .”

  “Anyway, we should go get it. We have to figure out what’s missing.”

  “Do we?” said Arthur.

  “Come, come, Mr. Prescott, it’s a mystery. Don’t you enjoy a mystery? When I was a kid I read those Petunia and Priscilla mysteries. Did you ever read those? Probably not, because you were a boy. I loved those books. That’s when I first knew I wanted to go to England. Petunia and Priscilla lived next door to each other in two thatched cottages in this little village and they solved . . .”

  “Miss Davis.” Arthur had meant to say her name sharply, but somehow it came out softly.

  “I was doing it again, wasn’t I?” said Bethany.

  “Digressing,” said Arthur.

  “Sorry. But you really should read Petunia and Priscilla—after we solve the mystery.”

  “We?”

  “You obviously need help if you can’t even count on your own,” she said.

  “I shall consult Bishop Gladwyn’s list when I get home this evening,” he said. “Now, as you have wasted the precious hour I had reserved for work in the library, I will excuse myself and go to Evensong.”

  “We didn’t waste anything like an hour,” said Bethany. “And besides, you like talking to me. It allows you to be righteously indignant and that’s your favorite state of being.”

  “It is most certainly not my . . .”

  “You see,” interrupted Bethany. “There you go again.”

  “I really must go, Miss Davis,” said Arthur. This young woman was most infuriating. Thank goodness she was no longer pestering him about the Grail. Perhaps her mind flitted from topic to topic as rapidly as her conversation, and her interest in the Grail was long forgotten. And at least she was . . . no—push all such thoughts from the mind. She is a nuisance and nothing more. But as he hoisted his bag over his shoulder, Arthur couldn’t help stealing a look back at Miss Davis, who had returned to her work. She was leaning over a manuscript and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. A beautiful nuisance, he thought, and he shook his head and turned away.

  “I suppose you’re still not interested in joining me for Evensong,” said Arthur, pausing in the doorway, but not daring to look back at her.

  “Not exactly the first date I had in mind,” she said. He waited for her to add a laugh to this comment—or anything to indicate she was being facetious—but all was silence behind him.

  Arthur felt an unfamiliar hot glow creeping up his neck to his cheeks and muttered, “Another time, then,” before rushing down the stairs.

  —

  He had nearly regained his composure sitting in the quiet of the quire waiting for Evensong to begin when he looked up to see Miss Davis, whispering to one of the vergers as if they were old friends. Arthur closed his eyes and tried to banish all thought of her by playing in his mind the music of William Byrd he would be hearing the choir sing in a few minutes. Arthur had been particularly looking forward to this evening, as the Byrd second service was one of his favorites. During breakfast that morning he had listened to his CD of the Lazarus College Choir singing it. But even those Renaissance tones could not distract him from the conversation taking place a few feet away. He opened his eyes, the music stopped, and the verger was leading Miss Davis to the far end of Arthur’s pew. She looked at Arthur and gave a slight nod, then slipped into the pew and took a seat. Arthur could not see her without leaning forward and looking down the row of worshippers, which he was not about to do, and he certainly couldn’t speak to her from that distance with the service about to start. But why had she come? Why, when he had issued her a perfectly civil invitation, had she refused him and then come on her own? She had annoyed him before, but this was the first time she had seemed actively rude.

  The service was ruined. Distracted by Miss Davis’s presence, Arthur could not keep his mind on the Byrd. By the time he could extricate himself from the middle of the pew, she had disappeared. Never mind, he thought. He had a meeting with the BBs that night and would be in civilized company once again.

  —

  Arthur’s mood brightened considerably when he got home and saw that the post contained a parcel from Christie’s. He did not often buy books at auction, but he had had some modest success lately, and although he knew what the package contained, unwrapping it brought him the sort of excitement he once felt on Christmas morning. Inside was a small book bound in green cloth. The condition was far from fine, but Arthur liked how the well-worn cover felt smooth to his touch. The spine was faded from sunlight, and the words Idylls of the King were just visible. This was the 1859 first edition of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s earliest collection of Arthurian poetry.

  Arthur had a later edition of the book already on his shelf upstairs, but this copy was special not only because it was a first but because it had been owned by Robert Gladwyn. If anyone knew more about Barchester, its medieval history, and its possible connections to King Arthur and the Holy Grail than Arthur Prescott, it had certainly been Bishop Gladwyn. Several months ago Arthur had, for a mere two hundred pounds, bought at a small provincial auction house a pair of worn notebooks in which Bishop Gladwyn had kept notes on a wide variety of topics, including the history of the cathedral. Arthur had hoped, when he placed his bid, that the notebooks might contain Gladwyn’s thoughts on the Grail, and he had not been entirely disappointed. Although he had read through much of Gladwyn’s official correspondence in the cathedral archives, holding those notebooks, and knowing the bishop had owned them, had made Arthur feel more connected to Gladwyn than ever before.

  He carefully removed the rest of the brown paper wrapping from the Tennyson volume, opened it to the half title, and gazed at the simple inscription in the familiar hand: “Robert Gladwyn, July 11, 1859.” The auction catalog had stated only “with the ownership signature of Robert Gladwyn, later Bishop of Barchester,” and Arthur was thrilled to see the addition of the date. July 11 was publication day for Idylls of the King; Gladwyn had bought his copy on the first day it was available. Once again, Arthur felt a surge of connection to the long-departed bishop, who had not even been a bishop when he inscribed this book. How often had Gladwyn reached for this volume and reread the words of the poet laureate? Although Arthur preferred Tennyson’s The Holy Grail and Other Poems, he knew that the Idylls had been a big part of the resurgence of interest in Arthurian legend in the nineteenth century, and in writing it Tennyson had certainly referred to the same 1816 edition of Morte d’Arthur that Arthur owned.

  Arthur opened the book to “Elaine,” and read the familiar first lines:

  Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,

  Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,

  High in her chamber up a tower to the east

  Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;

  Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray

  Might strike it, and awaken her with the gleam.

  “High in her chamber”—like me in my library, Arthur thought. He loved the old-fashioned style of Tennyson’s poetry, and he trembled to think that Gladwyn may have lain in his bed at the bishop’s palace on a cold night and read these very words; the unique combination of ink and paper that now caused him to murmur verses aloud may have done the same for the good bishop. With a shiver, Arthur closed the book and took it upstairs to give it a place of honor in his study. One day, he thought, he would donate both Gladwyn’s notebooks and his copy of the Idylls to the cathedral library. The library had, after all, been largely built on donations—from benefactors who commissioned manuscripts to bishops, deans, and canons who, over the centuries, had generously filled the shelves. Arthur would be proud to be part of that tradition.

  Just before he left for the cathedral, where Oscar would be hosting the BBs in the library anteroom, Arthur slipped his photocopy of Bishop Gladwyn’s inventory of the cathedral manuscripts into his jacket pocket. Osc
ar should know, he thought, that a manuscript was missing. Tonight was not the time for a formal inventory, but it might be worth looking over Gladwyn’s list with Oscar to see if either of them saw a title he did not recognize from the collection.

  —

  A few minutes before seven, Arthur arrived at the library and stepped into the anteroom, where Oscar had already set out two bottles of wine and lit a fire. Except in the hottest days of summer, there was always a chill in this windowless room with its thick stone walls, and the fire made the place feel more like a cozy study and less like a dank dungeon. The host was not in evidence, so Arthur poured himself some Pinot Noir and settled into one of the Gothic armchairs in front of the fireplace.

  Since he was early, Arthur decided he would read through Bishop Gladwyn’s inventory to see if anything stood out—anything that might be missing. He had read about halfway down the first page and found nothing but familiar titles when he heard the door open behind him.

  “Our host is in pursuit of crisps,” boomed David as he stepped into the room. “I passed him as I was coming down the High Street.” He picked up the bottle of Pinot, examined the label, and poured himself a glass. “Though it is beyond my understanding how anyone could eat crisps with a wine this fine.”

  “We all have our peculiarities,” said Arthur, rising to greet his friend. “I like crisps; you like women.”

  “And I suppose you think we consume them at the same rate?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Ah, gentlemen, I see you’ve started already. Excellent.” Oscar bounced into the room with a bag full of crisp packets. Though only Arthur ever ate crisps and he always ate Salt & Vinegar, Oscar laid out an array of flavors on the table next to the wine.

  “Roast Chicken?” said Arthur. “Prawn Cocktail? Is it a special occasion?”

  “You might say that. Now let me catch up with you gents on the wine front and you can tell me about your latest bibliographical adventures. Arthur, how are you getting on with our new tenant?”

  “You mean the blasted woman who is digitizing all the manuscripts in my library . . . our library. She is becoming increasingly annoying by the hour. I couldn’t get a bit of work done this afternoon. She picked a fight with me and then she made me count the manuscripts.”

  “She picked a fight?” said David.

  “I think we all know which one of you is more likely to have started a fight,” said Oscar.

  “So you’ve met her,” said Arthur.

  “The dean was nervous about giving her a set of keys—”

  “Too right!” interrupted Arthur. “I would be, too.”

  “So I let her in every morning before I go to school. She starts early. Sweet girl.”

  “She may be sweet in the morning,” said Arthur, “but by the afternoon she’s soured. She insisted that there were only eighty-two manuscripts when I know Bishop Gladwyn’s inventory lists eighty-three, so she made me count them—out loud!”

  “She made you?” said David.

  “Yes. And she stood right next to me the whole time—breathing on my back, shoving me in the side—the gall of that American. She was, what do they call it in the faculty manual, ‘invading my personal space and engaging in unwanted contact.’”

  “Methinks,” said David.

  “Methinks, too,” said Oscar.

  “You thinks what?” said Arthur, abandoning for once his usual grammatical precision.

  “We thinks the gentleman doth protest too much,” said David.

  “What are you saying? That I like her?”

  “More than like, I’d say,” said Oscar, “judging by the color of your face at the moment.”

  “There is a difference between the blush of anger and the blush of affection,” said Arthur.

  “There is indeed,” said David, “and I, more than anyone, am attuned to that difference. I suppose no man in Barchester has made more women both affectionate and angry than myself.”

  “And what is your diagnosis?” said Oscar.

  David looked closely at Arthur’s increasingly reddening face.

  “Affection,” he said emphatically. “Though he may be angry at himself for feeling it.”

  “Oh, you two are insufferable,” said Arthur. “I have no more affection for her than I have for . . . for . . . bookless libraries. Besides, it’s against the rules to discuss our personal lives.”

  “So you admit that your relationship with Bethany is part of your personal life?” said David.

  “I admit nothing of the sort. For God’s sake, I’m old enough to be her father.”

  “Hardly,” said Oscar. “She’s twenty-six and you’re forty.”

  “How do you know she’s twenty-six?” asked Arthur, who found himself oddly disturbed that Oscar should possess a piece of personal information about Miss Davis that he did not have.

  “She filled out the form to borrow books from the library,” said Oscar.

  “She’s borrowing books from the library? Real, actual, printed-on-paper and bound-in-covers books?”

  “She is.”

  “I thought only cathedral clergy could borrow books from the library.”

  “You’re not cathedral clergy,” said Oscar.

  “Yes,” said Arthur, “but I’m hardly the general public.”

  “First of all, she’s not the general public either, she’s a visiting scholar.” Arthur snorted at the word scholar, but Oscar went on. “And second, I asked the dean and she’s not aware of any specific policy one way or another. There seems to be no reason why we shouldn’t circulate volumes that aren’t rare or valuable, particularly if they’re not available at the city library or at the university.” Arthur was glad Oscar did not add the words media center, as these would have undoubtedly elicited another snort. He wondered if circulating some of the less valuable books might be one way to make more people aware of the cathedral library.

  “What’s she checked out?” asked Arthur.

  “Can’t tell you,” said Oscar with a smile. “Client confidentiality.”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “Oh, but there is. Bethany told me all about it. Government snooping and all that. They had a whole session at the American Library Association, apparently.”

  “If you really want to know what she’s reading, why don’t you just ask her,” said David.

  “The last thing I want to do,” said Arthur, “is get into another conversation with that woman.”

  “Well, that’s awkward,” said Oscar, “because she’s going to be here any minute.”

  “She’s going to . . . I’m sorry, she’s what?”

  “I invited her,” said Oscar. “It’s the first time in years I’ve met anyone who loves books enough to deserve to join us.”

  “Loves books!” spewed Arthur.

  “Suppose we change the subject,” said Oscar gently.

  “I absolutely insist that we do nothing of the sort until Arthur has answered one more question,” said David.

  “I am not answering any questions about my feelings, or nonfeelings, toward that woman.”

  “That’s not what I was going to ask,” said David. “I merely wanted to know how many manuscripts you counted.”

  “Eighty-two,” said a cheerful voice behind them.

  “Ah, Miss Davis,” said Oscar. “Welcome to our little soirée.” Oscar gave Bethany a peck on the cheek and accepted a bottle of wine she had brought. David introduced himself and made a production out of kissing Bethany on the hand and lingering just longer than propriety dictated. Arthur stood by the fire and took a long drink of wine, willing his face to return to its usual color. When he looked up from his glass, Bethany was eyeing him from across the room.

  “Good evening, Mr. Prescott, it’s nice to see you,” she said.

  “Good even
ing,” he replied. “It’s nice to see you as well.” And Arthur was surprised to discover that it was. He hadn’t realized just how dark and dour the room had seemed until Miss Davis had brightened it with her presence.

  “Oh, please,” said David, “call him Arthur. Even his students don’t call him Mr. Prescott.”

  “And you must all call me Bethany,” she said. “Even you, Arthur.”

  “So,” said Oscar when he had settled in his chair, “is this true?”

  For a moment Arthur thought he was asking if Arthur were really pleased to see Bethany, but then he remembered the question Bethany had answered on her entrance.

  “Yes,” he said. “Gladwyn’s inventory lists eight-three manuscripts, but Miss Davis . . . Bethany and I counted only eighty-two.”

  “I counted them again after you left for Evensong, just to be sure,” said Bethany.

  “And then you came to Evensong. You said you weren’t coming.”

  “I said nothing of the sort. I said it wasn’t the first date I had in mind. You left before I had a chance to say anything else. You should learn to listen, Arthur.”

  “All right, you two,” said David, “we didn’t come here to bicker, as much as Arthur enjoys that. We came to read, and Bethany, as our guest, has the privilege.”

  “Who decided that?” said Arthur.

  “The guest always reads,” said Oscar.

  “But we’ve never had a guest,” said Arthur.

  “So we’ve never had a chance to enforce the rule,” said David. “Now, Bethany, as soon as Arthur settles in his chair, we’ll be ready for you to begin.”

  Arthur couldn’t help but feel he was being set up by the other three—for what he wasn’t sure—but he reluctantly took his seat.

  “I couldn’t find quite what I wanted in the cathedral library,” began Bethany, as she pulled a bruised and battered leather-bound volume from her purse. “I discovered this in the basement room of the Barchester Public Library—last checked out on October 21, 1926. It’s one of those three-volume novels. Arthur thought I should read fiction for a change, so I’m giving it a try. It’s all about poverty in East London, and how these two young heirs, Angela and Harry, decide they are going to do something about it and they create this sort of community college kind of institution, and apparently the book inspired the founding of something called the People’s Palace—you know, life imitating art. So this is the first volume, which—I think this is really cool—is inscribed on the endpaper to somebody named Angela.”