The Lost Book of the Grail

by Charlie Lovett

  “Bethany rang last night and said you wanted to take her out to Plumstead Episcopi to see the interior.” He laid down a pair of keys on the table in front of Arthur. “This is the key to the outside door, and this, I think, is to the sacristy, not that there’s anything to see there.”

  “I’m sorry, did you say Bethany rang you?”

  “Yes. You did want to go out there, didn’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” said Arthur. “I just wondered how you have the keys. And for that matter how Bethany knew you had the keys.”

  “Oh, she didn’t. She just rang to check on Mother. She’s been in hospital again, you know.” Arthur didn’t know, and he felt both guilty and jealous that Bethany was doing a better job of keeping up with Oscar than he was. “And we were chatting and she mentioned wanting to go to Plumstead and I said I could get you the keys.”

  “But I thought the precentor . . .”

  “The precentor is the rector, technically. But it’s just an honorary position. The chapel belongs to the cathedral chapter and the keys to all the cathedral properties are kept in the vestry.”

  “And you, of course, have access to the vestry.”

  “I don’t think anyone will mind your peeking into Plumstead. You might find a few cobwebs; it hasn’t been swept out since last summer’s festival, but hopefully everything is in good order. You’ll let me know if there are any problems?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Arthur.

  “Well, bells are ringing so I’d best be off. Don’t suppose I can convince you to come along?”

  “You know Sunday morning at eleven o’clock is the one time I have no interest in going to church.”

  “You don’t have to take Communion.”

  “Good-bye, Oscar. Enjoy the sermon.”

  “Someday, my friend, someday,” said Oscar, and disappeared down the stairs.

  There was much about the eleven o’clock service that kept Arthur away. First and foremost was the crowd—he felt more connected to the cathedral and its history with three people at Compline than he ever could with five hundred. The larger service also meant it was held in the nave, with a modern altar in the crossing. Arthur preferred either the high altar, used for services in the quire, or the peacefulness of one of the side chapels, used for Morning Prayer and Compline. Oscar, of course, would have been quick to point out that the nine o’clock Eucharist on Sundays was celebrated at the high altar. But Arthur carefully avoided services that featured either a sermon or Communion. The first he simply did not care to hear. If the dean had anything interesting to say, she would say it to Arthur on one of their morning walks; if someone else was preaching, particularly the precentor, Arthur could certainly do without. As for Communion—it was the only rite that made Arthur self-conscious about his unbelief. He could not, in good conscience, partake, but not to do so seemed a much too public declaration of his lack of faith. So, as the sermon droned on (it was the precentor this morning) and as the congregants waited their turn at the Communion rail, Arthur read the rest of his manuscript, making occasional marks with the red pen, keenly aware of those two keys staring up at him from his table.

  —

  “OK, put that thing away,” said Bethany, bursting into the library with an energy Arthur could only attribute to youth and a good night’s sleep. “We’re going to go searching for a lost medieval manuscript full of Grail secrets. I see Oscar brought you the keys.”

  “How was the sermon?”

  “Good, actually. I think I’m adapting to the notion that a sermon isn’t thirty minutes of screaming and arm waving. There were no roars from the crowd like my dad gets sometimes, but he made some valid points. The precentor is a very thoughtful preacher.”

  “He’s good at telling other people what to do, you mean.”

  “Now, now, Arthur. If you’re not going to come to the service, you can’t criticize the preacher.”

  “I can criticize him; I just can’t criticize his preaching.”

  “Come on, we can argue in the car. I want to get going.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “Neither do I. David is loaning us his.” She dangled a set of car keys in front of Arthur as if he were the type to be lured by shiny objects.

  “I thought we might walk,” he said. “It’s a lovely day.”

  “It’s five miles, Arthur. And then we’d have to walk back. I may seem chipper but I’m still exhausted because someone made me pull an all-nighter on Friday.”

  “Fine,” said Arthur, pushing back from the table. “Since you got the keys from Oscar and a car from David, I’m not sure why you even need me to come.”

  “I have to have someone around to tell me I’m doing everything wrong,” said Bethany.

  “In that case, I’m your man.”

  Once Arthur had extricated David’s car from the narrow alley behind the bookshop, the drive to Plumstead Episcopi took about fifteen minutes, but that was long enough for Bethany to read aloud from her latest purchase.

  “What is that?” said Arthur as she drew a small green book out of her handbag.

  “Black’s Picturesque Guide to Barsetshire,” said Bethany. “Second edition, 1870. I bought it from David last week—since there seems to be a dearth of new guidebooks about this place. It has a section on Plumstead Episcopi.”

  “What about my history of Plumstead?” said Arthur.

  “Oh, don’t be so self-centered, Arthur. You of all people know how much fun it is to read from an old book. Here’s what it says:

  Few parish churches in England are in better repair, or better worth keeping so, than that at Plumstead Episcopi; and yet it is built in a faulty style: the body of the church is low—so low, that the nearly flat leaden roof would be visible from the churchyard, were it not for the carved parapet with which it is surrounded. It is cruciform, though the transepts are irregular, one being larger than the other; and the tower is much too high in proportion to the church. But the stonework is beautiful; the mullions of the windows and the thick tracery of the Gothic workmanship is as rich as fancy can desire.

  “When did you say your guidebook was published?” said Arthur.

  “In 1870.”

  “Two years before the interior of the church was done over by George Gilbert Scott. Do you like High Gothic décor?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen High Gothic décor,” said Bethany. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have it at Jubilee Christian Fellowship Church.”

  “Do I detect a hint of cynicism about your home church?”

  “Everybody has to find God in her own way,” said Bethany. “I’m just realizing that he speaks to me more in Evensong and choral music and soaring arches than in theater seats and projection screens and rock bands. It doesn’t make me right and it doesn’t make the two thousand people who come to hear my father preach every week wrong. I just think maybe we’re . . . different.”

  Arthur turned off the paved road onto a narrow gravel lane that wound for a half mile or so through thick woods before emerging into a small clearing. Before them stood St. Nicholas, the parish church of Plumstead Episcopi. The churchyard was surrounded by a low stone wall, and grass and weeds grew wildly around the gravestones, many of which leaned at alarming angles.

  “They usually tidy up before the summer festival,” said Arthur as he pushed the lych-gate through the tangle of flora. He stomped down the grass as he made his way to the south door, hoping to smooth a path for Bethany, who was still wearing a cheerful-looking church dress and a pair of shoes not suited for country walking.

  Arthur turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door, and they stepped inside.

  “Wow!” said Bethany.

  There was almost no stained glass, and sunshine streamed through the windows. On the walls above and to the side of the chancel arch was a triptych of frescoes depicting the Last
Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. The precise detail in the flowing hair and garments of Christ and the apostles gave the paintings a Pre-Raphaelite air. The floor of the aisle and chancel were tiled in terra-cotta, black, ivory, dull yellow, and pale blue in elaborate geometric patterns. Every surface dripped with color—the paintings, mosaics of the apostles set into the wall behind the altar, even the organ pipes, vividly decorated with fleurs-de-lis of gold against a rust-red background.

  “It seems kind of . . . not that I know that much about it, but it seems Catholic,” said Bethany, after she had stood in silence for a moment or two.

  “Anglo-Catholic. There were a number of church leaders in Barsetshire in the nineteenth century who were keen followers of the Oxford Movement. They wanted to bring ritual and beauty back into the church. The precentor would have fit right in with them. He’s a true High Churchman.”

  “Hey look,” said Bethany, walking up to the stone altar. “This looks just like the one at the cathedral.”

  “George Gilbert Scott did some work at Barchester three years after he redecorated Plumstead. Apparently Bishop Gladwyn admired the Plumstead altar and asked Scott to do one just like it at the cathedral. The only difference is that the cathedral altar is exactly three times the size.”

  “It’s so beautiful,” said Bethany, running her fingers across the bas-relief on the front of the altar.

  “It could easily distract you from . . . searching for a lost manuscript, for example.”

  “We will,” said Bethany, standing and looking around her. “Just give me a few minutes to take it in.”

  Arthur smiled as he slipped into a pew near the front of the nave. He had hoped Bethany would enjoy this place. He had rarely been here when the church wasn’t crowded for the annual service and summer festival. To sit in such a stunning space, the quiet broken only by Bethany’s footsteps as she explored the corners of the church, was a treat for Arthur. He found his mind relaxing for the first time in days. He took a deep breath through his nose and behind the must and staleness of the air, he detected just a hint of incense. It had been burned so many times here it was part of the atmosphere—embedded, no doubt, in the very woodwork. He wondered if some of that incense had been lit by his grandfather.

  —

  Two hours later, Arthur, sweaty and dusty, collapsed back into a pew. “I think we can say with as much authority as anyone alive that there is no hidden manuscript in this church,” he said. They had crawled on the floor peering under pews; looked under, behind, and within the few furnishings; tapped on walls searching for secret compartments; and scoured every cabinet in the tiny sacristy, where they found nothing but a few candle stubs and some old hymnbooks. They had even looked inside the Easter sepulchre in the side of the altar. It would have been a perfect place to hide a book. But the sepulchre was empty.

  “It’s a shame,” said Bethany. “It would have been exciting to find your lost Book of Ewolda.”

  “I am inclined to look on the bright side,” said Arthur, who felt a little disappointed that their search had been fruitless.

  “What is the bright side?” said Bethany, plopping down in the pew just in front of the pulpit. A sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead, and a smudge of dust outlined her left cheekbone. Instead of a single wisp of hair falling in front of her face, there were at least a half dozen.

  “The bright side is that if we had found the lost Book of Ewolda, we would have had to start the guidebook all over again.”

  “We? It’s not my guidebook, Arthur; it’s yours. And my job is to digitize manuscripts, so as far as I’m concerned, the more lost ones we dig up the better.”

  “In that case, I suppose the bright side is that we spent a Sunday afternoon in a beautiful church, enjoying the best the Victorians had to offer.”

  “It is beautiful,” said Bethany. “I might be distracted by all this amazing art if I actually went to a service here, but to sit here and just soak it up . . .”

  “We’d better get going,” said Arthur, glancing at his watch. “They’re singing a Rutter anthem at Evensong and I’d hate to miss it.”

  “You are a creature of habit, Arthur, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” said Arthur as they walked down the aisle together. But he thought, as she passed through the door in front of him and into the late afternoon light, At least I was until I met you.

  —

  The morning sun sparkled on the dew in the water meadows, the birds sang with unusual gusto, and Arthur leaned against the gate waiting for Gwyn and reading a Penguin paperback of Right Ho, Jeeves. He hadn’t been so relaxed in . . . well, in years. He hadn’t realized what a weight the unfinished guidebook had been until he finished it. Add to that a lovely Sunday afternoon spent with Bethany and the fact that he was reading not for research or work but for sheer enjoyment, and Arthur felt as much a part of the joy of this morning as the birds and the sunshine. He had nearly sprinted out of Morning Prayer to the gate where he usually met Gwyn, precisely so he could have this moment. And what could be better—the medieval grandeur of the cathedral towering behind him, the fresh air with just a hint of dampness blowing through his hair, the view across the water meadows to a section of the winding river lined with beech trees, and an old friend to read. He hadn’t visited Jeeves in far too long, but he still couldn’t resist raising his eyes to the morning at every turn of the page. He hardly flinched when the gate opened, Mag and Nunc burst through, and one of them stopped to shake off the dew all over Arthur’s trousers.

  “You’re positively beaming,” said Gwyn. “I’m glad someone is having a good morning.”

  “I am having a good morning,” said Arthur enthusiastically. “And what about you? Trouble in the chapter?”

  “No more than usual. But Daniel is sick and the nanny is sick and the back-up nanny is up in London visiting her aunt.”

  “You don’t have to chaperone me around the field if you need to get back and look after Daniel. I’m quite capable of finding the way on my own.”

  “Oh, Arthur, we both know your morning wouldn’t be complete without a good dousing from Mag and Nunc,” said Gwyn. “Besides, I need the escape. The precentor’s better half is sitting with Daniel for the morning and then I’ll take my work home after lunch.” Gwyn closed the gate and they headed out across the field where the dogs were already romping in the grass.

  “The precentor has a wife?” said Arthur.

  “Oh, God, no,” said Gwyn. “He has a twin sister. She’s as confirmed in her spinsterhood as he is in his bachelorhood. She spends the winters in what I gather is little more than a boardinghouse in Kent and the summers in a rented cottage in Scotland and every spring and autumn she stops off in Barchester for a couple of weeks when she’s on her migration.”

  “The precentor has a twin,” said Arthur. “It’s nice to know, I suppose. He always seems so . . . alone in the world.”

  “I suppose he is, in many ways,” said Gwyn. “I’ve never spoken to him much about his private life, but I gather he had his heart broken when he was a young man and he never quite got over the girl.”

  “I’m sure it’s very unchristian of me to say it,” said Arthur, “but I find it hard to imagine anyone being in love with the precentor.”

  “Confidentially, so do I. But his sister is a very kind woman, and infinitely patient when she’s in Barchester.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” said Arthur.

  “So, what has that smile plastered to your face this morning? Have you won the lottery, or are you just in love?”

  In the cool of the morning air, Arthur could feel the blush rise to his cheek, but nothing could bother him today. “Actually,” he said, “you shall have a nice little surprise when you get to your office. I e-mailed you the final draft of the text for the guidebook this morning.”

  “You . . . you what? You e-mailed it? Do you even k
now what e-mail is, Arthur?”

  “I do,” said Arthur cheerily. “And yesterday I learned how to include an attachment. So you’ll have a nice digital file waiting for you.”

  “Arthur, put aside my absolute glee at your having miraculously finished this project. How is it that you just used the word digital in a sentence without rolling your eyes?”

  “I am not saying I believe in all this nonsense about a world without books,” said Arthur, “but I did save myself the climb up to your office to shove the manuscript under the door and I saved you, or your long-suffering assistant, from having to retype the whole thing.”

  “Arthur Prescott, I could hug you right here in front of God and the world.”

  “You’re certainly welcome to,” said Arthur.

  “Not in front of the dogs,” said Gwyn, smiling and linking her arm through his. “So tell me, Mr. Prescott, what brought on this transformation from a grumpy man who could not imagine finishing his manuscript, to a smiling fellow who’s handed in his homework?”

  “I did have some help. You know Bethany Davis, who’s digitizing the manuscripts in the library.”

  “Your friend and nemesis, yes, I know her well. We have lunch together a couple of days a week. She speaks very highly of you, Arthur.”

  “Does she? And did she call me a friend and nemesis?”

  “No, I sussed that bit out myself,” said Gwyn.

  “Well, nemesis or not, she helped me get the damned thing finished. She convinced me that I just needed to tell the story of the cathedral, so I told it and she typed it up.”

  “Aha! So you sent me the file, but you didn’t actually create the file.”

  “No, but I did load it onto my computer at the office with something called a flash drive.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that Bethany is dragging you into the twentieth century, even though the rest of us are getting well on with the twenty-first. I rather like that girl, and I gather you do, too.”

  “I have done my best to be her friend,” said Arthur, “in spite of our . . . differences.”

  “I’m proud of you, Arthur. Making friends with an American digitizer. That’s a real accomplishment for you. I’m sure the fact that she’s charming, intelligent, and beautiful makes it even harder to like her.” Gwyn jabbed Arthur in the side with her elbow.