Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night

by James Runcie

  Sidney could then perhaps meditate even further, to investigate the direct responsibility of the Creator himself. In sacrificing his son for the greater good was God himself the murderer?

  Although this argument would be familiar to many from wartime, and Sidney would be able to expound on the theory of beneficial sacrifice, it was a risky strategy. He would have to make it clear that the story of Jesus was different from any other. Because, he concluded, this was the first death that led to resurrection, the central character changed from victim to hero. Easter represented the death of death. The resurrection was the solution to the crime; the solving of the ultimate mystery, not just of Christ’s death, but the meaning of man’s existence on earth.

  Sidney called Dickens back from rootling around the hedgerows, and waved to a passer-by. He would need to write things down before he forgot what he wanted to say. He was prevented from doing so by the arrival of Orlando Richards.

  A kindly man, with a large and thoughtful face, Orlando wore a navy suit that was on the baggy side, and a white shirt with an enlarged collar that gave him a little more neck room than normal. As a singer he could not feel constricted, and his burgundy tie was loosely knotted. His most prominent feature consisted of his large, and slightly pointed, ears. Every time they met, Sidney tried not to stare at them, but he didn’t think he had ever encountered anyone who was in possession of such magnificent lugholes. It was as if a life spent listening to music had magically increased their size.

  Orlando had made his visit in order to ascertain if Sidney had any musical requirements to match the thrust of his argument during the three hours. ‘I was also wondering if you had any plans to come to evensong this Sunday?’

  ‘I am not sure. Why do you ask?’

  ‘If your friend from Germany is coming then I thought that we might prepare a little surprise for her.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you; although I have learned to be wary of surprises, Orlando.’

  ‘You do not need to worry about things like that. I think we all want any time she spends in college to be as pleasant as possible; even if life has been rather disrupted of late.’

  ‘I presume you are referring to the rewiring.’

  Orlando was not keen on the work of the college handyman and was glad of the opportunity to have a little rant. ‘I appreciate that the job needs to be done but Charlie Crawford is an absolute menace. The place is a death trap of frayed cables. Dr Cade has already had words with him both about his electrical ability and his overtime payments. The man is nothing but trouble. He never seems to finish one thing before he starts on the next. The whole place will have to be redecorated. And the noise is dreadful . . .’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘The man bangs about all over the place. Even his whistling is out of tune.’

  Sidney tried to see the positive side of the college modernisation. ‘I suppose redecoration might be a plus. You could have your walls painted a dark Georgian red, or a restful green.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Crawford keeps telling us how the whole college could go up in flames at any moment.’

  ‘Well, we certainly wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘It’s hardly likely. It’s been going for hundreds of years without any mishap.’

  ‘I’d still be wary,’ Sidney replied. The previous year’s arson had been a solemn warning about the ease with which a conflagration could take hold.

  Hildegard’s train was due to arrive that afternoon and Sidney was determined not to be late. The tension induced by their imminent reunion made him bicycle faster than normal, and despite his best efforts to steer with care and concentration, his thoughts kept drifting away, even back to the time when he had initiated the capture of Annabel Morrison at this very station. She had been Stephen Staunton’s murderer, and Sidney had not only been responsible for her arrest but it was he who had to tell his widow, Hildegard, all that had happened. In doing so, he had withheld one critical piece of information, the very reason for the murder, her husband’s infidelity with a second woman. He had decided that it was too hurtful to tell Hildegard, but he was still uncomfortable with the fact that he knew more than he should. It was the duty of a priest to keep confidences (a task Sidney found difficult when acting as an amateur detective) but he was unsure of the amount a prospective couple, if that was what they were, needed to know about each other. How much should be disclosed and how much kept secret? He had known men who had never spoken about the war, or their previous marriage, or even the children that they had had in what they might refer to as ‘an earlier life’. They had insisted on a fresh start, without any reference to anything that had happened before. Hildegard could, perhaps, do the same. Sidney was, however, wary of burying the past. It might be a foreign country, but the temptation to revisit it remained stronger than people realised.

  He tried to reduce his anxiety by wondering what Hildegard would be wearing: a loose open-fronted jacket in black serge, perhaps, with a slim straight skirt, stockings with seams, and sharply pointed pumps. He loved the little hats she often wore, tilted to one side, casting no shadow over her green eyes and her lightly quizzical eyebrows.

  He imagined her stepping off the train and walking towards him. He prepared himself by anticipating that their behaviour would be quite formal at first, even guarded. It had been such a long time. What did it mean to watch a woman walking towards you and to know that anything you said could make the difference between a life spent together or apart?

  He looked at all the other people standing on the platform: worried parents, expectant children, hopeful lovers. As the travellers alighted, he could see many women who might have been mistaken for Hildegard at a distance and he suffered a momentary loss of confidence. Perhaps he would not recognise her or, even worse, she had decided not to come at all? But then the smoke cleared and she was there. Sidney felt his heart lift into a place he did not think he had known before.

  Hildegard was dressed in a black knee-length coat with a large cape collar that stood away from the throat, with unpadded low-set shoulders, and a silhouette tapered to give an oval effect. Her blonde hair was shorter than Sidney had remembered, and it was cut almost boyishly, sweeping back at a level with her grape-green eyes. Her eyebrows were pencil thin and she wore the subtlest lipstick. All the warmth that he felt for her came flooding back; her wry, almost judgemental smile; the surprised amusement in her eyes; the way she would open her mouth with a gasp and take a little step back at the same time when Sidney said something that she would not dare say herself.

  She held out her hand and Sidney took it, and she then leant forward to let him kiss her on each cheek. This was the greeting they had settled on, and it was only after it had been achieved that she said hello.

  ‘Good journey?’ Sidney asked.

  Hildegard gave him a tired smile. ‘I am here at last.’

  ‘I hope you feel it was worth the effort.’

  Sidney remembered that there was always a touch of awkwardness when they saw each other after an absence; the result of something yet to be defined.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Although I am nervous.’

  He showed her to a taxi and stowed her luggage, telling the driver that he would follow on his bicycle. It was strange to be separated from each other as soon as Hildegard had arrived, but it was the most practical solution. He would reach her lodgings only moments later.

  Hildegard’s landlady was Grace Wardell, the sister of the college handyman who was busy with the rewiring. She was smaller than Hildegard, with dark hair and watchful eyes. Her husband had died in a road accident and her son had been shot down over Stuttgart in 1943. ‘Staunton’s an Irish name, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘It was my husband’s.’

  ‘And he is no longer with us?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘In the war, I suppose.’

  Hildegard had imagined that Sidney might have explained about her situation and worried tha
t Mrs Wardell might guess her nationality and refuse to accommodate her. She would not have been surprised. She was used to the discomfort caused by her accident of birth and it was often the first impression she made in England. She remembered her arrival almost ten years ago; how her every interlocutor would react with disbelief, mistrust, and then mainly, but not always, with a recovered sense of decency and fairness, recognising that she could hardly be held personally responsible for the war.

  Mrs Wardell was already on to the next thing. ‘Well you’re staying for ten days. You can tell me all about it if you’d like, but if you don’t then there’s nothing to worry about. The room’s fresh and clean and tea is at half past six when my brother Charlie gets in. I hope that’ll do?’

  ‘That will be satisfactory.’

  ‘You’ll have to mind his moods. He’s got a bit of a temper but he means well. If you’d like to go out after tea then I can give you a key but we retire by ten and I’d be grateful if you could do the same. We like to lock up and go to bed, knowing where we all are.’

  ‘I am sure Mrs Staunton will follow your house rules,’ Sidney answered.

  ‘They aren’t rules, Canon Chambers, just suggestions.’

  ‘But I am sure you would be grateful if people followed them.’

  ‘It does make life easier, I find.’

  Hildegard asked if Sidney could wait while she hung up her clothes and saw to her make-up. Whereas Amanda had no qualms about putting on her lipstick in front of him, Hildegard always made a tactful retreat to a nearby bathroom in order to fulfil the necessary adjustments. Her discretion gave her dignity, poise and grace.

  He took her out to supper at his favourite restaurant, Le Bleu Blanc Rouge, where they enjoyed a simple meal of homemade pâté and toast, a chicken breast with the first new potatoes of the year, followed by a chocolate mousse that had been laced with a little Grand Marnier. It was the only alcohol Sidney allowed himself and although he offered Hildegard a glass of wine she refused it in order to keep him company and share his abstinence until Easter Day.

  It was good to catch up on each other’s news, but the conversation became more serious when Hildegard questioned Sidney about the forthcoming three-hour service.

  ‘I think you have to go straight to the heart of the nature of suffering,’ he replied. ‘That is the message of Jesus on the Cross. You have to tackle Christ’s passion head on, and then come out the other side. You cannot have the triumph of the resurrection without the devastation of the crucifixion. It is something the more evangelical amongst us tend to gloss over.’

  ‘You are more serious than people think, Sidney.’

  ‘I don’t like it when they ignore the pain at the heart of the Christian message and take the clergy to be figures of fun.’

  ‘They are not regarded so in Germany.’

  ‘No. There, they are all very serious. In England, we are embarrassed by solemnity. People like to laugh at life’s unpredictability because they are afraid of it.’

  ‘Are you saying the Germans have no sense of humour?’

  ‘My dear Hildegard, I am not saying that at all.’

  ‘You are suggesting it. In English it is easier to be amusing, I think.’

  ‘The richness of the language is something of which we are proud.’

  ‘But it is difficult to learn! The same words have different meanings. One day I will try to make a pun but it is hard for foreigners. Sometimes with one letter a word can become its opposite: fast turns into feast, reign becomes resign, laughter becomes slaughter. And in Germany the verbs are at the end of the sentence, not the nouns. It is harder to surprise the people you are talking to.’

  Sidney ordered coffee. ‘I sometimes think that faith is rather like explaining the punchline of a joke. If you have to take it all apart then the joke doesn’t work any more.’

  ‘You should preach about that. I am looking forward to hearing you again.’

  ‘You don’t have to come to all the services.’

  She put her hand on his. ‘I do, Sidney. That is why I am here. To listen to you.’

  ‘Then I hope I will not be a disappointment.’

  ‘You never disappoint me, Sidney.’

  ‘So far, perhaps. But I wouldn’t like to take anything for granted.’

  ‘Except my friendship.’

  The next morning, Hildegard was treated to a hearty English breakfast. Grace Wardell was a solicitous hostess but her guest was expected to leave after the meal and make herself scarce for the rest of the day. It was not a house for sitting about. Her brother Charlie would give Hildegard a lift to Grantchester.

  Charlie Crawford was in his early fifties. A small man, of five foot six, who wore his regulation overalls by day, he often transformed himself into a snappy dresser by night, slapping on so much Brylcreem he looked as if he was Elvis Presley’s dad. He was an impatient enthusiast with a short concentration span, a dedicated union member and a committed socialist. He was currently in dispute with the junior bursar about the overtime required for the work he was doing on the rewiring; an amount that would almost double his weekly wage. ‘Dr Cade owes me for four weeks and he’s always late to pay. I’m going to have to sort it out.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to take me,’ said Hildegard as she climbed into his works van.

  ‘It’s no trouble. I should go to church myself but there’s too much work to be done.’

  ‘Even on a Sunday?’

  ‘The married fellows are at home. I can get on and do their rooms while they’re out. But it’s impossible for one man,’ he complained. ‘And that’s typical of the college. They want everything on the cheap. Even then, they try and cheat you on the overtime. The junior bursar’s the one that’s the trouble.’

  ‘Is it dangerous work?’ Hildegard asked.

  Rain struck the misted windscreen. Charlie leaned forward to wipe away the steam. ‘Electricity is always dangerous, Mrs Staunton. People take it for granted but they don’t know what it can do.’ He turned on his wipers. ‘I’m worried about this weather. I don’t want lightning.’

  Hildegard thanked him for the lift and stepped into the dark simplicity of the church at Grantchester. The statuary was covered in cloth and there was little light through the windows. The last time she had been here had been at her husband’s funeral.

  Orlando Richards had come over from Corpus to rehearse the choir and at the service they sang ‘Jesu, deine Passion ist mir lauter Freude’, the chorale from Bach’s Cantata 130 for Palm Sunday ‘Himmelskönig, sei willkommen’. Hildegard was so touched that she went over to thank him after the service.

  ‘I thought it might make a nice surprise. I am a great admirer of German music; although, of course, the national character gives me pause.’

  ‘I can understand, after the war, but I hope you will make an exception in my case.’

  ‘Of course,’ Orlando replied. ‘Although it is a complicated matter, is it not? Character is music. You cannot have one without the other.’

  ‘I agree but great music is not always produced by great men.’

  ‘You mean men of morality? They may be wonderful musicians but their lives do not live up to their creations.’

  Hildegard smiled. ‘We must work hard at everything. That is why we need to practise. I was hoping that you might be able to help me.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I do not have a piano.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say? You can use my room if you can stand all the banging,’ the Professor of Music offered gallantly. ‘I have taken to using a room in Peterhouse in the daytime. The noise of the rewiring has almost polished me off.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be any trouble.’

  ‘There is a perfectly decent Bechstein if it makes you feel at home. What are you playing at the moment?’

  ‘Bach, of course. Some Mozart. Late Beethoven.’

  ‘That’s getting dangerously late for me, I am afraid.’

  Sidney stepped in and tri
ed to explain. ‘Orlando is our Early Music specialist. Anything after 1800 is decidedly avant-garde.’

  ‘As for Sidney’s jazz,’ the Professor of Music shuddered, ‘I don’t know how anyone goes near it. Such a racket.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Hildegard smiled. ‘Sometimes I find Bach is like jazz. The Concerto in D perhaps . . .’

  ‘Yes, I can see that: but there is a difference, is there not, between Bach or Buxtehude and the music of Bix Beiderbecke, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course, but the similarities are often as interesting as the differences.’

  Sidney thought it best to stop this dangerous line of conversation. ‘Careful, Hildegard, or you will lose Professor Richards’ goodwill.’

  ‘Then perhaps I will confine my practice to music no later than the eighteenth century. Do you have a harpsichord?’

  ‘Of course. There is a harpsichord and a piano. You could practise as Wanda Landowska does. You know how she has started to perform the Goldberg Variations twice in one concert: once on the harpsichord, then again on the piano?’

  ‘I found it amusing when she told people that they could play Bach in any way they chose but that she thought it better to play it in his.’

  ‘It’s fascinating to hear the contrast,’ Orlando agreed.

  ‘The difference in technique is critical.’

  ‘I look forward to discussing it. Where have you been hiding this magnificent woman, Sidney?’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Sidney, momentarily jealous. ‘That is quite a story.’ He began to usher Hildegard away. He did not want some upstart music professor monopolising his guest. There would be little enough time for Hildegard as it was.