The Unburied

by Charles Palliser

  I crossed to stand beside him. The lamps were guttering in the Close. Through the fog and in the darkness the bulk of the building was beside us as if we were up against a cliff. ‘How frightening it must have been’, I agreed, ‘to be in the shadow of that vast building and dread that the tallest part of it might come tumbling down.’

  Gratifyingly, the Sacrist shivered.

  ‘Please close that window, Frederick,’ Mrs Sisterson protested, misinterpreting his gesture. ‘It’s freezing and you’ll wake the children.’

  My host did as he was bidden and we sat down. I went on: ‘Some of the other canons came to the Deanery to see what was afoot but nobody would venture into the Cathedral. Indeed, some people were frightened even to stay in their houses nearby. Limbrick arrived and strongly advised against entering the Cathedral during the tempest. And so they waited. By the time the first streaks of daylight appeared in the sky over Woodbury Downs, the storm had largely abated. In a state of considerable trepidation the old Dean, Freeth, the Precentor, Limbrick and one of the under-vergers cautiously crept into the Cathedral.

  ‘Imagine what it must have been like to advance along the vast length of the nave with just the light of two or three lanterns to guide you and with the wind still howling around the spire and the tower to remind you of the possibility that stones and timbers might come crashing down upon you. And beneath the sound of the wind they heard another sound – a noise that made the hair rise on the backs of their necks: a sound like a human voice moaning and muttering in pain and despair.

  ‘As they approached the crossing, a huge shape loomed up suddenly from the darkness. Their terror was only slightly diminished by the realization that they were looking at the scaffolding which had collapsed and lay in a heap of planks and splintered wood. That was the origin of the loud noise heard from within. Then as they drew closer and raised their lanterns they saw a patch of dark and sticky liquid that had seeped out from beneath the broken timber. They listened and now they realized that the human voice they had believed they had heard was merely an effect of the wind. Otherwise, there was silence. Limbrick told the others that he had a premonition that they would find the body of their colleague beneath the debris. It was also he who pointed out the astonishing fact that there was no sign of the marble slab that had been on the scaffold the night before. He raised his lantern towards the place where it was destined to go and to the amazement of all of them, there it was in its intended position high up on the wall. They stood staring at it in disbelief. It had been neatly inserted into the space prepared for it and the brickwork sealed up around it.

  ‘Limbrick sent for his workmen and for the next two hours they laboured to clear away the mass of broken wood. It was now realized that Gambrill had not been seen since the storm started. Limbrick hurried to his house and learnt that his master’s wife had not seen him since the previous evening at about nine o’clock. She had assumed that he had stayed out all night dealing with the dangers posed by the storm, and was only now becoming worried by his absence.

  ‘By the time Limbrick had returned to the Cathedral with this news, the last of the fallen scaffolding was being lifted from the body. It was so badly crushed that it could be recognized as that of Burgoyne only by the canonical garments, the Treasurer’s chain of office and the great key to the west door which Burgoyne had taken from Claggett. Limbrick confided to Freeth – for a close understanding was growing up between the two men – that he feared that Gambrill’s disappearance suggested that he had murdered Burgoyne. Gambrill did not reappear that day and, in fact, was never seen again in the town. By disappearing he convicted himself. The prospect of imminent denunciation had driven him to murder.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Dr Sisterson objected. ‘What was it that Gambrill believed he was going to be denounced for?’

  ‘Well, Dr Sheldrick has a theory about that. Limbrick suggested to Freeth that a clue might lie in the Treasurer’s Accounts kept by Burgoyne and relating to Gambrill’s work on the fabric. The two men broke into Burgoyne’s study and found the account-books, examined them, and a few days later disclosed that they had discovered, from comparing the accounts with the work actually carried out, that Gambrill had embezzled some of the funds allocated for work on the Cathedral.’

  ‘That seems straightforward enough,’ Dr Sisterson said.

  ‘But you said that Dr Sheldrick has a theory about it.’ Mrs Locard put in. ‘So does he not accept that explanation?’

  ‘He argues that Freeth persuaded Limbrick to help him falsify Burgoyne’s accounts in order to put the blame solely on Gambrill.’

  ‘Whereas Freeth himself had involved Gambrill in his embezzlement of Foundation funds?’ Dr Sisterson suggested.

  ‘Precisely. Incidentally, I understand that the correct term is malversation. And that is why he was able to persuade him to kill Burgoyne.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed. ‘Has he any evidence for that?’

  ‘Only inferential. It fits the facts and Freeth seems capable of it.’

  ‘Capable of inciting a man to murder!’ Mrs Locard exclaimed. ‘Surely that is too dark a view of human nature, Dr Courtine.’

  I was taken aback. ‘The record shows him to have been greedy and unscrupulous in his use of forgery to steal the Foundation’s property.’

  ‘Even if he did those things, they fall very far short of murder,’ she said with a smile. ‘And the role which Dr Sheldrick ascribes to the Mason also puzzles me. The proud and conscientious man you described would surely not have stolen from the Cathedral which he loved, however he felt about its canons?’

  ‘Well, someone murdered Burgoyne,’ I protested.

  ‘If it was Gambrill,’ Dr Sisterson said, ‘I believe it was nothing to do with money that motivated him. What we do know about him is that he loved the Cathedral and he believed that Burgoyne was bent on destroying it.’

  ‘Freeth and Limbrick convinced people at the time that the murderer must have been Gambrill,’ I went on. ‘The only mystery now was how the memorial had been put in position. Limbrick and the other men who had been working there the night before insisted that it weighed far too much for one man to have done so. The townsfolk settled it among themselves that Gambrill had had the aid of the Devil.’

  ‘That certainly seems the only rational explanation,’ Mrs Locard remarked with a smile. Then she said: ‘One thing that puzzles me is why he chose to flee the town?’

  ‘That struck me, too,’ Dr Sisterson agreed. ‘Burgoyne’s death could have been passed off as an accident and if Gambrill had simply gone quietly home, nobody would have known about the part he had played.’

  ‘To have abandoned his wife and young children!’ Mrs Locard exclaimed softly, glancing down at the child sleeping on her lap. ‘That seems to me quite extraordinary.’

  ‘I suppose it is odd,’ I agreed.

  ‘As a bachelor, Dr Sheldrick might not have given enough weight to that consideration,’ Mrs Sisterson said.

  Her husband chuckled. ‘I’m tempted to say that, on the contrary, we may have discovered Gambrill’s motive for fleeing the town.’ As we smiled, he went on: ‘Incidentally, does Dr Sheldrick reveal what became of Limbrick in later years?’

  ‘He took over Gambrill’s business and conducted it on behalf of his widow.’

  ‘Did he indeed! And what happened to the widow – and the children?’ he asked.

  ‘A few years later she applied to the justices to have her husband declared dead and after a long delay this was done.’

  ‘And Limbrick married her?’ Mrs Locard suggested.

  ‘Very shrewd of you, if I may say so. It appears that in the interval she bore several children by him.’

  ‘It strikes me’, she said, ‘that he played a crucial role in the story.’

  ‘Could it be’, Dr Sisterson suggested, ‘that he made trouble between Burgoyne and Gambrill while pretending to be a peacemaker?’

  ‘You suspect he was involved in the murde
r himself? That is possible, but Burgoyne’s family made extensive efforts to find out the truth and Dr Sheldrick does not mention such a hypothesis. Burgoyne’s nephew, a young man called Willoughby Burgoyne, spent a couple of weeks in the town trying to find out what had happened. He knew, of course, of the hostility towards his uncle within the Chapter but he failed to find any evidence on which to bring charges.’

  We discussed it for some minutes more and then the booming of the Cathedral clock reminded us how late it was. Dr Sisterson asked me if I would escort Mrs Locard to the Deanery and although she insisted it was not necessary, I was only too pleased to do so. We left the house a few minutes later and on the short walk through the Close we talked about Dr Sisterson and his wife, and their evident happiness.

  As we approached the Deanery, she said: ‘I found your exposition of the story of Canon Burgoyne fascinating. You brought it all to life so vividly. I imagine you are a wonderful teacher.’

  ‘I don’t know about that but I certainly try to make the past live again,’ I said. ‘I believe it’s so important that the young realize that the men and women of bygone times were once human beings with our own passions and fears.’

  ‘And yet we can never be sure, can we, that Canon Burgoyne was as noble as Dr Sheldrick would have us believe or Sub-Dean Freeth such a monster?’

  ‘Absolutely sure, no. But if all the evidence in a given case points in one direction, we can be as sure as we need to be.’

  ‘Don’t you think that we read our own desires into the figures from the past about whom we reflect because, as erring mortals, we cannot be dispassionate?’

  ‘That is a danger, certainly. The only protection against it is to try to understand our own motives and so take our prejudices into account.’

  ‘That is assuredly the path of wisdom,’ she said with a smile. ‘But it is not an easy one to follow.’

  To my regret, we had already arrived at the Deanery. I had realized during the evening who it was she reminded me of and when I took leave of her I said that I hoped we would meet again before my departure. She replied, as she shook my hand, that she very much hoped so, and when the yawning servant opened the door I bowed and turned towards Austin’s house.

  Wednesday Night

  As I crossed the dark Close I thought of the noise and warmth and affection I had just left behind, and my own life seemed very quiet in contrast. There was no sound at all now, and although I had always loved silence, it began to take on a sinister air. Sisterson, ten or fifteen years younger than I, had gleefully encumbered himself with cares and obligations that I had, in one way or another, avoided. It occurred to me that of the three canons I had met, he was the least concerned by the petty rivalries of the Chapter.

  Austin’s door was before me now but, feeling that I did not want to enter yet, I decided to take a turn around the outside of the Cathedral, which squatted like a great beast in the black cage of the Close. Was I cheered by the ungenerous reflection that Austin had made a mess of every department of his life? Although I did not have the domestic contentment of Dr Sisterson, at least I had an interesting, respected and well-paid position whereas my friend seemed to be entombed in a world of provincial dreariness and oppression. In contrast to him, I was doing what I had always wanted to do and I enjoyed doing it: teaching undergraduates, carrying out my researches and writing my books. Of course, Austin was right to say that happiness is much more than merely the absence of misery. And now that I thought about it, I supposed it could not be said that I was happy. It seemed to me that some people have a talent for being happy and others appear to find unhappiness almost as if they sought it. Perhaps that was from the fear of being disappointed. I had always thought of happiness as something that would eventually come if I avoided doing the wrong things. I had been careful and made very few mistakes in my life. I had, of course, made one grave error and I was still paying the penalty.

  Absurdly, I had continued to think of myself as young. Even surrounded by undergraduates I had persevered in imagining myself as a slightly older contemporary of theirs. Was that because I had gone on thinking of my proper adult life as being about to begin at some point in the future? But now, suddenly, I found I was nearly fifty and it was too late. My life would continue to unfurl in precisely the way it had for the last thirty years.

  Yet while I thought of myself as still young, I sometimes wondered if – because I had read too many books too early – I had become so theoretically sophisticated about later life that I almost avoided going through adolescence and youth. So in a way I was much younger than I should have been when I fell in love with my wife.

  As I rounded the eastern end of the Cathedral I felt like a ghost in the deserted Close. But unlike Canon Burgoyne, nobody would remember me in two hundred years. Not in fifty. And nobody would bear my name. What would I leave behind? A few dusty books that would lie unread on the shelves of libraries? Fading memories in the minds of my students – if they ever thought of me at all, and why should they?

  I saw that my unwillingness to bestow my time and attention on things and people that bored me had led me to exclude a great deal from my life. Ancient texts, conflicts or lacunae in the historical record, forgotten languages – these things were endlessly fascinating and, moreover, had the advantage that they could be immediately put aside if my interest in them should become exhausted. All my passion had gone into that aspect of my life and in the last twenty-two years I had never allowed myself to feel tenderness for another woman. Had I used as an excuse the fact that a wife was an impossibility for me? And yet I knew that I had only ever cared for myself to the degree that I believed that someone else cared for me. We only value ourselves as others value us, for it might be said that we hold ourselves in trust for others. In that case, what reason had I to value myself? Was I really content to believe that any prospect of love – or even of domestic happiness – was out of the question? Had that distant experience frightened me from entrusting my peace of mind to another person for all time? Perhaps, to anticipate for a moment, it was because that hare had been started in the deep coverts of my imagination that I had the most disturbing dream of my life in the early hours of Friday morning.

  When I opened the door I found the gas in the hall turned down and so I assumed that Austin was still out. I took off my hat and greatcoat and picked up and lit a candle, but as I reached the first-floor landing, I heard a cry of greeting from the sitting-room. When I went in, I found the chamber in almost complete darkness with only the smouldering coals in the grate casting a flickering reddish light. Austin was sitting at the table with a bottle and two glasses before him.

  ‘Come in and sit yourself down and take a glass with me,’ he said effusively.

  ‘May I light a candle?’ I asked and when he nodded, quickly did so.

  As the light flared up, I saw Austin’s smiling face raised towards me. For a moment in the candle-light he looked like the young man I had known long ago.

  He lifted the bottle to pour some wine into the untouched glass. Then he smiled and said: ‘How mysterious. There appears to be none left. Be a good chap and fetch another bottle from the cupboard.’

  I moved towards the armoire and tugged at its door. ‘It’s locked, Austin.’

  ‘Not that one,’ he said sharply. ‘I meant the one over there, for heaven’s sake. But sit down and I’ll do it myself.’ He jumped up and hastened towards a cupboard near the door while I did as I had been ordered. He brought over another bottle of old port and opened it, his affability now apparently restored.

  ‘My dear old fellow,’ he said. ‘I was growing quite alarmed about you. I was afraid you might have taken offence and decided to leave and that’s the last thing in the world that I want. The very last thing.’

  I was touched even though I could see that he had drunk heavily and so his words were not to be taken completely at face-value. As I looked at him – merry and intoxicated – I thought of our many late-night carouses in our lodgings
and felt an ache of sadness at what had been and what might have been.

  ‘Why ever should I do such a thing?’ I asked, seating myself opposite him.

  He poured me a glass of wine to the brim. ‘Because I’ve been abominably rude. Being irritable and argumentative. Leaving you that note. But I ... If only you knew. I’ve been so ...’

  He broke off as I placed my hand upon his.

  ‘Dear Austin, I’m not offended, not the least little bit in the world. I know that something is preying on your mind.’

  He looked startled: ‘You’re quite mistaken. I have nothing troubling me.’ He took his hand away.

  ‘My dear old friend, you need not put on a brave face to me. I’ve noticed how nervous you have been. And there was your nightmare. I know you are preoccupied by something and I think I know what it is.’

  He stared at me: ‘What do you mean?’

  I felt embarrassed. I had not meant to say anything. The truth was that I had been thinking of the gossip I had overheard that evening. ‘I know that there are grave difficulties at the school.’

  ‘At the school? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve heard – please don’t ask me how or from whom because I can’t tell you – that the Headmaster is not generally respected and that ...’

  ‘The High-master, you mean. He’s certainly not respected by me.’

  ‘And that things are coming to a crisis.’

  ‘A crisis! There’s always a crisis there. Mediocrities thrive on spurious excitement. It’s a substitute for a life of the mind. But there’s nothing happening there of any significance. You’ve invented some sort of story about it, haven’t you? You have too much imagination. As a result, you don’t see what’s in front of your nose. You’re so eager to look beyond it that you miss things that are obvious to less perceptive people. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

  I laughed a trifle uneasily. ‘Are you sure? I’ve heard that the school might be forced to dismiss some of its staff.’