Sidney Chambers and The Persistence of Love

by James Runcie

  He mentioned the discrepancies in the accounting of collection money. In many cases there had been shortfalls between the money they thought had been donated and the amount that was finally banked. But in one case, rather surprisingly, there had been a surplus. Did Ted know anything about that?

  ‘I’ve always been honest.’

  ‘We’re not saying that you’re not. Have you, yourself, been short recently?’

  ‘It’s always tight, Archdeacon.’

  ‘So you’ve been taking money from us?’ Miss Morgan asked.

  Sidney placed a restraining hand on her arm. It was the first time he had touched her and he was sure she flinched at the intimacy. ‘Let’s not call it that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should see it in terms of borrowing. Is that what you’ve been doing, Ted? Taking a little money to tide you over and then paying it back when you can. Is that what accounts for that surplus payment?’

  ‘It’s not stealing. I haven’t done that.’

  ‘We’re not saying it is, Ted, because I know you. You always planned to give the money back. Perhaps it was easier than borrowing money from the bank?’

  ‘They wouldn’t give me a loan.’

  ‘So you thought of this as some kind of informal loan system that you were too embarrassed to tell anyone about?’

  ‘Or rather,’ Miss Morgan cut in, ‘it was one that you felt you could get away with.’

  Ted was on the verge of tears. It appalled Sidney that this decent, slightly lost man on the verge of retirement, who had fought bravely in France at the end of the First World War, should be subjected to unnecessary humiliation.

  ‘I just needed the cash to help out,’ he said. ‘I’m going to pay it all back, I promise. It will work out about even in the end.’

  Miss Morgan resisted the need for compassion. ‘About?’

  ‘I didn’t keep accounts. I was more “back of a fag packet” in my calculations.’

  ‘Perhaps if you gave up smoking you’d be better off?’

  ‘We all have our weaknesses, Miss Morgan.’

  ‘Tell us what’s been troubling you,’ said Sidney.

  ‘I don’t like to talk about it. It’s a frightening thing, debt. There’s only so much you can do on twenty-seven pounds a week and with retirement only a few years away. I got a bit scared, I suppose. I don’t have savings and the thought of living on a pension that’s less than a tenner, well, I don’t really know what that’s about. Nine pounds and seventy pence for a married couple? I can’t work out how we’re going to live on that, what with inflation and the cost of electric and the dogs.’

  ‘We all have to make sacrifices,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘But some of these things are necessities.’

  ‘If you can’t afford to keep your dogs . . .’

  ‘You think I’m supposed to give up their company?’

  ‘You have to cut your cloth.’

  ‘It depends on how much cloth you’ve got in the first place. It’s like the politicians telling the people to tighten their belts. Some of us are down to the last notch.’

  Vanessa turned to Sidney as if she wanted nothing more to do with this man. He wondered whether she had been in a situation like this, or ever known poverty. ‘What were you spending the money on, Ted?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing fancy. The vet, mainly.’

  ‘You mean the dogs have been ill?’

  ‘I love them so much. I won’t see them harmed.’

  ‘No one’s asking you to let them suffer.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Miss Morgan replied. ‘But you could give up smoking.’

  ‘I suppose you want me to give up eating and drinking as well. It would probably be better for you all if I just got on with it and died.’

  ‘Now you’re being dramatic.’

  ‘What do you expect me to be?’

  ‘Look, Ted,’ said Sidney. ‘I am sure we can help if you are on the breadline.’

  ‘It’s not that. I’m just above it. I’m not skint. I’m poor. There’s a difference. Being broke and being poor are different things, Archdeacon. I can’t see how I will ever have enough. It’s going to be cold this winter.’

  ‘We will make sure you have enough blankets. I will talk to the dean about a pay rise.’

  ‘The vergers in Winchester are about to be sacked.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, we do, unless they agree to do the cleaning too, which puts those cleaners, who are already employed, out of a job. Why can’t people treat others properly? Even in a cathedral things go wrong.’

  ‘It’s an expensive place to run. The Church isn’t as well-off as it used to be.’

  ‘You can’t put a price on people, Archdeacon.’

  ‘That’s very true.’

  ‘But,’ Miss Morgan interrupted, ‘neither can you run a deficit for ever.’

  Sidney tried to calm the situation down. It seemed ridiculous that in the same month Amanda had paid nearly £25,000 for a painting, a cathedral verger was worried about a pint of beer and a packet of cigarettes that cost twenty-one pence.

  ‘You know we have a charitable foundation for the needy, Ted. Almshouses. Perhaps you could move in there?’

  ‘I’m not old enough for them.’

  ‘Better to go too early than too late.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Some people say that about life. Besides, I didn’t like to ask.’

  ‘You were too proud?’

  ‘I don’t like to depend on charity. I just needed a bit of help to see me through. I’ll stop now. Honest.’

  ‘I will help you make an application to the charity.’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘There is, Ted. You’ve been here thirty years. Let us help you.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to me?’

  ‘There may well be consequences,’ Miss Morgan warned, before picking up her files and heading off to her next meeting.

  Sidney stayed on. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll talk to the dean. And I promise you, Ted, I’ll make sure there are no consequences. Come and have a drink.’

  While Amanda was away in Spain, Sidney returned to his duties, his wife and his child. He was so grateful for the latitude Hildegard allowed him in their marriage but wondered why she did it. Was she granting him the freedom to be himself or was she happier to be rid of him so that she could get on with her own life? He couldn’t work it out and decided not to spend too much time thinking about it lest it make him feel even more guilty or selfish than he already did.

  It was easiest to feel most himself when he could tick off what he knew was right: preaching a good sermon, visiting the sick, walking Byron, giving people the time they needed. What he had to do now, he decided, even if she might not properly appreciate it, was visit Mrs Maguire, his former housekeeper, who was now in a Cambridge care home and suffering from dementia.

  As he bicycled from the station he wondered how much of her identity was dependent on self-awareness. Was she still ‘Sylvia Maguire’ even if she was no longer aware of who she was?

  She was sitting in an armchair with her feet up and a rug over her legs. She was trying to pin her favourite brooch back on her blouse but could not remember how to do it.

  ‘Have we met before?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s Sidney. Let me help you . . .’

  ‘I can manage, thank you. Are you my father? Did you let me have this brooch?’

  It was eleven cultured pearls on a sprig of silver leaves. Her husband Ronnie had given it to her before he went off to fight in the First World War.

  ‘No, that was from your husband.’

  ‘I’m too young to have a husband.’

  ‘I’m your priest. We are friends.’

  ‘Am I dying?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘It feels like I am. Or I’ve already done it. Am I dead? Is this heaven? Where is everyone? They told me it would be different. Did you tell me? Who was it?
It’s so hard to think. Is this a dream? Who am I?’

  ‘You’re Sylvia.’

  ‘That’s a nice name.’

  ‘Sylvia Maguire.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s right.’

  ‘You used to be Sylvia Reynolds. Then you married Ronnie.’

  ‘Married. Am I married now?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘How did he die? Did they tell me?’

  ‘I took his funeral. We were there together.’

  ‘I don’t think I was. I don’t even know who he is. Why would I go to the funeral of someone I don’t know?’

  ‘You were very good to him.’

  ‘Was he good to me?’

  ‘In the end he was.’

  ‘Are you good to me?’

  ‘I hope so. I try my best.’

  ‘Can’t you do any better?’

  ‘I’ll try, Sylvia.’

  ‘Who is Sylvia? And who are you?’

  ‘I’m Sidney.’

  ‘And we are friends. Did you say that? Does it mean I have to be kind to you?’

  ‘No, the other way round.’

  ‘What other way round? I don’t know any other way round. Don’t you know the right way round? Do you know right from wrong? Why don’t you tell me? Who are you again?’

  ‘I’m Sidney.’

  He bumped into the dean on the way home, who said that he had let Ted off with a warning. Vanessa Morgan had been ‘unimpressed’ by the behaviour of the clergy. ‘I think she expected us to take a tougher line on petty theft.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’s in the right job, Felix.’

  ‘That is what I have suggested. I think she’s going to come and have a word with you in the pub.’

  ‘How does she know I’m going to be there?’

  ‘Thursdays. That’s your night with Inspector Keating. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘As long as she doesn’t get him involved.’

  ‘She may have a go.’

  ‘I think he’s not in the mood for petty theft. He has bigger fish to fry.’

  ‘Our Miss Morgan doesn’t consider herself one of life’s minnows.’

  ‘Indeed not, Felix. I must confess to being rather scared of her.’

  ‘She’s quite harmless when you get to know her.’

  ‘I’d rather not take the risk.’

  That night, having told the men that she had expected to find them in the pub, her tone managing to combine the disappointed, the patronising and the aggressive, Miss Morgan announced she was leaving.

  ‘Already?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘I haven’t enjoyed working here.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Geordie answered. He was already on his third pint. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘If you have to ask, Inspector . . .’

  ‘Is it the fact that they are all men?’

  ‘It is not only that.’

  ‘Or is it their complacency, absent-mindedness, vanity, disguised selfishness, laziness – do any of those questionable virtues spring to mind?’

  ‘You think you are being amusing, Inspector Keating, when, in point of fact, you are just being rude.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sidney. ‘I know how you disapprove and I’m sure you don’t like any of us very much.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like you, Archdeacon,’ Miss Morgan replied. ‘I just think you are a long way from Jesus. As is the Church of England.’

  ‘And what do you intend to do about that?’ Geordie asked.

  ‘Mr Chambers knows perfectly well. You may not think it likely, but the day will come. They are ordaining Joyce Bennett in Hong Kong at Christmas. Once you accept women into the Church everything will change.’

  ‘Women are already in the Church.’

  ‘But not as priests.’

  ‘Then I must wish you good luck. I am sorry if we have let you down.’

  ‘On the contrary, Archdeacon. You have made me more determined than ever.’

  Mrs Maguire died on All Saints’ Day. She had not always been popular in the community and had had her battles with people who found her too judgemental. As far as she was concerned, it was no accident that she had been born on the day that Queen Victoria died, and some of the Grantchester villagers liked to joke that, when she got on her high horse, she probably thought she was the dead monarch’s reincarnation. And yet, despite the pronounced lack of a sense of humour, Sidney’s former housekeeper had served God well throughout her life, expected the best of people and kept her standards up to the end.

  Sidney remembered how she had helped him set up home when he had first arrived in Grantchester, and seen him right about food and routine and the demands of his parishioners. Despite her strong traditional views, she was capable of recovering from an often over-hasty first impression, changing her mind when encouraged to do so and then lovably convincing herself that this new second opinion was how she had felt from the start. There had been no malice in her, and Sidney was convinced that she had lived as well as anyone. She had put up with Dickens and Byron, grown used to Amanda, welcomed Hildegard, understood Leonard and forgiven the husband who had deserted her. It wasn’t a complicated life, she hadn’t had the luxury of too much introspection, but she liked to think that everyone knew where they stood when she spoke to them, and they couldn’t ask for any more than that.

  Sidney thought of those who might accompany her on her final journey: St Honoratus, the patron saint of bakers; St Gertrude of Nivelles, the patron saint of the fear of mice; St Eligius, the patron saint of jewellery; St Ambrose, the patron saint of argument; St Monica for the victims of adultery and St Thomas of Villanova for memory loss.

  Given a healthful eternal life, Sylvia Maguire would have quite a few things to say for herself, he decided. She wouldn’t care what anyone else thought. She could be herself again.

  The following day, Amanda was back from Madrid, and Sidney went down to see her in London. ‘I stayed in a little hotel off the Plaza de Santa Ana,’ she announced. ‘I lived almost entirely on garlic soup and suckling pig. The waiters at Botín, which is the oldest restaurant in the world, took pity on me. I ate every day at a table just next to the kitchens while I waited for the Prado to make up its mind. It was humiliating but necessary.’

  ‘And you were on your own?’

  ‘Absolutely. The trip had to be a secret. I didn’t want Xavier Morata ruining it all over again. It turns out he didn’t need to bother. I spent most of my time looking at paintings and trying to understand what it must have been like for Goya; to have been so much part of society, a life filled with colour and light, and then, at the end of his life, to be confined to deafness and blackness, making paintings of the living damned.’

  ‘They refused to accredit it?’

  ‘They believe it is, as stated in the catalogue, a painting by José de Madrazo y Agudo.’

  ‘But what about your documentation?’

  ‘Not specific enough, and, as Morata said, they thought it was “too crowded a composition”. He might just as well have briefed them.’

  ‘Perhaps he did?’

  ‘They also said it didn’t feel like a Goya – whatever that means. And so the painting is currently worth the estimate that was originally given in the first sale. Exactly £1,500.’

  ‘What about the other bidder?’

  ‘I think someone might have been trying to ruin me.’

  ‘You mean they knew your tactics? But how could they tell when to stop? You went far beyond any upper limit you told anyone about. They could have ended up with the painting and been in the same situation.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You know, Sidney, I’m pretty sure that Charles was behind it all.’

  ‘Charles? Why on earth would he do that?’

  ‘Because I cannot love him. I told him it was hopeless.’

  ‘You rejected him?’

  ‘I told him I was content to be his friend, but he was expecting more.’

  ‘It seems an extravagant and vengeful way
of going about things. Why do you think it’s him?’

  ‘He was covering himself with two different options so he could get the painting without any financial outlay himself.’

  ‘You mean that you still think it’s a Goya . . .’

  ‘Of course I do . . .’

  ‘ . . . and that this whole affair has been some kind of conspiracy?’

  ‘Yes. It’s been run by a cartel of men who wanted to take advantage of a little rich girl who got just a bit too greedy and thought that she was rather better than she was. They wanted to teach me a lesson.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not being paranoid?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Sidney. Charles knew about the house in Chester Row. He guessed my upper limit. He was sure I wouldn’t risk more than my home, but he put another bidder into the auction both to cover himself and to punish me. If the other bidder acquired the painting then presumably he had a separate deal. If I got it then he would still win either way: whether I shared the painting after the resale at a far higher price or if I was forced to give it directly to him because I couldn’t pay the auction house. Charles is in it with Morata.’

  ‘So you are saying that he’ll share the final profit with Morata rather than you; that you have been betrayed?’

  ‘The bribe was a bluff to throw me off the scent. They’ve done all this together and the Prado is in on it too. Now all they have to do is wait until I am desperate to sell.’

  ‘Have you challenged any of them about all this?’

  ‘I can’t. Charles has disappeared. His family say he’s gone abroad.’

  ‘Leaving you to pick up the pieces?’

  ‘There aren’t very many pieces to pick up.’

  ‘But you still have the painting.’

  ‘I do, but if I want to sell now, without accreditation, I’ll get £1,000 at best. I think I may be ruined. I had some savings and raised the money against my home, but if everything falls apart I’ll be left with pennies. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do or where on earth I’m going to live.’

  ‘Will you go back to your parents’?’

  ‘Can you imagine what that’s going to be like?’

  ‘You can always stay with us.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Sidney.’