Sidney Chambers and The Persistence of Love

by James Runcie

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t.’

  ‘Bloody nerve. We already have the best library in Cambridge. I don’t see why I would want to steal anything else.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Sidney replied, unable to hold back his desire to be rude. ‘It’s only that I thought the Wren was the finest, then the Parker, the Pepys and St John’s.’

  ‘The Parker may be a fine medieval collection, Archdeacon, but that’s as far as it goes. We have 90,000 volumes: law, theology, medicine, illuminated Books of Hours and Psalters, over one hundred fifteenth-century incunabula or cradle books, the Nuremburg Chronicle, the plays of Terence, Gratian’s Decretum . . .’

  As the Master spoke, Sidney wondered whether some small part of his energy could be pointed in the direction of personal hygiene. It was extraordinary how many Fellows were unfamiliar with toothpaste, deodorant or the advantages of dry-cleaning.

  Kenrich Prescott expressed his astonishment that Sidney was bothering with his questions when it was perfectly obvious who the guilty party was. ‘You don’t think the cathedral agent was so absent-minded as to get stuck in the library by accident? The whole thing was staged. Either he took the book or manufactured a crisis as a diversionary tactic. The chaplain was misled and let him get away with it. He’s not exactly one of nature’s Einsteins. I wouldn’t trust him to lock himself in his own lavatory. Where did you get him from?’

  ‘Julian is a good and holy man.’

  ‘I think he’s a fool.’

  ‘Then we will have to agree to differ.’

  ‘If you ask me, you should see that cathedral agent as soon as possible. The evidence of his guilt is all too clear.’

  ‘But if he knows we’ve lost the gospel book, there’ll be the most almighty fuss.’

  ‘Nothing you haven’t dealt with before, if your reputation is anything to go by, Mr Archdeacon. Besides, what other choice do you have?’

  Before he could pursue his investigations any further, Sidney knew he had to go to London to visit Amanda’s dying father. The once-proud rooms in Chelsea were a depressing contrast to the Master of Caius’s exhibitionism. Muted in grief, the only sounds came from a fire in the hall and an ancient grandfather clock. A couple of typed letters remained unopened on the hall table. Sir Cecil, it seemed, had no more need to communicate with the world.

  His voice was high and faint and he only had a few words left in him. He told Sidney he had developed insomnia because he had got to that age and frailty when he feared that any sleep might be his last.

  ‘It’s good of you to come,’ he said. ‘I know we have had our differences.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Keeping busy?’

  ‘There’s been a theft in a Cambridge library.’

  ‘I meant in the Church.’

  ‘Oh yes, that too.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come. There’s just one thing I wanted to say to you, Sidney. You know that, after Robert, I have always thought of you as another son.’ (Amanda’s elder brother had been killed in Italy, just before the war had ended.)

  Sidney was not sure that was the case at all, but he wasn’t going to argue with a man on his deathbed.

  ‘I want you to promise that you’ll look after Amanda.’

  Sidney thought he had spent most of his life trying, and failing, to do that. ‘Of course. I’ll do the best I can, Sir Cecil.’

  ‘She’s always been a wayward girl. That business with the Goya hardly helped.’

  ‘I didn’t think she wanted to tell you about that.’

  ‘Ah yes, she thinks she has secrets. She told her mother. That’s as good as telling me. Dreadful business.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her recently to talk about it.’

  ‘I hope you haven’t abandoned her?’

  ‘I would never do that.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Her godfather sorted the situation out. Sir Giles Norrell – do you know him, by any chance?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Good man. He believes in her. He offered the price she paid and ten per cent of any future profit. The plan is to hold on to the painting for a while and then sell it in America. They have their own experts and it’ll get one over on the Spaniards.’

  ‘I thought Charles Beauvoir was more to blame?’

  ‘That little shit? His father was no better. Amanda should have known.’

  ‘She likes to think the best of people.’

  ‘I suppose that helps all of us in the end.’

  ‘She’s very lovable.’

  ‘No one knows that more than we do, Sidney. I sometimes think I’ve been too hard on her, but I didn’t want her wasting herself. It turns out she’s done that anyway.’

  ‘She’s still young.’

  ‘You know I always wanted her to marry you?’

  ‘I thought you disapproved.’

  ‘Amanda imagined I did. But she never asked me directly. Perhaps she didn’t have enough faith in me. Or perhaps she didn’t trust herself. It’s a pity when love lacks confidence. So many people let the possibility slide away from them. Then it was all too late. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. You would have made a good couple.’

  ‘But it wasn’t to be.’

  ‘You have a fine wife now.’

  ‘I’m a lucky man.’

  ‘You chose well.’

  ‘I have been blessed.’

  ‘You took your chance when it came, just as I did. Marriage makes a man, don’t you think?’

  ‘People generally only say that when it’s been a success. Amanda tried with Henry.’

  ‘He had too much of a past. But I’m tired now. Will you pass me that water?’

  Sidney did so.

  ‘I suppose you are going to tell me that no one is beyond redemption?’

  ‘The belief is there to help us all.’

  ‘I hope it’s more than a belief, Sidney. The trumpet shall sound. And we shall be saved.’

  ‘And death shall have no more dominion over us.’

  ‘Will you pray for me?’

  ‘I will, Sir Cecil.’

  ‘Just Cecil, if you don’t mind. And, as I ask, please do look after Amanda. You can’t deny a dying man his wish, can you?’

  ‘I have already promised you that.’

  Sidney’s stay in London was cut short by a summons from the Master of Corpus. Sir David Montgomery had received a ransom demand for a book no one had told him had been stolen: a request made by someone who clearly knew the insurance value of the missing manuscript as well as the size of the college’s endowment. The demand was for £50,000 to prevent the theft of another book (The Bury Bible or The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and another £50,000 for the return of The Gospel Book of St Augustine.

  Attached was the opening illustration of St Luke’s Gospel. It had been cut into tiny fragments. The note read: ‘This is from the facsimile. The next time it will come from the original manuscript.’

  Ralph Mumford had also been called in to explain the situation. ‘So that’s why the thief took the reproduction as well,’ he said. ‘It must be someone who can’t bear to desecrate the original.’

  ‘Or someone who doesn’t have it at all and is bluffing,’ said the Master.

  ‘But who else knows about this?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘Only us, the chaplain, the Master of Caius and the thief.’

  The Master paced the room. ‘We cannot give in to such a demand.’

  ‘Then how will we get the gospel book back?’

  ‘Do you think the cathedral agent knows too?’ the Master asked.

  ‘I think he would be quick to telephone us if he did,’ the librarian replied.

  ‘How long do you think we can keep the news from him?’

  ‘I still think Sir Leslie could have stolen it,’ said Sidney. ‘The book was removed after he had been trapped in the library.’

  ‘He went straight back to the dinner, and then he was with me for the rest of the evening,’ the Master concluded.
/>   ‘What did he want?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘We had a very interesting conversation on the future of the Anglican communion and its relationship with Rome. Sir Leslie wants to invite the Pope to Canterbury. You know he’s never been? The gospel book has the potential to be one of the great attractions of his visit. He could see, touch and study something sent by his predecessor, Gregory.’

  ‘And now he can’t unless we pay the ransom.’

  ‘In the likely event that it’s not the cathedral agent,’ the Master replied, ‘are there any clues as to who might be behind all this?’

  ‘I have a friend who might have an idea,’ said Sidney. ‘Quentin Torrens is an antiquarian bookseller. People often try to sell to him, although I fear this might be out of his league. But I can make a few discreet enquiries. Otherwise we will have to bring in the police.’

  ‘You mean your man Keating? I don’t think we’re ready for that.’

  ‘He gets results.’

  ‘I’ve heard he can be a little rough.’

  ‘He’s determined,’ said Sidney, ‘and enthusiastic, but I’ll try my antiquarian first.’

  Quentin Torrens was, it had to be admitted, something of a long shot. He was a genial, scholarly but other-worldly pipe smoker who had once, famously and in Sidney’s presence, set fire to the beard that he had grown to compensate for his baldness. An Italian liqueur, Sambuca, had been involved. Quentin had been at Corpus and had stayed on to do a PhD on the revisions to Dr Johnson’s dictionary and had a penchant for quoting the great doctor’s more obscure words to describe the dons at their old college. (Thus the Professor of Chemistry was a ‘fopdoodle’, the Professor of Modern History was a ‘bedpresser’ and the Professor of Law was a ‘bellygod’.)

  After the initial ‘hail-fellow-well-met’, Quentin took the opportunity to explain a little bit about the nature and philosophy of book thievery in order to try and understand who might have committed the crime. It certainly couldn’t have been a serious book-lover, he argued, because, as Ralph Mumford had already pointed out, none of them would take pleasure in possessing a stolen object. It was like owning a time-share, Quentin maintained: you couldn’t ever feel that the property was yours.

  ‘And that’s no good to a collector. Although it’s possible someone may have “borrowed” it for a while just to see what it’s like. There’s a history of that. People stopped lending books to Dr Johnson because they knew they’d never get them back. He’d either mutilate them in order to rip out quotations for his dictionary, or lose them, or forget that he had them. Matthew Parker’s own son, John, was notoriously vague and unreliable, even rewriting the bequest to suit books that he wanted back or wasn’t sure his father had meant to include in the first place. But I suppose the children of archbishops are bound to be unreliable. They’ve enjoyed such privilege, it’s hard to recover.’

  ‘But if someone has borrowed it,’ Sidney replied, ‘how long is “a while”? For some people that could be twenty years. The book could deteriorate badly during that time.’

  ‘There must be a degree of covetousness, I think. It’s more than a question of money. It’s the fact that there’s only one copy, and that it’s fragile. These are words that speak of eternity written on a surface that has survived the centuries but can still prove transient. It would be hard not to be moved by it.’

  ‘And so you’re confident the thief will be careful with what he’s got?’

  ‘As much as I can be. But there have been vandals in the past. I wouldn’t take him for granted.’

  ‘You think we should pay?’

  ‘I am afraid so.’

  By the time Sidney returned to Corpus a second ransom demand had been made: £100,000 was to be left in the Reading Room of the British Library for the safe return of the gospel book. To prove that the thief had the original, the demand came with page seventy-eight of the original folio: a half-length figure of a winged being with lion’s claws and ears, and human face, holding a book.

  ‘Is this the real thing?’ Sidney asked.

  Ralph Mumford found it difficult to answer. ‘It is.’

  The ransom note suggested that if the money were not paid then the next image would either be cut, torn or burned.

  ‘Then this cannot be a serious book-lover after all,’ said Sidney.

  ‘But it is the work of someone who is determined to extract money,’ the Master reminded them. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Pay them,’ said Ralph. ‘Please.’

  ‘Do you think the British Library request means that the gospel book is now in London?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘We must get it back before the cathedral agent finds out.’ The Master turned to the librarian. ‘When are you seeing him?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘You’ll have to put him off.’

  ‘I’ve done that twice already.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to think of something. We can’t give in to this. I suppose it’s time to notify the police.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Geordie,’ said Sidney, but before he could do anything, Amanda telephoned. Her father had died.

  He made the journey to London and offered to take the funeral. Before he entered the room to console his friend, he remembered the words of his pastoral director, Simon Opie, telling him that it was always best to arrive slightly late, to give a family time to get ready.

  ‘No matter how much warning you have, the end still comes as a shock,’ Amanda said. ‘I wasn’t prepared for the guilt or the relief.’

  ‘Relief that it’s over at last?’

  ‘And guilt that I never loved him enough.’

  ‘He didn’t make it easy.’

  ‘He never recovered from my brother’s death. And I suppose I resented that. So now I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You’re not expected to say anything. The silence and the attention is enough.’

  ‘Will you teach me how to pray?’ Amanda asked. ‘I mean properly.’

  ‘If it will help. There aren’t always answers.’

  ‘Just the silence?’

  ‘Yes, Amanda. Just the silence. Although that too can be an answer.’

  The following day, Sidney joined Ralph Mumford on a train down to Canterbury. The librarian was carrying a secure attaché case containing an alternative book from the seventh century: The Northumbrian Gospels.

  On entering the Chapter office on the first floor of a Georgian building within the cathedral precincts, they were asked to wait. After three minutes a short man with sandy hair, dressed in a grey pinstriped double-breasted suit, came out into the hall, shook their hands and introduced himself as Sir Leslie Manning, the agent of Canterbury Cathedral.

  This was not the man who had attended the audit dinner. It was also not the man who had been trapped in the Parker Library. And it was not the man who had talked so movingly about the continuity of tradition and the sacred nature of ancient manuscripts.

  Sidney and Ralph introduced themselves, accepted Sir Leslie’s offer of tea and biscuits and couldn’t think what to say.

  ‘We were so sorry not to see you at the audit dinner,’ Ralph Mumford began.

  ‘I didn’t know I was invited.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘It must be the new secretary.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sidney, ‘it has to be, unless we made a mistake. Perhaps the invitation was sent elsewhere. You are the cathedral agent, are you not?’

  ‘That’s what it says on the door to my office.’

  ‘There’s not a similar title that could be confused with your own?’

  ‘Certainly not. Who did you think I was?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Sidney. ‘I’m not sure I’m quite myself today.’

  ‘Have you brought the book?’ Sir Leslie asked.

  ‘We have.’ Ralph Mumford took out The Northumbrian Gospels. ‘I’m afraid it’s not what you were expecting. But these gospels were also held at St Augustine’s, Canterbury and have a very fine
frontispiece. We thought this might look better on television.’

  ‘But why haven’t you brought The Gospel Book of St Augustine?’

  Sidney cut short the pain. ‘Because it’s been stolen.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Almost certainly someone who was pretending to be you.’

  ‘Then what the devil’s going on?’

  Sidney reported how convincing the impersonation had been; how the fake cathedral agent had spoken of the unbroken tradition of archbishops since 597 AD, all being sworn in on this holy text.

  ‘But that’s not true,’ said the real Sir Leslie; or rather, the man who now said he was real.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve only been doing this part of the ceremony since 1945. It’s all a bit of a fraud, if you ask me. Dr Coggan is only the third archbishop to be enthroned in this way. The dean and the Master of Corpus were having dinner at the Athenaeum after the war and thought it might be a rather spiritual thing to do. It’s amazing how modern some traditions are. I think it was part of a bid to get the gospel book back.’

  ‘Even though it was never yours in the first place,’ Ralph jumped in. ‘It belonged to St Augustine’s Abbey, not the cathedral.’

  ‘I don’t think this is the time to bring up points of principle,’ the cathedral agent replied. ‘I’m alarmed that someone has been impersonating me and that you believed him. How he did so, why no one caught on, and how he managed to steal the book, God alone knows. Have you any clues?’

  ‘Tell me about your secretary . . .’ Sidney asked.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Does she open your post?’

  ‘That is part of her job.’

  ‘As well as running your diary and answering your telephone calls?’

  ‘Isn’t that what a secretary is for?’

  ‘I think we need to meet her . . .’

  ‘That may be difficult. She’s just handed in her notice.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me at all,’ said Sidney.

  It was clear that Sir Leslie’s secretary had passed on the invitation to the audit dinner and helped brief the man who had been impersonating the cathedral agent. But who was he and how had he stolen the manuscript? He had definitely left the dinner early, and could well have picked up the book from a prearranged hiding place and hidden it under his cloak while passing the Porters’ Lodge. But it would have taken some nerve, and it would almost certainly have required an accomplice.