An Oxford Scandal Page 2

  Was it only eighteen months ago that he had taken a lease on a small terraced house in Rose Hill Lane, Cowley, under the name of Charles Jordan? Once you crossed Magdalen Bridge, you felt fully separated from Oxford itself, so the suburb of Cowley made an ideal retreat. It was there that he and Rachel spent together what precious time they could salvage from their humdrum home existences. It had been a kind of game at first, playing at being husband and wife, free from the bleak restraints imposed upon them by society, but inevitably they had become, as the Bible put it, ‘one flesh’.

  Their punishment was to be racked with guilt and shame, but even these strong condemnations had failed to put them asunder.

  It was just after one o’clock when Jardine woke from his reverie. Several people hailed the tram as it passed along St Giles, and when they slid open the door, an invigorating gust of wind rushed into the saloon. Some towns, apparently, had established ‘stops’, where people congregated to wait for the tramcar. In Oxford, one still hailed the vehicle, which obligingly stopped in the street.

  At last they came to journey’s end at St Margaret’s Road, and Jardine made his way into the elegant brick-red suburb of Summertown. He loved its attractive air of opulence, the well-spaced houses in their neat gardens, and the tree-lined streets.

  It had grown brighter, and Jardine stopped by St Margaret’s church to admire the autumn tints of russet and gold. What a lovely place this was! What a telling contrast to the ancient colleges and winding medieval lanes of the city! And it was the fair sex who had ultimately been partly responsible for its creation, when houses were built there for married dons. He allowed himself an amused smile as he recalled a sermon he had heard in ’84 at New College chapel, delivered by Dean Burgon. He had told the women present: ‘Inferior to us God made you. And inferior to the end of time you will remain.’ Well, Burgon had been a fiendishly learned man, but an unreformed obscurantist in some ways; he had died four years after that sermon.

  Anthony Jardine walked briskly along Hayfield Road and turned into the secluded enclave of Culpeper Gardens. His detached three-storey house at number 7 was a welcome contrast to the grand halls and chambers of the ancient college of St Gabriel’s. Its red brick was still clean and unweathered. Its gardens, front and rear, had long been subdued and tamed by old Terence, the local jobbing gardener. Both gas and mains water were laid on, but Jardine secretly envied his neighbour, Professor Gorringe, who had recently had the electric light installed. One depressed a brass lever, or ‘switch’, and the light-globes leapt to life!

  Before he could ring the bell, the door was opened by Betty, the maid-of-all-work, and he stepped up into the hall, which he had had newly papered in a rich dark brown anaglypta. The hall was filled with sunlight, streaming down from the window on the first-floor landing.

  ‘Well, Betty,’ he said, as the maid took his coat and hat and hung them on the hall stand, ‘how have things been here today?’ He was asking how his wife was, as the girl well knew.

  ‘Missus rose mid-morning, sir,’ she said. ‘She still looked poorly, but she insisted on going for a walk across the gardens and as far as St Margaret’s. She was much better when she came back. She cheered up no end when Miss Hillier came to see her.’

  ‘And what are we having for luncheon?’

  ‘Cook’s doing lamb cutlets, and there’ll be rhubarb tart and custard to follow. I’ll go now, sir, if you don’t mind, and lay the table in the dining room.’

  Jardine felt for his pocket book in the inner pocket of his jacket; yes, it was still there, still safe. It would be at least an hour before he would be able to pore over its contents. Hic sepulta sunt… Was it possible?

  *

  Jardine found Dora where he knew she would be, in what she called her boudoir, a large room on the first floor, overlooking the rear garden. It was a pallid sort of place, with curtains from Liberty’s, and a lot of bamboo furniture, including several rustic bookcases crammed with popular novels and books on needlework. There was a shabby chaise-longue, covered by a plaid blanket; it was here that Dora spent most of her leisure time. A number of occasional tables held shaded oil lamps.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Anthony,’ said Dora Jardine. ‘What time is it? I must have dozed off.’ She lay under the plaid blanket on the chaise-longue. A copy of The Lady had fallen from her hand on to the carpet. She looked at him with incurious eyes, like those of someone merely registering the fact that another person had just come into the room.

  She had long lost the delicate beauty of feature that had so attracted him when he had first met her. These days her face, blotched and swollen by idleness and unhealthy diet, was too often disfigured by a frown of petulant discontent. The frown would appear whenever she could not get her own way, or when he made a suggestion that was not to her liking. She had become slovenly and untidy, so that Betty was forever cleaning up after her.

  It was her manner, not her appearance, that made him often embarrassed on those rare occasions when they attended a function together. If they met some of his colleagues in town, he would feel compelled to introduce them, as though they were strangers to her. And she would incline her head and say, ‘Pleased to meet you’, a greeting which would often make him blush with shame. She no longer knew anybody except her friend Jean Hillier.

  He had met Dora in 1869, when he was nineteen, and an undergraduate at University College, London. She was only seventeen, a lady clerk in the college bursary. He had fallen in love with her immediately, and she apparently with him. Dora was an orphan, raised by an elderly aunt. Anthony’s late father, a solicitor, who had been an essentially easy-going man, had raised no objection to the marriage, provided that they both agreed to a decent period of engagement. They had married in 1872, immediately after Anthony had gained a First Class Honours degree in History, at Wren’s beautiful church of St Lawrence Jewry, in Guildhall Yard.

  Their early years together had been idyllic. They had existed only for each other, leaving the busy world to revolve around them. Even when his married state threatened his appointment to a Fellowship at St Gabriel’s, he and Dora had contrived an adventurous and excitingly illicit way of surmounting the problem. Anything seemed to have been possible in those heady days. Anthony looked back on them now with something like disbelief.

  ‘I hear that you went for a walk this morning,’ said Anthony Jardine.

  ‘Yes, as far as St Margaret’s and back. I felt very much better afterwards.’

  She rose from the chaise-longue, and stretched her arms, uttering a little sigh.

  ‘Did you have an interesting morning at college?’

  ‘Yes, a very interesting morning. Some workmen discovered a hidden chamber beneath Staircase XII—’

  ‘Did they? How interesting. I think I’ll ask Betty to get me a bottle of Doctor Rutherford’s Elixir. I’m sure it would help soothe my nerves. It’s only eightpence halfpenny.’

  It was time to change the subject. To share that tremendous discovery with her would be to rob it of all its allure.

  ‘How was Jean Hillier?’ he asked. ‘Betty told me that she’d called.’

  ‘Yes, she called, and brought me this month’s edition of The Lady. Wasn’t that kind? She wants me to join the Women’s Sewing League.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could be terribly dreary. And it would mean going out once a week in these dark nights. I told her I’d think about it.’

  She picked up a half-eaten box of chocolates from the floor, and put it down on an already crowded side table.

  They went down to luncheon. Dora had exhausted her fund of conversation, so they sat in silence while Betty waited at table. Anthony Jardine pretended not to notice the overtly compassionate glances that the girl gave him as she served him.

  Dear God! Were all men’s home lives as boring and stifling as his?

&nbs
p; *

  ‘That poor man,’ said Mrs Green, the Jardines’ cook, ‘is as innocent as the babe new born.’ She threw a handful of soda crystals into the brownstone sink, and added a pan of boiling water from the range. ‘He sees nothing, and nobody’s going to tell him anything. It’s a crying shame.’

  ‘Don’t you think—’

  ‘No, Betty, I don’t. She’d enough to occupy her mind when the children were young – and she was a good mother to them, I’ll grant you that – but they’ve both gone, now. Master John’s teaching abroad, and Miss Lucy’s working at the British Museum Library. There’s a very eligible young man paying court to her, so I’ve heard. But her – well, it’s a crying shame.’

  Betty piled the plates into the sink, and added some cold water from the sink pump. It was no use arguing with Mrs Green.

  ‘When she went for her walk this morning,’ said Betty, ‘I walked out to fetch those things we needed from Scott’s. As I passed the back of St Margaret’s church, I saw her talking to that man. The same man as I saw last week. I watched them as they talked, and there was something – something secret about the way they were behaving.’

  ‘Furtive,’ said Mrs Green.

  ‘That’s right. And then he gave her something – I couldn’t see what it was. And then they parted. He hurried off towards Woodstock Road.’

  ‘And what did she do?’

  ‘She went into the church porch, and sat down. Maybe she was tired. I went to Scott’s, and bought those provisions, and when I came back, she was back, too. She was in that boudoir of hers for a while, and when she came out, she was as bright as a pin, smiling and sprightly, if that’s the word I mean.’

  ‘I’ve seen him too,’ said Mrs Green. ‘I saw her speaking to him a couple of weeks ago out there in the gardens, near the Monument. He’s a handsome, well set up sort of fellow, a gentleman, I’d say, at least as far as appearances go. But it’s a crying shame. The master’s too innocent for this world.’

  Betty lifted the dishes out of the sink, and arrayed them on the wooden drain-board.

  ‘I don’t know about innocent,’ she said. ‘What about that Mrs Noble? I’ve seen him taking tea with her more than once, up in town. The way he looks at her—’

  ‘Mrs Noble fiddlesticks! You wicked girl. Master’s known Mrs Noble for years. You won’t find her skulking about in church porches. You’d better put that dish of trifle back in the larder. And then you can do the stairs. Mrs Noble indeed!’

  *

  At last! Anthony Jardine sat at the desk in his study, and opened his pocket book. He was cocooned here, in the quiet, book-lined room on the top floor. He had told Betty that he was not to be disturbed, but that he’d ring for a cup of tea to be brought up at four o’clock. He was dining in college that night, and wanted to be left entirely free of interruption until the time came for him to dress.

  He dipped his pen in the inkwell, and carefully transcribed on to a sheet of cream-wove paper the words that he had copied from the plaque on the side of the sandstone tomb.

  HIC SEPVLTA SVNT OSSA SANCTI MARTYRIS THOMAE BECKET

  A PROFANIS MANIBVS ILLIVS PESSIMI ET IRATI HOMINIS CELATA

  DVM FIDES ANTIQVA RESTITVATVR

  DIE XII AVGVSTI ANNO DOMINI MDXXXIX

  Could this really be true? It was imperative that avowed experts in the fields of medieval epigraphy and mortuary architecture should be summoned at once to verify this awesome find. Why look for reasons to doubt its authenticity? Beneath the Latin inscription he composed a translation into English.

  ENTOMBED HERE ARE THE BONES OF THE HOLY MARTYR THOMAS BECKET, HIDDEN FROM THE PROFANE CLUTCHES OF THAT BAD MAN OF WRATH UNTIL THE OLD FAITH BE RESTORED. THE 12TH DAY OF AUGUST IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1539.

  Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, one-time friend and then bitter enemy of Henry II, had been martyred by three of Henry’s knights in Canterbury Cathedral, on Sunday, 29 November, 1170. Revered as a saint, a great shrine had arisen for his veneration, and had been a centre of pilgrimage for four hundred years until another king, ‘that bad man of wrath’, Henry VIII, in the year 1538, had pillaged his tomb and ordered his bones to be burnt. Or so it had been thought, till now.

  2

  Incident at Culpeper Gardens

  Dinner was nearing its end in the great hall of St Gabriel’s College. The scouts were poised to remove the last set of plates once all the Fellows dining that night had finished with the savoury. The butler of the Senior College was ready to place the decanters of port and Madeira on the high table.

  Anthony Jardine relished the vast vaulted chamber, finished in the sixteenth century, and tacitly regarded as the centre of college life. The ten chandeliers glowed with the light of their many candles, illuminating the dim portraits of past founders and benefactors which hung on the panelling. From the wall above the high table the recently restored portrait of Edward III frowned down upon them all, dons and undergraduates alike. In a week’s time, the portrait would be festooned with laurel to commemorate his death on the 13 November, 1377.

  As the Provost had predicted, rumour about the find under Staircase XII had run like wildfire through the college, and almost certainly beyond. The Babel of noise on the undergraduate benches that night suggested that the sandstone tomb, and what it might contain, formed part of their many conversations.

  ‘Listen to them!’ Arthur Collingwood, St Gabriel Professor of Ecclesiastical History, uttered a little dry laugh, and shook his head in mock despair. He was a man of sharp, spare countenance, with thinning hair and an academic stoop. ‘You’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest between you, Provost. You, and Jardine there. All kinds of wild-eyed fanatics will be after you, trying to cajole you into accepting their pet theory. I know quite a lot about Becket’s bones—’

  ‘Becket?’ asked the Provost. ‘Why on earth should you mention him, Professor?’

  The port had begun to make its way round the table. Dr Chalmers had poured himself a generous glass, and was now sitting relaxed in his great carved chair. He permitted himself a kind of defeated smile. It was inevitable that someone would mention Becket; old Collingwood was, he knew, well qualified to do so.

  ‘There, there, Provost,’ said Collingwood. ‘Why pretend? Everybody believes now that we’ve got Becket down there. And as I said, the fanatical theorists will be on the loose before tomorrow morning. Somebody will certainly come and tell you about Odet de Coligny, Cardinal Bishop of Beauvais, who became a Calvinist soldier—’

  ‘A cardinal became a soldier? Was that possible, Collingwood?’

  ‘It was, Provost. He was made a cardinal while he was still a layman – or lay boy, if you like: he was only sixteen when he received the red hat, and wasn’t even in Holy Orders. He was a typical ambitious, stone-hearted careerist of the period. Anyway, he became a Calvinist, and a general, much favoured at Elizabeth’s court. He died at Canterbury in 1571, and was buried in a temporary tomb in the Cathedral’s Trinity Chapel.’

  ‘And why have you told us that, Collingwood?’ asked Frederick Stringer, Reader in Natural Sciences. ‘What’s it got to do with Jardine’s bones?’

  ‘Well, if you’ll let me finish speaking, I’ll tell you. Like all young fellows, you’re too impatient. Years ago, we were able to linger over a meal in hall, without glancing at the clock. That’s why we had such good digestion. People like you, Stringer, are martyrs to dyspepsia. What was I saying? And why haven’t you passed the port?’

  Fredrick Stringer obediently placed the decanter near to Professor Collingwood’s elbow.

  ‘You were telling us about Cardinal de Coligny,’ said Jardine.

  ‘Yes, so I was. Well, that temporary tomb is still there, and “popular legend” insists that it also contains the bones of Becket. Certain folk seem to think that the clergy of Canterbury played a kind of hide-and-seek with the authorit
ies, forever digging up and reburying the relics of the “holy blissful martyr”. It’s all tosh, gentlemen. The saint’s remains were burnt on a bonfire somewhere in the Cathedral precincts. Why think otherwise?’

  ‘Well, where was Becket, before he came here? If he did come here?’ asked Stringer.

  ‘His original tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, made for him in 1170, was in the eastern crypt, set between two pillars. It was at that tomb that Henry II did penance. There was a great fire in the cathedral four years later, which destroyed the choir, but Thomas was still in the crypt, and so survived – well, not survived, you know, because he was dead – but you know what I mean.’

  ‘And was he still down there in the crypt when Henry VIII came along?’

  ‘No, Stringer, he wasn’t! So many pilgrims came that in 1220 Becket’s remains were reinterred in the Trinity Chapel, where the great shrine was erected. And then, at the end of the fifteenth century they pulled down the Norman nave and built the one that you see today. Once again, Thomas remained untouched until 1538. Becket may have subdued Henry II by becoming a martyr, but he was no match for Bluff King Hal.’

  The decanters began their second progress round the table. There was silence for a while, a kind of tribute paid to Professor Collingwood’s erudition.

  ‘Tell me, Collingwood,’ said Anthony Jardine, ‘What do you think happened to St Thomas’s remains? Always supposing that he really did end up here, under Staircase XII.’

  ‘Well, Jardine, I’m a simple man – don’t laugh, it’s true – and I prefer the simple answer. The King ordered the destruction of the shrine and its contents, and these orders were carried out in 1538. His henchman Cromwell was in Canterbury at the time, and it’s more than likely that he personally supervised the burning of the remains somewhere in the precincts of the Cathedral. That’s what I believe. That’s what any serious historian would believe. People were terrified of that man. If Henry gave an order, then you carried it out. It’s different now, in good Queen Victoria’s time.’