Canon Osbaston, the principal of the Theological College, was the man whose job David wanted.
He had a taste for Burgundy and on Saturday morning David spent a good deal of money at Chase and Cromwell’s, the wine merchants in the High Street. He also showed an uncharacteristic interest in the food Janet was intending to serve. David was trying to butter up the old man but I don’t think he realized it. He could be astonishingly obtuse, especially where something he really cared about was concerned.
In honour of Canon Osbaston’s visit we were going to use the dining room. I spent part of the morning polishing the table and cleaning the silver. What we needed, I thought, was a well-set-up boot boy to take care of these little jobs about the house.
Janet was unusually quiet at lunch. She wasn’t irritable but her attention was elsewhere and there were vertical worry lines carved in her forehead. I assumed it was because of this evening. After lunch David went to play tennis at the Theological College. It was a fine day so I volunteered to take Rosie for a walk to give Janet a dear run in the kitchen. Rosie agreed to come on condition we went down to the river and fed the ducks. She was always a child who negotiated, who made conditions.
We walked down River Hill to Bishopsbridge. From there we went along the towpath until we found a cluster of mallards, two couples and their attendant families. We crumbled stale white bread and fed them.
‘Would those ducklings taste nicer than ducks?’ Rosie asked.
‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’ The idea of eating one of those fluffy little objects, halfway to being cuddly toys, seemed absurd. ‘Not as much meat on them as the older ones.’
‘We like lamb instead of sheep, and veal instead of cow,’ Rosie said. ‘So I wondered.’
What she said made perfectly good sense. I was pretty sure that if a cannibal had a choice of me and Rosie on the menu he’d go for Rosie. I turned away from the ducks, looking for a change of subject. That’s when I saw the Swan.
It was an L-shaped pub built of crumbling stone with an undulating tiled roof in urgent need of repair. A weather-beaten sign hung from one of the gable ends. I towed Rosie away from the river. There was a yard dotted with weeds in front of the pub, partly enclosed by the L. On one of the benches beside the front door an old man was sitting in the sunshine with his pipe and an enamel mug of tea.
‘Hello,’ I called out. ‘It’s a lovely afternoon.’
After a pause he nodded.
‘I was wondering, is there somewhere called Swan Alley near here?’
‘There is,’ he said in a broad Fen accent, ‘and then again there isn’t.’
Oh God, I thought, not another old fool who thinks he has a sense of humour. ‘Where is it?’
He took a sip of tea. ‘Just behind you.’
I saw a piece of wasteland used as a car park, separated from the towpath by a mechanics workshop built largely of rusting corrugated iron.
I turned back. ‘So it’s not there now.’
‘Just as well. Terrible place. Whole families in one room, and just a cold tap in the middle of a yard for all of them to share.’ He shook his head, enjoying the horror of it. ‘My old mother wouldn’t let me go there because of the typhoid. They had rats as big as cats.’ He studied me carefully to see how I took this last remark.
‘How wonderful. That must have been a record, surely?’
‘What was?’
‘Having rats that size. I hope someone had the sense to catch a few and stuff them. Is there a museum where you can see them?’
‘No.’
‘What a pity.’
He started to light his pipe, a laborious procedure which told me the conversation was over. I felt a little guilty for spoiling his fun but not much. Rosie and I walked up the lane towards Bridge Street.
‘Would baby rats be nicer to eat than full-grown ones?’ Rosie asked, though unfortunately not loud enough for the old man to hear.
We crossed Bridge Street and went through the wrought-iron gates that led into the lower end of Canons’ Meadow. The ground rose steadily upwards towards the Cathedral and, to the left of it, a mound of earth covered with trees, once the site of Rosington Castle. We walked up the gravel path to a gate into the south end of the Close. Canon Hudson was standing underneath the chestnuts on the other side talking to the bishop.
I tried to slip past them, but the bishop saw Rosie and beckoned us over. He was a tall, sleek man with a pink unlined face and fair hair turning grey. He was wearing a purple cassock that reminded me of a wonderful dress I’d once seen in a Bond Street window.
‘Hello, Rosie-Posie. And how are you today?’
She beamed up at him. ‘Very well, thank you, sir.’
Hudson introduced me to his lordship, who congratulated me briefly on my work in the library and then turned back to Rosie.
‘And how old are you, my dear?’
‘Four, sir. I’ll soon be five. Not next week, the week after.’
‘Five! Gosh! That’s very grown up. What presents are you hoping to get?’
‘Please, sir, I’d like an angel.’
‘A what?’
‘An angel.’
The bishop patted her shining head. ‘My dear child.’ His eyes swept from Hudson to me and he murmured, smiling, ‘Trailing clouds of glory, eh?’ Then he bent down to Rosie again. ‘You must ask your daddy and mummy to bring you over to my house one day. You can play in the garden. It’s lovely and big, and there’s a swing and a pond with some very large goldfish. When you come I’ll introduce you to them. And Auntie Wendy can come too. I’m sure she’d like to meet my fishies as well.’
And so on. The bishop seemed to have at his command an effortless flow of whimsicality. In an open contest he’d have knocked spots off J. M. Barrie. If anyone had told me at Rosie’s age that I looked like the Queen of the Fairies I’d have curled up with embarrassment. But she accepted it as her due.
‘I’m glad we bumped into each other,’ Hudson said to me while the episcopal gush flowed on. ‘I meant to drop in yesterday. Everything all right?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘I gather David found a model of the Octagon in the wall cupboard. Something for the dean’s exhibition.’
‘It was quite exciting, actually. It made a change from cataloguing books. Mind you, I’m not sure I’d have known what it was if he hadn’t been there.’ One memory jogged another. ‘By the way, I came across a scrap of paper with some writing on. It was in a book that once belonged to someone called Youlgreave.’
‘Ah yes. That would probably be Francis Youlgreave. He was the canon librarian about fifty years ago. What exactly did you find?’
‘It looked like part of a letter or diary. Something about giving a boy sixpence for helping him.’
‘He was a bit of an oddity, Canon Youlgreave. He had to retire after a nervous breakdown. If you come across anything else of his I’d like to see it. Would you make sure you do that?’
It wasn’t what he said so much as the way that he said it. Hudson looked so mild and inoffensive that those rare times when I saw his other side always came as a shock. His voice was sharp, almost peremptory. He had just given me what amounted to an order.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But now we mustn’t keep you any longer. Come along, Rosie, we mustn’t be late for tea.’
I dragged Rosie away from her mutual admiration society, said goodbye and walked towards the Cathedral and the Dark Hostelry. When we reached home, I opened the gate in the wall and Rosie ran ahead of me into the house. I found her and David waiting for me in the hall.
David was still in his tennis whites and his racket was on a polished chest near the door. I noticed that he’d knocked the vase of flowers on the chest, and a few drops of water glittered on the dark oak. Stupid man, I thought. If we didn’t wipe off the water soon, it would leave a mark.
‘Wendy, there you are.’ His voice was casual to the point of absurdity, a tangle of elongated vowels and muted consonants. ‘I thought I’d take Rosie downstairs and give her some tea.’
My face must have shown my surprise. But I managed a smile. ‘OK. How nice.’
He moved towards the stairs to the kitchen, towing Rosie. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, interrupting Rosie who was telling him about the bishop and his fishies. ‘Janet asked if you could pop up and see her if you had a moment. She’s in our bedroom, I think.’
David give Rosie her tea? It was unheard of. Without taking off my hat, I went quickly upstairs and tapped on Janet’s door. I heard her say something. I twisted the handle and went in. She was sitting on the window seat looking at the Cathedral.
‘Are you all right?’ I said, walking towards her.
She turned to look at me. The tears welled out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
‘Wendy,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
I watched the tears running down her cheeks. ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head.
I went to her, put my hands on her arms and drew her towards me. She laid her head on my shoulder and began to sob. Between the sobs she muttered something.
‘I can’t hear you. What did you say?’
She lifted her tear-stained face. ‘I can’t bear it.’ She hiccuped. ‘Another one.’
‘Another what?’
Janet pulled away from me and blew her nose. ‘Another baby. I think I’m pregnant.’