The dean’s exhibition was taking shape in the Chapter House. Janet told me that the idea had aroused considerable opposition because it smacked of commercialism. I was never quite sure whether the opposition was on religious or social grounds. In the Close, it was often hard to tell where the one stopped and the other began.
The dean had financial logic on his side. There was deathwatch beetle in the roof of the north transept. The windows of the Lady Chapel needed re-leading and the pinnacles at the west end were in danger of falling into Minster Street. The available income barely covered the running costs, according to David, and was incapable of coping with major repairs or emergencies. Opening the Chapter House for an exhibition might be the first step towards setting up a permanent museum. The real question was whether the tourists would be prepared to pay the entry fee for what was on offer.
‘If this works, the dean’s talking of having a Cathedral café,’ David told us one evening. ‘It makes a sort of sense, I suppose. Why should the tea shops in the town reap all the benefit from the Cathedral’s visitors?’
‘But where would they put it?’ Janet asked.
‘If they close the library there would be plenty of room there.’
‘But that’s inside the Cathedral.’
He shrugged. ‘They could move the exhibition into the library and use the Chapter House or somewhere else in the Close for the café.’
The collection included a good deal of medieval stonework – fragments of columns, tombstones and effigies, some of the grander vestments from the great cope chest, fragments of stained glass, and of course the model of the timber skeleton of the Octagon which David had found in the library cupboard. Canon Hudson asked me to keep an eye out for attractively bound or illustrated volumes in the Cathedral Library, particularly ones with a Rosington connection. I tried to make David laugh by suggesting they used the Lady Chatterley I had found, but he preserved a stone face and said he did not think it would be suitable.
The whole thing was done on the cheap. The dean had no intention of wasting money on new display cases or on extending the collection until there was evidence that the exhibition would make a profit. They had decided against hiring staff, too. One by one, the ladies of the Close were recruited for the exhibition rota. There was to be a grand opening in June with the bishop. The Rosington Observer had promised to send a photographer.
‘I’m sorry you got landed with this as well,’ Janet said to me on the evening of the day I was asked to join the rota. ‘I don’t think David should have asked you.’
‘I don’t mind. Anyway, it may never happen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I may not be here by then. This job isn’t going to last for ever.’
Janet looked at me and I saw fear in her eyes. ‘I hope you don’t go. Not yet.’
‘It won’t be for a while,’ I said, knowing that I would never be able to resist Janet if she asked for my help, if she asked me to stay. ‘Anyway, the cataloguing may take longer than I think. You never know what’s going to turn up.’
Or who. When I left the library the following afternoon I found Canon Osbaston loitering in the cloisters.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Good Lord! I’d forgotten I might find you here, Mrs Appleyard. I was just examining the exhibition.’
Wheezing softly, he held open the door to the Close.
‘You’re going to the Dark Hostelry?’
‘Yes.’
He fell into step beside me. ‘Perhaps we might walk together. I’m on my way to the High Street to buy some tobacco.’
We walked for a little while without talking.
Suddenly he burst out, ‘Youlgreave was mad, Mrs Appleyard. Absolutely no doubt about it. Don’t you find it rather warm for the time of year?’
‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ I said.
‘Let’s hope the sunshine lasts. We have a jumble sale for the South American Missionary Society on Saturday.’
Our progress through the sun-drenched Close was slow, a matter of fits and starts. We stopped while Osbaston mopped his face with a large handkerchief. In honour of the weather he was wearing a baggy linen jacket and a Panama hat with a broken brim.
‘When you say “mad”,’ I said after a moment, ‘what do you mean exactly?’
‘I understand Canon Youlgreave was considered eccentric when he first came to Rosington,’ Osbaston said, edging closer to me. ‘And then he grew steadily worse. But it was in ways that made it difficult for one to insist on his having the appropriate medical treatment. When I arrived here in 1933 there were many people living who had known him and all this was common knowledge.’
‘So what did he do?’
‘It was a particularly distressing form of mental instability, I’m afraid.’ Osbaston glanced at my face as if it was a pornographic photograph. ‘It seems that his private life may not have been above reproach. And then there was that final sermon. Caused rather a stir – there were reports in the newspapers. They had to bring in the bishop and I believe Lambeth Palace was consulted too. Fortunately the poor fellow’s family were very helpful. No one wanted any scandal.’ The little head nodded on the great body. ‘So we have that much to be thankful for, Mrs Appleyard. And we mustn’t judge him too harshly, must we? I believe he was always very sickly even as a boy.’
By now we were standing outside the door in the wall leading to the garden of the Dark Hostelry.
‘I must say goodbye, Mr Osbaston.’
He moistened his lips just as he had on Saturday night when he was about to take a sip of Burgundy. ‘I thought I might have a cup of tea at the Crossed Keys Hotel. I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?’
‘That’s very kind, but I should go. Janet’s expecting me.’
He raised his Panama. ‘Some other time, Mrs Appleyard. Delightful to see you again.’ He ambled away.
Janet was on her knees weeding a flower bed near the door into the house. ‘What have you got to smile about?’ she said.