A FURTHER EXTRACT FROM ‘THE STRANGE TALE OF THE SIDLESHAM MADONNA’ (PUBLISHED 1904)
by the Reverend Sabine Barclay-Wood
Now it came to pass that a monk from Sussex had undertaken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was returning on a ship bound for the port of Chichester. It stopped at Malta for fresh water and to give the sailors some recreation, of the innocent sort that sailors commonly enjoy, for it had been a long and stormy passage thither. The monk had a kinsman who was one of the Knights of St John and so set out from the port to visit him. And there, at the castle, he was greeted with much joy and feasted in their hall so long as the ship remained in Malta.
‘Before you leave this island,’ said the kinsman, ‘you must see our most precious relics – which include a statue of the Virgin, which was saved by a brave knight of our order, many years ago, out of the destruction of Constantinople by the evil Turks.’
‘We have a Madonna of our own at Sidlesham,’ the monk said. ‘It is English-made and very fine it is too.’
‘But not as fine as ours,’ said the cousin. ‘Come and see the treasures that we hold here.’
So, by and by, he took the monk to their chapel and showed him, and the monk was amazed indeed. The gold shone, and the lapis lazuli dazzled. The ruby-red blood almost moved the monk to tears.
Now, the monk was a good Englishman and so he said to himself, ‘Why should this treasure sit here in hot, dry, fly-ridden Malta, where nobody that matters can see it, when it might be in the lush green fields of Sussex, close to the great and populous city of Chichester?’
And so, the following day, just before the ship was due to depart, he visited the knights’ chapel again on the pretext of wishing to see the Madonna one last time and to venerate it on his own in the quietness of the morning. And the chapel attendant, having seen him there the previous day, allowed him to pray undisturbed before the image. But as soon as the attendant had gone, the monk seized the treasure, stuffed it in his bag, and ran for the harbour, jumping on board the ship in a rather plucky way just as it was casting off.
Well, the Knights of St John soon saw what had happened and sent one of their own ships chasing after it. But the English ships then were better and faster than any foreign ship, just as they are today, and so the monk’s ship easily outran its pursuer and got home safe to Chichester without any further adventures.
But, as the ship sailed through the cold northern seas, strange thoughts came into the monk’s mind – he knew not whence.
‘I was once content in my simple monastery,’ he said to himself. ‘But now I see that with the riches I possess I might be anything I choose. When we land in Sussex, I shall slip away to London and sell this treasure and become perhaps a great merchant. As for the monks of Sidlesham Abbey, they will think I perished on my pilgrimage, as so many do.’
When the ship docked at Chichester it happened that the Abbot was there by chance, visiting the town, and he enquired what the monk had in his bag that he clutched so tightly to his chest. And the monk was obliged to open it and give his treasure to the Abbot there and then. And it is said that the monk died of grief shortly after, not a morsel of food having passed his lips after setting foot in England.
But even as the Abbot rode back home on his mare, he pondered thus, ‘Sidlesham is the least of the Abbeys of England and one of the poorest. Yet God has sent us this gift. He clearly has a purpose in doing so. He wishes to raise us high in the eyes of the Church and of the pope in Rome. We shall spread the word that we have such a marvel, and then folk shall flock here, and when they come they shall pay us well and we shall all wax fat indeed. I do not think that our brother obtained this by fair means, but, if anyone challenges us, we shall simply claim that it is the poor statue that we have always owned.’
And so it came to pass and the Abbey grew rich. But soon word of their fabulous wealth reached the King. The King was, at that time, thinking of doing away with lazy monks and setting up the Church of England, to the immense advantage of the people. But he was also a greedy man and when he heard of the Madonna he wanted to possess it for himself alone. So he sent some of his men to Sidlesham.
The Abbot had heard of the visits of these men to other Abbeys and knew that they would seize anything of value for their master. So, the Abbot invited the Prior of Wittering to dinner, and during the meal he dismissed all of his servants and spoke privately to the Prior.
‘I have a great relic here, as you know, but the King means to possess it for himself. I would have you take it and hide it in your Priory. When the King’s men come, we shall tell them whatever lies I think it good to tell them. Once they have left, then I shall call to collect the Madonna from you, and you shall return it to me, and all will be well.’
And the Prior agreed to this. But once he had the Madonna in his possession, strange imaginings ran through his mind too. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘should I return this to Sidlesham, when it would grace our own Priory so much better? The Abbot said that God gave it to them by chance, and by chance it has now fallen to me. When the Abbot comes to collect it, I shall hide it and say to anyone who asks that it was never given to us. Then it will be ours for ever.’
Of course, the Abbot was wrath, but he could do nothing. He could not complain to the King without revealing his stratagem. Nor could he complain to the Bishop, who (like all Bishops) looked down on the monks and the hard-working parish priests, and who would most certainly have told the King if the Abbot had confessed where the statue was. The Abbot let it be known around Sussex that the Prior was a rogue and a thief, but he could do no more than that and he died shortly after of apoplexy.
Nor did the Prior enjoy his ill-gotten gains. A villager told the King’s men that he was sure the Prior had taken the statue, and the King sent his commissioners to close down the Priory at once. But though they searched every building, they never found the Madonna. And the Prior was sent away, with his monks, and he, too, died soon after.
Some say that the new owner of the Priory found the statue buried in the monks’ garden, others that it was never found and is still there today, in West Wittering, and yet others say that the Abbot spoke false when he said he had ever given it to the Prior, and that the statue lies slumbering somewhere under the soil of the Abbey cloisters. And which of those things is the truth, I dare not even attempt to say.
But what I can tell you is that the image never brought anyone any luck, and those who would place such nasty foreign things in our lovely and simple English churches would do well to heed the warning of this story.
‘So,’ I said, ‘in the end, the story was just a protracted rant against the Oxford Movement. In Barclay-Wood’s time they would have been putting statues of saints into a lot of the churches round here. It evoked strong feelings. He was opposed to the introduction of images, incense and candles. A story that showed that no good came of it would have appealed to him. He would have bent what few facts he had to fit the moral he wished to teach.’
‘Then none of it is true?’ asked Elsie.
‘No, I think some of it is. But there are inconsistencies. For example, when the monk contemplates the statue of the Virgin, he is impressed by the gold and the lapis lazuli and the drops of ruby-red blood.’
‘So?’
‘The ruby-red drops were on the statue of Christ.’
‘If you’d seen as many proofreading errors as I have …’
‘Yes, but I think Barclay-Wood may have been offering a clue that the statue of Christ also made it to Sussex … Sorry, I didn’t catch what you said just then?’
‘Didn’t understand … bit … what?’
‘You’re breaking up,’ I said.
I tried walking over to the other side of the sitting room. Reception in West Wittering was usually bad and sometimes the phone works in one part of the house but not another. I put the handset to my ear again.
‘… so you were dead wrong there,’ Elsie was concluding.
‘You’ll need to start again,’ I said.
‘All of it?’
‘You can leave out the bit about my being wrong, if you like.’
‘I’ll try, but it may not be possible. Anyway, what I was saying was that I sent our intern over to the newspaper archives to see if he could find anything more on the original death-in-the-well case.’
‘And did he?’
‘No. It involved handling paper, of course. That’s not his strong point. Millennials don’t really understand paper. They all had iPads in their baby buggies. Frankly, Ethelred, the problem with interns is that they make me feel old and out of touch with technology – though not as old or out of touch as you, obviously. It’s always very reassuring talking to you, in that respect.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I do my best.’
‘And like all interns he can’t write or think and can’t speak without it sounding like a question. Young people these days always sound as if they’re checking that what they’ve just said is really true. Anyway, he did find out something useful. Shortly after the trial, Mrs Munnings, Iris’s grandmother, vanished.’
‘Iris said that she died. She didn’t say anything about her vanishing. That might explain why she didn’t know exactly when she died.’
‘I’m sending the intern – whatever he’s called – back to check the rest of the story.’
‘Good. But in what way does any of that make me wrong?’
‘In what way does it make you right, Ethelred?’
‘Not at all.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘But are you saying the deaths of Walter Sly and Iris’s grandparents and Hilary Joyner were in some way connected?’
‘Only by the curse of the Sidlesham Madonna.’
‘If Barclay-Wood is to be believed, and I’m not sure he is, then possession of the Madonna incites insatiable greed, then death by leprosy or apoplexy. Did Old Man Munnings die of either?’
‘Good point. I’ll get the intern to check what he died of. If it was leprosy, then we’re onto something.’
‘Yes, but interns are dirt cheap. And it will keep him away from things he might mess up. It’s win-win, when you think about it.’
It was a couple of days later that my phone rang and another small part of the story was revealed to me.
‘I have to see you at once,’ said Polgreen. ‘The forces of evil are gathering.’
‘What about tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘I’m quite close to you now,’ he said.
‘How close?’ I asked.
‘Very,’ he said.
‘Fine, just ring the bell when you arrive,’ I said.
I put the phone in my pocket. The doorbell sounded.
‘So, Sly went completely behind my back to the rest of the committee,’ said Polgreen bitterly. ‘He convened a meeting that I wasn’t even to be informed of and told them that Iris Munnings and I were conspiring to deprive the Abbey of valuable items that we had dug up. He couldn’t even claim what he was proposing was sanctioned by his bloody rule book. It was pure spite.’
He took a sip of coffee. We were now sitting on my patio, looking out over the new rose bed. The bush at the end was looking slightly the worse for wear. It was drooping. I’d need to water and feed it. But perhaps Polgreen’s problems were worse than mine.
‘That’s outrageous,’ I said.
‘He also claimed that you told him that Iris and I had probably murdered Hilary Joyner.’
‘He implied it. You know what he’s like.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do. But nobody believed any of this, surely?’
‘Some did. Sly pointed them to a rule saying that anyone on the committee accused of a serious crime, such as murder, had to stand down immediately.’
‘Is there such a rule?’
‘Sly had the only copy of the rule book. It was in there, apparently.’
‘I suppose it’s not unreasonable. But nobody has accused you of anything.’
‘Sly’s accused me. He got the committee to agree I have to explain myself to the next full meeting. If they’re not satisfied, then I’ll be suspended and they will investigate the site as Sly wishes, to see if my excavations are connected to Joyner’s death.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Not in Sly’s imagination.’
‘Would it even be possible for you to dig without people knowing?’ I asked. ‘I mean, a trench appearing overnight would be very visible.’
Polgreen looked slightly embarrassed. ‘The site is closed between November and March,’ he said. ‘I look in once a week or so to check that all is well, but not many people go there then.’
‘And did you see anything?’
Polgreen swallowed hard. ‘Of course not.’
‘You’re not worried that they will find anything untoward, then?’
Polgreen sighed. ‘It’s not that they’ll stumble across anything I’ve done that worries me. It’s that they won’t be able to tell the difference between an unrecorded dig thirty or fifty years ago and one that took place last month. It’s all been dug over. Sly can claim that anything there might have been me.’
‘But will the others believe him? If your conscience is clear, why not just let them dig? The less you protest, the less suspicious it will look.’
‘Because it’s just an excuse for Sly to reopen the excavations. He’s had this thing for years that there’s still something buried there somewhere – at the Abbey or the Priory. He thinks, if we found it, then we could get crowds of people in and fund a new museum on the site, of which he would be the curator.’
‘Not unlike the Abbot’s plan years ago,’ I said. ‘Get the Maltese Madonna to pull in the crowds.’
‘At least the Abbot had the genuine goods,’ said Polgreen.
‘I’d still let them dig,’ I said. ‘From what you say, the damage has already been done, in archaeological terms. Anyway, why do you think I can help? I have no influence at all with the committee.’
‘You could join the committee,’ he said. ‘There’s a vacancy. We could co-opt you.’
‘Do I have to?’ I asked.
‘You would be doing me an enormous favour if you did. A favour as a friend. And you do know some of the other members already.’
He handed me a list. I did know two vaguely. One was actually another writer, who lived in the village. I sighed. ‘Why is Sly so convinced there’s still something there to find?’ I asked.
‘There’s always been a story in his family that half the treasure was stored at the Priory and half at the Abbey. And I don’t know if you know but his grandfather used to work as a gardener at the Priory.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Mr Munnings was accused of his murder.’
Polgreen nodded. ‘There you are, then. What you may not know is that Sly’s grandmother went over to the Priory after the trial and told Munnings she had finally worked out what his secret was.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘That’s all Sly would tell me. It’s probably all he knew. She went over there and accused him to his face.’
At this point a text message arrived. It was from Elsie. I opened it at once.
RE OLD MAN MUNNINGS, it read. HE DIED SUDDENLY OF A HEART ATTACK.
I texted back: HOW DO YOU KNOW?