The Alteration Read online

  With Viaventosa breathing heavily at his side, he set going the clapper of the gate-bell. There soon appeared a young man in the black habit of the Benedictines, presumably a lay brother.

  'Salvete, magistri,' he said in his flat English accent.

  'Salve, frater. We are guests to supper with the Lord Abbot. Masters Viaventosa and Mirabilis.'

  'Welcome, sirs—please to follow me.'

  As he stepped over the sill of the wicket, Mirabilis thought he saw a vehicle approaching, but paid it no attention. The Abbot's invitation had specifically said that there were to be no other guests tonight.

  The shadows were gathering in the central courtyard, and the pale yellow of candlelight showed behind some of the little square windows. The three crossed a circle of turf, thick and beautifully taken care of, with at its centre John Bacon's piastraccia statue of the saint, one of the most famous English products of the late eighteenth-century classical revival. Apart from their footfalls, and those of a servant crossing from the buttery with two pots of ale, there was almost total silence, with complin over and all practices and lessons cancelled for the day.

  Abbot Peter Thynne sat in his parlour above the arch that led from the courtyard to the stables, the brewery, the bakery, the wood-house and ultimately the small farm that supplied the Chapel. A tall, upright, handsome man of fifty, with high cheekbones and with cropped grey hair under his skullcap, he wore as always the strictest Benedictine black, a relatively unusual choice of costume at a time when clerics in his elevated position were given to luxuriating in coloured silks and velvets.

  If asked, he would say that it was God Who had led him to music, which he saw in its entirety, even in its avowedly secular forms, as praise of the divine. But his style of looks and dress indicated no asceticism, were belied by the splendid Flanders tapestry that covered most of one wall, such pieces as the French writing-table of sycamore with Sevres inlay, and the presence and quality of the glass of sherry on its marble top.

  He rose slowly to his feet when the lay brother showed in Mirabilis and Viaventosa.

  'My dear Fritz,' he said with measured cordiality, extending his hand from the shoulder. 'Welcome back to Coverley.' (He pronounced it 'Cowley' after the old fashion.)

  Mirabilis bowed and took the hand. 'I am pleased that we meet again, my lord. May I present Master Lupigradus Viaventosa?'

  'This is a great honour for all of us, master.'

  'Your lordship is too gracious,' said Viaventosa, producing one of his smallish stock of English phrases.

  'Now-let me bring forward my Prefect of Music, Master Sebastian Morley, whom I think you'll remember, Fritz, and my Chapelmaster, Father David Dilke, who joined us last year.'

  There were further salutations and compliments. Apart from his powerful square hands, Morley, with his peasant's face and broadcloth attire in sober brown, could not be said much to resemble a musician, but in fact he was one of the most eminent in the land, a brilliant performer on the pianoforte who had given up that career in order to devote himself to the teaching of musical theory and composition. His merits in these fields were such as to have overcome the natural antagonism to the preceptorial appointment of one of the laity. He was respected and liked by Mirabilis, who was not at first greatly taken with Dilke, a comparative youngster, slight, fair-haired and given to nervous twitchings of the eyelids, though he seemed amiable enough.

  'Some sherry for our guests, Lawrence,' said the Abbot, but before the grey-clad servant could move the lay brother had returned.

  'A thousand excuses, my lord, but there are two gentlemen who wish to speak to you.'

  'Oh, merciful heaven.' The Abbot closed his eyes and lifted both hands in front of him. 'Tell them I'm engaged.'

  'They are the New Englander Ambassador and the Arch-presbyter of Arnoldstown, my lord.'

  'Are they so, indeed? In that case I suppose I had better not be engaged. Fetch them.'

  'This is surely rather discourteous at such a time,' said the Abbot after the brother had gone, 'if my expectations are not too high. But I hear very little good of Schismatic manners.'

  What he had heard proved a poor guide to the behaviour of the two New Englanders when they were admitted. The Ambassador's unaffected, manly address and direct blue eyes made an immediate good impression, while the Archpresbyter showed a quiet dignity that could not have come easily to one of his faith in his present circumstances.

  'I'll take up as little of your time as is consistent with politeness, my lord,' said the Ambassador when introductions were complete. 'First, my excuses. I sent no advance notice of my wish to talk with you because I was afraid it would be rejected. I reckoned it would be difficult for you to order an ambassador off your doorstep, even one from New England.'

  The Abbot gave a slight brief smile. 'Some sherry, Your Excellency.'

  'Thank you, my lord. Now my request. It wasn't only my official duties that took me this afternoon to St George's, nor even my personal desire to pay my last respects to your late lamented sovereign. I went for the music too. May I say, Father Dilke, that the singing was of a quality I expect never to hear surpassed?'

  Dilke blinked a great deal and glanced quickly at the Abbot. 'That's very kind of you, sir.'

  'No more than just, Father. I was particularly struck, as I'm sure others were,'—the Ambassador, who seemed to know who everyone was, turned his blue eyes on the two men from Almaigne-'by the performance of the solo soprano in the Agnus Dei and elsewhere. That young man has a voice from Heaven. And he's a musician besides. Splendidly trained, to be sure, but there were things in his performance that nobody but himself could have put there-isn't that so, Father?'

  'Oh yes, Your Excellency, yes.'

  'Forgive me, sir,' said Morley in his harsh voice, 'but are you yourself a musician?'

  'I was about to be one, sir, until I discovered my lack of capacity. All that I have now is the most cordial interest. Which brings me to my point at last, my lord Abbot. I beg the favour of a few minutes' conversation with the genius of St Cecilia's. Then I'll have something to tell my grandchildren, something worth telling, too—I say that with surety. I insisted that the Archpresbyter should come too, as a favour to him. Also to lend me moral support for my hardihood.'

  'Your request is unusual, Your Excellency,' said the Abbot after consideration, 'but I can find no sufficient reason to deny it. We still have a little time before the supper-bell.' He beckoned his servant. 'Lawrence, fetch Clerk Anvil here at once. Let him know he's to meet some, uh, eminent visitors.'

  'I'm most profoundly grateful, my lord,' said Cornelius van den Haag, 'but I had in mind something rather more private than this concourse, which may prove intimidating.'

  The Abbot gave another small smile. 'Your sensitivity does you credit, sir, but Anvil isn't soon intimidated, as Father Dilke will tell you, and if he were he must learn to overcome such weakness. But I'll see to it that you have your private word with him.'

  As the Abbot had foreseen, Hubert Anvil was not intimidated by his summons, but he was startled and, on arrival, overawed: not so much of either, however, as to restrain him from taking in what he saw and heard.

  There were four strangers in the parlour. Two were New Englanders, speaking English naturally enough, but far back in the throat; the grey-haired, broad-shouldered, elderly one was some sort of bishop, but the taller, younger one with the tanned face was more important, perhaps as important as the Abbot himself. Both wore black, with white linen; in this their clothes resembled his, but in style were strict and quite foreign. Although they tried hard, neither could altogether hide a sense of constraint. The ecclesiastic, indeed, did not want to be here at all.

  The other pair were plump, dandified and unhealthy-looking. One had moist eyes and an absurd mustach that might almost have been painted or pencilled on; his companion, despite his pallor, seemed shrewd and full of life. Their names showed that they came from Rome, their accents that they had not been born there. That was normal and natural; the reason for the high pitch of their voices, if neither normal nor natural, hardly needed to be guessed at; what faintly disconcerted Gerk Anvil was the look each of these two gave him when he was brought forward to them—a considering, measuring look. He remembered being in the library at home when a painter had been starting work on a portrait of his father: the man had scrutinised his sitter in something of the same careful but unobtrusive fashion.

  All four of the visitors proceeded to make laudatory remarks about Clerk Anvil's performance in the Requiem that day. He was used to compliments on his singing, in the sense not that he was unmoved by them but that he had learned how to receive them, and so was able to make part of his mind free to observe that the most considered comments were offered by the shrewd, pale man and the warmest by the important New Englander. It was with the latter that he found himself standing slightly apart when the Abbot took the rest of the company off to admire his tapestry.

  'May I know your first name, young master?'

  'Here in this Chapel I'm only a clerk, my lord. My Christian name is Hubert.'

  'Now it's my turn to correct you, Hubert. I am nobody's lord. Being the New Englander Ambassador means I'm sometimes My Excellency, and then sometimes I'm Citizen Cornelius van den Haag, but with you I reckon I can just be sir.'

  'Very well, sir. Van den Haag sounds like a Netherlander name.'

  'And so it is, or was. My ancestors were transported from that country over four hundred years ago, along with... But enough of my concerns; yours are far more interesting. What age have you, Hubert?'

  'What age? Oh—ten years, sir.'

  To the man as he listened to it earlier, the most distinctive quality of the boy's singing voice had been instantly noticeable but resistant to definition, hidden somewhere among pairs of antonyms: full-grown yet fresh, under total control yet spontaneous, sweet yet powerful. A close view of the owner of the voice soon suggested a word for the quality: agelessness. Hubert Anvil's face, with its full lips, prominent straight nose and eyes deep-set under heavy brows, had no maturing to do; he would grow in height, but presumably he would retain his short neck and the ample rib-cage that must help to give his voice that power. Van den Haag felt suddenly protective; come to think of it, he had felt some such thing in the basilica, a sense of the vulnerability of art. He said, 'I want to tell you, while we talk together, that I wasn't paying you empty compliments just now. I meant every word.'

  'I knew it at the time, sir.'

  'Good. You intend to continue as singer, I hope, when you're a man?'

  'My lord the Abbot and Father Dilke would like me to. Master Morley thinks otherwise.'

  'And you yourself?'

  'I have no opinion, sir. And I need have none for some time yet. But... I do want to see something of the world. Rome, of course. Then Vienna, Naples, Salzburg, Barcelona. And further away—India and Indo-China. The Bishop of Hannoy told my father that it's like the Garden of Eden there.'

  'Well, nobody is better enabled to travel around than a famous singer... I noticed you didn't put anywhere in the New World on your list.'

  'Oh, I should have, sir. Mexico, Quebec, New Orl&ns... and Arnoldstown, of course.'

  The New Englander chuckled, but his eyes were keen. 'Thank you, my boy. You may not know it, but you're right—that's one place you have to visit. And there are plenty of others in my country: New Amsterdam, Haverford, Wyclif City... Enough: I mustn't go on.'

  'Please do, sir. What's it like in your country? We hear so many strange things of it which can't be true. Not all of them.'

  'It's beautiful, Hubert, which nobody believes who hasn't seen it. And various, because it's so extensive. Seven hundred miles from north to south, four hundred miles across in places, three times France. In the north-east in winter, everything freezes solid for three months; in the south, there are palm trees and lions and swamps and. alligators...'

  Hubert's inner eye saw much more than that. There passed before it a series of images drawn from story-pamphlets and the drawings in them, from photograms and facsimiles, from talk among his mates: a lake of blue water that stretched to the horizon, a tall mountain isolated on a broad plain, a river crowded with boats of all sizes, a whaling-fleet putting to sea, a city of wooden houses, a forest of enormous trees, a party of men in furs hunting a grizzly bear, a blue-uniformed cavalry squadron at the charge, a cluster of strange tents among which moved dark-haired women with babies on their backs, a farmhouse all alone in a green hollow. All this was so intense that Hubert missed some of what was being said to him, until a striking word recalled him to it.

  'Our inventors are the finest in the world: not long ago, two of them...' Van den Haag stopped, then earnestly continued, 'We have no king, only a First Citizen. That man over there is the head of our Church, but by his dress and by how he lives you couldn't tell him from a village pastor. And of course we have laws, strict laws, but each of us is free to decide what to do with his life. But I go on again.'

  'No, you interest me greatly, sir.'

  'Another time. This place, this Chapel. Is it your school or your home or both? Or what is it to you? Forgive me, but there's nothing like it in my country. We have no need of it.'

  'It's my school, sir, and it's as much my home as any school could be. My father and mother live in London, and I often go to them, but the Abbot is like a second father to me, and some of my friends are like brothers. And there's my work, and all the life here, and the farm.' Through the rear window, some moving object could be dimly seen in the distance, beyond the corn-mill, the fish-ponds, the dove-cote: a small, whitish, four-legged shape that hurried, steadied itself, hurried again and disappeared among some bushes. 'I think I'm the luckiest person I know.'

  After a pause, van den Haag said, 'My embassy is in London, of course, but I have a house in Coverley. My family and I would much welcome a visit from you, Hubert. Perhaps you might care to meet my daughter, who's just your age. If you'd sing for us... Would you like to do that? Would you be allowed to?'

  'Yes, sir-yes to both questions. You're very kind.'

  'I'll fix it with the Abbot. To whom I must say a few more words before I take my leave.'

  Later that evening, in a small dormitory he shared with three other clerks, Hubert Anvil was pressed for details of his visit to the Abbot's parlour.

  'This New Englander you saw,' said Decuman, the strong boy with the thin, down-turned mouth whom the other three half-willingly accepted as their leader-'I expect he carried a pistol and smoked a cigar and spat on the floor and said "Goddam"?'

  'I beg you, no blasphemy, Decuman.' This was Mark, who looked a little like a fair-haired mole.

  'By St Veronica's napkin, I'll blaspheme to my heart's content in this room. And I wasn't blaspheming myself anyway—1 was talking about what somebody else might have said.'

  'Oh, very well. Your soul is your own affair.'

  'Let Hubert tell his tale,' said the fourth boy, Thomas, the dark, fine-featured, quietly-spoken one.

  Hubert nodded gratefully. 'To answer you, Decuman—no, there was nothing of that sort. Do you think anybody would spit on the Abbot's floor?'

  'A New Englander might. They have bounce enough for anything.'

  'Well, this one didn't. He was a gentleman.'

  'A gentleman! Shit!'

  'He was very correct in his talk and manners and he loves music and he invited me to his house to meet his daughter.'

  'Now we see, don't we? Little wonder he made himself popular. Hubert dreams of a young miss in a deerskin frock who'll feed him cookies and teach him the lasso and rub noses with him.'

  'And a very pleasant dream it is,' said Thomas.

  'And if the girl needs eyeglasses badly enough it may come true.'

  'Is that a good joke, Decuman?'

  'No. Hubert, did your new friend come to the Chapel just to seek you out?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Of course he did,' said Thomas. 'You forget that we're used to Hubert's voice. A stranger would—would hear it differently.'

  'Perhaps. I grant Hubert can sometimes sing in the right key, but it still seems to me out of the common, this visit. But then, a New Englander...'

  As they talked, the four boys had been undressing and putting on their nightshirts. The two candles (one the housekeeper's issue, the other illegally introduced by Decuman), the low ceiling and the proximity of other bodies kept each of them warm enough. Hubert hung up his jacket and breeches in his part of the closet and stretched his stockings over the rail at the foot of his bed. In the distance, a hand-bell sounded and a high, monotonous calling came slowly nearer.

  'Down on your knees, unhappy children. Pray to God to remit some small part of your dreadful punishment. Ask His divine mercy for the grievous sins you have wrought this day. Limbs of Satan, deprecate the just wrath of God. While there is yet time, beg His indulgence with a contrite heart.'

  The Prefect of Devotions (who thought he was being funny) passed along the corridor outside the room, and silence fell, broken only by small mutters and murmurs. Hubert knelt on a strip of matting worn threadbare by generations of such use.

  '... that I made no mistakes and that everybody sang well and that the band played well, for all this I heartily and humbly thank Thee. And I thank Thee too that Thou didst bring the gentleman from New England today, and I pray Thee that his daughter will like me. And I petition Thee not to let me become proud of anything I do or puffed-up when men praise me, because I know that everything I do is Thy work. And I ask Thy favour and protection for all men in this house, and for all the children too, especially Thomas... and Decuman and Mark, and for my father and mother and Anthony, and, oh, I pray for the peace of the soul of Thy servant King Stephen III, and I ask Thy favour and protection for myself and for my soul, through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.'