A Glancing Blow

It was the Dean’s Verger who brought the note up to the organ-loft. The Cathedral bells had been clanging and humming through several hundred changes for at least half an hour, and were beginning to ‘ring down’, the gradual lessening of the swing, from near full-circle, accelerating and diminishing the sound. It was almost five to six, and Guillaume Ormond, the warm, yellowish light from the console on his plump, bespectacled face, was just drawing the stops on this wonderful, unspoiled Father Willis, for his five minutes of extemporisation before Evensong – Solemn Evensong with Procession and one of the thirteen feasts in the Church’s Year, when the Statutes permitted, nay, enjoined, the use of incense. He used on such festal Sundays sometimes to imagine he was on the bridge of a Destroyer, and give the command ‘Make smoke’ into the mouthpiece that the Great Trumpet temporarily became, to the intense amusement – or bemusement – of any Chorister there to operate the mirrors (‘Radar on, boy?’) so that the Procession could be tracked.

The Bishop’s note said simply, ‘Mr. Ormond, I should be grateful if you would see me tomorrow morning at a quarter past nine. +ERM’

It was difficult – but even more essential than usual – to concentrate with that in the back of one’s mind. He thoughtfully drew the Swell Gamba and Angelica, a chord of E minor, and let his feet stray around on the Violone and Violincello in an adumbration of the tune of the Office Hymn; Choir Gamba suggested itself, the tune in snatches, while feet and left hand carried on. After a few moments of sequence, a little Canon revealed itself, based on the opening two bars. This seemed so happy a find, that he repeated it on the Great Clarabel, deftly adding the Flute Harmonique, for a repetition which, of its own accord, took it into the major mode. This called obviously, for full Swell, box shut, and the 32-foot added on the pedals, the rumbling and rattling of the latter somehow blending with the, to him unseen, but readily smelt smoke the Thurifer was conjuring from his Censer as the Procession formed up down below (‘There’s fire down below’, he murmured to himself). A counterpoint quite suddenly came into his mind, which would go very well in a foreign key, so with a modulation smoother than the gear-change on his Rover he took the whole thing – to G?; no, let’s be daring: A flat; box opening now, to release the miraculous sound of Father Willis’s reeds in all their joyous glory, he added the second Diapason on the Great, and then the Swell octave coupler. Yes: the counterpointed melody was really rather good. As the thought crossed his mind, the austere figure of Bishop Frere displaced it and, naturally, this called for something more modal, which was fortunate, because the Procession – so the mirror told him, was now at the Chancel Gate: in with the first and second Diapasons, the Swell Octave and the reeds; back to the Violone on the Pedal and, using the pistons, down to nothing but the Lieblich Gedackt (how he had got from A flat – or was it E flat minor, back to C? Ah well, B with the left foot would do, then E minor again, but with a flattened seventh, for the shade of Bishop Frere…

Let us go forth in peace: the Clerk chanted.

In the name of the Lord. Amen, responded Choir, Servers, and Congregation.

With accompaniment on Full Swell and tune on the Great Tromba, at a steady minim= 60, he got the Procession off, in E minor again. There was a Station at the Baptistry at the end of the second verse, so he drew the reciting note for Canon Sibthorp out of the wash of notes at the end of verse two, and, as the modal Amen sounded, resumed the solemn French tune of the hymn, pausing fractionally to let Choir and congregation resume the broken rhythm, and the Thurifer to get his swings re-established.

He ceded his seat to John, his Deputy, for the Psalms and Canticles, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, a red and white spotted monster: how strange that the Psalms should be so adversarial! “Set thou an ungodly man to be ruler over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When sentence is given upon him, let him be condemned; and let his prayers be turned into sin.”

He shuddered as he thought of tomorrow: this Bishop was more like Dr. Frere, who had appointed him, than Bishop Hunkin, although not quite as scholarly. Bishop Hunkin had been a member of the Craft, whereas neither Dr. Frere nor Bishop Morgan had been; he still remembered the ‘flap’ at the Lodge when Bishop Frere’s appointment was made known; he’d spoken out against those – Methodys, mostly – who’d been up in arms wishing to make it as difficult as possible for this non-mason /high Churchman; besides, if the Bishop were a lover of ceremony, ritual, decorum and degree, so, surely, were all Masons.

The Canon Treasurer was reading the First Lesson…

‘… And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the tone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth…’

The thought of David’s being such a good shot, troubled him greatly.

He let the ever-obliging John play the Magnificat: Charles Wood in E flat, Number Two was amazingly good

The sub-Dean announced the Second Lesson.

‘…and struck a servant of the high-priest’s, and smote off his ear…’

This was too much. Mumbling some half-hearted excuses, he left him to it, tiptoed down the stairs, crept into the North Ambulatory, eased open the North Door, and slipped out.

 

II

 

Just to make his sleep even more broken, the wind got up as the tide turned, and buffetted his house-boat all night. Unsurprisingly, he had no stomach for breakfast, and drove into the City, rehearsing his resignation speech all the way. He would, of course, not miss the minute honorarium, having ample means, so would not have to contemplate selling any of the Sargents, but he would miss the Cathedral and its music – even miss its quirky clergy; and the Red Lion after Services, such excellent Bass!

So pre-occupied was he, that he almost drove straight into the Red Lion, but pulled up in time to avoid the Western National Bus, and reversed to the traffic-lights he’d overshot, to the terror of other motorists. When the lights turned green, he turned left in Boscawen Street, past Pearson’s West end and Sylvanus Trevail’s Post Office, up the hill towards the Bishop’s Palace, an undistinguished Victorian villa, the Palace now being the Choir School.

‘Do come in’, the Bishop sounded almost genial, his eyes twinkled slightly, behind his small, round-rimmed glasses. ‘Please sit down.’

‘I am very sorry, My Lord; very sorry indeed…’

‘Would you like some coffee?’, the Bishop interrupted, pulling a small rather battered packet out of the pocket in his breeches, and offering him one.

‘I deeply regret the incident, My Lord…’

‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?’

The Bishop found his spills on the desk, took one across to the gas-fire, and then, rather incongruously lit a small, bent Woodbine from a ten-inch spill. He sat down at his desk, drew in a satisfying mouthful of smoke, exhaled , put the cigarette back in his mouth and placed his finger-tips together for a few moments. He put the cigarette down, not in an ash-tray, but cornerwise on the desk, the lit end just clear of the wood, and cleared his throat.

‘Mr. Ormond, I understand that last Sunday, you dropped’ – the word had invisible quotation marks round it  – a hymn-book from the organ-loft during the Precentor’s sermon, striking the Sub-dean a glancing blow.’

There was no hope now.

‘My Lord I am so sorry: one of the choristers was not only talking and whispering, but nudging his neighbour – I could see it all in the mirror. I knew I couldn’t hiss at him, without upsetting the Precentor’s flow and distracting the Congregation. I cannot think why I should have calculated that hymn-book dropped on his head would have been less of a disturbance. You rightly expect me to resign, My Lord, and that is exactly what I shall do. I have had all night to consider my position, which I now see, is quite untenable; it would be quite improper after such intended violence for me to remain in my post.’ He paused, took off his spectacles, and wiped his face.

The Bishop sat there for several seconds, quietly blowing smoke-rings in the general direction of the window and the old Bishop’s Palace, just visible  from the study, now the Choir-school. With one careful exhalation, he blew a ring through an earlier one.

‘You struck the Sub-dean a glancing blow.’ The words were measured, savoured even, making him wince.

The Bishop was standing now, making for the door; his cigarette having been moved with ceremonious carefulness, safely from scorching the wood. He too, stood.

So this was the end, and with such economy! He waited for the blow to fall.

‘You struck the Sub-dean a glancing blow.’ The Bishop repeated. ‘I can’t have that, Mr. Ormond.’ And, with the ghost of a smile: ‘Next time, make sure you hit him fair and square, will you?’
 

© Jethro 2024