‘He took a first class ticket to Colthorpe on the seven thirty-five train and spent the journey perusing various papers in the large bag he carried with him. I must confess I was curious about the bag, my lord. It was of much larger dimensions than gentlemen usually employ for purposes of business. He might have been going away on a visit.’
McKenzie paused and looked down at a tiny notebook. ‘The journey from Compton to Colthorpe takes an hour and twenty minutes, my lord. At Colthorpe the subject alighted from the train and waited fifteen minutes for a local service going to Dunthorpe, Peignton Magna and Addlebury The subject took a cup of Indian tea in the restaurant while he waited, and two slices of toast with marmalade.’
Powerscourt wondered where McKenzie secreted himself during all these activities. Did he peer in the windows? Did he conceal himself in the corner of the room? Could he make himself invisible?
‘The subject did not make the full journey to Addlebury my lord. He left the train at Peignton Magna at nine fifty-five,’ McKenzie checked the precise time in his notebook, ‘and was collected by a carriage. They must have known what time to expect him for those local trains are infrequent, my lord, and, I was told, rather unreliable. I nearly lost him there, my lord, for he was out of the station in a flash. Fortunately a cab drew up just after he had left, driven by a most reckless young man who said he knew where the clerical gentleman was going as he had taken him there several times in the past. At the far end of the village we caught up with them, my lord.’
William McKenzie paused and took another drink of his tea. Powerscourt was trying to guess where the final destination might have been. So far the gossips of Compton could have been right. The subject might have a wife hidden away in the depths of the countryside.
‘A mile and a half outside Peignton Magna, my lord, there is a long avenue of lime trees leading off to the left. My cabbie informed me that this was always the destination of the clerical gentleman. I paid him off and proceeded as rapidly as appeared prudent up the drive. The house is most handsome, my lord, Elizabethan in construction, I would hazard, set out in the form of a square with a courtyard in the centre and a moat running round all four walls. The moat appeared to be well maintained, my lord, unlike some you might see these days. I was just in time to see the subject disappear through the main entrance. The time was ten fifteen. I secreted myself in the trees and continued to observe, my lord.’
McKenzie was perfectly capable of waiting for his subjects for hours or even days at a time, Powerscourt remembered. One vigil in India, checking on the movements of the agents of a particularly vicious Nawab, had lasted three days and nights.
‘There was limited activity I could observe from my position, my lord. One or two servants going to and fro, some produce being delivered from the home farm, a vet come to attend to a sick horse. All activity seemed to stop just before twelve o’clock, my lord, and there were strange noises from inside the house I could not quite catch.’
‘Were there any bells at twelve, William? Ringing out from the neighbouring church perhaps?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘I heard no bells, my lord,’ said McKenzie, beginning work on another biscuit and turning a page in his book. Powerscourt thought the fire needed more logs but he did not want to break the spell of McKenzie’s narrative.
‘Movement seemed to begin again shortly before one o’clock, my lord. There were cooking smells being blown my way and very pleasant they were too. At two thirty-five the carriage drew up again at the front door. At two forty-five the subject appeared again and was driven away.’
‘Was he wearing the same clothes, William? Had he changed into something from his bag?’
‘He was in the same clothes, my lord. The subject seemed in better humour from the brief glimpse I could get of him. The carriage took him back to the station. I ran after them as fast as I could, my lord. I was able to watch the subject board the train to Colthorpe at ten past three. There is a connection there back to Compton. The subject had purchased return tickets. He should have been back here by four fifteen. I remained in the village, my lord, and made some inquiries.’
William McKenzie paused in his report. He looked at several pages of his notes and proceeded.
‘I must confess, my lord, that what follows is to some extent speculation. I have three main sources for my information. The young cabbie directed me to the village postmaster for information. The cabbie claimed that he was a notorious gossip who knew everything that went on in Peignton Magna and quite a lot that probably didn’t. He was very informative. The vicar was tending his garden when I passed. The vicar, a most reliable witness I should say, had no knowledge of these regular visits by the subject. I found that most curious. He did not seem to be aware that the clerical gentleman from Compton was in the habit of making regular visits to his own parish. Late in the afternoon I presented myself at the house. I said I was working with a colleague on an architectural volume chronicling the moated houses of England. The butler gave me a brief tour of the house, my lord. It was most instructive.’
Powerscourt wondered why William McKenzie was taking so long to deliver his conclusions. Perhaps he didn’t believe them.
‘The house is called Melbury Clinton, my lord. It has been in the Melbury family for about twelve generations. They are an old Catholic family, my lord. They have priests’ holes all over the place, enough to fox Sir Francis Walsingham’s agents for days at a time, my lord. That’s what the butler told me.’
Powerscourt had been more than impressed with McKenzie’s knowledge of the key players of Elizabethan history.
‘They’re still Catholic, my lord. There is a little chapel where the Jesuits used to hide on the first floor. It’s about as far from the front door as you could get. Mass is celebrated in there twice a week, the butler told me. Once on Sundays when a priest comes from Exeter. And once on Thursdays at twelve o’clock. Those noises I heard in the woods, my lord, must have been the service.’
‘Are you telling me, William, that the Archdeacon goes all the way from Compton every Thursday to attend Mass in the little chapel at Melbury Clinton?’
‘No, I am not telling you that, my lord. The subject does not go all that way to attend Mass. He goes to take the service. The subject has been officiating at Mass at Melbury Clinton for the past eight years.’
16
‘God bless my soul,’ said Lord Francis Powerscourt. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I can only go by what the butler said, my lord,’ William McKenzie replied. ‘And I didn’t want to press him too hard about the Thursday services. It might have seemed suspicious when I was meant to be working on a book about the moated houses of England.’
‘What exactly did he say about the Thursday services, William?’
McKenzie turned back a few pages in his notebook. ‘I wrote all this down in the train on the way back. He said a Jesuit came to celebrate Mass every Thursday.’
Jesuits, thought Powerscourt. The shock troops of the Counter Reformation, the Imperial Guard of the College for Propaganda in the battle for the hearts and souls of the unconverted. Christ Almighty. What on earth was going on in this sleepy cathedral town?
‘It makes sense of the bag, my lord. He must carry his Jesuit vestments to and from Melbury Clinton every week.’
‘It certainly does,’ said Powerscourt. ‘William, you have done magnificently. I shall have another assignation for you in the morning.’
That night Powerscourt had a dream. He was in a church, not the Cathedral of Compton he knew so well, but a large church that might have been in Oxford or Cambridge. The pews were full of young men, every available seat occupied, latecomers standing at the back. The organ was playing softly. At first there were no priests to be seen. Then Powerscourt saw a figure floating above the congregation like a ghost from the other side. He knew that the spectre was the wraith of John Henry Newman, the most famous defector from the Church of England to the Church of Rome in all the nineteenth century. The ghost of Newman was beckoning the young men to follow him out of the side door into the world outside. Gradually the pews began to empty. Then it became a rush. Finally it turned into a stampede as all the young men followed Newman’s lead and abandoned their pews, and presumably their allegiance to the Church of England. At Newman’s side was another spectre, arms outstretched to summon the true believers. The other spectre was the Archdeacon of Compton Cathedral.