‘Not at all, Canon, not at all. Truth to tell I had rather a restless night last night, and I shouldn’t be speaking honestly if I were to say that I didn’t feel a trifle tired after my journey.’
‘Travel by train is always fatiguing, I think. And personally I’ve never found myself able to prefer a car. But if you are not thoroughly rested tomorrow morning, take your breakfast in bed, I beg. You only have to ring or tell the servant who calls you. Perhaps you would rather not be called until a somewhat later hour?’
‘No, no. I couldn’t think of disturbing your arrangements. Breakfast in bed I particularly dislike. If I’m not well enough to get up, I’m not well enough to eat any breakfast. It is like your kindness to suggest it, but believe me there’s not the slightest occasion for anything of the sort.’
‘You’ll join me at breakfast at nine-thirty then? Good. You shall be called at eight-thirty. Myself I am celebrating the eucharist at eight o’clock, and I hardly suppose I shall have returned from the Cathedral much before nine. Goodnight, and good sound sleep.’
‘Goodnight, Canon.’
When Canon Spenlow came back from the Cathedral after his celebration in the Lady Chapel he found Dr Hodsoll walking in the garden ‘to clear his pipes’ as Sir Roger has it, breathing the air in great lungs-full, and watching the rooks circling about the old grey towers that pierced the somewhat watery blue, across which raced a cavalcade of fleecy white clouds. After the usual matutinal greetings and inquiries the cleric congratulated his guest with ‘I declare the change has done you good already.’
‘I’m inclined to think it has,’ was the sanguine reply, ‘certainly your cloister air is an admirable sedative. I never felt better in my life.’
The morning post brought the Canon a budget of correspondence and several book-catalogues, and as Dr Hodsoll was indulging his bad habit of dipping into The Times at table, the two men exchanged only a few remarks during breakfast until towards the end of the meal when the Canon, who had been glancing through a letter with an Italian stamp and post-mark, looked up and said, ‘I hope you don’t mind, Hodsoll, beyond a dinner with the Dean, who wouldn’t take a refusal, I’ve not made any social engagements during your visit.’
‘Nothing could suit me better, Canon. I am looking forward for one thing to going through some of those books again which you showed me last night. I should like to make a note or two, for example, on that early edition of Condrochius, and I’m not so well acquainted with Pordage and Jane Lead as I hope to be after a day or two in your library, for I see you have the Mystic Divinitie and A Fountain of Gardens on your shelves.’
‘Quaint old mystics both,’ the Canon smiled. ‘But it all fits in very well, because most mornings when I get back from Mattins, I am generally busy in the library until lunch, and I know that’s the time you prefer for a stroll round Silchester. I take my constitutional in the afternoon, and you can have the library entirely to yourself and browse among your visionaries as long as you please. However I was going to say that one reason why I have declined invitations during the next few days is owing to another guest of mine who will join us on Monday. I have just had a letter,’ holding up the thin foreign envelope, ‘from him to that effect.’
‘Indeed? Is it anyone whom I know?’
‘Not as yet. But it is someone whom, if I mistake not, you will be very interested to meet. A Dominican friar. You are surprised,’ for Dr Hodsoll had indeed looked up wonderingly, ‘but when I was in Rome last year Father Raphael Grant showed me several kindnesses, and opened doors for me which would otherwise most certainly have remained shut. He is a very able historian, and naturally he is keenly interested in the annals of his own particular order. When I told him of the cartularies and the manuscript missal which at the Dissolution passed from the Blackfriars here to the Cathedral Library—you will remember, no doubt, that they were only discovered, or to speak more precisely, recognized a few years ago, I had an article upon them, which you may have read, in the Ecclesiastical Review—he expressed himself as extremely desirous of examining them in detail, and then of course there are the other codices and registers. I can be of some assistance to him there, I am glad to say, and although he is only able to spare a very few days it will be far more convenient for him to be staying here than it would be if he had to go among strangers.
‘I am sure I shall very much look forward to meeting him,’ rejoined Hodsoll, ‘when do you expect your guest?’
‘On Monday, so his letter says,’ answered the Canon. ‘You will find him a very intellectual, and I think I may quite safely add a very charming, companion.’
The morning passed pleasantly enough, but without incident. Dr Hodsoll strolled rather aimlessly through the narrow streets and cobbled winds (as they are locally called) of the city; he renewed his acquaintance with the old Buttermarket and Sorrowing Cross; drew blank at a couple of book-shops; peeped into St Bennet Eastgate and St Mildred’s, shuddering at the garish magenta and gamboge window with which some pious mayor of the late Victorian seventies had outraged the latter; exchanged a word or two with the curator of the Museum; and made his way through the shadowy aisles of the Cathedral back to lunch.
Then followed two hours of unalloyed bliss in the library, where about four o’clock the Canon joined him for a cup of tea. The conversation, as we may suppose, was of books, and books, and books again.
‘Yes, I acknowledge I have had one or two quite lucky finds lately,’ said Canon Spenlow, ‘but on the other hand I had to give its full price for that Tacitus, and a good deal more than its full price for the Don Quixote. But what of yourself, Hodsoll, haven’t you come across anything special recently? I always say I never knew a man who had the knack of picking up what he wanted in the same way as you manage to hunt your quarry down. And while the rest of us are giving preposterous figures and rummaging and ferreting you just go round the corner, and hey presto! there it is.’
Dr Hodsoll laughed as he knocked out his pipe, and replied: ‘I’m afraid you exaggerate, Canon. Whatever may have been the case years ago, it’s all different today. Not a bargain to be had! Even Merritt’s prices are soaring. Only a couple of days ago he asked me five guineas for a book—and got it. By the way, I should like to show it to you, and perhaps you could help me to trace it. It’s something of an oddity. I’ve brought it with me, and it won’t take a minute to fetch it.’
No sooner said than done, and Hodsoll handed the Canon the little parcel intact just as he had received it over Merritt’s counter. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘I haven’t even had time to look through it carefully. Open it, and see if you can tell me anything about the book.’
The Canon unknotted the string with some precision and tidily folded the paper before he turned to the title-page of the podgy vellum octavo. He stared, took off he glasses and carefully wiped them before proceeding to a second inspection. ‘Extraordinary!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s highly interesting. Can it be some sort of a joke? A polemic? A burlesque?’