“Oh, I do beg your pardon! The map is just so … marvelous,” she said, forcing herself to turn back to him and muster a bright smile.
The librarian was unable to argue with her point and so instead bestowed upon her a withering frown.
Hecate could see it would take time to win her superior over. The morning passed with her sorting through a box of papers. These were loose pages from three large volumes of parish records from a church in the area. Her job was to discard the illegible ones, dust off the reasonable ones, and collate them in date order. She understood this was a lowly and largely pointless task, but was happy to do it without complaint. She would show that she could be trusted. Time, patience, and hard work would be needed to persuade her superior of her value and abilities. All of which would be a price worth paying to be there, where she was surrounded by such an abundance of wonders.
When the tower bell rung one o’clock, Reverend Thomas closed the ledger in front of him and rose from his chair.
“I take my luncheon with the other vicars choral in the main hall of the cloisters,” he explained. “You will have made some provision for your own refreshment.” It was more a statement than a question. “You recall neither food nor drink are permitted in the library.”
Hecate got to her feet, eager to reassure him that she was safe to be left, but before she could speak a tall man with fair hair and bright blue eyes appeared in the doorway.
“Fear not, Reverend, I am here at the dean’s behest to see to it that Miss Cavendish does not starve.”
The librarian stared at their visitor. “She cannot join us in the hall!”
“Indeed, which is why I shall escort her to a suitable place in which to dine.” As Reverend Thomas seemed uninterested in making introductions, the man stepped forward, hand outstretched, to make himself known. “John Forsyth, another of the singing vicars,” he said with a smile.
Hecate took his hand and shook it.
“Hecate Cavendish, assistant librarian, pleased to meet you,” she said. It crossed her mind that Reverend Forsyth was altogether too good looking for a clergyman. His long black cassock fitted him perfectly, giving his slender physique a slightly theatrical air, accentuating his height and contrasting with his fair coloring. “It is good of you to give up your time, but I promise you, I am perfectly capable of finding something to eat.”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment, however, Dean Chalmers would not hear of it. Shall we go?” he asked, stepping aside to hold the door open for her.
They descended to the ground floor and Reverend Forsyth strode along the north aisle, pointing out items of interest as they went. Hecate found that yet again she had to almost trot to keep up. She tried to take in details about the decorated tomb of St. Cantilupe; the stained-glass window in the transept in need of repair; the position of the organ behind the choir stalls, where, he told her, he spent most of his time; the unlit Gurney stoves, which he informed her would be all that stood between herself and a winter chill in the months to come; the tomb of St. Cuthbert set into the north wall, and the beautifully carved paneling that led to the main door. This was the second time in the same day she had trailed in the wake of someone attempting to fill her head with information. John Forsyth was a wholly different guide from the librarian however. Where her superior’s haste had been all about returning to his own desk and concerns, this young vicar was full of obvious delight for the cathedral and a wish to share it with her.
They emerged into the spring sunshine and headed off across the Green. Hecate was surprised to find that he did not, in fact, take her to a café or a restaurant. Instead he marched to Askews bakery in Church Street, where he purchased hot meat pies and bottles of lemonade for them both. Their meal obtained, he then took her back across the Cathedral Green, skirting the west wall, and on to the Lady Arbor. This recently refurbished quadrangle was prettily planted with small trees and shrubs, among which were set several benches. He selected one in the far corner and bid her take a seat.
“A lovely place for a picnic,” Hecate commented.
“When I cannot endure another bout of feasting and gossip in the hall it is to this haven that I come. This bench is perfectly positioned, you see.” He indicated with the wave of a hand as he spoke. “We are able to observe anyone entering the quad, either from the arbor gate or the exit from the cloisters. However, those two cherry trees afford us the advantage of privacy. Here we may enjoy the finest pies in Hereford without fear of a breach of decorum, however many crumbs may fall.” To illustrate his point he bit into the unwrapped mutton pie he held, sending a shower of pastry flakes down the front of his cassock.
Hecate grinned and tucked into her own pie, her mouth already watering at the savory aroma and anticipation of what she knew to be, as he had said, a snack without equal in the city. For a few moments they ate in companionable silence before she could not resist quizzing him about his position at the cathedral.
“Forgive my curiosity, Reverend Forsyth…”
“Never apologize for curiosity. The quest for knowledge is always to be encouraged.”
“Ah, but how can you be sure my inquiries are not, in fact, carefully considered questions, but simply impertinent musings? Perhaps I am merely nosey about how you live your life.”
He gave her a sideways glance to check how serious she was being.
“Well, in that case you might be an incorrigible gossip and therefore highly entertaining.”
“A shocking statement from a member of the clergy!” She feigned astonishment, but did not let it stop her eating her pie.
“You are mistaken if you think we clerics are above such things. Faith and gossip are what fuels our work here. Faith is what calls us. Gossip, or as I prefer to think of it, a real and lively interest in our congregation and parishioners, well, that is what gives faith its application. How are we to help the afflicted if we do not know of their affliction? How may we persuade the sinner to mend his ways if we are not informed of those very ways? How can we bring the comfort and guidance of God’s word to those most in need of it, if we cannot name them and have no inkling of whose need is, in fact, the greater?” After this little speech he finished his meal and dusted pastry crumbs from his fingers. “So, nosiness or a thirst for knowledge, it matters not, for I am happy to answer your questions in either case.”
“I am delighted to hear it. Tell me, then, what drew you to a life at the cathedral? There must be any number of livings available for a man wishing to be a priest, and I imagine the duties would be fewer and the freedoms greater, with your own house, for example, in a village parish. Why did you choose to come here?”
“Aside from the magnificence of the cathedral itself, and the esteem in which it and its clergy are held, d’you mean?” He gave a light laugh then, surprising in its softness. “It was a simple decision for me, once I had accepted I was to become a man of the cloth. I came here for the music. Any parish priest may raise his voice in a hymn on Sundays. Only the vicars choral here at the cathedral perform sung services of great sweetness and beauty twice a day, seven days a week. Only here can I give a great number of my hours to the practice and playing of the wonderful organ. You see, Miss Cavendish, God called me through the gift of his music.”
“An irresistible call, then?”
“For me, yes, it was. And I am glad of it. Frankly, I wonder what else I would have been able to offer the world.”
“How fortunate then, that your talent has found a home, to the benefit of many, no doubt.”
“I shall ask you to repeat that once you have heard me play.” He smiled at her. “And you, Miss Cavendish, what is it that brings you here?”
She brushed pastry from her lap. “Can you not guess?”
“Let me see, you have a fierce desire for independence and so wish to enter the world of work?”
“Reverend Forsyth, I believe you have been speaking with my mother!”
He laughed at this. “Or could it be that you, too, are answering a call?”
“To the church? Oh, no. You might blame my father for that. I’m afraid a lifetime of listening to stories of Egyptian tombs, lost tribes and their belief in human sacrifice, and so many other fascinating glimpses into what shapes us … all these things have, if anything, steered me away from, well, from the more conventional religion.”
“And yet, here you are. So, not to break free of your family, not to find your way to God, and yet, if I am not mistaken, I see a brightness in you … something drew you to this place.”
He waited then, allowing space for her to give a more serious answer, perhaps.
“My father has a word for it,” she told him. “Adventure.”
“And you think to find that in a library?”
“Of course! Such a library is not a mere accumulation of books. Up there, in that room, there is a collection to rival any in the world! Ancient manuscripts; records that predate the printed word; fabulous illuminated Gospels; writings of the sages through time; books that speak of forgotten people and their wisdom that might otherwise be lost; books of such rarity and value that they must be chained, or in some instances, kept locked up in a manner that would defy the deftest of thieves. What greater adventure can there be than to travel to mysterious lands, to hear of far-flung peoples and their strange and wonderful lives, to marvel at stories of cities built over centuries only to be abandoned to jungles or fall to ruin under years of siege and onslaughts of the machines of war? How many lives might we ourselves live when transported through the words kept in that library, as if the very ghosts of those who wrote them are whispering in our ears as we read?”
