The Archivist Read online

  Why she had followed him the night of the snow she hardly knew. Her suspicion was piqued by his behaviour towards the end of the working day when she spied him looking down from the minstrels’ gallery, watching Max Black set off with a family on the last tour. She began to make her way slowly along the statue corridor to the indigo library to take up her position until Max came through, but she lingered in the shadows to see what BS would do once Max and his group rounded the corner to the south of the great hall to start their tour in the brown drawing room. Max had the reputation for moving his groups along swiftly so she couldn’t delay for long, but within a few minutes of him moving out of sight, she spotted BS making his way down from the minstrels’ gallery. Before descending each step, he planted his cane on the one below to support himself because he did not have a free hand to use on the banisters; he was using his other arm to hold a large leather book tightly to his side. She made her way slowly along the statue corridor, looking back all the time, and when BS reached the foot of the stairs and turned right towards the morning room, she knew he was heading down into the undercroft.

  She came to the conclusion that the archivist was up to something, and she had an irresistible need to find out what it was. When Max entered the library, she didn’t hand the radio over. She made a sign to him implying that it had gone dead, and mouthed that she would put it on charge for him in the office, then she slipped back through the library bedroom so that she wouldn’t meet Pugh, who she could hear closing the shutters on the west side of the Hall.

  When she entered the undercroft the light was on, but as she crept along the far wall, her shadow slipped away from the light and was swallowed up in the darkness. She could hear the click of BS’s stick on the stones – he was only yards ahead of her, down the corridor to the right. She heard him stop and pressed herself against the shifting shadows of the wall. His footsteps were coming her way. ‘Hello!’ he called out before he came into view. Maureen pressed herself flatter against the stone as his head peered into the passage, his shock of white hair bright in the gloom. ‘Dean? Is that you?’ he called, stepping out into the corridor with his back towards her. He had hooked his stick over his arm and was still holding the book against his side. Maureen turned her face away, fearful that her pale skin would reveal her presence, and remained in this position until his footsteps receded.

  When she heard the door into the muniments room close, she allowed herself a deep breath of relief and stood away from the wall to brush the dust off her clothes. She made her way cautiously round the corner and towards the room, her eyes becoming adapted to the dark. She wished she was brave enough to take off her shoes, but she feared treading on something sharp. Instead she placed one foot in front of the other with great care and did not transfer her weight until she was sure there was no piece of loose gravel or grit to scrape out a warning of her approach. By the time she reached the door, she could hear BS moving around inside. It sounded as if he was dragging something across the floor, and as she positioned her feet for maximum stability in order to sink down to her haunches and peer through the keyhole, she heard him cry out and curse, and she fled back up the corridor and returned to her position in the shadows, panting in shallow breaths like a frightened animal. Once again she heard his approach, once again he called out for the butler. She heard a door slam, felt herself jump, and when she had the courage to roll her head slowly to look, he was gone.

  Despite the thundering of her heart and the icy prick of sweat along her hairline and under her arms and breasts, she could not stop now. She had sensed trepidation from his voice, his movement, and she had to find out what he was doing. The journey down the dark corridor seemed easier this time, the snow had stopped falling outside and the moon must have risen because a sliver of weak light was reflected up from the hopper windows in the main corridor behind her, but as she took up her position once again to look through the keyhole she became disorientated – the door was nearer than she imagined and she struck her forehead against the wood with some force. The next moment she was fleeing, the light was flooding out into the corridor and BS was moving towards her, but something about his breathing, the shuffle of his feet, made her wait at the intersection. As she turned, she saw him looking at her with such longing, such need, that she felt herself drawing near to him, and as she did so he reached a hand out towards her and sank to the ground like the envelope of a hot-air balloon emptying.

  She flung herself on to the cold stone beside him and drew his head across and up on to her lap. His lips were trembling, his eyelids fluttered open and shut, and she placed her hand on his forehead which felt cold and clammy to the touch. His fingers worried the fabric of his shirt with a feebleness that squeezed her heart, and she reached down and folded them into her palm. His lids steadied, his eyes looked up at her, and she felt a tremor in his fingers as if he was striving to return the intimacy of her clasp. Two whole winters had passed since she had been in such close proximity with him, and the similarity of the situation brought everything flooding back again. He was there for her when she had her accident, and now she was here for him. She released his hand to stroke the hair across his forehead, and in the muted light of the undercroft she looked at the bent and stunted middle finger of her hand as it moved across his skin. The intense anxiety she felt about the seriousness of his condition was leavened by the exquisite pleasure of knowing that she had been right all along – he did have feelings for her. His eyes closed again, his trembling and fluttering abated, his breathing became steadier and she felt his neck relax against her thigh. She knew her succour was flowing into him, and as she watched him slip into a seemingly untroubled sleep, she was enslaved once again. He was putting his trust in her, his life in her hands – he needed her, he could not reject her.

  Maureen had no idea how long she sat on the cold stones nursing the head of BS Moreton, but her yearning for the moment to last forever was tempered with anxiety. She had to get help, or she could lose him altogether. Struggling through the folds of her fleece she drew the radio out from her pocket and turned it on. She looked down again at BS; ‘Anyone who can hear me,’ she said. ‘BS Moreton has fallen in the undercroft. I repeat, BS has fallen in the undercroft.’

  Pugh was the first to arrive. He made a pillow from his overcoat and lifted BS’s head off Maureen’s lap and on to the coat before helping her to her feet. Her back and legs were stiff from sitting on the cold flags, and the front of her thighs felt a chill where they had been in contact with the warmth from BS’s body. Pugh demanded she hand over her fleece, and he covered BS with this then felt his wrist for a pulse, shook his head, and pressed his fingers into the side of BS’s trachea. BS stirred. A ghostly blue light began to move along the ceiling, and she realised the ambulance had arrived, the headlight’s beam bouncing up from the snow of the courtyard through the gloom, and minutes later she heard the sound of metal wheels on stone.

  Relieved of his responsibility, Pugh stood to one side next to her as the paramedics worked. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ he said. ‘His pulse was quite strong,’ and she felt herself shrug off the consoling hand he placed on her shoulder. He moved away from her, and she knew she had made him feel awkward.

  When BS was comfortably on the trolley Pugh asked one of the ambulance men if he could take the security keys off the patient’s belt. ‘Here,’ he said, handing them to Maureen. ‘I’m going in the ambulance with him. See these are returned to the office.’ Picking his coat up, he shook it out and pulled it back on again. Before he set off behind the convoy he added, ‘And lock up the muniments room will you?’

  Maureen stood in the empty corridor. The only sound she could hear was a distant tapping of water on to lead. The snow was beginning to thaw already. She collected her fleece from the floor and went into the muniments room, propping the door open with a chair. The room was in disarray. An open trunk stood in the corner surrounded by papers and books which had been carelessly flung on to the floor. On the table by
the door was the book she had seen BS carrying. She turned it round to face her. In all the time she researched the indigo library, she had never seen this book. She wondered if it was from BS’s own private collection, but when she opened it, she saw an engraved stamp of the earl’s coat of arms on the frontispiece. A cursory skim through a couple of the pages acquainted her with its contents and she thumped it shut and sat down heavily on the chair beside the table.

  If only she could understand her feelings, but they dipped and turned with such frequency it exhausted her. She looked down at the book and knew BS had hidden it for one of two possible reasons. The first was to stop Sam Westbrook succeeding, just as he had stolen her own idea for the publication about the library, but she also wondered if it explained that horrible find she had made in his rucksack. Could it be that the descriptions scrawled on these pages had stimulated his carnal desires to such an extent that he had been unable to control himself and had found it necessary to seek instant relief high up above the indigo library in the sanctuary of his office? She pushed the image away. How, she asked herself, could her feelings of caring affection towards a man turn back within minutes to suspicion, perhaps even disgust?

  - 15 -

  Dr Patterson was a lovely young girl, but BS didn’t have an enormous amount of faith in her. For a start, she didn’t look old enough to have completed her training – more like one of the work experience girls who arrived at the Hall at the end of each summer for a couple of weeks, and they were only fourteen. She listened to his chest, took his blood pressure and weighed him. ‘You are overweight,’ she said, ‘but generally you are in quite good health.’

  ‘How much longer do you think I need to be off work?’

  ‘You’re fine to go back now, if you wish.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I have some more tests?’ BS asked.

  ‘No. Everything seems OK, but there are a few self-help things you can do. Do you drink a lot of coffee?’

  ‘Yes,’ BS said cautiously, seeing the demise of his belters before she continued.

  ‘Cut that right down. A lot of caffeine can exacerbate the condition in many patients. And watch out for very strong tea too. That can add to a caffeine overload.’ BS groaned inwardly. ‘Do you drink a lot of cola?’

  ‘Never,’ he replied with pride.

  ‘Good. That’s one thing you won’t have to give up then.’ She smiled at him, but he didn’t feel cheered. ‘And I do think you would benefit from some cognitive behavioural therapy. It’s an extremely helpful treatment for panic attacks.’

  ‘I didn’t have a panic attack.’

  ‘I think you did.’ She looked at her computer screen. ‘Yes, I’ve got your notes through from the hospital. You had all the classic symptoms: breathlessness, light-headedness, a feeling of impending doom.’

  ‘I was having a coronary.’

  ‘Not according to your tests.’

  ‘Supposing you’ve missed something?’

  ‘Lots of patients who suffer from panic attacks make repeated trips to see us or go straight to casualty trying to get treatment for what they believe is a life-threatening medical problem. I promise you that we have ruled out any possible physiological cause of your symptoms.’ She wheeled her chair away from the desk and turned to look at him. ‘Interestingly, it’s often panic that is overlooked as a potential cause – not the other way around. But if you think a few more days off work would help, take them. Most men of your age have retired by now. Just be sure in your own mind that you’re not avoiding a situation because you’re afraid you could have another attack in public, away from home.’

  ‘Attack? Heart attack?’

  ‘No. Panic attack.’

  Nonetheless, BS adopted a grave expression as he came out once more into the waiting room. Patricia rose to her feet when she saw him and looked worried.

  ‘I’ll tell you outside,’ he said quietly, pulling her arm through his and patting her hand consolingly. Patricia gazed up at him, her head making that infinitesimal movement back and forth which squeezed compassion from BS’s heart. Once in the car he dropped his charade of doom and said: ‘She thinks I’m on the mend, and that it’s a good idea if I get back in the saddle straight away.’

  ‘Go back to work?’ Patricia looked dismayed. ‘Is that really such a good idea? You still seem very frail to me.’

  ‘Frail? Of course I’m not frail,’ he said, dropping the hand that he had reached across and taken once they were seated. ‘I’ve had a nasty scare, of course – a shot across the bows one might say. I’ll just do a couple of days a week to begin with.’ The look Patricia gave him drained his compassion away. She put the car into reverse and revved the engine to a high pitch before jerking backwards into the pall of smoke generated at the back of the car.

  Be that as it may, here he was a few days later driving up towards the Hall, his car window rolled down and the crisp spring air blowing full on his face, free at last. He felt quite emotional when Pugh’s friendly face popped out from the gatekeeper’s box.

  ‘Mr Moreton! How wonderful to see you again. How are you feeling? I must say, you’re looking remarkably well.’

  ‘I am feeling fit as a flea, Mr Pugh. Fit as a flea. What’s been going on since I’ve been away?’

  Pugh thought for a few moments then said, ‘Nothing particular, I don’t think. Everything’s been running quite smoothly. That nice assistant of yours, Mrs Westbrook, has turned out to be a very resourceful woman. Things are singing along nicely upstairs with the new exhibition apparently. We’ve had men tramping up and down the stairs with boxes – the music room is packed to the gunnels. It’s been temporarily roped off from the general public. And I’ve a note here that the skip is arriving sometime this morning – they’re putting it in the senior staff car park, so you’d better get round there and make sure you don’t lose your space.’

  ‘Skip?’

  ‘They’re ripping stuff out upstairs. A whole wall’s coming down this evening once the Hall is closed.’

  ‘A wall? A whole wall? Whatever for?’

  ‘Not sure exactly. Just what I’ve heard.’

  BS accelerated away and spun round through the courtyard and out to the senior staff car park beyond. He was met by a scene of devastation, piles of rotten floorboards smouldered away in one corner on a builders’ bonfire, jumbled heaps of laths and plaster lay in another. Even the old baize screen was there, leaning drunkenly against the pile of spoil. He parked up, struggled out of his car, and set off towards the entrance of the Hall. He was waylaid by Sharon the cleaner, who dropped her cloth and toilet cleaner back into the bucket outside the Ladies, and tearing off her rubber gloves as she wobbled over towards him, planted a huge smacking kiss on the side of his face.

  ‘Blimey, Mr Moreton. You’ve had us all that worried! Should you really be back at work? You look awful. You’ve lost so much weight, it makes you look ten years older.’ BS managed a watery smile and assured her that he was feeling fitter than he had for months. ‘Take it easy,’ she shouted after him. ‘We don’t want you falling flat on your face again all over the place.’

  He tried to get in through the music room door, but it was locked and he didn’t have his keys. He swung along and up the main steps where Max Black was standing on the door. Max shook BS warmly by the hand and patted him on the shoulder; Laurence came flapping across the Hall waving his hands up and down with the excitement of seeing him; Major Frodsham, woken by the commotion, raised a languid hand from behind the bookstall and said, ‘Great to see you back again, old fellow. Had a good break?’ BS looked up towards the minstrels’ gallery. The left-hand flight of stairs was cordoned off, each step shrouded with dust sheets.

  ‘Good grief,’ BS said to Laurence. ‘What on earth do the visitors make of all this?’

  ‘They’ve been wonderful. That curator has done some brilliant information boards about the development of the new exhibition, she’s even produced some little flyers about it. It makes them feel involved in so
me sort of way I suppose. We’ve had hardly any complaints at all – mostly people want to know when it’s going to open. Sam Westbrook certainly knows how to generate interest.’

  BS harrumphed and started to make his way up the statue corridor towards the office. He needed to find Rosemary and get his keys back. Up ahead he saw Donna, the voluptuous northern guide, who abandoned her group with a yelp of delight before rushing along the corridor towards him, her magnificent cleavage boiling up above her blouse as she ran.

  ‘BS! You’re back! I have been so worried about you. We just weren’t getting any bulletins whatsoever. It was as if you had completely disappeared from all our lives, and the Hall just isn’t the Hall without you.’ She pressed her large bosom against him and held on to him for a good minute before releasing him. Some of her group had caught her up by now, but instead of looking irritated by her abandonment, they smiled affectionately at the scene. ‘How lovely,’ one of them muttered. The only person who didn’t show a childish gladness to see him back was Maureen who smiled coldly at him without using her eyes and nodded an acknowledgement.

  ‘Your usual coffee, BS?’ Rosemary said when he came into her office.

  ‘No, thank you. I need to take care of my heart now,’ he replied.

  ‘Your heart. Of course. We were all wondering what the diagnosis was. Patricia was insistent that no one from here bothered you during your convalescence and was obviously too upset to talk about what exactly it was that had struck you down.’