Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) 📖

he called it, drawn out by some London architect. Well, there I am again. But you’ll see what I mean if you look at this old view.”

Worby reached down a framed print from the wall. “Well, the long and the short of it was that the Dean he handed over to my father a copy of an order of the Chapter that he was to clear out every bit of the choir⁠—make a clean sweep⁠—ready for the new work that was being designed up in town, and he was to put it in hand as soon as ever he could get the breakers together. Now then, sir, if you look at that view, you’ll see where the pulpit used to stand: that’s what I want you to notice, if you please.” It was, indeed, easily seen; an unusually large structure of timber with a domed sounding-board, standing at the east end of the stalls on the north side of the choir, facing the bishop’s throne. Worby proceeded to explain that during the alterations, services were held in the nave, the members of the choir being thereby disappointed of an anticipated holiday, and the organist in particular incurring the suspicion of having wilfully damaged the mechanism of the temporary organ that was hired at considerable expense from London.

The work of demolition began with the choir screen and organ loft, and proceeded gradually eastwards, disclosing, as Worby said, many interesting features of older work. While this was going on, the members of the Chapter were, naturally, in and about the choir a great deal, and it soon became apparent to the elder Worby⁠—who could not help overhearing some of their talk⁠—that, on the part of the senior Canons especially, there must have been a good deal of disagreement before the policy now being carried out had been adopted. Some were of opinion that they should catch their deaths of cold in the return-stalls, unprotected by a screen from the draughts in the nave: others objected to being exposed to the view of persons in the choir aisles, especially, they said, during the sermons, when they found it helpful to listen in a posture which was liable to misconstruction. The strongest opposition, however, came from the oldest of the body, who up to the last moment objected to the removal of the pulpit. “You ought not to touch it, Mr. Dean,” he said with great emphasis one morning, when the two were standing before it: “you don’t know what mischief you may do.” “Mischief? it’s not a work of any particular merit, Canon.” “Don’t call me Canon,” said the old man with great asperity, “that is, for thirty years I’ve been known as Dr. Ayloff, and I shall be obliged, Mr. Dean, if you would kindly humour me in that matter. And as to the pulpit (which I’ve preached from for thirty years, though I don’t insist on that) all I’ll say is, I know you’re doing wrong in moving it.” “But what sense could there be, my dear Doctor, in leaving it where it is, when we’re fitting up the rest of the choir in a totally different style? What reason could be given⁠—apart from the look of the thing?” “Reason! reason!” said old Dr. Ayloff; “if you young men⁠—if I may say so without any disrespect, Mr. Dean⁠—if you’d only listen to reason a little, and not be always asking for it, we should get on better. But there, I’ve said my say.” The old gentleman hobbled off, and as it proved, never entered the Cathedral again. The season⁠—it was a hot summer⁠—turned sickly on a sudden. Dr. Ayloff was one of the first to go, with some affection of the muscles of the thorax, which took him painfully at night. And at many services the number of choirmen and boys was very thin.

Meanwhile the pulpit had been done away with. In fact, the sounding-board (part of which still exists as a table in a summerhouse in the palace garden) was taken down within an hour or two of Dr. Ayloff’s protest. The removal of the base⁠—not effected without considerable trouble⁠—disclosed to view, greatly to the exultation of the restoring party, an altar-tomb⁠—the tomb, of course, to which Worby had attracted Lake’s attention that same evening. Much fruitless research was expended in attempts to identify the occupant; from that day to this he has never had a name put to him. The structure had been most carefully boxed in under the pulpit-base, so that such slight ornament as it possessed was not defaced; only on the north side of it there was what looked like an injury; a gap between two of the slabs composing the side. It might be two or three inches across. Palmer, the mason, was directed to fill it up in a week’s time, when he came to do some other small jobs near that part of the choir.

The season was undoubtedly a very trying one. Whether the church was built on a site that had once been a marsh, as was suggested, or for whatever reason, the residents in its immediate neighbourhood had, many of them, but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of August and September. To several of the older people⁠—Dr. Ayloff, among others, as we have seen⁠—the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually there formulated itself a suspicion⁠—which grew into a conviction⁠—that the alterations in the Cathedral had something to say in the matter. The widow of a former old verger, a pensioner of the Chapter of Southminster, was visited by dreams, which she retailed to her friends, of a shape that slipped out of the little door of the south transept as the dark fell in, and flitted⁠—taking a fresh direction every night⁠—about the close, disappearing for a while in house after house, and finally emerging