of Malayan rubber, but also to the level stone with which all the main streets of the capital were faced. There was some traffic on this one: other publics, an express-omnibus bound for London, several expresses. (Mirabilis had never got over his first feeling of amused irritation at the English illogic whereby a public-express was called a public and a privately-owned express an express.) And of course, the people's horse-drawn waggons and traps were everywhere.
Viaventosa had strapped down his window and was keenly attending to the buildings they passed. How different from Rome and its ordered antiquity! That theatre—its gasoliers extinguished on this day, though bills that promised a presentation of Thomas Kyd's Hamlet were to be seen-was an embarrassing survival of the Franco- Arabesque style that had been all the rage a century earlier, but at least it stood for something different from the lath-and-canvas structure beside it, a pattie-shop and all too evidently popular swill-shop in one. A little further along, a Court tailoring establishment in the latest ornate style, complete with single-window glazing, was separated by no more than a narrow passage from one of the exquisitely varicoloured brick-built churches for which middle England was famous. Two elderly clerics emerged from its portal into a passing group of young men whose dingily-hued attire proclaimed their social condition. To be sure, they moved apart to let their betters through, but with neither the alacrity nor the air of respect that would have been common form elsewhere. To Viaventosa, the tiny incident stood for much of what was to be seen and heard of England: careless, bumptious, over-liberal, negligent of order.
At some point between the outskirts of Coverley and of Headington, the public reduced speed and turned off to the left. The quality of the roadway soon deteriorated; several times the passengers braced themselves or were sent groping for the straps; but it was only a couple of minutes before progress steadied again and the two were set down outside the main gate of the Chapel of St Cecilia-not in fact a chapel at all (though needless to say it incorporated one), but the choral school that served the cathedral and provided some teaching facilities for students from other parts of England and from the Empire.
Mirabilis handed the driver eightpence, which was acknowledged with a low bow and more than perfunctory thanks. Inhaling deeply, he caught the scents of the countryside—there was no other building to be seen—but also the hint of petroleum fumes, together with something else acrid and unnatural, something else man-made: a distressful product, it must be, of the manufactories that had been springing up in the area between here and Coverley itself over the past twenty or thirty years, most of them engaged in the production of express vehicles, including, most likely, that same public which had brought him here. It seemed to him that he could recapture in full those odours, normal then to the neighbourhood of any habitation, that had reached his nostrils on his first visit to St Cecilia's in 1949, those of tallow-fat, bone-stock, horses and humanity. He was forty-six years old and an age was passing.
With Viaventosa breathing heavily at his side, he set going the clapper of the gate-bell. There soon appeared a young man in the black habit of the Benedictines, presumably a lay brother.
'Salvete, magistri,' he said in his flat English accent.
'Salve, frater. We are guests to supper with the Lord Abbot. Masters Viaventosa and Mirabilis.'
'Welcome, sirs—please to follow me.'
As he stepped over the sill of the wicket, Mirabilis thought he saw a vehicle approaching, but paid it no attention. The Abbot's invitation had specifically said that there were to be no other guests tonight.
The shadows were gathering in the central courtyard, and the pale yellow of candlelight showed behind some of the little square windows. The three crossed a circle of turf, thick and beautifully taken care of, with at its centre John Bacon's piastraccia statue of the saint, one of the most famous English products of the late eighteenth-century classical revival. Apart from their footfalls, and those of a servant crossing from the buttery with two pots of ale, there was almost total silence, with complin over and all practices and lessons cancelled for the day.
Abbot Peter Thynne sat in his parlour above the arch that led from the courtyard to the stables, the brewery, the bakery, the wood-house and ultimately the small farm that supplied the Chapel. A tall, upright, handsome man of fifty, with high cheekbones and with cropped grey hair under his skullcap, he wore as always the strictest Benedictine black, a relatively unusual choice of costume at a time when clerics in his elevated position were given to luxuriating in coloured silks and velvets.
If asked, he would say that it was God Who had led him to music, which he saw in its entirety, even in its avowedly secular forms, as praise of the divine. But his style of looks and dress indicated no asceticism, were belied by the splendid Flanders tapestry that covered most of one wall, such pieces as the French writing-table of sycamore with Sevres inlay, and the presence and quality of the glass of sherry on its marble top.
He rose slowly to his feet when the lay brother showed in Mirabilis and Viaventosa.
'My dear Fritz,' he said with measured cordiality, extending his hand from the shoulder. 'Welcome back to Coverley.' (He pronounced it 'Cowley' after the old fashion.)
Mirabilis bowed and took the hand. 'I am pleased that we meet again, my lord. May I present Master Lupigradus Viaventosa?'
'This is a great honour for all of us, master.'
'Your lordship is too gracious,' said Viaventosa, producing one of his smallish stock of English phrases.
'Now-let me bring forward my Prefect of Music, Master Sebastian Morley, whom I think you'll remember, Fritz, and my Chapelmaster, Father David Dilke, who joined us last year.'
There were further salutations and compliments. Apart from his powerful square hands, Morley, with his peasant's face and broadcloth attire in sober brown, could not be said much to resemble a musician, but in fact he was one of the most eminent in the land, a brilliant performer on the pianoforte who had given up that career in order to devote himself to the teaching of musical theory and composition. His merits in these fields were such as to have overcome the natural antagonism to the preceptorial appointment of one of the laity. He was respected and liked by Mirabilis, who was not at first greatly taken with Dilke, a comparative youngster, slight, fair-haired and given to nervous twitchings of the eyelids, though he seemed amiable enough.
'Some sherry for our guests, Lawrence,' said the Abbot, but before the grey-clad servant could move the lay brother had returned.
'A thousand excuses, my lord, but there are two gentlemen who wish to speak to you.'
'Oh, merciful heaven.' The Abbot closed his eyes and lifted both hands in front of him. 'Tell them I'm engaged.'
'They are the New Englander Ambassador and the Arch-presbyter of Arnoldstown, my lord.'
