'Are they so, indeed? In that case I suppose I had better not be engaged. Fetch them.'
'This is surely rather discourteous at such a time,' said the Abbot after the brother had gone, 'if my expectations are not too high. But I hear very little good of Schismatic manners.'
What he had heard proved a poor guide to the behaviour of the two New Englanders when they were admitted. The Ambassador's unaffected, manly address and direct blue eyes made an immediate good impression, while the Archpresbyter showed a quiet dignity that could not have come easily to one of his faith in his present circumstances.
'I'll take up as little of your time as is consistent with politeness, my lord,' said the Ambassador when introductions were complete. 'First, my excuses. I sent no advance notice of my wish to talk with you because I was afraid it would be rejected. I reckoned it would be difficult for you to order an ambassador off your doorstep, even one from New England.'
The Abbot gave a slight brief smile. 'Some sherry, Your Excellency.'
'Thank you, my lord. Now my request. It wasn't only my official duties that took me this afternoon to St George's, nor even my personal desire to pay my last respects to your late lamented sovereign. I went for the music too. May I say, Father Dilke, that the singing was of a quality I expect never to hear surpassed?'
Dilke blinked a great deal and glanced quickly at the Abbot. 'That's very kind of you, sir.'
'No more than just, Father. I was particularly struck, as I'm sure others were,'—the Ambassador, who seemed to know who everyone was, turned his blue eyes on the two men from Almaigne-'by the performance of the solo soprano in the Agnus Dei and elsewhere. That young man has a voice from Heaven. And he's a musician besides. Splendidly trained, to be sure, but there were things in his performance that nobody but himself could have put there-isn't that so, Father?'
'Oh yes, Your Excellency, yes.'
'Forgive me, sir,' said Morley in his harsh voice, 'but are you yourself a musician?'
'I was about to be one, sir, until I discovered my lack of capacity. All that I have now is the most cordial interest. Which brings me to my point at last, my lord Abbot. I beg the favour of a few minutes' conversation with the genius of St Cecilia's. Then I'll have something to tell my grandchildren, something worth telling, too—I say that with surety. I insisted that the Archpresbyter should come too, as a favour to him. Also to lend me moral support for my hardihood.'
'Your request is unusual, Your Excellency,' said the Abbot after consideration, 'but I can find no sufficient reason to deny it. We still have a little time before the supper-bell.' He beckoned his servant. 'Lawrence, fetch Clerk Anvil here at once. Let him know he's to meet some, uh, eminent visitors.'
'I'm most profoundly grateful, my lord,' said Cornelius van den Haag, 'but I had in mind something rather more private than this concourse, which may prove intimidating.'
The Abbot gave another small smile. 'Your sensitivity does you credit, sir, but Anvil isn't soon intimidated, as Father Dilke will tell you, and if he were he must learn to overcome such weakness. But I'll see to it that you have your private word with him.'
As the Abbot had foreseen, Hubert Anvil was not intimidated by his summons, but he was startled and, on arrival, overawed: not so much of either, however, as to restrain him from taking in what he saw and heard.
There were four strangers in the parlour. Two were New Englanders, speaking English naturally enough, but far back in the throat; the grey-haired, broad-shouldered, elderly one was some sort of bishop, but the taller, younger one with the tanned face was more important, perhaps as important as the Abbot himself. Both wore black, with white linen; in this their clothes resembled his, but in style were strict and quite foreign. Although they tried hard, neither could altogether hide a sense of constraint. The ecclesiastic, indeed, did not want to be here at all.
The other pair were plump, dandified and unhealthy-looking. One had moist eyes and an absurd mustach that might almost have been painted or pencilled on; his companion, despite his pallor, seemed shrewd and full of life. Their names showed that they came from Rome, their accents that they had not been born there. That was normal and natural; the reason for the high pitch of their voices, if neither normal nor natural, hardly needed to be guessed at; what faintly disconcerted Gerk Anvil was the look each of these two gave him when he was brought forward to them—a considering, measuring look. He remembered being in the library at home when a painter had been starting work on a portrait of his father: the man had scrutinised his sitter in something of the same careful but unobtrusive fashion.
All four of the visitors proceeded to make laudatory remarks about Clerk Anvil's performance in the Requiem that day. He was used to compliments on his singing, in the sense not that he was unmoved by them but that he had learned how to receive them, and so was able to make part of his mind free to observe that the most considered comments were offered by the shrewd, pale man and the warmest by the important New Englander. It was with the latter that he found himself standing slightly apart when the Abbot took the rest of the company off to admire his tapestry.
'May I know your first name, young master?'
'Here in this Chapel I'm only a clerk, my lord. My Christian name is Hubert.'
'Now it's my turn to correct you, Hubert. I am nobody's lord. Being the New Englander Ambassador means I'm sometimes My Excellency, and then sometimes I'm Citizen Cornelius van den Haag, but with you I reckon I can just be sir.'
'Very well, sir. Van den Haag sounds like a Netherlander name.'
'And so it is, or was. My ancestors were transported from that country over four hundred years ago, along with... But enough of my concerns; yours are far more interesting. What age have you, Hubert?'
'What age? Oh—ten years, sir.'
To the man as he listened to it earlier, the most distinctive quality of the boy's singing voice had been instantly noticeable but resistant to definition, hidden somewhere among pairs of antonyms: full-grown yet fresh, under total control yet spontaneous, sweet yet powerful. A close view of the owner of the voice soon suggested a word for the quality: agelessness. Hubert Anvil's face, with its full lips, prominent straight nose and eyes deep-set under heavy brows, had no maturing to do; he would grow in height, but presumably he would retain his short neck and the ample rib-cage that must help to give his voice that power. Van den Haag felt suddenly protective; come to think of it, he had felt some such thing in the basilica, a sense of the vulnerability of art. He said, 'I want to tell you,
