'Oh yes, my lord, and he knows we know it, but...'
'Yes.'
The Abbot was silent for a long time, but gave no signal that he wanted to end the interview. The skin over his cheekbones was stretched and shiny, and his shoulders had lost their habitual squareness. When he spoke again, it was in a thin tone Dilke had never heard him use before.
'Father, I want your help.'
'Anything, my lord.'
'I'm frightened, Father. This atrocity we learned of yesterday: the murder of Father Lyall. He was a proud and rebellious man and an unworthy priest, but no human creature deserves an end like that. Who could have done such a thing? And why?'
'Some beastly quarrel, my lord. Spiritual impropriety must show its counterpart in behaviour. There'll be a woman or a gaming-debt at the back of it. Or it might be some brush with agents of the law—they can be savage if they're provoked. I remember your lordship saying in this very room that you were surprised he'd never collided with those in authority. Well, perhaps now he has, once and for all.'
'Do you mean a constable would take a knife to a man who'd crossed him?' asked the Abbot disbelievingly and with a hint of distaste.
'Oh yes, my lord.' Dilke smiled for an instant. 'A constable or other officer. It's not probable in this case, which was, as you say, atrocious. A disfiguring slash would not be so unusual.'
'Who tells you such stuff?'
'I have some children of the people among my charges, my lord.'
'Don't listen when they feed you thieves' cackle.'
'No, my lord. I beg your lordship's forgiveness for the diversion.'
The Abbot gestured with the back of his hand. After a moment, he went on with evident difficulty, 'And yet there's the terrible fact that Lyall was killed by having worked on him the very same... deed as that resisted by him in Hubert's case. I know there was a further mutilation, but... It's as if someone said, 'Obstinately and rebelliously resist alteration in another and suffer it yourself for your pains.' Not revenge or quarrel. Chastisement.'
'Someone? Who, sir?'
'I dare not think.'
Dilke said gravely, 'When I told you just now, my lord, of private violence against the citizenry, I spoke indeed of constables, of the minor agents of the law, of petty authority. Such acts would meet—I'm sure they do meet—the sternest possible rebuke from those of substantial power. That Father Lyall should have died through any sort of sentence or warrant of theirs is not to be dreamed of. Our polity is imperfect, but not evil. And besides, who knew of Lyall's resistance other than ourselves here and Master Anvil—not one to proclaim differences with an ecclesiastic? No, my lord, dreadful as it is, this is a concurrence. There can be no connection. Do I relieve your mind?'
'No. That's to say no more than partly, though I thank you for it. See you, Father, it was to the purpose, all too much to the purpose, that you recalled a moment ago what I said of poor Lyall within these walls. That's what has discomposed me far more. That and what I thought of him. I wanted him removed. I prayed for his removal. But I didn't intend this kind of removal,' said the Abbot, swallowing hard.
'Oh, my lord, of course not. No one could suppose such a thing.'
'My fear is that God has taken this enormous means of rebuking my pertinacity and self-will and desire for wordly acclaim in pressing for the alteration of Hubert. Until yesterday morning, I could lay that fear aside as a sick fancy. But now that Hubert is gone, become a runaway, it returns, redoubled. I take his departure as a sign, an unmistakable sign of God's displeasure.'
Father Dilke had gone down on his knees in front of the Abbot and taken his hands between his own. 'My lord, you were not pertinacious or self-willed in what you did: you showed nothing but a proper resolve in pursuing what you took to be right. And your design was not worldly acclaim but the renown of this Chapel, Hubert's welfare and the greater glory of God. Believe me, my lord; I know you and I speak out of that knowledge.'
The Abbot gave another sigh, but this one had no impatience or fatigue in it. 'Thank you, David. You're a good friend.'
'Your lordship honours me.'
'I tell you the truth. Will you pray with me, Father?'
Unable to speak for the moment, Dilke nodded. The two knelt down side by side on the Abbot's Beauvais carpet. Together they made the Sign of the Cross.
'In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, amen,' said the Abbot.
'Most loving and merciful God,' said Dilke a little unsteadily, 'hear Thou the voice of Thy servant.'
'O God, I humbly petition Thee to remit Thy justified wrath at my sins and to forgive me and to send me comfort if in my thoughts or prayers I betrayed peevishness or animosity at what in all good faith I took to be the stubbornness of that Father Lyall whom Thou hast lately taken to Thyself. And I crave Thee most reverently that Thou have mercy on his soul and at the Last Day number him among Thine own.'
'Amen.'
'And I further humbly petition Thee to take Thy most especial care of the temporal and spiritual well-being of Thy child Hubert Anvil, wherever he may be and wherever he may go. Enter into his heart and mind, O Lord, and send him the desire to return here among those who care for him. Or, if that is not Thy purpose, bring it about in Thine own way that he forsake the path of rebellion and outlawry and be brought at last to serve Thy will.'
'Amen.'
'Give ear, I beseech Thee, O Lord...'
