Authors: William Savage
‘You have my profound admiration, Mrs. Ross,’ Adam said, and meant it. ‘I will not say that I pray for you, for to be truthful, as I think you guessed at my last visit, I place no credence in prayer to gods of any kind. Rather I will say that I believe you to be far stronger than you think. I am sure you will be capable of withstanding the blows fate has dealt you and recovering from them.’
‘What is it you hope then, doctor?’ Mrs. Ross asked.
‘I have realised information I received some time ago, but could make little sense of at the time, now points me in a certain direction,’ Adam said. ‘Before I came here, I sent a message to a person I met completely by chance. He is a dissenter, as he told me freely, a Quaker. But from my own observation and all I have heard of him since, I judge him to be an honourable and good man. I hope to enquire of him whether he has any knowledge from within his community and contacts of where your son may be and his state of mind. My hope is thus to gain more certain information for you. Yet it is possible he knows nothing. If that is so, I will ask him to make enquiries on my behalf. I am sure he will do this, for we parted last on the best of terms and I have no doubt he will aid me in any way he can. Now, madam, be patient. None of this is certain. My hopes may be sound or they may not. All I can promise is that I will tell you the outcome, plainly and honestly, whatever it may be.’
Mrs. Ross still held Adam’s hand. Now her grip tightened and she pulled him towards her, reaching her face up to kiss his cheek. ‘There, I have done it and you will brand me a shameless woman. I could not prevent myself, though I hope you will not feel you have to confess my actions to others. None has shown me as much kindness as you, sir, in many a year. If I possess any power of blessing, it is yours in full measure.
‘Now, my most dear friend – for you see my shamelessness knows no bounds―I must ask you to leave me. I am exhausted beyond measure and must sleep. For the first time in this whole sorry business, I feel hope that will make my sleep the sweeter. Whatever happens next, I will never forget what you have done for me. When I am well, I shall make it my business to seek out your mother and tell her what a fine son she has. I have a fine son too. Thanks to you, I can now think of him again without any shadow falling over me. Should I see him again or not, I will never forget that either.’
A
dam was destined
for a considerable disappointment when he returned to his mother’s house. Roger had come back with the message that Mr. Jempson was away. He was on a visit to oversee some of his business interests in Lynn and would not return until later in the following week. Being by nature impatient, Adam felt the disappointment keenly – so keenly that only action could relieve his mind. He determined to go at once to see the man whose name Mr. Wicken had given him. Thus, to the amazement of all at his mother’s house, he turned around and left again.
The name on the paper had been Tobias Sulborne; the address in one of the small streets that ran between the Cathedral Close and the river. It was, of course, quite possible the man was about his business somewhere. Yet since that weighed less with Adam than his need to be active rather than fretting at his mother’s home, he went there just the same.
Mr. Sulborne’s house proved to be a neat dwelling, not large but in good condition externally. It lay in a good situation, for it was closer to the majestic bulk of the cathedral than to the wharves and warehouses along the river bank. As Adam approached, he could hear a fortepiano. Someone must be at home, though it might rather be Sulborne’s wife or daughter than the man himself. As he got closer, it was plain that whoever sat at the keyboard was no common performer. The music was rich and complex and the manner of playing both assured and dextrous.
A young maid answered the door, ushered Adam inside and hurried off, taking his visiting card. At once the music ceased, so she must have gone to whoever had been playing. When she returned, she told Adam the master would see him at once. Then she led him into a pleasant room, not overly large, containing both the fortepiano he had heard and what must be either a spinet or harpsichord. Mr. Sulborne himself proved to be a man of middle age, middle height and middling stature. The kind of man you might pass ten times in the street, yet fail exactly to recall on the eleventh.
After the usual introductions and pleasantries, Sulborne ushered his guest to a chair by the fireplace. The maid was sent for coffee.
‘My wife and children are out, Dr. Bascom,’ Sulborne said, ‘so you have chosen a propitious time to make your visit. The Good Lord has seen fit to bless us with abundant increase, all healthy and full of energy. My youngest child is yet but four years old, while the oldest is now fifteen. When all are present, the house can seem quite small, though they are well-schooled to stay quiet when I have a pupil come here.’
‘You are a music teacher then,’ Adam said.
‘In part,’ Sulborne replied. ‘I see Mr. Wicken neglected to tell you more about me.’
‘He told me almost nothing,’ Adam said. ‘He gave me a slip of paper as he left on which he had written your name and address.’
Sulborne smiled. ‘I fear Mr. Wicken is often distracted by weight of business. But you are not of this city, or you would know my name at least. I am the cathedral organist and master of the choristers, sir. Yet even such an ancient and magnificent see as this pays its organist but a meagre stipend. I am forced to supplement my income by giving music lessons in the city. I teach fortepiano and spinet, together with singing. My pupils are the daughters of merchants and professional men such as yourself. Indeed, sir, I taught Miss Lasalle, who I believe has now become your mother’s companion. She is a most accomplished pianist and has a lovely singing voice. Occasionally, she even pays me a visit and we play and sing duets together.’
It seemed to Adam that all people sang Miss Lasalle’s praises, so that he might even have come to dislike her, had he not met her first.
‘But you have not come here to talk of such trifles I know,’ Sulborne continued. ‘Ah, here is Betty with coffee. Refresh yourself, sir, and I will tell you what you want to know.’
At the start, Mr. Sulborne’s tale repeated what Mr. Wicken had suggested. The only surprise to Adam was that Mr. Wicken had been born in Norwich. In his early twenties, he had been a tenor in the cathedral choir. That was at about the time Sulborne had first come to assist the previous organist. Shortly after that, Mr. Wicken had moved to London, though he had remained in occasional contact.
‘It was through his most kind endeavours,’ Sulborne said, ‘that I met both Mr. Handel in his old age and Mr. Haydn during one of his visits to the capital. Percival Wicken has ever been a friend to me. So I am naturally ready to assist him when I can – which is but rarely, for he is become a great man, while I remain but a humble organ-player.’
It was in January, Sulborne said, that Mr. Wicken had first asked him about Dr. Ross. That was when he suggested that Sulborne should strike up an acquaintance with the man. It would be of service to him, he sad, and those who employed him.
‘I knew him, of course,’ the organist said, ‘as all did about the cathedral. Yet I suspected I was beneath his notice. He was not an agreeable man, doctor, as I am sure you have been told. At first, he rebuffed my efforts. Yet I think even Dr. Ross had at last come to realise that none would associate with him if they might avoid it. Not even his own colleagues in the church or the Chapter. He was both arrogant and narrow-minded, but he was also lonely. And like many such, instead of mending his ways, he became bitter towards a world that he felt had rejected him. It only made matters worse, I fear. Where he had warned, he now denounced. Where he had been merely domineering, he became an outright tyrant.’
It was Dr. Ross’s loneliness that had been the means of Sulborne finally becoming an intimate of this stern and difficult man. Once accepted, Dr. Ross told him of the great hatred he had for non-conformists and any who rejected the established ways. Sulborne also discovered that the man’s self-righteous moralising had arisen, at least in part, from his failure to find acceptance and warmth in his own household.
‘He knew even his wife and children had come to dislike him,’ Sulborne said. ‘Yet he seemed unable to deal with this by any means other than forcing them at least to obey him.’
Thus matters had continued until, of a sudden, Ross had become excited. Some contact had been made with him: contact that would, he said, allow him to prove he had been right all along about the rottenness infecting society. He would not explain much more. All he would say was that he must go somewhere on a certain date. At that time, his contact would reveal all to him. Then he would have the means of uncovering a most damnable group of men engaged in the extreme of perversions. All was arranged and he only had to await the call.
‘Did he mention revolutionaries or the French?’ Adam asked. ‘What you say sounds like something more related to morality than the political world.’
‘No, sir,’ Sulborne said. ‘As I told Mr. Wicken, he described whatever and whoever it was he was seeking to reveal as wicked, filthy and depraved. He said nothing of a political nature. Indeed, it was my own belief that he was not especially interested in political events. He abhorred the revolutionaries of France, but on moral and religious, not political, grounds.’
Then, according to Sulborne, Dr. Ross’s world tumbled into chaos about him. ‘He told me – these were his very words,’ Sulborne said, ‘ – that he had done a most damnable thing, for which he would suffer for the rest of his life. He had driven his only son from his house and intended to disinherit him. The lad had first disgraced him by being sent home from Oxford University, then defied him by refusing to enter the church. Worse, he had announced he would take a wife of his own choosing, a young woman of good fortune, but of a dissenting family.’
‘Yet all might have been resolved in time,’ Adam said. ‘Was there really cause for such an extreme response?’
‘He knew he had done wrong, doctor,’ Sulborne replied. ‘He knew he had allowed his passions to rule him. Yet he had been unable to resist flying into a rage. The words were out before he had stopped to consider what he was saying. I believe he still hoped he might talk with the boy again and try to set things right between them, but it was not to be.’
‘Why not?’
‘He did not know where his son had gone, nor how he might make contact with him. Even his wife had finally said she would have no more to do with such a husband. He was alone, facing the ruin of all his hopes and knowing that he had brought this calamity on himself.’
For a moment, both men were silent. Until now, Adam had assumed Dr. Ross so firm in self-righteousness that the banishment of his only son would mean little. Now the picture was rather of someone torn apart by guilt, yet unable still to set aside the habits that had brought him to disaster.
‘In the midst of this, his contact sent him a message to come for a meeting,’ Sulborne went on. ‘In a way, it must have come as a relief to have something to do, even though he ought to have ignored all save mending what he had done. He went in great haste. I did not see him at that time, but I heard that he disappeared, speaking to no one. Only when the news of his death reached us did we have the smallest information about his destination. Of his purpose, most knew nothing at all.’
‘So this rapid departure had nought to do with his son?’ Adam asked, more for the sake of final certainty that any other purpose.
‘Oh, no,’ Sulborne said. ‘As I told you, he had no idea where the young man had fled. Nor would his pride yet have allowed him even to enquire. It was a terrible death that awaited him.’
’Why so?’ Adam asked. ‘If all is as it seemed, he died in an instant, and from a single blow.’
‘Because he died unforgiven of his sins, doctor. He died without proper repentance and the opportunity to make reparation. None of us know the time when God may call us to His judgement. Dr. Ross died, as it were, in the midst of his sins. He must have faced the Lord thus. Only one outcome would have been possible, I fear. Hell awaits the unrepentant sinner, the Bible tells us. Hell and all its terrors.’
Adam did not believe in Hell, but now was not the time to enter into theological dispute. Instead, he asked the other question that had bothered him for so long. ‘I wondered at the time why the authorities of the church seemed to accept the verdict of accidental death so easily. Even if that was correct, would they not have wished to discover why one of their dignitaries was in such an unlikely place?’
‘I cannot answer for them,’ Sulborne said. ‘I know the bishop sent his chaplain to observe events. I also know that the story of the archdeacon’s quarrel with his son, and the action he had taken, was common knowledge about the Close. It is my belief – no more than that, mind – that the church authorities were becoming embarrassed by the archdeacon’s behaviour. He was upsetting too many people of power, wealth and influence, which are all much the same thing. To have engaged in a public quarrel with his son would have been the final straw. When his death was ruled accidental, and his own family raised no question at that, I suspect there was a collective sight of relief. The man could be buried and forgotten.’
‘A sad epitaph,’ Adam sad.
‘Sad indeed, doctor. I never liked Dr. Ross. Indeed, I would have avoided him like all the rest, had not Mr. Wicken asked me to do otherwise. Still, by the end I pitied him greatly. There was much about his fate that should be a warning to us all.’
For a moment, they sat in silence again. Then Mr. Sulborne seemed to recall something. It caused him first to take out his watch and ascertain the time, then to jump up in alarm. ‘Forgive me, doctor. I do not wish to suggest any rudeness towards you, for I have found talking with you most helpful for easing my own conscience in this matter. Yet I have quite forgot the time. I have a pupil who will be here in but moments and nothing is ready. Will you excuse me, sir? I demand punctuality of those who come to me for teaching. It will never do to be late myself.’
Adam rose at once, full of his own apologies for arriving unannounced and taking up Mr. Sulborne’s time without prior arrangement. And so, with repeated apologies from Sulborne and profuse thanks from Adam, the two men parted.