Celestial Chess Page 8

“So far as I can see,” he said, “it’s the early dating of the poem which constitutes your major discovery, Fairchild. And it is an astounding one. Of course, you’ll have to convince the skeptics who swear by their Throcknagle that this really is a significant and substantial work of art. Throcknagle was rather hard on your poet, you know.”

  Throcknagle, I thought, was an ass. But what I said was: “I think I can do that, once I get back to the manuscript. I’m anxious to read it again in the light of the possibility”—I had nearly said “the fact,” but caught myself in time—“that Gervaise is the poet. I think it’s going to make a lot more sense than anyone ever suspected it could. His execution for witchcraft is a case in point. Then there are the other things we know about him, or can reasonably surmise: his Saxon-Norman parentage—noble on his father’s side, peasantry on his mother’s—his early education in a Yorkshire monastery, his years in Paris and at the court of Henry II, his association with Becket, his crusade or whatever it was across England, his presumed knowledge of law, philosophy, the classical and Islamic philosophers, his probable influence by the Albigensians and the cult of courtly love, his interest in science, astrology, chess—’’

  “Chess?” Dr. Dilbey said. “I say, you really ought to have a look at my monograph on the Quaedam Moralitas de Scaccario.”

  “I have. It was most helpful, especially your notes on the rules of medieval chess. Chess is a controlling metaphor throughout the poem, and Gervaise was reputed to be a master at the game; his skill is mentioned by Peter of Blois, among others. It may well have endeared him to Becket, who is also said to have been an excellent player. In the poem, several games of chess seem to be progressing simultaneously and are used on a variety of allegorical levels: the chess game between two rival knights, the game between a master and his pupil, the game between the king and his minister (possibly Henry and Becket), the game between the courtly lover and his mistress (an elaborate seduction ritual which one finds often enough in the literature of the period)—and finally, what seems to be a game between good and evil, or possibly Christ and Satan. It’s at this point that the poem becomes exceedingly obscure, and there are all sorts of references to the stars and the signs of the zodiac which I haven’t begun to sort out.”

  “Fascinating,” Dr. Dilbey said. “And amazing that no one’s gotten into all this before. Tell me—you’ve read Gervaise’s Latin treatise?”

  “It’s intolerably dull. The work of a young scholar trying to impress his mentors at court—chiefly Becket and John of Salisbury. Something extraordinary must have happened to Gervaise once he gave up his ambitions of rising in the Church. He became a mystic, a dreamer, a student of the occult. Celtic mythology enters into it somehow, and various Gnostic and Manichean doctrines. The effort to reconcile such stuff with his Christian perspective may have cost Gervaise his sanity, but it made a poet of him—a poet, if not of Shakespeare’s stature, well then, say, of Christopher Marlowe’s.”

  “Interesting that you chose another doomed poet, Fairchild. Perhaps we should have a special category for those poets whose personal misfortunes render their work all the more poignant to us. The list would be a long one. But really, it is too soon to claim any special niche for this particular poet. Your work, I should say, has just begun.”

  “Indeed, and now it’s come screeching to a halt, thanks to the closing of the Special Collections.”

  Dr. Dilbey mused briefly. “I know how hard it must be for you, and yet I think you can afford to have a little patience with us. To have discovered, this early in your career, material which could keep you well occupied, oh, for a lifetime, if you really go into it as you should—it’s a fantastic stroke of luck. It makes me sorry I didn’t pay more attention to the Westchurch manuscripts myself.”

  “You know, Doctor, that brings to mind a question—if it isn’t too presumptuous . . . I’ve often wondered why you never took an interest in those manuscripts. As a fellow of the College, you’ve had them at your disposal for many years.”

  “I did set out to do something with them shortly after I came to Duke’s. I expected to make quite a good thing of them, but—I don’t know quite how to explain it—as soon as I got into them I experienced a strange oppression and sense of dread. It was quite disturbing. I’d had a sort of nervous breakdown after the war, and it was weak and irrational of me, I’m sure, but finally I just couldn’t bring myself to work on the Westchurch manuscripts. There they sat, waiting for someone of your energy and imagination to tie into them . . . But tell me, have you never experienced anything similar to my distress while working on those manuscripts?”

  “No,” I said with a smile. “On the contrary, the manuscripts have fascinated me from the start. But old Throcknagle may have had some of your feelings. He certainly did an uncharacteristically sloppy job on his monograph, and I did hear, from one of his former students, that in his later years he couldn’t bear to discuss the Westchurch manuscripts at all.”

  Dr. Dilbey put another match to his pipe. “Actually, there was another chap. I was hesitant to mention him earlier, but now that you’ve fully committed yourself to this project, I think I should tell you about poor young Jameson.”

  ‘‘Poor young Jameson?”

  “He was a research student at Queen’s back about 1950. Brilliant young chap; most promising. He received permission from the fellows to pursue a dissertation topic involving the Westchurch collection. For months he virtually lived in the library. The strain of those long hours finally broke him, I’m afraid. He was apprehended while attempting to set the library on fire. Some of the petrol he’d splashed about got on his clothes, and the only casualty was poor Jameson himself, whose burns proved fatal.”

  “And his dissertation?”

  “It was never written—though a quantity of ashes found in his room at Queen’s may have been a first draft. You see, Fairchild, it would be wise to proceed with caution. A madman wrote that poem, and madness may sometimes prove a communicable disease.”

  I gave Dr. Dilbey’s words considerable thought, then said: “Tell me, Doctor—has it ever struck you that the Westchurch manuscripts have had a particularly bloody history?”

  “I’m sure there’s blood on everything in England—everything older than a couple of centuries, at any rate. But whose blood were you thinking of, in particular?”

  “Gervaise himself, for openers—if I can prove he was both the author of the poem and the mad priest whom the people of Creypool put to the stake in 1175. Then there’s Lord Peter Brindley, sixteenth Earl of Westchurch and reputed discoverer of the manuscripts, who was beheaded for treason and blasphemy in 1649. Next we have Gerald Brice, the fellow commoner who donated the manuscripts to the College, and who was said to have been a former slave trader with an interest in witchcraft. He disappeared in France on the eve of the Revolution. After which those manuscripts gathered dust in the College library for nearly two hundred years. We can dismiss the various reports of ghostly occurrences in the College during that period, but the fact remains that the only scholars to take an interest in those manuscripts—Throcknagle, yourself, and this young Jameson you’ve just told me about—all found them, as we might say, too hot to handle. And now that I’ve come along, and have for some reason proven immune to the spell these papers seem to cast, two deaths have occurred within days of each other and my work has been brought to an abrupt halt just as I’ve reached the threshold of discovery.”

  Dr. Dilbey sat up. “Two deaths, Fairchild? I assume you’re referring to Dr. Greggs’ unfortunate accident as one, but who is the other victim?”

  “You’ve heard of the Reverend Samuel Stemp?”

  “Once the curator of the Westchurch Museum and a west-country antiquarian of some standing, I believe.”

  “Also, a friend of our late Dr. Greggs. And recently killed in another freak accident. I talked to Stemp’s widow in London last week. She gave me his pamphlet on the Earl of Westchurch, in which I found a few of Stemp’s notes towar
d a future revision. Everything else—all of Stemp’s papers, so far as I could tell—was purchased from his widow by a person named Simon Regis. He claimed to be a dealer in rare books, but his shop turned out to be an empty warehouse, and the London Booksellers’ Association says they’ve never heard of him.”

  ‘‘And these papers—they could prove important?”

  ‘‘Extremely. Stemp had been all over England gathering new information on the earl. He may have had some clue as to what the earl himself was searching for when he collected those manuscripts. On the notes I have, Stemp alludes to Creypool Abbey and lists several dates on which the earl may have been there—apparently armed with a telescope he purchased in Italy. On top of all that, I found the name ‘G. Gervaise’ and the date of his death lightly penciled on the back flyleaf of Stemp’s book. It was after that discovery that I began my search for Gervaise through the records of the British Museum.”

  Dr. Dilbey pondered the glowing coals in his hearth, the room now in almost total darkness. “And what does it all add up to, do you suppose?”

  “My best guess at the moment, Doctor, is that both Stemp and the Earl of Westchurch knew that Gervaise was the author of the poem. They knew other things about him, apparently, which I don’t, and which enabled them to interpret the poem in ways which are still beyond me. For some reason, that information proved dangerous to Stemp. I’m half persuaded, you see, that neither Dr. Greggs nor the Reverend Stemp died an accidental death. Someone—or possibly some group of people—seems determined to make sure that the secrets of the Westchurch manuscripts remain secret.”

  Dr. Dilbey relit his pipe, his match revealing for a moment a demonic caricature of his gentle scholar’s face. “Really, Fairchild, this is all terribly speculative. If you do have evidence of murder, you should certainly inform the police.”

  “At this point I’m still just groping—trying to account for what is certainly an intriguing chain of events, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Intriguing, yes. Conclusive, no. I should be especially careful in this matter to avoid any imaginative theories or hasty conclusions. Things often have a way of looking more coherent than they are, especially if we are overly eager to posit the intervention of—hmm—supernatural agencies—as an explanation. That, I daresay, is the classic error of the superstitious mind. You’re not a superstitious man, are you, Fairchild?”

  “I never thought I was. I’ve never been interested in the occult, or in what are commonly called ‘mystical experiences.’ But this whole business has got me wondering, Dr. Dilbey, and my imagination has been tremendously stirred by this magnificent poem.”

  “I expect it has. Which is all to the good, provided you are able to keep your feet on the ground. I’d be the last man in the College to question the integrity of your work. If you have reason to believe you may be in some personal danger, you should certainly go to the police, but I think you yourself have quite enough detective work to do, simply in regard to the authorship and meaning of the poem, without taking on the investigation of what may well turn out to be imaginary mysteries.”

  “I quite agree, Doctor. And I do hope the College will let me return to work on the manuscripts as soon as possible.”

  “Yes; well, I have talked to the Master, Fairchild. It’s a terribly difficult matter. Still, I should think by next term—’’

  “But that will leave only two months before I exhaust my grant!”

  “The College might be able to provide you with a small stipend for the summer,” Dr. Dilbey said. “We may even be able to arrange something to keep you here next year—that is, if your research turns out as well as it now seems it will. I’ve been thinking, Fairchild: this may be a bit premature, but—provided things could be worked out, and all the fellows approve—would you be interested in staying on in Cambridge . . . permanently? As a fellow of the College, I mean?”

  I sat back in my chair, glad the room was too dark for Dr. Dilbey to see the grin which had spread across my face. I had never dared to hope, all these months that I’d been learning and aping the ways of the Cambridge scholar and gentleman, that I could qualify for inclusion in such an exclusive club.

  “Why, yes,” I said cautiously. “I think I could be persuaded to stay on—if I was really wanted, that is.”

  “I’ve been much impressed with your work,” Dr. Dilbey said, ‘‘and it’s time we got some new blood in the College. Especially in the arts. These damned scientists have made a virtual laboratory of the place! I intend to see what I can do.”

  And at that moment—as if it had only been waiting for Dr. Dilbey’s modest proposal—a clock somewhere in the house struck the first of five melodious chimes.

  “Goodness me—we seem to have quite used up our afternoon,” Dr. Dilbey said. “I’ll see what can be done, Fairchild . . . on all counts, you know—on all counts.”

  ‘‘Thank you, Doctor,” I said, rising from my chair. “And thanks for your time. I really appreciate the interest you’ve taken in my work.”

  We groped our way across the dark room and stepped into an even darker and draftier hallway. “By the bye,” Dr. Dilbey said. “Do you have any plans for the vac?”

  “If there’s no hope of getting back to the manuscripts before next term—’’

  “None whatsoever, I’m afraid. Still, there are a few possibilities you might look into. Do you know Professor Trevor-Finch?”

  I had not forgotten the warden of Bromley House, nor his inexplicable scream on the night when I myself seemed to have brushed against something beyond comprehension. ‘‘Isn’t he a physicist?” I asked Dr. Dilbey.

  “Theoretical physics. They say he’s done extraordinary things with the quantum theory—not that I understand any of that. His family home is somewhere on the Norfolk coast, not far from Creypool Abbey. He’s quite a good sort, and might be willing to show you around. I need scarcely add that he’s an important man in the College—our next Master, some people say. It wouldn’t hurt at all to make a friend of Trevor-Finch.”

  “Then I’ll certainly try,” I said. “But I understand he dislikes Americans.”

  “Not at all. He is frightfully keen on politics, and no doubt he disapproves of your country’s foreign policy—we nearly all do, you know. But he often befriends American scholars—in order to argue politics with them. You do have political convictions you could argue for, don’t you?”

  “Only very ordinary ones, I’m afraid, but perhaps they’ll interest the professor.”

  “Give it a try,” Dr. Dilbey said. “He’s one of those we’ll have to win over—and it will do you good to take a bit of a holiday, in any case.”

  He held the door open for me as I got into my raincoat. By the streetlight at the corner, I saw sheets of rain streaming across the early winter darkness.

  “Thanks again, Doctor—and please thank your wife for the tea.”

  “Think nothing of it, Fairchild. Give me a ring next term and we’ll set up another conference. I’m fascinated by your discoveries.”

  As I stepped out, and just before Dr. Dilbey shut the door, I heard a sudden outburst of children’s voices somewhere in the house. I had nearly forgotten that Dr. Dilbey was a family man. His large brood was always out of sight and soundless whenever we had our consultations. Apparently his wife had taken the lid off a moment too soon, and it struck me as a poignant revelation: children kept from play while scholars deliberated their esoteric theories. Bicycling back to the College, I tried to imagine the family life of my colleague. Would the great gray scholar suffer his little children to come to him, to sit on his knee and play with his nose and glasses? Would he let them scatter stars and planets at his feet? The incongruity of the vision sustained me on the long, wet trek across town.

  I had seen him strolling in the fellows’ garden from time to time and dining at high table; we had even nodded to one another on occasion and exchanged a few tentative smiles; but my first conversation with Professor Kenneth Trevor-Finch took place
at a College sherry party a few days prior to the close of the winter term.

  ‘‘So you’re the young American who’s come to work on the Westchurch manuscripts,” he said, as we found ourselves facing one another over the sherry decanter. “David Fairchild, isn’t it?”

  I confirmed that it was.

  Trevor-Finch poured sherry for us both, handed me mine and led the way, with some vague indication that I might follow, to a quiet corner of the room. We were in the Master’s lodge, with its charming view of the Old Court, chapel spires bathed in the mellow light of a setting sun. A few students were heading toward the archway that led to the dining hall. Doves banked in the amber rectangle of sky and settled on the chapel eaves. Trevor-Finch scowled at the placid scene as if calculating the number of atomic particles employed in its manufacture.

  “How are you liking Cambridge, Fairchild? Bit of change from all that ‘rah-rah sis-boom-bah’ business you have over in America, I expect.”

  I told the professor that I found the life and style of Cambridge very much to my liking.

  “Hmm. Everyone does, you know. Yanks especially. Yet it doesn’t seem to have done much good, does it?”

  “I’m not sure I understand you,” I said, in that careful voice that always made me feel as if I were wagging my mongrel American tail.

  The professor chuckled. He was a tall, round-shouldered, pipe-puffing don of middle age whose quick, nervous eyes (I am almost inclined to call them “shifty”) inspired a particular uneasiness. “What I mean to say is, for all our missionary efforts and all our hospitality to your countrymen—which I heartily approve, by the way—we haven’t had much success in civilizing you Americans, now, have we?”

  I looked closely at the professor’s long face, his pale eyes and extended upper lip. I couldn’t tell if he was quite serious; perhaps I was being tested.

  “I’m sure you find much to disapprove of in my country,” I said, “and no doubt I would agree with most of your criticisms. But we have been civilized for several centuries.”