The Collected Works. Josephine Tey
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was neither plate nor inscription at the door to give information to the curious. But there was a bell.
Grant rang, and after a long pause there was the sound, faint through the heavy door, of footsteps on a stone floor. A small grill in the door shot back, and a man asked Grant’s business.
Grant asked to see the principal.
“Whom do you wish to see?”
“The principal,” said Grant firmly. He didn’t know whether they called their Number One abbot or prior; principal seemed to him good enough.
“The Reverend Father does not give audience at this hour.”
“Will you give the Reverend Father my card,” Grant said, handing the little square through the grill, “and tell him that I shall be grateful if he would see me on a matter of importance.”
“No worldly matter is of importance.”
“The Reverend Father may decide differently when you have given him my card.”
The grill shot back with an effect which might in a community less saintly have been described as snappish, and Grant was left in the darkening street. Williams saluted silently from some paces distance and turned away. The distant voices of children playing came clearly from adjoining streets, but there was no traffic in the alley. Williams’s footsteps had faded out of hearing long before there was the sound of returning ones in the passage beyond the door. Then there was the creak of bolts being drawn and a key turned. (What did they shut out? Grant wondered. Life? Or were the bars to keep straying wills indoors?) The door was opened sufficiently to admit him, and the man bade him enter.
“Peace be with you and with all Christian souls and the blessing of the Lord God go with you now and for ever, amen,” gabbled the man as he shot the bolts again and turned the key. If he had hummed a line of “Sing to me sometimes” the effect would have been exactly similar, Grant thought.
“The Reverend Father in his graciousness will see you,” the man said, and led the way up the stone passage, his sandals slapping with a slovenly effect on the flags. He ushered Grant into a small white-washed room, bare except for a table, chairs, and a Crucifix, said “Peace be with you,” and shut the door, leaving Grant alone. It was very chilly there, and Grant hoped that the Reverend Father would not discipline him by leaving him there too long.
But in less than five minutes the doorkeeper returned and with great impressiveness bowed in his principal. He uttered another of his gabbled benedictions and left the two men together. Grant had expected the fanatic type; he was confronted instead with the successful preacher; bland, entrenched, worldly.
“Can I help you, my son?”
“I think you have in your brotherhood a man of the name of Herbert Gotobed—”
“There is no one of that name here.”
“I had not expected that that was the name he is known by in your community, but you are no doubt aware of the real names of the men who enter your order.”
“The worldly name of a man is forgotten on the day he enters the door to become one of us.”
“You asked if you could help me.”
“I still wish to help you.”
“I want to see Herbert Gotobed. I have news for him.”
“I know of no one of that name. And there can be no ‘news’ for a man who has joined the Brotherhood of the Tree of Lebanon.”
“Very well. You may not know the man as Gotobed. But the man I want to interview is one of your number. I have to ask that you will let me find him.”
“Do you suggest that I should parade my community for your inspection?”
“No. You have some kind of service to which all the brothers come, haven’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“Let me be present at the service.”
“It is a most unusual request.”
“When is the next service?”
“In half an hour the midnight service begins.”
“Then all I ask is a seat where I can see the faces of your community.”
The Reverend Father was reluctant, and mentioned the inviolability of the holy house, but Grant’s casually dropped phrases on the attractive but obsolete custom of sanctuary and the still-surviving magic of King’s Writ, made him change his mind.
“By the way, will you tell me—I’m afraid I’m very ignorant of your rules and ways of life—do the members of your community have business in the town?”
“No. Only when charity demands it.”
“Have the brothers no traffic with the world at all then?” Herbert was going to have a perfect alibi, if that were so!
“For twenty-four hours once every moon, a brother goes into the world. That is contrived lest the unspottedness of communal life should breed self-righteousness. For the twelve hours of the day he must help his fellow beings in such ways as are open to him. For the twelve hours of the night he must meditate in a place alone: in summer in some open place, in winter in some church.”
“I see. And the twenty-four hours begin—when?”
“From a midnight to a midnight.”
“Thank you.”
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