The Alteration

       'And disappoint you, sir, and deny himself an evening in your company and at your table? For what good? Nothing would be changed. No, Mirabilis is no worse than most of us, and he has more wit than many. He sees that in our world a man does what he's told, goes where he's sent, answers what he's asked. And, after seeing that, one is free.'

       There was a longer pause. A bell pealed; further off, a cow lowed; in the courtyard, three or four voices, excited and yet under restraint, moved into hearing and died away in a distant corner. Morley refilled his sherry-glass and remained standing. As gently as he could, he said, 'At any rate, my lord, this removes one difficulty. Anvil's alteration is no longer any concern of yours.'

       'How not so?'

       'It attaches to the Pope now. Since he must have Anvil, let him have too the task of rendering him fit to carry out his duties. It would be a remarkable obstacle that His Holiness couldn't surmount.'

       'He shall not have Anvil. I'll take steps to prevent him.'

       'Steps? What steps, my lord?'

       'I'll form a design. More of that later. However it may fall out, at least Hubert is not to be altered in Rome. It's not to be thought of.'

       Morley said with some pity and more exasperation, 'My lord, the foremost surgeons alive are in Rome.'

       'I don't doubt it, Sebastian; this isn't a question of surgeons but of Hubert's feeling. Consider that alteration is a...'

       'My lord Abbot means,' said Father Dilke, stepping forward, his hands still clasped, 'that Hubert's a child, and in some proportion our child too. For him to be altered in a foreign land, among foreigners, however deft and considerate, would be intolerable. Both before and after the action he'll need his family round him, his friends and fellow-clerks, and all of us. It must take place here in England, in the name of God's mercy.'

       'Anvil's feeling was never mentioned before,' said Morley.

       'Before, there was no occasion,' answered Dilke. 'Before, everything was to follow in due course.'

       Morley nodded briefly, as one acknowledging a point of minor interest. There came a gentle tap at the door and the grey-clad figure of Lawrence entered the room. With the un-obtrusiveness of a well-trained servant, he made up the fire and replaced a guttering candle while his betters continued to talk.

       'Then that difficulty of yours remains, my lord,' said Morley. 'This chaplain to Master Anvil—this Father Lyall, who refused to put his name to the document permitting the boy's alteration. The last I heard, he still refuses.'

       'Indeed he does, out of nothing more admirable than obstinacy and the enjoyment of some brief influence over matters beyond his proper scope.' The Abbot was close to anger again, though he spoke with all his usual deliberation. 'Father Lyall is puffed up with pride of the most dangerous sort; I mean the sort that works in heretics and apostates, and in mutineers too. It confounds me—I might go so far as to say it outrages my sense of the fitness of things that, for all I know, he's never yet run foul of those in authority; it confounds me hardly less that so zealous a Christian as Master Anvil should hold him in his employ. I've no power to command his obedience, but if I had I should remind him of his duty in the most forcible terms.'

       'Forgive me, my lord,' said Lawrence, who had finished his tasks—'do you require anything more of me?'

       'No thank you, Lawrence. You may go to bed.'

       Dilke turned solicitously to the Abbot. 'It'll all come right, I'm quite certain. At the worst, Master Anvil will simply eject Lyall and obtain someone less self-willed. As you say, my lord, Anvil is a zealous Christian and he knows what he's under obligation to do: he wouldn't let a wretch of that petty mark stand against him. If it goes so far. We have three clear days yet; I predict that Lyall will submit at the latest moment. And the action can after all be easily postponed. All will be well, my lord. Or rather, that much will be. Heed my forecast.'

       Lawrence had long left the parlour, and he made a point of never listening at doors, so he heard nothing of this speech of Dilke's, nor of the Abbot's thanks for the reassurance it offered. He went straight to his room, which was small but perhaps surprisingly comfortable, brought out ink-stylus and paper and wrote a letter in a hand that was, again, better formed than might have been expected. After addressing the cover to The Lord Stansgate, The Holy Office, The Broad Arrow Tower, London, he sealed the packet, put on his hat, walked over to the stables, took out the horse that went with his position as the Abbot's principal servant, and rode through the moonlight across to Coverley railtrack station, arriving there in plenty of time to put his letter on the midnight rapid.

       The next day was pleasantly mild, though thick clouds shut out the sun. Tobias Anvil returned home in the early afternoon, briefly divulged the news from Rome and, having eaten aboard the train, left again almost at once, in a hurry to reach his counting-house and set about undoing the errors that must have been made there in the day and a half of his absence. By that time, Hubert was three parts of the way back to Coverley, alone in the cabin he had shared with his father; the servant who had accompanied them to Rome sat at the rear of the baruch, ready to escort him to St Cecilia's. Anthony, at his hospital, was attending to instruction on the use of opiates in the treatment of cholera. Margaret Anvil and Father Matthew Lyall moved slowly round the garden at Tyburn Road. They were two or three yards apart, far enough to prevent them from falling into each other's arms without thought.

       Margaret looked at the flowers and shrubs, and Lyall looked at Margaret. She seemed to him more beautiful than ever before, whether because his feeling for her had induced him to see her differently, or because her happiness had made her indeed more beautiful, or the two together, he neither knew nor cared. He studied her hands and arms, her healthy skin and straight mouth, thinking he would never tire of the sight. Recent memories, intense yet vague, ran through his mind. The question of what was to become of him and her suddenly raised itself and he shut his eyes. Though he made no other movement and no sound, she turned her head in one of her quick glances.

       'Such a night it was, dearest Matthew. How many times have I said that?'

       'Perhaps a hundred. A long way short of enough.'

       'Will there ever be another?'

       'There must be. I don't know how, but there must be.'

       'When Tobias dismisses you, as he will very soon, I know it, I saw it in his eye in the few minutes he was here today—when he dismisses you, where will you go?'

       'Not far. No further than I must.'

       'I wish you could take me with you.'

       'If I did, you'd never see Hubert again.'

       'Ah, I'd forgotten poor Hubert for it must have been three minutes. What's to become of him now that he's to go to Rome? Do they mean to alter him there or...? I don't understand.'

       'Nor I, in full. But, for the moment, if you saw what you thought you saw in Tobias then, it would look as if the original design is being held to; he would have no reason to dismiss me otherwise. And the Pope must prefer the action to be in England. Our overlords enjoy the appearance of humanity, so long as their ease isn't hurt. Yes, perhaps I can hold them off a little longer.'

       'The three of us must escape together.'

       'Escape? The ends of the earth are too near for that.'

       'Nearer yet, Matthew. Only to New England.'

       'That you've said more often than enough. Fine incomers we should be there: a Romish priest and his woman and her son. Oh, their discipline isn't ours, but it's strict enough. And how should we ever gain an exeat? And to try to leave without one would be lunatic. We'd be taken and shut away for ever. At best. Now please walk on. Even the pantry-boy, seeing us like this, would know that you and I are not a lady and her spiritual counsellor. Which puts me in mind. When will you visit Father Raymond?'