The Alteration

       Hubert did not speak. To him, those were not fool names.

       'What I think,' said Hilda, abruptly standing up, 'some old Indian just fancied the whole tale to explain the mist and the marks in the rock.'

       'It doesn't quite explain the mist. But you said the marks looked real.'

       Her manner changed again. 'Yes, they did.'

       'Where is Mount Gibson?'

       He had not wanted to know, only to continue the conversation. As soon as the words were out, he knew he had made a mistake, and from the way she looked past him and muttered her reply (which he failed to take in) he knew just what he should have said: that, whatever she thought, he believed the tale of Dawn Daughter and White Fox. It would have been too late now even if, having finished her conversation with the preceptress, Dame van den Haag had not been on her way to join them. But there would be another time: there must be.

       The next morning, Abbot Peter Thynne sat in his parlour over a breakfast he had hardly touched. Normally he ate this meal in the refectory; he found it a useful occasion for meeting those in his charge before the day's work began and offering any necessary words of encouragement and advice. But in his present mood, the mood that had fallen upon him more than twenty-four hours earlier, when the news had been brought of Hubert's disappearance, the notion of company was distasteful to him. Within his reach lay two books delivered not long before from Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford: a new commentary on the De Existentiae Natura of Monsignor Jean-Paul Sartre, the French Jesuit, and an analysis of Count William Walton's church music. The Abbot had eagerly looked forward to the arrival of both volumes; as yet he had not had the heart to open either.

       There was a knock at the door. 'Yes?' he said rather sharply.

       Father Dilke came in, bowed, and said, 'Good morning, my lord. I trust your lordship slept well?'

       'No. Of course not. What is it, Father?'

       'I have a little news, my lord.'

       At once the Abbot's demeanour altered. 'Sit down, Father. Forgive me for speaking as I did. What news?'

       'The ostler advises that the mare Joan is returned.'

       'At what hour?'

       'Some time in the night, my lord. She was grazing near the stable when he made his early round. He further advises that she hadn't been ridden far and had been fed and watered yesterday afternoon or evening.'

       'Where, I wonder? In Coverley, one would think. By whom? That's more difficult. Or it should be. I can't get free of the idea that that New Englander type is involved. Who else in Coverley has acquaintance with Hubert, pattie-shop men and such excluded?'

       'But at his second visit the proctor was positive that the Ambassador is in London and that his Secretary here denies all possibility of a visit from Hubert. And surely...'

       The Abbot sighed. 'Where then did the mare carry him?'

       'To a train or omnibus.'

       'Which might have carried him anywhere in the land.'

       'But most likely to London.'

       'And the New Englander Embassy, into which our constabulary can't enter.'

       'I hardly think the Ambassador would shelter an English runaway, my lord. The diplomatic consequences—'

       'The fellow's a New Englander, confound him,' said the Abbot, rubbing his eyes wearily and sighing again. 'I should never have allowed him across this threshold. See the proctor here is let know of the mare's return and of the other advice.'

       'Yes, my lord.'

       'Should we talk again to Decuman and his party?'

       'I find no advantage in it, sir. They told the truth, as I think, when they denied knowledge of Hubert's goal.'

       'Yes, yes. It was Decuman who took the mare at first.'

       '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.'