Nevertheless I grasped the thing and rapped on the door which was opened by a tall, elderly, angular woman who looked as if her morning bath had had an iceberg in it. She scrutinised me with some disdain, then, pointing imperiously to her right, told me that all hawkers, vagrants and people seeking assistance from the diocese should apply at the tradesman’s entrance.
I had on an old pair of grey flannel bags and a heavily patched tweed sports coat, but I didn’t think that I looked that disreputable. Perhaps the fact that I had no tie on and wear sandals at all times of the year gave me a bohemian or even—oh horror!—a socialist look.
I explained that I was Dr. Vilier and had an appointment to see the Dean. The lady still regarded me with suspicion.
“My husband is not unwell,” she said indignantly.
Before I could explain to her that my doctorate was in History not Medicine, she had disappeared into the dark bowels of the Deanery. After a while she re-emerged from the gloom to tell me that the Dean would see me now in his study, indicating the second door on the left of a dingy corridor that passed right through the house. I smiled and tried to thank her warmly but the frost on her upper slopes failed to thaw.
I knocked and was bidden to enter the Dean’s study. The room I came into was lit only by the light from a window which faced onto a back garden. At the bottom of the garden I could just see, through the willows, the glitter of a stream.
I have to say that Dean Grice’s welcome was not much cheerier than his wife’s. He greeted me by rising from behind his desk and favouring me with a handshake that felt like a long-dead haddock. He has a narrow face, parchment skin, and little round, silver-rimmed spectacles that glinted in the dimness of the study, occasionally turning his eyes into blank discs of reflected light. Having obtained from me the solemn assurance that I had told no one about my visit, he suggested briskly that we should walk over together to the Cathedral and take a look at the well.
As we stepped out of the deanery a cool breeze blew up. The rooks, who inhabit a stand of elms at the west end of the Cathedral close suddenly all flew as one from their “buildings” (as I believe their nests are called) in the trees and began to wheel around screeching, making their characteristic kaa, kaa sound. Once across the road and onto the green, the Dean and I took a diagonal paved path which leads directly to the West door of the Cathedral. I stared in awe at the rooks as they circled and cried. I could not get it out of my head that they were, for purposes unknown, putting on a demonstration of some kind. The Dean, evidently well accustomed to this curious animal behaviour, took no notice whatsoever.
While I was looking around me I noticed that someone was on the path behind us and trying to attract our attention. It was a tallish man wearing a cloak and a battered sombrero hat. He appeared somewhat eccentric, but as he was a hundred and fifty yards away I could not make out his features. He waved a thin arm and said “Hi!” so I alerted the Dean to his presence. The Dean, without breaking his stride, turned round to look, then almost immediately turned back and began to walk even more determinedly towards the Cathedral. I had seen a look of disgust, perhaps even of fear, pass across his ascetic features.
“We wish to have no intercourse with that man,” said the Dean.
“Who is he?”
“He is called Felix Cutbirth.”
“Unusual surname.”
“It is a variant of Cuthbert, an Anglo-Saxon name. He comes from a very old family which has lived in Morsetshire since before the Norman Conquest. Unhappily, in his case, ancient lineage is no guarantee of respectability. The Cutbirths have long had an evil reputation.”
“What does he want with us?”
“I cannot possibly imagine,” said the Dean dismissively. We were now at the West Door. “Come! Let us go into the Cathedral. He will not follow us in there, I fancy.”
Once we were inside, I was conscious of a certain relaxation in the Dean. He became almost animated. Clearly he loved the place, and his knowledge of medieval architecture was intelligent and extensive. My own complemented his, so we enjoyed each other’s company as we walked down the great Early English nave, like an avenue of tall and stately trees. Weak sunlight filtered through the high windows and few people were about. I glanced quickly behind me. The Dean’s surmise was correct: Cutbirth had not followed us into the Cathedral. After this brief interlude, the Dean took me out into the cloisters to survey the well.
Though I had seen it before I had not examined it at close quarters because, as notices proclaimed, it was forbidden for ordinary mortals to tread the lawn of the cloister garth. The Dean led me boldly across it.
“There you see,” he said. “Not a thing of beauty and a joy forever.”
I had to admit he was right. The “thing” had been built, rebuilt and repaired over centuries. There was no unity in this strange circular wall. Some of the stones were large, some small, some rough-hewn, a few dressed. I noticed that there was a section at the base on the south side that was not made of stone at all, but brick, and Roman bricks at that. I recognised their flat shape and the excellent quality of the mortar. I mentioned my discovery to the Dean, who merely nodded.
“Yes. That is known. Quite late Roman, I believe. Fourth or fifth century.” He seemed unimpressed. I also noticed that some of the Roman bricks had a crude drawing of an eye scratched on them: a so-called “apotropaic eye” of the kind you see on the sides of Greek fishing vessels, designed to ward off evil. This I did not mention to the Dean.
When the Dean asked my opinion, I told him that the well was of no architectural but of great archaeological interest. I said that there would need to be a thorough archaeological survey of the well before anything was done to it and that, to expedite matters, I would, with his permission, discover all I could about the well from the Cathedral archives.
The Dean took all this in with a kind of weary resignation, as I suppose it was the answer he was expecting. The cloisters had been deserted when we entered them, but just as we were about to leave we heard a voice.
“I see you!” It said. The voice was a man’s; the tone was mocking with a hint of menace about it.
We looked around. Finally we saw a face poking over the wall of one of the open Gothic arcades. On the head was a battered sombrero. It was Cutbirth.
The Dean started violently when he saw him, executing a little involuntary jump which made Cutbirth laugh as he got up off his knees, lifted a long leg over the cloister wall and stepped through the arcade onto the cloister garth.
“You may not walk on this grass!” yapped the Dean.
“Why not? You do.”
“What are you doing here?”
Cutbirth began to walk lazily towards us over the manicured lawn, removing his hat as he did so. He must have been about forty, but age with such a strange creature was hard to assess. He was long and loosely built, with abnormally large hands. His skin was a yellowish colour, coarse and porous in texture. His head was a large, virtually hairless oval, but the features were small, strangely caught together in the middle of his face, like those of a horrible baby. He was trying to exude an air of insouciant mockery, but the eyes—green, I think—were full of rage.