The Chorister at the Abbey (30 page)

Epilogue

Six months later, an old but impressive Land Rover stopped outside the Whinfells’ cramped vicarage. A small, bespectacled, elderly man in the front passenger seat got out to reveal a worn waxed jacket and green wellies. He walked up to the house, flourishing a sturdy walking stick, and rang the doorbell.

Jenny answered.

‘Is the Reverend Paul Whinfell at home? It’s Lord Cleaverthorpe.’

Astonished, Jenny ushered him in. He sat in their living room, refused a coffee, chucked Joseph under the chin and said, ‘It’s this business of the convent. It’s always been a bugger, y’know. I gave that local history chap the keys but I never realized what he’d found out. I’ve looked at all the documents and so have my lawyers. And it’s a mess.’

‘Well, I’ve put it out of my mind.’ Paul smiled, at ease. ‘One or two people said I might have a claim but we decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.’

‘Yes, well, even so, something’s got to be done with the damn place. No one really knows what’s going on with it. My ancestor certainly gave it to this Quaile Woods fella, but it’s clear that it was intended for the order. The last nuns handed it over to the diocese although technically it wasn’t theirs to dispose of. But anyway, I went to see the Bishop about it, a few days ago, and we came to an arrangement. If it suits you . . .’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. We came to a decision between us. You can have the place, as long as you agree to open the chapel. It’s not that big, y’know. Make a good house for children on the ground floor, and you can have rooms or a retreat or what-have-you upstairs. You talk to the Bishop about that. The council are filling in the quarry to make a lake, so it’ll be quite pretty out there, and I’m prepared to put some money into doing the place up, seeing as you’re family.’

Paul gulped. Then he shook his head. ‘But you’re mistaken. I’m not family. There’s no conclusive evidence that I’m descended from Quaile Woods. And even if I were, that doesn’t make me a Cleaverthorpe.’

The old man laughed. ‘Genealogy? Load of bunkum. If you were a real North Country lad you’d know you can’t trust birth certificates. You never know which dogs got over the wall. But family secrets, now then, that’s different!’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Never mind your dirty Victorian vicars. You should have taken a closer look at the women.’

‘The women?’

‘The only sure breeding line. We in the aristocracy know all about that. You have to keep tabs on your women!’ He sniggered. ‘You were too obsessed with the male line! You should have listened to the locals, sonny. It’s a well-known Fellside fact that your great-great-great-granny was the by-blow of the first, greatest Lord Cleaverthorpe. You won’t find it on any websites, but it’s true. Believe me.

‘You’re family all right. Nothing to do with Quaile Woods. You’ve got your great-great-great-grandmama Harriet Whinfell to thank for it. Or Harriet Cleaverthorpe, as she would have been known if the old goat had only played fair and married her mother! So the convent’s yours, if you want it!’

The End

The Psalms

The Book of Psalms is a collection of religious poetry from ancient Israel, forming part of the Hebrew Bible (to Christians, the Old Testament). The collection of 150 psalms was compiled over many centuries, bringing together several earlier collections, and reaching its present form probably between 400 and 300 BC. Psalms were composed to be sung to music, though we can have no idea what that music sounded like.

They are sometimes called the Psalms of David. King David was ruling Israel about 1000 BC. He was a noted singer and musician, and no doubt contributed psalms to the collection, but many refer to events after his time. For example, some psalms glorify the temple at Jerusalem (Zion) which was built by David’s son Solomon. Others were written during the exile from Judah to Babylon in the 6th century BC –
By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down
and wept when we remembered Zion
(Psalm 137:1). About half the psalms have headings which attribute them to David, often linking them to events in his life as recorded in the Bible in the books of Samuel, but these headings were probably added by a later hand. ‘A psalm of David’ could mean that it is about him, or about later kings in the dynasty he founded, or written in his style – or that David himself might have written it.

Most psalms can be put into one of two categories: happy and sad. In the Hebrew Bible the whole collection is called ‘The Book of Praises’. The happy psalms extol God for his work in creation and in the history of Israel. Some of them glory in Mount Zion, God’s holy dwelling-place in Jerusalem, and in the divinely appointed kings who have been endowed by God with the ability to govern with godlike righteousness. Some give thanks for God’s blessings on individuals as well as on the community as a whole.

But about a third of the collection are psalms of lament for the plight of the individual. Many seem to have been written for specific problems, especially cases of illness, injustice and persecution. The heading of Psalm 102 sums up many of them:
A prayer of the afflicted, when he is faint and
pours out his complaint before the Lord
.

These psalms often follow a consistent pattern. First, there is an invocation to the Lord:
Give ear to my words, O
Lord; give heed to my groaning
(5:1). Then there is a description of the distress, sometimes questioning God’s apparent inaction:
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled
(6:3);
Why
dost thou stand afar off, O Lord?
(10:1). Sometimes there is a protestation of innocence, or a confession:
I walk in faithfulness.
I do not sit with false men
(26:3–4);
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me
(51:3). Then comes a petition to God for deliverance, and sometimes for vengeance on enemies:
Turn, O Lord, save my life
(6:4);
As
they have waited for my life, so recompense them for their crime
(56:6–7). The typical lament closes with an expression of confidence, and a vow to praise God:
The Lord has heard my
supplication; the Lord accepts my prayer
(6:9).

Many of these psalms seem to have been composed for use by the sick, containing much about specific physical maladies. Medical resources in ancient Israel were primitive. The only course of action was to seek healing from God; indeed, other methods would have been regarded with suspicion. A sick person would be seen by others as having been singled out for God’s special punishment, so friends would blame and ostracize the individual.

In all psalms about sickness, the subject’s enemies are never out of his mind. Psalm 41 seems to be spoken from the sickbed, but the speaker’s main preoccupation is not with the illness itself but with the reactions of three groups of people: his old enemies look forward maliciously to his death; curious visitors go away and spread stories to blacken his reputation; and even
my bosom friend in whom I
trusted
just walks out. The threat from enemies features in about thirty-six psalms. The victim feels alone and impotent, making no effort at self-defence.

The people of ancient Israel understood the whole of life, in all its detail, as being directed and controlled by God. If he is to be praised for his blessings, then it is hard to avoid blaming him for life’s evils. In the modern world, the poetry of the Psalms still gives expression to the despair and bewilderment of people trying to make sense of a confusing and hostile world.

Quotations from the Psalms in
The Chorister at the Abbey
are taken from the Book of Common Prayer. This version is still widely used in worship and so is the most familiar one for many Anglicans and Episcopalians. The translation was made by Miles Coverdale, who had been commissioned in the reign of Henry VIII to translate the whole Bible into English. Coverdale’s was a ‘second-hand’ translation, based not on documents in the original Hebrew (for the Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament), but on available Latin and German translations.

His first Bible was printed in 1535. It was later nicknamed the Bugs Bible because of Psalm 91:5:
Thou shalt not
nede to be afrayde for eny bugges by night
. . . Coverdale produced a revised version for the Great Bible published in 1539, correcting ‘bugs’ to ‘terror’. This was the Bible placed in all English churches. The Psalms from the Great Bible are the version still in the Prayer Book. Later translations, whether in the Authorized Version (‘King James’) or modern editions of the Bible, have been based on the original Hebrew, and show that Coverdale’s work was occasionally inaccurate and inconsistent. Verse numbering is sometimes slightly different: there was no division into verses in his first translation.

(Quotations in these notes are from The Revised Standard Version of the Bible.)

Sir John Stainer (1840–1901)

Stainer was brought up in Southwark, south London, son of a schoolmaster who taught him to play the organ. He was a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral from 1847 to 1855 and was allowed to play the magnificent organ there; he sang at the Duke of Wellington’s funeral. In 1856 he was appointed organist at Tenbury College in Worcestershire. In 1860, Stainer went to Magdalen College, Oxford, as organist; the University had already awarded him the degree of Bachelor of Music before he became a student there. At Oxford, he met and married Eliza Cecil in 1865. The following year, he became a University examiner in music.

He returned to St Paul’s Cathedral in 1872 as organist, and remained there for sixteen years. This was a period when, partly because of the influence of the Oxford Movement (the ‘Puseyites’), there was a lot of interest in improving the standard of worship in the Church of England. The music was a major aspect of this movement. During his time at St Paul’s, Stainer worked hard to raise the standard of music in the Cathedral. He also became a government inspector with the job of improving the standard of musical education throughout the country, especially in training colleges, and he examined thousands of students.

Stainer suffered from deteriorating eyesight, and this led him to resign from St Paul’s in 1888, the year he was knighted. The next year, with his eyesight improving, he went back to Oxford as Professor of Music. He was a regular worshipper at St Cross Church, where he became a churchwarden. In 1901, he and his wife were on holiday in Italy when he was suddenly taken ill, and died. He was buried at St Cross Church.

Sir John Stainer was a prolific composer of church music: anthems, cantatas, hymn tunes and settings of services. His hymn tunes – over 150 of them – include ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’, ‘Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost’ and ‘Lord Jesus think on me’. Two of his best-known tunes – ‘Come thou long expected Jesus’ and ‘All for Jesus’ – are included in
The Crucifixion
, which is today the piece for which Stainer is best known. He composed it while at St Paul’s; it was first performed in February 1887 at St Marylebone Church, London. Part of its attraction is that it suits a parish church choir and organ, with the congregation joining in the hymns.

Though Stainer travelled around the country, raising musical standards and examining students, he had no special connection with north-west England or any clergyman in that area. Cecil Quaile Woods is an entirely fictional character.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my friend Lesley Beames for reading the manuscript in its initial stages, and my friend Victoria Kingston for her advice. As with everyone who helped me and whom I mention in these acknowledgements, they bear no responsibility for any errors, which must all be ascribed to me.

Peter Elman was a fount of knowledge on family history and internet genealogy, and I am indebted to him not only for his support and interest, but for checking on the procedures covered in the book and with help in making the plot work.

I found Susan Mumm’s book
Stolen daughters
,
Virgin
Mothers: Anglican Sisterhoods in Victorian Britain
, published by Leicester University Press, extremely useful and also a very good read which I can highly recommend. Sister Margaret of the Convent of the Holy Name in Derby gave invaluable assistance on the life of an Anglican sister.

My knowledge and enjoyment of choral music has been boosted by all my friends in Bart’s Choir, including Dr Caroline Evans who patiently answered questions about fractured skulls and liver failure while we practised Berlioz and Rachmaninov. Thank you!

The Reverend Michael Learmouth and his wife Bridget of St Andrew’s Church, Thornhill Square, Islington provided their support as always. Errors in the portrayal of Anglican procedure in this book are solely mine, though I hope they are few and far between.

Clare Scott of Orton Grange Farm Shop and café not only provided me with a Cumbrian venue to launch my first book in the series,
The Flower Arranger at All Saints
, but she also helped me on some agricultural details.

Roland Jones, solicitor of our parish, helped on the intricacies of property ownership.

I would like to thank my daughter Alex for her patience and interest, and her fiancé Peter Brooks for at least initially inspiring me to write about a young man – though Tom Firth turned out to be a very different character from Pete, as always happens in books!

Finally I would like to thank Richard for all his encouragement and support. Now a churchwarden, he still found time to help me with
The Chorister at The Abbey
, and to sing bass with Bart’s Choir, and to guide me through the Psalms of David. But Morris Little, who also sang bass and knew his psalms in this book, is certainly not based on Richard who is so good, you couldn’t make him up!