The Black Seraphim by Michael Gilbert

Hundreds of them. The Dean took his largest stick and hobbled down to the High Street Gate. People who saw him said he was white with fury. I’m sure he’d have broken a few heads with that stick. Luckily, he didn’t have to use it. Because just as he got there, the head of the Women’s Institute procession reached the gate. They were good solid women with solid sensible shoes. They’d come a long way and they weren’t going to let a miserable little picket stop them. They walked straight over it. Do you know the hymn they sing at their meetings? Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’.”
    “’And did those feet in ancient time’,” hummed Paul Wren happily, “’walk upon England’s mountains green?’ They certainly walked upon Newfu. Sandeman’s hat got knocked off and a very large woman trod on it. The press had been expecting trouble and that young man from the Melset Journal was on the spot. The one who plays football.”
    “Bill Williams.”
    “That’s the man. He got a beautiful photograph of it. It was published in the Journal next day.”
    Mrs Henn-Christie said, “I thought it was so funny I cut it out and stuck it up in the kitchen. I have a good laugh every time I look at it.”
    “So what happened to the strike?”
    “It fizzled out. The Dean announced that preventing people coming to church was sacrilege. And that sacrilege was a felony, and if the police refused to do anything, the Chapter would institute a private prosecution.”
    “That wasn’t what stopped them,” said Canon Humphrey. “Your keen trade unionist likes being prosecuted. What Sandeman couldn’t stand was being laughed at.”
    “You can’t keep a man like that down,” said Betty Humphrey. “I’ll warrant that he’s the man behind this business about Fletcher’s Piece.”
    This produced a brief silence while people thought about Fletcher’s Piece. Canon Humphrey said, “Are you sure about that, my dear?”
    “I couldn’t prove it. But he’d give anything to get his own back on the Cathedral, and it’s just the sort of meddling thing he’d be bound to have a finger in. You see if I’m not right.”
    “I always suspected he might have been one of the people behind the supermarket scheme, too,” said Mrs Henn-Christie. “I’m sure I was swindled. Not that I could prove that, either.”
    “Come now,” said Canon Humphrey. “Just because we don’t like the man, we mustn’t turn him into a universal villain. There’s good in most of us somewhere.”
    “You’re too charitable, Francis,” said his wife. She was gathering up her things. “We’ll have to be getting along. We’ve got a lot to do to get things ready for this evening. We’re starting at eight o’clock sharp. We’re expecting about forty people.”
    “And you’d better not be late,” said Canon Humphrey. “Because we’ve only got about forty chairs.”
    With this advice in mind, James had an early supper in the town and was in the West Canonry garden by a quarter to eight. Four music stands and four spindle-legged chairs had been set out on the lawn, which sloped gently down to the river. In the meadow on the other side, brown-and-white cows were grazing. House martins and swifts were dive-bombing the riverbank for insects. It was one of those long late-summer evenings that seem to go on forever.
    James recognised many of the people as they arrived, identifying some who had been players in the chess game. The two vergers, who had been the white knights, came together. The senior verger, Grey, with the deportment of a ducal butler, and the young cricketer, Len Masters. Canon Maude had his mother with him. The Archdeacon rolled in, with a train of theological students. Since he was there, James guessed that the Dean would not turn up, and, sure enough, at the last moment Amanda arrived alone. One of the few empty chairs was beside him and he willed her to come and sit in it. For a moment he thought he had lost her to the Consetts, but she ignored