Holy Disorders by Edmund Crispin

Author:Edmund Crispin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-08-25T20:34:47.140000+00:00

Garbin’s house and garden were pervasively humid and melancholy. The first characteristic, in view of the unexampled brilliance of the weather, it was difficult to account for; but no other word would describe the listless, damp impression made by the overgrown flowerbeds and drooping foliage which greeted Fen and Geoffrey as they turned in at the gate. In this riot of greenery, through which struggled an occasional misguided and feeble blossom in search of the light, Niobe must surely have wandered, all tears. Even the singing of the birds was without spirit, a mere dejected gurgle.

And the house was no better. Its grey walls seemed to sweat dampness. Large, Victorian and ugly, its windows stared upon the world with frank misanthropy. Were it not attached to his prebend, surely Garbin would not live in it. And yet a subtle affinity existed between the man and the house, a fundamental dull seriousness of outlook, and behind this a complacent if melancholy resignation to things as they were. So at least it appeared; but Geoffrey reminded himself that, here and now, no appearance could be trusted.

Mrs. Garbin opened the door to them, dressed in a suit of drab chocolate-brown. If she was surprised to see in Geoffrey her travelling-companion of the day before, she gave no sign of it. Her husband, she said, was working; not, one gathered from her tone, at anything that was ever likely to be the slightest use to anyone, even himself. No doubt he would be delighted to see them; it was one of the penances of a clergyman’s life that he must always be available to anyone who chose to call; fortunately, he had nothing else to occupy him.

To this underhanded series of attacks, Fen replied monosyllabically. Before they were taken into Garbin’s study he did, however, stop to say:

“You must feel Dr. Butler’s death as a great loss.”

The woman paused. “Of course,” she said. “A very great loss indeed—to ourselves. It is possible that others may not be so greatly affected.”

“A popular man, I thought.”

“A man of strong personality, Professor. And you know what is commonly meant by personality—an obstinate blindness and lack of consideration. There were, of course, antagonisms.”

“Serious antagonisms?”

“That, of course, it is hardly my business to say.” She paused. “The Romish practices of Canon Spitshuker—”

“And the scholarly rivalry of your husband…”

She put a hand on the banisters. The pallor of her face was perhaps a little accentuated. “You had better go in now.”

Garbin’s study was a large room, unpleasantly panelled in dark pine. Massive mahogany furniture and bookcases added to the gloom. A dark brown carpet was on the floor. There were worn armchairs and a rack of pipes and a pallid bust of Pallas—or more probably of some dead ecclesiastic, since both sex and features were indistinguishable in the crepuscular light—in a niche above the door. And there, great heavens—Geoffrey felt the sense of unreality which one has immediately on waking from a vivid dream—was a raven. It perambulated the desk

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