Appointed to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

Malbury diocese was formed out of parts of Worcester, Hereford and Lichfield. And that,’ he said with a smile, standing, ‘is the end of your history lesson, Miss Kingsley. Now would you like a tour of the Close?’
    The road curved around the east end of the cathedral, so from where they stood they could see much of the Close. ‘As I said,’ Jeremy began, ‘over there, behind that wall, is my house. You can just about see the roof from here. The wall goes straight across the road, so that’s as far as you can go in that direction. You can’t actually get to it from the Close – you have to go round the west end.’
    â€˜How inconvenient for you!’
    â€˜It is a bit, but I don’t often need to come into the Close, and I can go through the cathedral, when it’s open.’
    â€˜You don’t have a key?’
    Jeremy laughed. ‘I’m only the humble architect. They don’t trust me with a key.’
    â€˜That building next to your wall looks very old. Or is it pseudo-gothic?’ She pointed at a long stone building, two storeys high, with a number of windows but no visible doorway.
    â€˜No, that’s actually the only bit of the Abbey buildings that survived. It was the monks’ infirmary. I’m not sure why they didn’t tear it down – I think it was used for storage for years. Around 1870 they converted it to a schoolhouse. Then in the 1920s, when they made the old Deanery into offices, the infirmary-cum-schoolhouse became the Deanery. The entrance is around on the side.’
    â€˜It’s vacant now, I presume?’
    â€˜At the moment, though an announcement is expected any day now. We could have a new Dean installed by the early autumn.’ Jeremy shook his head, bemused. ‘I don’t know how much you know about the cathedral politics, Lucy, but most people are banking on Canon Brydges-ffrench being appointed – Malbury Cathedral isn’t exactly forward-looking, and that would be the best way of preserving the status quo. And I must say that Canon Brydges-ffrench himself is rather counting on it.’
    â€˜I’d gathered that much. Miss Marsden seems to think there’s no question that it could be anyone else. That’s what she told me before dinner.’
    â€˜Miss Marsden . . . well. She’s rather counting on it, too,’ he laughed. ‘She rather fancies being Mrs Dean.’
    â€˜Oh. I see.’
    â€˜Not that it’s necessarily going to happen, whether he gets the appointment or not,’ Jeremy added, smiling cynically. ‘He’s been putting her off for years, from what I hear.’ He pointed to the house on the curve of the Close to the left of the Deanery, an eighteenth-century red brick house with stone dressings. ‘Evelyn Marsden lives there, next to the Deanery. She’s been there for yonks.’
    â€˜And here?’ Directly opposite the east end of the cathedral was a range of three houses, built of red brick in the 1920s in neo-Georgian style. The centre house was small, one-storeyed with dormers; the two flanking houses were larger, and two-storeyed, though in proportion they were slightly pinched looking.
    â€˜Canon Brydges-ffrench lives in the one on the right, next to Miss Marsden. The one in the centre belongs to the organist, Ivor Jones. And the Precentor’s house is on the left,’ explained Jeremy. Next came the row of Georgian town houses that they had so recently left, set back from the Close and angled to the south-west. Each of the three houses had its own handsome black iron gate, but subtle differences in their exteriors, reflecting the respective personalities of their inhabitants, saved them from uniformity. Lucy’s father’s house was the first, on the right; in the few months that he had been there he had done little to differentiate his dwelling, apart from the rather half-hearted terracotta pot of wilting petunias