Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

He regaled me with stories of Cathedral Life which seems to be by no means as dull as one might think. The Bishop, a gouty old sport called Bulstrode, is completely under the thumb of the Dean who goes by the name of the Very Reverend Herbert Grice. Grice is, according to Bertie, a holy terror, all for change and doing what he calls “meeting the challenges of the modern world”. Needless to say, this does not go down too well with some of his colleagues who call him “Il Duce” behind his back because he is so fearfully keen on efficiency and making the Cathedral services start and finish on time. His main opponent is the Venerable Thaddeus Hill, the Archdeacon, a white-bearded old patriarch who has been at Morchester since the Ark. All this would be very amusing but not worth recording were it not for the business of the Archbishop’s Well.

According to Bertie, this well has stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest. It’s hard at first to conceive why. I have of course visited the Cathedral and seen it. It stands in the middle of the cloister garth, a patch of greensward on the south side of the Cathedral. The cloisters that enclose it are the oldest part of the Cathedral, dating back to the eleventh century, being the only surviving portion of the original Abbey Church of Morchester. The well, by all accounts, is even older, but it is extremely unimpressive to look at.

It is a roughly circular enclosure of irregular stones which have been frequently repaired over the years with ugly slatherings of mortar. The opening is capped with a heavy circular lid of oak, bound with elaborately arabesqued iron bands and attached to the stone surround by heavy iron rings and padlocks. No one knows quite why it is called the Archbishop’s Well, except of course that the Cathedral itself is St. Anselm’s, named after Anselm, the eleventh-century Archbishop of Canterbury and inventor of the celebrated Ontological Argument for the existence of God.

Well—the pun is purely accidental—the long and short of it is that Bishop Bulstrode, at Dean Grice’s prompting of course, wants to do away with this ancient relic and replace it with something useful and “up to date”. A drinking fountain for the benefit of visitors to the Cathedral has been suggested. A drinking fountain, forsooth! No doubt one of those polished granite monstrosities that rich “philanthropists” are in the habit of inflicting on our public parks. Oddly enough, says Bertie, the Bishop’s proposal has met with quite a bit of support, but there is also some vehement opposition, most notably from old Archdeacon Hill. Bertie, to his credit, is with the old boy, but his voice counts for very little.

Bertie says there was a fearful row about it at the last meeting of the Dean and Chapter a couple of days ago. The Archdeacon said that the well went back quite possibly to pre-Christian times and that to remove it would be a sacrilege. To which Dean Grice smartly replies that if the well is pre-Christian it could not possibly count as sacrilege to dispose of it.

It was then that Bertie had what he is pleased to call his “brain wave”. He proposed that an independent expert be called in to pronounce on the historic and architectural importance of said well. When asked, in sarcastic tones by the Dean, where that expert might be found, Bertie replied that there was a just such a blighter with all the correct qualifications lecturing on things medieval only up the road at the University of Wessex, to wit, yours truly.

I don’t know whether to feel flattered or to knock young Bertie about the mazzard for being an infernal, interfering pill. I expect nothing will come of it, though.

SEPTEMBER 5TH

A letter arrived this morning with the Morchester Cathedral crest embossed on the back of the envelope. Everything about it is stiff: the envelope, the note-paper within and the wording typed thereon. It is from Dean Grice inviting me over to Morchester to consult about the well and proposing a date for the meeting. The final paragraph reads as follows:

I must earnestly entreat you to say nothing about this commission to friends or colleagues and on no account to inform the press. I cannot emphasise too strongly that the utmost confidentiality is essential. You will receive an adequate honorarium for the benefit of your expertise and any researches that might be required. However, should you breach the seal of discretion in any way, no such remuneration will be forthcoming.

It all seemed unnecessarily pedantic to me, perhaps even a little “neurotic”, as the followers of Dr. Freud would say. What had got the wind up? Anyway, I wrote back agreeing to his terms as I must admit to being rather intrigued.

SEPTEMBER 10TH