The Audit: A Play in Five Acts — Act III

ACT III, SCENE 1: The Bishop’s Man in the Buttery

(Ten-thirty in the morning. The light through the high leaded casements has turned from fog-gray to a hard, cold iron. Rime crystals feather the lower lead cames. The Ticket-Lad stands near the peat-fire, blowing on his chapped fingers. The PROVOST walks three paces back and forth along the hearthrug, his fur collar pulled up against the draft. The APPARITOR sits on the low oak bench by the passage entrance, the japanned tin cylinder propped between his muddy gaiters like a staff).

PROVOST

You say the Bishop’s registrar took fresh cattle at the bridge?

APPARITOR

Two bays from the post-house, Mr. Provost. And he does not travel alone. He has Mr. Goad, the bishop’s sequestrator, with him in the coach. They carry two smiths with cold-chisels to force the lock of the vestry chest if the key is withheld.

HESTER (without looking up from the calfskin):

The vestry chest is heart-of-oak, bound with three bands of Swedish iron. A cold-chisel will only break the teeth of the hasp.

APPARITOR

They will burn the lid off with a brazier if need be. The parish goods belong to the ordinary until the arrears are certified.

PROVOST

The foundation holds prior lien upon the tithe-barn, Mr. Sizer. The College will not yield an inch of ash or an ounce of tallow until the ninety-three charges have passed under the Bursary seal.

(CRUMP enters from the buttery passage, his hickory stick clacking sharply on the floorboards:

clack. clack.

His nose is pinched blue with the cold).

CRUMP

The cellar-vault is taking the drift, sir. The snow is driving horizontally beneath the buttery archway. Two of the Bishop’s grooms have tied their post-hacks in our brew-house porch, and the cellar-keeper says the draft down the stone passage will freeze the beer in the tuns before noon.

PROVOST

The brew-house is outside the precinct exemption. Let them tie their nags where they will, but do not suffer them to bring their harness into the audit room.

CRUMP

The wind is veering northeast, Mr. Provost. If the quadrangle doors are not locked, the whole corridor will become a drift-way.

ARTHUR (poised over the vellum):

Item thirty-one was pitch and oakum. The ink is set.

HESTER

Item thirty-two is the bier.

(Crump looks from Hester to the great double doors open to the frosted corridor).

CRUMP

We cannot keep the passage open. The frost is already across the sill.

(He turns toward the High Table, his cloak flapping).

ACT III, SCENE 2: The Custody Near-Miss

(The frost is setting into the wainscot. The room is dead cold.

CRUMP hobbles toward the High Table, his hickory stick clattering on the floorboards, his green cloak flapping).

CRUMP

We are locking the double doors, Miss Pringle. The Bishop’s man is in the buttery and the cellar-vault is taking the drift. We cannot leave the precinct open to the quadrangle.

(Crump reaches his gloved hand across the table. His wool-covered fingers close around the six-inch iron vestry key resting across the calfskin leaf).

(Hester does not lift her eyes from the open column).

HESTER

Item thirty-two.

(A pause.

Her bare red right palm comes down flat and hard across the back of Crump’s wool glove:

thump.

Crump’s spectacles slide half an inch down his nose. He looks over the rims at her face).

HESTER

The parish bier. Two ash poles split at the mortise. Seven shillings.

(Crump slowly draws his gloved hand backward out from under her palm, sliding his fingers flat.

Her hand remains resting upon the iron).

HESTER

Item thirty-three. Lead-weights for the clock-arbor. Four pounds eight.

(She lifts her palm.

The key lies cold across the vellum.

Crump pushes his spectacles up with his thumb).

(A beat).

CRUMP

We’ll leave the doors, then.

(Beyond the open double doors, the flagstones under the passage lanterns are already white with frost.

A beat. Crump turns.

He hobbles away toward the corridor. On the floorboards, the hickory stick strikes three times:

tock. tock. tock.

On the first tock, Hester reads to the wood):

HESTER

Item thirty-four. Three hurdles to stop the breach in the churchyard ditch. Five shillings sixpence.

(Crump crosses the threshold onto the stone.

The iron tip of the stick strikes the frosted flagstones:

clink. clink. clink.

After the third strike, the sound thins out down the corridor until it is faint.

Both leaves of the double doors stand open to the passage.

While the last clink is still dying down the stone, a draft rolls in off the passage ankle-high, smelling of wet slate.

It runs across the bare boards. The fringe of the Turkey rug moves.

(A beat. The fringe settles).

The draft reaches the High Table. The key does not move.

The free corner of the leaf lifts.

(A pause).

HESTER

Item thirty-five.

(On “thirty-five,” the paper flutters once).

HESTER

Repair of the lych-gate pintle.

(On “lych-gate,” the paper flutters a second time, weaker).

HESTER

Two shillings.

(The corner drops.

The key holds).

ACT III, SCENE 3: The Intermediate Tally

(Eleven o’clock.

The draft from the open double doors has cleared the peat-smoke, but the room is bitter cold. Arthur’s breath plumes white with every stroke of the quill.

The APPARITOR has risen from the bench. He stands six feet from the High Table, watching the ink dry on the ruling).

APPARITOR

You are past thirty-five, Peake. But thirty-five is not fifty. The coach has cleared the willow-reach; I heard the post-boy’s whip crack over the water-meadows five minutes since.

ARTHUR (without looking up):

The willow-reach is half a mile of black rut and flooded clay. The post-boy will have to lead the bays through the wash.

PROVOST

Cast the first quire, Arthur. Let us have the sub-total before the diocesan officers set foot upon the stairs.

(Arthur lifts the bone folder. He runs the blunt ivory edge down the margin of the column, pressing the dry calfskin).

ARTHUR

Thirty-five items entered, Mr. Provost. The charge stands at nineteen pounds, fourteen shillings, and sevenpence halfpenny.

PROVOST

Does the butter-firkin cover the first charge?

ARTHUR

The butter was priced at fourpence the pound at Michaelmas fair. Sixty pounds in the firkin: that is twenty shillings. It leaves eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings, and sevenpence halfpenny against the parish fabric.

HESTER

The second quire takes the church-linen, the bell-cot, and the lead from the south gutter.

(She turns a leaf of the memorandum book. The heavy vellum cracks like dry wood).

HESTER

Item thirty-six. Washing the surplice three times against the Archdeacon’s visitation. One shilling sixpence.

PROVOST

Passed.

(Arthur dips his pen. The cold iron-gall takes dark and glossy on the slit).

ARTHUR

One shilling sixpence.

(Behind him, beneath the Spanish mahogany, the firkin rests in the gloom. The white salt-bloom on the middle staves remains dry, but the cold ring around the base is dark against the boards).

APPARITOR (tightening his grip on the black cylinder):

Write your sixpences, copyist. The Registrar carries the Bishop’s broad seal. When that seal is affixed to the doorposts, your quires are so much waste calfskin.

HESTER (her voice cutting across the Apparitor without haste):

Item thirty-seven. Six yards of unbleached Holland for the communion cloth. Four shillings.

(Arthur’s pen moves:

scratch. scratch.

Outside in the court, a great gust of northeast wind roars through the gate-arch, rattling the casements).

(END OF ACT III)