Richard Harland - The Vicar of Morbing Vyle.pdf - Richard Harland - allforjesus2001

PUBLISHER’S WARNING

Readers are advised to exercise extreme caution over Chapter 44 and the description of the

Vicar's uncompleted 'Ultimate Work'. Although we have printed without abridgement the list

of compositional elements required, the nature of the 'Ultimate Work' itself should not be

contemplated. Such contemplation may produce headaches and related physical symptoms;

prolonged or obsessional contemplation may well induce major bodily malfunction and even

fatality. The publishers accept no liability for any person who attempts to project or imagine

beyond the text as actually printed.

Part One:

LOOKING FOR MORBING VYLE

CHAPTER 1

Morbing Vyle. Morbing Vyle . The name alone sends a shudder down my spine. Even after all these

years. I used to think that the memory would drain away like a bad dream. For fifteen years I

haven't told a single soul about it. But the horror still lurks at the bottom of my mind. I write out the

name - and it's as though a shadow falls instantly across the world, dark and chill and terrible.

Yet it was the name itself that originally appealed to me. I can't explain why. Of course it

was an odd-sounding name - but there was something more than that as well. It fascinated me right

from the start.

It's true I was in a strange sort of mood at the time. For a start, I was very lonely. I'm

Australian, born and bred in Sydney - and somehow I couldn't adjust to living in England. Or no,

not exactly England - I liked England and the English people - it was Cambridge I couldn't get on

with. The University was such a cliquey clubby place, not at all welcoming. The dons and

postgraduates and even the undergraduates seemed very aloof and superior, as though they'd all

gone to the same private schools together. I felt like a total outsider.

I was in Cambridge for six months on a special study grant, to do research for my Ph.D. I

was writing a historical thesis on 'Responses to Darwinism'. I wanted to examine the hysteria and

bigotry of the Christian establishment - how they denied the evidence, made personal attacks upon

Darwin, stirred up emotion and ignorance - anything to close their eyes to the scientific truth. In a

controversial conclusion, I also wanted to show the same forms of irrationality persisting in the

arguments of the present-day Creationists.

It seemed like an interesting topic when I started. But I hadn't reckoned with the quantity of

material to be covered. So many pamphlets and books and essays and letters - the resources of the

University Library were endless. The more I read, the more I discovered that still needed reading.

And gradually I began to lose interest in what I was trying to argue The sheer silliness of the anti-

Darwinians was depressing - what was the point of bringing them back to life? Better to leave them

in the oblivion they deserved!

But still I kept going through the motions. Still I kept collecting material for a thesis that I

knew, deep down, I would never actually write. Off to the University Library day after day,

ploughing through volume after volume. My life was like an empty void, waiting for something to

happen. And then I came across the name of Morbing Vyle.

It was in a very old issue of The Spectator, the issue for March of 1889. The controversy

over the theory of evolution appeared in the Editorial and also in a number of Letters to the Editor.

In one letter, the Reverend Sims from Deddington roundly condemned the "self-serving motives" of

the scientific community. But at the same time he qualified his argument with the phrase "without

wishing to go so far as our friend from Morbing Vyle . . ." The name jumped right up off the page at

me. Morbing Vyle! How could anywhere - even in England - go under a name like that? Perhaps

Vyle was a misprint for Vale?

I looked back through the Spectators for February and March of 1889, then all the way back

through 1888. It seemed obvious that the Rev. Sims was referring to a letter published in an earlier

issue. But the letter wasn't there - unless it had appeared in the issue for December of 1888.

Someone had ripped half a dozen pages out of that issue, and the whole Letters to the Editor section

was missing.

So that was that. I was curious about the name, but not about the writer of the letter.

Probably just another outraged and offended Christian - I already had a thousand examples of the

kind. I went on with my research. But the name of Morbing Vyle still stuck at the back of my mind.

I kept on repeating it to myself at odd random moments. And then, a week or so later, I came across

it again.

This time there was no possible doubt. The place really existed: not Vale but Vyle. I

discovered it by accident in the correspondence of Sir James Russell. Russell was one of the

strongest of the pro-Darwinians, and I was intending to skim through his correspondence only for

the sake of references to the theory of evolution. But I got distracted by his account - in letters to his

sister - of a walking-trip that he made through the Breckland region of East Anglia in 1874. In

flowery old-fashioned language he described the architectural and scenic beauties of the towns and

villages through which he passed. Idly browsing, I followed him from Honington to Thetford, then

Lynford, then Mundford - and then, suddenly, Morbing Vyle! There it was again! A village in the

Brecklands!

Sir James was evidently very impressed by the old-fashioned charm of Morbing Vyle. His

description went on for almost a whole page. I read about its many thatched cottages, its church and

half-timbered public house. It sounded incredibly picturesque.

I sat there for a long time in the library, thinking and musing. I began to toy with the idea of

visiting this Morbing Vyle. I'd made sightseeing trips to places like London and Lincoln and

Norwich and York. But the quiet peace of a picturesque country village - wasn't that the true spirit

of old England? Perhaps I could take a few days off from my work . . . ?

But I didn't, not straight away. A sense of guilt kept me grinding away at my research,

though I found it harder and harder to concentrate. Yet I couldn't escape from the name of Morbing

Vyle. It was as though it was haunting me. Just a few days later, I came across it yet again in a book

on nineteenth-century ecclesiastical history. I was only looking for some background information

on the distinctions between Church and Chapel, the different forms of belief held by the anti-

Darwinians. But the book fell open almost immediately at a full-page photographic illustration. The

caption to the illustration said: 'Easter Processional at the Church of Morbing Vyle'.

The illustration was reproduced from an old photograph - a very old photograph. The men

wore waistcoats and hats and high starched Victorian collars, the women wore full length skirts and

shawls and bonnets. They marched all in a line behind the upheld Cross, passing between the

tombstones of a grassy green churchyard. In the background was the church itself, every bit as

picturesque as Russell had described it. It had a knobbly little tower and conical spire. Close by the

church was a red-brick building three quarters covered in ivy - presumably the vicarage.

I searched through the text for further details. But there was no mention of Morbing Vyle in

particular, only a general account of changes and developments in Anglican ritual during the

nineteenth century. I gave up reading and gazed at the photo instead. I must have gazed at it for half

an hour or more. By the time I had finished gazing, my mind was made up. I would take a holiday,

I would pay a visit to this village of Morbing Vyle! As soon as possible! Tomorrow!

I don't know why I was in such a hurry. Perhaps I just wanted to escape from Cambridge

and my studies - or perhaps it was something else. Anyway, I hurried home from the library, back

to my dismal lodgings in Huntingdon Road. I packed a travelling bag with clothes enough for the

next three days.

Only then did I look up Morbing Vyle in my Touring Atlas of the British Isles. First I

looked it up in the Index at the back of the book - but it wasn't there. So I turned to the map page for

the Breckland, and scanned the area inch by inch. Thetford I discovered straight away, then

Lynford, Mundford, and the various villages described by Russell. But no Morbing Vyle. It didn't

appear on the map at all.

Another name did apear though: the name of New Morbing. New Morbing was situated

between Mundford and Feltwell, roughly on the route where Russell had passed through Morbing

Vyle. Yet Russell hadn't even mentioned New Morbing . . .

I scratched my head. What had happened? Had Morbing Vyle been outgrown by a more

successful neighbour, shrinking in size until it was no longer large enough to feature on the map?

Or was New Morbing actually the same as Morbing Vyle? The reference in The Spectator and

Richard Harland - The Vicar of Morbing Vyle.pdf

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