‘Pangall?’
‘He’s a very faithful servant. Tell your men to leave him alone.’
Silence.
‘Roger?’
‘The man’s a fool. Can’t he take a joke?’
‘It’s a stale one by now, whatever it is.’
The master builder looked stonily at the door into Pangall’s kingdom and said nothing.
‘Roger. Why must they pick on him?’
The master builder looked quickly at Jocelin. All at once there was a kind of mental jolt between them, like a wheel taking a rut; and Jocelin felt the fluttering of a dozen things behind his lips that he might have given sound to, if it had not been for the dark eyes looking so directly into his. It was like standing on the edge of something.
‘Roger?’
But a small congregation was returning from the Lady Chapel, down the north ambulatory, with Rachel giving tongue at their head. The fluttering speeches died away.
‘Why do they?’
Roger Mason had turned back to the pit.
‘It’s our way of keeping off bad luck.’
Then Rachel had broken away from the rest and was hurrying across the pavement to them, talking and gesticulating before she was properly within reach — ‘Didn’t expect their foundations to be dug up before Doomsday and why not, after all they must have been under contract like my man here —’ talking and nodding, body shaken with vehemence, skirt not held up but clutched up until one saw too much of a clumsy ankle and foot — ‘Birchwood under the rubble was what you expected, wasn’t it Roger? He always knows, my Lord’ — My Lord as if she were not a woman but a canon with a valid vote in chapter! Her whole body a part of speech, black eyes popping, not like a decent, reticent Englishwoman (not like silent Goody Pangall, my dear daughter-in-God) but even pretending to knowledge, building knowledge, even contradicting a man! Rachel, dark haired, dark eyed and energetic, with her constant flow, she, earth’s most powerful argument for celibacy if one was wanted — ‘Forgive me my Lord but I must say it, I know a little about these things; I remember what Roger’s old master said. “Child —” he called me child, you see because Roger was his assistant then — “Child, a spire goes down as far as it goes up —” or was it “Up as far as it goes down”? But what he meant you see was —’ and then she leaned her head on one side, smiling mysteriously, one finger sticking in Jocelin’s face ‘— was that there has to be as much weight under a building as there is over it. So if you are going up four hundred feet you will have to go down four hundred feet. Isn’t that so Roger? Roger?’ On and on she went, released from the necessary, the penitential silence of the service, her body and her dark face shaken by the words as a pipe is shaken by the water that jets out of it. Yet there was a curious thing about Roger and Rachel Mason. Not only were they inseparable, but alike in appearance; more like brother and sister than man and wife, dark, sturdy, redlipped. They were islanded, and their life was a pattern of its own. Roger never struck her, and their frequent quarrels were like flares, blown out presently by some wind, to leave the scene just as it had been before. They revolved round each other in a way which people found incomprehensible. It was impossible to understand how they put up with each other; though certain techniques of living could be observed in them. For example, Roger Mason had evolved a method of dealing with Rachel which often made farce of a situation, as it did now. He ignored her, merely raising his voice, so that he could be heard and understood. This never seemed to irritate him; but it was certain to irritate the third in the party, especially when the third was a high dignitary of the church.
‘— a much more complicated problem than you think.’
And Rachel, face shaken now, so the master builder’s words were obscured again. Jocelin raised his own voice, consenting to the farce, and angered by it.
‘We were talking of Pangall!’
‘Such a sweet thing, and such a pity she has no children but then neither have I, my Lord, we must bear this cross!’
‘— will build as high as I can —’
‘— as high as you dare —’
Suddenly Jocelin heard his voice in clear, with nothing to fight against. Rachel had turned away. Her torrent was falling into the pit which swallowed it.
‘And what is the good of a small dare, Roger? My dares are big ones!’
‘Well?’
‘Four hundred feet of dare!’
‘I haven’t convinced you then.’
Jocelin smiled at him, but nodded meaningly.
‘Start to build. That’s all I ask.’
They looked at each other, each determined, neither saying more, but aware that nothing had been settled, and this was only a truce. I will urge him up stone by stone, if I have to, thought Jocelin. He has no vision. He is blind. Let him think he can cut off a tower where he likes — but then Rachel turned back from the pit and they heard how little light there was in it now and how tired the men were, you can drive a willing horse just so far, they ought to knock off. So Jocelin turned away, furious with himself, and with the foolish woman, and with the man who was more easily able to ignore her than control her. He saw, with surprise, how the sun now came through the west windows; and with the sight he felt a pang of hunger. This made him angry too; and he was only slightly soothed to hear behind him the master builder bawl at Rachel.
‘How can you be so stupid?’
Yet he knew that the roar was nothing, not even a rebuke, but perhaps something to keep off the bad luck, and that another five minutes would find them revolving round each other, laughing, or walking scandalously arm-in-arm; or muttering in some secret conversation that was no one else’s business. And she was a good woman, as these things go; in all the rumoured and outrageous combinations of the sexes that were said to take place in New Street where the builders had set up camp, there was no scandal that touched either Rachel or the master builder. He looked down the nave into the sunlight, and found himself irritated again. The day began in joy, he thought; and great things have happened; there is a beginning, and there is my angel; and at the same time there is a diminution of joy, as if my angel were sent not only to strengthen and console me, but also as a warning. He saw father Anselm far off, sitting nobly by the west door, and the stillness of the old man under his crown of silver hair touched him with sorrow as well as irritation. He lifted his chin, and spoke to the preaching patriarchs in the clerestory.
‘Let him sulk, if he wants to.’
Behind him, he heard laughter going out of the north transept through the new gap in the wall. Rachel was gone then; and he turned back for a moment to watch the master builder talking to the men by the pit. He wondered for a moment whether he should return and apply more pressure. I should not have gone to see him, he thought. I should have called him before me and rebuked him for the fight at the gate. What if the mayor demands a court? I didn’t say the half of what I meant to say. It’s that woman with her torrent, and her bold, shaken face. There are some women who are stronger than gates and bars by their very ignorance. I should rebuke her too for her presumption, teach her to know her place. Next time I see her without him, I will speak to her gently, and explain what she should be.
‘Lord, what instruments we have to use!’
He heard the clicking of nailed sandals in the nave and knew it was the clothespeg man. He turned to watch. Father Adam was walking at his usual pace, neither slow nor fast, but as though he never did any thing else, only went like this from one day to the next, delivering, taking away, waiting for instructions, impersonal, without animation or complaint. Now he stood before his master, hands together, a doll a child might cut, the face too complex for an attempt, the arms, the hair painted on. He stood between Jocelin and the long-delayed meal with more business in his hands.
‘Couldn’t you wait, Father Adam?’
Father Anonymous.
Father Anonymous scratched an answer into the air with his useful voice.
‘I thought you would wish to r
ead it at once, my Lord.’
Jocelin sighed, and answered him, tired, irritable, and strangely sapped of joy.
‘Let me see it, then.’
He turned to the east, held up the letter so that the sunlight fell on it. As he read, his face cleared, went from irritation, to satisfaction; then to delight.
‘You did well to show it to me!’
He fell down on his knees, crossed himself and gave thanks. But the tide of joy was back, stood him on his feet, hurried him to where the master builder was talking to Jehan, his assistant, by the pit. As he came near, the master builder looked away from Jehan and spoke to him.
‘They’ve found no gravel yet. And if the floods still rise we may have to wait for weeks before we can dig any deeper. Perhaps for months.’
Jocelin tapped the letter.
‘Here’s your answer, my son.’
‘That?’
‘My Lord Bishop has remembered us. Even though he kneels before the Holy Father at Rome, he remembers his distant sheep.’
The master builder answered impatiently.
‘You never understand what I say, do you? I tell you, money can’t build your spire for you. Build it of gold and it would simply sink deeper.’
Jocelin shook his head, laughing.
‘Now I shall tell you, and then you can sleep easy. He sent no money. For what is money after all? But far, far, oh infinitely more valuable —’ a tide of emotion swept Jocelin up so that his voice rose with it. He laid an arm across the master builder’s shoulders and hugged him. ‘We shall put this in the very topmost stone of the spire, and it will stand till the last day. My Lord Bishop is sending us a Holy Nail.’
He took his arm from the inscrutable master builder and looked down the nave into the sun. He saw the white head of Father Anselm and knew at once that life was unendurable without the oil of healing. He went, almost at a run, down the nave towards the old man, and he waved the letter in his hand.
‘Father Anselm!’
This time, father Anselm got up and stood. He did it slowly, bearing his martyrdom; and as if to complete the brave picture, he swallowed his three coughs so that they were only just audible. His face was cold and blank.
‘Father Anselm. Friendship is a precious thing.’
Still blank. Buoyed up by his joy, Jocelin tried again.
‘What have we done to it?’
‘Is that a real question, my Lord, or a rhetorical one?’
Jocelin surrounded him with love.
‘Would you like to read this letter?’
‘Do you command me, my Lord?’
Jocelin laughed aloud.
‘Anselm! Anselm!’
Stubbornly, the old man resisted his love, looked away towards the wood and canvas screen; coughed quietly but audibly, tuh, tuh, tuh.
‘If it concerns the Chapter, my Lord, no doubt we shall all get to hear it in time.’
‘Anselm. Here is a gift from me to you. I release you from this duty. I ought to have understood, that with all the opposition, and your health — There is no one, after all, engaged as I am to this business. I shall take it into my hands. You know that, and you know why, you of all people, my confessor, manager of my soul.’
‘Let me see this clearly, my Lord. I am neither to be overseer, nor organise the overseers?’
‘That’s what I said.’
Anselm never altered his face. He kept his noble profile looking to the east, under the crown of white hair. He stood, senatorial, august and secure. The words fell.
‘In writing?’
They fell. They were not jewels or pearls, as befitted the saintly face. They were pebbles. There was no insult, nothing to grasp; for if the words had insolence in them, they were nevertheless correct and according to the statute. When it is ordained that a matter shall be so decided between two of the four Principal Persons, let it be written — As if the statute hung there legibly in the air between them, Anselm clinched the matter by quoting from it.
‘What has been written, if there is a change, let that also be written; and let the small bone seal be affixed in the presence of two Persons.’
‘I know.’
Anselm spoke again, calmly and coldly. His cough had gone.
‘Is that all, my Lord?’
‘That’s all.’
He heard the sacrist’s steps going away up the nave, and he stood so, looking back over his left shoulder. I must erase him, he thought. I was deceived. He drops nothing but pebbles out of that noble head of his.
He looked down at the bishop’s letter. It’s like a pair of scales in the market, he thought. Joy carries me up in one pan, and Anselm sinks in the other. There is the Nail and my angel. There is the chancellor and the master builder and his wife.
Suddenly he understood how the wings of his joy were clipped close, and anger heated him again. Let them fall and vanish, so the work goes on! And as he passed under the west window, the letter clutched in one hand to his chest, he was muttering fiercely over his lifted chin.
‘Now I must change my confessor!’
That night, when he knelt by his bed to pray before sleeping, his angel returned and stood at his back in a cloud of warmth, to comfort him a little.
Chapter Three
When he woke at dawn next morning, he could hear the rain, and he remembered what the master builder had said. So he prayed among other things for fine weather. But the rain came for three days, with only a half day to follow it of low cloud and soaked air; so that housewives hung what linen there was to wash before smouldering fires that dirtied more linen than they dried; and then there was wind and rain for a week. When he came out of his deanery, cloaked for the hurried passage to the cathedral, he would see the clouds at roof level so that even the battlements of the roof were blurred by them. As for the whole building itself, the bible in stone, it sank from glorification to homilectics. It was slimy with water streaming down over moss and lichen and flaking stones. When the rain drizzled, then time was a drizzle, slow and to be endured. When the rain lashed down, then the thousand gargoyles — and now men thought how their models mouldered in the graveyards of the Close or the parish churches — gave vent. They uttered water as if this were yet another penalty of damnation; and what they uttered joined with what streamed down glass and lead and moulding, down members and pinnacles, down faces and squared headlands to run bubbling and clucking in the gutter at the foot of the wall. When the wind came, it did not clear the sky, but cuffed the air this way and that, a bucketful of water with every cuff, so that even a dean must stagger, pushed from behind; or leaning against a gust like a blow, find his cloak whipped out like wings. When the wind fell, the clouds fell too and he could no longer see the top half of the building; and because of the drizzle he lost the sense of the size of it. Therefore the approaching eye had to deal with a nearer thing, some corner of wet stone, huge in detail and full of imperfections, like a skin seen too close. The reentrants on the north side — but there was no direction of light to show which was north and which south — stank with the memories of urination. The flood waters by the river, spread over the causeway, took no account of the guards at the city gate, but invaded the greasy streets. Men and women and children crouched by what fire they had and the smoke from damp logs or peat formed a haze under every roof. Only the alehouses prospered.
At the crossways of the cathedral there was no more digging. One day, Jocelin stood by the master builder, watched him lower a candle on a string, and saw how water shone at the bottom of the pit. Also, he smelt the pit, and recoiled from it. But the master builder took no account of smells. He stayed where he was, staring gloomily down at the candle. Jocelin became anxious and urgent. He hung by Roger Mason’s shoulder.
‘What will you do now, my son?’
Roger Mason grunted.
‘There’s plenty to do.’
He eased himself carefully into the bottom of a corkscrew stair and climbed out of sight; and later, Jocelin heard him moving careful
ly, a hundred and twenty feet up, by the vaulting.
It seemed to Jocelin that his first whiff of the pit began something new. Now he noticed how everywhere in the cathedral, the smell of stale incense and burnt wax had been joined by this more unpleasant odour. For the water, with guessed-at stealth, had invaded the graves of the great on either side of the choir or between the arcades of the nave. He found he was not the only one who noticed. The living, who made a profession of contempt for life, found this reminder too immediate, and conducted the services with faces of improper disgust. As he came from the Lady Chapel through the crossways — and nowadays they were dark — he would tell himself urgently; ‘Here, where the pit stinks, I received what I received, all those years ago, and I fell on my face. It is necessary always, to remember.’
During this time, the master builder and some of his army worked in the roof over the crossways. They broke up the vaulting so that now if there was any light at all in the crossways and you looked up, you could see rafters. While some men worked there, disappearing into the corkscrew stairs that riddled the walls of the building, to appear later flysize in the triforium, others built scaffolding round the south-east pillar of the crossways. They set ladders from level to level, a spidery construction so that when it was finished the pillar looked like a firtree with the branches cut back. This new work was not without advantage to the services, for the builders could not be heard so easily in the roof. There was little more interruption to the stinking peace of the nave than the occasional blow of a maul at roofheight. Presently ropes began to hang down from the broken vault over the crossways, and stayed there, swinging, as if the building sweating now with damp inside as well as out, had begun to grow some sort of gigantic moss. The ropes were waiting for the beams that would be inched through the gap in the north wall; but they looked like moss and went with the smell. In this dark and wet, it took even Jocelin all his will, to remember that something important was being done; and when a workman fell through the hole above the crossways, and left a scream scored all the way down the air which was so thick it seemed to keep the scream as something mercilessly engraved there, he did not wonder that no miracle interposed between the body and the logical slab of stone that received it. Father Anselm said nothing in chapter; but he saw from the Sacrist’s indignant stare how this death had been added to some account that one day would be presented. A dark night had not descended on the cathedral, but a midday without sun and therefore blasphemously without hope. There was hysteria in the laughter of the choir boys when the chancellor, tottering at the end of their procession from the vestry, turned left as he had done for half his life, instead of right to go into the Lady Chapel. Despite this laughter, these sniggers, the services went on, and business was done; but as in the burden of some nearly overwhelming weight. Chapter was testy, songschool was dull or fretful and full of coughing, and the boys quarrelled without knowing why. Little boys cried for no reason. Big boys were heavy eyed from nightmares of noseless men who floated beneath the pavements, their flat faces pressed against a heavy lid. So it was no wonder that the boys were ready to snigger at the chancellor. But one day, when he turned left, he kept going; and at last two of the vicars choral went after him. They found him in the semidark, pawing at the wooden screen between him and the crossways; and when they got him into the light, they saw how widely his right hand shook and how his face was empty. Then the ancient chancellor was removed to his house, and an extra terror of senility fell on the older men. Day and night acts of worship went on in the stink and halfdark, where the candles illuminated nothing but close haloes of vapour; and the voices rose, in fear of age and death, in fear of weight and dimension, in fear of darkness and a universe without hope.
The Spire Page 4
