by Ian Mortimer
Father Harington bows to me. ‘Sir, I had not expected such an erudite sermon from one who seemed not half an hour ago ready to end his life. May I enquire, noting that your breeches are of an antiquated variety, if perchance you are an actor? Such rhetoric I would expect of someone who had drunk deeply of the works of the Bard. I am myself descended in a direct line from the Elizabethan poet and courtier Sir John Harington, and am familiar with many of the works of the period; thus I have had occasion to meet very fine actors who could not read a word of Shakespeare but performed his works with such facility that I could have believed them capable of penning the very words themselves.’
‘I do not understand you, Father Harington.’
‘Which bit did you not understand?’
‘What’s an “actor”?’
Father Harington shakes his head. For a long time he says nothing. Then, with curiosity in his voice, he says, ‘You said that there’s a great girdle drawn tight around the world, and it’s bringing our bodies closer together but driving our souls further apart. Well, if that were correct, it would make this boat a sad object – a symbol of a great striving for improvement but in truth marking just another station of the cross towards our mutual dissent and eventual destruction as a species.’ He looks at me. ‘But I do not believe that. I cannot. Indeed, even if it were true, we should deny it. The progress of the human spirit is dependent on the progress of the human mind – that is undeniable. How else are we to relieve the suffering of the poor? How else might we defend ourselves against the vitriol of our enemies? Or bring the word of God to the hot-blooded tribesmen murdering wayfarers and living in sin in the hills of Africa? Yea, you stand here now, half-naked, impoverished and scourged – appearing for all the world like Christ Himself come down from the cross – yet it behoves me to say unto you that the Lord God has vouchsafed mankind with great intelligence, and it would not be a Christian thing for us to deny it or fail in any way to do good with it.’
‘Then you would tighten the girdle still further.’
‘No!’ says Father Harington. ‘I would bring countries closer together to bring men’s souls closer to the Lord. I would have boats built that could cross oceans and take the grain of the wide American plains to the poor and starving. I would have boatloads of good missionary men and women teach the word of the Lord unto the African, the Chinaman, the Indian, the Eskimo, the Aborigine and the Maori. I would have the fruits of the West Indies shipped to England for the factory workers to taste and enjoy, as if they were living in Eden. I would make life better for everyone.’
I look down and see a stone at my foot. I pick it up and hurl it into the open water. The ripples spread out in rings. When I can no longer see them, I turn back to the priest. ‘Father Harington, I am uncertain as to what the Americas are, or even what one America is. A man did try to explain to me yesterday, and a boy told me about it the day before that, so I do not doubt that they exist. But I cannot be sure whether God made them, or whether He likes what we’ve done with them, if He did. Nor do I know what an esquimo is, or an aboriginey. But I do know this: tomorrow I shall see what life in Exeter will be like in ninety-nine years’ time. Perhaps men will not always be so cruel to one another. Perhaps God will steer us to a peaceful and more blessed occupation of the Earth than hitherto I’ve seen. I hope so.’
‘John, I can see that you are a godly fellow, and that is what matters most. Now, I promised you a hot bath – and I shall not fail in that promise. Come, this way. To Southernhay!’
Thus we leave the quay in a wholly different manner from the way in which we arrived. Rather than being ashamed of walking beside this priest, I walk with dignity, despite my broken flesh and near-nakedness. And we talk as we walk. Or rather, he talks. He tells me about the poor – and how it is his lifelong ambition to see that every family has enough to eat and every child has an education, and every mother has the attendance of a physician at the time of her confinement, as well as a midwife who has been trained for the purpose. He tells me about how the slum buildings that have been developed in these days of cheap labour should all be cleared away and replaced with houses that have drains and their own running water supply. He tells me about a man called Chadwick in London who is similarly seeking to eradicate the noxious smells that are killing the poor in cities and towns all over England. And he talks about the cathedral, and what a pivotal role it plays in people’s lives, even though it was created in a time of ‘Catholic superstition’, as he calls it, and how it has become the irreplaceable heart of the city.
‘But when you entered the cathedral in the distant past,’ I tell him, ‘there was a wonderful light and deep colour and the smell of incense. There was a feeling that this was the very antechamber to everlasting bliss. And there was a corner of the chapel of Saint Andrew and Saint Catherine that was very special to me, for there I carved the likeness of my wife, so that men and women could gaze on her for eternity.’
‘Then we must go and visit the cathedral later,’ he says, as we arrive at a wide door in a line of brick buildings overlooking a long thin garden, where Crulditch once was.
He knocks. A pretty young maidservant with dark hair in a long plait down her back opens it, curtseying on seeing him. Then she sees me – and puts her hand over her mouth in shock.
‘Fear not, Eliza, this is John Offremont: a most remarkable man who has come to us for the day. He is in need of our assistance. Be kind to him. Is Mother Harington not at home?
Eliza closes the door behind us. ‘Sir, your mother and Miss Harington have gone to pay a visit to the Misses Jenkins. They asked me to reassure you they had not forgotten that they would be dining with you here at one o’clock.’
‘Good.’ He turns to me. ‘We shan’t have to worry about tedious introductions while you’re in a state of semi-nudity that would both agitate my sister, who is of a slightly nervous disposition, and excite my aged mother to a sermon over lunch.’ Turning back to the servant, he says, ‘Eliza, tell cook we are now four for lunch, and ask Charlotte to help you prepare a bathtub in my dressing room, and lay out some clothes for our guest – the black suit at the left-hand end of my wardrobe, the shirt that Doctor Hibbert left when he stayed here in October, which he no longer wants. John can try on the pair of shoes that belonged to my father and which I used to wear.’
My eye is drawn up, down and everywhere. This house is opulent. The floor is made of polished wooden boards; over them lie what look to me like tapestries. The walls are not just painted a light blue; they have a white board at floor level, a rail painted white at a height of about three feet and another rail at a height of about nine feet. The ceiling is a good two feet higher than that and, up there, I can see decorative moulded white plasterwork. Huge paintings of intricate detail and colourful beauty hang on the walls in ornate gilt carved frames. There is a handsome staircase, which elegantly sweeps up to the second and third storeys, and a polished wooden handrail flows alongside it, with a glass window at the top. That strikes me as very clever: no one in my day ever imagined having a glass roof.
‘Father Harington,’ I begin, ‘I never compassed such grace and riches behind the straight lines of these houses. I thought they were all cold and geometrical. This is beautiful.’
‘Thank you, John. But you are just looking at the hallway. First, put this on.’ He hands me a dark-blue overgarment. ‘Come this way, into the drawing room.’
I follow him into a chamber which makes my jaw drop. The air is warm, heated by a coal fire set in a decorated iron fireplace. The walls seem to be lined with a red silk, which shows off the paintings in the gilt frames particularly well. On the floor there is another huge tapestry of woven coloured wool, on to which Father Harington blithely steps as if it were just scattered rushes. The late-morning light streams in through a window at an angle, picking out the inlay on a round table nearby. Books are piled on its surface. There is not a wooden bench in sight: instead there are delicate chairs around this table, all of which have
brightly embroidered cushions fastened to their frames. In one corner there is a polished wooden object on legs, like the coffin-shaped instrument at Mister Parlebone’s house. In a large wooden bookcase along one wall are several hundred books with leather covers and gold writing on the spines. There is a clock atop a ledge above the fireplace surround, made of a sort of marble. Besides this clock are two heads carved in white alabaster, and above it there is a large looking glass, which makes the room seem bigger than it is.
Whoever carved the marble clock did so expertly. Its edges are absolutely straight, its cornices decorated with scallop-shell designs. I am in no less awe when I look at the paintings. One, in which a man in armour is shown astride a wide-eyed horse, leaping over a great chasm with a dark background, has such liveliness to it that I realise that the painters of my day did not know a fraction of what there was to be learned about depicting motion and emotion in paint. But it is not just the quality of this piece or that one; everything here is precious. In my hall I had few luxuries – most of the things I had were practical, for dressing and carving stone, working the land, storing things or cooking. Apart from a table board, two trestles and three benches, most of our possessions were made of earthenware, including the bowls we ate and drank out of and the vessels in which we cooked our pottage.
‘Have you read all these books?’ I ask.
‘These aren’t for reading, as such. This is just a selection of medical texts, which I collect. If you want to see my library, it is this way.’
I follow Mister Harington along a corridor to another room, the window of which looks out of the back of the house and over a small garden. The walls are covered to the height of about ten feet in dark wooden bookcases containing thousands of leather-bound volumes. Only the fireplace and the wall above it, where a large view of a wooded valley hangs, are not covered by books. The air is still and sacred – like the inside of an hourglass after the sand has run out.
‘Untold riches,’ I say in amazement.
‘Especially if you have the time to read,’ he replies. ‘Alas, these days, I have too few idle hours.’
‘It is the fault of your clocks.’
He takes a book from one of the shelves. Leafing through it, he finds what he is looking for, and pushes it towards me.
‘I cannot read,’ I reply.
‘You do not need to. Look at the engraving.’
I look at the book he is holding out to me. It contains a coloured picture so close to nature that I half expect the scene to move. It does not look like a painting. It shows a large brick bridge and a series of straight lines leading through a steeply sided brick valley to a series of three fine stone bridges, under which a carriage with a funnel is passing, with white smoke.
‘This is a railway?’ I ask him.
‘Indeed. That train can travel forty miles in an hour. If it were travelling from Plymouth to Exeter, it would take only one hour to complete the journey.’
It would take me two days to walk to Plymouth.
‘This is not the Exeter to Plymouth line,’ he continues. ‘That, as you have seen, is still under construction. This is the London and Birmingham Railway. But do you know who built it?’
‘I’d have thought it would have taken a good many people to build that brick valley alone.’
‘No, no, I mean who designed it. Two men: Robert Stephenson and George Parker Bidder.’
He pauses to see my reaction.
I shake my head.
‘Robert Stephenson is the son of the great George Stephenson, the father of our railways, and you’ll know all about George Parker Bidder.’
Again I shake my head.
‘The famous Calculating Boy, from your home town of Moretonhampstead. He’s about the same age as you – surely you knew each other?’
‘I think I must have left town some time before he became famous.’
‘Well, then, you should know this. Long before he could read and write, he taught himself how to do advanced calculations, lying awake in bed listening to his elder brother’s lessons. At the age of seven he corrected the local people on their sums, even though he could not read a single written number. Then his father, a stonemason, saw the chance to make money; he started exhibiting him in all the fairs of Devon as “The Calculating Boy”. At the age of nine he was displayed before various dukes and earls, and eventually the queen, Queen Charlotte, who asked him a number of very difficult mathematical questions, most of which he answered in less than half a minute.’
Father Harington puts down the open book on a nearby table. He searches along a bookcase, withdraws a thin volume and opens it. ‘Listen to this. If a coach wheel is five feet ten inches in circumference, how many times will it revolve in running eight hundred million miles?’
I stare at him.
‘Bidder replied, at the age of nine, “Seven hundred and twenty-four billion, one hundred and fourteen million, two hundred and eighty-five thousand, seven hundred and four – with twenty inches remaining.” All done in his head, in fifty seconds. That is why they called him the Mozart of mathematics.’
‘What is a motesart?’
‘Heaven’s above, John! You’ll be asking me who Shakespeare was next.’
‘What is that round thing in that picture – above the train?’
‘What? Oh, in the engraving of the London and Birmingham Line?’ Father Harington lifts up the book. ‘That is a hot-air balloon.’
‘A what?’
‘A flying machine.’
‘With people in it?’
‘Yes.’
‘MEN CAN FLY?’ I shout in alarm.
I look out of the window. Even though I see no flying objects, my confidence that I understand this world lies suddenly in tatters. Past centuries of doubt troubled me, in that I did not know what people believed; but this is even more disturbing for I no longer know what is physically possible. Trains can sweep between cities two days apart in the space of an hour. Men can fly up into the sky. Oh Lord! If we had had balloons during the siege of Calais we would not have sweated for eleven months before those walls. Either the French would have attacked us from the sky, where our long-bows would have had little effect, or we would have flown over the walls of the citadel and dropped Greek fire on the defenders.
Eliza knocks and comes into the room. ‘Bath’s ready, Father Harington, as you asked, and the clothes all laid out.’
‘Thank you, Eliza.’ Then he says to me, ‘John, I’ll see you at lunch. I hope you enjoy your bath.’
I follow Eliza up the stairs to a room on the first floor. Every step of the way I stare at paintings, floor-tapestries, panelling and rich drapery. Even the dressing room is lavishly appointed, with a pale-green paint on the walls, edged around with a light brown. There are two large highly polished upright chests, one of which contains a number of garments on metal hanging frames. There is a painting of a young fair-haired knight kneeling and praying, earnestly looking up at a light from above an altar while an older knight looks on from the shadows. The centrepiece of the room is an elongated copper vat, with a curved lip all the way around. This is full of warm water, which steams gently in the cold morning air.
Eliza tours the room, pointing out everything I’ll need. ‘Towels are here,’ she says, pointing to a stand near the bath, ‘and soap, pumice stones and sponges. Lemon juice and lye, if you need them, and a flannel. There’s a looking glass, shaving soap and a razor, if you’re accustomed to shaving yourself; hairbrush; comb. Toothpowder, if you use it, and tooth cloths are by the sink in the corner. Clean clothes are on that table over there; your old ones can go in the buck basket beside it. I think that’s all. Enjoy your soak, Mister Offremont.’
When Eliza has gone I take off the coat I was given downstairs, shed the clothes I have been wearing for days, and stand naked in front of the looking glass. I look at the growth of hair on my chin and think of William. I decide to keep it, in his honour.
I turn and get into the bath tub, slowly, a
nd painfully. The scars on my back and my hand sting as I enter the warm water. Once in, I sit there, unmoving. I glance at the picture of the old knight watching the young one taking his vows. It is curious: I did not notice any knights in the streets of Exeter. But this does not look like a knight from my era. After a while I wonder if it is a modern reflection on a previous age – like someone trying to portray a scene from my own time, in the way that I carved kings and prophets from the Old Testament. Perhaps this new time of flying balloons and trains and everything travelling frighteningly fast and far has made people yearn for things from the past.
I wash myself as best as I can, using everything that looks as if it is intended to clean the body, and scrubbing myself all over, saving my back and my hand. When I have rinsed myself adequately I step out and towel myself down and set about inspecting the clothes. I wonder which goes on first. The decorative garment that men tie around their necks baffles me: how should I even begin to knot it? I leave that aside and wear the clothes that will keep me warm. I look at myself in the looking glass – unshaven, and lacking the neckpiece and hat, but otherwise, superficially, the complete man of eighteen forty-three.
