The Nine Tailors (3 page)

“Nowhere, nowadays; but when I was a boy I used to ring at Duke’s Denver, and when I go home at Christmas and so on, I occasionally lay hand to a rope even now.”

“Duke’s Denver? Of course—St. John ad-Portam-Latinam—a beautiful little church; I know it quite well. But I think you will admit that our bells are finer. Well, now, if you will excuse me, I will just run and put the dining-room in readiness for our practice.”

He bustled away.

“It is very good of you to indulge my husband’s hobby,” said Mrs. Venables; “this occasion has meant so much to him, and he has had so many disappointments about it. But it seems dreadful to offer you hospitality and then keep you hard at work all night.”

Wimsey again assured her that the pleasure was entirely his.

“I shall insist on your getting a few hours’ rest at least,” was all Mrs. Venables could say. “Will you come up now and see your room? You will like a wash and brush-up at any rate. We will have supper at 7.30, if we can get my husband to release you by then, and after that, you really must go and lie down for a nap. I have put you in here—I see your man has everything ready for you.”

“Well, Bunter,” said Wimsey, when Mrs. Venables had departed, leaving him to make himself presentable by the inadequate light of a small oil-lamp and a candle, “that looks a nice bed—but I am not fated to sleep in it.”

“So I understand from the young woman, my lord.”

“It’s a pity you can’t relieve me at the rope, Bunter.”

“I assure your lordship that for the first time in my existence I regret that I have made no practical study of campanology.”

“I am always so delighted to find that there are things you cannot do. Did you ever try?”

“Once only, my lord, and on that occasion an accident was only narrowly averted. Owing to my unfortunate lack of manual dexterity I was very nearly hanged in the rope, my lord.”

“That’s enough about hanging,” said Wimsey, peevishly. “We’re not detecting now, and I don’t want to talk shop.”

“Certainly not, my lord. Does your lordship desire to be shaved?”

“Yes—let’s start the New Year with a clean face.”

“Very good, my lord.”

* * *

Descending, clean and shaven, to the dining-room, Wimsey found the table moved aside and eight chairs set in a circle. On seven of the chairs sat seven men, varying in age from a gnarled old gnome with a long beard to an embarrassed youth with his hair plastered into a cowlick; in the centre, the Rector stood twittering like an amiable magician.

“Ah! there you are! Splendid! excellent! Now, lads, this is Lord Peter Wimsey, who has been providentially sent to assist us out of our difficulty. He tells me he is a little out of practice, so I am sure you will not mind putting in a little time to enable him to get his hand in again. Now I must introduce you all. Lord Peter, this is Hezekiah Lavender, who has pulled the Tenor for sixty years and means to pull it for twenty years longer, don’t you, Hezekiah?”

The little gnarled man grinned toothlessly and extended a knobby hand.

“Proud to meet you, my lord. Yes, I’ve pulled old Tailor Paul a mort o’ times now. Her and me’s well acquainted, and I means to go on a-pulling of her till she rings the nine tailors for me, that I do.”

“I hope you will long be spared to do it, Mr. Lavender.”

“Ezra Wilderspin,” went on the Rector. “He’s our biggest man, and he pulls the smallest bell. That’s often the way of things, isn’t it? He is our blacksmith, by the way, and has promised to get your car put right for you in the morning.”

The blacksmith laughed sheepishly, engulfed Wimsey’s fingers in an enormous hand and retired to his chair in some confusion.

“Jack Godfrey,” continued the Rector. “Number Seven. How’s Batty Thomas going now, Jack?”

“Going fine, thank you, sir, since we had them new gudgeons put in.”

“Jack has the honour of ringing the oldest bell we have,” added the Rector. “Batty Thomas was cast in 1338 by Thomas Belleyetere of Lynn; but she gets her name from Abbot Thomas who re-cast her in 1380—doesn’t she, Jack?”

“So she do, sir,” agreed Mr. Godfrey. Bells, it may be noted, like ships and kittens, have a way of being female, whatever names they are given.

“Mr. Donnington, the landlord of the Red Cow, our churchwarden,” went on the Rector, bringing forward a long, thin man with a squint. “I ought to have mentioned him first of all, by right of his office, but then, you see, though he himself is very distinguished, his bell is not so ancient as Tailor Paul or Batty Thomas. He takes charge of Number Six—Dimity, we call her—a comparative new-comer in her present shape, though her metal is old.”

“And a sweeter bell we haven’t got in the ring,” averred Mr. Donnington, stoutly. “Pleased to meet you, my lord.”

“Joe Hinkins, my gardener. You have already met, I think. He pulls Number Five. Harry Gotobed, Number Four; our sexton, and what better name could a sexton have? And Walter Pratt—our youngest recruit, who is going to ring Number Three and do it very well indeed. So glad you were able to get here in time, Walter. That’s all of us. You, Lord Peter, will take poor William Thoday’s bell. Number Two. She and Number Five were recast in the same year as Dimity—the year of the old Queen’s Jubilee; her name is Sabaoth. Now, let’s get to work. Here is your handbell; come and sit next to Walter Pratt. Our good old friend Hezekiah will be the conductor, and you’ll find he can sing out his calls as loud and clear as the bells, for all he’s seventy-five years past. Can’t you, Grand-dad?”

“Ay, that I can,” cried the old man, cheerfully. “Now, boys, if you be ready, we’ll ring a little touch of 96, just to put this gentleman in the way of it, like. You’ll remember, my lord, that you starts by making the first snapping lead with the treble and after that you goes into the slow hunt till she comes down to snap with you again.”

“Right you are,” said Wimsey. “And after that I make the thirds and fourths.”

“That’s so, my lord. And then it’s three steps forward and one step back till you lay the blows behind.”

“Carry on, sergeant major.”

The old man nodded, adding: “And you, Wally Pratt, mind what you’re about, and don’t go a-follerin’ your course bell beyond thirds place. I’ve tolled yew about that time and again. Now, are you ready, lads—go!”

* * *

The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully-tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations. When he speaks of the music of his bells, he does not mean musicians’ music—still less what the ordinary man calls music. To the ordinary man, in fact, the pealing of bells is a monotonous jangle and a nuisance, tolerable only when mitigated by remote distance and sentimental association. The change-ringer does, indeed, distinguish musical differences between one method of producing his permutations and another; he avers, for instance, that where the hinder bells run 7, 5, 6, or 5, 6, 7, or 5, 7; 6, the music is always prettier, and can detect and approve, where they occur, the consecutive fifths of Tittums and the cascading thirds of the Queen’s change. But what he really means is, that by the English method of ringing with rope and wheel, each several bell gives forth her fullest and her noblest note. His passion—and it is a passion—finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed. To any disinterested spectator, peeping in upon the rehearsal, there might have been something a little absurd about the eight absorbed faces; the eight tense bodies poised in a spellbound circle on the edges of eight dining-room chairs; the eight upraised right hands, decorously wagging the handbells upward and downward; but to the performers, everything was serious and important as an afternoon with the Australians at Lord’s.

Mr. Hezekiah Lavender having called three successive bobs, the bells came back into rounds without mishap.

“Excellent,” said the Rector. “You made no mistake about that.”

“All right, so far,” said Wimsey.

“The gentleman will do well enough,” agreed Mr. Lavender. “Now, boys, once again. What ’ull we make it this time, sir?”

“Make it a 704,” said the Rector, consulting his watch. “Call her in the middle with a double, before, wrong and home, and repeat.”

“Right you are, sir. And you, Wally Pratt, keep your ears open for the treble and your eyes on your course bell, and don’t go gapin’ about or you’ll have us all imbrangled.”

The unfortunate Pratt wiped his forehead, curled his boots tightly round the legs of his chair, and took a firm hold of his bell. Whether out of nervousness or for some other cause, he found himself in trouble at the beginning of the seventh lead, “imbrangled” himself and his neighbours very successfully and broke into a severe perspiration. “Stand!” growled Mr. Lavender, in a disgusted tone. “If that’s the way you mean to set about it, Wally Pratt, we may just so well give up the ringing of this here peal. Surely you know by this time what to do at a bob?”

“Come, come,” said the Rector. “you musn’t be disheartened, Wally. Try again. You forgot to make the double dodge in 7, 8, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Forgot!” exclaimed Mr. Lavender, waggling his beard. “Now, just yew take example by his lordship here.
He
didn’t go forgettin’ things, none the more for being’ out o’ practice.”

“Come, come, Hezekiah,” cried the Rector again. “You mustn’t be hard on Wally. We haven’t all had sixty years’ experience.”

Mr. Lavender grunted, and started the whole touch again from the beginning. This time Mr. Pratt kept his head and his place and the ringing went successfully through to its conclusion.

“Well rung all,” cried the Rector. “Our new recruit will do us credit, I think, Hezekiah?”

“I almost fell down in the second lead, though,” said Wimsey, laughing. “I as nearly as possible forgot to lay the four blows in fourths place at the bob. However, nearly isn’t quite.”

“You’ll keep your place all right, my lord,” said Mr.’ Lavender. “As for you, Wally Pratt—”

“I think,” said the Rector, hastily, “we’d better run across to the church now and let Lord Peter get the feel of his bell. You may as well all come over and ring the bells up for service. And, Jack, see to it that Lord Peter’s rope is made comfortable for him. Jack Godfrey takes charge of the bells and ropes,” he added in explanation, “and keeps them in apple-pie order for us.”

Mr. Godfrey smiled.

“We’ll need to let the tuckings down a goodish bit for his lordship,” he observed, measuring Wimsey with his eye; “he’s none so tall as Will Thoday, not by a long chalk.”

“Never you mind,” said Wimsey. “In the words of the old bell-motto: I’d have it to be understood that though I’m little, yet I’m good.”

“Of course,” said the Rector, “Jack didn’t mean anything else. But Will Thoday is a very tall man indeed. Now where did I put my hat? Agnes, my dear! Agnes! I can’t find my hat. Oh, here, to be sure. And my muffler—I’m so much obliged to you. Now, let me just get the key of the belfry and we—dear me, now! When did I have that key last?”

“It’s all right, sir,” said Mr. Godfrey. “I have all the keys here, sir.”

“The church-key as well?”

“Yes, sir, and the key of the bell-chamber.”

“Oh, good, good—excellent. Lord Peter will like to go up into the bell-chamber. To my mind, Lord Peter, the sight of a ring of good bells—I beg your pardon, my dear?”

“I said, Do remember dinner-time, and don’t keep poor Lord Peter too long.”

“No, no, my dear, certainly not. But he will like to look at the bells. And the church itself is worth seeing. Lord Peter. We have a very interesting twelfth-century font, and the roof is considered to be one of the finest specimens—yes, yes, my dear, we’re just going.”

The hall-door was opened upon a glimmering world. The snow was still falling fast; even the footprints made less than an hour earlier by the ringers were almost obliterated. They straggled down the drive and crossed the road. Ahead of them, the great bulk of the church loomed dark and gigantic. Mr. Godfrey led the way with an old-fashioned lantern through the lych-gate and along a path bordered with tombstones to the south door of the church, which he opened, with a groaning of the heavy lock. A powerful ecclesiastical odour, compounded of ancient wood, varnish, dry rot, hassocks, hymnbooks, paraffin lamps, flowers and candles, all gently baking in the warmth of slow-combustion stoves, billowed out from the interior. The tiny ray of the lantern picked out here the poppy-head on a pew, here the angle of a stone pillar, here the gleam of brass from a mural tablet. Their footsteps echoed queerly in the great height of the clerestory.

“All Transitional here,” whispered the Rector, “except the Late Perpendicular window at the end of the north aisle, which of course you can’t see. Nothing is left of the original Norman foundation but a couple of drums at the base of the chancel arch, but you can trace the remains of the Norman apse, if you look for it, underneath the Early English sanctuary. When we have more light, you will notice—Oh, yes, Jack, yes, by all means. Jack Godfrey is quite right, Lord Peter—we must not waste time. I am apt to be led away by my enthusiasm.”

He conducted his guest westwards under the tower arch, and thence, in the wake of Jack Godfrey’s lantern, up a steep and winding belfry stair, its stone treads worn shallow with the feet of countless long-dead ringers. After a turn or so, the procession halted; there was a jingling of keys and the lantern moved away to the right through a narrow door. Wimsey, following, found himself in the ringing chamber of the belfry.

It was in no way remarkable, except in being perhaps a little loftier than the average, on account of the exceptional height of the tower. By daylight, it was well lit, having a fine window of three lights on each of its three exterior sides, while low down in the eastern wall, a couple of unglazed openings, defended by iron bars against accident, gave upon the interior of the church, a little above the level of the clerestory windows. As Jack Godfrey set the lantern on the floor, and proceeded to light a paraffin lamp which hung against the wall, Wimsey could see the eight bellropes, their woollen sallies looped neatly to the walls, and their upper ends vanishing mysteriously into the shadows of the chamber roof. Then the light streamed out and the walls took shape and colour. They were plainly plastered, with a painted motto in Gothic lettering running round below the windows: “They Have Neither Speech nor Language but their Voices are Heard Among Them, their Sound is Gone Forth into All Lands.” Above this, various tablets of wood, brass and even stone, commemorated the ringing of remarkable peals in the past.