The Nine Tailors (7 page)

Lord Peter Wimsey, having seen the front axle of the Daimler taken down and decided that Mr. Brownlow and Mr. Wilderspin could probably fix it up between them, dispatched his message from the post-office, sent a wire to the friends who were expecting him at Walbeach, and then cast about him for some occupation. The village presented nothing of interest, so he determined to go and have a look at the church. The tolling of the bell had ceased and Hezekiah had gone home; the south door was, however, open, and entering, he discovered Mrs. Venables putting fresh water in the altar vases. Catching sight of him as he stood gazing at the exquisite oak tracery of the screen, she came forward to greet him.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? Theodore is so proud of his church. And he’s done a lot, since we’ve been here, to keep it looking nice. Fortunately the man before us was conscientious and did his repairs properly, but he was very Low and allowed all manner of things that quite shocked us. This beautiful chapel, for instance, would you
believe
that he allowed it to be used for furnace-coke? Of course, we had all that cleared out. Theodore would like a lady-altar here, but we’re afraid the parishioners would think it popish. Yes—it’s a magnificent window, isn’t it? Later than the rest, of course, but so fortunate that it’s kept its old glass. We were so afraid when the Zeppelins came over. You know, they dropped a bomb at Walbeach, only twenty miles off, and it might just as easily have been here. Isn’t the parclose lovely? Like lace, I always think. The tombs belong to the Gaudy family. They lived here up to Queen Elizabeth’s time, but they’ve all died out now. You’ll find the name on the Treble bell: GAUDE, GAUDY, DOMINI IN LAUDE. There used to be a chantry on the north side, corresponding to this: Abbot Thomas’ chantry, it was, and that’s his tomb. Batty Thomas is named after him—a corruption of ‘Abbot,’ of course. Some vandal in the nineteenth century tore down the screen behind the choir stalls to put the organ in. It’s a hideous thing, isn’t it? We put in a new set of pipes a few years ago, and now the bellows want enlarging. Poor Potty has his work cut out to keep the wind-chest filled when Miss Snoot is using the full organ. They all call him Potty Peake, but he’s not really potty, only a little lacking, you know. Of course, the angel roof is our great show-piece—I think myself it’s even lovelier than the ones at March or Needham Market, because it has all the original colouring. At least, we had it touched up here and there about twelve years back, but we didn’t add anything. It took ten years to persuade the churchwardens that we could put a little fresh gold-leaf on the angels without going straight over to Rome, but they’re proud of it now. We hope to do the chancel roof too, one day. All these ribs ought to be painted, you can still see traces of colour, and the bosses ought to be gilt. The east window is Theodore’s
bête noire.
That dreadful crude glass—about 1840, I think it is. Quite the worst period, Theodore says. The glass in the nave has all gone, of course—Cromwell’s men. Thank goodness they left part of the clerestory. I suppose it was rather a job to get up there. The pews are modern; Theodore got them done ten years ago. He’d have preferred chairs, but the congregation wouldn’t have liked it, being used to pews, and he had them copied from a nice old design that wasn’t too offensive. The old ones were terrible—like bathrooms—and there was a frightful gallery along both sides, blocking the aisle windows completely and ruining the look of the pillars. We had that taken down at the same time. It wasn’t needed, and the school-children
would
drop hymn-books and things on people’s heads. Now, the choir-stalls are different. They are the original monks’ stalls, with misereres. Isn’t the carving fine? There’s a piscina in the sanctuary, but not a very exciting one.”

Wimsey admitted that he was unable to feel great excitement about piscinas.

“And the altar-rails are very poor, of course—Victorian horrors. We want very much to put up something better in their place when we can find the money. I’m sorry I haven’t the key to the tower. You’d like to go up. It’s a wonderful view, though it’s all ladders above the ringing-chamber. It makes my head swim, especially going over the bells. I think bells are rather frightening, somehow. Oh, the font! You must look at the font. That carving is supposed to be quite remarkable. I forget exactly what it is that’s so special about it—stupid of me. Theodore must show you, but he’s been sent for in a hurry to take a sick woman off to hospital, right away on the other side of the Thirty-foot, across Thorpe’s Bridge. He rushed off almost before he’d finished his breakfast.”

(“And they say,” thought Wimsey, “that Church of England parsons do nothing for their money.”)

“Would you like to stay on and look round? Do you mind locking the door and bringing the key back? It’s Mr. Godfrey’s key—I can’t think where Theodore has put his bunch. It does seem wrong to keep the church locked, but it’s such a solitary place. We can’t keep an eye on it from the Rectory because of the shrubbery and there are sometimes very unpleasant-looking tramps about. I saw a most horrible man go past only the other day, and not so long ago someone broke open the alms-box. That wouldn’t have mattered so much, because there was very little in it, but they did a lot of wanton damage in the sanctuary—out of disappointment, I suppose, and one can’t really allow that, can one?”

Wimsey said, No, one couldn’t, and Yes, he would like to look round the church a little longer and would remember about the key. He spent the first few minutes after the good lady had left him in putting a suitable donation into the alms-box and in examining the font, whose carvings were certainly curious and, to his mind, suggestive of a symbolism neither altogether Christian nor altogether innocent. He noted a heavy old cope-chest beneath the tower, which, on being opened, proved to contain nothing more venerable than a quantity of worn bell-ropes, and passed on into the north aisle, noticing that the corbels supporting the principals of the angel-roof were very appropriately sculptured with cherubs’ heads. He brooded for a little time over the tomb of Abbot Thomas, with its robed and mitred effigy. A stern old boy, he thought, this fourteenth-century cleric, with his strong, harsh face, a ruler rather than a shepherd of his people. Carved panels decorated the sides of the tomb, and showed various scenes in the life of the abbey; one of them depicted the casting of a bell, no doubt of “Batty Thomas,” and it was evident that the Abbot had taken particular pride in his bell, for it appeared again, supporting his feet, in place of the usual cushion. Its decorations and mottoes were realistically rendered: on the shoulder: + NOLI + ESSE + INCREDVLVS + SED + Fidelis +; on the sound-bow: +
Abbat Thomas sett mee heare + and bad mee rings both lovd and cleer
+ 1380 +; and on the waist: O SANCTE THOMA, which inscription, being embellished with an abbot’s mitre, left the spectator in a pleasing uncertainty whether the sanctity was to be attributed to the Apostle or the ecclesiastic. It was as well that Abbot Thomas had died long before the spoliation of his house by King Henry. Thomas would have made a fight for it, and his church might have suffered in the process. His successor, douce man, had meekly acquiesced in the usurpation, leaving his abbey to moulder to decay, and his church to be purified peaceably by the reformers. So, at least, the Rector informed Wimsey over the shepherd’s pie at lunch.

It was only very reluctantly that the Venables consented to let their guest go; but Mr. Brownlow and Mr. Wilderspin between them had made such good progress on the car that it was ready for use by two o’clock, and Wimsey was anxious to press on to Walbeach before dusk set in. He started off, therefore, speeded by many handshakes and much earnest solicitation to come again soon and help to ring another peal. The Rector, at parting, thrust into his hands a copy of
Venables on the In and Out of Course,
while Mrs. Venables insisted on his drinking an amazingly powerful hot whisky-and-water, to keep the cold out. As the car turned right along the Thirty-foot Bank, Wimsey noticed that the wind had changed. It was hauling round to the south, and, though the snow still lay white and even over the Fen, there was a softness in the air.

“Thaw’s coming, Bunter.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Ever seen this part of the country when the floods are out?”

“No, my lord.”

“It looks pretty desolate; especially round about the Welney and Mepal Washes, when they let the waters out between the Old and New Bedford Rivers, and across the fen between Over and Earith Bridge. Acres of water, with just a bank running across it here and there or a broken line of willows. Hereabouts I think it’s rather more effectively drained. Ah! look—over to the right—that must be Van Leyden’s Sluice that turns the tide up the Thirty-foot Drain—Denver Sluice again on a smaller scale. Let’s look at the map. Yes, that’s it. See, here’s where the Drain joins the Wale, but it meets it at a higher level; if it wasn’t for the sluice, all the Drain water would turn back up the Wale and flood the whole place. Bad engineering—but the seventeenth-century engineers had to work piecemeal and take things as they found ’em. That’s the Wale, coming down through Potter’s Lode from Fenchurch St. Peter. I shouldn’t care for the sluice-keeper’s job—dashed lonely, I should think.”

They gazed at the ugly little brick house, which stood up quaintly on their right, like a pricked ear, between the two sides of the Sluice. On the one side a weir, with a small lock, spanned the Thirty-foot, where it ran into the Wale six feet above the course of the river. On the other, the upper course of the Wale itself was spanned by a sluice of five gates, which held the Upper Level waters from turning back up the river.

“Not another house within sight—oh, yes—one cottage about two miles further up the bank. Boo! Enough to make one drown one’s self in one’s own lock. Hullo! what happens to the road here? Oh, I see; over the Drain by the bridge and turn sharp right—then follow the river. I do wish everything wasn’t so rectangular in this part of the world. Hoops-a-daisy, over she goes! There’s the sluice-keeper running out to have a look at us. I expect we’re his great event of the day. Let’s wave our hats to him—Hullo’ullo! Cheerio!—I’m all for scattering sunshine as we pass. As Stevenson says, we shall pass this way but once—and I devoutly hope he’s right. Now then, what’s this fellow want?”

Along the bleak white road a solitary figure, plodding towards them, had stopped and extended both arms in appeal. Wimsey slowed the Daimler to a halt.

“Excuse me stopping you, sir,” said the man, civilly enough. “Would you be good enough to tell me if I’m going right for Fenchurch St. Paul?”

“Quite right. Cross the bridge when you come to it and follow the Drain along in the direction you are going till you come to the signpost. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you, sir. About how far would it be?”

“About five and a half miles to the signpost and then half a mile to the village.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“You’ve got a cold walk, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, sir—not a nice part of the country. However, I’ll be there before dark, that’s a comfort.”

He spoke rather low, and his voice had a faint London twang; his drab overcoat, though very shabby, was not ill-cut. He wore a short, dark, pointed beard and seemed to be about fifty years old, but kept his face down when talking as if evading close scrutiny.

“Like a fag?”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

Wimsey shook a few cigarettes out of his case and handed them over. The palm that opened to receive them was calloused, as though by heavy manual labour, but there was nothing of the countryman about the stranger’s manner or appearance.

“You don’t belong to these parts?”

“No. sir.”

“Looking for work?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Labourer?”

“No, sir. Motor mechanic.”

“Oh, I see. Well, good luck to you.”

“Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon.”

Wimsey drove on in silence for about half a mile. Then he said:

“Motor mechanic possibly, but not recently, I think. Stone-quarrying’s more about the size of it. You can always tell an old lag by his eyes, Bunter. Excellent idea to live down the past, and all that, but I hope our friend doesn’t put anything across the good Rector.”

A FULL PEAL OF GRANDSIRE TRIPLES

MR. GOTOBED IS CALLED WRONG WITH A DOUBLE

Thou shalt pronounce this hideous thing
With cross, and candle, and bell-knelling.

JOHN MYRC: Instructions for Parish Priests (15th century).

Spring and Easter came late together that year to Fenchurch St. Paul. In its own limited, austere and almost grudging fashion the Fen acknowledged the return of the sun. The floods withdrew from the pastures; the wheat lifted its pale green spears more sturdily from the black soil; the stiff thorns bordering dyke and grass verge budded to a softer outline; on the willows, the yellow catkins danced like little bell-rope sallies, and the silvery pussies plumped themselves for the children to carry to church on Palm Sunday; wherever the grim banks were hedge-sheltered, the shivering dog-violets huddled from the wind.

In the Rectory garden, the daffodils were (in every sense of the word) in full blow, for in the everlasting sweep and torment of wind that sweeps across East Anglia, they tossed desperately and madly. “My poor daffodils!” Mrs. Venables would exclaim, as the long leaf-tufts streamed over like blown water, and the golden trumpets kissed the ground, “this dreadful old wind! I don’t know how they stand it!” She felt both pride and remorse as she cut them—sound stock varieties, Emperor, Empress, Golden Spur—and took them away to fill the altar-vases and the two long, narrow, green-painted tin troughs that on Easter Sunday stood one on either side of the chancel screen. “The yellow looks so bright,” thought Mrs. Venables, as she tried to persuade the blossoms to stand upright among the glossy green of periwinkle and St. John’s Wort, “though it really seems a shame to sacrifice them.”