Wimsey 009 - The Nine Tailors Read online

  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.”

  “Labour
er?”

  “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.”

  II.

  A FULL PEAL OF GRANDSIRE TRIPLES

  (Holt’s Ten-Part Peal)

  5040

  By the Part Ends

  First Half

  246375

  267453

  275634

  253746

  235476

  Second Half

  257364

  276543

  264735

  243657

  234567

  2nd the Observation.

  Call her:

  1st Half) Out of the hunt, middle, in and out at 5, right, middle, wrong, right, middle and into the hunt (4 times repeated).

  2nd Half) Out of the hunt, wrong, right, middle, wrong, right, in and out at 5, wrong and into the hunt (4 times repeated).

  The last call in each half is a single; Holt’s Single must be used in ringing this peal.

  THE FIRST PART

  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.”

  She knelt before the screen on a long red cushion, borrowed from a pew-seat to protect her “bones” from the chill of the stone floor. The four brass altar-vases stood close beside her, in company with a trug full of flowers and a watering-can. Had she tried to fill them at the Rectory and carry them over, the sou’-wester would have blown them into ruin before she had so much as crossed the road. “Tiresome things!” muttered Mrs. Venables, as the daffodils flopped sideways, or slid down helplessly out of sight into the bottom of the trough. She sat up on her heels and reviewed her work, and then turned, hearing a step behind her.

  A red-haired girl of fifteen, dressed in black, had come in, bearing a large sheaf of pheasant-eye narcissi. She was tall and thin and rather gawky, though with promise of becoming some day a striking-looking woman.

  “Are these any use to you, Mrs. Venables? Johnson’s trying to get the arums along, but the wind’s so terrific, he’s afraid they’ll be broken all to bits in the barrow. I think he’ll have to pack them into the car, and drive them down in state.”

  “My dear Hilary, how kind of you! Yes, indeed—I can do with all the white flowers I can get. These are beautiful, and what a delicious scent! Dear things! I thought of having some of our plants stood along there in front of Abbot Thomas, with some tall vases among them. And the same on the other side under old Gaudy. But I am not”—here she became very much determined—“I am not going to tie bunches of greenery on to the font and the pulpit this year. They can have that at Christmas and Harvest Festival, if they like, but at Easter it’s unsuitable and absurd, and now that old Miss Mallow’s gone, poor dear, there’s no need to go on with it.”

  “I hate Harvest Festivals. It’s a shame to hide up all this lovely carving with spiky bits of corn and vegetable marrows and things.”

  “So it is, but the village people like it, you know. Harvest Festival is their festival, Theodore always says. I suppose it’s wrong that it should mean so much more to them than the Church seasons, but it’s natural. It was much worse when we came here—before you were born or thought of, you know. They actually used to drive spikes into the pillars to hold up wreaths of evergreens. Quite wicked. Just thoughtlessness, of course. And at Christmas they had horrible texts all across the screens and along that abominable old gallery—done in cotton-wool on red flannel. Disgusting, dirty old things. We found a great bundle of them in the vestry when we came here, full of moths and mice. The Rector put his foot down about that.”

  “And I suppose half the people went over to the Chapel.”

  “No, dear—only two families, and one of them has come back since—the Wallaces, you know, because they had some sort of dispute with the Minister about their Good Friday beanfeast. Something to do with the tea-urns, but I forget what. Mrs. Wallace is a funny woman; she takes offence rather easily, but so far—touch wood”—(Mrs. Venables performed this ancient pagan rite placidly on the oak of the screen)—“so far, I’ve managed to work in quite smoothly with her over the Women’s Institute. I wonder if you’d just step back a little way and tell me if these two sides match.”

  “You want a few more daffs on the decani side, Mrs. Venables.”

  “Here? Thank you, dear. Is that better? Well, I think it will have to do. Oo-oh! my poor old bones! Yes, it’ll pass in a crowd with a push, as they say. Oh, here’s Hinkins with the aspidistras. People may say what they like about aspidistras, but they do go on all the year round and make a background. That’s right, Hinkins. Six in front of this tomb and six the other side—and have you brought those big pickle-jars? They’ll do splendidly for the narcissi, and the aspidistras will hide the jars and we can put some ivy in front of the pots. Hinkins, you might fill up my watering-can. How is your father to-day, Hilary? Better, I hope.”

  “I’m afraid he isn’t any better, Mrs. Venables. Doctor Baines is very much afraid he won’t get over it. Poor old Dad!”

  “Oh, my dear! I’m terribly sorry. This has been a dreadful time for you. I’m afraid the shock of your dear mother’s death coming so suddenly was too much for him.”

  The girl nodded.

  “We’ll hope and pray it isn’t as bad as the doctor thinks. Dr. Baines always takes a pessimistic view of everything. I expect that’s why he’s only a country practitioner, because I think he’s really very clever; but patients do like a doctor to be cheerful. Why don’t you get a second opinion?”

  “We’re going to. There’s a man called Hordell coming down on Tuesday. Dr. Baines tried to get him to-day, but he’s away for Easter.”

  “Doctors oughtn’t to go away,” said Mrs. Venables, rather uncharitably. The Rector never took holidays at the greater festivals, and scarcely ever at any other time, and she could not quite see that there was any necessity for the rest of the world to do so.