by Peg Kingman
As the chaise drew to a halt in the wide turning yard—plenty of room for turning teams and wagons—Constantia could hear drills and hammers. The neatly stepped cliff-face, rain-soaked, rose streaky grey to the grey sky: a gigantic staircase which dwarfed the tiny men who were blasting, shaving, chipping, and drilling shards off it. “I daresay he’ll stand,” said Hugh, handing her the reins as he got down. Indeed, the meager hired horse seemed only too glad to stop. Across the wide yard stood a laden wagon; a team of heavy horses was being backed into position before it by a couple of teamsters, probably Irish to judge by the oaths they swore at the horses. Another wagon, its wheels well-chocked, was positioned under a loading dock, and was being loaded by men who cautiously manoeuvred a large block of stone on stout timber rollers. The rattle of another vehicle driving in at an urgent pace made Hugh look about smartly—but it was only a wagon returning empty.
Someone recognised Hugh—hailed him—and fetched the foreman, a Frenchman who came forward to shake hands. They exchanged some quiet words, nearly out of earshot, and Constantia could hear little of what they said—but it struck her that there was no laughing or joking; they were quite serious. Hugh’s back was to her and she could not hear him, but she could make out this much, from the foreman: “Non, he is not about the line at all, these four or five days—non, tormenting his brother down on the Bordeaux line, on dit—unless it may be that he is having another tooth pulled from his head. Bien entendu, he may turn up at any moment, just when one supposes him at some safe distance.”
Between the two of them there was considerable gesturing and pointing—toward the rock face, toward the wagons, toward various distant places or persons unseen. They planted their feet wide apart, taking up a doughty stance, heads sagely nodding, then shaking, then nodding again. They crossed their brawny arms (it is familiar knowledge that quarrymen have brawny arms) across their chests. Then they ascended the steps beside the loading dock to inspect the stone blocks being loaded onto the wagon. Frowns; then the quick flash of a grin. Eventually there was a shaking of hands again in parting, and Hugh returned to Constantia and the chaise. Taking the reins from her, he started the horse once more, but said nothing until they had regained the main road and turned up to continue toward Barentin. “We’ve only to follow the ruts in the road,” he said then. “Warm enough, you and the wee lass?”
“Quite.”
“That’ll be our stone,” he said presently, as they drove past a small farmhouse and its outbuildings, all surrounded by a low wall, all in white stone. “From our quarry.”
“Is it? It looks ever so stout and reliable—to me, at least.”
“Aye, it’s handsome enough,” agreed Hugh. “And for this—mere field walls and the like—it will do very well. But some folks think they know better than others, merely because they have had the luck to grow very rich; and will not hear anything they don’t like. They esteem their own expertise much higher than is warranted. Consider themselves qualified to judge a stone, only because they have seen a stone before this. Now, what do you call that pretty white stone, my dear? Is it a good sound limestone, do you think? Will it harden properly, exposed to the atmosphere? Will it weather well? Can it bear a load? How great a load? Or do you count only how little it costs; and how quickly and easily it may be extracted? Do you let your judgment be corrupted by how conveniently near it lies to your works? Well; what do you say?”
“I? I say it is a white pretty stone; but dare not pronounce any more than that.”
“You show better judgment, then, than some highly-placed persons, who imagine themselves experts. It is white; and it is calcareous. But it is not truly limestone at all, not in the true sense—not in the stone-mason’s sense of the word. It is only chalk, indurated chalk: mere clunch. Somewhat hardened; harder than alabaster; it does not fracture or crumble instantly. It is suitable for, oh, decorative features, low farm walls, the facings of embankments, and the like. It is easily cut and carved; and it will harden, somewhat, eventually. Not nearly as soon as some people would like to suppose. Stone will not be hurried. Stone has all the time in the world. But indurated chalk is no more fit for piers—which must bear unimaginably heavy loads—no more fit for the piers, the footings of a railway viaduct—than—than is cheese! or blanc-mange! or hard-boiled eggs! And so I told Mackenzie.”
Presently they rounded a turn, and Constantia’s breath caught at the sight which now opened out before her. “Oh! Is this it? Is this Barentin?”
“It is,” said Hugh, and stopped the horse. The new viaduct was beautiful: twenty-seven very tall arches carried a long curved sweep of brick—an aerial wall of brick—across the entire wide valley. The stream of the Austreberthe, though rain-swollen, appeared now quite inconsiderable passing under it: dwarfed. The top of the viaduct was perfectly level, but the arches which supported it were of differing heights, depending on the uneven sloping river bank below—as though they were suspended from the level brick railbed, as though they reached down to the uneven river bank rather than upward from it. “A hundred feet high in the center,” Hugh said, unasked, like the housekeeper at Seaton Delaval. “And six hundred yards long.”
Abruptly he fell silent at the approach of a fashionable carriage. Constantia saw him scowling under the brim of his hat—until the calèche had rolled past without slowing, and its occupant was seen to be only an elderly French widow.
The massive footings beneath these high brick arches were built of large blocks of handsome white stone.
Atop the new-built viaduct, out near the middle of the span, men and machines could be seen at work on the railbed. “They’re laying ballast already,” said Hugh. “Laying an even bed of coarse rock, you see. Broken and angular, not rounded—so it cannot roll away, not even when the cars go pounding over it. That is the ballast. Atop that, they’ll lay the sleepers: big oak timbers laid crosswise. Then the iron rails go down atop the sleepers, held in place by spikes. Oh, terrible loads, terrible to think of! And yet, if properly constructed—of good sound stone—it does very well. They have come on rapidly, though; very rapidly indeed. In filthy weather too. I should very much like to get a closer look—just one of these piers, on this side, perhaps. One or two of them, at least. This track, I think, must lead down the bank. Certainly. Look, the tannery remains, in the very shadow of it! But the little farms and market gardens had all to be moved—”
Constantia felt uneasy at the height of the towers looming above her. So very high! And so very slim, in proportion to their height; as spare as a dragonfly.
From the doorway of the tannery a boy eyed their chaise; then he disappeared inside. As Hugh stepped down, the tanner himself came out, brandishing a measuring stick. “Voyons, I do not raise the false alarm, not I!” he declared vigorously to Hugh, in French. “As for myself, no doubt remains, for I have taken measurement! It widens, that first crack; and now others, several others show themselves also. It is vastly unfortunate that monsieur is so much behind his time, for it grows dark already, and it will be necessary to go quickly if monsieur is to view well these alarming developments.”
Perhaps he mistook Hugh for some official connected with the railway contractor or the government. Hugh did not correct him, but only replied mildly, also in French, “Cracks; this interests me; and I beg you will show them to me. Tell your boy to come and hold my horse.” As he followed the tanner down the bank to the nearest pier, Hugh threw Constantia a look over his shoulder which she took to mean, remain where you are. This she did, watching them from inside the chaise while Livia squirmed in her arms.
From the first pier she saw them proceed to a second, a third, and a fourth, well down the river bank. At each, the tanner gestured, and pointed, and waved his arms, and applied his measuring stick; and Hugh looked: up, down, all around the massy pale stone blocks of the piers. He picked up something from the ground, and examined it; and put it in his pocket.
Presently they returned, and Constantia could hear Hugh’s parting words
to the tanner: “I fear, monsieur, that you have mistaken me for another,” he said in French. “But I assure you, I am not from the Ministère de Ponts et Chaussées. Nor have I any connection with the English contractor. No, indeed, monsieur, none at all! I have no official powers, alas; and I never said that I had; only that I should be glad to see the cracks which you freely offered to show me. If you assumed that I was an official personage, the error is yours only, for I have said nothing to mislead you, nor to misrepresent myself. I am a mason, however—je suis maçon—I have worked stone all my life—and as a mason, I tell you, gratis, that this viaduct is unsound, and unsafe; and in your place—well! in your place, monsieur, I should betake me to any other place! Any place but this! If I were you, I should no more lay me down to sleep under this viaduct than I would sleep across the iron rails of the railway line. It will come tumbling down; it is only a matter of time. If not tonight, then perhaps tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then perhaps by Easter; if not this Easter, perhaps by next Easter, or Easter three years hence. I urge you to remove yourself and your household and your goods immediately. I would not sleep here for a single night. I would permit neither my wife nor my child to set foot under its shadow.” At this, he drew back the side curtain of the chaise—and the tanner, seeing actual wife and actual child, was convinced at last that this was no official visit, and Hugh no official personage; and reluctantly permitted them to drive off.
“Not only is the stone unfit—every bit as bad as I told Mackenzie—but the mortar is infamous. Infamous! I mean the mortar of the brickwork, the brick arches springing from atop the piers. Look: I picked up some mortar that was dropped, spilt, during the construction of the arch, two months since. Two full months, mind you. It is not much better than wet sand; and is not fully set even now, after two months! I daresay they have used local common lime mortar, not hydraulic. They ought certainly to have used hydraulic; there can be no excuse for doing otherwise, particularly in so wet a season as this has been. And onto this—this incompetent structure they even now are loading ballast!”
From Barentin to Rouen the old road ran near the new railway line, and Hugh brooded all during the twelve-mile drive. In the dusk Constantia could see from time to time the signs in his face of remembered or imaginary rows and arguments, revisited, rehearsed, revised: the lowering brow, the flash of the eye, the twitch of the lips, the tightening of the jaw. He inspected other approaching carriages with suspicion; and, when another carriage halted near where they had stopped by the opening of the Pissy-Pôville tunnel, he drove on quickly. It was full dark when they came to Malaunay, but he stopped once more, long enough to walk down the embankment to examine in darkness the piers of the new-built viaduct there.
What is limestone? It is the skeletal remains of dead creatures; of corals and shelled creatures. It is their armatures of calcium, the vestiges of their carapaces, ground to sand, to dust, to powder; washed down and down, bedded at last in the deeps under the sea; there pressed so heavy, so hot, so hard, so long, that these crumbled skeletons form—stone. Young and lightly-pressed, it is mere chalk, crumbling. Pressed hard, long, and hot enough, it is transformed into obdurate marble. Just right, it is limestone, a most beautiful and useful stone, in shades of white and ivory, cream and gold. It is sweet and easy to cut, when first brought to light, first exposed to air; sweet to work, yielding to drill, submissive to chisel. It does not harden until it has been exposed to air and sunlight, above-ground; then it becomes durable. That is limestone.
What is limestone when it has been burnt, then ground? It becomes lime: thirsty. Then, slaked, it may become mortar, grout, stucco; or Roman cement, British cement, Portland cement. Constituted and reconstituted. The same material—the earth itself—is used again and again. Ground to dust, washed down into the bottom of the sea, there to be pressed, over long eons, into new stone; eons later, raised up once more, as fresh-made mountains, up and up; once again to be ground to dust, and washed down. Over and over. There is nothing else but what is here, and has ever been here. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Raised up briefly—a flash of magnificence, of glorious temporary animation, an instant of life—then extinguished again, for long ages and epochs. Extinct. But still here. Where else would it be?
The lighted streets of Rouen, at last.
Captain St Clair’s lugger had already arrived. Hugh recognised it tied up at one of the old stone quays below the new bridge. As soon as Constantia and Livia were installed at the Hôtel D’Angleterre, Hugh went out again to meet him and commence arrangements for transferring his crates from the lugger onto a péniche, one of the cargo barges which plied the river up to Paris. It was late when he returned—to urge that Constantia and Livia should travel up to Paris without him on the new Paris-Rouen railway, by the next morning’s eight o’clock train: “You will arrive by noon! Ease and comfort all the way! Do, my dear; the cost is not much; and I may be delayed here for some time, arranging for the transfer and the carriage of my Useless Rubble. Then, you know, the accommodations aboard a péniche are scarcely better than you might find on a tinker’s caravan. And I’m told that the upriver passage has been prodigious slow—two days, or even more, due to flooding and backed-up traffic.”
But Constantia refused. She could not bring herself, after so long a separation, and so joyous a reunion, to leave her husband again so soon, not even for the sake of a quick and comfortable journey up to Paris.
Her decision seemed ratified, all the next day, by the easy success which they enjoyed at every turn. Hugh’s inquiries led him straightaway to the captain of a good steam tug towing a six-barge train, nearly ready for departure. By some stroke of fortune, there remained on the last péniche of this train not only sufficient deck space to accommodate Hugh’s precious crates of Useless Rubble—but also a vacant cabin for the comfort of his wife and child. By one o’clock, all these had been brought aboard without the slightest mishap, and their passage up the Seine’s locks and weirs began that same afternoon: January 8th.
Constantia thought, upon surveying the péniche’s tiny cabin, that if tinkers lived so comfortably as this, they were to be envied. There was a little coal-stove for warmth; and plenty of coal. There was a kettle and a packet of tea. There was a snug double berth, and one chair, and a lamp on a gimbal mount. From a beam hung a cage containing a pair of finches, which sang. “They belonged to my sister,” said the bargeman who owned this péniche, as well as the two others which preceded it in the train. “Belgian buffs. Cover the cage if you want silence. My wife can’t bear them.” He and his wife and their old fat dog had accommodations on the preceding péniche.
The unremitting rains of the preceding days and weeks had swollen the Seine so remarkably that in some places the river was too high for taller watercraft to pass under the arches of its bridges. Barges, low and flat, could pass downriver on the rapid current, but some of the taller steam tugs that towed them upriver again could not, and anything with masts had to laboriously ship them at every bridge, and then raise them again. All in all, river traffic was a mess.
Ma foi! cried the bargeman to his wife, whenever there was a delay. Or was it mon foie? wondered Constantia. Was it his faith by which he swore, or his liver? Faith, ah; that is a matter for debate . . . but the liver, now, ça, c’est serieux! How odd the French are, thought Constantia. How unaccountable! It is a profound seriousness that they lavish upon frivolities and trifles.
Or perhaps not. Everyone must eat. The bargeman sent back a jar of wine and a cabbage; and lent Hugh a line with hooks, whereby he caught supper: a couple of bream.
For some hours during the night the train of barges lay stalled in the darkness—something to do with a queue ahead where a too-high steam tug had earlier jammed itself under the too-low arch of a bridge—but Constantia and Hugh and Livia dozed, slept, and dozed again, not much worse than usual.
Constantia awakened to daylight and a stench. Leaving Livia and Hugh still asleep in the narrow berth, she emerged onto the cargo deck as t
he sun rose above the mist. The stink was more vile still. No somnolent fishermen, no red-armed washerwomen were evident along these banks, where the river was so foul. She knew the reason, and could not help waiting to see the horror itself as they finally came abreast of it, and passed it: the sewer outfall at Asnières. A black torrent, a ceaseless vomit, a Styx, a Roman cloaca, the anus of all Paris. Whose fault was this? Whose fault, that all living creatures must piss, must shit? To fail in this is to die.
Above Asnières, the Seine was a river once more, the water smelling as it ought. Fishermen and washerwomen reappeared along the banks. When Constantia went below again, Hugh and Livia were awake. Constantia changed Livia’s clooties—and then rinsed the soiled ones over the side, in the green water of the river.
There was a great deal to see along the embankment. It was like viewing a wintry panorama contrived by monsieur Daguerre; like a pretty scenic wallpaper installed by some expensive marchand-mercier. Here were the charming villas, gardens, and promenades of Neuilly, populated by elegant loiterers well wrapped in furs against the chill, and quaint peasants, and bucolic cows. Presently the Bois de Boulogne passed slowly on their left; and then St Cloud to the right, with its pretty church. Later, at Sèvres, the top of the palace which housed the celebrated porcelain works, under the direction of Monsieur Brongniart, could be seen; nothing at all like the muddy potteries of the English Midlands. Slowly they left behind the Île Seguin, slowly rounded the last long curve to the left—and finally, as the winter sun set, too early, behind them again, approached Paris itself: handsome bridges; well-built stone quais. To their left drifted the Tuileries, and then the Louvre; presently the towers of Notre-Dame loomed up in the dusk; and finally, just at full dark, they tied up at the quai of the Halles aux Vins, just below the Pont d’Austerlitz; just below the Muséum and the Jardin des Plantes.