Mr Winstanley said to David, "I am greatly intrigued by Mr Brightwind's proposal of building the bridge in one night. Is it to be an iron bridge, I wonder? I believe that someone has recently built an iron bridge in Shropshire. Quite astonishing. Perhaps an iron bridge can be erected very quickly. Or a wooden bridge? There is a wooden bridge at Cambridge…"
Just then Lucy appeared, white-faced and frightened.
"Oh, there you are!" said Mr Winstanley. "Where is your mistress?"
"What is the matter, Lucy?" asked David. "What in the world has happened to you?"
"Oh, sir!" cried Lucy. "I ran up the high street to find my mistress, but when I reached the gate of the house two lions came out and roared at me!"
"Lions?" said David.
"Yes, sir! They were running about beneath my feet and snapping at me with their sharp teeth. I thought that if they did not bite me to death they were sure to trip me up!"
"What nonsense this is!" cried Mr Winstanley. "There are no lions in Thoresby. If your mistress chuses to absent herself from tonight's proceedings then that is her concern. Though frankly I am not at all pleased at her behaviour. This is, after all, probably the most important event in Thoresby's history." He walked off.
"Lucy, how big were these lions?" asked David.
"A little larger than a spaniel, I suppose."
"Well, that is most odd. Lions are generally larger than that. Are you quite sure…"
"Oh! What does it matter what size the horrible creatures had grown to?" cried Lucy impatiently. "They had teeth enough and snarls enough for animals thrice the size! And so, Lord forgive me! I was frightened and I ran away! And supposing my poor mistress should come out of the house and the lions jump up at her! Supposing she does not see them in the dark until it is too late!" She began to cry.
"Hush, child," said David. "Do not fret. I will go and find your mistress."
"But it was not just the lions," said Lucy. "The whole town is peculiar. There are flowers everywhere and all the birds are singing."
David went out of the inn by the front door and immediately struck his head against something. It was a branch. There was a tree which stood next to The Wheel of Fortune. In the morning it had been of a reasonable size, but it had suddenly grown so large that most of the inn was hidden from sight.
"That's odd!" thought David.
The tree was heavy with apples.
"Apples in June," thought David. "That's odder still!"
He looked again.
"Apples on a horse-chestnut tree! That's oddest of all!"
In the moonlight David saw that Thoresby had become very peculiar indeed. Figs nestled among the leaves of beech-trees. Elder-trees were bowed down with pomegranates. Ivy was almost torn from walls by the weight of ripe blackberries growing upon it. Any thing which had ever possessed any sort of life had sprung into fruitfulness. Ancient, dried-up window frames had become swollen with sap and were putting out twigs, leaves, blossoms and fruit. Door-frames and doors were so distorted that bricks had been pushed out of place and some houses were in danger of collapsing altogether. The cart in the middle of the high street was a grove of silver birches. Its broken wheels put forth briar roses and nightingales sang on it.
"What in the world is Tom doing?" wondered David.
He reached Mickelgrave House and two very small lions trotted out of the gate. In the moonlight they looked more stony than ever.
"I assume," thought David, "that, as these lions are of Tom's creating, they will not harm me."
The lions opened their mouths and a rather horrible sound issued forth – not unlike blocks of marble being rent in pieces. David took a step or two towards the house. Both lions leapt at him, snarling and snapping and snatching at the air with their stone claws.
David turned and ran. As he reached The Wheel of Fortune he heard the clock strike midnight.
Eighty miles away in Cambridge an undergraduate awoke from a dream. The undergraduate (whose name was Henry Cornelius) tried to go back to sleep again, but discovered that the dream (which was of a bridge) had somehow got lodged in his head. He got out of bed, lit his candle, and sat down at a table. He tried to draw the bridge, but he could not get it exactly (though he knew he had seen it somewhere quite recently).
So he put on his breeches, boots and coat and went out into the night to think. He had not gone far when he saw a very odd sight. Edward Jackson, the bookseller, was standing in the doorway of his shop in his nightgown. There was no respectable grey wig on his head, but only a greasy old nightcap. He held a quarto volume in one hand and a brass candlestick in the other.
"Here!" he said the moment he clapped eyes upon Henry Cornelius. "This is what you are looking for!" And he pushed the book into Cornelius's hands. Cornelius was surprized because he owed Jackson money and Jackson had sworn never to let him have another book.
The moon was so bright that Cornelius was able very easily to begin examining his book. After a while he glanced up and found he was looking into the stable-yard of an inn. There, in a shaft of moonlight, was Jupiter, the handsomest and fastest horse in Cambridge. Jupiter was saddled and ready, and seemed to wait patiently for someone. So, without giving any further consideration to the matter, Cornelius got upon his back. Jupiter galloped away.
Cornelius sat calmly turning the pages of his book. Indeed so absorbed was he in what he found there, that he did not pay a great deal of attention to the journey. Once he looked down and saw complicated patterns of silver and blue etched on the dark ground. At first he supposed them to be made by the frost, but then it occurred to him that the month was June and the air was warm. Besides the patterns more resembled moonlit fields and farms and woods and lanes seen from very high up and very far away. But, whatever the truth of it, it did not seem to be of any great importance and so he continued to examine his book. Jupiter sped on beneath the moon and the stars and his hooves made no sound whatsoever.
"Oh! Here it is," said Cornelius once.
And then, "I see."
And a little later, "But it will take a great deal of stone!"
A few minutes later Cornelius and Jupiter stood upon the riverbank opposite Thoresby.
"So!" said Cornelius softly. "Just as I supposed! It is not built yet.
The scene before Cornelius was one of the most frantic industry imaginable. Massive timbers and blocks of stones lay strewn about on the bank and teams of horses were bringing more every minute. There were workmen everywhere one looked. Some drove or pulled the horses. Others shouted orders. Yet more brought lights and stuck them in the trees. What was very extraordinary about these men was that they were dressed in the oddest assortment of nightgowns, coats, breeches, nightcaps and hats. One fellow had been in such a hurry to get to Thoresby that he had put his wife's gown and bonnet on, but he hitched up his skirts and carried on regardless.
Amidst all this activity two men were standing still, deep in conversation. "Are you the architect?" cried one of them, striding up to Cornelius. "My name is John Alfreton, master mason of Nottingham. This is Mr Wakeley, a very famous engineer. We have been waiting for you to come and tell us what we are to build."
"I have it here," said Cornelius, shewing them the book (which was Giambattista Piranesi's Carceri d'Invenzione).
"Oh! It's a prison, is it?"
"No, it is only the bridge that is needed," said Cornelius, pointing to a massive bridge lodged within a dreary prison. He looked up and suddenly caught sight of an eerie, silent crowd on the opposite bank. "Who are all those people?" he asked.
Mr Alfreton shrugged. "Whenever industrious folk have work to do, idle folk are sure to gather round to watch them. You will find it best, sir, to pay them no attention."
By one o'clock a huge mass of wooden scaffolding filled the river. The scaffolding was stuffed full of torches, lanterns and candles and cast a strange, flickering light over the houses of Thoresby and the watching crowd. It was as if a firefly the size of St Paul 's cathedral had sat down n
ext to the town.
By two o'clock Henry Cornelius was in despair. The river was not deep enough to accommodate Piranesi's bridge. He could not build as high as he wished. But Mr Alfreton, the master mason, was unconcerned. "Do not vex yourself, sir," he said. "Mr Wakeley is going to make some adjustments."
Mr Wakeley stood a few paces off. His wig was pushed over to one side so that he might more conveniently scratch his head and he scribbled frantically in a little pocket book.
"Mr Wakeley has a great many ideas as to how we shall accomplish it," continued Alfreton. "Mr Wakeley has built famous navigations and viaducts in the north. He has a most extraordinary talent. He is not a very talkative gentleman but he admits that he is pleased with our progress. Oh! It shall soon be done!"
By four o'clock the bridge was built. Two massive semicircular arches spanned the river. Each arch was edged with great rough-hewn blocks of stone. The effect was classical, Italianate, monumental. It would have been striking in London; in Thoresby it dominated everything. It seemed unlikely that any one would ever look at the town again; henceforth all that people would see was the bridge. Between the arches was a stone tablet with the following inscription in very large letters:
THOMAS BRIGHTWIND ME FECIT
ANNO DOMINI MDCCLXXX [8]
David had spent the night inquiring of the townspeople if any of them knew where Tom had got to. As soon as the bridge was built he crossed over and put the same question to the workmen. But an odd change had come over them. They were more than half asleep and David could get no sense out of any of them. One man sighed and murmured sleepily, "Mary, the baby is crying." Another, a fashionably dressed young man, lifted his drooping head and said, "Pass the port, Davenfield. There's a good fellow." And a third in a battered grey wig would only mutter mathematical equations and recite the lengths and heights of various bridges and viaducts in the neighbourhood of Manchester.
As the first strong golden rays of the new day struck the river and turned the water all to silver, David looked up and saw Tom striding across the bridge. His hands were stuffed into his breeches pockets and he was looking about him with a self-satisfied air. "She is very fine, my bridge, is she not?" he said. "Though I was thinking that perhaps I ought to add a sort of sculpture in alto rilievo shewing God sending zephyrs and cherubim and manticores and unicorns and lions and hypogriffs to destroy my enemies. What is your opinion?"
"No," said David, "the bridge is perfect. It wants no further embellishment. You have done a good thing for these people."
"Have I?" asked Tom, not much interested. "To own the truth, I have been thinking about what you said yesterday. My children are certainly all very foolish and most of them are good-for-nothing, but perhaps in future it would be gracious of me to provide them with responsibilities, useful occupation, etc., etc. Who knows? Perhaps they will derive some advantage from it." [9]
"It would be very gracious," said David, taking Tom's hand and kissing it. "And entirely like you. When you are ready to begin educating your sons and daughters upon this new model, let you and I sit down together and discuss what might be done."
"Oh!" said Tom. "But I have begun already!"
On returning to Thoresby to fetch their horses, they learnt that Mr Winstanley's servant had returned from Lincoln with the news that Mr Monkton had died in the night. ("There, you see," said Tom airily, "I told you he was ill.") The servant also reported that the English apothecary, the Scottish physician and the Irish wizard had not permitted Mr Monkton's dying to interfere with a very pleasant day spent chatting, playing cards and drinking sherry-wine together in a corner of the parlour.
"Anyway," said Tom, regarding David's disappointed countenance, "what do you say to some breakfast?"
The fairy and the Jew got on their horses and rode across the bridge. Rather to David's surprize they immediately found themselves in a long, sunlit piazza full of fashionably dressed people taking the morning air and greeting each other in Italian. Houses and churches with elegant facades surrounded them. Fountains with statues representing Neptune and other allegorical persons cast bright plumes of water into marble basins. Roses tumbled delightfully out of stone urns and there was a delicious smell of coffee and freshly baked bread. But what was truly remarkable was the light, as bright as crystal and as warm as honey.
" Rome! The Piazza Navona!" cried David, delighted to find himself in his native Italy. He looked back across the bridge to Thoresby and England. It was as if a very dirty piece of glass had been interposed between one place and the other. "But will that happen to everyone who crosses the bridge?" he asked.
Tom said something in Sidhe, [10] a language David did not know. However the extravagant shrug which accompanied the remark suggested that it might be roughly translated as "Who cares?"
After several years of pleading and arguing on David's part Tom agreed to forgive Igraine for getting married and her three sisters for concealing the fact. Igraine and Mr Cartwright were given a house in Camden Place in Bath and a pension to live on. Two of Igraine's sisters, the Princesses Nimue and Elaine, returned to the Castel des Tours saunz Nowmbre. Unfortunately something had happened to Princess Morgana in the nasty house in the dark, damp wood and she was never seen again. Try as he might David was entirely unable to interest any one in her fate. Tom could not have been more bored by the subject and Nimue and Elaine, who were anxious not to offend their grandfather again, thought it wisest to forget that they had ever had a sister of that name.
The fairy bridge at Thoresby did not, in and of itself, bring prosperity to the town, for Mr Winstanley still neglected to do any thing that might have made money for himself or the townspeople. However two years after Tom and David's visit, Mr Winstanley was shewing the bridge to some visitors when, very mysteriously, part of the parapet was seen to move and Mr Winstanley fell into the river and drowned. His lands, clay and coal all became the possessions of his baby son, Lucius. Under the energetic direction first of Mrs Winstanley and later of Lucius himself the lands were improved, the clay was dug up, and the coal was mined. Pewley Witts had the handling of a great deal of the business which went forward and grew very rich. Unfortunately this did not suit him. The dull satisfaction of being rich himself was nothing to the vivid pleasure he had drawn from contemplating the misery and degradation of his friends and neighbours.
And so nothing remains but to make a few observations upon the character of Lucius Winstanley. I dare say the reader will not be particularly surprized to learn that he was a most unusual person, quite extraordinarily handsome and possessed of a highly peculiar temper. He behaved more like Thoresby's king than its chief landowner and ruled over the townspeople with a mixture of unreliable charm, exhausting capriciousness and absolute tyranny which would have been entirely familiar to any one at all acquainted with Tom Brightwind.
He had besides some quite remarkable talents. In the journal of a clergyman we find an entry for the summer of 1806. It describes how he and his companion arrived at Thoresby Bridge (as the town was now called) on horseback and found the town so still, so eerily silent that they could only suppose that every creature in the place must be either dead or gone away. In the yard of The New Bridge Inn the clergyman found an ostler and asked him why the town was as quiet as any tomb.
"Oh!" said the ostler. "Speak more softly if you please sir. Lucius Winstanley, a very noble and learned gentleman – you may see his house just yonder – was drunk last night and has a head ach. On mornings after he has been drinking he forbids the birds to sing, the horses to bray and the dogs to bark. The pigs must eat quietly. The wind must take care not to rustle the leaves and the river must flow smoothly in its bed and not make a sound."
The English clergyman noted in his journal, "… the entire town seems possessed of the same strange mania. All the inhabitants go in awe of Mr Lucius Winstanley. They believe he can work wonders and does so almost every hour." [11]
But though the people of Thoresby Bridge were proud of Lucius, he m
ade them uncomfortable. Around the middle of the nineteenth century they were forced to admit to themselves that there was something a little odd about him; although forty or so years had passed since his thirtieth birthday he did not appear to have aged a single day. As for Lucius himself it was inevitable that he should eventually get bored of Thoresby even if he did enliven it for himself by having great ladies fall in love with him, changing the weather to suit his moods and – as once he did -making all the cats and dogs talk perfect English while the townspeople could only mew and bark at each other.
On a spring morning in 1852 Lucius got on his horse, rode on to his father's bridge and was never seen again.
Antickes and Frets
In the spring of 1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, fearing the wrath of her subjects, crossed the border into England. Once arrived, she wrote a letter to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, explaining her predicament and begging for her protection. Elizabeth wrote back, expressing her shock that subjects should behave so wickedly towards their lawful and divinely appointed Prince. But privately she considered how Mary had often laid claim to the English throne. She also thought how Mary had had a most baleful influence upon her Scottish subjects, how she had been an instigator of civil wars and the cause of several murders.
With many regrets, Elizabeth cast the Queen of Scots into prison for the rest of her life.
The Queen of Scots was given into the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a quiet gentleman of moderate abilities who was remarkable for two things – his vast wealth and his wife, a lady who was greatly esteemed by Queen Elizabeth. The Earl brought the Queen of Scots to Tutbury Castle, an ancient grey tower on the borders of Derbyshire and Staffordshire.
From the roof of this castle she looked down. Once she had laid claim to three thrones; now her world was shrunk to this view of a muddy ditch and a dark hillside.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu Page 17