Ralf looked around him, at the cramped desk, the inkstand, the heaps of parchments, loose or on spikes.
“Where does he mill at present?”
“Finmere.”
“And he wishes to change? That does surprise me.”
“Their work is satisfactory. However, the Abbot … my master … shall we say that Lord de Maepe and he …”
Brother Nicholas discreetly held up a palm. “We’re a good deal further from the coast.”
“But you’re on the way to Alincester. That’s where we market most of our flour.”
“We can arrange certification and carting, should your lord desire.”
Finmere was a Cistercian manor, this a Benedictine. When told that Mape also produced notable quantities of oak and poplar, Brother Nicholas became even friendlier. He made only cursory inspection of Mr Caffyn’s warrant; the senior brother was summoned, and while he remained talking to Mr Caffyn, Brother Nicholas acceded to their prospective client’s eccentric request and let his assistant look over the mill.
Brother Nicholas proved almost too garrulous. He was a clerk and knew little about the machinery, but continually extolled the thoroughness and skill of the pistor, who was a layman, unfortunately absent today, since these few weeks before harvest were a slack time for flour. The summer and early autumn were the busiest period for felling and hence for sawing, of green timber at least: extraction of the trunks, even with the best trained horses, proved difficult when the ground was wet, and in the Weald, as everyone knew, the clay soils were inimical to the forester.
Ralf wished he would keep quiet. He was trying to store as much information in his mind as he could. All power from the wheelshaft was being sent to the saw. Ralf was specially interested in the gear-frame, which incorporated a belt-differential which allowed the power to be distributed to three layshafts, as required: for the saw, furnace bellows, or stones.
The stones were conventionally arranged, but, at fifty-four inches across, the biggest he had seen. While Brother Nicholas talked, Ralf noticed the damsel – four wooden shafts, stationary now, projecting upwards from the top of the runner. The function of a damsel was to agitate the shoe to give a smooth flow of grain. It was named for the constant chattering it made, but Ralf reflected that it could with equal justice be called a nicholas.
Damsel, damosel, mademoiselle: that was the title of the one whom Imogen praised, to whom he felt his sister drawing him daily closer. Her presence was everywhere, but especially here, in this round, white, lunar stone, silent now but waiting to turn. As it turned, its damsel, turning too, would regulate the flow of corn, from the fields to the bin-sock, from the bin-sock to the hopper, from the hopper to the shoe. Streaming at last into the gap between the stones, into the dark and infinitesimal space between the bedstone and the whirling runner above, the seed would strike the lands and in an instant be transmuted into life-sustaining flour. Hers was the stone, hers the power and the mill: but she needed an engineer to make it run.
“Have you seen all you want, young sir?”
“No,” Ralf said, not listening.
“What else can I show you?”
Producing another and different sort of frown on the monk’s smooth and celibate face, Ralf answered: “Nothing.”
* * *
This byway, climbing through the woods, was so steep that it also made an ephemeral stream, half a mile long and presently dry. In the middle of the track, forming an irregular gutter, the soil had been washed away to reveal chalk, in some places smooth, in others broken to rubble. In depth and width the gutter varied from a few to several inches. The remaining surface, steep and slippery, made treacherous footing for the horses, not helped by the wet undergrowth and tree-boughs that pressed in from either side.
Mr Caffyn was riding ahead. Like Ralf, he was concentrating hard. A moment’s inattention could lead to a turned hoof, a broken pastern, disaster. They were still at least twelve miles away from Mape, the drizzle had turned to rain, and they had no waterproofs. The change in the weather had taken them by surprise.
Ralf’s disconnected thoughts, interrupted from second to second by the need to guide and reassure Hennet, had not yet left Priorsbourne. He had been much impressed by the saw. In winter, after heavy rain, the spindle speed could reach four thousand revolutions a minute. The huge crosscut blade made short work of even the densest hardwood bole: a task that, in the pit at Rushton, might have taken a pair of sawyers the whole day and left them exhausted. First the trees were broken down into longitudinal slabs, plain slices cut through-and-through for maximum yield, or quarter-sawn for enhanced durability and a more decorative appearance. Then the slabs were converted, reduced to any required profile: post, beam, plank, or board. The lumber ejected so rapidly by the mill was smoother and straighter than any that could be formed by hand. More than this, the ripping-fence ensured exact consistency in the thickness of every piece. Planing would be reduced to an act of mere finishing, minimizing waste of wood and work alike.
The monks, it seemed, had designed and built the saw, based on others elsewhere, in England and all over the continent. The Church was a parallel world, a network of ideas rising above the petty factions of kingship and nationality. It indiscriminately sucked into itself all learning, from whatever source, in Christendom or beyond. Scholars in Rome and Constantinople translated heathen writings into Latin and faithfully copied their illustrations. In the library at Leckbourne, Godric had said, there were books and treatises from Turkey, Arabia and the Indies, travellers’ tales from the steppes, from Africa and the Silk Road, bestiaries of sea-monsters and dragons, and detailed accounts of earthquakes, volcanoes, pestilences, floods, shipwrecks.
The Church was a treasure-house, and Latin was its key. Though he could no longer spare the time, Ralf was continuing with his lessons; but he was troubled by Father Pickard, and would have preferred them to have ended. Ralf did not like to think that the Father had pumped him for information about the mill and sent the results to the Bishop.
He had grown to revere Father Pickard, who carried the secrets of the whole manor in his head. In the confessional he listened gravely and always gave a sage response. The formulaic Hail Marys of Ralf’s childhood were no more. Not that Ralf had much to confess: his worst crisis had been Mary Ibbott, and that he had resolved largely without the Father’s intercession; though not without St Matthew, who had come to him through the Father’s help.
Ralf’s debt to Father Pickard, for his lessons and encouragement, made his perplexity harder to bear. Before the mill, the priest had been his model of kindness. Now, the letter that he must have sent to Alincester felt like an act of betrayal, and Ralf wondered whether the priest had any feeling for him at all.
This afternoon Ralf had found himself looking upon Brother Nicholas as the personification of the Diocese: for, gradually, piece by piece assembling, an image of the Bishop as the enemy had perfected itself in his mind. He would demolish the Baron’s hopes, if he could. For the sake of a few more stained-glass windows Bishop William would for ever keep the serfs tied to their querns. He opposed progress: yet it was from his Holy Mother Church that learning, mathematics, engineering, spread.
The track became less steep. The chalk gutter disappeared.
“Good girl,” Ralf told Hennet, leaning forward and patting her neck. Her ears turned backwards, as if to say: “That was easy.”
Mr Caffyn twisted in his saddle. “All right, Ralf?”
“Yes, sir!”
A little way on, the bridleway left the woods by means of a pulleyed gate. Before them spread the close-cropped grassland of the high downs, clustered with sheep, some of which scattered from the white, hoof-worn track as Ralf’s horse caught up with the Steward’s.
Under the trees, Ralf had not realized quite how heavy the rain was becoming. He was already soaked to the skin, and so was Mr Caffyn.
“Do you want to see any more mills after this?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet,
anyway. It was good today, though. I learned a lot. I’m sure we’ve got enough for the tender document.”
“How much longer?”
“It’ll be ready by Lammas Day.”
“How appropriate,” said Mr Caffyn. Ralf, puzzled at first, suddenly saw what he meant. Lammas, or Loaf-mass, the first day of August, was an important marker in the rural calendar. This year it fell on a Sunday, which was more fitting still. The first ears of ripe corn were baked into a plaited and glazed loaf that formed the centrepiece of a service at the church. Lammas was said to be a pagan festival which, like others, had been adopted and adapted by the early Christians. It was both a first-fruits festival and a sacrifice to the gods, a propitiation for the harvest to come. Despite the rain trickling down his neck, Ralf smiled to think that this might be the day for the Baron’s signature on their contract.
He wondered whether, during the service, Father Pickard would mention the mill.
“Mr Caffyn,” he said.
“Yes, Ralf?”
“I don’t know what to do about Father Pickard.”
Mr Caffyn already knew about the lessons. On their rides, Ralf had put questions to him on vocabulary and grammar, and they had, from time to time, as practice, conversed in Latin – haltingly, in Ralf’s case. Now Ralf explained what the Baron had first implied and subsequently made clear: his suspicion that Father Pickard was reporting progress to the Diocese.
“What would you have him do?” Mr Caffyn said. “He is loyal, that is all.”
“Do you like him?”
“He is one of the best men I know. You admire him, don’t you?”
“Yes. More than that.”
“Ah, Ralf, I wish I were eighteen again. Life seemed so simple then. Work is work, and friends are friends. He will do what he has to do, and you will do what you have to do. That should be no reason for discord.”
“Should I tell him whatever he asks?”
“Why not? He’ll find out anyway. You may as well save him some trouble. The mill is no secret. We’re not breaking the law, or doing anything wrong.”
This answer made Ralf feel easier. The sky was darker than ever, especially to the south-west. As he and Mr Caffyn broke into a trot, Ralf could feel his kneeboots slowly filling with rain. His breeches, tunic and shirt were plastered to his body. But he didn’t care. A curious sense of his own strength and capabilities had stolen upon him. There was nothing boastful about it: he was just himself, exposed to the weather, riding beside the Steward, and yard by yard they were nearing Mape.
7
The rain blurred even further the distorting panes of the tight-shut window in Eloise’s chamber. Her restricted view of the marshes, the green reeds and grazing, was distinguishable from the enclosing limes only by its relative lack of motion. Above it ran a fuzzy line of greyish fawn, the beach, and above that a blur of another grey, the sea, scarcely darker than the sky itself.
Water was pouring from the tiles of the roof and seeping through the casement, puddling around the bowl of roses on the stone sill. Her room had become drained of all but a greenish, submarine light.
She did not know how long she had been standing there. Her mind was blank, except perhaps for the rain and Mape’s gigantic, laden sky. The rain levelled everything, struck down blossoms, drove people indoors, reduced life to a smaller and more practical orbit. And as it cleansed, as it washed away, it brought its own temporary oblivion.
Slight movement made her look down at the roses. Crawling along a stem, making awkward detours to avoid the vicious hillock of each thorn, a ladybird was pursuing a private and determined course towards the recurved fence of sepals guarding the flower. Reaching it, baffled, it tried first one way and then another to get past, its irresolute black forelegs and antennae waving; at one point, exasperated, it opened its back and unfurled a tiny set of wings. She was certain it was going to fly. It changed its mind, closed its wing-cases, and continued the struggle on foot, finally overcoming the obstacle by finding a sufficient gap between the offending sepal and its neighbour.
The softly veined pink of the petals might have been made for the scarlet of a ladybird. Not just any ladybird: this ladybird, this spot of cochineal at the fulcrum of the world. Its polished, round, red body, its stubby, gleaming black head, with two off-white dots like eyes, its segmented legs and minute, twin-clawed feet: all amounted to a complete, compact, and inevitable whole, as perfect as the aimlessness of its route across the silky surface of the petal. The insect reached the petal’s edge and came to a suspicious halt, as though it had overstepped its allotted place in creation and suddenly felt the loss of equilibrium.
What did it know of the rainstorm? Was it aware of the water streaming down the window? Did it know there were such things as the churchyard, the reedbeds, or the sea?
Without ceremony, it opened it wings and flew. She lost sight of it for a second or two: but there it was again, on the glass.
She wondered whether she should open the window and set it free. Surely it would be kinder to wait till the rain had moved on.
She had not heard any noises from the stable yard or downstairs. The sound of feet in the passage was the first she knew of Godric’s expected return from Leckbourne.
His door was ajar. She found him standing near his bed, rubbing at his hair with a linen towel. Seen against the watery light of his own window, he was almost a silhouette.
He noticed her. “Hullo, Eloise.”
His clothes were soaked. She said, “Does Mama know you’re back?”
“Yes. She’s downstairs.”
“I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait.” He stopped drying his hair altogether. “I want to talk to you. Do you mind?”
“Why should I mind?”
“What are you doing now?”
“Nothing.”
“In your chamber, then. In a few minutes. If that’s convenient. I have to see Papa first.”
She sat waiting for him, curious but also not. She could not imagine what he might wish to say, what tidings he might be bringing in from the rain.
Downstairs, the work of the household was proceeding. This evening’s wine would by now be in the buttery. On the scrubbed surface of the kitchen table capons were being dressed, herbs chopped, vegetables sliced. She thought of the raindrops rebounding from the cobbles in the stable yard, the sickly-sweet smell of fermenting straw, the uneasy horses in the gloom. She thought of the kennels, and the acrid air of the hawk mews, and of Mr Tysoe, pen in hand, at his slope. The Steward’s office would be empty: the Reeve would be at large in the manor, also getting soaked, perhaps, or sheltering at the staith. Mr Caffyn himself, wetter even than Godric had been, would as yet be no nearer Mape than the summit of the downs.
Eloise had become very still. She was not just waiting for Godric. It was her fate, the fate of all women, to be passive. But when it came, there was tentativeness in her brother’s knock. Rather than speak, she arose and opened the door herself.
“I feel human again,” Godric said. “It’s wonderful what dry clothes can do.”
“You looked bedraggled.”
“I was. The proverbial drowned rat.”
“Do you think you’ve caught cold?”
“Who can tell?”
She resumed her chair and indicated that he should be seated on the chest. Instead he sat down on the rug, his back against the nearest bedpost, his knees raised to support his forearms. He seemed quite relaxed, as he usually did, but there was tension in his face and an initial reluctance to speak, broken as he looked up at her, into her eyes.
“I want to say how sorry I am for the way I behaved. Last time I was home.” His eyes had not left hers. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure that I do.”
“Help me, Eloise. Please.”
“Do you mean our outing? To the dike?”
“I’m talking about Ralf.”
For an hour or more, since the rain had gro
wn heavy, she had managed to forget about him and his girl, in Rushton, or wherever she was. “I don’t understand you.”
Godric persisted. “Something happened to me at the Abbey. It made me act badly. I want to explain myself.”
But he began by talking not about Leckbourne, but Mape, years ago. With growing incredulity she listened to his account of the way Ralf, aged twelve, had pulled him from the mud; and as she listened she could not help seeing this act as innate, coming directly down the centuries from Rollo and his lunatic comrades. Ralf was much more than she had supposed: might he, also, be capable of sailing up the Seine?
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“He asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“He thought we’d get into trouble, for being in the saltings at high water. I thought so too. So we didn’t say.”
“That’s … that’s typical. Typical of boys.”
“It’s how we thought.”
“But Papa would have been so grateful. The Griggs … Master Grigg … Papa would have paid his debts, I’m sure of it.”
“He wouldn’t have accepted.”
“You may be right.”
“You know I am. He wouldn’t. And please don’t tell anyone about it, even now. I gave my word to Ralf.”
“Why are you telling me, then?”
“Because it changed my whole life, and you can never understand me unless you know.”
It was true. Eloise did not understand him.
He fell silent, staring down at the rug between his feet. The room had become even darker, the rain even more intense, drumming on the tiles above, striking the window with malevolent force.
Speaking quietly, without looking at her, he began to explain what he had felt while trapped in the mud: how he had felt betrayed by God, then half reconciled; and, after Ralf had pulled him out, guilty. This guilt had accompanied him ever since. It had poisoned all his relations with others. He had confessed his sin to Father Pickard, but to no avail. Only Ralf was immune to its effects.
The Tide Mill Page 19