He found himself smiling. He had not done that since Christmas Eve. And, meeting his eye, his loyal steward, the worthy, estimable and long-suffering Walter, was inevitably moved to do the same.
7
“Stay where you are, Ralf,” Anna said. “I’ll bring your supper in a minute, when your grandfather gets in.” On arriving home, though knowing his fever had gone, she had come straight to his bedside to feel his brow.
“I want to get up.”
“Stay there.”
As she rose from his bedside she noticed the table where Imogen’s knitting had been. She turned her eyes away, but it didn’t help: everything she saw was overlaid with the memory of that narrow, lonely box being lowered into the grave. Inside it, wrapped in a shroud, motionless, imprisoned by the pitchy dark, imprisoned by the weight of soil and ice above her, imprisoned by death, lay her second self, torn from her body, the child in whom she had invested so much. Her whole being told her that her daughter could not be there, tonight, only a minute’s walk away. Then she saw again the straps being paid out, the contrast between the grave-mouth and the hard-packed snow; she saw the heap of soil, and heard the thuds as the token handfuls were thrown down to join the wreath on the lid. Those handfuls would have been followed by spadefuls. She had not seen them. She had not been back to the churchyard. She might never go to the church again.
Her grief had neither bottom nor bound. For a time she had supposed herself unhinged: and perhaps, during the funeral, she had been.
Ralf had become even more precious, if that were possible. His illness had terrified her. He had brought it on himself, by working on the dike in the rain, and then by getting soaked and chilled in the boat.
She pictured Edwin at the front door with Imogen in his arms, confirming, beyond doubt, beyond reason, what Ralf had been trying to tell her. She could not forget that sight either.
Without really knowing what she was about, Anna returned to the kitchen, where Linsell was still hunched at the table, his head in his hands.
She went to the dresser and opened the meat safe. The mutton pottage would have to serve. They could have with it some hot vegetables. Leeks, carrots. Fennel. There had not been time to prepare anything more elaborate. Or rather, she had not thought of it. She realized again how much, in recent years, Imogen had contributed to the running of the household.
Anna was alone with those responsibilities now, just as she had been when Imogen had been small. And increasingly she was seeing the little girl rather than the young woman. Imogen was already receding down the long, curving tunnel of memory, her slender arms outstretched.
Her mother made herself fill the iron vegetable-pot with water. She added salt, fitted the lid, and put the handle over the pot-hook in the hearth. “Did His Lordship come?”
Linsell did not answer at once, making her turn to look at him. “Yes,” he said. “We don’t have to pay.”
She was too surprised to speak.
Linsell gestured at the fire. “He burned his contract. Says I’m not worth suing.”
They had been reprieved. An immense weight should have been lifted; but she was having trouble understanding. She could see the Baron’s behaviour only as an abstraction. It seemed illogical, to have no bearing on her family and herself. Perhaps that was because she and Linsell had been unable to imagine that their future held anything but ruin.
“He wants to rebuild the mill. Offered me the job. Two marks a month.”
Anna sat down opposite her husband, reached out and took both his hands in hers.
“Have you told Ralf?” she said, when he had finished describing the interview.
“He was asleep.”
“He’s not sleeping now.”
Linsell pushed back his chair and started for the parlour.
While he was gone and she continued with the preparations for the meal, the Baron’s magnanimity came slowly into focus. He had succeeded to the title in the year before her wedding. She well remembered the needless dread with which the new young lord had been viewed by his serfs. He had been a constant presence in her life ever since, even when she had thought herself free of Mape. Without the Seigneur, she would never have been able to marry Linsell and move to Alincester. Without him, there would have been no Ralf, no Imogen; and without him, after Linsell’s workshop had failed, there would have been only penury.
The last great storm had hit in 1232, when she had been twelve. It had set the manor back by years. This one had been just as bad. The Baron wanted to rebuild the mill. Perhaps he needed to. That seemed likely, even certain, given the cost of the floods.
In her imagination she saw the parchment of his contract writhing, wrinkling, scorching, catching fire; she saw the two signatures, like the neatly inscribed clauses, becoming foxed, negatived, and consumed by flame.
Linsell did not want to stay in Mape. Nor did Ralf, and nor did she. Everything here would remind them of Imogen, especially the mill, for it was during its construction that it seemed she had bloomed. In those months she had reached the flower of her beauty and sweetness. Her friendship with the Baron’s daughter was part of that, and it had come about because of the mill.
The mill-house, like Imogen herself, had disappeared into the void. The flame had blazed and gone out.
“It’s as I thought,” Linsell said, coming back into the kitchen. “Ralf says no.”
“Husband,” Anna began, thinking no longer of her daughter’s coffin, but of Lord de Maepe: who, now, inexplicably, after all these years, needed her help. “I have something very difficult to ask you.”
* * *
Even before the dikes had been repaired, a gang of serfs, under Linsell’s supervision, collected every scrap of wood from the tideline near the mill and carried it to higher ground. Much of it was only fit for fuel, but a fair amount, especially of the weatherboarding, could be re-used.
The rebuilding held no savour for Ralf. Since his third night with Eloise he had known that her wedding depended on the success of the mill.
Long before first light he would walk, alone or with his father, to the workshop and take up his tools. The windows and doors, all that was detailed and complicated, had to be made again. As he sawed and planed and measured, Ralf tried to keep his mind away from the past. To the past belonged Imogen and Eloise. To the past belonged pain. He preferred to ruminate on the day, in August or September, when the mill would be finished.
He had agreed to continue because his father had, and he suspected that his father had agreed only because he had. But it was just as his mother had said. They were indebted to the Baron.
The morning after their conference a cord of quartered beech-logs had been delivered from the Hall, a stack some five feet by five by five. It had confused them for a time. Linsell had been afraid it had been sent as an inducement. Then Godric had arrived. From his talk Ralf had deduced that the Baron had already been resigned to Linsell’s refusal. The firewood had been an unconditional gift, yet another act of generosity.
With that, Linsell had accepted the post, but on two conditions: that the manor should charge him rent for a share of Jacob’s cottage, and that he be paid not two marks but ten shillings a month, less than half the sum offered. Ralf, in turn, had refused to take more than five shillings a month.
To Ralf, finishing the job was more than a favour to be quitted. Whether it held savour or not, he was determined to give it his best. The mill as rebuilt would be better than before.
He had discovered professional pride. His personal feelings and fate did not matter. They were of interest neither to the client nor to those who later might judge his handiwork. For the time being he was concerned only with excellence. His contribution to the mill would be his final act, his monument. It should bear any scrutiny.
This approach helped him to become more and more absorbed in his work, and that in turn helped him with Imogen. He had confided in no one his belief that she had been coming out to confront him. His guilt had to be borne alo
ne. Even Eloise was unaware of that particular detail.
He was still resolved not to abandon Eloise. He would keep Godric informed of his whereabouts and, when summoned by the King’s justiciar, would give himself up and accept the consequences of what he had done.
One afternoon in February, he and Linsell were again in the workshop. Linsell spread the plan for the mill-wheel on the bench and weighted the corners with three chisels and scratchstock. Ralf brought a lamp closer. He wanted to go more deeply into what they had just been discussing: some new ideas for the penstock and paddles.
The wheel was to be twelve feet in diameter and fifty-one inches wide, made of English oak, with steel bearings. There were to be eight spokes on either side and sixteen paddles, each having a surface area of eight square feet. Each revolution would consume about three hundred and fifty gallons. According to the present calculations, the average speed would be eight revolutions a minute.
In recent days Ralf had been thinking about the overshot wheels he had seen, especially the one at Priorsbourne. Such wheels comprised an endless series of compartments into which the water fell. They were driven by gravity as well as the current. Compared with a conventional, undershot wheel, they were ferociously efficient.
An overshot wheel for the tide mill was out of the question. It had to be powered by a jet of water issuing from the sluice-like aperture of the penstock. Because of the rising tide, it also had to be aligned vertically. The wheel would continue turning, albeit slowly, until the sea-level reached the axle.
The paddles they had designed were flat, like those of any other undershot wheel. Ralf had begun to wonder whether some of the characteristics of an overshot wheel could not be given to this one. What if, rather than having a flat profile, the paddles were curved?
“How much curve, though?” Linsell said.
“I don’t know.”
“It really would make a difference, wouldn’t it?”
Ralf had explained his theory that a flat paddle would be most efficient only at a single point in its travel past the jet. For the rest of the time – perhaps as long as half a second – it would be shedding water through a range of wasteful angles. Some of this waste could be saved by making the paddle a scoop rather than a plane.
More efficiency meant more power. More power meant more speed. More grain could be ground in each shift. The lathe, or whatever auxiliary machines the manor chose to install, could do more work. The mill would earn more money.
Ralf’s ideas for simplifying the drive-train had already enabled the volume of the pen to be reduced, making it cheaper to build. He had grasped intuitively the relationship between efficiency and profit. Now he was beginning to see it as one of the fundamentals of good engineering. Besides being built for reliability, easy maintenance, and the rest, every part of the mill needed to be tuned to this end.
He had been thinking not just about the paddles, but the penstock too. The depth and shape of the aperture had to be designed to produce the strongest and most efficient jet, rectangular in cross-section and emerging at a precise angle, yet to be determined, with respect to each paddle as it passed.
“The calculations are far too difficult,” Linsell said. “Maybe we could build models and use trial and error.”
“Take too long,” Ralf said, absent-mindedly, still looking at the plan; and, almost without being conscious of it, offended by the crudity of an empirical approach. Mathematics: that was the way to solve any and every technical problem. “There’s got to be someone who can tell us.”
Their talk was inconclusive. Linsell mentioned Josiah Parfett, the milling engineer. He might have the answer. There might even be an established formula for the design of curved paddles. That evening, at home, Ralf wrote him a letter of enquiry.
Ralf blotted his pen and was about to pack the writing-paper away when he thought of the library at the Cathedral. He had never set foot there, but he knew it to be extensive. Though it was best known for its religious and legal works, there were many others, including a large collection of classical writings as well as modern books like herbals and treatises on history and geography. The library was said to be Bishop William’s particular pride. It formed part of the Benedictine monastery. The monks had made many of its more valuable books in their scriptorium.
Few laymen were permitted to enter, never mind use, the library. The legal rolls of the Diocese could be consulted on application, and on payment of a fee, by manorial clerks and others with a proper interest in them; as for the rest, it was inaccessible to anyone but the clergy.
The cathedral library might hold the information Ralf wanted. But the chances of his gaining entry were nil, even assuming the Bishop’s staff might be kindly disposed towards the project in hand.
Another idea came to him: Godric, Leckbourne. The Abbey’s library was far more eclectic and richly stocked than the one in Alincester. For works of science and mathematics, it was supposed to be bettered only by the University’s.
After a moment’s reflection, and fully aware of his impudence, Ralf dipped his pen in the inkhorn. He was under sentence of death anyway. What more could they do him? A grim smile forming on his lips, he began to compose a letter to his friend.
* * *
“You look strained, Eloise. Are you quite well?”
“Yes thank you, Mama.”
Since Christmas, her life had been lived internally. The affairs of the manor were a shadow-show to which she paid no more than outward heed. Just now, as though at a distance, she had again heard her father talking about the mill. His agreement with the serfs had been enthusiastically taken up. There had been nothing more from the Molarius. The Diocese had been thwarted.
Just behind her mother, she passed from the parlour into the great hall and took her place at the high table. Tonight no one was dining here but members of the family: Eloise herself, her parents and three aunts.
Having said grace, her father let the servants bring the soup, a bisk of lobster-meat and scallops served with buttered samphire and toasted wheatbread.
“That’s enough,” Eloise said, slightly raising her hand. The ladle was withdrawn. Elisabeth circled behind Aunt Mildred.
“For you, madam?”
Looking down, Eloise contemplated the unusual cinnamon colour of the bisk and the contrast it made with the brown glazed bowl. From the corner of her eye she watched her portion of samphire arriving.
Particles of steam were rising from the soup and samphire alike, drifting in subtle swirls which vanished above the intimate glow of the candlesticks. Beyond the polished, oaken expanse of the table, most of the hall was in relative gloom. Like the steam, smoke from the central fire was finding its way upwards to disappear through the vent, and on into the darkness of this overcast February night.
The date was the seventh. Her period should have arrived no later than the last day of January. She had missed the previous one also.
She had started to menstruate at fourteen. By the age of fifteen, her periods had become as regular and predictable as the moon itself. In all that time she had never missed a single month.
She kept thinking about Mary Ibbott’s pregnancy. Mary had lost all face. So had the putative father, John Hollins, and his predecessor, Aholiab Peake. The three were treated with undisguised contempt. The wedding had taken place before Christmas, a joyless, shamefaced, sparsely attended business.
Eloise’s own ceremony was scheduled for the fifteenth of October, eight months hence.
She knew that expectant women were sometimes afflicted by morning sickness. So far, she had escaped that. Otherwise she was ignorant of the signs. She did not even know how long it took for the bulge to become obvious.
There was no one she could ask without instantly giving herself away.
“Eat up, Eloise,” her father said.
She had no appetite. Having forced a smile, she spooned her soup obediently. Her terror was dominated by a single, central, overriding feeling: regret. Regret that she a
nd Ralf had given way to their impulses and, above all, regret that she had not listened to Godric last November when there had still been a faint chance of redemption. But she would never regret meeting Ralf, or falling in love with him, or the tenderness of their time together.
Even the convent was closed to her now. She was being savagely punished, and so was he.
The shock of Imogen’s death could not be understood or resolved. It was made much worse by the way they had parted, with accusations and recriminations on Imogen’s part and lies and harsh words on hers. Godric had helped her a great deal. After the funeral, she had confided much to him, including her belief that she had known Ralf in another life. But she had not told Godric that the affair had gone on after November; and she had not told him about this.
A baby. In September. Ralf’s baby.
Her mother was holding forth to her sisters and Aunt Béatrice, gossiping about the court. Eloise looked up and, inadvertently catching her father’s eye, felt her heart being lanced, run through, by his affectionate and conspiratorial smile.
8
At one time Godric had looked forward to his monthly visits home. The Abbey was hateful to him. The life there had drifted far from the regula of St Benedict, who in the sixth century had prescribed the ideal pattern for a monastic community. The Abbot was supposed to be elected by the monks, then nominated by his bishop. Today he was almost a prince, appointed by that greater prince, Bishop William, and his power within the abbey walls was no longer absolute.
But Leckbourne was more than a monastery. Besides discharging a multitude of other functions, it took noblemen’s sons and clever boys of low birth and schooled them to perpetuate the established order. Its alumni included some of the most distinguished lawyers, administrators, theologians, and philosophers, not just in London and Oxford but in Paris, Rome and Bologna too. There were three lords chancellor among them, five cardinals, and two archbishops of Canterbury.
The Tide Mill Page 34