As for the building itself, even the great dome no longer seemed so sinister. Thanks to the huge, plain glass windows, the cathedral’s interior spaces were so light and airy that a visitor from Holland might well suppose himself in some big Dutch Protestant church. St Paul’s, it now seemed to Carpenter, was not so much a threat as a great English compromise – a Protestant spirit in a Roman form – just like the Church of England itself, in fact.
Apart from the verger who greeted them, it appeared for a moment that they had the whole place to themselves. Advancing slowly up the mighty nave, O Be Joyful could see that the two children were awestruck. Suddenly however, halfway up the aisle, the silence was broken by two sharp bangs that reverberated round the great central crossing ahead, and which were met with an impatient snort from the verger. What could it be, Carpenter enquired?
It turned out to be Meredith.
“Up there all morning,” the verger explained in a voice that suggested he doubted Meredith’s sanity. And sure enough, as they emerged into the space under the dome, they were just in time to see the clergyman scientist up in the gallery above. He gave Carpenter a friendly wave, then disappeared, and a few minutes later reappeared on the cathedral floor.
“I was just trying it out,” he explained, as Carpenter and the children helped him pick up the various objects he had dropped from above. “This dome, you see, is the most perfect place to test Newton’s theory of gravity. Precisely measured spaces; controlled conditions; the air is perfectly still. Much better than the Monument. The Royal Society, you know,” he continued, “plans to conduct a series of experiments here very soon.” And with another cheerful wave, and escorted by the disgusted verger, he made his way out towards the western door, leaving O Be Joyful alone with the children once more.
There was much to show them. He pointed out the ‘RESURGAM’ stone and explained what it meant. “I put that there,” he told them, enjoying their surprise. Then he led them up into the choir.
Of the projects he had worked upon during the last twenty years, several had given him special pleasure. He had been proud of the ceiling he had carved for the new dining hall of Myddelton’s New River Company; he had loved working on the fine new wing out at Hampton Court and Wren’s splendid building at Chelsea Hospital. But nothing could compare with the magnificent carving of the choir stalls in St Paul’s.
They were huge. There were not only the long, dark rows of gleaming seats for the clergy and choristers; there was also the massive casing for the organ. The project had been a joint effort: Wren had designed the outline and had models made; but when it came to the job of planning the decoration of all this, the great designer had turned to his friend Mr Gibbons.
The result was breathtaking. Within the framework of simple classical forms – rectangular panels, pilasters, friezes and niches – a sea of carving appeared: rich, voluptuous, yet always controlled. Spreading leaves and sinuous vines, flowers, trumpets, cherubic heads, festoons of fruit burst from cornice and capital, panel and pediment, baluster and bracket. There was nothing quite like it in all England. The quantity of oak, scores of tons, was prodigious; the workmanship, thousands of feet of carving, vast; the cost stupendous. Indeed, the cost was so great that even the coal tax could not meet the current expenditure so that investors, including the great masters like Gibbons himself, had to lend money to the project to be repaid in future years, plus interest. “I financed the choir stalls,” Gibbons had remarked to Carpenter, “at 6 per cent.”
For three years O Be Joyful had worked in St Paul’s, and they had been the best of his life. Every skilful joiner and woodworker in the city seemed to have gathered there for the great task. The atmosphere was quiet and pleasant. Once, at the start, he had complained to Gibbons about some of the profane language of the labourers; within a day Wren had issued an order forbidding all bad language. So great was the atmosphere of dedication that he could almost believe, despite the fact that it was still an Anglican church, that he was doing God’s work by carving there.
Though the two children knew, of course, that their grandfather was a skilful carver who had worked in many places, they had never seen any large examples of his craftsmanship. It was with some pride therefore that he now led them along the gleaming stalls, explaining their features. “See this panel?” he asked. “This is of English oak. But that one,” he pointed to another, more richly carved, “that came from Danzig in Germany. The German oak is less knotty, easier to carve.” Then pointing up: “See that cherub?” It was normal for Grinling Gibbons to make a master model for a feature like this, which O Be Joyful and the other assistants would copy. “I did that one,” he told them. “And that.”
“Now this panel,” he explained, as they came to one of the most elaborate pieces of carving, “is not oak at all. It’s lime-wood, which is softer. This is the wood Mr Gibbons likes to work with best.”
He showed them the stall where the Lord Mayor sat, and the organ casing, but finally they came to the place which made him proudest of all. For at a corner of the stalls, surmounted by a splendid canopy carved with great festoons, stood the grandest seat of all, the masterpiece of the entire stalls: the bishop’s throne.
“Mr Gibbons and I carved this seat together,” he announced. Triumphantly he indicated the fantastic workmanship of the area above. “See the mitre; and below, a pelican in her piety as they call it. An old Christian emblem, that. And see the fine palm leaves? You can’t even tell,” he proclaimed, with perfect truth, “where his work ends and mine begins.” It was the best work of his life.
The two children stared in silence. Then, glancing all around the magnificence of St Paul’s, they looked at each other. Finally, young Martha spoke. “It is very fine, grandfather,” she said quietly. “It is,” she searched for a word, “very ornate.” He could hear the doubt and disappointment in her voice. But now Gideon was tugging at her sleeve and pointing up to the mitre.
“Who sits here, grandfather?” he asked.
“The bishop,” Carpenter answered, and saw the boy lower his solemn eyes in embarrassment.
“You made a throne for a bishop?” he asked. And then: “You could not refuse?”
Of course, he had failed them. What a fool he had been, in his pride over his workmanship, to neglect the essential. God knows, in a way the boy was right. Old Gideon would certainly have refused such a commission. “When you work for a master like Mr Gibbons,” he answered lamely, “you must work as he directs, and still do the best work you can.” But he could see that they were both confused and unconvinced.
Nobody said anything as they left the choir and entered the cathedral’s central crossing again. Martha looked pale, the little boy thoughtful. But then, as they walked under the great dome, it seemed that little Gideon had an inspiration. Embarrassed by his grandfather’s unexpected fall from grace, he was evidently anxious to give him the chance to redeem himself. Turning his face up to him eagerly, therefore, he suddenly asked: “Tell us, grandfather, how you tried to save old Martha in the Fire.”
Carpenter fell silent. He understood exactly why the boy had said it. He saw, too, that the children needed him to be their respected grandfather again; to be valiant, like old Gideon and his saints. But it would also be a lie: another act of cowardice to add to the original one. His grandchildren wanted to have faith in him, but what was the value of basing their faith on a fraud?
“The truth is, Gideon,” he heard himself confess, “I did not really try to save her. I saw her up there, but I lost heart.”
“You mean,” the boy was open-eyed, “you let her burn?”
“I’d tried to go up there once but . . . yes. I let her burn.” He sighed. “I was afraid, Gideon. It’s a secret I’ve kept for forty years. But it’s the truth.”
Then after a glance at the boy’s stricken face, he bade them follow him to the staircase that led up into the dome.
It was a long climb up the broad spiral staircase into the dome, for the inner gallery o
f St Paul’s is a good hundred feet above the cathedral’s floor. O Be Joyful had time to reflect, as he led the way and the two children followed silently behind. Had he lost their respect, even their love? Their thoughts seemed to rest upon his shoulders like a weight, making the climb even harder. The years he had spent finding a modest happiness in his work suddenly vanished, leaving him once more with the remembrance, as keen and cold as it had been forty years before, that he was a coward. And now his grandchildren knew it. By the time he finally reached the base of the dome and entered the gallery that runs round its interior, he felt deeply tired, and indicating to the children that they should wander round, he sat down and rested.
The inner gallery of St Paul’s can be a little frightening. Peeping over the parapet, newcomers suddenly realize that they are suspended in space, hanging with nothing, apparently, below them, over the awesome central void. Glancing up at the huge dome rising another hundred feet above them, they feel as if they have somehow become miraculously attached to that surface and may be expected to fly over the yawning chasm at any moment.
From where he sat with his back against the wall, dully watching the two children across the space, Carpenter could see them taking turns to go to the edge, and then see their heads vanish again as they retreated to the safety of the wall. It was totally quiet. Whatever was passing outside, the three domes kept out every sound. The children, at the far side, had temporarily disappeared. Perhaps they were resting too. He closed his eyes.
And then he heard them. He heard their voices, one coming in at his right ear, the other at his left, as clearly as if they were beside him. He had forgotten to tell them that other great wonder of St Paul’s: that up in the gallery under the dome, the wall is so perfectly circular that even the softest sounds, reverberating on the curved surface, will travel unhindered all the way round. For this reason it was called the Whispering Gallery. With his eyes closed he now heard, as though etched upon the silent emptiness below, the whispers of the children in the dome.
“Did he really let Martha die?” Gideon’s voice.
“He said so.”
“Yes. But grandfather . . .”
“He lacked courage. He lacked faith, Gideon.”
“It was brave of him to tell us, don’t you think?”
“We must not lie.”
There was a pause. Then the boy.
“He was just afraid. That’s all.” Another pause. “Martha. Do you think he’ll still go to heaven?”
The girl was obviously considering. “Those who are chosen, go,” she said at last.
“But won’t he?”
“We don’t know who is chosen, Gideon.”
The boy seemed to think for a while.
“Martha.” The whisper came loud and clear. “If he’s sent to hell, I shall go down and rescue him.”
“You can’t.”
“I shall try.” A pause. “We can still love him, can’t we?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s go back to him now,” the boy said.
The outer gallery of St Paul’s is higher than the Whispering Gallery, so it was necessary for Carpenter to lead the children upstairs again before they came out on to the balcony that circles the base of the almighty leaden dome.
They emerged into brilliant daylight. The sky was crystalline, the lightest breeze teasing the surface of the Thames below the city so that it sparkled. And all around them, as they circled the gallery, the panorama of London. Even in his desolation, it was hard for Carpenter, feeling the sharp autumn air on his face and seeing this wonderful sight, not to experience a bracing of the spirit.
They looked northwards over the newly rebuilt Guildhall, over new London’s Roman streets, past old Shoreditch and the woods of Islington to the green hills of Hampstead and Highgate; eastwards they gazed, over the city’s other hill, over the pinnacles of the Tower, the suburbs of Spitalfields where the Huguenot weavers lived, past the forest of ships’ masts in the Pool of London and out towards the long, eastern estuary and the open sea beyond. Southwards they stared at the river, and the huge, curious old form of London Bridge with its tall, medieval gabled houses hanging over the river, and to the untidiness of Southwark on the opposite bank. But from the west came the most glorious vision.
The barges were returning. First, the great, majestic gold barge of the mayor; then the splendid vessels of the companies – pinnacles flying, awnings fluttering, reds and blues, greens, silvers, cheerful stripe and rich embroidery, their banks of oars pulled in perfect unison by the liveried watermen – and following them, score upon score of lesser vessels, all brightly adorned: the great, gilded procession filled the whole river. When the Lord Mayor of London came up the river in full state, there was nothing like it in all Europe except the sumptuous pageants of Venice. O Be Joyful watched, as the two children gazed in wonder.
And despite his sadness, he smiled. The children were right, of course. As he looked out from the dome over London, under that still greater dome of the clear blue sky, he knew it very well. He was not destined for eternal life.
Yet, as he looked at his little grandchildren, it seemed to him now that it no longer mattered very much. His own life, even the fate of his immortal soul, no longer seemed so important. Old Gideon and Martha had departed, but in a sense they had returned. Little Gideon, purer, more godly than he, the valiant little boy who was ready to brave hellfire to rescue his faltering grandfather, would succeed where he himself had so miserably failed. Perhaps these children might even, one day, build that shining city on a hill.
Far below, the barges were approaching Blackfriars. A few moments more, and the mayor would disembark.
Just then, the bells began to ring to welcome the mayor to his city. There were many fine peals of bells all over the city and the suburbs now, for more than ever had been installed in the churches that had risen again since the Great Fire. From one after another of Wren’s fine towers and steeples that rose over the rooftops all around, from churches everywhere they began to chime. From Cheapside and Aldgate, Eastcheap and Tower Hill, from Holborn, from Fleet Street and the Strand. Many had their own particular tunes and, standing side by side with the children, he began to identify them, giving each peal the little rhyme by which it was known.
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St Martin’s
When will you pay me
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be
Say the bells of Stepney
I do not know
Says the great bell of Bow
“That’s St Mary-le-Bow,” he explained. “Old Bow Bells, the very soul of London.”
But more and more bells were joining in – single bells, peals of bells, tolling and clanging with that manly clamour that only the bells of England make. For the glory of English bell-ringing is not as in other countries its tunefulness, but, on the contrary, the stern order of the permutations, as the bells are led through their changes, as strict as the mathematics of the heavens. Louder and louder now their mighty ringing grew, clanging and crashing down the major scale, drowning out every puny tune, until even the dome of St Paul’s itself seemed to be resonating in the din. And as he listened to this tremendous sound echoing all around him, so strident and so strong, it suddenly seemed to Carpenter that he could hear therein a thousand other voices: the Puritan voice of Bunyan and his pilgrim, the voice of his father Gideon and his saints, of Martha; why – even of the Protestant Almighty himself. And, lost in their massive chorus, for a moment forgetting everything, even his own poor soul, he hugged his grandchildren and cried out, in exultation:
“Hear! Oh, hear the voice of the Lord!”
Then all the bells of London rang, and then O Be Joyful was joyful indeed.
GIN LANE
1750
Number seventeen, Hanover Square. It is past noon on a late April day. Spring is in the air. And inside the handsome, four-storey house with its big sash windows, five across, Lady St James is about to take her bath.
Two footmen have appeared – crimson livery, white silk stockings – carrying the metal hip-bath and have set it down in the middle of my lady’s chamber. They return three times, bearing huge, steaming ewers of hot water; they fill the bath, then retire. Her ladyship’s maid tests the water with a small, plump finger; indicates that all is well.
And now, my lady comes from the great bed with its richly embroidered coat of arms. She walks across the floor, her nightgown a wonder of blue ribbons and white lace. She hovers by the bath. A dainty white foot appears, an elegant ankle peeps from under the hem of the nightdress. Her foot touches the surface of the water and there is a tiny ripple. Now a little of the lace parts and a slim, bare calf is revealed. Her ladyship’s maid stands close, reaches up to take the nightgown. There is a faint rustle, the whisper of satin flesh upon silk; the maid’s arms draw back.
And – at last – she has emerged: slim, flawless, delicately scented. Her leg has slipped beneath the still water which now surrounds her high, round breasts, and laps those alabaster shoulders.
Her maid is attentive. Soap first. Then oils, to keep the skin soft. My lady lingers in the bath a while, but not too long, lest that dry out the skin. When she is ready to rise, a huge towel is held out. She will not be rubbed however, but gently pressed and patted dry. Then puffs of powder, unguents for her pretty feet, sprinklings of scent around her neck.
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