Paradise Walk

by Mary Malloy

  “Not all commoners, which is one of the things that makes it so interesting. There are multiple castes of English society represented among Chaucer’s pilgrims. At the top is the knight who travels with his son as squire, and a yeoman servant. The franklyn owns an estate, and the reeve oversees the management of someone else’s estate. There is a scholar, a doctor, a maunciple, who was something like a law clerk, and a bunch of middle class tradespeople. This is where the weaver Alison fits into the lineup, along with a tapestry maker, a dyer, a haberdasher, the miller, a cook, a carpenter, and a merchant.” She added that there was also a sea captain, “like my stalwart companion, Kate Wentworth.”

  She described the independent middle class as a new phenomenon during Chaucer’s lifetime. When he was a boy of about five, in 1348, bubonic plague—the Black Death—swept into England from the continent and killed so much of the population that the survivors found themselves with expanded opportunities. Serfs left the bondage of their feudal manor lords and moved around the countryside or even struck out for the city. In the period following the first wave of the plague, England changed dramatically. That was when hedgerows were planted to break up the land into smaller plots for yeoman farmers, independent tradesmen began to flourish in the cities, and the dominant language changed from French to English.

  “If Chaucer had been born a hundred years earlier,” she said, “his French-speaking party of pilgrims would have included the ecclesiastics and the knight, but none of the rest of the party. Certainly Alison would not have come to London as a professional weaver with an income of her own.”

  “Chaucer certainly exaggerates the different sensibilities of his characters,” Martin said. “I’m inclined to think that he probably based all his characters on real people. And the Tabard Inn was an actual place?”

  Lizzie said that it was. “This street had a number of coaching inns, each one catering to customers headed in a different direction. If you were going east to Canterbury and the coast, the Tabard was your destination.”

  “I don’t suppose that anything from it survives after so much time.”

  “No, I read that this whole neighborhood was destroyed by a fire in the late seventeenth century, though many of the coaching inns, including the Tabard, were rebuilt. I saw a photograph of it from the late nineteenth century, but it was torn down soon after that.”

  They wandered down the Borough High Street and could see in the names of alleys where the great old inns had been: the George, the King’s Head, the White Hart, the Queen’s Head, and the Spur. They went into the alleyway where the Tabard had been and found a loading dock with a sign on it that said “Tabard House.” Lizzie couldn’t resist going in.

  “Is this where Canterbury Tales began?” she asked the woman who sat behind the counter, who had no idea whatsoever what Lizzie was talking about. She had never heard of the book, Geoffrey Chaucer, or the Tabard Inn.

  “How extraordinary,” Lizzie said as they walked back out to the street. “This must be the place. I’m surprised that Chaucerians haven’t put a plaque up or something.”

  They found that the seventeenth-century George Inn had survived and went to have lunch there and steep themselves in the past. Lizzie got a map of the neighborhood from the desk.

  “From Winchester to Guildford, Kate and I followed a path laid out by the historian Hilaire Belloc,” she said. “His track is really sort of a best guess of how pilgrims might have made their way from Winchester to Canterbury, but no such guesswork is necessary to determine the route of Chaucer’s pilgrims from here to Canterbury.” She opened up the Ordnance Survey map of the Thames Estuary and placed it over the local map.

  “Chaucer mentions specific places in the text. The trip began here in Southwark at the Tabard Inn. The pilgrims stopped to rest a few miles later at a place called St. Thomas’s Watering. They traveled through Deptford then Rochester and Sittingbourne; they picked up some additional pilgrims at Boughten-under-Bleen, and ended just short of Canterbury at ‘Bob-up-and-doun,’ usually thought to mean Harbledown.”

  “Does the Weaver give the same itinerary?”

  “She doesn’t mention exactly the same locations, but then she mostly chronicles the places where she either made gifts or traded for wool. She wrote that she stayed overnight at Dartford and at Ospringe though, so it is definitely the same path as Chaucer’s. The route seems to have been pretty standard.”

  Martin put his finger on the map. “This looks like a pretty big highway going the whole length of the route,” he said.

  “Yep,” Lizzie sighed. “It’s the major motorway from London to the coast, and it has been since Roman Times.”

  “It doesn’t look like it would actually be much fun to walk.”

  She acknowledged that was so. “Kate said it would be better to follow Belloc’s route, which looks like a lovely pastoral path. Unfortunately, these are the places mentioned by Chaucer and they aren’t on that path.”

  “Well, if you have to end your pilgrimage early, it might as well be here.”

  “Actually, do you mind if we walk just a bit further and see if we can find this ‘St. Thomas’s Watering?’”

  They put the Southwark map on top again and looked for anything that might indicate the place, but nothing in that direction and at that distance seemed like a likely candidate, though there were a number of streets named after characters or concepts from Canterbury Tales, including Tabard, Pilgrimage, Maunciple, Pardoner and Prioress Streets.

  “Here’s a library,” Martin said, pointing to the open book icon just a few blocks away. “We could stop there and see if they know where it is.”

  At the Southwark Library, they were directed to the Local Studies Center and Lizzie was almost apologetic as she asked her question of the reference librarian, a man in his thirties with a friendly manner.

  “I’m sure you must hear this all the time,” she started. “I’d like to retrace the path taken by Chaucer’s pilgrims in Canterbury Tales and wonder if you have a map of the route.”

  He told her that no one had ever asked him for that information.

  Lizzie was surprised. “I was half expecting there might be a printed guide or something,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No. As I said, it’s not a question I’ve ever gotten, though this district is called ‘Chaucer.’”

  “And I see that several streets are named after characters in the book.”

  “There was more of an interest in Victorian times, when that was done.”

  “Maybe you could help us find the first place mentioned,” Martin said, stepping up to stand next to Lizzie at the desk. “Chaucer called it ‘The Watering of St. Thomas,’ or something like it, and it should be just a few miles down the road. We couldn’t find anything on the Southwark Map.”

  “I have older maps,” he said, clearly wanting to be helpful. After several minutes of looking at progressively older representations of the neighborhood, he located “St. Thomas’s well” on a map of 1745 and put the appropriate part of it on the copy machine for Lizzie.

  Lizzie took the old map and Martin the new and they ventured out along the Old Kent Road. In Chaucer’s day this had been the agricultural outskirts of the city and even on the map of 1745 there was still a broad green swath through here, but the London metropolis had long ago bled into the countryside and there was no longer anything in the neighborhood that would have been familiar to Chaucer or the Weaver. Southwark had been heavily bombed during World War II and few buildings were older than the nineteenth century; most of them had been built in the post-War period of what Martin called “unspeakable architectural crimes.”

  With changes in the architecture had come other changes as well. The stretch of road that brought visitors along it into England since the Romans built it was now crowded with new immigrants. Flyers posted throughout the neighborhood advertised cheap phone rates to several African nations. There were pizza parlors, Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Caribbean Restaurant
s, car dealers, insurance agents, furniture stores, bakeries, pubs, banks, barbers, butchers, newsagents, chemists, clothing stores, in an endless urban sprawl. Occasionally a straightforward English sign demanded “Queer Power” or “Victory to the Miners.”

  This was Martin’s kind of place. He took much of his inspiration for his artwork from neighborhoods like this—where music blared out of cars and storefronts, graffiti covered buildings, small restaurants served food from distant places, and people sat out on the sidewalk on a nice day in folding chairs. He had been raised in a bilingual household in Los Angeles and always preferred urban areas to the countryside. Lizzie was glad he was with her today, as he chatted with people along the way in English, Spanish, and a comical improvised sign language when both of those failed him.

  After an hour at a leisurely pace they neared the place that had been a stream or pond in medieval times, when pilgrims made their first stop. The modern map indicated a park at the site, Burgess Park, with a small lake. As they approached it, Martin put one hand on Lizzie’s arm to stop her and put his other hand over her eyes.

  “Prepare yourself,” he whispered in her ear. “The watering hole is about to be revealed.”

  When he took his hand away, Lizzie saw a remarkable old pub, the Thomas A’ Becket. It was disproportionately tall, with a wonderfully ornate roof-line, and appeared to be the last vestige of its age in the neighborhood, as if everything else had fallen down around it and it alone remained to welcome them to the first landmark on the path of Chaucer’s pilgrims.

  “Fabulous!” she said, taking Martin’s hand as they crossed the street and into the pub.

  It was cool and dark, and entirely without elegance or style or any pretensions to either. Two old codgers sat at the bar and Martin immediately hopped up onto the stool next to them.

  “Is this the place that was known as the Watering of St. Thomas?” Lizzie asked the publican.

  “Don’t rightly know,” he answered, “but it were famous as a boxing bar, and they used to ’ang people by the lake there.”

  “So you don’t know if this is the place mentioned in Canterbury Tales?”

  He shook his head. “Never read it,” he said.

  Martin ordered a pint of stout for himself and a cider for Lizzie.

  As he poured, the barman turned to Lizzie. “You’re interested in ’istory then?”

  She nodded, anticipating some good nugget of local lore to follow.

  He set the glass down in front of her and asked if she had ever noticed that the only statue in London free of pigeon shit was the one of Winston Churchill near the Houses of Parliament. “Yep,” he continued, “My grandson noted that. He’s interested in yer ’istory.”

  Martin and his new friends snorted with laughter; Lizzie smiled.

  As they left the pub, Martin said that he thought that was a wonderful place to end her pilgrimage. Lizzie was not so satisfied.

  “I mean what?” she said in frustration as they stood waiting for a bus to take them back to central London. “Two times today I felt like I went to the grail and found the cup empty. How can people go to work every day to a place specifically mentioned in one of the classic works of English Literature and never even have rubbed elbows with the fact?”

  Martin patted her on the back. “Poor Lizzie,” he said. “I know you must be frustrated not to make your way all the way to Canterbury, but didn’t you tell me that Chaucer’s pilgrims never got there either?”

  She nodded, but felt more unhappy about the fact than she had at any point in the venture.

  Chapter 32

  There were messages on both their cell phones when they turned them on again back at the hotel. A reporter from the London Times wanted to interview Martin about the Newcastle mural, and arranged to have lunch with him the next day. Alison had left a message that her contact at Westminster Abbey had not found anything in the collection there with the AW monogram, but a voicemail from Tyler Brown made up for that disappointment. He had found something and wanted to speak to Lizzie about it as soon as possible.

  She called him back immediately.

  “I may have located that textile you described,” he said. “I haven’t seen it yet, but there is a description in an old inventory.”

  “Terrific!” Lizzie said in a burst of excitement. “That is fabulous news.”

  “There might be something at Rochester as well.”

  “Rochester?”

  “Yes, it was a common stop on the pilgrimage trail.”

  Lizzie knew that it was. Chaucer’s pilgrims stopped there, and it was mentioned in the Weaver’s journal and depicted on the tapestry, but she had made no reference to having made a gift there and Lizzie had consequently not been concentrating on it for further research.

  “Can you meet me there tomorrow and I’ll show you what I’ve found? The trains there are very regular from London.”

  She agreed, and told him she would let him know what train she would be on.

  Martin looked at her as she finished the call.

  “I thought you weren’t going to Canterbury,” he said seriously.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m going to meet a librarian in Rochester who has been helping with the research. It may be the last piece of the puzzle.”

  “Do you want to check in with the Oxford police first? Or with Edmund’s solicitor friend to see where they are on the case?”

  “I’ll talk to Edmund if you really think that’s necessary, but I’m planning to just meet with this guy, see what he’s found and then come back.” She had now become convinced that she was in no danger, and she preferred not to act as if she was. In fact, if Tyler Brown was willing to give her a ride from Rochester to Canterbury, she was inclined to make a quick trip there. It seemed absurd to be so close to the final destination and not visit Canterbury Cathedral.

  As the train rumbled out of Victoria Station the next morning, she referred again to her various maps, acknowledging the change in the landscape since the Weaver’s day and imagining her on this same route six hundred years earlier. The train stopped in Southwark and Greenwich. Lizzie had done research at the Maritime Museum, and knew she could find a friendly reception, a cup of tea, and the relics of Admiral Nelson and Lord Franklin there. But the Weaver hadn’t mentioned it and Chaucer had merely nodded at it, saying: “Lo Grenewich, there many a shrewe is inne,” probably a snide reference to his wife, who lived there.

  The Thames became increasingly industrialized as the train left London.

  Big ships carrying oil and bulk cargoes, and containers filled with unseen goods, moved silently along the river. After Higham station the train dipped into a tunnel and when it emerged several miles later, Lizzie had her first glimpse of Rochester across the Medway River. In the distance was the solid block of Rochester Castle; the tower of Rochester Cathedral rose behind it, a familiar sight from the portrayal of it on the tapestry. Lizzie wondered why the Weaver had not thought to make a gift to the church here, but perhaps she had, and Tyler Brown had the evidence of it.

  He was waiting for her when she disembarked and waved to her from beside his car, an old Ford wagon.

  “Thanks again for all your help,” she said, shaking his hand. “I’m eager to know what you have found.”

  “Have you been to Rochester before?” Tyler asked.

  “Only through it on the train,” she answered. “I’m glad to be able to see a bit of it before I go home.”

  “I can give you a tour,” he said. “I was born and grew up here.”

  Lizzie felt the press of time and was keen to get down to business, but wanted to be polite. She said that she was interested in the castle and the cathedral and was somewhat relieved when he drove directly to the street that ran between the two great buildings.

  “I wonder why the Weaver didn’t make a gift here?” Lizzie mused as they got out of the car.

  “There were no famous relics here,” Tyler explained. “Local saints were of more interest to th
e men who ran this cathedral. They were genuine in their piety and not simply looking to attract a clientele of tourists.”

  “And yet I believe most pilgrims stopped here.”

  “It was a convenient mid-point between London and Canterbury,” Tyler said. “The castle is particularly interesting,” he added, steering Lizzie and the conversation toward it. “It is almost purely Norman, with very few changes or reconstructions over the years.”

  Lizzie was anxious for him to tell her what he had found regarding the Weaver’s textile contribution to Canterbury Cathedral, and asked him about it as they walked onto the castle grounds.

  “I found it in an inventory from the 1980s,” he said. He continued to point out features of the castle. “Look at the bits of shell you can see in the mortar here,” he said, picking at a small clamshell with his fingernail.

  There was no roof on the castle. The square tower was divided up the middle by an interior wall, which gave a clear picture of how the rooms had been set up. They climbed a stone staircase to the top of the wall and out onto battlements where they stood on a ledge about three feet wide.

  “I’m kind of surprised they let the public climb all over this,” Lizzie said. “In the U.S. there would be barriers of all kinds.”

  “Wait till you see the view,” Tyler said.

  Lizzie stepped beside him and admired the prospect. They were as high as the top of the steeple of the cathedral across the street, and the entire building was visible below them. Beyond it was the course of the Medway, with its rail and road bridges to the north and the big motorway bridge to the south. The day was beautiful with a brilliant blue sky, light puffy clouds, and a clear view in all directions.

  “From this vantage point there is absolutely no question why a castle would be built here,” Lizzie said. “From here you could see everything coming to London from across the channel.”

  Tyler told her there had always been a fortress there since Roman times. “Rochester flourished for over a thousand years as the main stop on the road between London and the coast,” he said, “but railroads and later highways bypassed it.” He seemed wistful, even sad. “Sometimes bad things happen,” he said philosophically.