Silent multitude, p.14
Silent Multitude, page 14
Now he’d got on to his poor wife. Mary Bloom-Smith.
“The things she did trying to get me to give her a child. Disgusting things. You can’t wonder that I left her.”
He’d never see that his disgust had really been his shame. He’d never see anything. The Dean rose from the sofa with a weariness that was more than physical.
“It’s time I went and rang the bell for Evensong.”
“I had to leave her. I mean, you do see that I had to leave her.”
The Dean spoke to Sally.
“I’m sorry for all this. I feel that in a way I was responsible for starting it.”
“Hunger. Shock. Old age.” She looked down at Bill.
He was far away in his memories. She sighed. "Too many years denying, probably forgetting his real reasons for anything. The brandy did the rest. Blame that if you must blame something.”
“But some of this is most unpleasant. Hardly suitable for-”
“Newspaper, Dean Goodliffe. Remember I work on a newspaper.”
The Dean lit another candle and wandered out She could see him struggling into his raincoat in the hall. A candle flame came down the stairs and joined him under the chandelier. Sim who tried to keep his coat tails clean.
“A doctor told her she could get it done artificially. Had the neck to come to me—said it needed my cooperation. You can imagine what that meant. Last straw, that was.”
Poor Mary Bloom-Smith, in those days she hadn't been too clever. Or else she'd been honest, and loved her husband, and deeply wanted his child. But by then she'd been married to him for five years and she should have known. Oh God, she should have known.
Sim and the Dean were arguing out in the hall. Suddenly Sim burst into the sitting room.
“He says he's going to ring the bell for Evensong. Just like that. You tell him, Sally, will you?”
“Tell him what?”
“One pull and he'll bring the whole Cathedral down around his ears. And I'm not joking.”
“But that's as good as suicide.”
The Dean had come into the room, his eyes bright above the candle flame.
“The Offices are my obligation. The daily praise of God with singing and rejoicing. Theres no question of suicide. None at all.”
“Hold your service by all means, Dean. If the Cathedral happens to fall while you’re in it, well that’s that. But don’t ring that bell.”
“Is there going to be a service?” Old Mr. Smith peered up at them. “I like a nice service.”
Sally bit her knuckles. She was on the very edge of hysteria.
“Take the old man over with you, Dean. I’m sure he’ll behave himself. And about the bell ringing—is it really necessary?”
“I expected you to understand, Miss Paget. Part of a Cathedral’s life is in its bells. Tonight of all nights they should ring out. If it were possible for me to ring the peal, even Great Peter of Gloucester, I would gladly do so. But the small five minute bell—that bell, or one like it, has rung before every service for eight hundred and fifty years.”
“Continuity. You’ll do nothing with him, Sally.”
They helped old Smith up and straightened him. He was steady on his feet and already looking for his hat. Sally got the feeling he might be as glad to be rid of the compulsion to retail his past as she was. Sim lent him his proofed jacket with the fur collar, for it was raining harder than ever. Opening the front door blew out the candles she and Sim were holding. The Dean switched on his small electric torch. Above the prosaic beam his voice also was unsensational.
“It may be a vain belief, even an arrogant one, but I have faith that God will not let His Cathedral fall tonight.”
Sally stood by Sim and watched the point of light flicker down the path and disappear. She was glad that Dean Goodliffe had not asked her to go with him—openly to admit her unwillingness would have been very painful. She stood in the darkness with the rain gusting into her face and went with them in her imagination instead, with the two old men (for she realized now that they were two old men, old men with old mens frail bodies) across the Close and in at the big west door of the Cathedral. Or perhaps the Dean would take his companion in at the smaller door beside it, and up the slope. She went with them into the nave, their footsteps echoing up to the vaulted sky, the wind beating and the stones aching with the need to hold and stand. She went with them on the long walk up between the rows of seats—would he leave Smith alone in the nave or would they go together to ring the bell? Where was the bell rung from? Would it have to be up in the tower? Sooner than she’d expected she heard it. Faint, and coming in the face of the wind. It rang, and rang, and rang again.
“For Christ’s sake. Isn’t that enough for the old fool?”
She’d forgotten Sim was beside her. She felt for his arm and held it. The bell sounded again. And again.
“It’s going to be all right, Sim.” She was laughing, with small tears running down her face. “He knew what he was talking about. It’s going to hold.”
“Just the smallest thing, Sally. The most tiny imbalance and the miracle will cease. That’s the trouble with miracles—they don’t go on forever.”
They stood listening to the bell for a long time. Seven minutes, ten minutes, a long time. Then it stopped, its last note poising them for the world to end. But the Cathedral stood fast. Above the hurling roaring wind Sally imagined she heard the Dean’s voice, huge. Oh Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in Thine anger, let Thou bring me to nothing. Sim drew her back and closed the door. They returned to the sitting room, silver in the still candlelight “You get very emotional about things.” He sat down, sticking his legs out straight. “High-pitched. You know what I mean?”
“It’s a high-pitched situation. Are you completely unmoved by what’s happening out there in the Cathedral?”
“He’s got an eye on becoming a martyr, that’s all.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“There’s no point—that’s what’s wrong with it.”
“Perhaps only he knows the point. Anyway, I don’t care—stories about martyrs always make me cry.”
“That I can well imagine. But do they make you believe?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. She walked away a few paces, moving her hand again backward and forward in the flame of a candle. His voice pursued her.
“Because if they don’t do that they’re not worth tuppence.”
“Let’s talk about something else, shall we?”
“No. While you’re feeling high-pitched. Now’s the time.”
“All right then—if a martyrdom no longer means anything to anybody I think that’s a very great loss. I think it’s our loss that we don’t believe in dying for our beliefs anymore.”
“What’s wrong with us in that we don’t live our beliefs either. Not properly live.”
“Sim”—suddenly she was desperate to get through to him—“Sim, don’t you think a martyrdom can be a sort of service? Just a private act between you and—and—” as she said the word she knew how hopeless it was— “and God?”
He watched her in silence, searching her face while the candle flames crept gently down into the wax beneath them.
“Change that last word,” he said finally. “Remember I’m an unbeliever. Change that last word and I won’t argue. Just a private act between you and you. Like everything else in life. Then I won’t argue.”
There was a sudden crash, louder than any that had gone before. Sally was at the uncurtained window, seeing nothing.
“Too short and sharp,” said Sim behind her. “I was a mile away when Wells fell. The noise rolls about like thunder. There’s a lot to come down—it’s not like dropping a few dozen bricks.” He yawned and shivered. “Most probably that’s one of the chimneys off the house opposite. It’ll be the Deanery’s turn next. Come and warm me up, Sally. Remember I’ve given my coat to the needy.”
Sally’s mind was out again with the Dean, feeling how the sound must have felt within the delicately balanced Cathedral. She backed to the sofa and sat down. Sim put his arm around her and they huddled together, her eyes still on the window, peering wildly beyond its black reflection. She hardly felt his hand on her arm as it moved, stroking slowly up and down.
“A brave act, Sim, don’t you think it has some virtue just in itself? Whatever it’s for, even if in the end it’s for nothing at all, don’t you think it makes the person who does it bigger? And isn’t that a good thing?”
“You talk too much.”
“Would you spend half an hour out there in that Cathedral?”
“I’ve got more sense. The only thing that's holding it up is the weight of its own inertia. And you can take that any way you like."
She screwed her head around to look up at him.
“You frighten me the way you're so certain about things."
“Somebody has to be. Nothing would ever get done otherwise."
He bent and gently kissed her forehead. It was the first gentleness she had known from him, to herself or to anybody. She didn't move. If it could last, if only he could let it last, then there’d be a chance for him, perhaps for both of them.
“You're trembling," he said.
“It's not you, Sim. Just everything. It's been a day."
He kissed the end of her nose, holding her tighter. Outside in the darkness the rain eased. She found herself believing that his arm around her made her safe— a small circle of security in the surrounding dissolution. He was warm and hard. Gradually her trembling stopped, leaving her strangely outside her body. She could look at herself and him, at the stone-like folds in their clothing, at the stained thickness of his boots, at the mortal, impermanent candles. In the silence left by the rain the house scratched and scrabbled, letting in a small breeze at floor level that blew cold on her ankles, ruffling the hems of the curtains. The cold brought her back to herself.
“I'm certain of nothing,” she said. “Not of you, not of myself, not of anything. I had my childhood in Gloucester, the new Gloucester. I've always been certain at least of that."
“What a sad thing to have to be certain of . . ." She heard weariness in his voice. He seemed to have to shake himself into continuing. “See where it's landed you. Alone in a Regency drawing room with . . . with me.
She closed her eyes, moved even closer.
“The house is failing, Sim. There's a wind crept in around my ankles. It's so sad .. ”
He slipped his hand inside her arm, curving it softly around her breast. The reality, the importance of her had driven out everything; she could feel him charged with a sudden huge energy.
“It'll stand, love. We've all the time in the world.” His breath was soft and warm in her hair. “The house will stand as long as we want it to. I'm like the Dean. I have faith.”
His mention of the Dean stirred a memory. Evensong. The Cathedral. The two old men. The wind beating around the buttresses and pinnacles. She was suddenly wary of the man beside her who wanted to make love to her. The man she was more than half willing to love in return.
“Is everything in your life, Sim, really a private act between you and you?”
“You have a correlating mind, Sally. It's very unusual among women.”
“You haven't answered.”
“Let's say, love, that I'm always hoping.”
He held her breast tighter, felt on it for the shape of her nipple, and she let him because not to do so would hurt his dignity. Her own dignity for the moment was not so important. Then she suddenly knew that he had felt her antagonism and that he was laughing at her for it. She wrenched herself away. He lay back in the comer of the sofa looking at her, not bothering to hide his excitement, and now he laughed aloud.
“I thought you wanted your camera back."
“You can keep it."
“My God, the price some women set on their—"
“On their wholeness of mind?"
She hurled the words at him and they stopped him short. Wholeness of mind. She saw that she had affected him on a dream level where he had no resources. He laid the open palms of his hands, one on the seat beside him, the other on the sofa arm, and stood up by pressing down on them hard and arching his back. He went to the mantelpiece, leaned on it, his back to her. In the mirror she could see only the top of his head. She was afraid what he might do. Finally he lifted his eyes to the mirror and saw her behind him, looking at him.
“Before I die," he said, “I shall screw you. Screw your wholeness of mind down into a dark, dark place and leave it there."
It was an oath. An incantation. It seemed to give him peace.
The coldness in the Cathedral was shaking Paper Smith so that he rattled. He found he was warmest curled devoutly down on his knees, so he stayed doggedly down on his knees through the psalms, the prayers and the responses. The responses that came like long-dead voices out of his mind’s grave. He looked up occasionally at the distant figure of the Dean, distant in the vast emptiness where one pace away was a day’s journey and a matter of yards looked like the end of the world. The Dean stood very straight and white among the hurtling candle shadows.
“Oh God, make clean our hearts within us—
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from us”
Paper Smith’s recollections of how he had got where he was were vague and muddled. He had only come to himself some four or five minutes earlier. He remembered darkness and rain and a powerful arm supporting him. He knew when he had entered the Cathedral from the sudden size of the contained air. During the ringing of the bell he had stood where the Dean had told him to stand, and then later he had sat where the Dean had told him to sit. He remembered the candles being difficult to light, for the Cathedral was full of movement, sly gusts of wind and a ship’s creaking. It was, as his life had become, without boundaries or intelligible shape. He wondered if after all he was mad.
“And by Thy great mercy defend us from the perils and dangers of this night.”
“Amen,” he said. “Amen.”
He let the words that followed go unheard. He was caught in a childhood prayer from a huge bed with stiff sheets and a pair of striped pajamas. From the perils and dangers of this night, Amen. The dangers of this night. And he’d known then for certain that the night did have dangers, that all the other things people said were only talk. Defend us. Defend us. Behind him the wind blew in with a great roar, tearing three of the four candle flames out by their roots. It scoured the unseen walls, tossed the Christmas evergreens in garlands on the floor. He knew without thought that the great west window was gone. He expected, sought for, needed, no explanations. All day long he had watched the city falling and pretended it was revolutionaries. He didn’t bother with pretending any longer. The city was falling.
Perhaps this was madness. He knelt on, motionless.
“Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith. William—we must go now. The service is over. We must go now.”
He allowed the same powerful hands to help him up. The same voice told him God was with him, said he need have no fear. Really that was funny. He whose bones were lined with fear, whose teeth and fingernails and flesh and blood had grown on the bitter nourishment of fear—really that was funny. They left the one candle burning behind them, picked their way over the glass and rubble to the door. By the time they got there the candle had gone out.
It was no longer raining. The wind had lessened. They walked across the Close without speaking. The Deanery had lights in one window, pale as watery stars. The Dean paused outside the front door.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “Perhaps it was a help. I hope it was.”
A help. Paper Smith wondered what the Dean meant.
In the Deanery sitting room something was wrong. With his child's nose for atmosphere Paper Smith slunk to a chair and hid. The young man stood defiantly, his back to the fireplace.
“I see your faith was justified, Dean. We must now see if my own faith is equally lucky ”
“Your faith, Simeon? What is that?”
“It's a secret between me and Sally. I'm afraid you wouldn't approve.”
The Dean rubbed his hands. He'd kept on his overcoat.
“It's—ah—depressing how quickly the cold creeps in once the heating's cut off.”
“Much warmer upstairs, Dean. But perhaps too near the impending chimney.”
“Simeon—you've had a row with Sally. I can tell it by the artificiality of your manner.”
“You're slow, Dean. Good dog Billie knew it the moment he put his snout around the door. Look at him now."
Paper Smith felt everybody looking at him. He stood up, forced himself to be aggressive.
“Got any food, Vicar? Im bloody hungry."
The Dean would not be outfaced. There were ritual replies to everything.
“Having received food for the soul we now deserve food for the body. Of course, of course. May I suggest that we all go through into the kitchen?”
They ate what the Dean termed a cold collation. As he mumbled a turkey bone Paper Smith thought for a moment of his cat—it was the sort of night when Tug would have preferred to be at home on his pile of newspapers. Thinking of the cat and the newspapers and the familiar things that were gone made the old man angry. Cats expected nothing, looked after themselves. The reason for his anger escaped him, but he gnawed intently at his turkey bone, bedding its greasy knuckle in his beard. ^
“I've been thinking about our plans for tonight," said the Dean. “This house won’t last much longer—we all know that. I suggest that the crypt under the Cathedral Choir would probably be the safest place."
“Do you welcome being buried alive?" said the young man. “Personally I’d prefer to be hit over the head by flying granite."
“We could take digging implements. Though I myself am convinced that having lasted so long the Cathedral will now last until morning. Especially now that the wind has slackened. At least until the sun gets on it."
