London (128 page)

There was no such compromise in the Carpenter family. Now that they were not compelled to attend the Anglican Church with its bishops, the heirs of old Gideon and Martha did not do so. Neither little Gideon, aged nine, nor Martha, aged eleven, had ever entered an Anglican church at all. As for this popish-looking cathedral in front of them . . . they looked at their grandfather uncertainly.

It had rather surprised O Be Joyful, during the last decade, to find himself a revered figure in the family. Though he knew only too well that he did not deserve it, he felt for the sake of the next generations that he should at least try to fill the role. So when his grandchildren begged: “Tell us how Gideon fought with Cromwell against the king,” or asked him, “Did old Martha really sail in the
Mayflower
?” he did his best to satisfy them. He had even, God help him, been forced to keep up the old lie that he had tried his best to save Martha in the Great Fire.

Since his grown-up children had all expected him to help them instruct his grandchildren, he had also been forced slowly and painfully to teach himself to read again. It had not been easy. He had even had to ask Penny to take him to a good spectacle-maker for his tired old eyes. But he had done it, and by the time little Martha was five, he was reading the Bible to her every day.

Even more than the Bible however, there was one book that the family always wanted him to read. Written by a great Puritan preacher in the last part of King Charles II’s reign, it told in allegorical form the story of a Christian man who, suddenly overcome by the sense of his own sin and the death that soon awaits him, sets out on a quest. It was a very Puritan pilgrimage: no saints, no Church authority, nothing but faith and the Bible guided poor Christian. The land through which he travelled was a vast moral landscape of the kind so familiar to stern Puritan congregations. The Valley of the Shadow of Death, the village of Morality, Doubting Castle, Vanity Fair, the Slough of Despond – these were the sort of places he encountered on the way to the Celestial City. The people he met, likewise, had such names as Hopeful, Faithful, Worldly-Wiseman, Mr No-Good, or the Giant Despair. The book’s tone was that of the Bible – the Book of Revelation, really – but it was still so neatly couched in plain man’s language that it could be enjoyed by any simple, unlettered fellow. Nor was its message harsh: on the contrary, poor Christian falls into all kinds of error from which he constantly needs to be rescued. Puritan it was, certainly, but
The Pilgrim’s Progress
of John Bunyan which O Be Joyful had learned to read and to love was kindly and very human.

As they looked at the Anglican cathedral, O Be Joyful reassured the two children: “It’s only a building. It isn’t the Slough of Despond.” Taking their hands he led them in.

The truth was, he had come to love the great cathedral. His vow never to work under that popish dome seemed unnecessary now. For whatever he had once thought, there was certainly nothing to fear from Rome any more. William and Mary had been succeeded, some years ago, by Mary’s Protestant sister Anne. After Anne, it was to pass to her equally Protestant cousins, the German House of Hanover. Not only was the throne safe. In recent years the English army and their Dutch allies, commanded by the great John Churchill, made Duke of Marlborough now, had smashed the forces of mighty King Louis XIV of France and made all northern Europe safe for the Protestant cause.

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 of 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.