“Well, perhaps you are right; I suppose architecture does inspire one. The first verses I ever wrote, or the first, at least, that I ever had printed, were on the Apse of Tewkesbury Abbey. They came out in the Gloucester Herald, and I dare say I shall scribble something about these arches some day.”
“Do,” said Lord Blandamer, “and send me a copy. This place ought to have its poet, and it is much safer to write verses to arches than to arched eyebrows.”
Westray coloured again, and put his hand in his breast-pocket. Could he have been so foolish as to leave those half-finished lines on his desk for Lord Blandamer or anyone else to see? No, they were quite safe; he could feel the sharp edge of the paper folded lengthways, which differentiated them from ordinary letters.
“We shall just have time to go up to the roof-space, if you care to do so,” he suggested, changing the subject. “I should like to show you the top of the transept groining, and explain what we are busy with at present. It is always more or less dark up there, but we shall find lanterns.”
“Certainly, with much pleasure.” And they climbed the newel staircase that was carried in the northeast pier.
Clerk Janaway had been hovering within a safe distance of them as they went their round. He was nominally busy in “putting things straight” for the Sunday, before the church was shut up; and had kept as much out of sight as was possible, remembering how he had withstood Lord Blandamer to the face a week before. Yet he was anxious to meet him, as it were, by accident, and explain that he had acted in ignorance of the real state of affairs; but no favourable opportunity for such an explanation presented itself. The pair had gone up to the roof, and the clerk was preparing to lock up—for Westray had a key of his own—when he heard someone coming up the nave.
It was Mr. Sharnall, who carried a pile of music-books under his arm.
“Hallo!” he said to the clerk, “what makes you so late? I expected to have to let myself in. I thought you would have been off an hour ago.”
“Well, things took a bit longer tonight than usual to put away.” He broke off, for there was a little noise somewhere above them in the scaffolding, and went on in what was meant for a whisper: “Mr. Westray’s taking his lordship round; they’re up in the roof now. D’ye hear ’em?”
“Lordship! What lordship? D’you mean that fellow Blandamer?”
“Yes, that’s just who I do mean. But I don’t know as how he’s a fellow, and he is a lordship; so that’s why I call him a lordship and not a fellow. And mid I ask what he’s been doing to set your back up? Why don’t you wait here for him, and talk to him about the organ? Maybe, now he’s in the giving mood, he’d set it right for ’ee, or anyways give ’ee that little blowin’-engine you talk so much about. Why do ’ee always go about showin’ your teeth?—metaforally, I mean, for you haven’t that many real ones left to make much show—why ain’t you like other folk sometimes? Shall I tell ’ee? ’Cause you wants to be young when you be old, and rich when you be poor. That’s why. That makes ’ee miserable, and then you drinks to drown it. Take my advice, and act like other folk. I’m nigh a score of years older than you, and take a vast more pleasure in my life than when I was twenty. The neighbours and their ways tickle me now, and my pipe’s sweeter; and there’s many a foolish thing a young man does that age don’t give an old one the chanst to. You’ve spoke straight to me, and now I’ve spoke straight to you, ’cause I’m a straight-speaking man, and have no call to be afraid of anyone—lord or fellow or organist. So take an old man’s word: cheer up, and wait on my lord, and get him to give ’ee a new organ.”
“Bah!” said Mr. Sharnall, who was far too used to Janaway’s manner to take umbrage or pay attention to it. “Bah! I hate all Blandamers. I wish they were as dead and buried as dodos; and I’m not at all sure they aren’t. I’m not at all sure, mind you, that this strutting peacock has any more right to the name of Blandamer than you or I have. I’m sick of all this wealth. No one’s thought anything of today, who can’t build a church or a museum or a hospital. ‘So long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee.’ If you’ve got the money, you’re everything that’s wonderful, and if you haven’t, you may go rot. I wish all Blandamers were in their graves,” he said, raising his thin and strident voice till it rang again in the vault above, “and wrapped up in their nebuly coat for a shroud. I should like to fling a stone through their damned badge.” And he pointed to the sea-green and silver shield high up in the transept window. “Sunlight and moonlight, it is always there. I used to like to come down and play here to the bats of a full moon, till I saw that would always look into the loft and haunt me.”
He thumped his pile of books down on a seat, and flung out of the church. He had evidently been drinking, and the clerk made his escape at the same time, being anxious not to be identified with sentiments which
