A few days before the Bishop’s visit Westray was with Mr. Sharnall in the organ-loft. He had been there through most of the service, and, as he sat on his stool in the corner, had watched the curious diamond pattern of light and dark that the clerestory windows made with the vaulting-ribs. Anyone outside would have seen islands of white cloud drifting across the blue sky, and each cloud as it passed threw the heavy chevroned diagonals inside into bold relief, and picked out that rebus of a carding-comb encircled by a wreath of vine-leaves which Nicholas Vinnicomb had inserted for a vaulting-boss.
The architect had learned to regard the beetling roof with an almost superstitious awe, and was this day so fascinated with the strange effect as to be scarcely aware that the service was over till Mr. Sharnall spoke.
“You said you would like to hear my service in D flat—‘Sharnall in D flat,’ did you not? I will play it through to you now, if you care to listen. Of course, I can only give you the general effect, without voices, though, after all, I don’t know that you won’t get quite as good an idea of it as you could with any voices that we have here.”
Westray woke up from his dreams and put himself into an attitude of proper attention, while Mr. Sharnall played the service from a faded manuscript.
“Now,” he said, as he came towards the end—“now listen. This is the best part of it—a fugal Gloria, ending with a pedal-point. Here you are, you see—a tonic pedal-point, this D flat, the very last raised note in my new pedal-board, held down right through.” And he set his left foot on the pedal. “What do you think of that for a Magnificat?” he said, when it was finished; and Westray was ready with all the conventional expressions of admiration. “It is not bad, is it?” Mr. Sharnall asked; “but the gem of it is the Gloria—not real fugue, but fugal, with a pedal-point. Did you catch the effect of that point? I will keep the note down by itself for a second, so that you may get thoroughly hold of it, and then play the Gloria again.”
He held down the D flat, and the open pipe went booming and throbbing through the long nave arcades, and in the dark recesses of the triforium, and under the beetling vaulting, and quavered away high up in the lantern, till it seemed like the death-groan of a giant.
“Take it up,” Westray said; “I can’t bear the throbbing.”
“Very well; now listen while I give you the Gloria. No, I really think I had better go through the whole service again; you see, it leads up more naturally to the finale.”
He began the service again, and played it with all the conscientious attention and sympathy that the creative artist must necessarily give to his own work. He enjoyed, too, that pleasurable surprise which awaits the discovery that a composition laid aside for many years and half forgotten is better and stronger than had been imagined, even as a disused dress brought out of the wardrobe sometimes astonishes us with its freshness and value.
Westray stood on a foot-pace at the end of the loft which allowed him to look over the curtain into the church. His eyes roamed through the building as he listened, but he did not appreciate the music the less. Nay, rather, he appreciated it the more, as some writers find literary perception and power of expression quickened at the influence of music itself. The great church was empty. Janaway had left for his tea; the doors were locked, no strangers could intrude; there was no sound, no murmur, no voice, save only the voices of the organ-pipes. So Westray listened. Stay, were there no other voices? was there nothing he heard—nothing that spoke within him? At first he was only conscious of something—something that drew his attention away from the music, and then the disturbing influence was resolved into another voice, small, but rising very clear even above “Sharnall in D flat.” “The arch never sleeps,” said that still and ominous voice. “The arch never sleeps; they have bound on us a burden too heavy to be borne. We are shifting it; we never sleep.” And his eyes turned to the cross arches under the tower. There, above the bow of the south transept, showed the great crack, black and writhen as a lightning-flash, just as it had showed any time for a century—just the same to the ordinary observer, but not to the architect. He looked at it fixedly for a moment, and then, forgetting Mr. Sharnall and the music, left the loft, and made his way to the wooden platform that the masons had built up under the roof.
Mr. Sharnall did not even perceive that he had gone down, and dashed con furore into the Gloria. “Give me the full great,” he called to the architect, who he thought was behind him; “give me the full great, all but the reed,” and snatched the stops out himself when there was no response. “It went better that time—distinctly better,” he said, as the last note ceased to sound, and then turned round for Westray’s comment; but the loft was empty—he was alone.
“Curse the fellow!” he said; “he might at least have let me know that he was going away. Ah, well, it’s all poor stuff, no doubt.” And he shut up the manuscript with a lingering and affectionate touch, that contrasted with so severe a criticism. “It’s poor stuff; why should I expect anyone to listen to it?”
It was full two hours later that Westray came
