On the afternoon of the same day Lord Blandamer was himself in Cullerne.
He went to the office of Mr Martelet, solicitor by prescriptive right
to the family at Fording, and spent an hour closeted with the principal.
The house which the solicitor used for offices, was a derelict residence
at the bottom of the town. It still had in front of it an extinguisher
for links, and a lamp-bracket over the door of wasted iron scroll-work.
It was a dingy place, but Mr Martelet had a famous county connection,
and rumour said that more important family business was done here even
than in Carisbury itself. Lord Blandamer sat behind the dusty windows.
"I think I quite understand the nature of the codicil," the solicitor
said. "I will have a draft forwarded to your lordship to-morrow."
"No, no; it is short enough. Let us finish with it now," said his
client. "There is no time like the present. It can be witnessed here.
Your head clerk is discreet, is he not?"
"Mr Simpkin has been with me thirty years," the solicitor said
deprecatingly, "and I have had no reason to doubt his discretion
hitherto."
The sun was low when Lord Blandamer left Mr Martelet's office. He
walked down the winding street that led to the market-place, with his
long shadow going before him on the pavement. Above the houses in the
near distance stood up the great tower of Saint Sepulchre's, pink-red in
the sunset rays. What a dying place was Cullerne! How empty were the
streets! The streets were certainly strangely empty. He had never seen
them so deserted. There was a silence of the grave over all. He took
out his watch. The little place is gone to tea, he thought, and walked
on with a light heart, and more at his ease than he had ever felt before
in his life.
He came round a bend in the street, and suddenly saw a great crowd
before him, between him and the market-place over which the minster
church watched, and knew that something must be happening, that had
drawn the people from the other parts of the town. As he came nearer it
seemed as if the whole population was there collected. Conspicuous was
pompous Canon Parkyn, and by him stood Mrs Parkyn, and tall and
sloping-shouldered Mr Noot. The sleek dissenting minister was there,
and the jovial, round-faced Catholic priest. There stood Joliffe, the
pork-butcher, in shirt-sleeves and white apron in the middle of the
road; and there stood Joliffe's wife and daughters, piled up on the
steps of the shop, and craning their necks towards the market-place.
The postmaster and his clerk and two letter-carriers had come out from
the post-office. All the young ladies and young gentlemen from Rose and
Storey's establishment were herded in front of their great glittering
shop-window, and among them shone the fair curls of Mr Storey, the
junior partner, himself. A little lower down was a group of masons and
men employed on the restorations, and near them Clerk Janaway leant on
his stick.
Many of these people Lord Blandamer knew well by sight, and there was
beside a great throng of common folk, but none took any notice of him.
There was something very strange about the crowd. Everyone was looking
towards the market-place, and everyone's face was upturned as if they
were watching a flight of birds. The square was empty, and no one
attempted to advance further into it; nay, most stood in an alert
attitude, as if prepared to run the other way. Yet all remained
spellbound, looking up, with their heads turned towards the
market-place, over which watched the minster church. There was no
shouting, nor laughter, nor chatter; only the agitated murmur of a
multitude of people speaking under their breath.
The single person that moved was a waggoner. He was trying to get his
team and cart up the street, away from the market-place, but made slow
progress, for the crowd was too absorbed to give him room. Lord
Blandamer spoke to the man, and asked him what was happening. The
waggoner stared for a moment as if dazed; then recognised his
questioner, and said quickly:
"Don't go on, my lord! For God's sake, don't go on; the tower's coming
down."
Then the spell that bound all the others fell on Lord Blandamer too.
His eyes were drawn by an awful attraction to the great tower that
watched over the market-place. The buttresses with their broad
set-offs, the double belfry windows with their pierced screens and
stately Perpendicular tracery, the open battlemented parapet, and
clustered groups of soaring pinnacles, shone pink and mellow in the
evening sun. They were as fair and wonderful as on that day when Abbot
Vinnicomb first looked upon his finished work, and praised God that it
was good.
But on this still autumn evening there was something terribly amiss with
the tower, in spite of all brave appearances. The jackdaws knew it, and
whirled in a mad chattering cloud round their old home, with wings
flashing and changing in the low sunlight. And on the west side, the
side nearest the market-place, there oozed out from a hundred joints a
thin white dust that fell down into the churchyard like the spray of
some lofty Swiss cascade. It was the very death-sweat of a giant in his
agony, the mortar that was being ground out in powder from the courses
of collapsing masonry. To Lord Blandamer it seemed like the sand
running through an hour-glass.
Then the crowd gave a groan like a single man. One of the gargoyles at
the corner, under the parapet, a demon figure that had jutted grinning
over the churchyard for three centuries, broke loose and fell crashing
on to the gravestones below. There was silence for a minute, and then
the murmurings of the onlookers began again. Everyone spoke in short,
breathless sentences, as though they feared the final crash might come
before they could finish. Churchwarden Joliffe, with pauses of
expectation, muttered about a "judgment in our midst." The Rector, in
Joliffe's pauses, seemed trying to confute him by some reference to
"those thirteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them." An
old charwoman whom Miss Joliffe sometimes employed wrung her hands with
an "Ah! poor dear--poor dear!" The Catholic priest was reciting
something in a low tone, and crossing himself at intervals. Lord
Blandamer, who stood near, caught a word or two of the commendatory
prayer for the dying, the "_Proficiscere_," and "_liliata rutilantium_,"
that showed how Abbot Vinnicomb's tower lived in the hearts of those
that abode under its shadow.
And all the while the white dust kept pouring out of the side of the
wounded fabric; the sands of the hour-glass were running down apace.
The foreman of the masons saw Lord Blandamer, and made his way to him.
"Last night's gale did it, my lord," he said; "we knew 'twas touch and
go when we came this morning. Mr Westray's been up the tower since
mid-day to see if there was anything that could be done, but twenty
minutes ago he came sharp into the belfry and called to us, `Get out of
it, lads--get out quick for your lives; it's all over now.' It's
widening out at bottom; you can see how the base wall's moved and forced
up the graves on the north side." And he pointed to a shapeless heap of
turf and gravestones and churchyard mould against the base of the tower.
"Where is Mr Westray?" Lord Blandamer said. "Ask him to speak to me
for a minute."
He looked round about for the architect; he wondered now that he had not
seen him among the crowd. The people standing near had listened to Lord
Blandamer's words. They of Cullerne looked on the master of Fording as
being almost omnipotent. If he could not command the tower, like
Joshua's sun in Ajalon, to stand still forthwith and not fall down, yet
he had no doubt some sage scheme to suggest to the architect whereby the
great disaster might be averted. Where was the architect? they
questioned impatiently. Why was he not at hand when Lord Blandamer
wanted him? Where was he? And in a moment Westray's name was on all
lips.
And just then was heard a voice from the tower, calling out through the
louvres of the belfry windows, very clear and distinct for all it was so
high up, and for all the chatter of the jackdaws. It was Westray's
voice:
"I am shut up in the belfry," it called; "the door is jammed. For God's
sake! someone bring a crowbar, and break in the door!"
There was despair in the words, that sent a thrill of horror through
those that heard them. The crowd stared at one another. The
foreman-mason wiped the sweat off his brow; he was thinking of his wife
and children. Then the Catholic priest stepped out.
"I will go," he said; "I have no one depending on me."
Lord Blandamer's thoughts had been elsewhere; he woke from his reverie
at the priest's words.
"Nonsense!" said he; "I am younger than you, and know the staircase.
Give me a lever." One of the builder's men handed him a lever with a
sheepish air. Lord Blandamer took it, and ran quickly towards the
minster.
The foreman-mason called after him:
"There is only one door open, my lord--a little door by the organ."
"Yes, I know the door," Lord Blandamer shouted, as he disappeared round
the church.
A few minutes later he had forced open the belfry door. He pulled it
back towards him, and stood behind it on the steps higher up, leaving
the staircase below clear for Westray's escape. The eyes of the two men
did not meet, for Lord Blandamer was hidden by the door; but Westray was
much overcome as he thanked the other for rescuing him.
"Run for your life!" was all Lord Blandamer said; "you are not saved
yet."
The younger man dashed headlong down the steps, and then Lord Blandamer
pushed the door to, and followed with as little haste or excitement as
if he had been coming down from one of his many inspections of the
restoration work.
As Westray ran through the great church, he had to make his way through
a heap of mortar and debris that lay upon the pavement. The face of the
wall over the south transept arch had come away, and in its fall had
broken through the floor into the vaults below. Above his head that
baleful old crack, like a black lightning-flash, had widened into a
cavernous fissure. The church was full of dread voices, of strange
moanings and groanings, as if the spirits of all the monks departed were
wailing for the destruction of Abbot Vinnicomb's tower. There was a
dull rumbling of rending stone and crashing timbers, but over all the
architect heard the cry of the crossing-arches: "The arch never sleeps,
never sleeps. They have bound upon us a burden too heavy to be borne;
we are shifting it. The arch never sleeps."
Outside, the people in the market-place held their breath, and the
stream of white dust still poured out of the side of the wounded tower.
It was six o'clock; the four quarters sounded, and the hour struck.
Before the last stroke had died away Westray ran out across the square,
but the people waited to cheer until Lord Blandamer should be safe too.
The chimes began "Bermondsey" as clearly and cheerfully as on a thousand
other bright and sunny evenings.
And then the melody was broken. There was a jangle of sound, a deep
groan from Taylor John, and a shrill cry from Beata Maria, a roar as of
cannon, a shock as of an earthquake, and a cloud of white dust hid from
the spectators the ruin of the fallen tower: