London - Edward Rutherfurd [200]
He was completely blind, and every week, Mabel would take him for a walk. “You can’t sit in here all day,” she would tell him in the stout stone hall below St Paul’s. “You get out and take some exercise or you won’t be able to move.” Their expeditions fell into two parts. First she would lead him on his little palfrey to some convenient spot. Then she would make him walk. Then lead him home again.
Today, however, she had a special object in view as she led him towards the river. She was going to take him on London Bridge.
Perhaps of all the changes in London in her lifetime, this was truly the finest. For where once, crossing by the old wooden bridge over half a century before, Ida had observed the great stone piers of a new bridge appearing in the water, now that work was nearing completion. It had taken a long time. Thirty years had passed before a roadway had joined the mighty piers, and then that had been damaged by fire and work had had to start again. But now it was a splendid sight. Nineteen great stone arches crossed the Thames. The bridge they supported had recently been so widened that houses were starting to appear upon it, with the road, broad enough for two carts to pass, running between them. And in the centre of the bridge there was a little stone chapel, dedicated to St Thomas Becket, the city’s martyred saint.
They had left the palfrey by the church of St Magnus, at the northern end of the bridge, and Mabel was walking the old man across.
“Where are we?”
“Never you mind.”
“What street is this?”
“The road to heaven. Or hell.”
He frowned. “I want to go back.”
“You always say that.” She edged him towards her object.
“You’re up to something,” he complained. And he was right. For Mabel had a mission; and she was determined to succeed. It concerned her poor old acquaintance, the curate of St Lawrence Silversleeves.
The man himself was long since dead, of course. So was his wife. One of the daughters was an invalid in the hospital now, but the other was eking out a miserable living in a hovel not far from the church. The Silversleeves family refused to do anything for her. Mabel had protested to Pentecost and to his children, but nothing had been done. She was so incensed that she nearly stopped seeing the old man, but she secretly enjoyed the challenge. “I’ll get something for that curate’s daughter,” she swore. And since she had taken a great liking to the little chapel on the bridge, she had decided to bring the old man there.
Reaching it now, she made him enter, then took him to a bench, and made him sit.
“What is this place?”
“A church. Now listen to me.” And for several minutes she gave him a piece of her mind about the curate, concluding: “I can’t make you see with your eyes any more, old man. I’ve no herbs for that. But I can make you see your sins. Now you just kneel there and have a good pray until you decide to do something for that curate’s daughter.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll leave you here,” she said.
So grudgingly he got down on his knees, while Mabel went to another bench and prayed in silence to the martyred saint.
The miracle – for such Sister Mabel could only take it to be – occurred a little while after. She had been deep in thought when a thin voice came from where Silversleeves was kneeling.
“I can see!”
“What’s that, old man?”
He was gazing at the palms of his hands. “I can see!”
She went over to him. It was true. He could. She crossed herself. “The saint has obtained us a miracle.”
He smiled, despite himself, in an almost child-like manner. Then gave a little laugh. “It seems he has. A miracle. I can see!”
“Will you give something to that poor woman now?”
“Yes,” he said, bemused. “Yes, I suppose I will.” He looked around the chapel. “Extraordinary. I can really see!” Then he frowned. “What chapel is this? Do I know it?”
“The chapel of St Thomas.”
“Thomas?”
“Becket, of course,” she said. “Who else?”
A month later,