London - Edward Rutherfurd [450]
The outer gallery of St Paul’s is higher than the Whispering Gallery, so it was necessary for Carpenter to lead the children upstairs again before they came out on to the balcony that circles the base of the almighty leaden dome.
They emerged into brilliant daylight. The sky was crystalline, the lightest breeze teasing the surface of the Thames below the city so that it sparkled. And all around them, as they circled the gallery, the panorama of London. Even in his desolation, it was hard for Carpenter, feeling the sharp autumn air on his face and seeing this wonderful sight, not to experience a bracing of the spirit.
They looked northwards over the newly rebuilt Guildhall, over new London’s Roman streets, past old Shoreditch and the woods of Islington to the green hills of Hampstead and Highgate; eastwards they gazed, over the city’s other hill, over the pinnacles of the Tower, the suburbs of Spitalfields where the Huguenot weavers lived, past the forest of ships’ masts in the Pool of London and out towards the long, eastern estuary and the open sea beyond. Southwards they stared at the river, and the huge, curious old form of London Bridge with its tall, medieval gabled houses hanging over the river, and to the untidiness of Southwark on the opposite bank. But from the west came the most glorious vision.
The barges were returning. First, the great, majestic gold barge of the mayor; then the splendid vessels of the companies – pinnacles flying, awnings fluttering, reds and blues, greens, silvers, cheerful stripe and rich embroidery, their banks of oars pulled in perfect unison by the liveried watermen – and following them, score upon score of lesser vessels, all brightly adorned: the great, gilded procession filled the whole river. When the Lord Mayor of London came up the river in full state, there was nothing like it in all Europe except the sumptuous pageants of Venice. O Be Joyful watched, as the two children gazed in wonder.
And despite his sadness, he smiled. The children were right, of course. As he looked out from the dome over London, under that still greater dome of the clear blue sky, he knew it very well. He was not destined for eternal life.
Yet, as he looked at his little grandchildren, it seemed to him now that it no longer mattered very much. His own life, even the fate of his immortal soul, no longer seemed so important. Old Gideon and Martha had departed, but in a sense they had returned. Little Gideon, purer, more godly than he, the valiant little boy who was ready to brave hellfire to rescue his faltering grandfather, would succeed where he himself had so miserably failed. Perhaps these children might even, one day, build that shining city on a hill.
Far below, the barges were approaching Blackfriars. A few moments more, and the mayor would disembark.
Just then, the bells began to ring to welcome the mayor to his city. There were many fine peals of bells all over the city and the suburbs now, for more than ever had been installed in the churches that had risen again since the Great Fire. From one after another of Wren’s fine towers and steeples that rose over the rooftops all around, from churches everywhere they began to chime. From Cheapside and Aldgate, Eastcheap and Tower Hill, from Holborn, from Fleet Street and the Strand. Many had their own particular tunes and, standing side by side with the children, he began to identify them, giving each peal the little rhyme by which it was known.
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St Martin’s
When will you pay me
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be
Say the bells of Stepney
I do not know
Says the great bell of Bow
“That’s St Mary-le-Bow,” he explained. “Old Bow Bells, the very soul of London.”
But more and more bells were joining in – single bells, peals of bells, tolling and clanging with that manly clamour that only the bells of England make. For the glory of English bell-ringing