The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [48]
‘This is all very intriguing,’ Tennyson said, sitting up as he received from Fulton the pages. He peered closely at the first. ‘It’s a machine.’
‘Indeed. A machine,’ Allen repeated the word as if he’d come to love it. ‘A machine. A machine of my own devising.’
‘The Pyroglyph,’ Tennyson read. ‘Odd bit of Greek. Fire mark. Marking what?’
‘Wood. It is a wood carver,’ Fulton piped up. His father checked his interruption with a glance.
‘Precisely. A machine for the carving of wood. A Pyroglyph. Here,’ Allen stood beside Tennyson’s chair and pointed at the workings with his nugget of rock. ‘This is a tracer. It follows the design of a piece that is carved by hand, by a master craftsman. This arm connects it across to a drill piece that carves the design exactly onto a fresh piece of wood fixed in this tray. The craftsman’s carving is reproduced so precisely that it is impossible afterwards to tell the original from the copy. Here on this sheet, some designs.’ Tennyson looked down a page of curling leaves, diamonds, crosses, eggs and darts, cherubic faces. ‘The implications of this? Well, just think of them, think of all the homes in our growing cities unable to afford the work of guild craftsmen, now able to afford indistinguishable examples. There is, let us not forget, a moral enhancement that comes with living with fine design, in wood. It connects people to the natural world and to English history. And think of all the new churches also unable to afford teams of craftsmen to decorate them . . .’
Tennyson felt the surge of Allen’s articulacy passing into him. The doctor’s enthusiasm was positively galvanic.
‘Fulton, would you excuse us for a moment?’ The boy looked at his father as if to check that he really meant it and then, in the silence, left.
Now was the moment for Matthew, the crucial manoeuvre. He seemed to have Tennyson in a receptive state.
‘Now,’ he began again, ‘the project is in a very advanced state of realisation. I will shortly be investing all of my savings in the building of the Pyroglyph and purchase of its engine. However, that still leaves an amount of capital required for materials, premises and so forth.’ Tennyson did not seem to betray any dismay at the turn the conversation was taking. Allen pressed on. ‘So my hope is that you will consider investing in the scheme along with me. I already have a site selected. Everything, in fact, is primed and ready to go.’
‘It sounds most convincing,’Tennyson said.‘No doubt the market exists. The cities . . .’
‘Oh, I’m quite sure the market exists.’
‘And as it happens, I have money. We all do. An inheritance from my father.’ Money that could be active in his place, flowing through the world, returning increased. Tennyson could join with the doctor and himself become a man of enterprise, of energy.
‘Well, I would sincerely ask you to consider it.’
‘Consider it considered.’
‘You mean to say . . . ?’
‘Dr Allen, I would very much like to buy a share in the Pyroglyph.’ Tennyson held out his hand. Allen grasped and held, forgetting in his excitement to shake it.
‘That’s wonderful. Quite wonderful. I’m . . . I really am delighted. Now, shall we consider some sums?’
Mary’s mouth was tired. She felt as if she’d spoken for days, for weeks, her spit thickening to a paste, her tongue always lifting and falling to spread the Word. She had lost the ability to sleep. At most she experienced a quick splash of black in the depths of the night before waking again, already praying and speaking. As she walked, the world bulged towards her, close and particular, full of signs. She walked in her bright tunnel from person to person, from soul to soul. It led her now to the pond where John