The interior charmed him. He forgot his headache. His thoughts hopped.
Church scenes never went well. No way to capture this slow echo for the
stage. The upper brightness made him raise his eyes. This range of high
windows where the lights melted together was called a “clerestory.”
The mingled glory almost frightened him. He saw a white butterfly that
jigged and wheeled, irreverent, solitary on the far shadows of the
vault. Mark smiled. Small Gurdy Bernamer named butterflies “bruffles”
and was probably chasing one, now, across the hot perfume of the
Fayettesville garden. The fancy made him homesick. He blinked. The
woman watching him saw crystal wetness point his lashes and hastily
stated, “This is William de Wykeham’s tomb.”
Mark examined the painted tomb, wished he could sketch the canopy and
the pygmy monks who pray at the Bishop’s feet. Gurdy Bernamer would
like the monks and would break them. He rubbed his nose and chuckled.
“I suppose,” Olive said, “that all this seems rather silly to you.
You’re a practical people.”
“It’s good lookin’. I don’t see how a good lookin’ thing can be silly,
exactly. I was thinkin’ my kid nephew’d like those monks to play with.
But he’d bust them.--Isn’t King William Rufus buried here?”
“You’ve been reading a guide book!”
“Oh, no. That’s in history. They lugged him here on a wagon or
something and buried him. Where’s he plant--buried?”
Mark wished that the dark lady would stop frowning as she steered him
to the glum, polished tomb in the choir. He must be offensive to her.
She said, “This is supposed to be the tomb. They’re not sure,” and Mark
stared at the raised slab of ugly stone with awe. The organ began to
growl softly in a transept. It was solemn to stand, reflecting on the
Red King while the organ moaned a marching air. William Rufus had been
dead so long. History was amazing.... When he had a theatre of his own
Mark meant to open it with Richard III or with Henry V. Carlson told
him that no one would ever play Richard III again as Booth had gone
too high in the part. But the Walling Theatre would be opened with a
romantic play full of radiant clothes and scenes that would match the
playhouse itself. The Walling would have a ceiling of dull blue and
boxes curtained in silk, black as a woman’s hair. The lamps should
wane in the new manner when the acts began and there would be mirrors
rimmed in faint silver to gleam in far nooks of the balcony--something
to shimmer in corners and shadows of his dream.... Mark stared down the
nave and built his theatre against the grey age of this place until
Olive sat in a heap of muslin on the tomb of William Rufus.
“One doesn’t have to bother about such an indifferent king. There are
some more in those tins--I mean caskets--on top of the choir screen.
Edmund and so on.”
“More kings? But won’t a--a sacristan or something come an’ chase you
off of here?”
“What do you know about sacristans?”
“Cathedrals always have sacristans in books.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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