Set in Stone (22 page)

Alone in the dusty railway carriage, watching as the scenery changed from the sweep of downland and hill-pasture to the wide loops of river through water meadow nearer the coast, I was assailed by doubt. Why had I insisted on making this journey? What did I expect to find? I soon convinced myself that the entire errand was in vain. Waring would not be here; he would have completed his work and moved on; I would find the cathedral frequented only by clerics and worshippers, with no mason in sight. I should have to spend an afternoon exploring the city, make a few sketches perhaps, then find myself a night’s lodging and catch the train back on the morrow. By now, I was in fact wishing that I had taken up Chas’s invitation instead of setting off on this pointless quest.

However, the train soon deposited me in Chichester, where a short walk brought me to a busy thoroughfare lined with prosperous-looking houses and shops. The cathedral spire soared above roofs of slate and tiles, showing me my direction. There was an elaborate market cross at what seemed to be a central point, and stalls set out beneath and around it, selling bread, flowers, cheeses and pies. Hungry from my journey, I ate a pie containing some unidentifiable meat, and paused to get my bearings.

I walked along West Street and was soon looking up at the magnificence of the cathedral from a vantage point close to a bell tower, which stood a little apart. For a few moments I gazed, dwarfed by the cathedral’s
immensity, thinking of the medieval stonemasons whose vision and skill enabled them to create an edifice of such splendour. Hundreds of years after its conception and building, its domination of the city was unchallenged.

But this was putting off my main purpose. I approached the massive west doors, which stood open to visitors, and stepped inside.

I felt the coolness of stone and air; I felt light and space; I saw the jewel colours of stained glass. Rounded arches, tier on tier, reached at last the final, soaring parabola of ribbed vaulting overhead. Each stone rib leaped towards the centre, to meet three others in a carved stone boss that seemed like a clasp, an affirmation, the keeping of a promise. My nervous cough echoed to the heights; my tread sounded too loud, a clumsy intrusion. How could Waring be here? A man of unrestrained lustfulness, in this sanctuary of peace and prayer?

Walking farther in, I paused, my attention caught by two stone effigies: a lord and his lady, lying side by side as if in bed, he in full armour, their feet resting on absurd little dogs; and the most surprising touch, one of his hands withdrawn from its gauntlet, holding hers. I stopped to look again, unaccountably touched; then pulled out my sketchbook and drew them, in swift lines. For some reason I felt overcome by loneliness – no, of longing, though I could not have explained for what I longed, or for whom. I knew only that I should have liked to have a dear companion with me, someone whose hand I could hold as tenderly
as this stone knight held his lady’s, someone with whom I could exclaim over the sights and sounds of the cathedral and the city beyond.

There was a lurking unease at the back of my mind, quite apart from the matter in hand. I examined it, and found that it concerned Charlotte, and the animosity between us last time we had spoken. I thought regretfully of my harsh words, and of my departure from Fourwinds without so much as bidding her farewell. I thought of how pleased I had been when she addressed me as Samuel, and how our argument had made her retreat to a frosty
Mr Godwin
, and how dearly I should like her to call me Samuel again.

But I could not concern myself with Charlotte now. I was already letting myself put off what I must do here.

There were two or three people at prayer – I saw hunched backs in the pews, clasped hands, heard words unintelligibly murmured – but no one at work. I retraced my steps to the west door, walked outside, blinking in the sunshine, and there he was, not more than ten yards away! – the man I had seen at the lake, pushing a wheelbarrow laden with tools and chunks of masonry. None other than the villain Waring himself. Ha! The pursuit had been easier than I thought.

I paused, marshalling my resources. I was surprised again at how young he was – still in his twenties, I estimated, though I always imagined him as a more mature man – and, at close quarters, strikingly handsome. Well, looks could mislead. He glanced my way,
apparently not noticing the open truculence of my glare; nodded, and pushed his barrow past, in the direction of what appeared to be cloisters on the southern side of the cathedral precinct.

I am not usually in the least aggressive, and it shook my equilibrium to find myself so tensed, so hot with rage, fired up for conflict. My voice stuck in my throat. I coughed, and tried again: ‘Mr Waring!’

He stopped, turning to look at me. He was, as I had thought when I saw him at the lake, taller than I; a little older, perhaps; lean and athletic in build. He wore workman’s boots and trousers, a striped shirt with sleeves rolled up, and the same tan waistcoat as before; his face was bronzed by the sun. He looked at me curiously; if he recognized me, he showed no sign of it. Since he did not reply, I called again: ‘Mr Waring, I must speak to you!’

I was barely able to control my voice, but he answered unhurriedly, and with the roll of a West Country accent. ‘I thought you said Waring. If it’s him you want, he’s up the scaffold there.’ He set down his barrow, and nodded towards some planks and ladders rigged up against the southern wall of the cathedral. ‘Gideon!’ he hollered, cupping both hands around his mouth. ‘Gentleman to see you!’

Completely taken aback, I saw the bag of tools at the foot of the ladder. My eyes followed the steps upwards until they encountered the figure of a man. I saw a slim, tall figure; I saw the glint of white hair; a face turned down to look at us. ‘What is it?’ he called.

I hesitated, unable to shout my business, unsure
even what to say. ‘What is it?’ repeated the other, with a touch of impatience.

‘I must speak with him,’ I said.

‘Gentleman wants to speak to you,’ he yelled strongly.

Gideon Waring paused for just long enough to let me know that it was a great inconvenience to be called away from his work; then placed his tools on the planks near his feet, and lowered himself to the ladder. His slow and careful descent gave me time to calm my jangled thoughts, and to readjust my expectations. This, then, was Gideon Waring – not the younger man who stood by my side. This was the creator of the Winds I had come to love, of the mischievous touches around the house, the Green Man, the little gargoyle faces; this, too, was the seducer of Eliza Hardacre, the careless fornicator, the father of little Thomas Dearly, the would-be corrupter of Marianne. Only with difficulty could I hold all this in my mind as he reached the ground, approached me, and extended his hand, giving me a quizzical glance.

‘Gideon Waring,’ he said. ‘Yes, what is it?’

We shook hands; his grip was strong and firm, his hand dry with stone-dust. The white hair was misleading, startlingly offset by eyebrows of pure black. He was, I judged, around forty; his face was thin and tanned; he had a neatly trimmed beard of white threaded with grey. A high forehead, with hair swept back, gave him a dignified air, rather austere; his eyes, beneath the arched black brows, were blue-grey, and penetrating. I was taken aback again. A sensualist, I
had judged him from his work, and his reputation. The man who stood before me, though, had something of the monk about him; an impression heightened by the canvas smock he wore.

‘Yes? What do you want of me?’ he prompted, since I was quite at a loss for words.

‘Pardon me,’ I faltered, ‘for interrupting you in your work.’ My anger was quite dissipated by shock; the accusations I had intended to fling at him dried up in my throat. Thus wrong-footed, I should have to tread carefully. ‘My name is Samuel Godwin,’ I continued. ‘I am employed as painter and tutor by Mr Ernest Farrow, at Fourwinds.’

The mention of those names caused an instant change in his expression, from enquiry to guardedness. I saw a quick glance pass between him and the younger man.

‘Mr Farrow?’ he repeated. ‘And he, I assume, has sent you to find me, for some reason?’

‘No,’ I assured him. ‘I have come of my own accord. I am a great admirer of your work, Mr Waring – indeed, I am fascinated by it.’

He nodded, seeming to accept this as his due.

‘I have been curious to meet you,’ I continued, ‘from the first time I set eyes on your Wind carvings.’

‘Have you, indeed?’ He looked at me warily. ‘So you’re living at Fourwinds, are you? Take care to look about you. And how do you find Mr Farrow?’ He was quietly but precisely spoken; a man who knew his own mind.

‘I have been at Fourwinds only a short time,’ I
answered, choosing my words with care, ‘and I have formed a good opinion of him, although I cannot claim to know him well. He has been generous to me in commissioning a series of paintings. But I am rather anxious about the outcome. I imagine he is not an easy man to please.’

He answered this only with a curt nod. ‘Tutor, you say? So his daughters are still at home?’

‘Yes, of course.’ I found this an odd question. ‘Juliana, as maybe you know, has been ill – she is still frail, but well cared for by Miss Agnew – that is, Miss Charlotte Agnew, who replaced – er – the former governess.’

‘Miss Hardacre, Miss Eliza Hardacre,’ he supplied, without a flicker of embarrassment. ‘Yes – yes. I knew her, of course.’

I looked at him, uncertain what he meant by that
knew
. Surely he could not be boasting of his conquest?

‘Juliana ill, you say, and still frail?’ he went on. ‘I am deeply sorry to hear it – sorry indeed. But, Mr Godwin, you cannot expect me to believe that you have travelled here for the sole purpose of telling me you admire my work? Please credit me with some sense. Mr Farrow must have sent you.’

‘No!’ His defensiveness revived my suspicions. ‘As I have said, your style intrigues me – everything you have carved, from the three Winds to the Green Man in the door arch, and the little gargoyle in the eaves.’ At this, he allowed a smile to flit across his features, and I knew that I had pleased him by noticing such
details. ‘I have been curious,’ I continued, ‘to see the hand that created them.’

‘Well, here it is,’ he said, taking me at my word. He pushed back the sleeve of his smock and held out his right hand – work-worn and dusty, with dry skin and chipped nails – for my examination. ‘A hand like any other.’

‘And to encounter the mind that shaped them.’

My gaze rose from his hand to his eyes; for a second we regarded each other steadily, then he laughed and looked away. ‘That I cannot show you – and would not, if I could. The human mind is a mystery, is it not, Mr Godwin? Who knows what it is capable of imagining – and what it is not? Who knows what it can produce, and what it can conceal? I know only the most superficial surface of my own mind. You are an artist, a painter – so I accept your tribute as artist to craftsman. But if you are any kind of artist, you will know that your true self is to be found in your work, rather than in the personage you present to the world.’

‘I hardly know where my true self is to be found,’ I answered him. ‘Or that I should recognize it.’ The conversation was taking a confessional turn; I had not come for this.

‘Well, you are young. Your work will learn how to speak for itself, as I hope mine does. Now, I have a job to do here, and I cannot stand idle. You must excuse me.’ He made to return to his tools.

‘Mr Waring!’ I called. ‘Please – I must speak with you further. Might I return at the end of the day?’

He frowned. ‘If you must. Come to my lodgings
at seven o’clock. We are at North Walls, a short step from here.’

He gave me directions, and we parted. The younger man, whose name I still did not know, gave me a tight-lipped smile and began unloading stone from the barrow; Waring ascended to his lofty perch, and I walked back towards the market cross, with much on my mind.

Gideon Waring! This ascetic-looking man was the seducer, the sire of an illegitimate child – the man who had so flaunted his relationship with Eliza Hardacre, that Marianne had been able to observe them
in flagrante
? No – I could not believe it. That role would be more suited to his companion, the vigorous young fellow I had first encountered at Fourwinds, close to the cottage where Waring had lived and worked. My eyes blurred with confusion as I paused by a pipe-seller’s window, and refused the attentions of a flower girl who offered me a sprig of lucky heather. Could there be two Gideon Warings, one of whom denied his name?

Impatient with myself, I felt that I was on a fool’s errand. Clumsy and slow-footed, I was being led a merry dance, each step taking me in new and contradictory directions, till I hardly knew which way I was facing. As I wandered past the market cross and into East Street, the chief thought in my mind was the phrase Gideon had used, so similar to that of Ned Simmons, the other stonemason:
Take care to look about you
.

It was not often that I found myself at odds with anyone in the household, beyond the most trifling difference of opinion. The argument with Samuel left me feeling ruffled, upset and angry; angry with myself for parting with him on such bad terms, and for having failed to carry my point; angry with him for his unfeeling obstinacy. My only hope was that he would fail in his mission to find Gideon Waring. Samuel seemed confident (on what basis, I did not know) that the villain could be found in Chichester; but I hoped that some whim, opportunity, or further misdemeanour, would have taken Waring elsewhere. Such was my loathing of the man that I could scarcely bear to think of him living in the same county; indeed, I would have been gratified to hear that he had set sail for the Antipodes, or some distant island idyll; anywhere, provided he did not trouble any of us again.

Prominent in my list of worries, though, was that Samuel
would
find Waring: and that the encounter might lead to him discovering prematurely that Juliana was the mother of the child supposedly Eliza Dearly’s.
I would not have put it beyond Waring to mention the matter. One could not expect such a man to exercise discretion or restraint. If that should be the case, my plan – Mr Farrow’s plan – for Juliana’s future happiness would be ruined; for the subject could hardly be more sensitive, and must only be brought to Samuel’s attention with the utmost tact and delicacy.