28. Inside the Leading
In which the monotony changes...
Graphic was not given a tray.
Fenella took her instead to a panel laid flat on the far bench, old lead gone the colour of slate. A magnifying glass was set up above the lead with a side light to illuminate it and a chair was pulled up to the bench. Fenella put a block of drawing paper, some 2B pencils and a pencil sharpener next to the lead.
“Lead markings,” said Fenella. She lifted a loose strip of came and turned it so Graphic could see the channel. “Look in here.”
Graphic looked. Down inside the came, where the glass would sit, were a series of small struck marks, letters and numbers.
“Lead came is milled,” said Fenella. “Whoever mills it marks the inside, initials and a date. Every old window carries a record of who made it and who last worked it, on the inside, where nobody sees it once the glass is in. When glass is restored with new lead, I put every mark I find back inside it, then add my own initials and date after it. But I don’t mill it, I stamp it. That is what a proper conservator does. Nothing is lost in my leading.”
“Each mark must be hand-drawn, then I either match it to a stamp, or create a new one. You will draw the marks.” Fenella pulled out the chair and told Graphic to take a seat.
“You can see the indentations in the lead, which must be reproduced exactly. Check your drawing against the marks to be sure.” She indicated that Graphic should begin and stood watching over her while Graphic drew the marks. Once the first piece of lead had been drawn, Fenella adjusted nothing, made a small sound of approval and went back to her own bench.
Graphic worked along the opened strips, drawing the marks and numbering each drawing in the corner in pencil before setting it on the pile. By lunch she had completed six sets.
Gimbal was given a box.
It was a shallow wooden tray with a lid, divided into small square compartments, each compartment numbered from 1 to 200, and in each compartment a stamp. The stamps were wooden, a short turned handle with a number painted on the top and a metal die set into the bottom. Fenella put the box on the bench with a cloth and a bowl of warm water. “They are all in the wrong compartments,” she said. “Clean them and put them right.”
Gimbal took the first stamp out. The top said 63. It was in compartment 1. She turned it over and looked at the die, which was a small fleur-de-lis, and put the stamp down on the bench. The next was 28, and she put it to the left of 63. The next was 147, which went to the right. The next was 9, which went to the left of 28, and then she picked up 91, which had to go between 63 and 147, which meant moving 147 along. Then 84, between 63 and 91, which meant moving 91 and 147. By the twentieth stamp the row reached the end of the bench and every new stamp meant moving most of the others, and she had not cleaned any of them.
Gimbal put them all back in the compartments, then started again. This time she took the stamp out of compartment 1, which was 63, and cleaned it. She dried it. She turned it over and looked at the die. Then she took it to compartment 63, took out whatever was there, which was 112, put 63 in, and cleaned 112. Then 112 went to compartment 112, and what came out of there was 7. She cleaned 7.
The stamps did not need cleaning. The dies were bright and the handles were dry. She cleaned every one of them anyway, because cleaning had been the first instruction.
The chain ran on through the morning and into the afternoon. Partway through, the stamp that came out of compartment 40 had 171 on its top, and when she turned it over the die was a pair of pliers, and in the corner of the pliers was a hard bead of violet wax. She cleaned it. The wax came off on the cloth. She took 171 to compartment 171, took out 56, and moved on.
The package arrived at ten past four.
It was large, flat and heavy, a crate rather than a box, and the courier needed the trolley. It had two labels. The top one was a US Customs label, with a long reference and a barcode and RELEASED printed across it in red, and it had been stuck on at an angle so that it covered most of an older label underneath.
Halcyon scanned the Customs barcode. The spreadsheet did not move. She scanned it again. Nothing. She peeled up the corner of the Customs label, found the edge of the barcode under it, scanned that, and several rows in the dispatch tab turned red.
Griffin had seen the dispatch tab before. Reference. Barcode. Dispatch date, which was six months ago. Carrier. Weight. Crate dimensions. Destination, which read Talmere Logistics, Portland, Maine. Origin, which was not a place but a code, FB0417, in blue, underlined.
Halcyon clicked the code.
A new sheet opened over the old one, grey, with a box in the middle of it asking for a password. Halcyon typed and pressed return. The box shook. She typed again more carefully, and it shook again. The third time she looked down at the keys while she typed, and Griffin, standing at Halcyon’s left elbow, watched Halcyon type instead of the screen. The first key was a capital, F. Then a run she could not fully follow, but she noticed a 5, then a b further along. A t, at the end. Ten asterisks altogether.
The sheet opened. Halcyon read the top of it for perhaps two seconds, said “Wait there,” and went down the workshop at a pace Griffin had not seen her use before.
Griffin waited there. The sheet was in front of her. It was long, the scrollbar on the right reduced to a short grey bar, and the rows filled the page. A set of rows were highlighted in red all with the Dispatch Reference, FB0417. Griffin read the first row, which appeared to be the most recent. Date acquired. Date restored. Conservator, FB. Stamp number, 23. Origin, written in full, Norwich Cathedral. Condition, Stable. Destination, a code. Status, Dispatched.
She read it once more, and then Fenella was there, with Halcyon behind her, and Fenella reached past Griffin without a word and closed the laptop.
“Thank you, Griffin,” said Fenella. “That will do for today.”
It was twenty-five past four.
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