34. Revelations from Liverpool Cathedral
In which nobody jumps the queue...
Before Gosie and @Hedgehogforshort could continue their converesation, @ErrolTheDragon came barrelling into the yard and stopped at the Bluestocking door. She filled the yard and a certain amount of the lane beyond it. Gospel, Gossip and Gray climbed down and entered the pub with the film canisters, the road dust visible on all three of them and on Errol up as far as anyone could see.
Just as they were about to knock on the darkroom door, Glossy emerged, holding several prints. She placed them carefully on the table and turned towards Gospel.
“The last of Liverpool,” said Gospel, and the canisters went into Glossy’s paws.
“We found 21 marks,” said Errol, from the door, her voice making the glasses ring. “It is all one job. The new film should go in with the rest of the Liverpool film and be developed together.”
“In order of arrival,” said Glossy.
“NO EXCEPTIONS,” said every gerbil in unison, without any of them looking up from what she was doing.
Errol looked down at the gerbils, then drew her head in and said that in that case the order of arrival would do very nicely.
Glossy wrote a number on each canister. Then she turned to the room and said, without being asked, “Glasgow is done.” She picked up the enlarged prints from the table and pinned them up at the beginning of a new row on the wall, the circle and the three lines in the leading under Eve. “Liverpool is three rolls. Two are developed. The third is in the tank now. After Liverpool comes Cumbrae, two rolls. After Cumbrae, Truro, one roll. Then these two.” She said it in the same voice she used for the opening hours, went in, and closed the door.
@AngleofRepose wrote it into the notebook in the order it was given and said, “There must be quite a story if you have 21 marks, what exactly did you find?”
@MarieDeGournay stood up. “No-one is being asked anything, and no-one is answering anything until they have eaten,” she said. “No exceptions.”
Nobody argued. The kitchen hatch opened and Gourmet’s voice came through it taking instructions from nobody, and three bowls of soup with bread, cheese and the good chutney went down the table to where Gospel, Gossip and Gray sat. A larger tray with a much larger bowl went out to Errol, along with the unlabelled jar of chutney because Errol was the only one who could eat it. Gasket brought the teapot, and a second teapot, and the tea was poured, and the three gerbils ate the way gerbils eat when they have been living out of a picnic basket, and the room let them do it in peace.
When the bowls were clean, Errol put her head back through the door.
“Liverpool Cathedral,” she said, “is the largest cathedral in Britain.”
“It was large enough for Errol to be inside,” said Gossip.
“I went inside. By the west door, and I stood in the middle and there was room above me. There was a great deal of room above me. I could have flown in it.”
“You did fly in it,” said Gray.
“Briefly,” said Errol.
“Did anybody notice you?” asked Girdle.
“Everybody noticed me. I am a dragon.”
“They assumed Errol was something to do with an exhibition at the cathedral,” said Gospel.
“The Natural History of Lancashire,” said Grisaille, from something written down, “records that the last dragon in England was seen in 1614.”
“Thank you, Grisaille,” said Hedgehog.
“Errol even fit inside the Lady Chapel,” said Gospel.
“There are windows on the staircase and at the rear atrium,” said Gossip. “Errol flew us up to the top of the staircase window, so we could check for marks.”
Gray continued, “There are 21 panels called the Noble Women windows, and the mark is on all of them.”
“Which mark?” asked Angle.
“The circle and the three lines, low in the leading, struck in. Every panel,” said Errol. “The last five were the ones we needed the extra film for.”
Gospel recited them in her reciting voice. “Kitty Wilkinson. Agnes Jones. Grace Darling. Elizabeth Fry. Anna Hinderer.”
“Grace Darling has a lighthouse in her glass,” said Gray. “But Kitty Wilkinson just has bricks.”
Angle wrote: Liverpool. Lady Chapel. Noble Women windows. 21 panels. Margrave’s Mark on all 21.
“Twenty-one in one building,” said @PastaAllaNorma, who had come over to look at the notebook. “Everywhere else it’s been one.”
“It was a long week,” said Errol.
The darkroom door opened, and Glossy came out with the first of the Liverpool prints and laid them along the big table, panel by panel, in the order the film had gone through the camera. Everyone got up and moved along the row the way people move along pictures in a gallery. The circle and the three lines, again and again, low in the leading, one panel after another.
Then Glossy set down the last print of the second roll, and stood back from it, waiting.
The Margrave’s mark was at the bottom of the Josephine Butler panel, enlarged on the good paper. It was on the leading in exactly the same place as it was on all the others. But this mark was off true, and clear of the circle’s lower edge, ran a short tail trailing off to the right.
Angle looked from the print to where Graphic’s drawing was pinned beside the Ely enlargement, then back to the print.
“Both marks in one photograph,” she said. “The Margrave’s mark off true, the same as Norwich. But we can definitely see it was struck over the old symbol.”
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/34-revelations-from-liverpool-cathedral