74. The Winchester Window
In which the scaffolding comes down…
Once the lights of both cars had disappeared @Thehorticulturalhussie and @DauntlessDamson crept out of the hedge towards the gate, Gantry’s voice still ringing in their ears.
Hussie lifted the gate off its hinges and leaned it against the wall. At the door she put two cocktail sticks and a hairpin into the lock, gave them a quarter turn and leaned her shoulder on the oak.
“Thirty-one seconds,” said DauntlessDamson.
“Damn,” said Hussie. “It should only have taken twenty-eight. Maybe I’m getting rusty.”
“Never,” came the reply.
Inside the chapter house, @MarieDeGournay started the generator, and the five arc lights came on, immediately illuminating each of the windows. On the left of the door stood the figure with the chalice from Carlisle, then the Virgin and Child from St David’s. Opposite the door was the empty frame, with the prie-dieu in front of it. Then they could see the woman with the dividers from Norwich, and the women of Jerusalem with their olive wreaths for Judith, from Sainte-Chapelle. The scaffolding stood three platforms high, with boards laid across every level.
@RandomHypatia opened her notebook at the page of measurements she had taken the night before. “I said I’d have the angles.” She pointed to the windows to the left of the open area. “We can take out all of the boards beneath the fitted windows and then dismantle the scaffolding,” she said. “The boards and scaffolding for the middle window stay up until Graphic has finished with them. Then we’ll remove them, too.”
“Why are we removing the scaffold?” asked Marie.
“Because these windows are meant to be seen in the light,” said RandomHypatia. “If the cracks are as important as we think they are, we can’t have anything casting a shadow.”
DauntlessDamson was standing on the top platform under St David’s before anyone had seen her start climbing, and she began to hand boards down to Hussie, who stacked them against the brick wall beside the door.
@EdithStourton and Marie connected the rope and pulley to the Winchester window and Graphic reluctantly removed her paw from the glass. They hoisted it up to the top, one platform at a time as Graphic climbed the ladder alongside it watching it all the way up. At the top, Fenella’s lead knife lay on the boards where she had left it. Graphic picked it up, turned it over once, and began.
“Hussie,” she said, “hold that corner.”
Hussie held that corner.
Then Graphic looked down and found the whole crew looking up at her and turned pink to the ears. Seeing her embarrassment, Gosie said, “Everyone, I think we need to examine the floor to see if there is anything we can see.”
Everyone looked at the floor for nearly a minute before looking up again.
Gimbal sat on the platform next to Graphic with Fenella’s tin of horseshoe nails and handed them up one at a time, counting. At thirty-eight she lost count and started again from one.
“I only need a few more,” said Graphic.
“I know,” said Gimbal, and went on counting.
Griffin sat cross-legged on the flagstones with a pencil and drew a plan of the chapter house with the installed windows. She drew the dividers in the Norwich woman’s hand twice, rubbing out the first pair, because she had drawn them properly but then saw that the dividers in the window were out of proportion and started again.
“Ten past one,” said DauntlessDamson, to nobody.
Brains lay across the doorway with her chin on her paws. As Hussie and DauntlessDamson began to remove the scaffolding, Batshit ran around the poles, and once a short way up the ladder, until Edith sat down on an upturned bucket and kept her boot on Batshit’s lead.
At half past two Marie unpacked their own hamper and laid Gourmand’s napkins out on the flagstones in order. Gimbal climbed down to check each number against the list, found them all correct, and climbed back up with a roll for Graphic. Brains and Batshit sat patiently waiting their turn, then at Edith’s signal, rapidly gulped down their meals, and sat patiently again.
Later, Hussie said it must be nearly four.
“Two minutes to,” said DauntlessDamson. “I think you’re improving.”
A little after that, Graphic climbed down the ladder, stood on the flagstones and said, “It’s in.”
Above the prie-dieu, in the frame opposite the door, the woman in deep water blue held up her three keys. Everyone stopped for a moment to see all five windows in their magnificence. Just then the false dawn’s cone of light rose vertically behind the Winchester window and streamed into the chapter house, revealing the woman with the keys in all her glory. Everyone took a sharp intake of breath.
Marie de Gournay was the first to speak. “Graphic,” she said, “I am speechless. I did not know just how brilliant you are. No wonder Fenella Burnish wanted you in her workshop. I have no idea how, but you have made that window even more beautiful, just by installing it.”
Edith was also staring up at the windows. “Not just that one, Graphic,” she said. “All of the windows are glowing. What a talent.”
Again, Graphic’s ears went pink.
RandomHypatia interrupted them. “We must get the rest of the scaffolding down. Dawn will be here in an hour.”
At this, DauntlessDamson and Hussie jumped up to the top platform and started to remove the boards from under the middle window. They stacked them with the others, then removed the scaffolding. Marie switched off the generator, the arc lights died, and the chapter house darkened.
The crew sat on the flagstones facing the five windows. Gosie sat without fidgeting, the way she had been trained to. Griffin turned her pencil over and over. Gimbal began counting the flagstones she could not see, lost count, and started again. Batshit whined once and Edith put a hand on her back.
“Sunrise in eleven minutes,” said DauntlessDamson.
Nobody spoke after that. The windows turned from black to grey so slowly the change was barely noticed, until shortly afterwards, a soft reddish light emerged along the eastern horizon.
As the dawn gradually rose from the bottom of the windows, a spot of light, sharp as a pin, appeared on the flagstones under the window with the chalice.
Batshit quivered from nose to tail. Brains stood up, walked across the floor and sat down facing it.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/74-the-winchester-window