Crossing To Paradise (31 page)

Oliver puffed himself up. He blinked several times.

“When I left Caldicot,” Gatty told him in a low voice, “I think you were ringing that bell just for me. And you wrote to Austin.” She turned back to face everyone. “It's because of Oliver,” she called out, her voice rising, “because of Oliver as well as Austin that I can read! I can write!”

Still, Gatty did not look directly at Arthur.

She took out of her scrip a palm leaf, rolled and secured with thread.

“It looks like a scroll,” Gatty said. “You can't read it, though.”

Oliver tried to undo the thread, and turned even more pink than he was before. He began to puff.

“Here!” said Gatty. She put it between her teeth and nipped it. Then she shook her head and smiled sweetly at everyone.

Oliver carefully unrolled the leaf. On the palm lay three royal gifts. The priest examined them so closely his nose almost grazed them; he sniffed them; he just touched them with the tip of his forefinger.

“Gold!” announced Oliver.

The congregation gasped, and everyone who was able to got to their knees, even Lord Stephen and Lady Judith.

“Gold dust!” Oliver called out. “Frankincense. Myrrh. From Bethlehem.”

At once Oliver turned to face the east, and processed through the choir, followed by Austin. He raised Gatty's gifts in front of the shining cross and then, reverently, he laid them on the altar. The gifts of the three wise men from Arabia.

“Soon as we got to Bethlehem,” Gatty went on, “Snout and me longed to come home again.” She paused for a moment, going on some inward journey. So many tides and blessings and sorrows. So much she could not tell.

“Yes,” said Gatty, “home again. We couldn't think of nothing else.” She stared straight into the gloom at the back of the church. “Once upon a time,” she confided, “I thought I could walk to Jerusalem instead of going to Ludlow Fair.” Gatty's smile broadened into a grin. “Where I didn't ought to have gone anyway. Hum beat me for that! And I remember, I asked Arthur, ‘Where is Jerusalem, anyhow? Is that further than Chester?'”

At the back of the church, in the gloom, a young man called out, “Gatty! You can't walk to Jerusalem!”

Gatty closed her eyes. She could feel tears springing in them, hot and quick. “I can and all!” she called out. She was choking.

“You can't,” said the voice at the back of the church, firm and warm, almost teasing. “Only a magician could. It's across the sea.”

Gatty blinked away her tears. She looked into the gloom where Arthur was. She looked lovingly at the people of Caldicot. She looked into her own heart, and in her beautiful, red-gold voice, steadily she sang:

“
How many miles to Bethlehem?
Not very far.
Will we find the manger
Lit by a star?

How many miles to Bethlehem?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, and back again.”

Perched on window ledges, round-shouldered, and high on the pulpit, arching their necks like swans, squat in their sockets on the bench ends, all the candles in the church trembled. Everyone in the manor of Caldicot was visited and touched by their light.

Gatty sang again, opening her arms, and everyone sang with her, some of them in tune:

“
How many miles to Bethlehem?
Three score miles and ten.”

Gatty's voice got up and danced high over the tune.

“
Can I get there by candlelight?”

Higher and higher it soared, before coming to rest with peace on its outstretched wings:

“
Yes, and back again.
”

For a moment, so short and forever, there was no sound in the church at Caldicot.

“With our children here,” Oliver called out, “with our lambs, each of us has been to Bethlehem and back again. When the north wind whistles, when our stomachs knot and cramp, when bony starvation stands at each door, let us remember this. Let us feed on this in our hearts with thanksgiving, as now, Lord, we give thanks that Gatty has come back to us.”

“Amen,” said Sir John.

“Amen,” said his people, almost with one voice.

Sir John stood up and turned round to face everyone. “In this church,” he said, “we have heard great wonders. We have seen great wonders. And now, in my hall, you'll find wassail. Two casks of it! Yes, and Slim has made a shredded pie for each man and woman and child in this church. Come, now, and greet our fine pilgrims.”

With this, Sir John gave Lady Helen his arm, and the two of them led the way out of the church, followed by their guests and by Oliver, Austin and Snout.

After this, all the villagers made a rush for the door, gossiping, laughing.

Then Merlin stepped out of the gloom. With his slateshine eyes he gazed at Gatty, unblinking, and she knew he could see all her thoughts, all her feelings; he could see right through her.

Merlin offered his arm to the small woman wearing the white cloth cap, a woman with eyes deep as little wood-violets, and ears that stuck out like Arthur's. Then they too left the silent shell, the almost empty church.

So
it was.

Not by chance.

But not as Gatty in daylight or dream had once imagined it.

Perhaps as God ordained it.

Gatty started to walk slowly down the nave from the rood-screen, and out of the blue shade Arthur walked towards her. What? Twenty steps or so. Later, they each told the other it seemed like the longest walk in their lives. Over the mind's mountains and across the heart's oceans. Despite, and because, and after, and only when.

Gatty and Arthur met within a field of fallen stars. Right in the middle of the wheel of candlelight, not so much shimmering now as misty and glowing.

Then Gatty shrugged off her dark, heavy cloak. It dropped and subsided at her feet. And there she stood in front of Arthur in her winking silk dress, almost shoulderless, dragon-sleeved.

Arthur bit his lower lip.

Gatty pulled off the gold ring. She had to tug at it a bit. Mary holding Jesus in her arms so safe that black storms could shout and the earth itself could shake and He would still be all right. She took Arthur's strong, warm right hand and slipped the ring onto his fourth finger. It was a perfect fit.

Arthur looked at the ring. He looked at Gatty.

“You found it?”

Gatty nodded.

“On Saint Nicholas?”

She nodded again.

“Oh!” exclaimed Arthur. “You're wearing your ribbon!”

Gatty inspected it, so tatty and stained, so precious. “My half,” she said in a husky voice.

“Let me see,” said Arthur.

“Arthur, in my will, I granted you Hopeless. Hopeless, my cow.”

“I know Hopeless.”

“I granted her to you if I didn't come back. But she died this autumn.”

Arthur winced. Then he carefully turned back his left sleeve, exposing his half of the violet ribbon.

Gatty drew in her breath sharply.

“When I came back from the crusade,” Arthur said, “and you weren't here and I read your letter…I should have been happy for you. Escaping from fieldwork. Hunger. Going on your great pilgrimage.”

“And when you told me you were leaving on crusade, and going to Jerusalem…” Gatty faltered. “For two years. For three.”

Arthur shook his head. He shook away the hurt. “You can sing,” he said, almost reverently. “As angels sing.”

Gatty pushed out her lower lip. “Oh yes? How do they sing, then, Arthur?”

“You can read.”

“And you're a knight?”

“And write.”

“And Catmole? Your own manor?”

“You too, Gatty! Your own land.”

Gatty shook her head. “I haven't claimed it yet.”

“Sir John told me. I'll help you. I'll help you claim it.”

“It's up at Ewloe.”

“I know that. I was going to find you there when I got home…”

“At Ewloe?”

“…and then Sir John said you'd already set out for Jerusalem.”

“We're both there!” Gatty exclaimed. “Both of us.”

“Where?”

“In Jerusalem.”

“What do you mean?”

“I carved us on the wall, didn't I. The wall in Holy Sepulchre. You and me, riding Pip. We're there, Arthur, now and always!”

“Oh Gatty!”

Gatty, she pulled off her golden hairnet, with the pins still in it. Her silver-gold curls laughed and they danced.

“Now,” repeated Arthur, “now and always.”

Stars and flames. Gatty's river eyes.

“And all!” she said.