Still the crowd cheered. Loud shouts of Heresy! Heresy! rang out towards the darkened minster. The candles were still flickering brightly all across Cathedral Green. The Archdeacon was holding both arms aloft, turning very slowly through three hundred and sixty degrees. He looked, Powerscourt thought, like one of those Old Testament prophets appealing for calm among the unruly Israelites as they hankered after the golden calf or graven images rather than the God of their fathers. Gradually silence returned. All eyes were on the tall figure on top of his scaffold. Only when total silence had been restored did he speak. And then he astounded every single person at the scene.
‘Please extinguish all candles,’ he said. There were gasps of astonishment. People had become attached to their candles, seeing them by now as friends and companions on this very special night. Powerscourt saw that the Archdeacon’s shock troops, the choirs and the bodies who had marched together to the fire obeyed without question. Maybe that’s Catholic discipline, he suggested to himself. Then he corrected himself. Jesuit discipline. With mutterings of regret and a great deal of blowing all the candles went out. There was not a single light to be seen across Cathedral Green. It was five minutes to midnight.
The Archdeacon began to address the faithful once again. ‘On this day of all days, at this time so close to midnight and Easter Sunday,’ he said, ‘we value the dark. The cathedral is dark. Christ’s tomb, the sepulchre where he lies is dark. The darkness is the darkness of sin, of error, waiting for redemption from the light of Christ’s Resurrection. The Gospel of St Mark: “And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”’ Heads were bowed everywhere. The Archdeacon continued: ‘“And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away for it was great. And entering into the sepulchre they saw a young man sitting on the right side and he saith unto them: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is not here: he is risen.”’
The Archdeacon crossed himself. So did most of the crowd.
‘On the last stroke of midnight,’ the Archdeacon’s voice was beginning to show signs of its labours during the night. It cracked ever so slightly on the word midnight, ‘it will be Easter Sunday. I invite you all to take your candles into the church and leave them there. Stewards will show you the way. The paschal candles are by the door for you to relight your own. The light in the church will be the light of Christ’s glory The light in the church will be the symbol of the church’s victory over its enemies.’ Powerscourt wondered who he meant. Luther? Calvin? Thomas Cromwell, the architect of the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Henry the Eighth? ‘People of Compton,’ the Archdeacon held his arms aloft for the last time, ‘I commend to you the words of the prophet Isaiah: the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.’
The Archdeacon paused. ‘Dominus vobiscum.’
There was nearly a minute of almost total silence. Some of the choirs were trying to clear their throats. Some of the crowd were retrieving their candles from the ground. Then the trumpet sounded once again, the young man on top of the west front enjoying his second moment of glory As the last note died away, the Cathedral clock began to toll the hour of midnight. Great Tom, cast in Bristol in 1258, who had spoken every day for centuries, gave forth once more. This was his six hundred and forty-third Easter Sunday. One, two, three. People began to shuffle forward from the back. The Archdeacon was still aloft on his scaffold, waving graciously to the people who passed beneath. Four, five, six. Powerscourt was holding Lady Lucy very tight, hoping she wasn’t too cold. Patrick Butler had disappeared on another of his forays into the crowd. Seven, eight, nine. Powerscourt wondered if the Lord Lieutenant had abandoned his port to come into Compton for the bonfire. He tried to remember who the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed for on Sundays. Murderers? Heretics? Ten, eleven, twelve.
The great doors of the cathedral swung open. The inside was completely dark but at the door two stewards were holding out the paschal candles, large enough and broad enough to rekindle all those which had burned so brightly on Cathedral Green. The choirs processed slowly through the doors, preceded by men carrying the banners of The Five Wounds of Christ, and made their way up the nave towards the stalls. They were singing from the Resurrection section of the Messiah: ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors and the King of Glory shall come in.’
Sconces to hold the candles had been placed all over the cathedral, in the aisles and the ambulatories, on the great pillars of the nave, in the north and south transepts, in the presbytery and the choir. Great empty stacks were waiting in the Lady Chapel and the side chapels to receive the surplus. Two orderly queues had formed outside the doors, shuffling forward to cast their light into the darkness.
‘Who is the King of Glory? Who is the King of Glory?’
Patrick Butler reappeared as suddenly as he had vanished. He took Anne Herbert by the hand and led her off towards the cathedral, both of them clutching their candles. Powerscourt thought suddenly that they might prefer to be alone but he did make one request before they left.
‘Could you see if you can find Chief Inspector Yates for me, Patrick? He must be about somewhere. I’d very much like to speak to him.’
The candles were beginning to have an impact now. The first arrivals were all instructed to leave theirs at the bottom of the nave. The lower section of the minster became incandescent with candles that flickered, candles that burned straight up, candles that burnt quickly, candles that looked as though they would burn for ever. It was a glacier of light, inching its way up the cathedral as the pilgrims left their tribute.
‘Who is the King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.’
‘You must be feeling very annoyed, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘You told everybody this was going to happen and it has.’
‘Well, there’s one consolation, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt. ‘You always believed in me. I can’t tell you what a help that has been. Come, we’d better bring our candles. I think I’d feel incomplete if we didn’t.’
The Archdeacon had finally come down from his scaffold. He inspected the remains of the bonfire carefully as if trying to make sure all the Acts had been properly consumed. Inside the glacier of light had reached the top of the nave. The pillars and the soaring tracery were bathed in a golden light, glowing and glimmering as they had seldom glowed before in all their long history.
‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.’
Patrick Butler found Powerscourt and Johnny and Lady Lucy very near the front of the queue. The editor of the Grafton Mercury was more than usually excited. ‘Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, panting slightly, ‘I’ve been making inquiries as to where all these people came from. They’ve come from all over southern England, London, Bristol, Reading, Southampton. And they’ve all known about it for months. The thing’s been organized like a military operation. The local Compton people think they’ve been invaded. They’ve all gone home. They’re just going to wait until things quieten down.’
‘Have you had time, Patrick,’ said Lady Lucy in her sweetest voice, ‘to think of a headline for tonight’s proceedings?’ Lady Lucy had grown rather attached to Patrick’s headlines.