II
The bell rings twice!…
Midnight mass is beginning. The candles are lit and the tapestries draped from top to bottom of the interleaved arches and the oak panelling in the chateau's chapel. It's a veritable cathedral in miniature. And what a congregation there is! And what get-ups they have on! The Sire of Trinquelage is dressed in salmon-pink taffeta in one of the choir's sculptured stalls, with all the other invited noble Lords sitting near him. Opposite, on a pair of velvet decorated prie-dieus, the old dowager marquise in her flame-red, brocaded dress, and the youthful Lady of Trinquelage, hair done up in a tower of crinkled lace in the latest style of the French court, have taken their places; and lower down, the bailiff, Thomas Arnoton, and the scrivener, Master Ambroy are all in black, and clean shaven, with huge pointed wigs—two quiet notes amongst the loud silks and brocaded damasks. Then the well-fed major-domos, the pages, the stablemen, the stewards, and Lady Barbe, with all her keys hanging by her side on a fine silver key-ring. Then comes the lower orders on benches; the servants, the tenant-farmers, and their families. Lastly, the male servers, who are lined up against the door, quietly half opening and closing it again, as they pop in and out between making sauces, so they can soak up a bit of the atmosphere of the mass. As they do this, a whiff of Christmas Eve dinner wafts into the middle of the service, already warmed by so many lit candles.
Is it the sight of these little white birettas which distracts the officiating priest? It's more likely to be Garrigou, with his persistent, little bell incessantly ringing on at the foot of the altar with infernal urgency as if to say:
—Hurry up, hurry up … the sooner we finish, the sooner we eat.
The simple fact is that with each tinkle of the devilishly insistent bell, the chaplain loses track of the mass, as his mind totally wanders off into the Christmas Eve banquet. He imagines the cooks buzzing around, the open-hearth blazing furnaces, the steam hissing from half-opened lids, and there, within the steam, two magnificent turkeys, stuffed to bursting, and marbled with truffles….
Even worse, he imagines the lines of pages carrying dishes that breathe out the tempting vapour and accompanies them to the great hall already prepared for the great feast. Oh, such delicacies! Then there is the immense table fully loaded and brimming over with peacocks still covered in their feathered glory, pheasants with their golden brown wings spread wide, the ruby coloured flagons of wine, pyramids of fruit begging to be plucked from the green foliage, and the marvellous fish spread out on a bed of fennel, their pearly scales shining as if just caught, with a bouquet of aromatic herbs in the gills of these monsters. So life-like is the vision of these marvels, that Dom Balaguère has the impression that these fabulous dishes were served on the embroidered altar cloth, so that instead of saying, the Lord be with you he finds himself saying grace. These slight faux-pas aside, he reels off his office conscientiously enough, without fluffing a line or missing a genuflexion. All went well to the end of the first mass. But, remember, the celebrant is obliged take three consecutive masses on Christmas Day.
—That's one less! sighs the chaplain to himself in blessèd relief. Then, without wasting a second, he nodded to his clerical assistant, or at least, to what he thought was his clerical assistant, and …
The bell rang, again!
The second mass begins, and with it, the fatal fall into sin of Dom
Balaguère.