For some indefinable reason, this chapel breathes more the spirit of reverence and holiness than any other in the Abbey. There is no especial beauty of decoration here, but he who can enter the solemn little room without putting up the most fervent prayer of his life must be of an unresponsive nature indeed.
He so dominates the group of tourists he conducts that they often show signs of almost human intelligence.
It did not seem to me inharmonious to visit the Chapels of the Sanctuary in charge of a verger. The Abbey guide is also a philosopher and friend. His intoned information is pleasantly in keeping with the chiselled epitaphs, and his personality is invariably delightful; and he so dominates the group of tourists he conducts that they often show signs of almost human intelligence. The guide answers questions, not perfunctorily, but with an air of personal interest. To be sure, he passes lightly over many of the most impressive figures and proudly exhibits the fearsome Death who jabs a dart at Lady Nightingale, while her husband politely endeavors to protect her. But after becoming acquainted with the chapels one may return on free days and visit, unescorted, the tomb of Sir Francis Vere.
The Waxen Effigies greatly took my fancy. Hidden away in an upper room, they are well worth the extra fee which it costs to see them. The verger describes them with a show of real affection, and indeed, I felt strangely drawn to the ghastly puppets, which are, undoubtedly, very like the kings and queens they represent. William and Mary are easily lodged in a case by themselves, and their brocades and velvets and real laces are beautiful to look upon, though stiffened by age and dirt. Elizabeth is a terror, and Charles the Second a horror, but vastly fascinating in their weird dreadfulness. Again and again I returned to my waxen friends, and found that they gave me more historic atmosphere than their biographies or tombs.
Hanging round the outside of the Abbey, I one day stumbled into St. Margaret’s. The window is wonderful, of course, but I was more interested in remembering that here Mr. Pepys married the wife of whom he later naïvely chronicled:
“She finds, with reason, that in the company of other women that I love, I do not value her or mind her as I ought.”
Having seen the church where Pepys was married, I felt an impulse to visit the house where he died. But I was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that no trace of the house now remains.
And, anyway, the house where he died wasn’t the house where he made the pathetic entry in his Diary:
“Home, and, being washing day, dined upon cold meat.”