The organ clacked and took deep breaths.
‘Wait a minute,’ Dan whispered. ‘She’s going to do the trumpety one. It takes all the wind you can pump. It’s in Latin, sir.’
‘There is no other tongue,’ the Archbishop answered.
‘It’s not a real hymn,’ Una explained. ‘She does it as a treat after her exercises. She isn’t a real organist, you know. She just comes down here sometimes, from the Albert Hall.’
‘Oh, what a miracle of a voice!’ said the Archbishop.
It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises—every word spoken to the very end.
‘Dies Irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla.’
The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward.
The music carried on by itself a while.
‘Now it’s calling all the light out of the windows,’ Una whispered to Dan.