It occurred to me as we came into the sunlight again, that while we were about it we would go and see the older figures which have been placed in the Norman Undercroft. And so we turned into Dean's Yard, and from thence to the cloisters, pausing now and again to read the inscriptions on the tombstones over which we walked. The lettering on some of them had been freshly chiselled, and the names stood out, giving, it seemed, new life to the memories of those who lay beneath.
Mrs. Darling complained that I might have taken her to a more cheerful place, giving it as her opinion that Westminster Abbey was "nothink more than a bloomin' churchyard". I had to remind her that it is we who, in that place, are the ghosts, and the ghosts who are the real people. The present no longer exists for us. We left it, half an hour ago, to adventure into the dim old ages.
"Speak for yourself, sir," said she. "The present's good enough for me. You got a white mark on yer coat leaning up against the wall, and there's the old chap waiting what you asked to take us underground."
The verger approached with a bunch of keys, leading the way through the "dark cloister" to a door above which was an iron grating. At its opening, a gloomy dungeon-like interior was disclosed, but he put up his hand, and in a moment the Undercroft was flooded with electric light. It is of spacious proportions and of Norman architecture, having a clean-swept empty appearance. On the floor are some glass cases containing the oldest of the effigies, the actual figures which were carried at the funerals. Here is Katherine of Valois. I never hear her name without remembering a passage in Pepys' Diary, where he says: "To Westminster Abbey and there did see all the tombs very finely, having one with us alone ... and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois, and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a queen, and that this was my birthday, thirty-six years old."
"Well, who'd er thought they'd come to this!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, as she gazed at the "ragged regiment". "Wot a show up! Why, this one ain't decent," pointing to the nude figure of Prince Henry of Wales.
The verger explained that these historic dolls had been discovered lying in the cellars under the Dean's house, and how I envied the finder! If only I could get free permission to roam the Abbey and its precincts night and day, open every door I came to, go down every cellar, explore every passage, mount every stairway, I should want to live for ever. I said as much to Mrs. Darling, and she remarked that it wouldn't surprise her to hear that, when I got to heaven, I'd been given "some nosey job".
Quite an inspiring idea! and I warned her that next time she came to the Abbey she might see my ghost peeping through a keyhole.
She shook her head. "You ain't ever likely to meet me 'ere," she said, "for if I must speak the truth, sir, I think it's very dry."
I told her that was because she didn't realise the living, human side of the people in whose likeness the effigies had been made, and I captured her attention with gossip about Henry VII, whose mother was not quite fourteen when she gave birth to him, and whose usurious disposition led him to think first of marrying his own daughter-in-law, then a lady who was insane. The information that on his death-bed he had discharged the debts of all prisoners in London who owed no more than forty shillings, roused a cynical comment from the old lady to the effect that Henry VII did his devil-dodging at the expense of his heirs.
We left the dark cloister as we talked and turned into the vaulted passage leading to the corner which I have sometimes heard described as "The Monk's Garden". Surely there is no more peaceful spot in all London. The little fountain in the enclosure bubbles all day long to the silence, the huge plane tree above it spreads wide arms to the old arcade, and ferns unfold their green fronds to the sunshine. It is a place in which to meditate kindly on the weaknesses of poor human nature, and to dwell with reverence on its greatness.