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Southampton 1682

Recitative, by Lesley Tudor-Pole

When I heard three of All Saints church bells had gone missing it struck me as more than a little suspicious.  Gone missing?  It just didn’t ring true.  How could thieves take down and lug three large heavy bells up the High Street and swing out through a town gate, sweet as you like (on a hot August night too), without being heard or noticed by the Watch?

There were great wringings of hands in The Red Lion and The Dolphin and a deal of town- and soul-searching.  The searching unearthed three bodies:  one, unfair enough, from a bolted privy, a newborn in the town ditch and a youth with his throat slit from ear to ear out there on the saltmarsh.  This last was tragic indeed, for it proved to be the young lad we had christened Rodney.

He’d been sent from Salisbury via the Hythe Ferry (along with barrels of horse stale) in response to a request by St Michael’s for ‘someone to alter the chymes into so good a note and tune as shall be liked of by the town and into good harmony’.

I was the town’s senior ringer so, naturally enough, they called on me to conduct the interviews.  (I led the ringing at St Lawrence’s at the proclamation of Charles II and again when he visited the town in 1669).  Oh yes, I’d help wind many a bout of linked sweetness round the town on Sundays and festivals, ringing old years out and far too many years in down at Holy Rood Church.

Above all, I’m known to be honest.  No strings would be pulled for this particular appointment.  Skill and dexterity (plus good heart and ear) were the major requirements.

The youth sent over from Salisbury strode confidently into St Michael’s.  He was fair of face and, I guess, of about seventeen summers.  His eyes were what you might call bright cornflower, his red-gold hair tumbled on his shoulders – and both his arms were heavily bandaged and hung limply at his sides.

‘Been in’t wars,’ he responded cheerily to my scrutiny.  ‘Got some use of m’fingers, though.’

‘Sorry son,’ I sighed.  ‘I’m afraid this is another of their practical jokes – a very bad habit of theirs.  We called for someone to fix the bells and stay on as a ringer…..’  His angelic appearance prompted another thought, ‘but can you sing son?’

‘Nay,’ laughed he, undeterred, ‘c’mon gie’s a bob!’

With that he shot past me and up into the bell tower.  There were a few brief unsettling moments.  Then he returned and said, ‘Job done!  Send for t’ringers and listen.’  He paused.  ‘After I’ve had a few quiet words wi’em.’

I did as he requested and soon the beautiful peal of eight bells began chiming their voices in exquisite melodies of mellow golden sound, peal upon peal upon peal.  They threw in some bob majoring, Oxford doubling and grandsire doubling for good measure.

I was carried away as if in a dream, lost in the sun washing through the open door, when I realised all was silence and the young man was again standing before me.  I stirred uneasily at the thought of wizardry.

‘But, how - ?’
He wrinkled his nose and winked.
‘You did all that by using your nose?  Tell me, boy, do you say your prayers?'
‘Aye, master.  Wi’t bells.  They speak t’God for me.’
That rang so true, I hired him on the spot.
‘Name?’

Shaking his head, he indicated a scrap of parchment poking from his pocket.  Taking it I read, ‘Found near death on Salisbury road.  Recalls nothing.  Zest for pealing.’  Terms were agreed, accommodation found in Bull Street and the young lad we named Rodney settled in the town for nigh on a month, maintaining the cascading harmony upon the troubled souls within it.’

Rodney was inspiring to all from Water to Bar Gate – and even to the poor in East Street.

His arms were mending and when I HEARD HIM HUMMING ‘Oranges and Lemons’ I surmised he was beginning to remember his early years and home.  London, perhaps?  I was saddened but not surprised when he didn’t turn up to his work.

Dr Speed spotted me in the crowd which thronged round the three bodies to touch them as a cure for sickness, lameness or a change of fortune.

‘A pity,’  Dr Speed indicated Rodney.  ‘Such a waste of talent.  Did you ever discover his history?’

‘No, Mr Mayor,’ I bowed, equally sorrowfully, ’but his face rang a bell.’

In September an advertisement in The London Gazette stating that ‘persons having any knowledge of the whereabouts of the bells or those who committed the theft were desired to give notice to the Mayor, or Mr Christopher Smith, Alderman,’ brought another stranger into the town.

I was making my way along Cuckoo Lane to Evensong when I heard a frenzied scream and someone running like the clappers.  Then Betty, saucy chambermaid at The Dolphin, brushed past me, skirts hoisted, exposing a pair of pretty legs and screaming at the top of her voice.

It is my practice in these troubled and dangerous times to carry a dagger concealed within my cloak.  I stepped back into the shadows, fingers closed upon the hilt.  But, what use was a dagger against the incorporeal.  As it rounded the old walls, I saw that the figure pursuing Betty, arms mended and outstretched, was none other than our dear departed Rodney, down to the last strand of red-gold hair flying behind him.

Heart pounding in my throat (though I had nothing with which to reproach myself), I made the sign of the cross and muttered I knew not what.  The spectre skidded to a halt and swung its astonished gaze at me.

‘R…r…r…,’ I gargled.  Then, ‘Oh, God,’ and sank to my knees, cursing my arthritis.  I felt myself being lifted back onto my feet by strong, worldly arms.

‘East, old man,’ soothed the apparition, ‘what a welcoming town this is!  Why is everyone so afraid of me?  That girl … looked at me as if I were a ghost!’

He was the dead spit of Rodney, yet his voice was comfortingly different.  Taking a deep breath, I made so bold as to shift my grip upon his sleeve.

‘Tell me, stranger, did …. Do you have a brother?’

He nodded, face paling at my severity of manner.  ‘Is … he? … ah, I have followed his trail from Yorkshire to Wells to Salisbury … too late, alas, too late!  He died here, then, in Southampton?  Oh, the villains …. It’s those villains you townsfolk should fear – that ring of bell thieves!’

I made a light bow and waited for him to recover his composure.  He turned as the St Michael’s bells began to sound out somewhat laboriously; his expression became even more pained.

‘I must ring to honour his memory.  Afterwards I shall find the Mayor and give him information I have but latterly discovered concerning the stolen All Saints bells.’

‘You know of them?’  I enquired, surprised.  ‘Are you a ringer?’
‘I am, indeed,’ he grinned, so like Rodney.  ‘As to the bells, there was a nationwide appeal.’
‘Come with me,’ I hurried him on, suddenly fearing gathering shadows.

As we entered St Michael’s, I sent one of the choirboys to fetch the Mayor urgently from the Guildhall above Bar Gate.

One day, perhaps, they will be able to place music in a bottle and stopper it up.  Then a day, a week, a month from thence, when the bottle is shaken gently to reorder the notes and the stopper’s removed, will the self-same melodies pour out anew.  Such was the case earlier this evening.

He shot up the bell tower and after the sweet murmur of his voice those eight bells began chiming exquisite golden conversations, peal upon peal upon peal, with that exact throwing in of bob majoring, Oxford doubling and grandsire doubling of one month ago.

Eyes half-closed I absorbed their dying notes.  The silence stretched on and on.  Then there was a scream, a heavy thud and the sound of someone running out into the darkness.

Early attenders stood uneasily in their pews, staring at the belfry door.  I strode towards it and flung it open.

A body lay crumpled at the foot of the twisting steps, pierced through with a dagger.

‘Dear God,’ I recognized Dr Speed’s voice behind me, ‘I came too late, much too late.  Who was he?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied numbly.  ‘He had information regarding the All Saints’ bells.  But, alas, all that we may put in the records is that he was a dead ringer for his brother.’
The End

First published in the magazine ‘Wiltshire View’


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