He looked at it critically. “I fear it’s not a very good copy. It’s smaller than the original, and the colors aren’t as vivid. Still, it’s better than nothing. See how the light seems to be fading, and how the artist has made Christ’s face exhibit so many emotions at the same time: patience and sorrow and hope.”
And resignation, Polly thought. “What is it a door to?” she asked. “One can’t tell from the painting.”
He beamed at her as if she were a bright pupil. “Exactly. And you’ll note the door has no latch. It can only be opened from the inside. Like the door of the heart. That’s what is so wonderful about the painting. One sees something different in it each time one looks at it. We like to call it our ‘sermon in a frame,’ although the frame’s been taken to Wales as well. A lovely gilded wooden thing, with the Scripture which the painting depicts on it.”
“‘Behold I stand at the door and knock,’” Polly quoted.
He nodded, beaming even more. “‘If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him.’ The artist’s tomb is in the Crypt.”
With Lord Nelson’s. “I’d love to see it,” Polly said.
“I’m afraid the Crypt is closed to visitors, but I can show you round the rest of the church, if you’ve the time.”
And if Dean Matthews doesn’t come in and announce the church is still closed and demand to know what I’m doing here, she thought. “I’d love to see it, if it’s no trouble, Mr.—?”
“Humphreys. It would be no trouble at all. As verger, I often conduct tours.” He led her back down the aisle and over to the central doors where, presumably, he began those tours. “This is the Great West Door. It’s opened only on ceremonial occasions. On other days we use the smaller doors on either side,” he said, and she saw there was another door in the south aisle, the twin of the one she’d come through. “The pilasters are of Portland stone,” he continued, patting one of the rectangular pillars. “The floor where we are standing—”
Is where the Fire Watch stone will be, Polly thought, the memorial dedicated to the memory of St. Paul’s fire watch, the volunteers “who by the grace of God saved this church.” And the only thing left after the pinpoint bomb.
“—is made of Carrara marble in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern,” Mr. Humphreys said. “From here one can see the full length of the cathedral. It’s built in the shape of the cross. To your right—” He walked over to the south aisle to a makeshift wooden partition just this side of the vestibule, “is the Geometrical Staircase, designed by Christopher Wren. As you can see, it’s currently boarded up, though a final decision on what to do hasn’t been made.”
“What to do?”
“Yes, you see, the staircase offers the best access to the roofs on this end of the church, but at the same time it’s extremely fragile. And irreplaceable. But if an incendiary were to fall on the library roof or the towers… It’s difficult to know what to do. Over here—” he walked up the south aisle to an iron grille, “is the Chapel of the Order of St. Michael and St. George with its wooden prayer stalls. The banners which ordinarily hang above them have unfortunately been removed for safekeeping.”
The seventeenth-century cherubs had been, too, and the nave’s chandeliers and most of the monuments in the south aisle. “Some of them were too heavy to move, so we’ve put sandbags round them,” Mr. Humphreys said, leading her past a stairway with a chain across it and a notice: To the Whispering Gallery. Closed to Visitors.
And so much for the Whispering Gallery, Polly thought as the verger led her into the wide central crossing beneath the dome, where there was another chained staircase.
“This is the transept,” he said. “It forms the crosspiece of the cathedral.” He led her into it to show her the monument to Lord Nelson, or rather, the stack of sandbags hiding it, and several other piles of sandbags concealing statues of Captain Robert Scott, Admiral Howe, and the artist J. M. W. Turner. “The south transept is chiefly interesting for the carved oak doorcase by Grinling Gibbons, which unfortunately—”
“Has been removed for safekeeping,” Polly murmured, following him from the transept into the choir and the apse, where he pointed out the organ (removed for safekeeping), the shrouded statue of