Resurrection

In which Sir Ralph Gifford returns to life and finds that things have changed in many ways

If this is the resurrection, I thought to myself, then every artist for the last thousand years has been seriously mistaken. I shielded my eyes against the light and peered up at the Doom over the chancel arch. I was particularly proud of that fresco.

"Listen, young Forster," I said to the inn-keeper's son when I hired him, "Holbein you are not but you did a pretty good job of that sign outside the pub, so how about seeing what you can do in the church."

I reckon it was one of the last Dooms painted in England before the Reformation and people came from miles around to see it. Of course, as soon as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was on the throne the puritans objected to such a vestige of popery, but I would have none of it. I liked Forster's painting: it was just as I imagined the Last Judgement.

There was a huge archangel in the top corner blowing his trumpet, cheeks bulging and eyes popping as he strained to wake all the dead. Over the chancel arch, stretching from one side of the church to the other, a vast multitude of souls crept out of their open tombs, naked apart from a few signs of rank like a crown or a bishop's mitre. Forster had put in his father, pushing a huge barrel of beer to show his trade, and my father was included as well, holding a shield with our family coat of arms. God's holy angels were over on the right, ushering the elect into Paradise, while down on the left a horde of monstrous demons dragged the wicked down into Hell.

At last my eyes were willing to stay open and I raised my head to look at the west wall of the church.

"Those damn puritans!" I exclaimed out loud.

The west wall was a pristine white apart from the stains where damp was getting through the whitewash and a few places where patches of plaster had fallen away, exposing the stonework underneath. My Doom had completely disappeared!

There were other mysteries, now that I was able to look about me. The floor of the church was littered with plaster from the ceiling and beams of coloured light coming through the stained glass windows picked out the swirling clouds of dust that filled the air. I took a deep breath - and coughed vigorously.

The paroxysm made me realise just how remarkably well I felt - apart from the cough, of course. Thinking back, my last memory was of my bedroom, a stuffy, oak-panelled room lit only by candle-light. Dim figures of my relatives peered round the four posts of the bed or brushed against its curtains as I desperately gasped for breath, sucking great lung-fulls of air in through my open mouth yet never getting enough to meet the urgent demands of my body. I could vaguely remember blackness coming as a blessed relief.

Now, however, I realised that I felt incredibly young and fit and alive. My immediate thought was that somehow I had wakened from a long and healing sleep, though how I came to be in the church and how autumn chill had magically changed into summer's warmth I could not conceive.

There were other changes for which I could not account. The church was full of long wooden seats, which betokened incredible extravagance on someone's part. For as far back as I could remember the congregation had always stood in church, though latterly we gentry often had stools or chairs carried in for us so that we could be comfortable through the lengthy sermons of the reform-minded divine who took the place of Father Jenkins after Queen Mary died.

There also seemed to be a lot more tombstones and monuments in the church. I was standing in front of a large monument that I hadn't seen before. A soberly clad child knelt behind a praying woman in farthingale and snood, facing a man who was also kneeling. I glanced up at the Latin inscription and felt a chill run up my back as I recognised my own name. After the first shock, however, I scanned through it and nodded with satisfaction. On the whole it was quite a good epitaph, though I wish it had stressed my part in that Scottish foray a little more.

Next to my monument there was a huge white marble statue in a most unsuitable style. It depicted a naked woman leaning backwards, her arms draped around the neck of a man in queer clothes who was carrying a long, curved sword. Even stranger was the fact that the inscription was in an odd kind of English instead of proper Latin. The date, however, was in regular Roman numerals and as I spelled it out I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

"In the year of our Lord MDCCCLXXIV - one thousand, eight hundred and seventy four?"

Someone had made a big mistake. Why, it was only a week - or at most, ten days, ago - that Brownlow, my chaplain, came into my bedroom with a long face and very sombrely advised me to make out my will, "just in case". I could clearly remember the little dark-clad attorney sharpening his pen and writing the date: "In the year of our Lord one thousand, five hundred and sixty seven."

Did this mean that the world had continued for another three hundred years? That would have been a big disappointment to Brownlow, whose favourite topic was the soon return of Christ. Of course, it also meant that I had been dead for three centuries, which was a chilling thought. I wondered what lay behind - or beneath - my memorial and for a moment toyed with the notion of gliding through the stone and investigating but I shuddered at what I might find and put the idea away.

On the other hand, it might be a mistake, carved by an illiterate sculptor who put in a couple of extra C's for artistic effect. I took a step forward to examine the inscription more closely and felt my night-shirt flap about my ankles. At least, I thought it was my night-shirt - or possibly my gown - but when I looked down I found I was wearing a long, white garment made of some material that was neither linen nor silk but a sort of cross between the two.

I fingered the material with rising anger. I had specifically ordered that I be interred in my second-best doublet and hose, and those cheapskate relatives of mine had quite obviously ignored my will and buried me in this simple shift. I hitched it up and strode down the aisle. I intended to go over to the manor house and do some serious haunting. If that son of mine thought he could get away with this while he wasted money on seats in the church he had another think coming.

I turned left round the end of the seats and headed towards the heavy oak door, realising, with a certain grim pleasure, that I wouldn't have to struggle with the rusty catch to open it. Ghosts, by all that I had heard, could walk through doors or walls at pleasure. Arms swinging by my side, I stepped confidently into the door.

There was a dull thud as I hit the solid wood, reeled back and measured my length on the cold stone floor. Flashes of bright light circled through the darkness around me and I closed my eyes and tried not to scream. When I opened them again there was a young woman of about sixteen or seventeen, also dressed in white, standing over me and looking down at me with concern.

"I'm ever so glad you did that." she said in the accent of a typical Essex merchant's daughter.

"Did what?" I demanded. My voice seemed horribly nasal and I reached up and gingerly felt my nose, bringing more tears to my eyes as I touched it. My hand came away red - and that, more than anything, convinced me that I was a real body and not a ghost.

"Are you all right?" she asked and then answered her own question. "Oh dear, your nose is bleeding. Can you get up?"

I shook my head slightly and lay still for about five minutes, waiting for the flow of blood to cease. The girl stood there patiently and as soon as I tried to sit up she stooped and gently helped me to my feet.

"Let's get you all cleaned up." she said. "I reckon you're going to 'ave two beautiful black eyes."

She slipped her arm around my waist and guided me back down the aisle and through the curtain into the vestry. There had been a few changes here as well, I noted. The young woman helped me into a chair beside a square basin made out of some kind of pure white stone I had never seen before. Two metal objects protruded from the wall over the basin. The girl twisted the top of one of them and water gushed out, splashing noisily into the basin. I stared in surprise, but quickly realised that there must be hidden pipes in the wall.

"Now, let's get you cleaned up." she said again.

The girl opened a cupboard underneath the basin and took out a cloth, soaked it in the water and sponged down my garment.

"Now for your face."

She twisted the top of the other object and again water gushed out. This time, however, there was a sort of roaring noise from the other side of the room and next moment steam began to rise out of the basin. I gaped at it in astonishment but the girl seemed to take it for granted. She held the cloth under the flow of water, wrung it out and then turned and delicately wiped my face with a cloth that was pleasantly warm.

"What are you staring at?" she asked after a moment. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

She stopped, stood still for a moment and then began to laugh, leaning back against the basin and shaking with mirth.

I glared at her.

"What are you laughing at?"

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she repeated, wiping her eyes. "That's a good one. Why, I reckoned I must be a ghost meself when I woke up and found meself in the church. I was just trying to get up the courage to try and walk through the door when you up and done it for me."

"Why not just open the door?" I demanded, feeling foolish and angry at the same time.

"Oh, I tried that. It's locked."

She set to work on my face again and I stared at her in confusion. A church door locked? It hardly seemed likely. Church doors were never locked. Why, the last time churches had been locked in England was back in the days of bad King John, when the pope placed the country under an interdict, but of course now that England was Protestant the pope could fulminate all he wished but . . .

I jerked up in my chair, my blood running cold. Interdict! Did this mean that the papists were back in power again? Had the Reformation of religion lasted no longer than Queen Elizabeth? Or worse: shortly before my death there had been talk of a Spanish invasion. Had King Phillip succeeded in conquering England and bringing back the Catholic Faith?

"Now what?" the girl demanded, hands on hips. "Can't you sit still for a minute?"

"Listen!" I reached out and seized her hand, holding her fast. "Who are you? What year is this?"

"I'm Lizzie Turner," she said, "my father owns shop in th' village. Who are you?"

"Sir Ralph." I replied. "Sir Ralph Gifford."

"Oh, gentry," she said, and bobbed me a little curtsey. "You from 'ereabouts?"

"Never mind that." I pulled at her hand impatiently. "What year is this?"

"1896" she replied, "Why?"

"Who is ruling England?"

"Queen Victoria, of course."

"Is she a Protestant?"

"Why, bless you, sir, of course she is!"

I let go of her hand and sat back, relief flooding over me. Mind you, that still left the puzzle of the locked door and I teased at it in my mind as Lizzie finished cleaning up my face.

"There," she said eventually, "that's the best I can do. You do look a sight, though. 'Ere, 'ave a look in this mirror."

There was a mirror hanging in a wooden frame beside the vestry door and with Lizzie by my side I went over, stooped down and looked at myself. A young man - a complete stranger - looked back at me. I shook my head from side to side and opened and closed my mouth a few times. The stranger in the mirror did the same, so it had to be me, but where was the scar on my face? What had happened to my white hair and why was I wearing a short, fair beard?

"Lizzie," I turned towards her. "How old would you say I am?"

Lizzie scanned my face for a moment.

"Why, no more'n a year or two older'n me, sir."

"I'm sixty-three." I told her.

"Never!" She looked at me anxiously. "You're 'aving me on, sir, aren't you?"

"That's God's honest truth."

I looked back in the mirror and suddenly recognised myself. That was how I looked when I first went to court, before Time and a Scottish sword marred my face. Apart, of course, from my nose - which was red and swollen - and my eyes. As Lizzie had predicted, they were indeed two beautiful black eyes.