CHAPTER 4Ahead of us for half a mile stretched an overgrown cavern of live oaks hung with cascades of pale wisteria and thick festoons of grey moss that were more shadow than substance in the low slanting planes of the evening sunlight through the young-leafed branches. Somebody had said the live oak avenues were like cathedral naves. This one wasn’t—it was too impeded with magnolias and holly and snowy dogwood and cassina that had seeded themselves among the old trees and stretched up, seeking the sun. But the grey moss and purple wisteria, and the whole glow and loom were very like the clouds of incense from the high altar of Chartres, with the amethystine lights round it making planes as tangible and solid in the darkened aisles as these planes were intangible and ethereal. The broad ai
