Prince Hal was the hardest role Lydde had to quit, and not only because of the great reviews and her sole Olivier Award nomination. Every night she sat before her dressing room mirror, her face surrounded by a circle of lights while the makeup man applied dark smudges beneath her eyes. Her black hair had been cut to its medieval male pudding-bowl length, the back of her neck shaved to the base of her skull. With her high cheekbones, pale complexion, and large gray eyes, Lydde looked like the photograph of her lost oldest brother Louis. Out on the street she sometimes left off her makeup and lipstick and passed for male, once even going into a men’s loo (but leaving at once because of the stench of urine). She looked often into mirrors—a handsome boy. She was falling in love with her own face.
LYDDE moved back and forth between London and New York. Some years she rented an efficiency in the East Village while she worked at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, others she stayed in London or moved about among the English provinces. It was a nomad’s life like her father’s had been, and not one that lent itself to establishing relationships.
Twenty-three years passed. In middle age, acting roles for women were fewer and the competition fiercer. At last Lydde left London, which she could no longer afford, to become director of the Repertory Theater in Norchester, a small cathedral city near the Channel in the southwest of England. Uncle John came for what would be his last visit. He was alone. Aunt Lavinia was visiting a sister in Arizona and Uncle John didn’t care for Arizona—too hot and brown; or the sister—too much of a snob. Besides, he said on the telephone, he had to talk to Lydde in person.
When she picked him up at Heathrow, he slumped beside her in the seat, blasted by jet lag. She was shocked at how he had aged, though she shouldn’t have been. He was in his seventies, and she had not seen him in two years. He looked as pale as an overexposed photograph.
Lydde reached over and squeezed his hand. He smiled. “So, how’s the job?” he asked.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “I get to choose the plays, and I direct two a year. There’s a lot of paperwork, grant applications and so forth.”
“Any acting?”
Lydde shook her head. “Two plays in four years. None in London.”
“Directing’s not the same, is it?”
“No. I miss acting terribly.”
“You still want to stay in England?”
She took her time answering because she knew he was going to try to talk her into going back to West Virginia. But she finally admitted, “It’s funny, but my home was the stage. Without that, I’m not as comfortable here. I feel at loose ends. I suppose that makes me sound a bit barmy, not at home in the real world. But other actors know what I mean.”
“‘Barmy.’ That sounds British. You need to spend some time in West Virginia.”
“Uncle John, don’t start.”
“Lavinia wanted to see you,” he said, “but she wasn’t interested in coming to England again. She said last time we were here it looked too much like America.”
“Is that why you didn’t bring her along this time?”
“I wanted you to myself,” he said, and patted her arm. Then he nodded off for the rest of the way. But he woke when they reached Norchester and looked around eagerly. “Amazing,” he murmured, “that you would end up here. But maybe not so amazing.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Then he clammed up.
THE first day he did little but sleep off the jet lag. The next day he slept in, but Lydde left work early and returned home to make him lunch. She was in fortunate circumstances—the flat provided by the Rep took up the ground floor of a restored Jacobean building alongside Priory Park, and in the evening she could look out the window and fancy she saw the shades of friars wandering among the trees.
“Did you know,” Uncle John said as they ate roast turkey sandwiches, “this building used to be the jail?”
“Really? How did you know?”
“Did some research before I got here.”
After lunch they went for a walk. Norchester was a pretty cathedral town. Its river, the Pye, was placid, with swans and ducks passing in majestic flotillas and brightly painted houseboats moored to the shore. South of the city the river opened into an estuary that had once been a working port but was now given over to pleasure craft. It was said Joseph of Arimathea first set foot on British soil nearby, leaving deep prints in the wet sand as he trekked the half mile when the tide was out. He was on his way to Glastonbury with the Holy Grail, and a ruined abbey named for him crowned a cliff to Norchester’s southeast.
Uncle John stopped often on the riverbank to stare at the spires of the cathedral or stand in an intersection to study a row of black-and-white buildings which once might have housed candlers and copper-smiths but now were Pizza Hut, a Waterstone bookstore, and a real estate agency. Then he leaned on Lydde’s arm and gestured north along the Pye.
“Let’s mosey on up that way. I’d like to see what’s there now.”
“What do you mean, ‘now’?” Lydde asked.
Uncle John actually blushed. “I don’t mean anything special,” he said.
Lydde was more disconcerted by his response than by his initial slip, if that was what it had been. For that was what he seemed to think it was. She tried to tease him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve been to Norchester before.”
“Let’s walk,” he said.
She put her arm through his and guided him along the shaded river path.
“When I was a kid,” she said, “you used to have a print on your study wall, an old church here in Norchester. St. Pancras.”
“I still have it,” he said. He refused to meet her eyes, as though this were some sort of guilty admission.
“Why Norchester?” Lydde asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Because I was thinking about it after I moved here,” she continued. “I thought it was a coincidence too that I ended up here. And I asked about St. Pancras Church, and sure enough, there’s a St. Pancras. You walk out Eastgate Street about a mile beyond the old medieval walls. But it didn’t look anything like your picture and the cornerstone says it was built in the 1800s.”
He sighed. “The old church burned,” he said. Lydde waited out another silence and he finally added, “Who knows why things interest us? When your mom and I were kids, our mother told us her ancestors came from Norchester. It just stuck in my mind, that’s all.”
“And the picture of the church?”
“Your Aunt Lavinia found it in an antique shop one vacation we took to the Outer Banks when you were little. She knew about the connection and bought it for my birthday.”
Lydde didn’t quite believe him, or at least didn’t think he was telling her everything. She had always known Uncle John to be direct with her and it was plain when he was not. They went on in silence past a footbridge spanning the Pye into a residential neighborhood. He was walking more slowly, as though tiring, but when Lydde glanced at his face it was not weariness she saw but a mixture of anticipation and reluctance. Then he stopped. “There,” he said. He was staring at a rambling Tudor house set in a deep-walled garden which backed onto the riverbank. Only the gabled roof and upper floor were visible.
“Yes,” Lydde said. “Soane’s Croft.”
He smiled slightly.
“It’s a tourist attraction,” she added. “It belonged to a doctor back in the seventeenth century and they’ve preserved a lot of the old medical implements. Plus there’s a little restaurant and a nice garden where you can buy fresh herbs. Keeps with the medical theme, I guess.”
“You’ve been inside?” He was still staring at the house.
“Once to poke around. Doing the tourist thing when I first moved here. And I’ve had lunch there lots of times. The food’s very good. You want to stop in?”
They had reached a heavy iron gate set in the wall at the back of the house and were peering through at a large garden with beds of ro
ses, columbine, and wisteria. A few tourists were wandering the gravel paths with cameras round their necks. Uncle John shook his head suddenly and backed away. “No,” he said. “Doesn’t interest me.”
Right, Lydde thought.
THE next day Uncle John’s mood seemed to lift. They had mornings together, then he went off on his own in the afternoons while Lydde was at the theater. In the evenings he came to the plays or stayed in Lydde’s flat with a book. One night he ushered her inside with an excitement he had obviously been hoarding until her return.
“Have you spent much time in the cathedral?” he asked.
Lydde smiled and said, “I’m there almost every Sunday.”
This caught him by surprise. Uncle John was senior warden of All Saints, Lafayette, in the county seat back home. But he’d given up trying to get Lydde there once she hit high school, and she hadn’t mentioned church since she’d been in England.
“I started back in London a couple of years ago,” she said, “and I just kept it up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a skeptic. But it’s a lovely cathedral, this one. If there is a God, He’d like this cathedral.”
She didn’t tell him how important it had become to her to be there on Sunday for the Eucharist. Lydde didn’t like sounding holy, even to Uncle John, and anyway it wasn’t really holiness she felt. It was much like the stage, which she missed desperately, the feeling of stepping through an invisible curtain into a parallel world, another existence, and participating in the great stories as they played out in all their tragedy and joy. That was what Lydde felt as the priests moved from lectern to pulpit to altar.
Uncle John was looking pleased. “Have you read all the cathedral memorials?” he asked.
Like most old English churches, Norchester Cathedral was covered floor to ceiling with memorial plaques in the nave, the chapels, the cloisters, and every other odd place.
Lydde raised her eyebrows. “All of them? That would take forever. Anyway there’s nobody there I’d be familiar with.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he said with a Cheshire cat smile. “Come with me tomorrow morning?”
So next morning Lydde went with him through the ancient arch-way that opened into Southgate Street, and down the narrow lane into the cathedral close. Inside the nave of the cathedral he stopped.
“This is interesting,” he said. “A labyrinth.” He pointed to an engraving in the stone floor. It was as though he were a tour guide.
“I know,” she said. “Older even than the one at Chartres.”
“And an older pattern. A carryover from the Celts, maybe.” He stepped to the edge. “Let’s walk it first. Put us in the mood for my big surprise.”
Labyrinths look like mazes. Except a maze is a puzzle, with dead ends leading to confusion, backtracking, getting lost. A labyrinth will lead you along its winding paths, around the edge of the circle, then inward, seeming sometimes to carry you away from the center so you think you are lost, but in reality leading you on and in to the heart. There you stop and think or pray or resolve or just breathe, then you are led out again, retracing your steps, until you are back where you started. The Chartres labyrinth is cruciform, with its four quarters ornate as the petals of a flower. At Norchester the labyrinth was plain by comparison, only the path outlined, a two-dimensional ball of yarn. They walked slowly, silently, and Lydde felt herself grow peaceful.
Afterward Uncle John said, “Every physicist should do that now and then.”
“Why?” Lydde asked, but he was already heading for the cloister.
“Here,” he said, and stopped. They were standing by one of the arches that opened onto the green rectangle of the cloister garden. Just above eye level a clutch of cherubs guarded an engraved plaque.
In Memoriam
Robert James Fallam
Born March 3, 1623 Died February 15, 1702
He served his King in the New World
Beloved father
“Our Robert Fallam?” Lydde asked.
Uncle John nodded. “Batts and Fallam, first Englishmen to reach our mountains. And to see the rivers flowing west. Robert Fallam was from Norchester and came back here after his adventures.” He pointed. “And below is the mystery.”
For there was more. After a fulsome description of his “beloved mother” Elizabeth, the son who had placed the memorial added his uncle.
Noah Henry Fallam dissenter
Born September 16, 1625
Lost in the wilderness of Virginia 1671
God shall not be mocked
Lydde shivered suddenly and glanced at Uncle John. He was watching her. He put his hand on her arm. “Let’s get a pot of tea.”
Beyond the cloister was a self-serve restaurant that opened onto its own walled garden. They carried pots of tea and plates of salmon and cucumber sandwiches to a sunlit table beside a grape arbor. Uncle John looked around as though trying to memorize his surroundings.
“You knew Robert Fallam came from Norchester?” Lydde asked, recalling the print on his study wall.
“Yes,” he said.
“And about the one who was lost?”
He shrugged. “Noah. The history books don’t mention him. But that’s not unusual. They usually only talk about the expedition leader. Sounds like he was something of a family scandal, doesn’t he?” He stared at Lydde over his teacup and said, “I wish you’d come home.”
Lydde smiled. “Now, there’s a change of subject.”
But Uncle John looked suddenly as if he were about to cry.
“What’s wrong?” she said quickly. “Does this have something to do with why you came over here now, without Aunt Lavinia? Is one of you sick?”
“No,” he said. “Nothing except old age pains. But I’ve got to tell you something and I’ve been dreading it, because it will do just the opposite of convince you to come back, and because it’s so damned…” He stared over her head and took a deep breath. “They’re destroying the mountains,” he said.
Lydde stared at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean? How do you destroy—”
“The mountains,” he repeated. “Mountains that have been there since the beginning of time. Fallam and the two behind it, Droop and Black. They’re flattening the entire range.”
“But you can’t flatten a mountain range!”
“For the coal,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “They blow up the tops of the mountains and they fill in the hollows and streams all around with the dirt and rock. It makes a flat plain for miles and miles. Three square miles of rock and scrub grass in place of Fallam Mountain. It’s gone, Lydde, from the highway up.”
She shook her head. “If this was a novel, no one would believe you.” But his face told her it was so.
“Robert Fallam,” he said. “He wrote, ‘a pleasing tho’ dreadful sight to see the mountains and Hills as if piled one upon another.’ Not anymore.”
Lydde was trying to fathom it. How could a mountain just disappear? How could a mountain range—“But if they took off the top of the mountain and filled in from the highway on up—”
He finished for her. “The house is gone too.”
Lydde knew he didn’t mean Roundbottom Farm, Uncle John and Aunt Lavinia’s house, which was at the foot of the mountain near the River. When they referred to the house, they meant the one that had burned: Carlo and Margaret’s house, where Lydde had spent hours digging through a charred ruin with a stick.
“The foundation is gone?”
“All of Montefalco is gone. Climb thirty feet past the Mystery Hole and you come to what they call a valley fill. It’s a huge terraced wall of dirt where the hollow used to be. Fallam Point is still there, but you can’t get to it. The only way I know it wasn’t covered is you can see it from the Overlook across the river on Gauley Mountain.”
Lydde couldn’t picture what he meant. No mountain, no hollow, no house. He went on to say they’d been blasting and flattening for the five years since her last visit. He’d not breathed a word to her,
had wanted her back and knew that would be the end of it.
“That’s the truth,” Lydde said. “You tell me why anyone would want to go back to that? Why isn’t the government stopping it? What kind of crazy—”
“I have to show you,” he interrupted. “Now that I’ve told you about Fallam Mountain, you can’t comprehend it, can you? You won’t until you see it. But there’s more, and it’s even more impossible to explain, so you have to come. That’s the only way.”
Lydde was getting irritated. “You’re making this into some kind of weird mystery.”
“It is a mystery. I can’t explain until you come home. All I can say is that we’ve lost more than a mountain, but not everything, and I need to show you.” He took her hand. “It’s a physics experiment. I’m getting old. Lavinia and I won’t be around much longer. I need to pass on what I know to someone younger.”
“But I don’t know the first thing about physics!”
“I want to teach you. That’s why I need you back.”
That night Lydde lay awake and tried to recall what it was like there, the wild riverbed filled with boulders, the hoary, craggy cliffs and ragged mountains. Some of them now apparently disappeared.
If she shut out that last terrible image, she could understand Uncle John’s point. Hard to comprehend the intoxication of the stage without standing on the boards, the cathedral without the smell of old stone and incense, the ancient gorge without the rush of water and gray ghosts of mist.
BEFORE Uncle John returned to West Virginia, Lydde asked if he wanted to see the new St. Pancras Church, but he shook his head. “Wouldn’t be the same,” he said.
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