Death’s Old Sweet Song

by Jonathan Stagge

  “So, Phoebe,” he said, “when Ernesta’s away you poison her child’s mind against her.” He smiled at Lorie as he took a martini. “Just exactly what is Ernesta up to in New York anyway?”

  “Gadding,” said Love Drummond, her spectacles glinting as she watched Avril curl girlishly in a chair by Caleb’s side.

  “You should know Ernesta by now, Renton,” said Phoebe. “She claims she can’t bear to leave her dear old sleepy Skipton, but she’d go stark raving mad if she couldn’t get to New York once in a while. She pretended she had to go to pick up her jade that’s being restrung at Tiffany’s, but Tiffany’s is perfectly rich enough to pack the necklace in a box and mail it to her.”

  Renton was still smiling at Lorie. “I bet you got a firm, motherly letter with instructions about the picnic, didn’t you?”

  Lorie smiled back at him, a charming smile that made her face suddenly lovely. “Matter of fact I did. She sent caviar too. A five-pound jar.”

  “Caviar!” exclaimed Love. “Why not peacock’s tongues?”

  Forbes said: “I got a letter too, Lorie. Very bossy, of course. I was to remember to take my vitamin pills and be sure not to be late for the picnic and to act as host if you needed help.” He sighed. “I dread the day when those walkie-talkie radio sets are released to the public. Your mother’ll keep us dialed in to her twenty-four hours a day.”

  Phoebe glanced at Avril’s husband, who was standing forgotten in a corner watching his wife and Caleb with dark, hurt eyes.

  “Lorie dear, give poor George a cocktail. He looks so gloomy.”

  With an effort George Raynor managed a smile and joined us. He was large and rather handsome in a soft dark way. He was also quite a few years younger than his wife. I was sorry for the poor guy because he was besottedly in love with Avril and, I was sure, suffered the torments of the damned when she looked at another man, which was practically always.

  Lorie gave him a martini. He took it gratefully, as if it were particularly gracious of her to include him—an attitude he had developed from years of picking up the crumbs from Avril’s table.

  “Thanks, Lorie.”

  For the next twenty minutes Lorie’s guests settled down to chat and drink their cocktails while the soft evening sunlight splashed gold on the village of Skipton below us and a rather ominous ink-blue cloud started to bank above the mountains. During my short stay in Skipton I had thought that the importance of Ernesta Bray as social leader had, if anything, been exaggerated. Now that she was absent I began to realize just how much the amiable sociabilities of the community depended on her. The same people who sat on this terrace every Saturday evening were sitting there tonight, but the atmosphere, without Ernesta, was different. Avril was flirting outrageously with Caleb, to the obvious discomfort of George Raynor and Lorie. That was something Ernesta would not have allowed. Renton Forbes was drinking too many cocktails. That was something else that Ernesta would not have allowed. Dr. Jessup was being more stuffy and parsonical than usual. And Phoebe and Love Drummond, usually friendly rivals, were squabbling with genuine heat about the respective merits of their dahlias. The party needed Ernesta’s warm, infectious laugh and her unfailing talent for bringing out the most attractive side of her guests. It was going sour.

  The crosscurrents of bad temper had become almost marked enough to be embarrassing when the White twins suddenly appeared from the woods that edged the lawn and rushed toward us, their red heads gleaming like bonfires.

  “I wanna eat,” yelled Billy, catapulting across Avril into Caleb’s lap.

  “I wanna eat,” echoed Bobby. “I wanna eat.”

  He crossed to Dawn, for whom he had developed a mawkish and precocious passion, put his arm around her neck and started whispering in her ear. Then simultaneously both he and Billy saw the picnic baskets and made a dive for them, dragging Dawn along.

  “Oh dear,” said Lorie.

  “Billy, Bobby,” called Love without her heart in it. “Don’t touch those baskets.”

  “It’s no use,” said Phoebe. “No human agency’s going to stop them. We might as well give up and get going to the picnic ground. George, Renton, go save the baskets before they get at the caviar.”

  George Raynor and Renton Forbes pulled the protesting twins off the baskets. Lorie, being agitatedly social, shepherded the rest of us off the terrace and, slipping away, returned with her guitar in a black case.

  It was then that Phoebe voiced the first definite manifesto of revolt against Ernesta’s absentee rule. Turning to Lorie, she said:

  “Secretly I’m terribly bored with that fancy picnic ground Ernesta’s landscape gardener made. Remember the old rock up by the sawmill where we used to picnic when you and Caleb were children? Why don’t we eat up there for a change?”

  Lorie looked blank and began: “But in her letter Mother said to be sure …”

  “Pooh, we let your mother regulate us all too much. Don’t you think it would be nice to picnic by the sawmill, Love?”

  Love Drummond said gloomily: “Nothing’s going to be nice with the twins along.”

  “Don’t be defeated, Love. Come on, Lorie. It’ll be fun.”

  “All right, Aunt Phoebe,” said Lorie.

  Phoebe called: “Everyone, we’re changing the picnic place. We’re going up to the rock by the old sawmill.”

  The White twins running ahead with bloodcurdling Indian war whoops, the party started along the quiet, sylvan track which wound up the mountain behind the house.

  Dawn, who had primly disentangled herself from the amorous Bobby, brought up the rear with me.

  On an exuberant impulse she started to sing:

  “I’ll sing you one-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.

  What is your one-O?”

  She broke off and glanced at me. “Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just now Bobby said he was in love with me. Do you suppose he meant it?”

  “Heaven forbid,” I said.

  “Of course he’s awfully young, only eight,” mused my daughter. Then, abandoning further reflection on this delicate subject, she launched once again into her piping rendition of Lorie’s favorite old English ballad:

  “Two, two the lily-white boys,

  Clothed all in green-O.”

  She stopped. “The lily-white boys. Do you suppose that means the White twins, Daddy?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, they are clothed all in green-O today, aren’t they?” Dawn grabbed at a clump of black-eyed susans as we caught up with Renton and Phoebe.

  “Daddy, what happened to the lily-white boys in the song?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I do know what ought to happen to the White boys in real life.”

  “What?”

  “They should be hit on the head and thrown into the Brays’ duckpond.”

  My daughter seemed to find this suggestion infinitely amusing. She giggled and, pushing past Renton and Phoebe with a shocking lapse into babyishness, started to run up the hill, weaving her way through the other guests and chanting:

  “Two, two the horrid White boys,

  Clothed all in green-O.

  Hit them, hit them on the head

  And throw them in the pond-O.”

  “Oh, you naughtiness!” caroled Avril Lane. “What a bad, bad thing to sing.”

  But she didn’t sound as if she meant it. As for the other members of the picnic party, none of them—not even Dr. Jessup—made any comment whatsoever.

  CHAPTER II

  Phoebe’s rebellious impulse to change the location of the picnic did not turn out well. The walk to the rock by the old sawmill was longer, steeper, and rougher than the ingeniously designed path to Ernesta’s barbecue pit. The climb made the Reverend Jessup wheeze and complain of his heart. Avril managed to turn her ankle and slip with little breathless cries into a tiny brook from which she had to be rescued by Caleb and subsequently helped up the hill on his arm—a state of affairs which
pleased neither George Raynor, Lorie, nor even Phoebe herself, who, I knew, would stand no nonsense between her beloved son and a woman twenty years his senior.

  And, when we reached the actual spot, it was not as charming as Phoebe’s memory of it. Chokecherry saplings had crept across the clearing, blocking most of the view into the valley. The rock itself was overgrown with yellow fungi; an occasional mosquito whined on the evening air; and Love Drummond, who suffered from rheumatism, found the grass still wet from a recent rainstorm and refused peevishly to sit down until Renton Forbes spread his jacket for her. To add to the general gloom, the ink-blue cloud was infecting the sky with the threat of more rain and accelerating nightfall.

  All these were minor tragedies and could have been glossed over by a modicum of social agility on the part of the hostess, and a little good will on the part of the guests. But Lorie was confused and miserable, and the rest of the party, like revolutionary peasants with no disciplinarian to control them, was disintegrating into a rabble.

  Once again I realized how much Skipton needed Ernesta Bray.

  The only members of the party who were still thoroughly enjoying themselves were the White twins. They had discovered the thick, clammy fungi and, tearing them off the rock, began to pelt each other and everyone else.

  “I’m throwing garbage,” screamed Billy. “Dirty, stinking garbage.”

  “I’m throwing garbage,” echoed Bobby. “Great, fat, dirty, filthy garbage.”

  It was, ironically, Ernesta who saved the day by remote control. When Phoebe and Renton Forbes unpacked the picnic baskets, the sight of a luscious maple walnut layer cake quieted the twins. The Reverend Jessup, whose only lay enthusiasm was food, brightened considerably as he caught a glimpse of a lobster mousse and an avocado salad. Even Love Drummond was lured into forgetting her rheumatism by the jar of caviar, once she had studied its label and made sure that the characters on it were genuinely Russian and that Ernesta had not got away with dyed salmon eggs. With a touch of brilliant intuition, typical of her, Ernesta had also added two quarts of champagne.

  As the champagne circulated, it brought a fictitious gaiety. Dr. Jessup, who made a subtle distinction between spirituous liquors and wines, had a glass and, while the meal was actually in progress, a reasonably good humor prevailed.

  But, unfortunately, the effects of the champagne were cumulative, at least upon Avril Lane. Over the walnut cake, her silvery laughter became progressively more tinkly, her pretty, sidewise glances at Caleb more frequent. Finally, completely abandoning her role of genius in favor of the cozier role of Little Woman, she nestled her head against Caleb’s bare arm and giggled:

  “Oh, Avril, you bad one. I think you’re a little tipsy.”

  To my surprise, Caleb, who, so far as I knew, had always entertained a young contempt for our local lady of letters, seemed affected by the champagne too. He grinned down at Avril intimately and, slipping his arm around her, drew her closer, saying:

  “Make you feel better?”

  As he did so, I noticed that he darted a strange, almost malicious glance at Lorie. I had no idea of what was in his mind, but I was sure that Lorie had, for, although she made a pretense of not noticing him, a deep flush, half of resentment, half of embarrassment, spread from her throat to her face.

  George Raynor was reacting too. There was no anger, however, in the look he threw his wife, only a hurt, dogged bewilderment. Poor George. Probably Avril had explained to him before their marriage that a woman of her exceptional talents was not to be shackled by the vulgar conventions of a bourgeois society.

  Renton Forbes, in an attempt to gloss the situation over, started circulating to pick up the empty plates. He only made matters worse, for when he stooped for Avril’s, she lifted her free arm and drew him down on her other side, caroling:

  “Poor Avril, needs two men to keep her warm.”

  The twins, in appalling imitation, threw themselves at Dawn, nuzzled titteringly on either side of her, and shouted in unison:

  “Dawn needs two men to keep her warm. Dawn needs two men to keep her warm.”

  The situation was becoming unpleasant, and since neither Lorie nor Phoebe seemed able to control it, I suggested to Lorie that she sing.

  Clutching at this straw, Phoebe broke in: “Yes, Lorie dear. Sing for us.”

  “Oh yes,” exclaimed Dawn, ignoring the pawing advances of Bobby White with admirable poise. “Sing ‘Green Grow the Rushes-O.’ Please, Lorie, sing that.”

  Her face still a faint pink, Lorie muttered: “All right. If you really want me to.”

  She crossed to the black case and took out the guitar. The twins, eying it dubiously, suddenly got up together.

  “I don’t wanna hear any old song,” said Billy.

  “Dirty, stinking, fat old song,” added Bobby.

  “I wanna go to the sawmill,” said Billy.

  “I wanna go to the sawmill,” said Bobby.

  They started tearing up the slope into the wood.

  “I’ll saw you into a hundred thousand pieces,” said Bobby.

  “I’ll saw you into a million billion pieces,” said Billy.

  Love Drummond watched them disappear with an expression half of relief, half of apprehension. “I suppose it’s safe, isn’t it, Lorie?”

  “Oh yes, the saw was taken away years ago. There’s just the old building and a big sawdust pile.”

  “Then I won’t have their deaths on my conscience.” Love Drummond yawned. “All right, Lorie. Go ahead and sing your song.”

  Lorie dropped, cross-legged, onto the grass, holding the guitar close to her. In the fading light her thin, delicate face had the lonely beauty of a Pierra della Francesca angel and her platinum hair gleamed almost white. She struck a soft chord on the strings. Something in her stillness and the ripple of the chord caught the attention of the whole group. Everyone stopped talking and shifted slightly and then was very quiet.

  “You sing the questions, Dawn,” she said.

  With a starkly simple chord accompaniment on the guitar, she started to sing. Her voice was small and clear and lovely as her face. It had a magic of its own which conjured up an atmosphere of old, forgotten things.

  “I’ll sing you one-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.”

  Dawn’s small voice broke in:

  “What is your one-O?”

  Lorie again:

  “One is one

  And all alone

  And ever more shall be-O.”

  The strange ballad moved on. “I’ll sing you two-O.” “I’ll sing you three-O.” “I’ll sing you four-O.” And each time, the answer to the latest question recapitulated all that had gone before. Apart from an occasional muffled shout from the White twins at the sawmill, the whole mountainside seemed silent. The gloom, half storm, half night, deepened over the little clearing. The spindly chokecherry saplings darkened into silhouettes. A small patch of the Konapic River, just visible below, gleamed silver. The faces around me, shadowy and intent, seemed silver too.

  Lorie reached the twelfth and last verse:

  “I’ll sing you twelve-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.”

  Once again came Dawn’s reedy, insistent question:

  “What is your twelve-O?”

  And Lorie sang:

  “Twelve for the twelve apostles,

  Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven,

  And ten for the ten commandments.

  Nine for the nine bright shiners

  And eight for the April rainers.

  Seven for the seven stars in the sky

  And six for the six proud walkers.

  Five for the symbols at your door

  And four for the gospel makers.

  Three, three the rivals.

  Two, two the lily-white boys,

  Clothed all in green-O.

  One is one

  And all alone

  And ever more shall be-O.”

  There was one last, plangent chor
d. Lorie put the guitar down.

  For a few seconds no one spoke. Then Caleb pushed himself away from Avril Lane and got up.

  “That song,” he said violently. “I hate it. It always gives me the creeps.”

  “Nonsense, Caleb.” The Reverend Jessup bestirred himself and clucked. “It is a fine old Christian ballad. One of the oldest Christian ballads in existence, I believe.”

  Avril Lane, bereft of Caleb, had decided, apparently, to hold the spotlight with her alternate personality of intellectual and scholar.

  “Oh no, no, Dr. Jessup,” she said in the small, pedantic voice which she used when she was being The Great Writer. “The ballad is not Christian at all. It is ancient, yes. But it is definitely pre-Christian. Some scholars, I believe, trace it back to a Druidical origin. Its sources are quite lost in obscurity, but it is known that the early churchmen in England tried unsuccessfully to adapt it to the uses of the Christian Church. That is why we have the references to the apostles, the commandments, the gospel makers. But those are interpolations of a much later date, a much later date.”

  “Well, I agree with Caleb,” said Love tartly. “It gives me the creeps. The symbols at your door. And the six proud walkers. Who are the six proud walkers?”

  “Nobody knows,” said Avril. “Some scholars have tried to connect them with King Arthur and his henchmen who are sleeping under a mountain in Wales and will one day emerge to liberate the country. But I find this a most unsatisfactory explanation. It may have a Druidical significance, of course, like the two lily-white boys. Every year, at the feast of the Sacred Oaks, you know, the Druids sacrificed a beautiful, redheaded youth as a blood offering and—”

  “Talking about beautiful, redheaded lily-white boys,” broke in Love rudely, “what’s happened to Bobby and Billy?”

  We all listened. The raucous shouts I had heard from the sawmill had stopped. With the spell of the song still on the clearing, the silence seemed faintly ominous.