The Wrong Rite

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Oh, it would make a difference. The Druids were not such gentle creatures as those folklore chaps make them out.”

  Betty was setting a huge plateful of bacon, eggs, fried bread, and home-cured sausage in front of Sir Caradoc. “There you are then, Master, and may the food lie easy in your stomach.”

  “Thank you, Betty. Your food always agrees with me, you know that.”

  If a man Uncle Caradoc’s age could down a meal the size of that one every morning, he was probably good for another decade or two, Janet thought. While Madoc finished his paltry single egg and sausage, she tied on Dorothy’s white bonnet and buttoned up the pink sweater with bunnies on it that Silvestrine had knitted while Sir Emlyn was conducting rehearsals in Edinburgh. The day would surely be warm once the sun got high, but the thermometer still had a way to go, and God forbid that the Queen of the May should come down with a sniffle.

  The mist was dissipated by now; the tits and the finches were making merry in the hedgerows; the sun was offering a handsome apology for yesterday’s sullen streak. Madoc took Dorothy on one arm and Janet on the other, just to feel them safe with him.

  Uncle Huw couldn’t have told Aunt Elen about Padarn. She was all smiles when she met them at the farmhouse door. “Come in! Oh, what a love! Come, Dorothy, give Auntie a kiss. Have you eaten breakfast?”

  “We had something with Uncle Caradoc,” Janet temporized. They’d had quite enough, but there was no way they were going to get out of having more. She sat down at the long table and looked expectant, as courtesy demanded, while Elen whipped fresh buns out of the oven and poured boiling water into the teapot. “Where’s all the family, Aunt Elen?”

  “Owain’s off to the sheep. The kids are still asleep, the lazy creatures. Huw’s around somewhere, he’ll be in for his tea. Mavis is out at the high barn, dusting off about a hundred ugly old plates Huw’s grandmother bought at a sale years ago. I suppose they’re antiques by now. We store them away in one of the grain bins; they come in handy every so often for a major bash.”

  “Can we help?”

  “Not on your life! You sit right here and talk to me. Have you finished your house? Were the icebergs bad in the river this year? Is Dorothy teething yet? Did you bring any snaps?”

  Janet had expected just such questions. She was showing Elen a view of the lovely St. John River with not a floe in sight and Sir Emlyn in waders and an old felt hat stuck all over with dry flies, reeling in a salmon, when Huw came in. He put on a decent show of surprise and pleasure. “Ah, Madoc, welcome home. Jenny, it’s good to see you again. And this is your little one! Would she have a hug for her uncle Huw, do you think?”

  She would. Huw kept her on his knee while he drank two cups of tea and ate one of Elen’s buns. His wife was all for showing him Janet’s snapshots, but he shook his head.

  “Let’s save them for when I’ve time to enjoy them. Madoc, I was thinking you and I might clean up the chapel. Give the floor a good scrubbing and brush down some of the cobwebs. Folk will be wandering in, you know. Elen, would you have a cloth we could drape over the altar? Nothing special, just something to give a spot of color.”

  And hide the bloodstains from the severed head that must have soaked into the stone. There were no flies on Huw Rhys. Madoc nodded.

  “I’ll be glad to help, Uncle Huw. Where do you keep your mops and things, Aunt Elen?”

  “In the closet over there. Help yourselves. I’ll find you a scrap of something, Huw. Jenny, you might like to pick flowers if you’ve nothing else on just now. They’d be pretty on the altar.”

  Elen was a tallish woman, more Saxon than Celt, she wore her silver-gray hair in a thick coronet. Even in an old-fashioned print housedress and lisle stockings, with a scrubbing pail in one hand and a mop in the other, she had a presence about her. “Here you are, then. Now scat, all of you, I’ve pies to make.”

  “I can help with them after I’ve done the flowers,” Janet offered.

  “No, Mavis will be back from doing the plates. Pick lots, Jenny, it would be nice to see that gloomy old place looking cheerful for once. Here, take my snippers and this rug for Dorothy to crawl around on.”

  Huw and Madoc went off to the great barn. Janet put Dorothy down On the rug and let her crawl around in the sun while she herself cut sprays of bloom from places where they wouldn’t show too much, and laid them carefully in the basket. A perfect chore for an all-but-perfect day. Dorothy was practically nose-to-nose with a butterfly that had lit on the rug, too bad Madoc wasn’t here to see.

  Well, there’d be other butterflies, and perhaps other babies. Janet could feel herself calming down, mellowing out, starting to yawn. She’d better get these flowers into water before temptation overcame her and she flaked out on the rug with Dorothy and the butterfly. She picked up her child, the rug, and the basket all together; they made a big armload, but she hadn’t far to go.

  Elen had a row of jam pots already lined up beside the sink, she was fussing around with some pieces of faded velvet. “I thought one of these might do for the altar, we wouldn’t want anything new-looking. What do you think, Jenny, the red or the blue?”

  “How about that funny greenish piece? It would look springy and blend with the flowers.” Janet was working with her pickings, not trying to be fancy, just bunging them into the jam pots and giving them water to keep them happy overnight. “Would you have any candlesticks that aren’t worth stealing? I personally wouldn’t put anything out there that I cared about.”

  “Neither would I. This pair might do, wouldn’t you think? I picked them up ages ago at a jumble sale. I don’t think I’ve ever used them.”

  “They’ll be fine.” The candlesticks were just cheap green glass chunks that wouldn’t show up much against the cloth anyway. “I suppose the candles ought to be white or cream-colored.”

  “Oh yes, otherwise Mary and Bob will be suspecting us of practicing witchcraft without a license. Here, take these white ones, they’re a little bit used and battered-looking.”

  “Perfect. Maybe I’d better empty the water out of these jars and fill them up later. They’ll be awfully heavy to carry if I don’t.”

  “Oh, leave it in, and trundle them up in the wheelbarrow. Wheel it right up to the sink, this floor will have to be washed later anyway. Jenny, will you look at that now? Dorothy’s trying to pull herself up by the table leg. I’ll mind her here if you don’t mind going alone to the chapel. They should have the worst cleared away by this time.”

  “If they don’t, I’ll wait outside. Thank you, Aunt Elen. It’s the building just past that broken wall, isn’t it? The one that still has most of its roof?”

  “That’s right. See you in a bit, then. You’ll be ready for your teabach. Would Dorothy like some porridge, do you think?”

  “A little, maybe. She had a chopped egg for breakfast. She and Betty’s cat, I should say. I suspect the cat got the lion’s share.”

  “You can be sure he did, the old glutton. Here, let me help you over the sill.”

  Chapter 5

  “IS IT SAFE TO come in?”

  That was Janet, with the flowers. Not to worry, Madoc had done a more thorough job on the floor this time, it was as clean as it was likely to get. He sloshed the scrubbing water out a window so that she wouldn’t notice how red it was, and went to meet her.

  “Just in time, love. Watch the floor, it may be slippery. Where’s the kid?”

  “Aunt Elen’s giving her another breakfast. That makes three so far. She got cozy with a butterfly while I was picking, I’m afraid she’s turned into an awful flirt.”

  “Gets it from you.” He pulled her against him and sought her mouth.

  “So this is what Welshmen do in chapel,” she panted when she could get her breath back. “Where’s Uncle Huw? What did he do, stick you with the dirty work and slide off?”

  “That’s just what he did do.” Padarn was fairly rational now, Huw had popped back for a minute to report. He could remember dropping off while
listening in on the wireless, waking up and stepping out to take a look at the weather, hearing some small commotion over by the chapel and coming to see what it was. The last Fan had been put down in March and Padarn wouldn’t have another dog. He said he was too old. Huw said he spent much of his time these days in the manor kitchen, fetching wood for Betty and chinning about old times with Uncle Caradoc, God bless them all.

  “Didn’t you bring the flowers?” he asked.

  “They’re outside, in the wheelbarrow. I’ll get them.”

  “I’ll do it, Jenny.” It would be a refreshing change from scrubbing clotted gore out of the cracks in flagstones. Madoc went to fetch in the jam pots while Janet stood pondering where to put them.

  Those latter-day Cistercians appeared to have lavished more care on their dining hall than they had on their chapel, or else it had been thoroughly sacked by Henry VIII’s men. It was ancient but otherwise nothing special: just a narrow room perhaps thirty feet long with roughly dressed stone walls that had two small windows knocked into them on either side. They might have been glazed at some time or other; if so, the glass was long gone. Heavy black oak beams held up what was left of the roof.

  The monks and the villagers who came to attend their services would have sat in pews or on backless benches made from other great oaks, Janet supposed. Any furnishings must have rotted away or, more likely, been carried away ages ago. The altar was a slab of the native slate, carved all over in the intricate squiggles beloved of the ancient Celts, laid across a couple of dressed granite blocks that must have taken a good deal of muscle or perhaps a spot of wizardry to set up. Janet unfolded Elen’s remnant of bronzy green velvet, most likely part of an old drapery, and spread it over the slab.

  “There, that’s not too bad. Hand me that biggest potful of flowers, will you?”

  Flowers in the middle, candles at the sides; she fitted them into their undistinguished holders and teased the sprays of bloom into a spread-out fan. “How does this look?”

  “A vast improvement. What happens with these others?”

  “Aunt Elen said to put them in the window niches, but I’m afraid they’d get blown down and smashed. I’ll just set them here in front of the altar.”

  Janet was glad she’d picked so many. The masses of white and pink and yellow and green were making a difference, their fragrance masking the vaguely disagreeable odor she’d noticed when she’d first come in. She fussed with the bouquets, loosening them up to make more of a splash.

  Masses of cobwebs still clung to the rafters. She herself would have swiped them down with a broom tied to a long stick; but she wasn’t going to mention them now. They’d bring a shower of dust along with them and the place would have to be cleaned all over again. Anyway, why disturb the ancestral spiders? At least something was getting some good out of the chapel.

  “There,” she said at last, “that’s the best I can do. I’ll come back in the morning with Aunt Elen’s watering pot and give them another drink.”

  “Yes, love.”

  Madoc put his arm around her again. The two of them stood there, facing the altar with its air of springtime. A rite of exorcism, Janet thought, though she couldn’t imagine why. What in heaven’s name had come over her?

  It must be something in the air around here. She’d be trying to ride a broomstick next. Speaking of which, here came Mary the Fires. She and Madoc made their manners like good little Rhyses.

  Mary only stood there, glaring. “These flowers are not going to do any good. You should have used mistletoe.”

  Madoc gave this suddenly belligerent mouse one of his mildest glances. “In a Christian church? The Anglicans wouldn’t notice, I don’t suppose, but the chapel-goers might be inclined to take umbrage, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Who cares about them? Why do you think the Druid walked last night? Why do you think Sir Caradoc happened upon the last of the golden sickles just at Beltane? Why do you think—” Mary sucked air in a great, loud gulp. “This place is not safe, I tell you! The emanations are terrible. I must go and talk to my brother.” She galloped off, not bothering to say good-bye.

  The person to talk to was Uncle Caradoc, Janet thought, but she didn’t say so. Uncle Huw wouldn’t want his father pestered by a goofy distant relation with a bee in her bonnet.

  “Oh gosh, Madoc. I hope that poor woman’s not going to make a nuisance of herself. We’d better alert your mother to keep an eye on her. What sort of relation is Mary to you?”

  “A damned annoying one, since you ask.” Madoc didn’t often use even the mildest of cusswords, he must be finding Mary one straw too many. “She and Bob are the children of Lisa’s grandfather’s stepsister. Lisa’s grandfather was a second cousin to my grandfather. You figure it out.”

  “What for?” said Janet. “It sounds to me as though you and they aren’t related at all.”

  “Oh, we’re bound to be, one way or another. Anyway, I believe the stepsister and my grandmother, or Lisa’s grandmother, or at any rate somebody’s grandmother, were bosom friends, which makes up the difference, you see.”

  “No, I don’t see, but I’ll work on it. Madoc, do you think Mary was just being oracular, or—” Janet didn’t quite know what she’d meant to say.

  Madoc didn’t know, either. “I think it’s quite possible that Mary wandered out here last night hoping to see the Druid walking or to catch the fairy queen having it off with the fairy knave, and got scared off by—I don’t know. An owl or a bat, perhaps. I can’t think why else she’d be yammering for mistletoe. Once she’d heard about your ghost, she was bound to start having psychic twinges.”

  “I’m sorry I ever mentioned the darned thing.”

  “Jenny love, don’t feel that way. Over here, an apparition is regarded as a status symbol. We’d all have felt a bit cheated if some spook or other hadn’t rolled out for the occasion.”

  “Then why didn’t the silly thing do its haunting downstairs where everyone could see? It was pure happenstance that I came along just when I did.”

  “Who knows? Maybe it’s not a particularly sociable ghost, or maybe this was just a rehearsal for the main event.”

  “Somebody practicing up to give Uncle Caradoc a thrill on his birthday, you mean? I can’t see how.”

  “Easily enough, I should think. It must have taken a bit of rigging, but then all the operator had to do was stand behind those heavy draperies at the end of the hall ready to twiddle the wires or strings, as the case may have been. You wouldn’t have noticed them in that dim light, against the dark woodwork and busy carpeting. Exactly where were you when you spotted the thing?”

  “Almost to the stairs.”

  “Just the right spot. The operator saw you coming up the hall and had plenty of time to wiggle the whatsits. You were on your way down and it was odds-on you’d mention the ghost at dinner, as who wouldn’t?”

  “Well, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? It must have been nothing more than a piece of gray chiffon or tulle draped over a thin wire to give it shape. I suppose I stood there gawking for a second or so. As soon as the joker was sure I’d noticed, he just dropped the thing to the floor and whisked it under the drapery. I should have gone over and investigated, but Uncle Caradoc had said they’d hold dinner till I got back from checking the baby. I’d asked him not to, but I was still afraid he might, and didn’t want to keep the rest waiting. You didn’t happen to notice who followed me upstairs?”

  “Nobody did.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Darling, do you have any idea what an effect you made in that blue gown? There wasn’t an eyeball in the place that wasn’t straining after you, my own included. Believe me, I’d have noticed.”

  “Which means it was either some outsider or one of the help?”

  Janet spoke rather brusquely, being a cynosure was not the Canadian way. Now she’d be embarrassed to wear that blue gown again, and she did love it so. “I can’t see that meek little Megan working the fidd
le, unless she had fishlines strung the whole length of the hall. Anyway, she doesn’t strike me as the type. What about Danny the Boots? Is he inclined to go in for practical jokes?”

  Danny the Boots had been playing second footman. Madoc didn’t tell Janet so. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Come on, let’s go see whether Dorothy’s worn out her welcome with Aunt Elen yet.”

  She hadn’t, of course; she was sitting on the floor making goo-goo eyes at her Uncle Dafydd, of all people. Dafydd was eyeing her back as he might have eyed a mermaid in his bathtub; charming to look at, but what was one supposed to do about her? He greeted his brother with noticeable relief and some degree of puzzlement.

  “Madoc, did you actually produce this kid all by yourself?”

  “Oh no, Jenny helped a bit. What got you up so early?”

  “Tib was after me to go horseback riding with her.”

  “And did you go?”

  “God, no! What do you think I’m made of? I told her I had to see Uncle Huw on urgent business. Namely conning Aunt Elen into cooking my eggs. Lisa wouldn’t feed me, she’s got a gaggle of minions over there chopping leeks for tomorrow’s pies. Thank you, Auntie love, this is beautiful. Want a bite, Jenny?”

  “No thanks, I’m on a strict diet of tea and Welsh cakes. I’ve tried making them at home, but for some reason mine never come out the way Aunt Elen’s do.”

  That was just for manners, Janet’s cakes were as good as anybody’s. Even Sir Emlyn said so, and he should know if anybody did. Who the heck did Dafydd think he was, coaxing her to eat from his plate like the princess and the frog? Or the prince and the frogess? The great Dafydd Rhys gave her a pain where she’d never had an ache. One of these days she was going to tell him so.

  Which was mean, rotten, and uncharitable, and she ought to show more compassion. Maybe he was just trying to be brotherly. That glamorous life Dafydd led must in fact be rather a lonesome one at times, when you came right down to it. Being a star meant always having to shine, being so much in demand meant being on the road too often for comfort. Having a different woman panting after him every time he turned around meant that he never really got to know any of them. Except, perhaps, in the biblical sense. “Come on, Dorothy,” she said. “Quit teasing Uncle Dafydd and let him eat his breakfast in peace. Where can I change her, Aunt Elen?”