by S K Rizzolo
“Indeed, Mrs. Wolfe,” said Sir Roger with approval. “Some disparage our old church as no better than a barn, but I cannot agree. Its very age must commend our veneration. Norman, you know, originally of Saxon origin. It was once the chapel of a nunnery founded by a daughter of King Alfred, who was Abbess of Shaftesbury. The nunnery sat just below us where the farm is now.” Seeing that Penelope was looking at the murals on the wall, he added, “Those are of a later period, Mrs. Wolfe. Thirteenth or fourteenth century.”
“I daresay you find all this rather tedious, my dear,” he said, turning to his daughter.
Her lip curled. “No more than usual, Father.”
Suppressing a smile, Penelope interposed. “I was noticing this font earlier. I can’t quite make out the carving, however. It’s rather worn.”
Sir Roger joined her. “Julia was baptized from this font, as was I.” He lifted one finger. “The carving’s of a female figure. Can you distinguish her against the pattern of chevrons, those inverted V’s?”
Penelope ran her fingers over chill stone. “Yes, I see now. Here is her head and torso.” She looked more closely. “Are those her outstretched legs? What is it she sits on, sir?”
“A spray of vegetation, Mrs. Wolfe. She’s not sitting on it. She gives it birth.”
Julia stared at him, her cheeks losing color.
Sir Roger hadn’t noticed. “Curious, isn’t it? The theme is common in medieval church architecture. Our good vicar would probably say all these unclothed females are meant as a warning against the evils of concupiscence, a moral pitfall that seemed to so exercise the medieval mind. Not that we’re all that different today as far as that goes.”
“Are you all right, ma’am?” asked Penelope.
“Perfectly, Mrs. Wolfe,” Julia said coldly, “but if you don’t mind, I’ll sit down a moment.” She perched on one of the pews and made a big business of fishing around in her reticule.
Shrugging, Penelope turned away. The topic interested her, and besides this might prove a good opportunity to guide the conversation around to Rebecca Barnwell. She said to Wallace-Crag, “Wouldn’t you think, sir, that the woman is an advertisement of the very thing the church most wishes to decry?”
He laughed outright. “I would, except that strangely enough there is a tradition that such exhibitionism actually sent the devil to the right about, as if there is such power in the image that it would ward off even Satan.”
“Why vegetation, sir? Why does she not give birth to a human child? She doesn’t look like she quite belongs in a church.”
“Doesn’t she?” There was a touch of wry regret in his voice. “But you see, Mrs. Wolfe, the Holy Mother Church was wise. Where it could not stamp out early forms of worship, it appropriated them, absorbed them into its very fabric. This female carving reminds us of a time when Nature, not God, reigned supreme. Of a time when one looked for evidence of the divine in the continuous rotation of the seasons.”
“In this district,” he went on, “one feels that the ancient ways have refused to surrender their hold entirely. Their power still hums beneath the surface. There are the visible reminders, of course, the barrows and earth mounds.”
“You’ve long wanted to investigate these sites, have you not?”
He gave a short laugh. “Many would have it God does not approve of such inquiry, that it is an affront to Him to disturb Nature’s sleeping secrets. Some of my colleagues believe these mysteries are to be contemplated by recourse to the wisdom of the ancients and to religious texts. Perhaps even by miraculous revelation, but certainly not by mucking around in the dirt, stirring up dangerous notions.”
“And you, sir?”
“I shall first occupy myself with a look at the pagan earth circle and ruined church. I’ve often thought it logical there would have been some kind of offering made to consecrate the original site. Who knows but that the men who erected the church built over a burial chamber that had been on this site from time out of mind, enclosed and protected by an interior ditch, itself encircled by the earthwork. Or I suppose it is equally possible that the ancient Britons would have buried their treasure round that ditch, possibly to guard the margins of this sacred ground.”
Penelope struggled to put a thought into words. “But what is the purpose of this ditch, sir? If intended for defense of the site, wouldn’t they have placed it on the outside?”
His head snapped up. “An intelligent question, my dear. I don’t know the answer, though I can hazard a guess that it had to do with keeping any potentially powerful spirits contained within.”
Taking up his pencil, he began a swift sketch in his pocketbook. Penelope fell silent, not wishing to disturb him. After a moment or two he ripped out his drawing and handed it to her. It was a rough but vivid rendering of a crumbling church surrounded by its circular earthbank. He had even added a few trees at the margins.
“As the villagers remain convinced the site is ill-omened,” said Sir Roger after a moment, “I wouldn’t care to advertise any work planned there.”
“You mean haunted?”
“You know how these tales spring up. As a matter of interest, there’s quite a fascinating one told about a baby at the time of the Black Death. Seems this child’s mother was asked to sacrifice her newborn son to propitiate the gods and save the village, which, as is hardly surprising, had reverted to a sort of primitive savagery after the plague struck. She refused, ran away, and that was the end of the village.
“There’s a different version of the story, this one supposed to have happened sometime later in another village. There was a poor harvest, and a cruel bailiff who increased the rents. Another woman was brought to bed. This time she voluntarily sacrificed her infant there in the church. Voilà, the bailiff was turned off without a character, the village saved, prosperity to reign for decades.” He broke off, looking at her quizzically.
“That’s dreadful.”
“I suppose it is. In any event it reminds one irresistibly of the Irish legend of Crom Croich. Do you know it? The gold idol that demanded the slaughter of one-third of the healthy children in return for a bountiful harvest of corn. It’s an ancient and venerable practice, Mrs. Wolfe. Caesar, writing of the customs he observed during his campaigns, said that the Gauls believed the immortal gods could not be appeased unless one man’s life be paid for another’s. The Gaulish priests, the Druids, were supposed to have presided over these rites. Make no mistake. They were rites in every sense of word, for the Druids understood the power and sanctity of blood, both animal—and human.”
Penelope’s imagination was fired. “Those beliefs yet linger. It’s just like the female giving birth to vegetation on the font, isn’t it? Christians erected the church over the Druids’ circle in order to appropriate the sacred site of an earlier belief, impress their creed upon it. Oh, I should greatly like to see that church, sir.”
“You will, Mrs. Wolfe,” he replied, pleased at her enthusiasm. “I’ll show it to you myself in a day or two.”
“I shall take you there tomorrow, Penelope,” said Julia abruptly.
Penelope and Sir Roger spun in surprise. They had forgotten she was there.
Without their noticing, she had risen from her seat in a back pew and come forward to face them.
“Shall we make an outing of it?” she said with more eagerness than Penelope had heard from her all day. “We’ll ride over, maybe have a picnic? You do ride, don’t you, Mrs. Wolfe?”
Thrown off balance, Penelope stammered that she had been used to when she lived in Sicily.
“Well, then,” said Julia.
Later, walking home, Ashe and Julia seemed absorbed in their own conversation, so Penelope felt herself able to indulge thoughts that had been stirred by the conversation in the church and by the events of the last few days.
Sir Roger professed himself a seeker of Truth and rejected any kind of presupposed intellectual, or moral, framework by which to judge it. But was Truth to be found by unearthing ur
ns, fragments of pottery, and old coins? Penelope didn’t know. She did sense that the man at her side, though charming and erudite, lacked a certain openness to others, a capacity for caring. He reminded her a bit of her father, now that she came to think about it, which was probably why she had immediately liked him.
But what had his relationship been with the young Rebecca Barnwell, who, Penelope now believed, had once served in his employ? Recalling his reluctance to speak when Penelope had raised the matter of the woman apprehended in the garden, she could not help but to wonder. And yet when she had inquired further of Mrs. Dobson just this morning, Penelope had discovered that Lord Ashe had been a frequent visitor to the house at the relevant time. Could he have been Rebecca’s lover, or might the man have been Mr. Finch, the secretary?
She stole a glance at Sir Roger, who walked sedately at her side, lost in his own ruminations. “The stories you told in the church were most intriguing, sir,” she told him. “But it doesn’t work, the principle, I mean,” she told him, knowing he would be able to follow her idea. “The shedding of one person’s blood for another can never confer a long-lasting blessing. Blood only calls for more blood. There’s always a price exacted for the loss of even one life.”
A sudden gust of wind lifted his hat to deposit it on the ground in front of him. After they had exchanged a startled look, Sir Roger replied, “It seems someone agrees with you, Mrs. Wolfe.”
Chapter XX
Arched over by clear sky, the day proved temperate with enough warmth to firm the ground so that the horses’ way was made easier. They had proceeded up an incline toward a dark, glimmering belt of trees glimpsed around the bend of the track.
Penelope rode an old cob, recommended to her by the head groom at Cayhill, who’d muttered something about a “Lunnon” woman’s ability to manage a horse. Her sidesaddle was so stiff and old-fashioned that she suspected it must once have belonged to Sir Roger’s wife, dead these twenty-five years. Mounted on a splendid bay, Julia, in her stylish riding habit and hat with enormous plume, cut a much more impressive figure, and today, at least, she seemed bent on being an entertaining companion.
“Once, not far from here, a keeper walked home, having made his Easter communion in church. Poachers accosted him, bludgeoned him to death, in full day, mind you, but of course, this was in the last century.”
“How dreadful,” said Penelope.
Behind her the groom stirred restlessly as if he wanted to say something. Penelope made encouraging noises and asked another question.
“Hauntings?” Julia said. “At another gate a few miles north there’s a mound of earth said to be inhabited by the local fairies called gappergammies.” She broke off with a pretty shrug. “Just a silly superstition. Still, people in these parts don’t always distinguish between fairy tales and reality. My maid tells me that a cross is kept cut in the turf near that barrow to ward off evil.”
“A sensible precaution.”
“There’s also a tale about a lady in white hung by her hair from an ash tree over a well. I’m afraid I don’t recall why. She was rescued, though some say you can still hear the hunting horn of her pursuers.”
After slanting another glance at Penelope, she guided her mount forward, using the whip in her right hand. As the path had narrowed, Penelope followed behind with the groom riding at the rear of their little cavalcade. They were to skirt the wood and approach their destination from the south. It wasn’t far, a mere mile or two, and once there, they would spread a blanket in the adjoining meadow and picnic with the ruins as backdrop.
“What have you in your basket, Lady Ashe?” Penelope was beginning to feel hungry after having had almost no breakfast. She’d been holed up in Sir Roger’s study, trying in vain to restore order to innumerable notes, bits of paper, and pieces of years-old correspondence. Though she’d sensed that the secretary Finch did not especially welcome her presence, Sir Roger had seemed grateful for her assistance.
“Oh, any number of local delicacies.” Julia pulled up abruptly. “Ben, open the basket. I’d like to check that Cook remembered the round of Dorset cheese. I made sure you’d enjoy that, Mrs. Wolfe.”
Obligingly, the groom pulled up his horse, leaning forward to open the basket strung to his pommel. Peering inside, he gave a muffled exclamation.
“What is it?” asked Julia sharply. “Did she forget the cheese, after all?”
Flushing, the young man didn’t meet his mistress’ gaze. “Some sort o’ mistake, my lady. There’s naught in this basket but some old dusting cloths and a tin of polish.”
“How can that be unless you picked up the wrong one, Ben? I pointed out the luncheon basket to you myself.”
“Yes’m,” he said, clearly miserable.
Julia opened her mouth to scold and closed it again. “Go back for it at once and meet us at the old church as soon as you can.”
Resigning herself to a delayed meal, Penelope said, “Perhaps we can picnic another day, ma’am. Shall we ride to the church and have a quick look around?”
“No indeed. Go on, Ben, and make it quick.”
Wheeling his horse around, the groom set off back the way they’d come.
“Wouldn’t Lord Ashe be made uneasy by you dismissing your groom?” asked Penelope after a moment.
“No, why should he be? It won’t take Ben but thirty or forty minutes to rejoin us.”
They rode on up the track, Penelope admiring the oak and ash, their new-green buds like tiny jewels on the branches. From somewhere above a thrush sang, and a sweet breeze lapped gently against her cheeks. How different it was to welcome the spring here in this land that melded rolling hills of down with ancient verdant woodland. How utterly different from London, she thought.
Julia’s voice roused her. “Mrs. Wolfe, would you care to ride into the forest a ways? There are the wildflowers, and we might catch sight of a doe with her fawn.”
“I imagine the shade is lovely, especially in summer. Even now it will be welcome.”
“Is the sun too bright for your eyes? Let us go in at once.”
“No, it isn’t that.”
But Julia had already set off, her big bay picking its way delicately down another dirt track which branched off through the trees. When she reached a gate, she climbed down to open it and, after holding it politely for Penelope to pass through, nimbly used the stile to remount.
For a time all was silent, except for the calling of birds and the muted thud of hooves on damp leaves. Feeling curiously at peace, Penelope almost wished she were alone. The first thing she noticed was the quality of light here, dappled, shadowy, pooled warmly in some spots where blooms had appeared.
Julia dismounted again. “Oh, how lovely,” she exclaimed, bending over a clump of yellow flowers, her back to Penelope. “I had forgotten all about the celandines at this season. Do get down and look.”
Neither so tall nor so agile as her companion, Penelope shimmied down awkwardly from the cob and looped up her full riding skirt over her arm. Though wondering how she would ever climb up again without a mounting block, she clambered gamely behind Julia, who was beating through the tall grass at the side of the path with her riding crop.
After a minute or two, Julia abandoned this project. “Come with me,” she said, her eyes glowing. “I’ve a notion.”
“Where to? Won’t the horses…”
“A little glade I know. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
She stepped off the main path, sidestepping shrubs and clumps of overgrown briar, trampling through them without hesitation when she couldn’t avoid it. On she went until it seemed the path must be very far behind them indeed. And Penelope came after, her heart beating with a curious kind of anticipation.
“Hold a minute, Julia,” she called as the skirt of her habit got entangled in a shrub. “Let me free myself.”
Julia smiled back over her shoulder. “Of course, Penelope.”
Bending to disengage the material from the clutches of
the greenery took but an instant. But when Penelope glanced up again, it was to find she was alone.
***
“Lady Ashe? Julia?” Walking to the spot where her employer had been standing, Penelope peered through the trees. Nothing. She stood still, listening. Surely she’d be able to hear her moving through the underbrush, but again there was nothing but the murmur of trees and the birdsong.
“You’ve had your joke now,” she shouted, at this point wryly amused. Was Julia really such a child as this? Tell the credulous London visitor a host of country stories, then abandon her to the forest like some lost maiden of fairy lore. Only this lost maiden was thoroughly sensible and modern, not at all a fitting candidate for enchantment.
Which is rather a pity, when you come to consider it, said Penelope to herself. Nor was she really lost. She had only to retrace her steps to the path and find her horse. No doubt Julia would be waiting, her thirst for fun, it was to be hoped, quenched. In any event, this wasn’t a particularly big wood.
Penelope set off, soon discovering that her plight was not so simple as she had imagined. For a short distance she followed the flattened bushes and grasses. But all too soon these signs of their earlier progress ceased, as if to illustrate an essential truth that the forest is quick to erase all signs of human blundering. Either that or she was heading in completely the wrong direction.
She wasn’t really alarmed, only tired and hungry, yet as the minutes passed, she grew blindingly angry. Once or twice, hoarsely, uncertainly, she tried calling Julia, to no avail. Her fury mounted even higher as she found that hard as she tried she couldn’t distinguish one clump of trees from another. Then as she paused to catch her breath, she heard it, a faint crackle, as if a twig had snapped beneath someone’s foot.
Julia at her tricks, or possibly an animal, she told herself firmly, but she remained still, trying to quiet her breathing in order to listen. If a stranger were in the wood, no doubt it was only a local laborer. If he looked congenial, she would ask the way home. If not, she’d stay hidden and follow him out.