by Anne Moore
So it was that, on the next Midsummer's Eve, near midnight, Mr and Mrs Scrooge stood at the feet of the wise woman, removed their clothes, and paused to see what effect she might have on them.
'Fancy a frolic, my dear?’ asked Scrooge.
'You'll have to catch me first,’ said Charlotte, and she set off up the hill.
Now, it may have been the influence of the wise woman, or it may have been the fact that Charlotte ran out of puff. But either way, Scrooge caught up with her somewhere around the wise woman's navel and proceeded to frolic with her at some length.
'My word,’ he said when they had finished. ‘That wasn't bad for a man who is over sixty. I think there may be something in this.'
His wife reached out and took his hand. ‘Trust not these modern heresies, Ebenezer,’ she said. ‘When it comes to practical results, the old religion is best.'
CHAPTER 35
Charlotte and the members of the sewing circle often spoke of Lughnasadh, by which they meant the harvest time, named after the god Lugh. And who was Lugh? Apparently he was another Celtic fire and light god. His weapon was the spear, and he was a harpist, poet, healer, and magician.
Scrooge did not care for the word Lughnasadh. He preferred Lammas, which had a more Anglo-Saxon ring to it. Lammas meant loaf-mass, which was the Saxon feast of bread, when the first of the year's grain harvest was made into new loaves.
Whatever it was called, harvest time denoted, in a sense, the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.
Each year, Scrooge went to watch the last of the harvest being gathered in. He usually went to Home Farm, which was run by Mr Marlby. It was the nearest of the seven farms which Scrooge owned, and traditionally had the closest ties with the Manor.
It was there, one hot August afternoon in his fifteenth year in Tanway, that Scrooge came upon Sasha and her four children. As the harvesters cut more and more of the corn, the rabbits and other animals moved ever inwards, taking shelter in the center of the field. But at last there was nowhere else for them to go, and they ran for their lives, out in the open, while men, women, children, and dogs all did their best to capture a free supper.
Scrooge stood on the edge of the field with Sarah, who at thirteen was the eldest of Sasha's four children. Sarah was a big girl, tall for her age, and with her mother's coloring. Her ambition was to be Queen of the May, and Scrooge felt sure that she would be, before long.
Sarah and Scrooge stood quite alone, everyone else being involved in the hunt. Together they watched as the rabbits scattered and the hunters pounced, more often missing their prey than catching it.
'I like it when the rabbits escape,’ said Sarah quietly.
Scrooge laughed. ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘But in due course all creatures come to the end of their time, Sarah.'
As the shouting and laughter continued, Sarah turned and gave Scrooge a very direct look. ‘Is it true that you and my Mummy were lovers?’ she asked.
Scrooge blinked, but knew that he had to give an honest answer.
'Yes,’ he said, ‘we were. Long before she met your father, of course. But why do you ask, Sarah?'
'Because she always speaks of you with great affection.'
Scrooge caught his breath. ‘Well,’ he managed to say after a moment, ‘I am very fond of her too. In that sense we are still lovers. You see, Sarah, I never had any children of my own, and I regret that. There was a boy once whom I would have liked to treat as my son, but that was not to be. The gods decided against it, so to speak. So in a way I think of you and your sister and your brothers as my family.’ He looked at her. ‘Do you mind?'
Sarah smiled. ‘No of course not.'
And then she kissed him and ran to join the others.
That night, as in previous years, Scrooge held a feast for all the laborers who worked on his farms. Hiring and firing was left to the tenants, but at this time of year Scrooge always saw to it that the men had a modest reward for their work. Home Farm was usually the location.
At teatime, bread, butter, and jam were provided, together with copious amounts of beer. In the evening, there was rabbit stew and more beer.
Charlotte's book of shadows stated that the harvest time was also sacred to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt. And so, when the moon was full, the sewing circle had their own little party for her. It took place in the stone circle, at the end of the avenue of beeches, and there Charlotte and her friends danced naked in the moonlight, just as their ancestors had, thousands of years earlier.
Meanwhile, after their feast in the Home Farm fields, the men brought out a broken and worn-out wagon wheel, five feet in diameter. Its hub was of seasoned elm, the spokes from oak to give it strength, the rim sections made of ash.
The wheel was taken to the top of a nearby hill, covered in tar, and set alight. Then it was pushed forward, so that it began to roll down into the valley. It moved slowly at first, but then gathered pace, running faster and faster and faster, bouncing and spinning, leaping over humps and mounds, until at last it crashed to a halt.
It seemed to Scrooge, as he stood and watched the wheel go tumbling down the hill, that its progress was much like that of his own life. Running faster and ever faster now, but soon to come to an end.
Late that night, when everyone had gone home, Charlotte and Scrooge sat together in the quiet of his study.
'This is the time,’ Charlotte reminded him, ‘for letting the past go its own way, Ebenezer. And what are you going to do about that?'
Scrooge thought for a moment. ‘I am going to sell my old apartment building in London,’ he said. ‘I shan't go back to London again, not if I can help it.'
'So—you are severing your last link with the city?'
'Yes.'
'It's taken you a long time, Ebenezer. Fifteen years. But now you are a countryman at last.'
'Well,’ said Scrooge with a sigh, ‘you always did say that you would make a pagan out of me one day.'
CHAPTER 36
At about the time of the autumn equinox, when night and day stood hand in hand as equals once again, it was Charlotte's long-standing practice to invite Sasha's children to the Manor to carry out a number of old customs.
Each year a corn man was created. Sarah was always in charge of this operation, and it was a brave sibling who dared to disobey her instructions. Once made, the corn man was burnt at sunset, demonstrating through fire the death of vegetation and the rebirth yet to come.
Each autumn, too, the last sheaf of the harvest at Home Farm was collected and stored in the Manor's outhouse. In the new year it would be given to the birds in the Manor garden, as a gift to the winter.
But unfortunately, although Scrooge enjoyed watching the children undertaking these tasks, the autumn was a time when he tended to become depressed.
'How old am I now?’ he asked Charlotte plaintively, one day in late September.
'You are a hundred and six, Ebenezer.'
'A hundred and six? How can I be a hundred and six?'
'Because you were born aged thirty-nine,’ said Charlotte briskly, and went about her business.
Scrooge did the sum in his head. So he was sixty-seven. Hmm.
There was, however, one event in the autumn which Scrooge always did enjoy, and that was the Michaelmas dinner.
The rents for Scrooge's farms were paid twice a year, six months in arrears, and the second payment came at the end of September. On that occasion Scrooge always gave a dinner for his tenant farmers and their families, and a splendid occasion it was too. The main course was always goose.
Every year, Scrooge chose a guest of honor. After he had closed down his apartment building in London, for instance, he brought Mrs Molloy down to live in the village. She was now eighty years old, and in that year he made her his principal guest.
In his seventeenth year at Tanway, Scrooge chose to honor his wife. There was no particular reason for this choice. He had just decided that he was getting on in years himself, and it wa
s time he demonstrated to the world how much she meant to him.
At the end of a splendid feast, Scrooge stood up and made a short speech. In it, he acknowledged that at this point in the calendar he often became grumpy and difficult to live with.
'Even more grumpy and even more difficult,’ said Mrs Molloy, sotto voce to Mr Marlby, seated next to her.
'It is a time,’ said Scrooge, ‘when the god of light is defeated by his twin, the god of darkness, and a sort of gloom settles upon me. And how best can we combat darkness? Why, with new light, of course. Hence the log fire in the hearth, and the numerous candles which surround us tonight.
'It was at this time of year that my wife and I were married, and it was with the thought of light in my mind that I made a visit to Bath recently, in order to choose an anniversary present for her. Dear Charlotte has consented to be my very special guest of honor tonight, and I would like now to present her with a gift. It is a gift which, in a very inadequate way, demonstrates how much I owe to her, and it attempts, in so far as any gift can, to thank her for her love and support over the years.
'I was once told, by Mrs Molloy no less, that if I worked hard I might one day become halfway human. I would like to think, Mrs Molloy, ladies and gentlemen, that through my wife's wisdom and guidance I have managed to become almost wholly human.'
Whereupon Scrooge opened a velvet-covered box on the table in front of him and took out a diamond necklace. The gems sparkled and shone in the candlelight, and there was a spontaneous round of applause.
Later, when all the guests had gone, Charlotte gave her husband a special and private kiss.
'This must have been very, very expensive,’ she said, as she stood in front of a mirror and looked at the necklace. ‘So it must be true what they say—there's no fool like an old fool.'
Scrooge demurred. ‘I think you might allow me one act of reckless extravagance in a life of careful thrift,’ he suggested. ‘And I can always take it back if you like.'
'Oh no,’ said Charlotte. ‘I wouldn't want you to do that.'
CHAPTER 37
To Scrooge's mind, Halloween was always a curious mishmash of customs and practices, pagan, Christian, and who-knows-what.
The name of the festival clearly derived from the fact that it was the night before All Hallows Day; which was, in so far as Scrooge could understand it, the day on which the Christian church honored the hallowed. And the hallowed, apparently, were the blessed dead, or saints.
Charlotte's view was that in the Celtic calendar the thirty-first of October had been the last day of the year, and Scrooge certainly had no doubt that the basic nature and date of Halloween had been lifted wholesale by the Christians from some earlier pagan rite.
In any event, Charlotte and Scrooge always began Halloween by arranging a party for the children of the village. Apart from the usual provision of a large tea, with lemonade, piles of sandwiches, cakes, trifles, and sweets, there were also games.
Bobbing for apples, when a child had to try to lift an apple out of a barrel of water by using teeth and no hands, was always messy but fun, and appealed to the noisy and extrovert. A variant of this game was trying to take a bite out of apples which were hanging on a string.
Making a jack-o'-lantern out of a pumpkin was an occupation for the quieter ones, with nimble fingers. Holes were carved in the pumpkin to make facial features, and a candle was placed inside. The result might have the pleasing effect of terrifying a younger brother or sister.
Those children who were of a thoughtful nature could cut the skin off an apple in one piece and throw the peel over their shoulder. It was said, by some, that when the peel fell on the ground it would reveal the initial of one's lover to come.
After the food and games, the children would go out into the garden and have a bonfire of dead leaves and wood. Sausages would be cooked over it, and there would be shouting and laughter and squeals.
Later still, the house would go suddenly quiet, and Scrooge and Charlotte would take dinner alone.
Charlotte regarded Halloween as the festival of the dead, and in Scrooge's nineteenth year at Tanway she reminded him of this.
'I want you to remember, Ebenezer,’ she said, ‘that Halloween is the time when the veil between the worlds of life and death stands open, and the dead can return, if they wish, to meet with their family.'
'But my dear,’ said Scrooge gently, ‘you know that I don't believe that the dead are anywhere. They are gone from us for ever, dissolved back into the ashes and dust from whence they came.'
'And yet,’ said Charlotte, ‘on this very night, each year, you always have an extra place laid at dinner. For young Billy.'
Scrooge glanced at the empty chair, and the unused knives and forks. For a moment, the silver seemed to blur in his vision.
'Ah yes,’ he said. ‘But that is just a little conceit of mine. A sop to my sentimental nature.'
Charlotte smiled. ‘Which rather proves my point. If they are nowhere else, Ebenezer, the dead are inside your head. They live on in your memory.'
She rose from the table and prepared to leave. Later the sewing circle would be meeting, and she had things to do. She came round and kissed Scrooge on his cheek.
'I want you to remember tonight that it will not be long now before you and I join all those who have gone before. And you will live longer, and easier in your mind, if you have made your peace with the past. Let go all ancient hurts and wrongs, real or imaginary. Let them shrivel and crumble like the leaves in the fire.'
When Charlotte had gone out, Scrooge went up to his study. From here he could look out over the avenue of beeches. Tonight, of course, the night was dark, but if he stood close to the window he could just see the outlines of the trees, running away into the distance.
He sat down at this desk and thought about what Charlotte had said. He thought about his father and mother, and his sister; he thought about Marley, and Billy; and many others.
Then he picked up his pen and began to write a letter to his father. He set out all the wrongs which he felt his father had done him, and he listed all those slights and insults and thoughtless troubles which he had given to his father. He weighed them up and balanced them out, and decided that the score was about even. It was, he suggested, time to regard all those matters as closed; finished and done with—best forgotten and cast out into the darkness.
When he had finished the letter, Scrooge read it through.
Yes, he thought, that will do.
Then he placed the letter in an envelope, and took it over to the fire. He placed it on top of a crackling log and held it in place with a poker.
He watched as the paper blackened and twisted. It burnt with a yellow flame, consuming itself, and with it went all Scrooge's anger about the past.
A little later, he went down into the cellars and prepared a dozen lanterns. Then he loaded them into a wheelbarrow and set off into the darkness.
He pushed the barrow up the avenue of beeches, and beside each tree, left and right, he placed a lantern. There was one for his father, one for his mother, one for his sister, one for Marley, and one for Billy. There were others.
The lanterns in place, he went back inside to his study. There, with a screen in front of the fire to hide its light, he placed a chair before the window.
Now, when he looked out on to the avenue, he could see a remembrance of all those he had known and loved.
Scrooge poured himself a large brandy and sat by the window for a long time. Sometimes the lights below became blurred with his tears, and sometimes they flickered in the wind and struggled to stay alight.
Eventually, they all went out.
CHAPTER 38
In the November of that same year, a curious thing happened to Scrooge: he was invited to preach a sermon.
It came about in this way. In Pewsey there was a certain Mr Fiddling, a haberdasher by trade, and a lay preacher by inclination. Mr Fiddling was famous in Pewsey chiefly for having been a keen cricketer
in his youth. He was not a very good cricketer, but he was always chosen to play in the Pewsey XI, because his participation enabled the visiting team to say, on occasion, that one of their players had been caught Fiddling behind the wicket. It was a simple joke, but one which provided harmless amusement for several years.
Now a mature, smartly dressed man of about fifty, Mr Fiddling had given up cricket, but he was a keen member of a local chapel. The chapel had once, Scrooge understood, been affiliated to the Methodist church, but there had been some sort of disagreement and schism; the minister had departed, and nowadays services seemed to be conducted mainly by Mr Fiddling.
All this Scrooge knew because he had had dealings with Mr Fiddling through the charitable trust. Mr Fiddling had applied for funds to repair the chapel roof, and Scrooge had seen no reason to deny him.
The day came, however, during one of their discussions about progress on the roof (dry rot had been discovered, leading to additional expense), when Mr Fiddling asked Scrooge a question.
'I wonder, sir,’ he began, as they drank tea together, ‘whether you have ever preached a sermon.'
'Can't say I have,’ said Scrooge. ‘I spoke at a funeral once, many years ago. But I'm not a church-going man, Mr Fiddling. Don't listen to many sermons, never mind give ‘em.'
'Hmm,’ said Mr Fiddling pensively. ‘Because I was wondering, do you see, whether you would like to preach a sermon to my little flock.'
Scrooge was surprised. So much so that he didn't quite know what to say. ‘Well.... I'm not much of a speaker.'
'Oh come now, sir, you are too modest. I have heard you lecture about that ancient stone structure—the so-called Devil's Den at Fyfield. And I heard you give a talk about the Roman remains in the Manor garden.'