Grace shivered.
Harriet looked consideringly at Elwy; the young man had no idea of his own beauty; the beauty of a wild creature, half man, half faun. “Tell me, Elwin,” she said, “if I am not being too impertinent in asking, why were you partly unclothed when you were at the pool with Grace?”
Elwy’s jaw dropped, and a darker flush spread over his face. Grace stared at him and then said, in some wonder, “That’s right, Elwy; when ol’ Silas was shouting and I turned to you, you hadn’t your shirt on. I didn’t think at the time; it was just such a relief that you were there...”
“It weren’t nothing bad, Miss,” said Elwy defiantly.
“Of course not,” replied Harriet. “How could it have been when Grace herself was unaware of it? Forgive me the question; it was spoken purely in a spirit of curiosity on my part.”
“That’s all right, Miss,” said Elwy, reassured, but still with that flush mantling his face and neck. “Thing is, Grace had gone out, just to the... you know..” Harriet nodded that yes, indeed, she did know, and Elwy continued: “I just felt, I dunno, hot and sweaty and dirty, and the air outside was so cool and the moon coming up; I thought I’d clean up a bit, have a bit of a wash while Grace was gone, put on a clean shirt. I got two shirts, Ma’am,” he said with some pride. He paused and obviously did his best to analyse his feelings. “I think it was more watching Grace in the moonlight; she looked so... I can’t really explain it; as if she were one of the fairy folk, or a spirit, or summat, with her long white dress. Made me feel like I should try to match her a bit.”
Effie listened in amazement as this creature of fantasy apologised for the earthiness of his body. Even fully clad in modern, 19th century clothes, he still appeared more spirit than human; one of the more sensual, earthy spirits, it is true, but it was as untoward as if a centaur should apologise for the tangles in his mane.
“But you see,” said Harriet, “from where Silas was standing...”
“Kneeling, Ma’am,” said Grace.
“Thank you Grace,” said Harriet. “From where Silas was kneeling, the apparition he saw - I mean the figure he saw, was of Pan, the horned god, defending the spirit of his murdered daughter. You were carrying the antlers, I presume?”
It took a moment or two for the idea to sink into Elwy’s mind. They are not known for their quick wits, these elementals.
“He thought I was the Devil - what did you call 'un, Ma’am?”
“Pan, the horned god.”
“But, that means the Devil, don’t it?”
“Not exactly, Elwin. Pan was god of these forests long before Christianity came to our islands, and the Devil is a Christian invention - or, as some say, a corruption of the great god Pan into an evil form.”
“He thought the Devil had come to punish him?” Elwy was still chasing the one idea; he had no time at the moment for considerations of comparative theology.
Harriet nodded.
Elwy took a deep breath. “Then he did it all to hisself - it all come out of his own head?”
“With a little help from you - or perhaps you were only the instrument used by an older arbiter of justice.”
There was a brief pause.
“Sorry, Ma’am, but I don’t quite follow you when you use those sorts of words...”
“Miss Fotheringay means as how this old god might have sent you to punish Silas,” said Benjamin.
“Oh!” said Elwy. “I dunno as I feel very comfortable with that idea.”
“Oh yes, Elwy,” cried Grace, “just think how noble that makes you.”
“I aint a noble person,” said Elwy. “I aint fit for that sort of thing. I’m just suited to the forest, and growing things, and that sort of life.”
“Then Pan is the right god for you,” cried Effie enthusiastically, “for he is the god of the forest and of all the creatures in it.” She looked a little aghast at her own temerity. “But for heaven’s sake don’t tell the Rector I said so,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 17
Mr. Benjamin walked the Misses Fotheringay back to their rooms in the High Street, but of course he would not come in with them, nor would they have invited him in. It was bad enough him visiting them during the day, but after dark such a visit would have been totally beyond the pale.
However in the slow walk back from the bridge there was the opportunity for a few explanations. Such as how Silas managed to pass Mr. Benjamin’s workshop on that eventful Sunday evening without Mr. Benjamin noticing him.
“Now I think back,” he said, “o’course the kiln was firing. He must have come along after the pub turned out. Round about that time the ol’ kiln would have been roaring fit to bust - can’t hear a blessed thing at that stage.”
“That would fit the events,” said Harriet. “And at the pool Silas was babbling on about a 'roller’; he seemed to be trying to put at least some of the blame onto it. I presume he meant the garden roller, that they use on the lawns at the Manor. I would guess that he and Millie's regular meeting place was in one of the gardeners’ sheds, and that at some stage in the argument between them poor Millie must have fallen and hit her head on it. I suppose Silas was in liquor and pushed or hit her. I remember that the policemen said that she was dead when she went into the lily pond. Silas must have taken her there afterwards.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know how often the lawns are rolled at the Manor; it is just possible that there might still be traces of blood on the roller, although it is unlikely, I feel.” She sighed. “I wonder what they argued about? Money, I suppose.”
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, Ma’am,” said Mr. Benjamin. “I thought Millie gave ol’ Silas most of her money anyways.”
“Then,” said Effie, “she must have told him that she was about to stop giving it to him.” The other two looked at her and waited.
“She was having an affair with Gervais,” continued Effie. “Perhaps Gervais wanted her to go away with him; perhaps to set her up in a little apartment in St. John’s Wood - or perhaps he wanted her to go to Le Touquet with him!”
“With all his friends?” Harriet put in a faint protest.
“Or somewhere close,” argued Effie, “where they could meet often. I expect Millie was the sort of girl who would enjoy travelling to a foreign country and living in luxury.”
Harriet considered the suggestion. Effie might, at times, be just a little verbose, but there was no denying that there was an alert mind behind the gentle stream of chatter. Slowly she nodded. “It could well be as you say,” she said, and Effie beamed.
“Goodnight,” said Harriet to the potter. “If you hear any more I do hope you will let us know.”
“I certainly will, Ma’am, you can be sure of that.” He tipped his hat to them, “Miss Fotheringay, Miss Effie Ma’am, goodnight ladies.”
* * *
“Harry dear,” said Effie, once they had settled themselves in their chairs up in their sitting room, and in the silence after the front door had banged on Mr. Benjamin, “I must admit that I am feeling just a little guilty about suspecting poor Mr. Myers.” Harriet looked enquiringly at her sister. “I mean, a man of the cloth - or, at least, if one may not actually call him a man of the cloth since he does not wear the cloth; the clothes of a priest - not that dear Dr. Ravilious does not also wear perfectly ordinary garments at times, but always a robe in church - and how splendidly he looks in it too! With his greying hair and rather large head, quite noble! Far more noble than when one sees him in just his everyday tweed jacket - perhaps it is that, do you think, dear, that causes one to regard Mr. Myers quite differently? That he dresses just as if he were an ordinary man - which of course they both are, and we all are in the sight of God. Ordinary, I mean; not men.”
“You feel more at liberty to suspect Mr. Myers because he is an ordinary man? Or you feel guilty at suspecting him because he is an ordinary man? You will have to be a little more plain, dear, if I am to understand you.”
&
nbsp; Effie sighed. It is so difficult to unravel the complicated web of feelings of guilt. And so impossible not to get caught up in their sticky pathways. “I think,” she said after some moments, “that I was quite pleased, quite reassured, when we discovered that it was Mrs. Ravilious that Millie was going to visit and not the Rector. Dr. Ravilious - such a pleasant man, and, as I said, so noble in church. Whereas...”
“Whereas?”
“Whereas one really cannot regard Mr. Myers as a pleasant man. So forceful in his words, and that unfortunate habit of... of spraying at times, so that one would really not want to be sitting in the front row at any of his discourses; I have to confess to a faint - quite a faint - feeling of disappointment to realise that he did not, in fact, have anything to do with...”
“No, quite,” said Harriet.
Effie sighed again and toyed with her work which was lying on top of the needlework basket at the side of her chair.
“A cup of warm milk, to settle us,” said Harriet, “I think that would be a good idea after all this excitement.”
“Oh yes,” said her sister, “such a good idea, with a little nutmeg grated on top. There is still some warmth here in the stove. I will fetch a saucepan from the kitchen, and the nutmeg grater...”
“And the milk and the glasses. I will come down with you.”
They were half way down the stairs when Effie said “Really, to be doubting Mr. Meyers when I am sure he is by far the most Christian of the two! For although I warned Elwy not to be mentioning Pan to Dr. Ravilious, I really believe that the dear Rector would not be at all discomposed by the thought...”
“No, indeed, one can just see him standing in front of his fireplace and holding forth on all the old gods - Greek, Roman and Old English...”
“But can you imagine Mr. Meyers’ reaction if one were to suggest to him that Elwy was a reincarnation of the Great God Pan?” Effie’s eyes were round with horror.
Harriet shuddered. “I pray you will not attempt the experiment, Effie dear.”
CHAPTER THE LAST
Across the water and into the Forest
A month or two after the events detailed above, Grace and Elwy stood, holding hands, on the banks of a much larger river than the meandering streamlet that wandered through Rotherford. The horseshoe bend of the great Severn curled round, encompassing them on three sides.
“That’s where we cross,” said Elwy, pointing to a ferry just setting off from the further bank. “All over there -” he waved his hand in a wide arc covering all the land on the further side of the river - “that’s the Forest. That town’s Newnham - we’ll find a place to rest up for the night there, get us a bite to eat, look around a bit. It’s a handsome place; I remember going in once when I was a lad with my Da and staring up at all the grand buildings, but it was on its way out even then.”
“What happened?”
“The railways, my Da said. Mind, he blamed everything on the railways.”
“And tomorrow?” Grace asked the question, but idly. In these past weeks she had just followed where Elwy lead, without questioning how he knew the way to take at every crossroad and fork in the road - although the last miles had been on a dead straight road. An old road, Elwy had called it.
“We’ll go on to Littledean. I’ve got family near there, one of my brothers has a mining right. We can stay with him and his family until we decide where’s best to find work. I might even lend a hand with the mining, but I aint intending to do that for long. I dunno how he stands being buried in the earth all day. But I’ll ask around, see what I can hear. The Forest’s not like it was, but there’s still verderers and I’ve got family all over. I’ll find something.”
“I could maybe get work in one of the big houses,” offered Grace.
“We’ll see,” said Elwy. Which was his polite way of saying No.
“It looks very... peaceful,” said Grace, smiling. After the events of the past few months, and the long walk up from the south, 'peaceful' was just what she needed, she thought. Here the water meadows of the Severn lay flat and calm on an overcast afternoon in the modest heat of an English summer. There was a pearly grey look to the sky, and the land across the river had a timeless quality to it. She stared across to her future home, wondering how it would be and where she would be settled. She trusted to Elwy in all things; to direct, guide and determine where and how she would live. She pulled her bonnet off and rested her head on his shoulder, and his free hand came up to stroke her hair.
“Oh ay, it looks peaceful most of the time,” nodded Elwy, “but at times - especially in the Spring - a wave comes up the river so fast it’d sweep you away in a minute.” He looked down at Grace’s surprised face and smiled. “They call it the Bore,” he said, “happens, oh, I dunno, half a dozen times a year - but the big ones come in the Spring.” His arm tightened around her. “Just like the wave that nearly swept us apart this Spring, eh?”
Grace hugged him tightly to her and raised her lips to kiss his cheek, stubbled after weeks of doing without the niceties of life.
“Nothing’s going to sweep us apart ever again, Elwy love,” she said.
He looked down at her, slender and glowing and clinging as the ivy around the ash tree. He grinned; he didn’t mind, he felt well rooted now he was almost back on his home ground.
“C’mon, lass,” he said, “let’s get down to the ferry.”
THE END
The Miss Fotheringays and the Faun (The Miss Fotheringays Investigate Book 1) Page 18