A twinkle came and went in Mr. Pollock’s eyes. “At the risk of sounding vain, I think I may claim that my knowledge of my superiors is as much—ah—superior to her ladyship’s as is my acquaintance with the principles of doctrine. He went so far as to ask why I had let such an interesting old custom lapse for so long.”
“She will be pleased,” Ernest murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing—nothing. Just quoting someone from the village, one of the people who’ve been advising me about the well-dressings. By the way, I’m not quite as sure as you about their having completely forgotten the patron spirit of water. But we can discuss that some other time. For now, just remind me of the date of Ascension Day. Since moving here I’ve lost track of time.”
“It’s next Thursday,” Alice supplied.
“Really! Then I’d better tell them to get a move on!”
“Don’t.”
“Excuse me … ?”
“I said don’t!”—with a smile. “They set too much store by this to brook delay. Everything you need will be ready, that I promise.”
That evening, strolling in the garden after dinner, he dared to kiss her for the first time. And on Sunday he attended church and sat beside her, and took much pleasure in ignoring his aunt’s glares.
The glint was in her eye again, though, and thinking of it made shivers tremble down his spine.
The wells that had drawn the first settlers to the site of this village would, Ernest felt, more properly have been called springs. The first he visited was the closest to his own vision of a well, being surrounded by a stone coping and covered with a makeshift roof, but that was of corrugated iron, and there was neither windlass nor bucket and chain. The second was even more disappointing, for its water had been diverted to first a pump in the main square, then public taps at various points nearby, and eventually individual homes. Now only isolated cottages—like the Gibsons’—lacked at least cold water in the scullery. As to the third, which supplied the part of the village nearest the Hall, there was no sign of it at all below the stone facing that supported the track up to the church. (There were two others, in the grounds of the Hall and the vicarage, but they had of course never been available for general use … or dressing at Ascensiontide.)
Leaning on his stick in unconscious imitation of his guide Gaffer Tatton, whom he sometimes found hard to understand, he ventured, “One would scarcely imagine there was a well below here, would one?”
“Ah, but there be!” was the prompt response. “Don’t go too close, will ’ee, sir? I recall last time the cover on it were made good—see, ’tes under mould now, and that there grass.” He pointed at the base of the wall with his stick. “Deepest on ’em all, it were. Time and past time we dug un out and mended tiles.”
“Tiles?”
“Can’t see en, but they’re there. I recall helping to mend un. I were a boy then. Saw the way on un. Jes’ a few tiles. Ah, but good mortar! Best kind! Mr. Howard the builder, ‘twere as done it. Still, ’tes in the nature o’ things. Don’t last for ever, do un? And ’tes time and past time we mended un again. She don’t care for being overlooked, she don’t.”
Greatly daring, Ernest countered, “She …?”
“Ah, ’tes all old stories, sir. We tell un round the chimney-corner come winter, that we do. Fine day like this bain’t no time for such chitter-chatter … Well, sir, what do you think o’ the way they changed your drawings for to fit the boards?”
“I think there’s more talent in the village than people admit,” Ernest answered honestly. “They could have worked something out by themselves. I don’t think you needed me.”
“Ah, sir!” Gaffer Tatton leaned firmly on his stick again, staring his companion directly in the eyes. “That’s where you be wrong. If you’ll excuse me. It’s you exactly that we do be needing.”
And, before Ernest could inquire what he meant, he was consulting an old pocket-watch.
“Time be a-wasting, sir. Waits for no man, as they say.”
“Just a moment!” Ernest exclaimed. “When you said ‘she,’ were you referring to—?”
“I bain’t saying more, sir,” the old man grunted. “There be some as believes and some as don’t. Though when you’ve lived in Welstock long as me—”
“I haven’t had to,” Ernest said.
It was the other’s turn to be puzzled. He said, “Do I understand ’ee right, sir?”
“I hope so.” Ernest drew back a pace or two and gazed up at the Hall, silhouetted against the bright sky. “She can be kind, but she can also be cruel. Isn’t that so?”
Gaffer Tatton was totally at a loss. Eventually, however, he found words.
“I knew it!” he burst out. “Couldn’t a-drawn them pictures ’less …”
“Well? Go on!”—impatiently.
“The rest bain’t for me to say, sir, but for you to find out. Same as we all do. Same as we all must. But I’ll tell ’ee this: you’m on the right track. Good day!”
“What do you think he meant?” Ernest fretted to Alice after dinner that night.
“Could he have been talking about nature?” she suggested.
“I suppose so, but—”
“Nature personified? You hinted that you don’t believe grandfather when he claims they’ve all forgotten the origin of well-dressing.”
“It fits,” he admitted. “People always say ‘Mother’ Nature, don’t they? Even though—”
“What?”
He drew a deep breath. “Living here instead of at the Hall, even though I recall what my aunt has said and done, I find it incredibly hard to believe the cruel side of her.”
“You aren’t talking about your aunt,” Alice said perceptively.
“No, I’m not.”
“But she’s an aspect of the female principle, too.”
“I can’t think of her that way!”
“Then what about Kali—Kali Durga?”
Taken aback, he demanded, “How do you know about her?”
“From Grandfather’s library, of course. You were brought up in India, a place I’ve never been and very likely never shall, and it’s no secret that I want to know more about you, is it? So I’ve made a start. Grandfather has a lot of old books about missionary work abroad … Did you ever witness one of her ceremonies?”
“No, and I’m rather glad!”
“I think I’d be interested—provided, of course, I could just watch from a distance … But do you accept my point? There are all those millions of people, much closer to the primitive state than we are, or at any rate believe we are, and they know nature can be cruel as well as kind.”
“Yes, of course. But if you’re thinking of the well-dressing—”
“Every seventh year there used to be a human sacrifice. Grandfather said so. This year Mr. Ames is offering a pig. Did you ever hear a pig squeal when they slaughter it—? Oh, that was a rotten thing to say. I keep forgetting, because you’re such a nice person. You’ve heard men scream while they were dying, haven’t you?”
“Did”—his mouth was suddenly dry as though he had found himself confronting an unexpected rival—“did Gerald tell you about that?”
“He had to tell someone.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Ernest licked his lips.
“Have you ever told anyone? Tinkler?”
“I don’t have to tell him. We went through it together.”
The glint in my aunt’s eyes, the same as that general’s—and he recognised it too …
“Then a doctor?”
“The doctors I’ve talked to weren’t there. Maybe they can imagine it, but they never saw it.”
“Surely, though, doctors too see people die. Horribly, sometimes. In railway accidents, for instance—or burning houses. Worse yet, after operations that went wrong.”