“Will you carry on with the well-dressing?” Ernest said, red-eyed at an early breakfast-table.
“Yes, of course.”
“You don’t think it’s inappropriate in the circumstances?”
“My dear Mr. Peake—or may I now address you as Ernest, given the degree of affection that you display towards my granddaughter?”
He is a wise old owl, isn’t he? And doesn’t he look pleased?
“Of course,” he said mechanically.
“Well, then, my dear Ernest: you don’t think it inappropriate, do you?”
“Absolutely not!”
“Then we shall go ahead. In fact”—he produced a watch that reminded Ernest of Gaffer Tatton’s—“it’s time to leave.”
Virtually the entire village had turned out for the procession, despite this being officially a working day. The vicar went at its head, attended by Roger the coachman bearing a stoup of holy water and a bundle of herbs bound to make a kind of brush, with which he asperged the decorations at each well before pronouncing a benediction. The church choir came next, singing a traditional hymn, and after there followed the villagers roughly in order of age, while the rear was brought up by the children from the school under Miss Hicks’s stern direction, except for one boy and one girl who had been allotted the coveted duty of leading the way with branches of greenery.
Listening to the singing—quiet at first, then lusty—it occurred to Ernest that since his arrival he had never seen so many smiles at once.
During the blessing of the second well, he felt a shy tug at the hand with which he wasn’t clasping Alice’s. He glanced down to see a woman’s face, drawn and lined under prematurely grey hair. It was Mrs. Gibson.
“Me and my littluns got a lot to thank ’ee for already,” she whispered. “Now all on us folk got ’ee to thank for bringing back the well-dressing … God bless ’ee, Mr. Ernest!”
And she had withdrawn into the throng.
But across the group he caught the eye of Gaffer Tatton, and he was beaming as to say, “What did I tell ’ee?”
Then at last it was time to make for their final destination, the one in Old Well Road. The air was tense with expectation. The ceremony here proceeded exactly as before, with the same prayers and the same quotations about the Water of Life. But more was clearly expected, and of a sudden it came.
Abandoning any prepared text, the vicar surveyed his congregation and said abruptly, “Friends! For I trust after so many years of tribulation I may call you so!”
The smiles came back, in even greater number.
“There are some who have called it wrong, indeed evil, to keep up the tradition we have today renewed. I am not one of them.”
Nor are we, was the silent response.
“We all know that our very lives are a miracle—that we are born, that we can think and reason, and that we can learn to praise our Creator: yes, that’s a miracle!”
Almost, there was an outburst of applause. The Stoddard brothers frowned it down.
“For the food we eat, and the water we drink: should we not give thanks? And that the land yields bountifully, and our cattle and our other livestock? And, indeed, that we can leave children to follow in our footsteps when we, as must inevitably ensue, are called to join the company of the righteous … Met here today, we have acknowledged our indebtedness to the Maker of all things. Today in particular we have celebrated the gift of water. It behooves us all, and always, to remember it is one of many gifts, and the greatest of these is love. God bless you all!”
And he turned back to the well-dressing on which Ernest and all its makers had lavished so much care, and recited the Doxology at the top of his voice. Many of the listeners joined in.
Gaffer Tatton, though, was not among them. He had made for home, bent perhaps on the kind of errand that an old man’s weak bladder might make urgent. Just as the vicar finished, however, he burst out once more from his cottage door.
“It’s sweet!”
Every head turned.
“The water’s sweet! Bain’t no more taint to un! I drunk this water all me life, and ‘spite o’ her as went she’s made it clean again!”
“He means,” Alice began, whispering close to Ernest’s ear, and he cut her short.
“I know. What he means is that no matter how awful she was, and how long she lay in the well, she didn’t foul the water … When we get married, my love, would you mind if we did it twice?”
“How can that be?” She drew back to arm’s length, studying him with her wide grey eyes.
“We’ll do it once for me, the man, in the name of the Father and the Son. And we’ll do it once for you, in the name of—her. How about it?”
“But no one knows her name!”
“Does it matter? We know she’s there, don’t we?”
She thought awhile, and eventually nodded.
“Yes, I’ve known for years, like Gaffer Tatton. I’m surprised you found out so quickly, but I’m terribly glad … Shall we live at the Hall?”
“Most of the time, I suppose. After all, I’m the heir. But I want to take you on honeymoon to India. Even if I can’t promise a private view of Kali-worship.”
Smiling, she pressed his hand. “I think I’ve seen enough of the wicked side of the female principle for the time being—” She broke off, aghast. “Ernest, this is terrible! She’s scarcely cold, and here we are talking about a honeymoon! We ought to be planning her funeral!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Ernest.”
They turned to find the Stoddard brothers at their side.
“Before we go, we’d just like to offer our congratulations and say we hope you’ll both be very happy.”
How in the word—?
Then he recalled what Alice had said about the talk in the servants’ hall, and all around the village. He let his face relax into a grin.
“Thanks awfully! What time’s the feast tonight? We’ll see you there!”
Afterwards, when Mr. Ames’s pig had been distributed in slices, special care being taken to deliver enough to Mrs. Gibson and her children, he said to Alice in the darkness of her room, “I don’t think we need the second wedding after all.”
“Hmm?”—nuzzling his neck with soft warm lips.
“As far as she’s concerned we’re married, aren’t we?”
“Mm-hm. That’s what surprised me when you mentioned it … Can we again?”
“I think so—Yes! Oh, yes!”
Later, though, just before, for the first time, they went to sleep in one another’s arms, having agreed to stop worrying about scandal or of fending old Mr. Pollock—or even Tinkler—he said musingly, “It’s funny, though.”
“What is?”
“How close a connection there is between what you see in India and what you find at home.”
“But why?” She raised herself on one elbow, her breasts enchantingly visible in the faint light from the window. “Isn’t it the same with science?”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t expect science to stop working because it’s a different country, would you?”
“No, of course not!”
“Well, then!” She lay down again. “Why not the same with religion? After all, we’re all human.”
“You mean—”
“What I mean,” she said firmly, “is that whoever she is who guards the wells of Welstock, and brought you and me so splendidly together, she can’t be anything else except another aspect of what you are, and I am, and everybody else. That goes for India too, and every countless world we find our way to in our dreams. Which is where, with my lord’s permission, I propose to adjourn to. Good night.”