‘Not very nice,’ said Sebastian, ‘but not terribly significant of black magic. More like plain malice, I’d say. I think perhaps we will go and see Ransome. Hullo! There’s somebody coming out of the church.’
The person who emerged from the south porch was a woman carrying a bucket and a broom. Sebastian, leaping over the intervening graves, caught up with her.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but do you know about some tombstones on which somebody has been at work?’
‘At work? How do you mean, at work?’ she asked, looking at him with deep suspicion.
‘Painting them—daubing them with red paint—and altering the inscription on one of the headstones.’
‘Done it yourself, like enough.’ She eyed disparagingly his towelling shirt of sailcloth red and his very brief, bright-blue shorts.
‘No, no, really, I assure you! Do please come and look. I think there ought to be a witness, somebody who has to do with the place. I mean, the Vicar, or the Churchwardens, or some such, ought to know, what?’
‘Well, what?’ said the woman, putting down the bucket, retaining the broom (as a weapon, Sebastian fancied) and accompanying him to the grave by which Margaret was standing. ‘Be you having me on?’ But when she saw the altered inscription and the traces of paint, her attitude changed. ‘Well, that’s a nice thing, that is!’ she exclaimed. ‘You come with me.’ They followed her into the church. It was plainly furnished and ugly. ‘Mind how you step. Floor’s still wet and tiles might be slippery,’ she advised them. She led the way to the back of the nave to the space under the tower and, taking a key from her overall pocket, she unlocked the small door which led up to the belfry. ‘Just you take a look up there,’ she said, ‘and tell me what you see.’
‘I’ll go. You stay here,’ said Sebastian to his sister.
‘I want to see what it is, too,’ she said.
‘You may, when I come down.’
‘Don’t trust me not to lock the door on you both, is that it?’ asked the cleaner ironically.
‘Something of the sort may have crossed my mind,’ said Sebastian. ‘I don’t care for the look of those grave-stones.’ He mounted the stone steps and found that, after the first turn of the narrow staircase, the treads were made of open-meshed ironwork and were treacherously slippery. Beyond the bell-chamber the rest of the ascent had to be made by means of a latter. Wound in and out of the rungs of this ladder was an elaborately woven one made of strands of rope into which were twisted some black feathers. Sebastian did not touch it. He knew, from what his college acquaintance had told him, what it was. He descended to the foot of the tower steps and nodded to the cleaner. ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Who, on the island, goes in for black magic?’
The woman shook her head.
‘There’s only one on the island as was born wrong side of the blanket,’ she said. ‘Oh, well, him being churchwarden, the less said about that the better. I’m your witness and you be mine, and best neither on us meddle with what we’ve seen. You go your ways now, while I lock up.’
‘Do you always keep the church locked?’ asked Margaret. ‘Do wait just a minute while I climb the tower.’
‘Nothing much to see,’ said Sebastian. ‘Come on. We’re keeping this lady waiting.’ He hustled his sister towards the south door.
‘Us keep it locked, certainly,’ said the cleaner, producing a large key when they reached the porch. ‘Oh, yes, us keep it locked, but them as knows where to look can always lay hands on the key. Go you before me. No call for strangers to find out where I put it.’
Ransome was lifting shallots. He straightened up and smiled at his cousins.
‘What-ho!’ he said. ‘Any news of my mother?’
‘They’re expecting her back today,’ Sebastian replied. ‘There’s something else we want to talk about.’
Ransome stuck his gardening-fork into the soil.
‘I was going to knock off for my elevenses, anyway,’ he said. ‘Can you drink home-brewed cider?’ He led the way into his cottage. It was simply furnished and in peasant fashion except for a long wall of bookshelves which must have held several hundred volumes, for the shelves went from near the floor almost up to the ceiling and were so crammed with books that many of these were lying on their sides on top of those which were right-way-up on the shelves. Marius had a considerable library and Sebastian and Margaret had been allowed the run of it—subject to a certain amount of supervision when they were very young—but Ransome appeared to possess more books than Marius. He followed the direction of Sebastian’s eyes and smiled. ‘I must say I like a bit of a read,’ he said. ‘What did you come about, then?’
While they drank his cider and ate delicious fruit-cake which, Ransome told them, the farmer’s wife had supplied, they told him all about the tomb-stones and Sebastian described the black magic rope ladder which he had seen in the church tower.
‘I thought the church was always locked,’ said Ransome.
‘The cleaner took us inside.’
‘Chief witch of the local coven, you know.’ He appeared to be about to add to this information, but checked himself.
‘No, really?’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Perfectly serious. She’s a white witch, of course. No black magic or satanism about her—well, not so far as I know. However, she’s head of the coven.’
‘But she cleans the church!’
‘Why shouldn’t she? Gets paid for it, like any other woman. Not that she’s kept short of money. Looks after our fowls and hangs on to all that she gets.’
‘But witches are not churchgoers, are they?’ persisted Margaret.
‘Well, no, I reckon not, but there’s no harm in this one. Goes in for herbal healing, and when any woman on the island is with child they always send for her to assist at the birth. They say she’s better than any trained midwife and wonderful at easing labour pains.’
‘What will happen about the headstones?’ asked Sebastian. ‘I mean, the way they’ve been treated is sheer vandalism. Have you had anything of the sort before?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Makes you wonder what has triggered it off, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll see the vicar is told about it. Not that he takes much stock in us, only seeing us once in four weeks, and this Sunday it won’t be the regular parson anyway, because he’s on furlough, so it will only be a stand-in, and lucky to get him, I reckon. Still, he can report it in the proper quarters, I daresay, although whether that will do any good, with all the lawlessness there is nowadays, is anybody’s guess. Oh, well, I’m afraid I must get back to work, if you’ll excuse me. Promised dad I’d do a couple of little carpentering jobs for him this afternoon if I get time.’
‘Oh, are he and his wife back, then?’ asked Margaret.
‘Dad’s back. Didn’t bring my mam back with him, though. Said he looked out for her, too. Lucy is staying with friends for a day or two.’
‘Forty bird-watchers came over, but not Aunt Eliza,’ said Sebastian. ‘Well, thanks very much for the nosh. Mrs… er… the farmer’s wife—’
‘Lucy Cranby. Dad’s name is Allen Cranby.’
‘Mrs Cranby must be a first-class cook.’
‘Yes. Pity she’s still away, you must meet her when you’ve got time. Of course,’ Ransome went on, ‘dad would have married my mam, you know, if only he had been free. That being so, I’ve never felt all that much of a bastard. Not that the islanders would care. Still, you know how it is. My mam gave my dad the farm. It was part of old Gwendolyne Chayleigh’s estate, she whose name my mam took.’
‘It’s the Chayleigh headstones in the churchyard which have been daubed and desecrated,’ said Margaret.