Текст книги "Summon the Bright Water "

Автор книги: Geoffrey Household

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I had at once to find the major, if only to relieve my own anxiety. Since my opponents were armed with religion rather than reason it was also essential to protect Elsa against incalculable reactions. I telephoned her at the estate office, insisting again that she should leave Broom Lodge at once and hand over her life to me as lover or husband or whatever she liked. She murmured that husband would do very well but then seemed anxious, depressed and obstinate. Land and workshops were running normally with the colonists as diligent as ever, but naturally there were questions on the minor day-to-day issues of policy and finance. Her uncle used to settle them all decisively and with common sense, and now the commune expected her to advise them. The man Evans had quietly taken over religious leadership but when it came to the practical running of the colony he left it to the various groups. Marrin’s will had been short and plain enough. He had bequeathed the estate to the commune.

But the commune wasn’t a limited company and it wasn’t a cooperative. What was it? Meanwhile, the bank manager was being as helpful as he could to such a good customer.

I pitied the bank manager. Evans might be sound on ritual and reincarnation but was not a man to understand that his authority in financial matters must be legal. And he would leave an impression behind him in the manager’s office that he was proud to live by barter or the begging bowl. I could only advise Elsa to refuse any responsibility and find some colonist – preferably a lawyer or accountant who had opted out of the rat race – with enough character to chair a meeting and obtain general agreement.

I thought that at last we should be able to get a line on Simeon Marrin’s income and what had enriched him, but there too he had covered his tracks.

‘What about the funds that he paid into the commune?’ I asked.

‘He drew on his private account, and they say there in London that he always paid in cash over the counter. They thought he must be some kind of a criminal until the manager here explained that he ran a monastery.’

The London bank was right. A criminal he was, robbing this ancient country of invaluable evidence of its past. I had said little to Elsa on this point, allowing her to half believe in the alchemy or, failing that, in a substantial profit from his goldsmith’s work. The truth might have involved me in admitting that I had been present at his death and in agonising her with the revelation that he had tried to kill me.

‘By the way, did Evans bring in a new sacred ingot this morning?’ I asked.

‘No. But he came in and took them all away. He said that the lab wasn’t the right place for them.’

I went shopping to re-stock the den with food, and then took the bus into the forest and walked home. I dozed and rested through the afternoon since I might need all the endurance I had, and meanwhile the June sun was kind enough to dry last night’s clothes. Before sunset I started out on the eight-mile tramp to Wigpool, taking it easy and stopping on the way for a meal. The wind, what there was of it, had gone round to the north and the night was clear and starlit.

After approaching the shaft from the back, I lay down to await developments and noticed that the pile of old pit props had been arranged in something like a hollow square. That was fine. Somebody was about to go down or come out and I was prepared to watch all night for him to appear.

At last there was a quick flash of light between the timbers and a man emerged from the middle of them. I could not be sure who he was till I was closer, when he turned out to be that white worm, Ballard, He returned the props to their normal shape of a stack and cleared off. As I wanted to see where he had parked his car and who would pick him up, I followed him, from time to time deliberately making a little mysterious noise to bother him. I did, for he quickened his pace and started to whistle to keep up his courage. Meditation should have been enough to dispel such worldly matters. It may be harder when they are unworldly.

He walked for about half a mile along the rutted track and through a stand of splendid oaks, outliners of the Forest, until he came to a minor road where he waited. Marrin’s van arrived to collect him. I could not see who was driving.

Since Ballard had carefully remade the stack it was obvious that I was going to have the night to myself and plenty of time for exploration. Considering the stories I had heard of a maze of forgotten galleries, I had thought it advisable to imitate Theseus and Ariadne and take with me a large ball of string to be used to mark my trail wherever there might be a doubt of the way back to the surface. I must admit that I did not much like making such a journey unaccompanied but I was sure that both the major and the cauldron were ahead of me and either – or if possible both – would do.

As soon as I had moved the scattered props, which probably had been there for years until eyes no longer paid attention to them, I came upon four layers of them, neatly set into a square excavation. After raising these, a dark hole appeared. The diameter was very narrow, only about three feet, and my guess is that it had been the entrance to a badger sett which Marrin had excavated still further in the hope that it offered an alternative way into the workings. For the first few yards I had to crawl, but then an even slope led downwards, with some timbering to support the roof, until it led at a right angle into a true miner’s roadway cut in rock. This was obviously the main shaft. The gallery to which badgers and Marrin had obtained access had never been intended to reach the surface and was possibly a lay-by or an exploratory tunnel later abandoned.

The first question was whether to turn right uphill or left downhill along the main shaft. Right was soon eliminated. The roadway curved round, still uphill, and the beam of my torch showed the inner side of the old timber barrier; so I turned back and carried on downwards. The floor had been dry rock but now became wet and muddy, and it was quite believable that a stream or lake was somewhere in the depths. At a Y junction footsteps in the mud showed me which branch to take, and soon I saw a faint gleam of light on the yellow, dripping wall coming from some opening on the right. I could not approach it quietly, for it was impossible to move without audible squelching. There was nothing for it but to try speed and surprise. I picked up a lump of iron ore and rushed the opening.

Sitting in a deck chair was the major, peacefully reading a pocket Bible in the light of an oil lamp.

He looked up without any alarm and put down the book.

‘But how kind of you to want to see how I was getting on!’ he said.

My lungs were suddenly emptied of the deep breath of attack and I could only gasp, ‘Then you’re … you’re not a prisoner?’

‘I was a prisoner. But now I am here of my own free will.’

I told him how I had found his hidden car, proving that he had been killed or kidnapped, and that then I had tried the Wigpool workings on the off-chance that he might be there. What had happened, I asked.

‘After I had performed my vigil in Blakeney church and prayed that I might be worthy …’

‘Worthy of what?’ I interrupted.

‘Worthy of guarding the Grail.’

‘It is not the Grail,’ I bellowed in exasperation. ‘It’s not a chalice or a bowl. It’s a cauldron, if anything.’

‘In Irish legend, Piers, the Grail was a cauldron.’

‘Well, is it down here?’

‘I am sure of it.’

‘And you have confessed to the burglary?’

‘Ashamed to say I haven’t, old boy! I would have told the truth if they had asked me, but they never did.’

‘Then why are they holding you here?’

‘I was telling you. After I had performed my vigil I went to Evans and accused him of entering the laboratory as soon as he heard of Simeon’s death and taking the bowl. They showed no resentment, he and his friends. We’ll talk about, it they said, and then you shall see it. So we went to Evans’ room where we all had a drink. I remember walking with them to my car and then nothing else until I woke up down here. Wigpool, is it? Damned interesting, that!’

‘But how could you know that the burglar hadn’t taken the bowl?’

‘That is what they want me to tell them.’

‘And what have you told them?’

‘That when the burglar smashed the casket he was so overcome by the beauty and sanctity of the bowl that he could not bring himself to take it. And that, old boy, is as true as God’s in Gloucestershire except that I didn’t smash the casket.’

‘And what in the name of God in Gloucestershire did they think of that?’

‘They wondered. They too accept that it may be the chalice which started the legend of the Grail.’

‘But they aren’t Christians, damn it!’

‘They think it is far older than Our Lord.’

Well, there at least they could be right. It might be Saxon, but I too thought it far older and an import from the east. I had even played with the idea that it could be more ancient still, either a part of the treasure of Nodens before he became a god, or an urn to contain his entrails in the manner of the Egyptians.

‘They believe that it has been sacred from time immemorial,’ he went on, ‘that the first Britons worshipped it, and the Christians after them, and that both had their own myths to account for it. I do not believe that it was the Cup of the Last Supper, Piers, but I do believe that it is in some way hallowed.’

‘Do they know where Marrin found it?’

‘No. He said that he had been led to it in a dream.’

‘And they believe that?’

‘In two different senses. They are subtle as theologians, Piers, when explaining the ineffable. Evans believes that Simeon was led to the hiding-place of the bowl by direct inspiration: a waking rather than a sleeping dream. Some others have it that Simeon himself, in a trance, made it from gold transmuted by the spirit of earth. That is to say: the substance is immaterial but the shape material. A sort of immortal, eternally reincarnated object. Fits the Grail, what? But too subtle.’

‘I’m glad they are enjoying themselves. And how long do you propose to stay here?’

‘Until Evans confesses and gives the Grail into my care.’

We had reached the limit of exasperating lunacy. I thought that if I could shake his delusion that the cauldron could be the Grail of legend he would break out of his complacency – Perceval if I remember was somewhat complacent too – and leave with me at once. So I told him of that In Memoriam ceremony I had witnessed, which was pure midnight sorcery and as pagan and pantheistic as you could want.

‘The symbol of the Cross was holy before the crucifixion,’ he said. ‘That does not make it less holy. It means it is twice as holy. The first missionaries understood that. No, Piers, here I stay!’

‘They’ll put you out.’

‘They won’t do that in case I accuse Evans of robbing the commune.’

‘Well, then, they’ll tie a weight on you and drop you in the famous lake.’

‘They may, Piers, but while the bowl is here it is my duty as a servant of God and the Crown to remain.’

‘I’ll have the police here tomorrow.’

‘Then I too with sorrow would enter the world of policemen. I shall confess to the burglary and tell them you have everything except the bowl. I shall also tell them how Simeon tried to kill you and that you were at Bullo Pill when he met his death.’

I could have denied the lot on the grounds that the major was off his rocker, a defence which would be supported by any expert shrink – wrongly, I think, for you can be reasonably sane and yet live in a fairy tale like Don Quixote. But if the Major was backed up by collective peijury on the part of the druidicals, and police began to consider me as a suspect for burglary and murder I should be in trouble. Another point, always in the back of my mind was: what would Elsa’s reaction be?

‘Well, stay if you must,’ I replied weakly. ‘But if you want to escape, follow the footprints to the entrance. It’s closed by a pile of timber which you won’t be able to move from inside, but it will be open at night if any of them are down here. Now settle one thing for me, Denzil! Is it here that Marrin got his gold?’

‘If it is they don’t know it.’

‘And tin?’

‘Perhaps. Gold, tin and copper, Piers. The beginnings of civilisation.’

‘Then the rest of the commune should be working with them.’

‘Not yet. Too sacred to the tonsured. Nothing odd about that. Same in Simeon’s monastery as any other. Some are mystics, some aren’t. One brother has visions, another grows lettuces. If we had a drop of Scotch down here to keep you listening, I’d explain to you the distinction between salvation by faith and salvation by works.’

‘Which is burglary?’

‘Charity. Stopping an old friend from landing himself in gaol and helping a new friend in the advancement of knowledge. Charity comes under the head of works.’

There was nothing for it but to go, leaving this obstinate champion of Christendom to get on with the pagans as best he could. When I had crawled up to fresh air again I dithered. Should I leave the entrance open so that if he changed his mind he could escape, or close it so that my visit remained secret? I closed it, admitting to myself that my military saint was the stronger character.

I wandered back through the empty forest and dark hamlets, completely puzzled. The major’s story and his own reactions were – if one knew him as well as I did – plain enough, but Evans’s motives were obscure. The major accuses him of taking the cauldron from the burgled laboratory as soon as he hears of Marrin’s death. The major is then shut up at Wigpool until he tells them what reason he has to think that it was not the burglar who took it. He proceeds to spin them a yarn of the sanctity of the bowl being so transcendent that the burglar wouldn’t touch it. A most improbable burglar, but apparently they found the explanation acceptable or pretended to.

The only answer is that the major was right: Evans did pinch the cauldron. Even so it can never be proved. Then, if our would-be Perceval refuses to leave, why not give him a kick up the backside and send him away to his Cotswold valley to dream in peace?

Wait a minute! There ought to be something that he can give away. Iron ore? But everyone knows that plenty of ore remains below Wigpool, though no longer worth mining! Gold? A mining company never found any. The secret entrance? Well, they only use it at night so they certainly want to keep it secret. But the major didn’t even know where he was. Give him another druidical cocktail, put him in his car somewhere in the Forest and when he wakes up, all he will know is that he has been in a mine somewhere. And the secret entrance is not all that significant. Obviously they don’t want ex-miners and small boys rambling round the galleries to see what they are up to and dropping in on sacrifices to the gods of the underworld.

Sacrifices. Elsa suspected them. Animals, she said. What sort of animals? Was it conceivable that they didn’t draw the line at sheep? The Box Rock kept returning to my mind. Any offering to the gods should, if I remember correctly, go willingly to death. I had done and so would our Perceval.

The ineffectual wolf slept and stayed in its den all the following day till the evening, when it came out to reconnoitre Broom Lodge and to see if the routine of the colonists had in any way changed. I watched them return from the fields and workshops, tired and smiling. There was no way of approaching the workshops closely enough to hear any conversation, but some of the routes from the fields to the house afforded sufficient cover in ditches and long grass, provided the stragglers had no reason to suspect my presence. How helpless the human animal is without scent! Our eyes, looking ahead or at a companion, are not much of a safeguard unless attracted by movement.

I gathered from scraps of conversation that the commune was discontented – or not exactly discontented but feeling the way towards some kind of democratic organisation. More precise was a bit of talk between a man in his late forties and his still pretty wife who had been digging new potatoes and sorting the best for market and the rest for home consumption. It went something like this. He said:

‘There’s a machine for riddling spuds. Simeon was just going to buy one.’

‘Evans doesn’t like machines.’

‘He’s a bloody fool.’

‘I know, darling, but don’t say so! Seven of them is a big minority.’

‘But the piper can’t call the tune unless he’s got the money.’

‘He will have,’ she said, with a confidence which I think was assumed.

‘Well, so long as we don’t have to accept the rest of his nonsense.’

‘Oh, he won’t ask us to do that. But are you happy, love?’

‘Of course. It’s still heaven when one remembers London.’

And then they kissed and went on their way.

A pleasant requiem for Marrin which was well deserved. In a manner of speaking he had bribed them to support by their labour a dangerous creed, but he had the skill and the leadership to make a success of it. The colonists indeed showed a lack of curiosity. They were innocent, grateful and tolerant, and I’d call the lack of curiosity healthy. They were like, let’s say, receivers of stolen goods at second or third hand, trustfully buying and selling them with nothing on their conscience.

I caught a glimpse of Elsa in the distance, but could not approach her as I was. She was wearing her delightful abbess gown – I am sure it was to give herself more authority – and appeared to be directing or criticising some operation at the door of the smoke house. I felt she might be unwise. She too believed that she was up against nothing more sinister than religious eccentricities. I decided to call on her in the morning, driving openly up to Broom Lodge as Personality No. 1. I was uncertain whether I should tell her of the fate of the major or not. The first necessity was to get her out of there.

Next day I found Elsa wandering aimlessly about the garden and recognised in her the same vague worry, the same unwillingness to commit herself that I felt during our idyllic stay at Thornbury. She wouldn’t leave and she wouldn’t stay. Eventually she snapped at me that the police had been back, asking her how long it was between the time she was told on the telephone of her uncle’s death and the time she left the office to give the news to the commune.

‘But why?’

‘I think because someone could have found out the burglary before the police did.’

‘They are right, Evans or one of them did, and took the cauldron.’

She asked me how I knew, and I told her of my visit to the Wigpool mine and how I found the major insisting that the cauldron was the Grail and that he wouldn’t leave the mine until he had it.

‘But what made him think that the burglar didn’t take it?’

That put me on the spot. I was not going to admit that we had arranged the burglary in order to carry the thing up to London for expert opinion.

‘I suppose because he is close enough to those damned druidicals to understand them. He says that they believe it to be so holy that nothing would have stopped them taking it for their rites if they had a chance. You don’t know half of their futilities.’

To draw her attention away from that awkward question I gave her the story of how her mention of the public demonstration of smelting had set me on the way to discovering that the sacred ingots were of tin and, one thing leading to another, how I had found the major’s car. As an example of inner-circle superstitions I told her of the preposterous behaviour of Ballard and Raeburn when I dropped a flake of flint into the ingot.

She heard me out but I could see her mind was elsewhere.

‘Why did they kidnap the major?’ she asked.

‘Because he accused Evans of stealing the bowl.’

‘What made him think the burglar didn’t take it?’ she repeated.

‘Well, I’ve given you the best explanation I can. He has an idea that the burglar was struck dumb by its beauty.’

‘Did he say anything about footprints?’

‘No. What footprints?’

‘I told you. The police think someone could have found out about the burglary before they did and taken the bowl.’

‘But what’s it got to do with footprints?’

‘The burglar upset a jar of sulphur or something and stepped in it and they found bits of the casket on top of the footprints instead of under them.’

I saw the point, but it did not seem very solid evidence. The major had possibly been quite glad to leave mucky footprints all over the place from which his movements could be traced. But supposing the feet approached the curtained shelf, perhaps stood still in front of it and then went straight to the window and down the drainpipe, any detective would wonder how the remains of the casket came to be on top of the footprints.

‘It doesn’t matter. The police aren’t going to accuse you, my darling.’

‘But I did steal the bowl and I did smash the casket.’

She burst into tears and I tried to comfort her. I didn’t give a damn if she had the golden cauldron. I was delighted. At last I was free to take it away and have it examined.

‘When I heard of his death,’ she said, clinging to me and still sobbing, ‘the first thing I did was to get the key from his desk and unlock the lab and see if there was any message for me or the commune or anything. And then I saw the place had been burgled and the casket was still there. I thought it must be somebody in the commune. Any of them could have taken the keys from his desk. And then I thought: he’s missed the bowl and he shan’t have it. It’s mine. So I smashed the casket at the hinge and took the bowl and then I smashed the casket some more. But afterwards I felt so guilty. All the time we were together I felt guilty.’

‘Nonsense! You were his nearest relative.’

I might have been a little shocked if I had not known her sudden impulses, which were youthful, and the determination of her character, which was not. Her act had not been cold-blooded. It was a mixture of sorrow and exasperation, to which, as I was to see a moment later, could be added suspicion.

‘Where is it?’ I asked.

‘I put it in the waste-paper basket and covered it up, and later I hid it in the forest. Piers, I don’t even know if it’s really gold, only that it’s mysterious and beautiful and he made it.’

I said that, if he did, it was by melting down something else of far greater value. ‘What happened, I am sure, was that he discovered an ancient treasure buried somewhere near the bank of the Severn. That was when he put out the story of the win on the football pools. He really got the funds for Broom Lodge by melting down the gold and remaking it so that the origin could never be recognised. He spared the cauldron because it was so splendid, and made such a mystery of it for his followers that they believed it had some occult power. So does that crazy major.’

‘You should never have gone down at Wigpool,’ she cried. ‘And it’s all my fault! I told you they could be dangerous.’

To stop her blaming herself I said that I couldn’t take them seriously, and I told her about the In Memoriam service I had attended – certainly impressive but childish mumbo-jumbo all the same.

‘Who was dead?’ she asked.

‘Nobody that I know of.’

‘Then why do you call it In Memoriam?’

‘Well, it looked like it,’ I answered weakly. ‘Evans’s grandmother perhaps.’

‘That night when you left us – I know Uncle Simeon drove away with two diving suits and came back with one.’

‘I forgot to give it back to him.’

‘So you were separated?’

‘Yes, he was going back to Broom Lodge, and I wasn’t.’

‘Then he left before you came out of the river.’

‘Elsa dear, you know how unaccountable he was.’

‘And that’s why you wouldn’t come back to us and lived in the Forest!’

‘In a way. I had to know what he had found. A burial? Saxon? Roman? Or something far earlier and quite unknown to history? The tomb of Nodens, if he ever was a real person? To my way of thinking it was an unspeakable crime to keep secret such a discovery and perhaps destroy it. But to your uncle it was a gift of the gods which allowed him to keep his colony running – literally a gift of the gods he may have thought.’

‘He was a wonderful craftsman,’ Elsa said doubtfully.

‘Superb! I know. The major tells me that Evans and Co. have it that he was divinely inspired. But if he did make the cauldron, where did he get the gold?’

‘For heaven’s sake leave it alone now! What does it all matter to us two, my darling?’

‘Nothing, when you say so. But first I must get the major out of there. You see that.’

‘Will he come?’

‘Yes, if I give him my word that you, not those fanatics, have his Grail.’

I assured her that there was no need to worry about me, saying that I could go down and come up again in daylight that very afternoon provided that our precious druidicals were all at honest work and that the pile of pit props was undisturbed. She was not content and, as if she could foresee dangers which I could not, wanted me to describe the slope, the entrance, the blocked gate, the lot. She said that I ought to be accompanied by police or at least to let them know. I pointed out that the police were the last people we wanted to talk to. It would take longer to explain the motives of all concerned than to get the major out and away, and there were details about which the police would quickly see that we didn’t want to talk.

‘I’ll get on with it at once,’ I said. ‘After lunch check that the seven druidicals have all gone off to work, especially Evans. As soon as they are all safely occupied, go out at the back and wave a tablecloth. Then I’ll start off.’

I had to promise to come straight back to her when it was all over. I told her that it was hard to give a definite time. I might have to wait in cover to make sure there was no one about. Denzil might decide to lecture me on faith and works before making up his mind. And I should have to play our return by ear. I suggested that she should stay in the office from six o’clock on and I would telephone her if all was well. If I failed to call her, I would meet her about seven-thirty at a spot which I would show her.

‘If you don’t telephone and don’t turn up, I’m going to the police,’ she said.

I had no objection. If I didn’t turn up by seven-thirty it could mean that I wasn’t going to turn up at all. Her vague fears had made me take this simple expedition rather more seriously. I remembered that I had only been as far as the major’s temporary bed-sitting room and did not know what was in the darkness beyond. The ingenuities of the late Simeon Marrin were not to be despised.

I showed her where she was to meet me – the lair in the foxgloves from which I had kept watch on the back of Broom Lodge – and settled down there to eat some sandwiches and wait for her signal.

A little after three the tablecloth was waved – a long enough wait to show me that she had made a thorough check of suspects and occupations. I returned to the car, changed to the shabbier Personality No. 2 and drove off to Wigpool. No tea and buns were being served at the Methodist Chapel and there were no cars outside, so I had to look for some other discreet parking place, not too far away. I passed no one in my walk to the rising ground above the shaft, but when I lay down and looked over the edge, I found that a tractor was travelling back and forth over the pasture between slope and woodland, cutting thistles, and that I should be in full view of the driver when I dismantled the pile of pit props and entered the shaft. It was no wonder that the ‘geologists’ only went to work when dusk had closed down work on the land and no farm hands or ex-miners full of professional curiosity were likely to stroll up and ask questions.

When the tractor drove away, I cleared the pile of props and went down. All was silent. There were more tracks in the mud than on my previous visit, but only of one person coming and going. It looked as if someone had gone down to see that the obstinate major was all right, and to supply him with food and drink. No light came from the bay which he had occupied. I quickly flashed my torch on the interior, fearing the worst, and was relieved to see him sound asleep under blankets on a mattress against the wall.

I called softly:

‘Denzil!’

He turned over and replied in the words of the young Samuel:

‘Speak, Lord!’

I said it was only me but that he could get up and gird his loins all the same.

He unrolled himself. His unshaven face, set but smiling as if I was being most courteously welcomed to Mess, though they were just out of battle, made me realise that I loved the ridiculous man as Arthur might have done, had done, would do. These time-travellers of imagination play the devil with one’s tenses.

‘You’re taking a bit of risk, old boy,’ he said.

‘None at all. I left the entrance open and we can clear out now.’

‘I told you…’ he began.

‘I know. But I give you my word of honour that the Grail is not here. Elsa has it.’

‘You have seen it?’

‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘And at last we can go to the experts with it and find out how old it is and whether what you believe is possible.’

‘Good! And before we go we will find out what else these devil-worshippers have.’

He explained that when he was left alone he had explored as far as the lake – yes, there was a black lake – but could see no further with the wretched lamp which was all the light they had allowed him. Now with my powerful torch it would be worth having another look. He knew from snatches of talk and a glimpse of Evans in a blue robe that some kind of pagan worship took place in the depths.

I doubted if there would be anything of interest except some home-made altar, but then my damned obsession with ancient economies took over. I did want to see where and how they were mining tin. Had there ever been a trade in tin from the Forest of Dean? If there had been were there already ports on the Severn Sea before the iron age and the trade of the Celtic ironmasters? It was now only five o’clock. We had time in hand for a short expedition and had only to follow the footsteps until we came to the working surface, if any. The passage dipped sharply, and where it ended old galleries led off to right and left. That was as far as the miners had gone before abandoning the pit. The air was still good, but probably they were getting too far from the surface for easy working and decided to exploit another of the many possible sites in the Forest where the extraction of the ore more resembled quarrying than mining.