Summon the Bright Water

by Geoffrey Household

  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 f
ootprints?’

  ‘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.