The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  I wonder why it is that Blossom’s religion has apparently failed to make her a nicer person, but as Silas and Eric point out, she might be a lot worse without it. Silas, ever charitable, says she could well be trying very hard, and have found that this is as far as she can get on her spiritual journey, but I remain convinced that Blossom is a deeply unpleasant person, and that not much can be done to change her.

  Be that as it may, it is a very different Blossom from the one we know (if not love) who bursts into the kitchen on a wet Monday morning after feeding the hens.

  ‘Dear Lord! Oh, dear Lord!’ she collapses into a chair.

  ‘What? What’s happened?’ Eric asks her. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Dear Lord. Oh, Holy Mother of God.’ There are actual tears in Blossom’s eyes.

  Eric gives her a little shake.

  ‘Come on, Blossom It can’t be that bad.’

  ‘Bad? Oh, not at all. Not bad. It’s a miracle. A miracle in this house. Praise the Lord!’

  ‘Miracle? What miracle?’ Silas joins in.

  ‘The blessed Virgin Mary. In the hen house.’

  ‘You mean — you mean you’ve had a vision of some sort?’ says Eric carefully. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No, no. It’s still there. Oh, praise the Lord!’

  ‘Are you saying that the — the Blessed Virgin is in the hen house?’

  ‘No. Yes. Well, sort of.’

  ‘Tell us, Blossom. Take your time.’

  ‘Oh, Holy Mother! Bless us all.’ Blossom crosses herself. We all wait.

  ‘She’s there. She’s right there on the wall. I saw her clear as I’m sitting here.’

  ‘On the wall.’ Silas repeats the words thoughtfully. ‘Where — where exactly on the wall?’

  ‘It’s not her herself, of course —’ well, there’s a relief — ‘but her image. With stars.’

  ‘With stars. My goodness,’ says Eric.

  ‘Come. Come and see!’ Blossom leaps to her feet and pulls at Silas’s hand. ‘All of you. Come and see.’ She scurries out of the back door and leads the way along the muddy path to the hen house.

  The hen house is the oldest of the outbuildings, having been made many years ago by my grandfather. Rather unusually, it is constructed from oak, since, as Eric explained to me, that was the only wood which was to hand at the time. Everyone has always agreed that a lovely piece of oak like that is wasted on the hens, but it has stood the test of time and of many generations of birds, and Eric and Silas are very attached to it. They used to hide in it as boys, and my poor mother once spent a terrifying afternoon in it when her brothers locked her in. It is, in short, a part of family history.

  When we catch up with Blossom, her eyes are fixed on the side of the hen house and she appears to be in some kind of trance. I follow her gaze, but can see nothing unusual. I wonder whether you have to be a Catholic to see these things (after all, they always seem to appear to Catholics). Agnostics like myself probably don’t stand a chance.

  ‘There. There she is.’ Blossom rouses herself and points. ‘There. The Blessed Mother herself. And — stars.’

  We all look. After a minute, Eric and Silas move closer.

  ‘Well — I think I can see something,’ Silas says, but he sounds a bit doubtful. He fishes in his pocket for his glasses, and peers more closely.

  ‘What? What can you see?’ Blossom cries.

  ‘It could be — yes, it looks a bit like a figure.’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Oh, thanks be to God!’ Blossom clasps her hands and lifts her gaze heavenwards.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Blossom. Maybe we need to calm down a bit.’ Silas says. ‘We mustn’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’ I ask.

  Eric and Silas move back, and I join Blossom.

  ‘There! There she is,’ Blossom says, pointing a grubby finger.

  Sure enough, in the grain of the wood it is possible to make out a vague figure; tall, wearing a kind of long garment, with what could be outstretched arms.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ I say.

  ‘And stars? Can you see the stars?’

  There is a circle of speckles round the head of the figure. Certainly, with a bit of imagination, they could be taken for stars.

  ‘I think I can.’

  ‘There! Told you! Even Ruth can see her.’

  Even Ruth. Thank you, Blossom.

  Eric and Silas carry out another inspection, and agree that there certainly is something that looks a bit like a figure.

  ‘But even if it is a person, how can you tell who it is?’ Eric asks.

  Blossom looks at him pityingly.

  ‘The Blessed Virgin likes to appear. That’s what she does.’

  This seems true enough. I have read of Virgins appearing, variously, on hillsides, in skyscapes and even on pieces of toast. Why not on the side of our hen house?

  It is a strange phenomenon that once you see a figure or an object in a piece of wood (or in anything else, come to that) it becomes impossible not to see it. I myself have found the head of a fox and a lop-sided dragonfly in the knotted wood of the bathroom floor, and there are lots of faces in the floral material of the curtains in my old bedroom at home. Thus the curtains are no longer flowery, but peopled with little pink and white strangers, and whichever way I look at them, I can’t turn them back into flowers.

  So it is with Blossom’s Virgin. Now that I have seen her, I can’t not see her. She is there. And the more I look, the more Virgin-like she becomes. I fancy I see features, hair, even a veil. The outstretched arms bless, the tiny stars twinkle. I am almost convinced. I try looking away, and then looking back again, but she is still there. I can almost imagine that the garment she is wearing is blue. Whatever happens, from now on every time I look at the hen house, I too will see the Virgin Mary.

  ‘I’ll phone Father Vincent. That’s what I’ll do,’ Blossom says.

  ‘What can he do?’ Eric asks.

  ‘Father Vincent will know.’

  Father Vincent doesn’t know. When summoned to inspect Blossom’s miracle, he seems far more concerned about the mud on the route to the hen house and the lively and unwelcome attentions of Mr. Darcy than the possibility of any miraculous manifestation.

  ‘Hm.’ He stands at the side of the hen house, looking thoughtful.

  ‘Well? Well, Father?’ Blossom is almost skipping up and down in her excitement. I am amazed, not only at Blossom’s unusually high spirits and the sudden loosening of her tongue, but also by her demeanour. I have never seen Blossom showing respect for anyone before, but she is almost grovelling in her behaviour towards Father Vincent.

  Father Vincent puts on his spectacles and leans down, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘Hm,’ he says again.

  We all wait. It would appear that without Father Vincent’s imprimatur, Blossom’s miracle isn’t a miracle at all, so a lot hangs on his verdict.

  ‘You can see her, can’t you, Father? There she is, bless her, with all those little stars.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘Yes? Yes, Father?’

  ‘I suppose it could be. Just could be. But it’s very hard to tell.’

  ‘Perhaps we should pray, Father? Shall we pray?’ Blossom makes as though to kneel down in the mud.

  ‘No need to kneel,’ Father Vincent says hastily. ‘We can pray standing here quietly.’

  Father Vincent and Blossom stand for several minutes with their eyes closed, and once again, we all wait. When they open their eyes, I find that I’m holding my breath, as though their verdict is of great importance.

  ‘It is the Blessed Virgin, isn’t it, Father? Please say it’s her!’ Blossom says.

  ‘It’s not for me to say whether or not this is the Blessed Virgin.’ Discreetly, Father Vincent wipes his shoes on a clump of grass.

  ‘Who then?’ I ask, unable to contain my curiosity. ‘Who decides what’s real and what isn’t?’

  ‘We need a miracle or two,’ says Father Vincen
t. ‘Yes. That’s what we need. A miracle.’

  ‘What sort of miracle?’

  ‘A healing, perhaps. Yes. A healing would certainly help.’

  I cast about in my mind for someone who needs healing.

  ‘Sarah has a touch of mastitis,’ Eric suggests.

  ‘Sarah?’ Father Vincent turns to him.

  ‘Our sow.’

  ‘Oh, no. Not a sow. That would not be appropriate.’ Father Vincent sighs. I feel that he is not really entering into the spirit of the occasion. ‘I’ll need to talk to the bishop.’

  Even I know that people like bishops are busy and take a long time to answer things, and as we all troop back into the house for a cup of tea, I feel quite sorry for Blossom. After all, does it really matter whether her Virgin is real or not? If it makes Blossom happy (and it would seem that it does) then where’s the harm?

  But despite her disappointment, Blossom seems strangely cheery, stirring Father Vincent’s tea for him and getting out chocolate biscuits and even cracking a little joke or two. I have the distinct feeling that Blossom is up to something, and I wonder what it can be.

  In the event, I don’t have long to wait.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two days later, Blossom turns up with two strange men who, she says, wish to pay their respects to the Virgin. She will escort them herself, she tells us. She knows how busy we all are (Does she? Blossom never seems to have any idea what anyone else is doing, and cares even less, but we let it pass).

  But on Friday, we find out who Blossom’s friends were.

  MIR-EGG-LE OF THE HEN HOUSE! screams the headline in the local paper, together with what appears to be a craftily airbrushed photograph of Blossom’s Virgin and a half-page article about Blossom herself:

  ‘Local farmer, Blossom Edgar, has discovered what is believed to be a manifestation of the Blessed Virgin Mary ingrained in the wood of her hen house’, it begins.

  Blossom a farmer? Blossom’s hen house? Even Eric and Silas are indignant.

  ‘Well, really, Blossom. This is a bit much. You could at least have asked us,’ Eric says.

  ‘You’d have said no.’ Blossom is unrepentant.

  ‘Yes. We almost certainly would have.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘But Blossom, this is our house and our hen house. We should be the ones to decide whether we want to be invaded by the press.’

  ‘Should be pleased.’ It would seem that Blossom has returned to monosyllabic mode.

  ‘Well, we’re not.’

  ‘Too late,’ says Blossom with a hint of triumph.

  ‘Well, yes. In this case, it is too late. But please don’t let anything like this happen again.’

  ‘Oh well. I suppose there’s no harm done,’ Silas says later when Blossom has gone home. ‘And she’s had her moment of glory.’

  But the following week, the first pilgrims arrive.

  ‘Where is she? Where’s the Blessed Virgin?’ The two women who appear at the front door are breathless with excitement.

  ‘I’m afraid this is private property,’ I tell them. ‘And in any case, the — the manifestation has to be verified. It may take some time.’

  ‘Oh, we don’t mind about that,’ one of them assures me. ‘We can make up our own minds.’

  ‘But this is still private property. I’m afraid I can’t invite you in. It’s not my land. And the owners are out.’ Eric and Silas have gone to the feed merchant in town.

  ‘If it is the Blessed Virgin, then you have no right to keep her to yourself. This kind of thing belongs to everyone.’ She turns to her companion. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Well...’ The other woman looks uncertain.

  ‘Of course I am,’ she continues. ‘It’ll be round the back. We don’t need to trouble you, and we won’t be any bother. Just ignore us.’

  And before I have time to think of a reply, she has taken her companion’s arm and led her round the back of the house towards the outbuildings. They look harmless enough, and as it’s pouring with rain, I decide to leave them to it, although I keep a watchful eye from the kitchen window.

  When Eric and Silas return, I tell them about our visitors.

  ‘Probably just a one-off,’ says Silas. ‘I don’t expect we’ll be bothered again.’

  But how wrong can you be. The next day, there are two small parties, and the day after that, four. Blossom, who has had two days off, is delighted when we tell her what’s been happening.

  ‘A shrine,’ she says ecstatically. ‘A shrine in our own garden!’

  ‘No, in our garden, Blossom,’ Eric says. ‘We’ve already told you, this is our garden, not yours. And the hen house is ours too. You have no right to invite all these strangers round as though you own the place. It really is too much!’

  I have never seen either of my uncles angry before, but obviously the very real threat posed to their privacy is having its effect.

  ‘Didn’t invite them,’ says Blossom mutinously. ‘Just came.’

  ‘Yes, because of that stupid article in the paper. Blossom, you knew this would happen, didn’t you?’

  ‘Might have.’

  ‘Of course you did. I have a good mind to take the hen house to pieces and destroy that panel. I can always make another.’

  ‘Can’t do that. It’s holy. It’s a shrine.’

  ‘Just you watch me.’

  ‘Your dad’s hen house? Turn in his grave.’

  ‘He’d get over it.’

  Eric and Blossom glare at each other for a moment, then Blossom appears to change tack.

  ‘I’ll sort it out. See to the visitors. Won’t know they’re there.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Eric looks doubtful, as well he might. ‘They’ll disturb the animals. And then there’s the security risk, too.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ says Blossom.

  ‘I still don’t think it’s a good idea. What do you think?’ He turns to his brother.

  ‘Let’s give it a few more days, and see what happens,’ says Silas, whose mind is on other things. He has found a particularly pleasing specimen by the roadside on the way home and is obviously longing to deal with it. ‘This may all die down.’

  But the pilgrims keep on coming. They arrive in cars and on foot, and they traipse up and down the garden, creating a mud bath as they go. To be fair, they are on the whole respectful and apologetic, they don’t make much noise and they come and go quite quickly, but they are there. And someone has to be around to oversee the proceedings.

  A week later, when an entire minibus full of pilgrims has made its way up the track, my uncles are at their wits’ end.

  ‘The trouble is, they’ll come whether we let them or not,’ says Silas. ‘And the idea of people creeping round the house in the middle of the night to pay homage to our hen house, and disturb the hens, is not a pleasant one.’

  ‘Creosote,’ says Silas. ‘We’ll creosote the whole hen house, and that will be that.’

  ‘We can’t. Creosote’s illegal. Cancer risk or some such nonsense,’ Eric tells him.

  ‘Paint, then. We’ll paint it.’

  ‘Seems a pity. It won’t fit in with the other outbuildings.’

  I open my mouth to suggest that nothing other than total squalor would fit in to the chaos of tumbledown sheds which comprise my uncles’ domain, but then I close it again.

  ‘Wood preservative, then,’ says Eric.

  ‘Won’t it show through?’ I ask.

  ‘Shouldn’t do. And it could do with a spot of weatherproofing, anyway. This way, we’ll kill two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Or chickens.’

  ‘This isn’t funny, Ruth. We have a real problem here.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You can help. It shouldn’t take long.’

  The following day, Eric drives into town and returns with several large tins of very dark wood preservative, and by the evening, we have the whole job done. The hen house looks very smart, standing out among th
e other more ramshackle outbuildings, but more to the point, there is no sign of the Virgin. Several disappointed visitors have had to be turned away, and there is now a large sign on the gate to the effect that the Virgin Mary has “disappeared”.

  ‘Which is true enough,’ says Silas, ‘even if she needed a little help. After all, if these manifestations can appear, then presumably they can disappear. I’m going back to my fox.’

  Neither Eric nor I are going to argue with him. The fox in question has been with us now for two days, and is beginning to smell.

  ‘What do you think Blossom will say?’ I ask Eric, as he and I mix feed for the pigs.

  ‘She’ll be furious. Apart from anything else, she hates not having her own way.’

  ‘We did do the right, thing, didn’t we?’

  ‘Of course we did.’ Eric laughs. ‘You’re not turning Catholic on us are you? It’s a bit late for that.’

  ‘No. But you must admit, it was odd. It really did look like — well, like something. A bit more than a few knots in the wood, anyway.’

  ‘I reckon Blossom’s Father Vincent will be relieved,’ Eric says. ‘He didn’t seem at all keen on the idea of a shrine on his patch, and I can’t say I blame him.’ He slops pig feed into a trough. ‘It seems to me that miracles are a lot more trouble than they’re worth.’

  But if Eric thinks miracles are trouble, they are nothing compared to Blossom’s reaction when she comes to work the next day and finds out what we’ve done. Shocked silence gives way to hysteria, followed by a torrent of vituperation. What we have done is apparently worse than blasphemy, worse than the blackest of mortal sins. Not only have we looked a spiritual gift horse in the mouth, we have outraged God Himself with our behaviour. We are worse than heathens and idolaters, and are, all three of us, condemned to eternal hell fire.