It wasn’t the fireplace. Where, then? A trap door in the floor. I slid the desk aside and pulled up the scrap of carpet. The floorboards ran from wall to wall, pegged and in varying widths. I pounded with my fists, testing; felt the resistance of solid timberwork beneath. I went around the room jouncing my weight. The boards did not give.
I stopped, listening to the clock, my eye taking in the room again. Four walls, ceiling, floor, fireplace, the closet next to it—
The closet!
I turned a small wooden catch and opened the door. It was less than eighteen inches wide and ran from floor to ceiling. It appeared to have been a woodbox, nothing more. Dried mortar had oozed between the stonework. I knelt, examining the floor. The light was bad; the floor appeared to be covered by a square of linoleum that stopped at the threshold. I felt its surface, then tapped. It returned a hollow sound. I could see a bulge under the linoleum that could be the spine of a hinge. I felt with my fingers; there was another: two hinges. I tried to get my fingernails under the linoleum. One or two small pieces broke off; something was required to pry it up. The penknife.
I went to the desk and rattled the drawer. It gave slightly, but the lock held. I sat on the floor, braced my feet against the front, inserted my fingers along the underside, and pulled. The drawer resisted, then loosened, then came away altogether. I found my knife and began laboriously peeling off the linoleum.
At last—almost an hour later—I had exposed the metal that hinged the trap. Dirt had caked in the crevices and bound it fast. I used the knife point to scrape the dirt out, then tried again. With a screech of hinges the door moved. I lifted it an inch at a time, and when it was open I looked down into a narrow black hole. A crude arrangement of rungs descended along one side of the shaft and, taking the flashlight from the drawer, I climbed down into Gwydeon Penrose’s tunnel.
There was hardly room to move, and I was sure I would suffocate in the fetid, airless chamber. I crawled, wriggling and pulling myself forward. Dirt had fallen from the ceiling, and I had to scoop it past my shoulders and under to get through. Overhead I could hear a faint thrum. A car, perhaps. Maybe I was under the street. And what lay at the other end? Another piece of linoleum, blocking my way out?
The tunnel narrowed to a point where I could barely get my shoulders through. Holding the flashlight, I slid my arms out in front and drew myself along, pushing with my feet. The passage widened again, and movement became easier. I came to a kneeling position, then crawled on all fours. There was planking under my hands and along the sides of the tunnel. In a moment I was standing, and I swung the flashlight beam in an arc, determining what lay ahead. I looked down, saw some stone steps. I mounted, and at the top I found a small door. I opened it to discover a closet of some kind. I could feel clothing hanging on hooks, and my hand struck a stack of books. Books and more books. There was a latch; I lifted it and the door partly opened. A gleam of light showed through the crack; I heard the drone of a voice. Quickly catching the door before it could swing farther, I peeked through the crack; I realized where Gwydeon Penrose’s tunnel had led me.
The church. I was in the cupboard where the hymnals were stacked, under the choir loft. The voice belonged to Mr. Buxley, who stood in the pulpit saying a prayer; the pews were filled with the village women. Heads bowed, they sat with their backs to me, row after row of white-clad figures. I listened as Mr. Buxley completed his prayer, then left the pulpit and sat in his chair. Nervously he ran his finger around the front of his collar several times, watching the women, who remained with their heads bent. Mr. Deming appeared from a point past my line of vision, and stood under the pulpit behind the long harvest table which, I now saw, bore a large number of long-handled hoes. The rest of the elders ranged themselves on either side of Mr. Deming, and when the women lifted their heads, he nodded gravely, I heard a stirring, and presently the Widow entered in her black dress and white cap. He took a hoe and placed it in her hands. She turned and started up the aisle. Now certain others of the women rose and went to the table to be given a hoe, and they, too, proceeded up the aisle. When the hoes had been distributed, the men inclined their heads to the congregation in a gesture of acknowledgment, then one by one filed out through the small door behind the pulpit, to be followed by Mr. Buxley.
At the same time, women were coming up the aisle and leaving through the vestibule doors. The last person to go out was Maggie Dodd, who locked the door behind the pulpit; then she, too, came up the aisle. I heard her go out through the vestibule, heard the key being turned in the lock on the front door.
The church was silent. I waited another moment, then opened the cupboard door and stepped out. I tried the door behind the pulpit, next the side doors; all were locked. I went into the vestibule and tried the front door. It also was locked. The windows were too high, and in any case only the top ones opened. I was sealed in the church.
I shined my flashlight upward, along the steps leading to the belfry. Then I began climbing step by step into the steeple, passing the door to the choir loft, then into the small square room that had been the old watchtower, and was now the clock turret. Still climbing, I came into the belfry. Directly below on the Common, the women had congregated after leaving the church. I ducked as I saw several faces lifted, looking at the clock. When I raised my head again, I saw Amys Penrose coming along the roadway under the street lamps. He reached into his pocket as he came up the steps and in a moment I heard, far below, the door opening. Then the bell rope tautened and the bronze dome over my head began to swing.
I crouched under the arch, holding my ears as the iron tongue struck the first curfew note. The entire chamber reverberated with an enormous peal like bronze thunder that slowly diminished in a chain of echoes in my ears, then sounded again. The bell rang twelve times. At last it came to rest, the clapper hung vertically, and the rope went slack; then the door closed and locked again, while below all along the roadway one after another the street lights dimmed and went out.
29
HUNCHED ON MY PERCH in the belfry, I watched the moon rise—the Moon of No Repentance. Over black treetops whose branches seemed to reach upward for it, it rose, imponderable and potent, hanging low on the horizon like some titanic disk vast and orange and glowing, and on this night of Harvest Home it seemed its path was not around the globe in its accustomed orbit, but a trajectory propelling it cataclysmically at the earth, so huge and bright did it seem.
Generously it lent its light to this most ceremonious of occasions as the women of Cornwall Coombe gathered below me on the Common. They seemed to meet in a community of spirit and endeavor, but with little of festival or celebration in their demeanor: a solemn convocation, rather, their apparel suitable to the event, full-skirted with drooping hems and long sleeves, a druidic look, the moonlight causing the white folds to shimmer and gleam.
One pointed, then another, and I turned my head to look up Main Street where, under a porch light, beside the rusty glider, the child Missy Penrose appeared and came down the steps. The light went out, and now out of the darkness came another figure, their last-appearing sister, she whom they awaited: the Corn Maiden herself.
Veiled and ceremonially dressed, she came eagerly along the walk, her head proud and erect, surrogate for the dead Sophie Hooke. Tonight, Justin would make the corn with Tamar Penrose; Sally Pounder and Margie Perkin had lost.
They brought her onto the Common, where a festooned cart awaited her; her face was discreetly hidden by the embroidered covering. She mounted into the cart, and I saw the Widow’s white cap moving through the white-clad figures as she draped the great quilt that told the story of the growing of the corn across the front of the cart.
They held themselves in readiness, but they did not start out, for still there was one missing: Justin Hooke, Tamar’s partner in the night’s events. Below me I could hear the internal workings of the clock, its iron gears ratcheting and settling into place again, the metallic clicks as the hands moved. I looked up at the bro
nze hull of the bell and the great iron clapper suspended above me, then down at the rope that trailed from the rocker to the vestibule below.
I saw Justin before the women did. I did not know where he came from, but he was there, at the end of Main Street, his blond head shining in the moonglow, his body shrouded in the same red mantle he had worn in the Corn Play. He was standing there, then he came on, walking slowly—operatically, even. The women saw him, and they fell silent at his advance, a dark, majestic figure, looking neither right nor left, but coming straight toward them, his red mixing and mingling with their white as they offered token aid for his ascent into the cart, where he stood beside the Corn Maiden.
They were a pair.
Even with Sophie dead, and with whatever the night might hold, they were a pair, Justin and Tamar. I watched them as they linked hands, standing proud and erect when the wooden tongue of the cart was raised, the vehicle with its two passengers drawn in a wide arc, torches—two, four, six, or more—flanking the sides of the cart, one figure running ahead to light the way, while musicians joined the moving troupe, flute and tambourine and drum, and the flower-braided cart was pulled not by any beast but by the women themselves, along the roadway where dogs hugged the shoulders, trailing in inquisitive pairs, but silent, as if they, too, comprehended the meaning of Harvest Home in Cornwall Coombe.
I watched it out of sight, then began drawing up the bell rope, arm over arm, pulling it up to me. When it lay coiled at my feet, I took off my coat and wrapped it around the bell clapper, tying the sleeves to secure it. Then I dropped the rope outside the arch, put my weight on it so the bell tilted, and stepped out, clutching the rope and sliding down. The bell gave off one dull reverberation, which muted itself and floated away into silence as I let go of the rope and dropped to the ground.
Against the perfect circle of the moon, paler than an hour ago, I watched the crow wing to its perch on the far side of the clearing. Somewhere in the cavernous fastnesses of Soakes’s Lonesome the fox barked, the fox I had heard on my first visit, he who watched the watchers, who hunted the hunters. The hollow curve felt uncomfortable against my back and sides as I huddled under the network of vines that sutured the gaping cavity of the blasted tree.
Girdled there, a thick leafy screen securely hiding my head where once the screaming skull—the skull of Grace Everdeen—had rested, I waited, watched, listened. At my feet the dead roots convulsed themselves outward from the base of the tree to the spring which bubbled and fretted its way along the rocky stream bed. The thick grass of the clearing was a silvery-olive color in the moonlight; more silvery were the trunks of the birch grove ringing the open space, and beyond that the trees were dark, receding in black corridors into the woods.
Then, from afar, I heard the sound of voices being tunneled toward me through the gap. Soon there were other voices—I had no idea whose—speaking in low tones. Above the flow of water I could hear them approaching behind the tree, then pass in a group, and I could see the backs of four women carrying between them an object which proved to be a large chair—not an ordinary one, but a sort of throne, woven with straw and corn, which they placed toward the edge of the clearing directly opposite my hiding place. Then, like me, they waited.
Beyond the gap, the singing grew louder. It had taken them half an hour longer than it took me to get to the grove; I had followed the shorter route across the fields, avoiding the men posted along the Old Sallow Road and entering the woods through the meadow. They were coming through the gap now, processionally, their way lighted by the torches. I listened for the sound of the cart, but the Corn Maiden appeared on foot and was at once encircled and greeted by those who had come first, several clasping her to their bosom, then leading her to one side of the clearing where a large piece of cloth was spread; she sat, veiled, the white mantle she wore drawn around so no bodily part showed. Eight or ten of the girls grouped themselves about her.
I had not yet seen the arrival of the two other important characters in the drama: the Widow Fortune and the Harvest Lord himself. The women had arrayed themselves in a large circular group about the clearing, waiting. I saw some of them whisper to each other, then look in my direction, and as they joined hands and came toward the tree I felt the fear of discovery. Suddenly Robert’s warning came back to me: the Eleusinian Mysteries, that no man had seen and lived to tell of. They came close, their faces turned directly toward me, but they had not discovered my hiding place.
Meanwhile other women were arriving in the clearing, many carrying hoes, some bringing wooden kegs, the ones I had seen unloaded from Fred Minerva’s wagon. Several large baskets were brought out, from which came chalicelike cups. These were filled from the kegs and passed around, the recipients tasting as though examining for flavor, then drinking.
Cups were carried to the Corn Maiden’s group, sitting on the ground, and they, too, drank. Presently I heard the sound of the instruments, and the celebrants arranged themselves again in a large circle around the clearing, cups poised in midair. I could hear someone moving behind me, and in a few moments I saw the Widow’s broad black back and her white cap as she walked into the clearing, leading Justin Hooke, whose eyes were blindfolded by a white band, tied behind. The Widow brought him to the throne, where she aided him in sitting, arranging his red mantle so it covered him to the ground. A cup was quickly brought and offered to her. She signaled impatiently, and it was placed in Justin’s hands, while another cup was given to the Widow, and they both drank.
The cups were passed, and passed again; the women drank long and eagerly, as if anxious to absorb the contents. They had broken up into groups, which in the most casual fashion began a loose form of dance, not the dance they had executed at the husking bee, but of a more impromptu nature, with no prescribed form. Someone started a song, its melody totally unfamiliar to me, with an odd cadence and odder pattern, a still odder tongue.
Suddenly I heard a sound behind me. Someone had come through the gap and was crossing toward the clearing, with slow, measured, almost furtive steps. A twig cracked, then another. I waited for a figure to appear within my range of vision, but no one came. Whoever it was had stopped at some point just in back of the tree and I froze, thinking she must be investigating the trunk. But no; I knew the person standing there was only watching the proceedings in the clearing.
Several women came toward the spring carrying a large metal ewer. They submerged it in the water, and while it filled they looked past me, one of them making a beckoning gesture, an acknowledgment to whoever it was waiting behind my hiding place. She beckoned again, gave a slight shrug, then the filled ewer was borne away, to be placed close to Justin’s throne. Now, one by one, numbers of the women separated from the others and gathered around the Harvest Lord. His blindfold was removed, the cup given into his hands again. The women dipped napkins into the ewer and began washing his feet, a ritual of cleansing and purification.
Ivied garlands and chains of flowers were produced and hung around his neck and shoulders. Then the same corn crown that had been used in the play was brought to the Widow and she placed it on his head.
These women now withdrew, leaving the Harvest Lord to watch the dancing.
The dancers were accompanied by the instruments, a primitive strain similar to the music I had heard from the cornfield on the night of the “experience.” From time to time, the circles broke while the women refreshed themselves from the cups continually being filled from the kegs and passed among them. Unfailingly, one was always carried past my line of vision to the unknown presence standing behind my tree, and I would hear low urgings, then a muffled response; then, the cup drained, the bearer would return to the group, where their somewhat stilted, ceremonial aspect was now wearing off. Their movements had become erratic, their singing often off key, their gestures more abandoned.
All the time, I kept careful watch for a clue in the proceedings that would tell me what it was Gracie Everdeen had done that had caused her death. Or what it was a
bout the ceremony that had caused Worthy’s. Or why Sophie had taken her life. The upright lord, seated on the throne, muffled in his red mantle, seemed gradually to relax; his shoulders slumped slightly, and as his head moved from side to side with the rhythm of the music, I saw in the flickering light that his features had taken on a glazed, drunken look. The mead was having its hallucinogenic effect. I remembered the cask Mrs. Green had been given from Fred Minerva’s wagon: they had drugged Worthy before executing him.
The moon rose higher, and from time to time the Widow looked up at it; I judged she was using it as a clock. The torches were hardly needed now, for the clearing was illuminated by a light etching every detail. Again the cup was passed to the Corn Maiden, who took it under her veil and drank, turning to one or another of the girls around her, and from the pitch of their babble I could tell that the mead was having its effect on them as well.
Then, as the music built, the Widow walked to the center of the clearing and lifted her hoe to the sky. The moon was directly overhead. The dancers withdrew in groups around the periphery of the clearing while the old woman turned slowly, pointing around the ring with the tip of her hoe. I saw it swing toward me, pass, then stop. An angry look came over her face and she marched in my direction. Yet she also was not looking at my hiding place, but behind it. I could hear her decisive whisperings to whoever was waiting behind the tree. Then she reappeared, her step lethargic as she came to stand before the throne. With difficulty she assumed a kneeling position at Justin’s feet, where she bowed her head in prayer; the others were silent and watchful until she lifted her head again, then rose unsteadily to her feet. Her face looked flushed, and she blinked her eyes behind the spectacles. She made motions with her tongue as if she found her mouth excessively dry: she was not drunk but narcotized. Laying a hand on Justin’s shoulder, she spoke in a hoarse, uneven voice.
“Behold. This is our anointed. Give eye unto the chosen among us, give tongue to his praises. He was chosen for us, and for seven years we have loved and honored him. Trophy and tribute have been his, and the worship of all. He has been our Lord of the growing corn. He is our god, whose godhead is the crops.”