Midsummer's Eve Page 4

  I was always interested in the manner in which the people treated Jacco. He was only a boy—two years older than I was in fact—but he was the heir of Cador and would be the squire one day. They wavered between contempt for his youth and respect for the power which would one day be his.

  Some of them looked away but Jeff Mills said to him: “There be trouble with one of the boats, Master Jacco.”

  “What trouble?”

  “Her started letting in water seemingly. They had to rescue her crew.”

  “Are they all safe?”

  “Aye. But boat be lost. This will be real bad luck for the Poldeans.”

  “My father will be home soon.”

  “Oh aye. Reckon he’ll see to it. That’s what I do tell Jim Poldean.”

  Jacco turned to me. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “It’s odd,” I said. “We were talking about the dangers of the sea only a little while ago.”

  “Just think. They’ve lost their boat. That’s their living.”

  “But our father will help them to get a new one,” I said complacently. I was very proud of him and especially at times like this when I saw how much people relied on him.

  We were late for tea which did not please Miss Caster or Mrs. Penlock.

  “These lardy cakes should be eaten hot from the oven,” said Mrs. Penlock.

  I explained that we were late because when we had come to the quay there were crowds there.

  “That were a terrible thing for the Poldeans,” said Mrs. Penlock.

  I looked at Jacco as though to say, Trust her to know all about it.

  “And,” she went on, “we do know how it come about.”

  “There must have been something wrong with the boat,” said Jacco. “The sea’s like a lake today.”

  “Boat been tampered with most like.”

  “How could that be?”

  “Don’t ’ee ask me. There be ways and means. There be people who has powers … and not living very far from here neither. I could tell you something.”

  “Oh yes, Mrs. Penlock, what?” I asked.

  “Well … I did hear that when Jim Poldean was setting out, who should have been there watching him but Mother Ginny. She did shout something to him … something about Parson having caught a hare in the church.”

  “Well,” I asked, “what of that?”

  “My patience me! Don’t ’ee know nothing, Miss Annora? ’Tis terrible unlucky to talk of parsons, churches and wild animals to a man just putting out to sea. It’s something that never be done … if it can be helped.”

  “But why?”

  “There b’aint no whys and wherefores. ’Tis just so. If you have to mention the church, any fool knows ’tis to be called the Cleeta.”

  I remembered something Rolf had told me about this not so long ago.

  “It be clear as daylight,” went on Mrs. Penlock. “And this has to be stopped … stopped I say before we are all took sick or murdered in our beds.”

  Jacco and I gave ourselves up to the succulent joy of lardy cakes, which no one could make quite like Mrs. Penlock.

  “They’re gorgeous,” said Jacco.

  “Should have been eaten ten minutes ago,” grumbled Mrs. Penlock, not ill-pleased.

  Later that day there was a letter from my mother.

  Grandfather Dickon had died. They were staying at Eversleigh for a week or so to comfort my grandmother and then they would return home. They were trying to persuade her to come back with them, but she did not seem to want to leave Eversleigh. Helena and Peterkin were there with Amaryllis—and of course Claudine and David. We should all be going for a visit soon.

  Jacco and I were sad thinking of our grandfather. We had not seen a great deal of him, but when we had he had made a deep impression on us. He had been a very powerful figure and my mother had told us many stories about him. In her eyes he was a giant among men; he had rescued Grandmother Lottie from the mob during the French Revolution. We had all thought him superhuman and it was a shock to learn that he was not immortal after all.

  They would not be home for Midsummer’s Eve. I guessed that Jacco was not altogether displeased by this as he was longing to put his plan into action.

  The proposed adventure was absorbing his thoughts. I had to admit that I was looking forward to it, too.

  On the night before Midsummer’s Eve, I was awakened suddenly in alarm.

  Someone was in my room. I sat up.

  “Sh!” said Jacco.

  “Jacco, what are you doing here?”

  He came to the side of my bed and whispered: “Something’s going on.”

  “Where?”

  He glanced towards Miss Caster’s room, which was next to mine, and put his fingers to his lips.

  “I’m going to see. Want to come?”

  “Where?” I repeated.

  “Out. Listen. Can you hear?”

  I strained my ears. Faintly, from some way off, I heard the sound of voices.

  “If you want to come, get dressed. Riding things. We’re taking the horses. If you don’t, keep quiet. I’m going.”

  “Of course I’m coming.”

  “Come to the stables,” he said, “and whatever you do, don’t make a noise.”

  He crept out, and trembling with excitement, I dressed. I had a premonition that something terrible was about to happen … but something which I must not miss.

  He was waiting impatiently at the stables.

  “Thought you were never coming.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know quite. Somewhere in the woods.”

  I saddled my chestnut mare and we rode out.

  I could see that Jacco was enjoying this. I followed him. We came to the river and went into the woods.

  I said: “It’s near Mother Ginny’s cottage. Do you think … ?”

  “It’s been blowing up for weeks,” he said. “Poldean’s boat has brought it to a head.”

  We were making our way through the trees to the clearing. The woods had always been mysterious to me. It was only recently that I had been allowed to enter them alone. There had always been fears of our falling into the river, which was fairly wide at this spot where it was about to enter the sea.

  I said: “What’s the time?”

  “Just on midnight.”

  I could now see the light of torches among the trees.

  Jacco said: “Be careful. They mustn’t see us.”

  We were close to the clearing now and the trees were thinning out. I could see a crowd of people; they were all dancing round a cart and in this cart was a figure. No, it couldn’t be! Mother Ginny!

  I gasped.

  “It’s not real,” whispered Jacco. “It’s a thing made to look like her.”

  There were people I knew there but they looked different in the light of the torches.

  “We’ve come just at the right moment,” said Jacco.

  “What are they going to do?”

  “Watch.”

  They had lighted a bonfire in the middle of the clearing and were dancing round it. Then someone took the effigy from the cart and fixed it on the end of a pole.

  I gasped in amazement as they dipped the pole into the flames. A cry went up. The figure was lifted high. Its clothes were alight. They chanted; they danced; they screamed. They seemed to be in a frenzy.

  I felt sick. I did not want to see any more.

  I turned to Jacco and said: “I want to go.”

  “Oh, all right,” he replied, pretending to placate me, but I knew that he, too, was sickened by what he had seen.

  We rode back cautiously, taking our horses to the stables and then creeping into the house.

  Neither of us spoke.

  I lay sleepless through the night.

  Midsummer’s Eve! There had always been an aura of excitement on this day. Even the young children were allowed to sit up and were taken to the moors to see the lighting of the bonfires.

  “’Ti
s something as has been done in these parts since the beginning of time,” said Mrs. Penlock, “and I see no reason why we should ever stop what’s been done by them as has gone before.”

  Nobody else saw any reason why either. The usual excitement was there but something more besides. There was a feverish expectation in the kitchen and it mounted throughout the day. I could hardly wait for the evening to come and on the other hand I was filled with an inexplicable apprehension.

  I was up early and went down to the harbour. I saw Betty Poldean there. There was a wild light in her eyes.

  “Good day to ’ee, Miss Annora,” she said.

  “Good day, Betty,” I replied. I hesitated. I wanted to say something about her father’s boat but I did not know how to. Instead I tried to comfort her with a reference to my parents’ return, which would be soon now. “My father will want to know all that has been happening while he has been away,” I added significantly.

  “Oh … aye,” she said; but I could see her thoughts were on the coming night. She did not look so far ahead as my parents’ return.

  Children were collecting wood and furse to take to the moors for the bonfire. But there would be plenty going on down here on the quay. Some of the fishermen were setting up tarred barrels on poles and they would be lighted and make an impressive sight all along the harbour. Children were being taken out for trips on the water.

  “Hey there, Miss Annora,” called Thomas Lewis, “what about taking a pennorth of sea?”

  It was an invitation to take a little trip with him. I declined with thanks and said I was going to see how the piles were building up on the moor.

  I rode home thoughtfully. Miss Caster had not said anything about the evening and I was anxious that she should not. I was determined to go with Jacco to the moor that night and I did not want to disobey her unless it was absolutely necessary.

  I was thankful for the heat, which she did not like at all; she was always ready, during these exhausting days, to retire to her bedroom at an early hour.

  Jacco said we would meet just after eleven o’clock at the stables. There would be no one about, as almost everyone else—if they weren’t in bed—would be down at the harbour or on the moor.

  I was there on time. The heat during the day had been great and the night was warm still. The sky was clear and there seemed to be more stars than usual for there was only a faint light from the waning moon’s slim crescent.

  By the time we reached the moor it was a few minutes after midnight and the bonfires were already being lighted. I could see others springing up in the distance. It was a thrilling sight. Several of the people were there wearing costumes of an early age … clothes which they must have found in trunks and attics. Some of the farmers had old straw hats and smocks and leggings which must have belonged to their grandfathers. It was difficult to recognize some of them in the dim light. They seemed like different people. I saw Jack Gort with some sort of helmet on his head. He was tall and did not look so much like the man from whom we bought our fish on the quay as some marauding Viking. Several of the young men carried torches which they swung round their heads in a circular movement to indicate the movement of the sun in the heavens. The moors looked different; people looked different; the night had imbued them with a certain mysterious quality.

  I saw several of the servants from Cador with Isaacs.

  “Keep well back,” warned Jacco.

  I obeyed, realizing that we must not be seen for if we were, we should probably be sent back.

  I thought, as I watched that scene, that this was how it must have been centuries ago. The people who had danced round the bonfire must have looked a little different, but the ceremony was the same. They said nowadays that the purpose was to bring a blessing on the crops; in the old days it had been—so Rolf had told us—what was called a fertility rite which concerned all living things, including people, and when they had worked themselves up into a frenzy with their dancing, they crept off together to make love.

  One of the women started chanting and the others joined in. It was a song which had come down through the ages. I could not understand the words, for they were in the Cornish language.

  Then I saw a tall figure who stood out among all the others. He looked like a monk in the grey robe which enveloped him.

  I knew that robe. Rolf! I thought.

  People clustered round him. It was as though they were making him master of the ceremonies.

  Up to that time it had been like many another Midsummer’s Eve which I had watched from my parents’ carriage—the only difference being that on this night Jacco and I were here alone and in secret. But I was sure that if my parents had thought of it they would have ordered one of the grooms to bring us here to see the bonfire.

  And then suddenly it ceased to be like any other Midsummer’s Eve.

  The robed figure moved apart from the crowd; he approached the bonfire, and clutching his robe about him, he leaped high in the air … right over the bonfire. There was a deep silence as the flames appeared to lick his robe. Then he was clear on the other side.

  A shout went up: “Bravo! Bravo!”

  “’Ee be free of the witches for a year,” cried someone.

  “The fire didn’t touch ’un.”

  “He did jump right clear.”

  I saw one of the barmaids from the Fisherman’s Rest run up to the fire. She threw up her arms and attempted to leap over it.

  I heard her scream as she fell into the flames.

  Jack Gort was close by; he immediately dragged her out; her dress was on fire. I watched in shocked silence while they beat out the flames.

  “How … crazy!” said Jacco.

  “Papa forbade them to do it,” I said.

  People crowded round the barmaid, who was lying on the grass.

  “I wonder if she’s badly hurt,” I whispered.

  “They’ll blame the witches,” said Jacco.

  “But she did it herself.”

  “That man started it. It wasn’t so risky for him. If that thing he is wearing had caught fire he could easily have thrown it off.”

  The barmaid was now standing up and I was relieved to see that she was not badly hurt. I felt I wanted to go. I could not understand why Rolf—who knew my father had forbidden it—should have leaped over the fire. I did not want him to see us here.

  “Better take her back to the Rest,” someone said. “Here … you, Jim. You take her. You and she is said to be sweethearts.”

  “I think we ought to go,” I said quietly to Jacco. “There won’t be much dancing and singing.”

  “Wait a bit.”

  I saw the man they had called Jim put the barmaid on his horse. They moved away. Jack Gort had rescued her in time and she was more shocked than anything.

  Someone started to sing but the others did not take it up. The mood had changed and I thought that would be the end of the revelries on that Midsummer’s Eve.

  Then I saw a crowd gathering round a boy who held something in his hands. It was wriggling and mewing piteously. A cat! I thought, and instinct told me to whom that cat belonged. It was Mother Ginny’s. I knew the boy slightly. I had seen him on the quay looking for a chance to earn a few pence doing odd jobs for the fishermen.

  He shouted: “Here’s a way to fight against them witches. They ain’t going to get the better of the likes of we.”

  He held up the cat by the scruff of its neck.

  “Mother Ginny’s Devil’s mate. Satan’s gift to the wicked old witch.”

  The cat moved and must have scratched him for with a yell of pain he threw the animal straight into the flames.

  I felt sick. I knew that Jacco was equally affected. We loved our animals, both of us; our dogs were our friends and the kitchen cat, which Mrs. Penlock declared was the best mouser in Cornwall, was a special favourite.

  Jacco had his hand on my rein, for I had started forward.

  “No,” he hissed. “You can’t.”

  Then I heard t
he scream of an animal in pain and there was silence.

  The boy was crying out, excusing himself: “Look what ’un done to me.” He held up his bleeding hand. “’Tis the only way to save ourselves. It ’as to be done … a living thing they allus say. Well, that’s it … the witch’s cat. That’ll be one of ’em out of the way.”

  The moment of horror had passed. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. They were forming a group round one figure. I saw the grey robe in the midst of them. He was talking to them but I could not hear what he was saying.

  Suddenly they all started to move. Some of them had carts, others horses. Jacco said to me: “Come on. We’re going. We’re going now … this minute.”

  As I followed him I kept hearing the cry of the cat and I just wanted to go back to the safety of my room. I could not stop thinking about Rolf there with them, Rolf … our friend … the one of whom I had made a hero … and he was there in the midst of them—a sort of leader.

  Jacco was not making for home.

  “Jacco,” I said. “What …? Where …?”

  “We’re going to the woods. That’s where they’re going.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what we’ve got to find out. At least I’ve got to. You can go home.”

  “I’m coming too.”

  As we came into the woods I could hear voices in the distance. I wanted to go back, to creep into bed. I had a horrible fear that tonight was going to be like no other night I had ever known. I kept saying to myself: If my father were here this would never happen.

  But it was happening. And I had to see it.

  “Be careful,” said Jacco. “They mustn’t know we’re here. They’d send us home if they did.”

  We knew the woods well and we went a roundabout way, for both Jacco and I knew their destination. They were already at the clearing in the woods and their torches gave an unearthly light to the scene.

  The first thing I noticed was the grey robe. He was there. He was leading them … inciting them. I could not believe that this was the Rolf I had always known. He had always been so kind, so understanding about everything. He could not be so cruel. I knew that he loved the old customs. He liked to experiment. I could imagine that he would wonder how easily people would revert to less civilized days.