A Fatal Winter (9 page)

They chatted awhile, first talking about Mr. Whippet, an elderly parishioner who recently had defied the odds to rally, yet again, when doctors had placed him at death’s door, giving him mere days to live.

“I brought some groceries round to his house the other day,” Awena told him. “Made sure he had his medications and so on.”

And paid for it all from out of her own pocket, Max knew. “There are some church funds, not many…” he began.

“Funds that are needed for a dozen other uses. It’s all right, Max. It’s a small amount—now it’s winter, it’s mainly food in tins or jars from my larder—crops I grew from seed. The cost to me is negligible and I’m happy to do it. Elka chips in with bread from the bakery; Lucie Cuthbert sends over cheese from the shop. Mr. Whippet may never have dined so well in all his life. And we all take turns driving him to his appointments. Lily, Suzanna—everyone.”

“You’re all undoubtedly the reason he keeps rallying.”

“He’s a dear man,” said Awena. “He reminds me very much of my father. He likes to talk about the old days in the village, and I enjoy listening.”

“Still, what you’re doing is a great kindness. Providing the company as much as the sustenance.”

“We’re just ‘doing unto others,’ a precept unsurpassed as a pithy ethical framework. I hope someone would do as much for me if I become ill.”

“Karma,” he said.

“Count on it.”

CHAPTER 4

I See You

Max and Awena sat on happily in the soft glow of the small red silk-fringed lamp on their table. The milky, veined whiteness of Awena’s skin shone above the neckline of her dress. Max watched as she turned her head at the approach of Prema, carrying their first course, with a light, graceful lift of her chin; the green gemstones of her earrings swung against the column of her neck, which gleamed like marble in the firelight.

At that moment Miss Pitchford, who with the postmistress functioned as the village’s breaking-news organization, happened to be walking by the restaurant. She stopped to peer in the window. Snow had settled decoratively in each corner of its windowpanes and Max and Awena, rapt in conversation, didn’t notice they were being observed. Miss Pitchford, face alight with her new information, carried on walking home with a renewed vigor. Gossip added years to her life.

Meanwhile Max and Awena had gotten the plates and silverware sorted, and had helped themselves to the fried vegetable delicacies and mint yogurt sauce. Then Awena said, “You are coming to my party, aren’t you?”

“December twenty-first, right? I don’t think I’d miss it. Half the village plans to be there.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I’ve laid in enough food for two villages.”

“Any special significance to the date?” he asked, with feigned innocence. He paid close attention to the patterns of the moon, noting with satisfaction the passing of time and seasons as the planets turned and the stars marked their passage. Max had taken to noticing moon phases and star movements even more since coming to Nether Monkslip, since there was so little interference from artificial light. The stars often shone like diamonds on a bed of black velvet.

But this year there had been special notice paid by astronomers and newspapers to the solstice, because of an unusual confluence of events.

“It’s the winter solstice, as you probably know,” she said. “I’m celebrating the Yule—the shortest day of the year, symbolizing the sun’s rebirth, and the return of new life to the earth. But I’m billing it as a holiday party, which it is. There’s no reason you or anyone else can’t be there to celebrate.”

“I didn’t think there was a reason. If there were I’d simply incorporate your ceremony into mine, in the great tradition of assimilating pagan worship into something the Church could tolerate. Think: Christmas trees.”

“
Neo
pagan, if you please.” She crossed one leg over the other and the small ornaments on her beaded anklet made a faint clicking sound.

“Sorry. Neopagan. This winter solstice is a bit unusual, did you know? There will be a full moon that night.
And
a total lunar eclipse. All quite uncommon …
and
we just had a blue moon in November.”

She nodded. “The moon will turn red. Bloodred, or at least pink. I hope the weather cooperates so we can see it.”

“I wonder what early humans thought, seeing these events, and having no rational explanation. It must have been terrifying with only a Sky Wizard or whatever they had to consult.”

She laughed. “‘Sky Wizard.’ Please. They were observant people—searching for meaning in the changing seasons, because their lives depended on it. Whereas all we need to do to know the weather is turn on the telly.”

“Well, not with one hundred percent accuracy.”

“True. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if what we call the pagans of northern Europe didn’t have a better grip on the predicting situation.”

She went on, her voice as melodious as falling water. “Every religion stresses the importance of nature, in its own way. I hold with an integrated view that encompasses everything living—and from what I have seen of you, so do you, Max. Most religions regard the inventions of man—science—as part of religion, part of the universe’s design for us. No one wants to go back to living in dark caves, but few stop to wonder if it isn’t a beneficent force that led Edison to invent electricity.”

“Discover it, actually. And Faraday, among others, set the stage for the lightbulb. But I do get your point. It’s what man is doing with all his inventions—like strip mining—that worries me. Correction: frightens me.”

“The Druids—environmental awareness pioneers, every last one, working from home in Anglesey—would not have stood for it.”

“No question,” he agreed. Awena seldom referred to her past, except to say she was from Wales, and had had a hardscrabble upbringing on the wild but beautiful west coast of Anglesey.

She paused to take a sip of her wine.

“I think the old Druids were the real thing, but their beliefs have been lost to us. Partly because they don’t seem to have been awfully interested in converting or eradicating other people. They were healers and seers who wanted to protect the sacred homes of the spirits—the plants, the trees, the running waters, the hills. I believe absolutely they had the gift of prophecy, too, and could read the signs of nature to reveal our true business on this planet—but that’s a voice drowned out by the noise and bustle of our modern age.”

“Given where you’re from, perhaps you have an affinity for the old beliefs.”

“I will say that where I’m from has revised my outlook on holiday gift-giving traditions. As a teenager, like most teenagers, I coveted ‘stuff.’ All the things you see in magazines. Then I stood watching as my father headed out one freezing morning in his little fishing boat. I think that was the end of my wanting. Just keeping us in the basics was killing him.”

She dabbed a napkin at her lips, which were as usual innocent of makeup and as softly pink as rose petals. The remembrance appeared to have made her blush; personal disclosure was uncommon for the self-contained Awena. “Anyway, there’s a lot of nonsense spouted about the Druids—whose religion, by the way, was recently recognized
as
a religion in Britain under charity law, did you know?”

He nodded. “I saw something about it in the paper a couple of months ago.”

“The fact is, they were eradicated so ruthlessly—fear, you know—that we don’t know many specifics. What passes for Druidism now—who can say if it remotely resembles the original? Their shrines were destroyed; their vast knowledge was lost. But they worshiped the spirit, and the knowledge to be discovered in nature—that much is clear. I’ve often thought they were not so very different from the old contemplatives, the monks of Nether Monkslip. If only the Abbey Ruins here in the village could speak—I think they share the same energy as is found up on Hawk Crest, in the center of the circle of menhirs there.”

Max nodded. In the stillness of Hawk Crest, he had felt the energy she described, but it was an eerie feeling and he had kept it to himself. A vicar couldn’t run about spouting that sort of thing, but he knew the Crest had a special energy of its own.

“And who knows?” Awena, fully engaged now, airily waved her empty fork. “Maybe one day a cave in Anglesey will give up its hidden secrets. Anyway, there is more than one path and there always has been.”

Max was recalled by her words to a much earlier time when he had traveled to Maui, years before he had even thought of entering the priesthood. Maui in some ways resembled Awena’s Anglesey, with its waves deafening during a storm, and its unspoilt beaches. He suddenly recalled, sitting in Mr. Vijay’s colorful little restaurant, in a village he had never known existed, talking to a woman he could not now imagine never having met, how mesmerized he had been by the spill of light tumbling down a hillside. He remembered thinking at the time he could see why the ancient Hawaiians worshipped more than one god. A single god could not account for the glorious variety of nature to be found in the islands.

“But I doubt very much,” she was saying, “that the ancients held the current view of heaven as some sort of exclusive men’s club for white males only.”

Max said, “There is no point of view less Christian.”

“Pre-protestant England adored the Virgin Mary,” said Awena. “Literally. That was all stamped out. Fear was behind that campaign, too, of course.”

They were in the middle of their main course when Max, in answer to her question of what he’d been doing lately, said, “Well, I have today been among the great and the good.”

“Oh? How is that?”

He put down his fork and took a sip of wine. “I came in on the train from Staincross Minster with Lady Baynard of Chedrow Castle.”

“Ah. Interesting. I was just at the castle a few months ago. A bit of a situation brewing there, if you ask me.”

Lady Baynard had used almost the same words. Max said so, and Awena replied, “I wonder what Oscar—that’s Lord Footrustle, to you and me—I wonder what he’s up to.”

“How did you come to be there at the castle?” Max asked her.

“I was on the train to Staincross Minster—as I say, it was a few months ago. Late summer, or perhaps early fall. I remember the bees were a complete plague. I was going in to town to do some shopping. And there she was, the most remarkable creature. Like something out of Queen Victoria’s court, swaddled in this old-fashioned jacket and skirt, and piercing one with that blue-eyed stare. But she seemed to know who I was and we got to talking about herbal remedies and things.”

Max smiled behind the wineglass he’d raised to his lips. Everyone for miles around knew who Awena was, and she was much in demand. People often wanted her to consult on their home or gardening projects, to lend her knowledge of feng shui and blessings for the home and the medicinal uses of herbs. She was likewise famous for her shop Goddessspell, the place of one-stop-shopping for every item designed to soothe or enchant.

“She had a cold when I saw her,” said Max.

“Yes, I gather it’s always something with Lady Baynard. Frightful hypochondriac, if you ask me. She seems to ‘enjoy poor health,’ as the saying goes. And doesn’t she love to natter on about pedigrees and so forth? But I was able to recommend a few herbal remedies—she said her stomach had been upset recently—and she seemed excited by the possibility of growing her own fresh ingredients. She invited me out to the castle to advise her on what to plant and where, for the spring. As I had some free time, I drove over the following week.”

“Where you found a situation brewing.”

“Only because of the planned addition of these new members of the family. I gather there was always a bit of a situation with Lamorna there, and poor Lamorna had been around for years.” She caught herself up. “It’s always ‘poor Lamorna,’ which is rather a slight, isn’t it?”

“Lamorna? Lady Baynard didn’t mention her.”

“I’m not surprised. I
am
surprised her grandmother remembers Lamorna exists most days. Unless she wants her to do a job of unpleasant work. I gather Lamorna is rather stuck over there at the castle—financial reasons. Or she let herself get stuck.”

He took a bite of his meal, which was accented by a wonderfully light, spicy sauce of tomato and (so Awena informed him) coriander. “So tell me—what’s brewing?”

“Well, I’ll have to go back twenty-five or more years to Lamorna’s childhood to put you in the picture. Lamorna is the Footrustles’ official poor relation—I gather every family has one. This is the common gossip: Her father, who loved beautiful things, detested poor Lamorna. All babies may be beautiful but they grow in all sorts of unexpected ways, into all sorts of unexpected things.”

“Beautiful name, though.”

Awena nodded. “It’s haunting, isn’t it? She was named after the beauty spot in Cornwall where her parents met, so the story goes. Anyway, her grandmother pretended for a while to love her, sensing somehow that this was a basic requirement for grandmotherhood, but this fooled no one, especially Lamorna. The saving grace was her mother, Lea. She had delayed having children only to find when she wanted to she couldn’t have them. Lamorna, adopted, was her most precious child and in Lea’s eyes, uniquely beautiful. As I say, her mother really seems to have loved her but she died along with her father when Lamorna was just a girl.”

“So she came into the care of her grandmother. Leticia, Lady Baynard.”

“If you could call it that,” said Awena. “The days of the personal maid having vanished, Lady Baynard seems to have latched on to Lamorna for the purpose.”

“Wasn’t she sent away to school? That would be the norm for children at that level of society.”

“She was, if only briefly. It exposed her to things and people outside the castle, which might have been a good thing, but I gather she was teased a lot. Anyway, public school was said to have been a disaster and she ended up attending a local day school in Monkslip-super-Mare.”

Awena’s words were spoken with measured kindness, as were most of her opinions, but it was clear Lamorna was the original ugly duckling who had never made it to the beautiful swan stage.