Summon the Bright Water (25 page)
‘Never did like night operations,’ the major grumbled. ‘Always go wrong.’ But it was not really the operation which was disturbing him. ‘Tell me, Piers! In your heart do you believe I am justified in this grave step?’
‘I do. The end justifies the means. What would Arthur have been without Merlin? And how would the Household Cavalry impress the public if they rode in battledress instead of the masquerade of plumes and breastplate?’
That cheered him up a bit, and so we parted. The next I should see of Elsa – well, I should never see her at all until it was safe to show my head above water. I comforted myself with the thought that if the miracle misfired we could always swim to whatever safety the Severn offered.
On Thursday evening I drove to Arlington and down the lane to the river. When the few tourists had gone and my car was the only one left, I walked along the embankment till I was above the tail of the sands and nearly opposite the Box Rock. The tide was rising fast over a good stretch of muddy beach and, as usual, I was quite alone. Two journeys brought out from the car my underwater gear, the cauldron and its raft.
After sunset I had a lot of work to do on the floats. On the upper river I had taken the cauldron across empty, not remembering that in the tideway it would soon fill with water. Since I could not tell how much would splash into it, I filled it full before the start and added Elsa’s ingots.
The distance across the river to the Box Rock was rather more than half a mile, of which the last three hundred yards were deep water and the rest shoals. I had to walk or swim over these banks until I could reach the channel. That was a difficulty I had not foreseen. The force of the tide was too great for it to be done, and there was not enough water to float the raft at its proper depth. The only hope was to go in much further down-river, where the channel swung over to the left bank, and allow the tide to carry me up.
This move towards Hock Cliff wasted more time but was all to the good, for the summer evening was still too light for my purpose. I came to rest on the sands opposite the Box Rock and looked across the river to the meadow alongside it. I could distinguish no more than moving figures, among them one in white which had to be Elsa. So it was safe to stay where I was, showing only head and shoulders, until slack water at the top of the tide when I could be sure of keeping a straight course to the rock or very near it. Dead calm was essential, for I dared not show my head.
Once I had set off and was under water I was desperately convinced that this blind navigation could not possibly work, but more or less it did. I knew that my former, deadly exploration of the Box Hole would be useful, and kept sounding for depth, allowing cauldron and raft to float on by themselves. I hit the rock too far upstream, turned along it and then had difficulty keeping the raft close enough in, so that I knew I must be right over the Box Hole and that the ebb had begun. I felt the raft tip a little. That ought to be Elsa removing the cauldron and deliberately shaking the rod to let me know. At once I threw my weight – nearly neutral but just enough – on to the raft in order to sink the top of the rod below water. Looking up, all I could see was a rippling surface tinged with red from the torches.
Curiosity was uncontrollable. I could not bear to be blind any longer. I felt my way inshore to a point where the bank was lower and I could see round the back of the rock to the meadow. Folly! But I hoped that in the fast-failing light I would be mistaken for a tree trunk if anyone glanced my way.
I need not have worried. The scene was beyond my fantasies, and how many faiths and legends were embodied in it was beyond conjecture. The torches flamed red in a semi-circle, and in front of them Elsa, spreading the white wings of her sleeves, was holding out the cauldron to Raeburn who was on his knees. The major too was on his knees. I cannot guess in what time his mind was. His mission, in his dreams, was to the pagans. It was now so in reality. I suppose that symbols are what you make of them. For the moment the Guardian of the Grail was present at its return.
Gravely Raeburn distributed the ingots. More effective and more hopeful that was than the Flora act which Elsa had contemplated. There was some conversation. Elsa appeared to dismiss the party and to bless them. She stood on the rock, still and statuesque, until they had crossed the railway embankment and were out of sight. I appeared from the mud. If there had been anyone to see us it would have been thought that she had summoned her tame sea monster.
She was overcome with the splendour of her own impersonation, nervous as an actress in the wings after triumph in a profoundly emotional scene. I wished I had champagne and half a florist’s shop to go with my congratulations.
‘Nearly disaster! So nearly!’ she cried. ‘The rod rose too far out of the water. I covered it by flapping my sleeves. Then you must have dragged it down again. Thank God we have got away with it and they’ve gone!’
‘But how did they think you would get home?’
‘Saints don’t take cars, darling. Think of me sitting in the back and chatting all the way to Broom Lodge! What shall we do?’
The ebb was running dangerously under the rising moon. It was impossible to swim across, but Bullo with Marrin’s two boats on their moorings was less than half a mile away.
‘We’ll swipe the rowing boat. I can make it look as if the painter had chafed and broken.’
The tide swept us from the pill, round the sands and softly under Hock Cliff where I chose the steep beach of shale, its top just showing, rather than the shelf of rock which I knew too well. I set the boat adrift and we began to walk along the embankment towards the track where I had left my car, over grass, here long and studded with wild flowers, while the power of the fast ebb slid by our feet without sound or ripple. Her robe was wet and heavy at the hem. She took it off, flung it over her shoulder and after a few strides let it drop to the ground.
I remember how in that moment desire for her was most strangely mixed with awe, for she looked like a spirit risen from the depths of the Severn, still impatient for more worship.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1981 by Geoffrey Household
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
978-1-5040-0652-1
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
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