The Little White Horse (15 page)

‘You did not finish the story,’ she said to him. ‘There is another part of it, a private part of it, that you could not tell to the other children.’

‘That’s so,’ said Old Parson. ‘Sir Benjamin did me the honour of telling me the private part of it not long after I came here. We’ve always been friends. I have a great regard for Sir Benjamin, and he for me. He takes my outspokenness of speech in good part; and I am, I
believe, the only creature to whom he has spoken of that queer mixture of legend and fact that I will relate to you. The old folk among the villagers know the story, but to them he does not speak of it.’

Old Parson stirred his coffee silently for a moment or two, and then began to tell the story with a queer sort of remoteness, as though it were just some tale out of a book. He did this on purpose, Maria thought later, so that all that the story meant to her and for her should not startle her too much.

‘Nothing is ever finished and done with in this world,’ said Old Parson. ‘You might think a seed was finished and done with when it falls like a dead thing into the earth; but when it puts forth leaves and flowers next spring you see your mistake. Sir Wrolf, when he was told of the death of Black William’s child and when the mother went back to her own people, no doubt thought the Merryweathers had seen the last of that family. His son John, who could not remember his mother, doubtless thought of the Moon Princess and her little white horse as lost for ever out of this world. And doubtless he thought, too, that his father’s original deception of his mother was a sin that would not affect succeeding generations.

‘Yet all attempts to cut those yew-trees into any shapes but those of knights and cocks is doomed to failure; always they go back to their original shapes. And the wicked men live in the pine-woods today. And once in every generation the Moon Princess comes back to the manor; and for a short while there is great joy, for always the sun Merryweathers and the moon Merryweathers consort well together; but then, as if in punishment for the original sin, there is a quarrel, and the Moon Princess once more goes away.’

‘Must she always go away?’ whispered Maria anxiously. For she herself, she guessed, was the Moon Princess
in this generation. And she did not want to go away.

‘She always
has
gone away,’ said Old Parson. ‘Not necessarily from the valley, but from the manor. Yet the old folks in the village vow and declare that one day there will come a Moon Princess who will have the courage to deliver the valley from the wickedness of the Men from the Dark Woods. But like the princesses in all the nicest fairy-tales, she will have to humble her pride to love not a prince but a poor man, a shepherd or ploughman or some such country lad, and to effect the deliverance with his help, and that’s a thing which no Moon Princess has yet done, so proud are they one and all, so loath to accept assistance from another.’ Old Parson sighed and poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘And so it goes on, and the wickedness of the Men from the Dark Woods is still with us.’

‘But who are They?’ asked Maria. ‘If Black William’s only son died, they can’t be his descendants.’

‘Word was brought to Sir Wrolf that the child had died,’ Old Parson corrected her, ‘but no one was ever found who had actually seen the child dead. There are those who say that his mother, fearing Sir Wrolf might harm her child, said that he was dead and then fled with him to her own people. Be that as it may, fifty years later the black cock was once more heard crowing in the woods, and it was discovered that four men, who might have been the sons of that child, had come from over the hills and established themselves in the castle.

‘And their descendants have been there ever since, a curse to the whole neighbourhood. The Merryweathers may say they own those pine-woods running down to the sea and Merryweather Bay, but they no more own that bit of country than they own London Town. The Men from the Dark Woods own it. In the past there have been Merryweathers who have attempted to dislodge them by force or guile, but if driven away for a short while they always come back again. Your uncle wisely makes no such attempt. He endures them, and does what he can to protect animals from their cruelty and to make up to his
people for all they suffer at their hands . . . And waits.’

‘For the Moon Princess?’ whispered Maria.

Old Parson smiled. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Possibly Sir Benjamin looks upon the old prophecy as just a fairy story.’

‘Do you believe in it?’ asked Maria.

‘In every fairy-tale there is a kernel of truth,’ said Old Parson. ‘I think it likely that only a Moon Princess can deal with the wickedness of the Men from the Dark Woods, because it is a fact that only the moon can banish the blackness of night. And I think it probable that only when she humbles herself to love a poor man will she do it, because it is a fact that nothing worthwhile in this world is achieved without love and humility. And as for the fact that though they consort so well together, the union of sun and moon Merryweathers has so far always ended in a quarrel — well — Sir Wrolf was a sinner, and it is a fact that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children — until the children undo what their fathers did.’

‘Do you think that Sir Wrolf killed Black William?’ asked Maria.

‘I do not,’ said Old Parson decidedly. ‘That is a crime to which he would not have stooped. The Merryweathers have never been murderers.’

‘Then what do you think happened to Black William?’ asked Maria.

‘I have no idea,’ said Old Parson. ‘Perhaps he suddenly became fatigued with everything and took himself off to some hermitage, to brood over his wrongs in private. Wicked men do suffer from fatigue a good deal, for wickedness is a very fatiguing thing.’

‘And then, perhaps,’ said Maria, ‘he just got into a boat and sailed away into the sunset and was never seen again. Oh, I’m glad Sir Wrolf was not a murderer!’

‘But though not a murderer, Sir Wrolf was covetous, a thief, and a deceiver, and so a great sinner,’ said Old Parson sternly. ‘You have no cause to congratulate yourself upon your ancestry.’

‘I think that Paradise Hill ought to be given back to God again,’ said Maria. ‘The Merryweathers have no right to it. Things will keep on going wrong between the sun and moon Merryweathers, until they aren’t thieves any more.’

‘Maria,’ said Old Parson approvingly, ‘you are a credit to your hitherto not very creditable family.’

‘I wonder,’ said Maria, ‘if Wrolf is a descendant of the first Sir Wrolf’s tawny dog, the one which went back to the pine-woods after he died?’

‘Possibly,’ said Old Parson. ‘It is said that a year or so before it is time for another Moon Princess to come to Moonacre a tawny dog comes out of the pine-woods on Christmas Eve and takes up his residence at the manor. And then, when the Moon Princess comes, he has her in his special protection.’

Maria’s eyes opened wide. ‘Sir Benjamin told me,’ she said, ‘that Wrolf came out of the pine-woods a year ago.’

‘Yes,’ said Old Parson.

Maria’s eyes opened wider still. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘Wrolf isn’t a descendant of the first dog but the first dog himself.’

‘Dogs don’t usually live for hundreds of years,’ said Old Parson.

‘But then Wrolf isn’t a usual sort of dog, is he?’ said Maria.

‘No,’ Old Parson agreed, ‘he certainly is not.’

They had finished breakfast now, and, opening a cupboard beside the fireplace, Old Parson took out his fiddle and seated himself on the settle to fit a new string into it. Maria did not feel like a stranger in this room, she felt utterly at home in it, and as though she were at home she crossed to the bookshelves and began looking at the books.

‘Borrow what you like,’ said Old Parson. ‘My books, like myself, are always at the service of my friends.’

‘But they are nearly all in foreign languages,’ said Maria.

‘If you want an English book,’ said Old Parson, ‘there is a book of English verse at the far end of the top shelf. . . Though to my mind the French language is the loveliest and the best.’

His slightly foreign intonation seemed accentuated as he spoke, and Maria turned round and looked at him. ‘Please, Sir,’ she asked shyly, ‘are you — French?’

‘I am,’ said Old Parson, and tucking his fiddle under his chin he began to play, very softly, the air Maria had been playing at the harpsichord before she had joined him in the rose-garden.

‘Who taught it to you?’ he asked her.

‘No one,’ said Maria. ‘It came out of the harpsichord the very first time I opened it.’

‘I guessed as much,’ said Old Parson, half to himself. ‘It must have been the last one she played before she shut the harpsichord. Yes, I remember that she played it that night. It was her last night at the manor. That was twenty years ago.’

And then he let the soft air he had been playing merge into a merry country dance, so that Maria had no chance to ask any questions, though quite a hundred of them were burning on the tip of her tongue. She swallowed them down and took from the shelf the book that Old Parson had pointed out. It had a faded heliotrope cover, and was small enough to slip quite easily into her hanging pocket. But before she put it there she peeped inside, and saw written on the flyleaf a name that was familiar to her, written in a handwriting that was also familiar to her.

The name was Louis de Fontenelle and the handwriting was that of her governess Miss Heliotrope . . . The room turned upside-down with Maria . . . Then it righted itself again, and she stood there silently, her hand holding the book inside her pocket, wondering what she
should do. Nothing as yet, she thought. Just wait.

Old Parson was standing up now, and the dance had passed into a great soaring piece of music like a flock of white birds in flight. She did not think he had noticed how the room had turned upside-down with her; indeed, he seemed now to have forgotten all about her. He had been caught away on the wings of his music to the place where the white birds were flying. She dropped him an unnoticed curtsy, put on her bonnet and cloak, lifted the latch of the door, and went quickly out into the small, sweet, tangled garden.

But at the wooden gate she paused and waited, and she did not have to wait long, for in a moment or two Loveday Minette came round the corner of the Parsonage, wearing a grey shawl flung round her shoulders, but with her beautiful head bare.

‘I knew you would wait for me,’ she said in her deep sweet voice. ‘Shall we walk to my home together? It is not very much out of your way.’

‘Thank you,’ said Maria humbly, and when Loveday held out her hand to her she took it shyly, as she would have taken the hand of a queen. For though Loveday’s hands were toilworn and she worked for Old Parson as though she were a servant, yet she bore herself with the air of a very great lady indeed, and as such Maria accepted her.

‘My name, too, is Maria,’ she said as they walked through the churchyard together, ‘but when I was a little girl they called me Minette because I was so small, and the name has stuck because I am still so small.’

‘My father’s mother was called Loveday,’ said Maria.

‘Loveday and Maria are both Merryweather names,’ said Loveday Minette. ‘Merryweather women are called Maria, or Mary, because the church is dedicated to Saint Mary. And Loveday — well — moon people love the day
and the bright sun.’

They walked hand in hand together along the village street, turned in through the broken gate into the park, and then turned to their right along a narrow footpath.

Upon their left the trees grew thickly as in a wood, but upon their right was a green hillside with grey granite rocks breaking through the turf and rising up beside them like a wall.

‘This is one of the lower spurs of Paradise Hill,’ said Loveday as they walked along. ‘But it is too steep to climb up it just here. The best way is to take the lane leading up from the village.’ Then she stopped, laying her hand on a great grey rock that jutted out from the steep hillside beside her. ‘Will you come in for a little while?’ she asked. ‘I would like to show you my home.’

‘Thank you,’ said Maria, but she looked about her in bewilderment, for she saw no sign of a house.

‘This way,’ said Loveday, and walked round the rock and disappeared.

More astonished than ever, Maria too walked round the rock, and there behind it, almost hidden by a rowan-tree that drooped over it from the hillside above, was a door in the hill. Loveday stood just inside it, holding it hospitably open and smiling as though this were a perfectly ordinary door to a perfectly ordinary house.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘This is the back door. I’m afraid it’s a bit dark in the passage. Give me your hand and I’ll shut the door.’

When the door was shut it was pitch dark, but with her hand held firmly in Loveday’s warm strong clasp Maria felt no fear. They walked together down a narrow tunnel, and then Loveday lifted a latch and opened a door, and a lovely green light, the sort of light that Maria imagined lit the world beneath the sea, flowed over them.

‘This is my living-room,’ said Loveday.

It was a large cave, but it had windows just like an ordinary room. There were two in the east wall and one in the west wall, diamond-paned windows set deeply in
the rock. Outside, they were shrouded by green curtains of ferns and creepers, so that Maria guessed no passer-by could ever have known that the windows were there. The door by which they had entered was in the north wall, and beside it a stone staircase, so steep and narrow that it was more like a ladder than a staircase, was built against the wall and led to an upper room. In the south wall there was another door, with a bell hanging beside it. Hanging on a peg beside the bell was a long black hooded cloak, and upon the other side of the door was a fireplace with a log fire burning merrily upon the hearth, with a white kitten asleep before it. The room was furnished with a settle and table and chairs, made of oak; but in addition there was a dresser against the south wall with pretty flowered china upon it and bright copper pots and pans. Pale-pink chintz patterned with roses of a deeper pink hung in the windows, and there were colourful rag rugs on the stone floor. There were pots of salmon-pink geraniums on the window-sills and on the table, and bunches of herbs hung from the roof. In its simplicity and fresh cleanliness the room was so like Old Parson’s, though it was three times the size of his, that Maria guessed Loveday had arranged them both. She admired Loveday’s taste in arrangement, but not her passion for pink. There was too much pink in this room, she considered. She preferred the colour scheme in the manor-house parlour.