The ground straight yielded to his stroke and made him way to hell,
And down the open gap both-
Two or three of the chorus break off, coughing. The others pause, then try to continue:
… down the open gap both horse and chariot-
But they start coughing too. The smoke’s blowing everywhere now, swirling around stage and audience. The chorus disappear beneath it; a solitary voice heroically chants from its depths the words
headlong fell
then gives up. People rise from their seats and head for safer, upwind ground; Miss Hubbard and her behind-sheet helpers abandon their post too, eyes streaming. Serge does the same. Only Sophie remains in position, completely unperturbed, beaming out at them from veils of smoke.
“We’ll have the interval here,” booms Carrefax.
Prevented by brimstone from reaching the trestle tables on the lawn to the house-side of the stage, the audience and players hover around stream-side, hemmed in by the water, cheeks wet with tears. Conversation is stifled: topics include the aesthetic merits and demerits of the telegraph line on the hill; the improvement in voice quality of the children year on year; ditto that of the staging; how Sophie has a bright future in armaments and explosives; the extent of Germany’s military ambitions; how tea would be nice if only they could get to it. The smoke dwindles, then peters out until the crucible sits on the grass innocuous and empty. Sophie removes it; Miss Hubbard and the players return and start moving props around; Carrefax orders the audience to retake their seats; they do so.
They find the stage transformed. Where Pergusa’s trees stood is a bed of upright reeds; beside these, two trellises covered with white asphodels. The round, cyan-coloured lake has given way to two rivers, one fiery red, one black, both undulating thanks to extras who’ve now donned shadowy robes. Two adamantine columns have appeared; between them, a winged Fury brandishes a whip above a dog two of whose three fierce papier-mâché heads loll about his shoulders. The audience make appreciative murmurs; Carrefax acknowledges these, turning back to grin one way then another.
“Hades’ realm, you see. That’s Phlegeton, and Styx.”
“Is this in the original?” asks Widsun.
“Poetic licence,” Carrefax replies. “The Versoie Folio variant. Malone. Music, Miss Hubbard!”
From behind the sheet jumps the now-familiar scratch and crackle of the gramophone, followed by loud music full of pomp. Borne on this music, Dis and Proserpine re-emerge arm in arm. Dis wears a tall arched crown with a border of what looks like genuine ermine; in his hand he holds a staff topped with a stuffed bird that Serge knows is real because he watched his sister gut and stuff it just two days ago. Proserpine wears a small diadem formed by a wreath of laced dried flowers. They advance slowly, ceremoniously, towards the audience; the extras fall into line behind them, Fury, dog, river-undulators and all, their collective gaze focused firmly on the middle of the front row. Drawing the whole train to a halt just inches from the audience, Proserpine slowly removes her diadem and places it on Mrs. Carrefax’s head. Then Dis removes his crown and places it on Widsun’s.
“No!” says Carrefax. “The crown goes on my head!”
But Dis isn’t looking at him and, consequently, can’t read his lips’ instructions. He shoves his bird-staff out to Widsun too; Widsun receives it, smiling.
“Why, thank you.”
“That was a mix-up.” Carrefax turns left and right to explain the mistake to those behind him. “Must’ve told them I’d be sitting on her other side. No matter: carry on!” he calls out, rolling his hands redundantly at the actors, who have turned round and are heading back towards the sheet. As they pass Sophie, she snaps her box shut, rises to her feet and strides off decisively towards the Maze Garden. The smoke’s caught up with her at last: as she brushes by Serge he notices her face is red and flushed.
The underworld disappears as suddenly as it appeared, whisked off by its own undulating shadows, who replace it with dull brown and grey silks around which they plant sticks strung with dried-out vines and rotten husks of corn. The chorus shuffle back out to explain that this agricultural blight is Ceres’ doing; Ceres/Amelia re-appears to confirm this by languidly waving her hand towards the barren earth.
“Her way of mourning,” Carrefax adds.
Cyan the nymph re-appears and tries to say something to Ceres, but seems unable to recite her lines: her mouth moves falteringly, emitting gurgles. The audience shuffle awkwardly, embarrassed for the girl-but the chorus reassure them that this is part of the act: Cyan has lost the powers of speech, and
mouth and tongue for utterance now would serve her turn no more.
Howbeit,
they continue,
a token manifest she gave for her to know
What was become of Proserpine. Her girdle she did show
Still hovering on her holy pool…
On cue, Cyan shows Ceres the girdle Proserpine let slip earlier, and the two girls nod conspiratorially at one another.
“Aha!” says Widsun to Carrefax, in an equally conspiratorial tone. “Mute signals serve their purpose after all!”
Carrefax snorts. On stage, a new character appears: the portly Ivan, sitting at a table sporting a long crude-wool beard. In front of him, on the table top, the extras have placed a mechanical object with turbine and handle.
“Zeus,” Carrefax announces proudly. “Now watch out for his thunderbolts…”
When Amelia approaches Ivan and informs him that she’s less than happy about their daughter’s ravishment by her own uncle, he responds by cranking the handle of his turbine round and round. The thing whirrs; the whirrs rise in pitch as the cylinder accelerates until, eventually, sparks fly from its end. The audience purr, impressed.
“Pretty good, no?” beams Carrefax.
The sparks have the effect of summoning back little round Giles, who’s kept his wings but traded his bow and quiver for a telegram boy’s cap.
“Isn’t that Cupid?” asks the second-or-third-row lady.
“No, he’s Hermes now,” Carrefax corrects her. “Zeus’s special envoy.”
The next few scenes are confusing. Their gist seems to be that Hermes has to run around carrying messages between Pluto and Ceres; but the content of these messages, although read out aloud by their recipients, is lost amid the whirring and cracking of the turbine, which Ivan continues cranking throughout, as though its sparks alone guaranteed the network’s operation. Serge slinks back behind the sheet in preparation for his scene, which involves him snitching on Proserpine by testifying that he saw her suck seven seeds from a pomegranate while sojourning in the underworld, an act which for some reason makes her ineligible for revivification. Despite his semi-villainous role, his entrance is greeted with “hurrah!”s-a tradition dating back as long as he can remember, the locals’ vicarious way of paying tribute to his father. The cheers continue as he snitches; they turn to boos as Ceres-becoming what the chorus describe as “wrought with anger,” despite the fact that Amelia seems as unwrought by his skulduggery as she’s been by everything else that’s happened over the last forty minutes-waves her hand vaguely at him and decrees that he be turned into an owl. Sympathetic cries accompany his head’s disappearance beneath the huge feathered mask, followed by applause as he flaps his arms to reveal intricately webbed sleeves.
The Pageant’s almost over now. Ascalaphus’s transformation heralds that of most of the other characters as Ceres goes on a bird-producing rampage. Harvesters, undulators, shadows are all rendered avian, disappearing like Serge beneath beaks and feathers. Some, robbed of speech, are condemned to be “sluggish, screeching”; others are allowed to retain human voices and ordered to take to the skies above the oceans,
of purpose that your thought
Might also to the seas be known…