The young woman, in her turn, had knelt by the fall. She had bared the head of her baby and held her cupped hand above it. A trickle of water glittered briefly. Miss Emily sat down abruptly on a bench and shut her eyes.
When she opened them again, the young woman with the baby was coming towards her.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Can I help you? Do you want to go in?”
“I am not ill,” Miss Emily said, and added, “Thank you, my dear.”
“Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. That’s all right, then.”
“Your baby. Has your baby…?”
“Well, yes. It’s sort of a deficiency, the doctor says. He just doesn’t seem to thrive. But there’ve been such wonderful reports — you can’t get away from it, can you? So I’ve got great hopes.”
She lingered on for a moment and then smiled and nodded and went away.
“Great hopes!” Miss Emily muttered. “Ah, mon Dieu! Great hopes indeed.”
She pulled herself together and extracted a nickel disk from her bag. There was a notice by the turnstile saying that arrangements could be made at the hotel for stretcher cases to be admitted. Miss Emily let herself in and inspected the terrain. The freshet gurgled in and out of its pool. The waterfall prattled. She looked towards the brow of the hill. The sun shone full in her eyes and dazzled them. She walked round to a ledge above the spring, and found a flat rock upon which she seated herself. Behind her was a bank and, above that, the boulder and bracken where Wally’s Green Lady was generally supposed to have appeared. Miss Emily opened her umbrella and composed herself.
She presented a curious figure, motionless, canopied and black, and did indeed resemble, as Patrick had suggested, some outlandish presiding deity, whether benign or inimical must be a matter of conjecture. During her vigil seven persons visited the spring and were evidently much taken aback by Miss Emily.
She remained on her perch until the sun went down behind the hill and, there being no more pilgrims to observe, descended and made her way downhill to Fisherman’s Bay, and thence, round the point, to Miss Cost’s shop. On her way she overtook the village police sergeant, who seemed to be loitering. Miss Emily gave him “Good evening.”
It was now a quarter to seven. The shop was open and, when Miss Emily went in, deserted. There was a bell on the counter but she did not ring it. She examined the welter of objects for sale. They were as Patrick had described them to Jenny: fanciful reconstructions in plastic of the spring, the waterfall and Wally’s cottage; badly printed rhyme-sheets; booklets, calendars and postcards all of which covered much the same ground. Predominant among all these wares, cropping up everywhere, in print and in plastic — smirking, even, in the form of doll and cut-out — was the Green Lady. The treatment was consistent: a verdigris-coloured garment, long yellow hair, upraised hand and a star on the head. There was a kind of madness in the prolific insistence of this effigy. Jostling each other in a corner were the products of Miss Cost’s handloom: scarves, jerkins and cloaks of which the prevailing colours were a sad blue and mauve. Miss Emily turned from them with a shudder of incredulity.
A door from the interior opened and Miss Cost entered on a wave of cottage pie, wearing one of her own jerkins.
“I thought I heard—” she began and then she recognized her visitor. “Ae-oh!” she said. “Good evening. Hem!”
“Miss Cost, I believe. May I have a dozen threepenny stamps, if you please?”
When these had been purchased Miss Emily said: “There is possibly no need for me to introduce myself. My name is Pride. I am your landlord.”
“So I understand,” said Miss Cost. “Quite.”
“You are no doubt aware of my purpose in visiting the Island; but I think, perhaps, I should make my position clear.”
Miss Emily made her position very clear indeed. If Miss Cost wished to renew her lease of the shop in three months’ time, it could only be on condition that any objects which directly or indirectly advertised the spring was withdrawn from sale.
Miss Cost listened to this with a fixed stare and a clasp-knife smile. When it was over she said that she hoped Miss Pride would not think it out of place if she, Miss Cost, mentioned that her little stock of fairings had been highly praised in discriminating quarters, and had given pleasure to thousands. Especially, she added, to the kiddies.
Miss Emily said she could well believe it, but that was not the point at issue.
Miss Cost said that each little novelty had been conceived in a spirit of reverence.
Miss Emily did not dispute the conception. The distribution, however, was a matter of commercial enterprise, was it not?
At this juncture a customer came in and bought a plastic Green Lady.
When she had gone, Miss Cost said she hoped that Miss Pride entertained no doubts about the efficacy of the cures.
“If I do,” said Miss Emily, “it is of no moment. It is the commercial exploitation that concerns us. That, I cannot tolerate.” She examined Miss Cost for a second or two and her manner changed slightly. “I do not question your faith in the curative properties of the spring,” she said. “I do not suggest, I assure you, that in exploiting public credulity you do so consciously and cynically.”
“I should hope not!” Miss Cost burst out. “I! I! My asthma…I, who am a living witness! Ae-oh!”
“Quite so. Moreover, when the Island has been restored to its former condition, I shall not prevent access to the spring any more than I shall allow extravagant claims to be canvassed. It will not be closed to the public. Quite on the contrary.”
“They will ruin it! The vandalism! The outrages! Even now, with every precaution…the desecration!”
“That can be attended to.”
“Faërie ground,” Miss Cost suddenly announced, “is holy ground.”
“I am unable to determine whether you adopt a pagan or a Christian attitude,” said Miss Emily. She indicated a rhyme-sheet which was clothes-pegged to a line above the counter. It read:
Ye olde olde wayes were wise old wayes.
(Iron and water, earthe and stone.)
Ye Hidden Folke of antient dayes,
Ye Greene Companions’ Runic Layes,
Wrought Magick with a Bone.
Ye plashing Falles ther Secrette holde.
(Iron and water, earthe and stone.)
On us as on those menne of olde
Their mighte of healing is Bestowed
And wonders still are showne.
Oh, thruste your hands beneathe the rille!
(Iron and water, earthe and stone.)
And itte will washe awae your ille,
With neweborn cheere your bodie fille
That antient Truth bee knowne.
“Who,” asked Miss Emily, fixing her gaze upon Miss Cost, “is the author of this doggerel?”
“It is unsigned,” she said loudly. “These old rhymes—”
“The spelling is spurious, and the paper contemporary. Does it express your own views, Miss Cost?”
“Yes,” said Miss Cost, shutting her eyes. “It does. A thousand times, yes.”
“So I imagined. Well, now,” Miss Emily briskly continued, “You know mine. Take time to consider…There is one other matter.”
Her black kid forefinger indicated a leaflet advertising the Festival. “This,” she said.