I did not linger. The place filled me with the same sense of unhappiness and suffering that I had experienced once before. Grief and despair seemed embedded in the very stones. I shivered and made my way back outside, where the warmth and sunlight were like a benediction.
I went home.
The following morning, we were all up and dressed while it was still dark. Adela saw to that.
The two older children, robbed of their sleep, were fractious, while Adam, in no mood to be trifled with, was vociferous in his disapproval of being awakened so early. And long before we had finished a hasty breakfast, I was feeling positively liverish. Adela, however, with admirable fixity of purpose, ignored our collective bad temper, assembled warm cloaks and sensible shoes for each of us and put slices of honey cake, wrapped in dock leaves, into a basket to sustain us later on. The basket would also hold the necessary herbs.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘you know what we’re looking for. Saint John’s wort, mugwort, plantain, corn marigold, elder, yarrow, ivy and vervain. They’ll all be woven into the garland which I shall hang on the street door tonight to ward off the witches and other evil spirits of the air. And after dark, when the bonfires are lit on the high ground above the city, you may stay up late to see them. If you are good.’
‘Does that include me?’ I enquired caustically.
My wife gave me a look, but made no reply.
We joined the general exodus from the Redcliffe Gate to the meadows beyond, calling for Margaret Walker on our way. She was another staunch believer in propitiating the ancient gods, and together with the toothless Maria Watkins, who had also joined our party, kept up a constant refrain about the good old days and how nothing was the same today. Hercules and Margaret’s dog, a small black and white mongrel to whom she had given a home the previous year after its mistress had deserted it, cavorted at our heels, intoxicated by all the fresh air and the prospect of innocent little rabbits to chase.
By the time we reached the fields beyond the church of Saint Mary Redcliffe, the darkness was lifting to unveil a misty sun. The early morning distances were here fretted with gold, there flooded with shadow. Campion, foxglove and the foaming heads of cow parsley starred the meadows, and the scent of crushed wild thyme, thick as incense, rose from beneath our feet.
I looked for, but failed to find, anyone from the Avenel household except for Marianne, walking sedately beside Luke Prettywood. Her dancing eyes and sudden spurts of infectious laughter belied this decorous behaviour, and I was not surprised, a little later on, to discover that the pair of them seemed to have vanished. However, the crowds were so great by then that I was forced to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they had simply moved beyond my range of vision.
Most of the children ran riot, rolling in the dew-wet grass and being of little help to anyone. Our three were as bad as the rest, and twice we lost Adam, only to have him returned by neighbours who had recognized his indignant roar. (Once heard, never forgotten.) But, eventually, everyone had collected all the herbs and plants they needed, by which time the larks were shrilling overhead in a hot blue sky and the fields, cleared of mist, spread green and gold all around us. We could see the hedgerows bright with white and pink wild roses.
‘Aren’t you going to pick one for me?’ Adela asked as we made our way back to the Redcliffe Gate.
I shook my head. ‘This year I’m buying you a rose from one of the street vendors,’ I announced, enjoying her look of astonishment. ‘You can pull it apart at this evening’s feast and surprise us both.’
‘Does this mean that you, also, need to find out if you still love me?’
She had put an entirely different interpretation on my action to the one I had intended, so I thought it wisest not to answer; in any case, my attention had been distracted. As we passed William Canynges’s great church, I saw Marianne Avenel and Luke Prettywood loitering in its shadow, his head bent to hers, her flower-like face upturned in adoration, the pair of them so close together that, at first glance, they appeared to be a single person. He was talking earnestly to her, and at one point I saw her laugh. Then I was swept along by the crowd and they were once more lost from sight.
The rest of the day was spent in a little desultory peddling around the town, before abandoning all pretence of work and lending assistance to my fellow citizens, who were setting up trestle tables in the streets ready for the Midsummer Eve’s feast. Adela and I, uneasily conscious of the animosity of some of our Small Street neighbours, had agreed to walk as far as Redcliffe and take our supper with Margaret Walker and her friends. And although this almost certainly meant encountering the ill will of my own erstwhile friend, Burl Hodge, in general the inhabitants of the Redcliffe Ward cared little for my new-found status as a householder.
Consequently, four o’clock found Adela, the children and myself on the other side of the Avon, seated at one of the long tables set up in Redcliffe Street. We sat next to her cousin and opposite Margaret’s closest companions, Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins. Neither dame resented my stroke of luck, and treated me with the same good-natured contempt that they had always shown towards me. Jack Nym and his wife waved to us all as they took their places further along the laden board, while Nick Brimble, Goody Watkins’s nephew, slapped me on the back as he passed. I also recognized two old friends in Ned Stoner and Rob Short, both of whom now worked for Redcliffe masters; but either they failed to hear me when I shouted to them, or, having become aware of my presence, they deliberately refused to glance my way.
Not so Jenny Hodge, who left her seat at a neighbouring trestle to speak to both Adela and myself, displaying all her usual gentleness and good humour.
‘Take no notice of Burl,’ she said on parting. ‘He’ll get the better of his envious feelings given time.’
Looking at her husband’s scowling face, I hoped she was right. I missed his friendship, and also that of his two happy-go-lucky sons, Jack and Dick.
The feast was provided by the master cooks, bakers and butchers of the city and served by their long-suffering apprentices, many of whom muttered mutinously to themselves and to one another as they struggled with the heavy trays of food and beakers of ale in the late-afternoon heat. The Midsummer Eve’s feast had not always been blessed with good weather, but that year the atmosphere was stifling. I saw Luke Prettywood overseeing a couple of brewer’s lads and occasionally lending them a hand, the sweat pouring down his face and nearly blinding him.
‘What are you doing over here?’ I asked him as he refilled my beaker.
‘I live in Redcliffe.’ He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. ‘I might ask you the same question, with better cause.’
‘Oh, I’m a guest of Mistress Walker,’ was my prompt reply. ‘My daughter is her granddaughter.’
I glanced at Elizabeth as I spoke, but she was too busy even to talk to her stepbrother, let alone to notice me. She was trying to cram a whole raston into her mouth at once, the crumbs, butter and honey from its scooped-out interior dribbling down her chin and rendering her speechless. Nicholas himself was little better. He was just reaching for another piece of curd tart, the state of his mouth and fingers betraying the fact that he had disposed of several slices already. As for Adam, he was awash with cream syllabub and junket, which he had managed to get all down his little tunic, up his nose and around his eyes. I shuddered and looked away. He was not a pretty sight.
The feasting over at last — which only happened when we could barely move, even to go and relieve ourselves behind a convenient wall — the dirty dishes were cleared away by the exhausted apprentices and it was time for the games to begin.
The first ceremony was that of the Midsummer Rose itself. Each husband or sweetheart presented his lady-love with the rose he had either bought or picked for her and waited anxiously while she tore it to pieces, petal by petal.