Page 48 of The Christmas Retreat
Mrs Bradley, who has unbent towards me because of my interest in cookery, has already baked hundreds of delicious spiced biscuits to a very old recipe. They are called Jumbles and either twisted into ‘S’ shapes or lovers’ knots. These will be served, together with a kind of spiced punch called wassail, to anyone who wants them after the ceremony is over.
Bea and Maudie have never attended either Solstice ceremony. On Sunday their participation in the event will be confined to handing out the traditional punch and biscuits to the returning revellers, but I will be climbing the hill behind the house with the rest.
I fear Bea’s romance with Mark Prynne is not going well, although she is still quite determined to marry him. She said that since her papa was too mean to let her go to London to stay withfriends, she had no way of ever meeting any more suitable young men. I did venture to mention Mr Jones, but she said that not only was he as old as her papa, if she married him she would still be stuck in rural isolation for ever!
I learned a little more about Mark Prynne’s new interests from the three Trimble sisters when I had tea with them on Sunday afternoon.
The climate of the village of St Melangell being very mild and sheltered, Mark has the idea of setting up a rare shrub nursery there and even creating a garden in the old quarry on the side of the hill near the estate. Lily told me he heard one described and it has taken his imagination.
You would like Lily, Rose and Daisy Trimble. Their late mama seems to have been quite well born, but not wealthy. Lily helps her father a lot in the parish, while Rose embroiders beautiful scenes from the stories of King Arthur and other legends on to linen panels – I think Mr Jones would be interested to see them – and Daisy, the youngest, aspires to be a novelist!
I will tell you all about the Summer Solstice in my next letter and hope in return to hear all is settled about Smuggler’s Cottage.
Your loving friend,
Arwen
P.S. My friend among the servant girls, Efa, says the chauffeur, Wykes, is the carrier of local gossip, for he goes to the bar in the inn at St Melangell most evenings and also has a lady friend there.
15
Winter Solstice
Where the road ended just past the pottery, we went through a gate and on to a path that zigzagged upwards. It was obviously well trodden, for it was easy to climb, even by torchlight.
The procession was soon strung out, so that many glimmering fireflies seemed to be moving above us. I was somewhere in the middle, with the other Triskelion guests.
The leading, white-robed figure of Rhys vanished suddenly into darkness, and I guessed the head of the procession was now entering the oak wood.
‘The mummers will wait in the middle of the wood till everyone else has arrived,’ confirmed Nerys, who was walking just behind us with Timon.
There was quite a large clearing among the trees, with a burbling stream that appeared out of a tumble of small rocks, before forming a pool and then vanishing mysteriously back into the ground again.
Rhys stood at the upper end of the clearing, near the trunk of a large oak, with the other mummers arranged on either side, while the audience slowly formed a semi-circle around them.
Then, when Rhys raised his white staff, we all fell silent.
Rhys handed his staff to the Green Man, who was on his left, and the boy with the drum came forward and gave him a pottery flagon, from which he poured a liquid on to the roots of the nearest oak tree.
‘The wassail libation, for fertility and fruitfulness generally,’ Timon whispered to us, almost drowned out by the enthusiastic shouts of ‘Wassail!’ from the small band of visiting Druids.
Rhys handed back the flagon to the boy, then took a small silver sickle from his belt. The blade flashed in the torchlight as he reached up and cut a small bunch of mistletoe from the oak, which he tied to the top of his staff, before waving it in the air and calling out, in his deep voice: ‘Onwards!’
‘Oaks were sacred to the Druids, and fruiting mistletoe was seen as life in the dark winter months,’ Timon told us as we joined the long procession again.
It was a cold, clear night and once we were out of the wood the sky looked like a vast, diamond-studded dome above us.
We were close now to Mab’s Grave, outlined on the top of the hillside, but the bonfire was now hidden by a rocky outcrop, except for a warm glow and some leaping sparks.
When we reached the Neolithic tomb I discovered it was huge. We formed a circle around it and Rhys repeated the ceremony with the flagon of wassail, pouring it over the flat top stone.
‘Now it’s just the bonfire,’ Nerys said. ‘That will warm us up a bit!’
‘It is all so strange and fascinating, I haven’t noticed how cold I am till now,’ I said.
‘Nor me,’ said Toby, and, from what I could see of the pinched pale features of the twins, they were frozen too.
‘You need a bit of meat on your bones for this kind ofweather,’ Evie’s voice said suddenly at my elbow as the crowd re-formed itself around the bonfire, which was built on a flat area just below the summit.
