![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpb“What happens to the world, if all the heroes lose?”
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)
Buffy slowly drifted into consciousness, her limbs warm and languorous under an unfamiliar spread. The morning sun was streaming in from huge windows, and she knew it was morning… morning in England.
Buffy had dreaded this land; or, if ‘dreaded’ be too strong a term, she had certainly expected no good from it. Born to the sun and sand and open sky, all she had heard about the island country was about the wet and cold, the fog and the rain. And she guessed that wasn’t too wrong: there was a nip in the air that definitely didn’t feel like California – and this was summer – and she suspected that the air could get very humid indeed – again, something you do not experience at home. What nobody had prepared her for, was how green everything was. It was lush and fertile and rich and when the sun was out it was… oh, like a terrestrial paradise. Back home, you had to create this sort of thing with a hosepipe and a fistful of dollars; here, it fell from the sky.
And then there was Giles’ house: a large, white building standing in its own grounds, something – had Buffy known enough to tell – between a large farmhouse and a small country house. But though Buffy knew nothing of architecture or design, she could tell that it was delightfully proportioned – simply because such places are designed to be enjoyed, to welcome guests and make them feel at ease. It was comfortable, large and uncluttered; it was elegant, with large sash windows that let in streams of light; and the furniture – she could not get enough of it. Buffy knew nothing of the sacred names of Chippendale and Sheraton, but she knew quality when she saw it. Even with the weariness of thirty-six hours in the air, she had boggled at the understated class and style, the lovely contrast between pale wall colourings and the dark, simply-designed, polished wood of the furniture; and above all the sense of civilization, of rest, of space that did not oppress. As for the chairs and tables, she had to force herself to use them, they looked so exquisite. Buffy had not lived badly; her mother was a woman of taste who had designed a charming house; but she did not really feel that there was a comparison. This was a sort of living that had been designed by – by geniuses, surely; designed over a matter of centuries, to blend simplicity, elegance, and comfort. She looked around herself, and felt as though a hundred friendly ghosts had made her free of their own house.
She now awoke in a large, soft bed covered by a comfortable quilt. The green, welcoming landscape stretched out before her, soft and hilly, framed by two of those graceful windows; and there was sunlight. Buffy started half-singing an old, silly, deliciously girly song:
When the sun in the mornin' peeps over the hill
And kisses the roses 'round my windowsill
Then my heart fills with gladness when I hear the trill
Of those birds in the treetops on Mockin'bird Hill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill
To wake up in the morning to the mockin' bird's trill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee, there's peace and goodwill
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockin'bird Hill
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah;
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah…
When it's late in the evenin' I climb up the hill
And survey all my kingdom while everything's still
Only me and the sky and an old whippoorwill
Singing songs in the twilight on Mockin'bird Hill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill
To wake up in the morning to the mockin' bird's trill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee, there's peace and goodwill
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockin'bird Hill
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah;
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah…
Suddenly her voice was smothered by a kiss, as a mass of red hair obscured her vision. “Will! It’s dangerous to jump a Slayer from behind!”
“Well, what can I say? I like living dangerously!”, said the red-head, and leaned over to kiss her again. Buffy reached to her and pulled her on to the bed in a flurry of limbs and agonized exclamations; she kissed her again, making a strange kind of happy little purr deep in her throat.
“You’re welcome as the flowers,” she repeated softly.
Strange though it may seem, the two did not spend their whole time having sex. Mostly, they lay in each other’s arms and talked. The long air journey across the whole American land mass and the ocean, was to them a great as well as a recent experience. They spoke of the awesome sight of the Grand Canyon; something for which nothing – not even having seen the Hellmouth gape in front of you – can prepare you. They spoke of how Giles had shamelessly piloted their plane right into the monstrous abyss to let them see it better and from within; and that, when someone had remarked that the air authorities would not like that stunt, he had waggled a stick of wood – a magic wand, for God’s sake! – and said cheerily, so who’s to tell them? “In a NY Jewish accent, yet!” “Oh, our Giles is coming on. He’s coming on. We’ll beat him out of fuddy-duddydom yet!”
So many things they had seen, in no more than a day: more than they had ever seen in their lives. Neither Buffy nor Willow were very travelled, and they had grown up with a notion at the back of their minds – not stated, not arrogant; just a habit of mind – that everything worth having could be had in Southern California. The journey had done something for them: as though, having to leave their country, they were given one chance to get to know more of it than they had ever dreamed. They left alone, since even if Xander were to follow them, he could not leave his business just like that. They had overflown the Mojave Desert, briefly seen the surreal sight of Las Vegas – a city growing like an impossible rose from pure desert, splendour paid by gambling and prostitution: they had then followed the Colorado to that tremendous gash dug into the bowels of the earth by the hands of a god – or so Buffy thought; and after hour after hours of dizzying sights, such as to make them feel almost drunk with the grandeur of it all, America had trumped it with the dream-landscape of the Desierto Pintado, over which Giles had flown low to allow them to take it all in. (If they could!) Then the mountains rose, and the landscape turned from brown to green, and at some spots, from green to white; and they went over ridges of a grandeur to make their home mountains around the City of Angels look like very anthills. Then the brown lands of Texas, carved by the great blue strips of rivers; and they took some time off from gaping at the windows to eat, rest, and talk. Then back to the windows; and they were in sight of Houston, with great superhighways cutting through the country like knives. Beyond Houston lay the lagoons and the sea, and Giles started to follow them. Again Buffy and Willow gaped, as another piece of enormity unfolded before them – mile after mile of rain-forest, such as they had only imagined existed in Brazil or Africa, huge blue lakes and long, astonishing strips of sand parting the lagoons from the sea. It stretched before them, broadening all the time, until it swallowed up the whole landscape – and then, cutting it, the greatest ribbon of water they’d ever seen: the Old Man who knows so much and says nothing, the Father of Waters.
Hand in hand, head on each other’s shoulders, noses pushed against the plastic not to miss anything, eyes dazzling from the refraction, they had taken in mile after mile of their country, all different, all beautiful: a mass of riches carelessly placed at the disposal of a careless world – flatland and hill, river and desert, delta and city, had been spread out before their eyes, till they could take no more. By the time they got to Jacksonville, they were exhausted; they slept for most of the rest of the journey.
Now it was morning on another continent. They had woken early; the clock said it was still only about 8.30 in the morning, and suddenly they realized they were both ravenous. They got up and, after some washing and dressing and making up, they headed for a much-needed hearty English breakfast.
As they made their way down the stairs, they could hear Giles arguing with somebody – somebody on the telephone. They could only hear Giles’s side of the argument, which was unfortunate, because he seemed to be only breaking in from time to time on a torrent of passionate special pleading. The person at the other side was clearly doing most of the talking:
“Yes, Harry, I realize you are fond of her, but…
“Even you admit it!
“Intractable, yes. What is the point of brains if you spend your whole time making trouble?
“That’s not the point and you know it.
“That’s not a fair comparison at all. If you thought it was, you would not have staked Fred and George.
“Well, Harry, if you want her to have a second chance, you must take the responsibility. It’s not her second chance, it’s her fifth or sixth…
“I am not weakening. I’m simply washing my hands of the whole business. On your own head be it.”
Giles put down the phone with a rare display of visible irritation, and stalked off. Buffy and Willow ran after him.
“Sorry, Giles, we couldn’t help overhearing… Is there a problem?”
“Not one that concerns me, thank God. It’s all right, girls. It’s just that a colleague of yours, Buffy – an Auror, like you are going to be – has this strange idea that we should just go on excusing bad behaviour for ever, just because he feels sorry for the girl.”
“Geez, you’ve got more trouble with rebellious girls?” laughed Willow.
“I tell you, it’s not my trouble! Harry simply wanted me to intercede for his protégée with the authorities. I don’t have the power to do it, and if I had I wouldn’t.” Then, more calmly: “Sorry, Buffy, Willow. It’s just one of those things that happen when you know half the wizards in Britain, including the Minister for Magic. And no, Laura Latini is nothing like Buffy. Buffy has a stubborn little brain-pan” – and he smiled at her – “but she is not an egotist or a troublemaker. You always did what was needed, and you never tried to grab other people’s credits. This girl is just plain bad news, and I want nothing more to do with her.”
……………………………………………………………………………………
“Giles, we’d like to take a walk after breakfast. Since we’re going to London and to Oxford tomorrow, we’d like to see as much of this country as we can.”
“You’re a grown girl, Buffy, you don’t have to ask permission any more. In fact, when you become an Auror, it’s more likely that I’ll be asking permission of you… Go, go. It’s lovely country round here, and you two lovely creatures should fit right in.”
“Did I really hear Giles pay us a compliment?” said Willow a short while later; “Giles?”
“Must have been a sound effect,” answered Buffy. “Either that, or coming back to England has got him drunk..”
“Round here, they say pissed, Buffy.”
“You’re joking!!” And she burst out laughing.
“Serious. Pissed as a newt, too!” The two girls could hardly walk for laughter as they made their way out of the garden.
“It was worth coming all the way here, to learn that!” More gales of ringing laughter. Hand in hand, they strayed out of the grounds of Giles’ home and into a small, partly sunken road that wandered crazily between hedges and up and down hills. Once or twice, large Land Rovers nearly mowed them down (the rural English driver, thought Willow, shows signs of being a brute), but on the whole, the beauty of the road made up for the discomfort. It was shaded by hedges and trees, leaving a curious shut-in,, but not oppressive, feeling, almost as if they were walking in a green box or gallery.
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
The road rose over a hill and then sank again, displaying the village they wanted to explore: a thing of dressed stone and high chimneys with many pipes, of whitewash and winding lanes and small gardens thick with rose bushes and sash windows and silly little side-paths that led nowhere. To the eyes of the two Southern Californians, this place seemed of almost fabulous antiquity – one with the pueblos, and the temples of Athens, and the sorcerers of the ancient world. And yet it was lived in, with thin opaque curtains in the window and people and cars in the street. Willow had a curious feeling, almost of surprise, to see a modern Japanese model of car parked outside a cottage whose stones had been cut centuries before, and a nice fat plastic electric buzzer beside the door; it seemed incongruous to her. Buffy’s eyes followed the hedges and saw birds and butterflies and agile little squirrels, and here and there a careful, contemplative cat; once or twice a dog loudly objected to them, but this did not spoil their mood. Buffy smiled at everything she saw, including one disappointing general store whose Victorian exterior really promised wonders, but that seemed to retail only tinned goods with the brands of large corporations while the lush and splendid countryside stretched out on every side.
The village straggled and spread along the main road, which widened into a village green about one-third of the way through. Around the green stood two pubs, and in its middle some men in white shirts and trousers were playing a game that Willow recognized as Cricket. She told Buffy that it was big among the British but almost unknown anywhere else (a libellous statement that would have brought the wrath of the assembled players on the two unconscious Americans, had they but heard it). They visited the churchyard, in which Buffy had something of a professional interest, but Willow refused to visit the church; and, as nearly everyone in England sooner or later does, they adjourned to the pub.
They had reason enough. By then they had been walking for more than two hours, and they were hot and thirsty. Besides, if not the shy Willow, the confident and mouthy Buffy at least was curious to meet the locals. To their slight surprise, the beer was not warm but pleasantly chilled and frothy; and it was quite good. (They had lucked out, ordering Newcastle Brown – one of Britain’s best standard brands – purely because it sounded nice.) On tired limbs and an empty stomach, it soon did its work; and the girls were chatting away nineteen to the dozen to the few locals who could be found in the pub in daytime on a working days.
These were all old men, retired farmers and workmen, out sunning themselves like lizards in the sweet light of mid-July, and willing enough to pass the time of day with two pretty young things from the other end of the world. They knew Americans; apart from not infrequent tourists, they all were old enough to remember the soldiers who had had a large base during “the War”, and whose antics were still the topic of daily conversation fifty years after. They were interested to hear that Buffy and Willow were staying at the Squire’s house. “Powerful rich they’ve always been, the Gileses. Powerful rich. Why, miss, there was a time when all the land from here to the sea was theirs,” said one old farmer who knew more business than the others. “Lots of it still is. Then they sank their money into investments, railways and coalmines and such, and got it back fivefold. Everything they did always turned out well.” And at this, disconcertingly, all the old men laughed, as if at a shared joke. Buffy prodded and poked, and got nothing more than an exchange of silent grins; until the old men dispersed, except only for the most run-down and disreputable of them, a creaky ex-labourer kept in place by the hope of a further mug of beer. Buffy then tried to pry him open again.
Finally, the charm of light young hands, bright eyes and a most feminine smile worked. “It ain’t much, Miss. But round here, they did use to say that the Gileses were witches, and that’s why they always did well even when others lost out.” It took Willow a second or two to realize that the old man was using witch for both male and female sorcerer, with no distinction of sex.
“Fancy that now,” said Buffy, while Willow took a suitably surprised expression.
“Yes, Miss. They used to call them Witch-Gileses. People wouldn’t tell on them, because they were reckoned good landlords… as landlords go… Besides, they were rich, and you don’t burn rich people or duck them, do you? But they do say that no Giles was ever present at the trial or burning of a witch, and that witchfinders found they weren’t welcome here” (Willow, unnoticed by the old man, sneaked a grin at Buffy) “and that it was a Giles who ruined that Matthew Hopkins.” This was news to Willow, who had heard another story. “Anyway, there’s been Witch-Gileses around here as long as anyone remembers. They’s built most of the houses in this village, and most of the villages around, and the churches. That bridge down there, that was built by a Giles in seventeen-something: ‘tis written on a little stone tablet, and you can go and read it. The school down in Combe-Mellen, that was built by a Giles, and his wife, who was one of the Prewetts of Devonshire. I was a child then, and I remember it well. They called it a subscription, but really most of the money came from one man and one woman!”
The old man’s conversation was developing a hint, and more than a hint, of bitterness. Buffy decided to prod him further: “You don’t like the Gileses?”
“Ain’t got nothing against them, Miss. Ain’t got nothing against young Mister Rupert up at the big house, now. Pleasant enough, he is, and considerate when he’s got time to be. But when all is said and done, it’s not right that one man should own everything and everyone else nothing! I’ve voted Labour all my life, Miss, if you believe me, barring my father was a Liberal and voted for Lord George. Not that it does much good round here, where everyone else’s a black Tory. Now I know young Mister Rupert is a good man and won’t turn people out for nothing or let them starve, but the thing is, if he wanted, he could. If he wanted to say to me: ‘Now, Harry Clarke, you have no more house an’ home, and your last old days must be spent in a ditch’, why Miss, my last old days must be spent in a ditch. That’s what I don’t like.”
“I see. I thought perhaps you didn’t like them because they said they were witches.”
“He can be a Hindoo or a black Mumbo-Jumbo for all I care, Miss. Man’s got a right to his fancies. What I don’t like is just injustice.
“Now, Miss, you and your friend are strangers here and visitors. Have you seen Batty’s Field?”
“Batty’s Field? No, mr.Clarke.” “Uh-uh.”
“You haven’t? Then you must, while it’s still in season. I go there myself every day or two that God gives me, just because it’s the most beautiful thing God ever made. You must go there, Miss: it’s the most beautiful thing God ever made.”
The two Americans, curious and a bit nettled, wondered what this lovely but hardly majestic land could have that deserved such a write-up. Two days before, they had eaten and drunk and gorged themselves with wonders, as if the gods themselves had spread the table for them; and, frankly, there seemed to be little prospect of seeing something to eclipse the Painted Desert or the mouth of the Mississippi. They made their way out the opposite end of the village, along a road surrounded by low dry-stone walls behind some of which could be heard the characteristic but uncharming sound of pigs; and rambled, as they had been told, past another coppice and some fields surrounded not by hedges but by drystone walls. After they had stopped for a few minutes to contemplate some beautiful and clearly untamed colts, they remembered what they were searching, and went on; and they found it.
It was a wide fallow field, sweeping down a whole hillside, defined by hedges to its left and to its right, and a coppice at the top. And the whole field, spread in front of them like a conquering army under the light of the sun, silent except for the calling of a few distant birds, was one tremendous mass of purple and yellow flowers blossoming against the grass and dancing in the wind.
Buffy thought she had never seen anything more beautiful. Hand in hand with the woman she loved, the sun and wind in their hair, she stood there and watched without saying anything. Long afterwards, across wastelands of grief and loneliness, she was to remember this as one of the happiest moments of her life.
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)
Buffy slowly drifted into consciousness, her limbs warm and languorous under an unfamiliar spread. The morning sun was streaming in from huge windows, and she knew it was morning… morning in England.
Buffy had dreaded this land; or, if ‘dreaded’ be too strong a term, she had certainly expected no good from it. Born to the sun and sand and open sky, all she had heard about the island country was about the wet and cold, the fog and the rain. And she guessed that wasn’t too wrong: there was a nip in the air that definitely didn’t feel like California – and this was summer – and she suspected that the air could get very humid indeed – again, something you do not experience at home. What nobody had prepared her for, was how green everything was. It was lush and fertile and rich and when the sun was out it was… oh, like a terrestrial paradise. Back home, you had to create this sort of thing with a hosepipe and a fistful of dollars; here, it fell from the sky.
And then there was Giles’ house: a large, white building standing in its own grounds, something – had Buffy known enough to tell – between a large farmhouse and a small country house. But though Buffy knew nothing of architecture or design, she could tell that it was delightfully proportioned – simply because such places are designed to be enjoyed, to welcome guests and make them feel at ease. It was comfortable, large and uncluttered; it was elegant, with large sash windows that let in streams of light; and the furniture – she could not get enough of it. Buffy knew nothing of the sacred names of Chippendale and Sheraton, but she knew quality when she saw it. Even with the weariness of thirty-six hours in the air, she had boggled at the understated class and style, the lovely contrast between pale wall colourings and the dark, simply-designed, polished wood of the furniture; and above all the sense of civilization, of rest, of space that did not oppress. As for the chairs and tables, she had to force herself to use them, they looked so exquisite. Buffy had not lived badly; her mother was a woman of taste who had designed a charming house; but she did not really feel that there was a comparison. This was a sort of living that had been designed by – by geniuses, surely; designed over a matter of centuries, to blend simplicity, elegance, and comfort. She looked around herself, and felt as though a hundred friendly ghosts had made her free of their own house.
She now awoke in a large, soft bed covered by a comfortable quilt. The green, welcoming landscape stretched out before her, soft and hilly, framed by two of those graceful windows; and there was sunlight. Buffy started half-singing an old, silly, deliciously girly song:
When the sun in the mornin' peeps over the hill
And kisses the roses 'round my windowsill
Then my heart fills with gladness when I hear the trill
Of those birds in the treetops on Mockin'bird Hill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill
To wake up in the morning to the mockin' bird's trill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee, there's peace and goodwill
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockin'bird Hill
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah;
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah…
When it's late in the evenin' I climb up the hill
And survey all my kingdom while everything's still
Only me and the sky and an old whippoorwill
Singing songs in the twilight on Mockin'bird Hill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill
To wake up in the morning to the mockin' bird's trill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee, there's peace and goodwill
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockin'bird Hill
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah;
La lalalala, lalala lalah,
La lala lalalala lalala lalah…
Suddenly her voice was smothered by a kiss, as a mass of red hair obscured her vision. “Will! It’s dangerous to jump a Slayer from behind!”
“Well, what can I say? I like living dangerously!”, said the red-head, and leaned over to kiss her again. Buffy reached to her and pulled her on to the bed in a flurry of limbs and agonized exclamations; she kissed her again, making a strange kind of happy little purr deep in her throat.
“You’re welcome as the flowers,” she repeated softly.
Strange though it may seem, the two did not spend their whole time having sex. Mostly, they lay in each other’s arms and talked. The long air journey across the whole American land mass and the ocean, was to them a great as well as a recent experience. They spoke of the awesome sight of the Grand Canyon; something for which nothing – not even having seen the Hellmouth gape in front of you – can prepare you. They spoke of how Giles had shamelessly piloted their plane right into the monstrous abyss to let them see it better and from within; and that, when someone had remarked that the air authorities would not like that stunt, he had waggled a stick of wood – a magic wand, for God’s sake! – and said cheerily, so who’s to tell them? “In a NY Jewish accent, yet!” “Oh, our Giles is coming on. He’s coming on. We’ll beat him out of fuddy-duddydom yet!”
So many things they had seen, in no more than a day: more than they had ever seen in their lives. Neither Buffy nor Willow were very travelled, and they had grown up with a notion at the back of their minds – not stated, not arrogant; just a habit of mind – that everything worth having could be had in Southern California. The journey had done something for them: as though, having to leave their country, they were given one chance to get to know more of it than they had ever dreamed. They left alone, since even if Xander were to follow them, he could not leave his business just like that. They had overflown the Mojave Desert, briefly seen the surreal sight of Las Vegas – a city growing like an impossible rose from pure desert, splendour paid by gambling and prostitution: they had then followed the Colorado to that tremendous gash dug into the bowels of the earth by the hands of a god – or so Buffy thought; and after hour after hours of dizzying sights, such as to make them feel almost drunk with the grandeur of it all, America had trumped it with the dream-landscape of the Desierto Pintado, over which Giles had flown low to allow them to take it all in. (If they could!) Then the mountains rose, and the landscape turned from brown to green, and at some spots, from green to white; and they went over ridges of a grandeur to make their home mountains around the City of Angels look like very anthills. Then the brown lands of Texas, carved by the great blue strips of rivers; and they took some time off from gaping at the windows to eat, rest, and talk. Then back to the windows; and they were in sight of Houston, with great superhighways cutting through the country like knives. Beyond Houston lay the lagoons and the sea, and Giles started to follow them. Again Buffy and Willow gaped, as another piece of enormity unfolded before them – mile after mile of rain-forest, such as they had only imagined existed in Brazil or Africa, huge blue lakes and long, astonishing strips of sand parting the lagoons from the sea. It stretched before them, broadening all the time, until it swallowed up the whole landscape – and then, cutting it, the greatest ribbon of water they’d ever seen: the Old Man who knows so much and says nothing, the Father of Waters.
Hand in hand, head on each other’s shoulders, noses pushed against the plastic not to miss anything, eyes dazzling from the refraction, they had taken in mile after mile of their country, all different, all beautiful: a mass of riches carelessly placed at the disposal of a careless world – flatland and hill, river and desert, delta and city, had been spread out before their eyes, till they could take no more. By the time they got to Jacksonville, they were exhausted; they slept for most of the rest of the journey.
Now it was morning on another continent. They had woken early; the clock said it was still only about 8.30 in the morning, and suddenly they realized they were both ravenous. They got up and, after some washing and dressing and making up, they headed for a much-needed hearty English breakfast.
As they made their way down the stairs, they could hear Giles arguing with somebody – somebody on the telephone. They could only hear Giles’s side of the argument, which was unfortunate, because he seemed to be only breaking in from time to time on a torrent of passionate special pleading. The person at the other side was clearly doing most of the talking:
“Yes, Harry, I realize you are fond of her, but…
“Even you admit it!
“Intractable, yes. What is the point of brains if you spend your whole time making trouble?
“That’s not the point and you know it.
“That’s not a fair comparison at all. If you thought it was, you would not have staked Fred and George.
“Well, Harry, if you want her to have a second chance, you must take the responsibility. It’s not her second chance, it’s her fifth or sixth…
“I am not weakening. I’m simply washing my hands of the whole business. On your own head be it.”
Giles put down the phone with a rare display of visible irritation, and stalked off. Buffy and Willow ran after him.
“Sorry, Giles, we couldn’t help overhearing… Is there a problem?”
“Not one that concerns me, thank God. It’s all right, girls. It’s just that a colleague of yours, Buffy – an Auror, like you are going to be – has this strange idea that we should just go on excusing bad behaviour for ever, just because he feels sorry for the girl.”
“Geez, you’ve got more trouble with rebellious girls?” laughed Willow.
“I tell you, it’s not my trouble! Harry simply wanted me to intercede for his protégée with the authorities. I don’t have the power to do it, and if I had I wouldn’t.” Then, more calmly: “Sorry, Buffy, Willow. It’s just one of those things that happen when you know half the wizards in Britain, including the Minister for Magic. And no, Laura Latini is nothing like Buffy. Buffy has a stubborn little brain-pan” – and he smiled at her – “but she is not an egotist or a troublemaker. You always did what was needed, and you never tried to grab other people’s credits. This girl is just plain bad news, and I want nothing more to do with her.”
……………………………………………………………………………………
“Giles, we’d like to take a walk after breakfast. Since we’re going to London and to Oxford tomorrow, we’d like to see as much of this country as we can.”
“You’re a grown girl, Buffy, you don’t have to ask permission any more. In fact, when you become an Auror, it’s more likely that I’ll be asking permission of you… Go, go. It’s lovely country round here, and you two lovely creatures should fit right in.”
“Did I really hear Giles pay us a compliment?” said Willow a short while later; “Giles?”
“Must have been a sound effect,” answered Buffy. “Either that, or coming back to England has got him drunk..”
“Round here, they say pissed, Buffy.”
“You’re joking!!” And she burst out laughing.
“Serious. Pissed as a newt, too!” The two girls could hardly walk for laughter as they made their way out of the garden.
“It was worth coming all the way here, to learn that!” More gales of ringing laughter. Hand in hand, they strayed out of the grounds of Giles’ home and into a small, partly sunken road that wandered crazily between hedges and up and down hills. Once or twice, large Land Rovers nearly mowed them down (the rural English driver, thought Willow, shows signs of being a brute), but on the whole, the beauty of the road made up for the discomfort. It was shaded by hedges and trees, leaving a curious shut-in,, but not oppressive, feeling, almost as if they were walking in a green box or gallery.
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
The road rose over a hill and then sank again, displaying the village they wanted to explore: a thing of dressed stone and high chimneys with many pipes, of whitewash and winding lanes and small gardens thick with rose bushes and sash windows and silly little side-paths that led nowhere. To the eyes of the two Southern Californians, this place seemed of almost fabulous antiquity – one with the pueblos, and the temples of Athens, and the sorcerers of the ancient world. And yet it was lived in, with thin opaque curtains in the window and people and cars in the street. Willow had a curious feeling, almost of surprise, to see a modern Japanese model of car parked outside a cottage whose stones had been cut centuries before, and a nice fat plastic electric buzzer beside the door; it seemed incongruous to her. Buffy’s eyes followed the hedges and saw birds and butterflies and agile little squirrels, and here and there a careful, contemplative cat; once or twice a dog loudly objected to them, but this did not spoil their mood. Buffy smiled at everything she saw, including one disappointing general store whose Victorian exterior really promised wonders, but that seemed to retail only tinned goods with the brands of large corporations while the lush and splendid countryside stretched out on every side.
The village straggled and spread along the main road, which widened into a village green about one-third of the way through. Around the green stood two pubs, and in its middle some men in white shirts and trousers were playing a game that Willow recognized as Cricket. She told Buffy that it was big among the British but almost unknown anywhere else (a libellous statement that would have brought the wrath of the assembled players on the two unconscious Americans, had they but heard it). They visited the churchyard, in which Buffy had something of a professional interest, but Willow refused to visit the church; and, as nearly everyone in England sooner or later does, they adjourned to the pub.
They had reason enough. By then they had been walking for more than two hours, and they were hot and thirsty. Besides, if not the shy Willow, the confident and mouthy Buffy at least was curious to meet the locals. To their slight surprise, the beer was not warm but pleasantly chilled and frothy; and it was quite good. (They had lucked out, ordering Newcastle Brown – one of Britain’s best standard brands – purely because it sounded nice.) On tired limbs and an empty stomach, it soon did its work; and the girls were chatting away nineteen to the dozen to the few locals who could be found in the pub in daytime on a working days.
These were all old men, retired farmers and workmen, out sunning themselves like lizards in the sweet light of mid-July, and willing enough to pass the time of day with two pretty young things from the other end of the world. They knew Americans; apart from not infrequent tourists, they all were old enough to remember the soldiers who had had a large base during “the War”, and whose antics were still the topic of daily conversation fifty years after. They were interested to hear that Buffy and Willow were staying at the Squire’s house. “Powerful rich they’ve always been, the Gileses. Powerful rich. Why, miss, there was a time when all the land from here to the sea was theirs,” said one old farmer who knew more business than the others. “Lots of it still is. Then they sank their money into investments, railways and coalmines and such, and got it back fivefold. Everything they did always turned out well.” And at this, disconcertingly, all the old men laughed, as if at a shared joke. Buffy prodded and poked, and got nothing more than an exchange of silent grins; until the old men dispersed, except only for the most run-down and disreputable of them, a creaky ex-labourer kept in place by the hope of a further mug of beer. Buffy then tried to pry him open again.
Finally, the charm of light young hands, bright eyes and a most feminine smile worked. “It ain’t much, Miss. But round here, they did use to say that the Gileses were witches, and that’s why they always did well even when others lost out.” It took Willow a second or two to realize that the old man was using witch for both male and female sorcerer, with no distinction of sex.
“Fancy that now,” said Buffy, while Willow took a suitably surprised expression.
“Yes, Miss. They used to call them Witch-Gileses. People wouldn’t tell on them, because they were reckoned good landlords… as landlords go… Besides, they were rich, and you don’t burn rich people or duck them, do you? But they do say that no Giles was ever present at the trial or burning of a witch, and that witchfinders found they weren’t welcome here” (Willow, unnoticed by the old man, sneaked a grin at Buffy) “and that it was a Giles who ruined that Matthew Hopkins.” This was news to Willow, who had heard another story. “Anyway, there’s been Witch-Gileses around here as long as anyone remembers. They’s built most of the houses in this village, and most of the villages around, and the churches. That bridge down there, that was built by a Giles in seventeen-something: ‘tis written on a little stone tablet, and you can go and read it. The school down in Combe-Mellen, that was built by a Giles, and his wife, who was one of the Prewetts of Devonshire. I was a child then, and I remember it well. They called it a subscription, but really most of the money came from one man and one woman!”
The old man’s conversation was developing a hint, and more than a hint, of bitterness. Buffy decided to prod him further: “You don’t like the Gileses?”
“Ain’t got nothing against them, Miss. Ain’t got nothing against young Mister Rupert up at the big house, now. Pleasant enough, he is, and considerate when he’s got time to be. But when all is said and done, it’s not right that one man should own everything and everyone else nothing! I’ve voted Labour all my life, Miss, if you believe me, barring my father was a Liberal and voted for Lord George. Not that it does much good round here, where everyone else’s a black Tory. Now I know young Mister Rupert is a good man and won’t turn people out for nothing or let them starve, but the thing is, if he wanted, he could. If he wanted to say to me: ‘Now, Harry Clarke, you have no more house an’ home, and your last old days must be spent in a ditch’, why Miss, my last old days must be spent in a ditch. That’s what I don’t like.”
“I see. I thought perhaps you didn’t like them because they said they were witches.”
“He can be a Hindoo or a black Mumbo-Jumbo for all I care, Miss. Man’s got a right to his fancies. What I don’t like is just injustice.
“Now, Miss, you and your friend are strangers here and visitors. Have you seen Batty’s Field?”
“Batty’s Field? No, mr.Clarke.” “Uh-uh.”
“You haven’t? Then you must, while it’s still in season. I go there myself every day or two that God gives me, just because it’s the most beautiful thing God ever made. You must go there, Miss: it’s the most beautiful thing God ever made.”
The two Americans, curious and a bit nettled, wondered what this lovely but hardly majestic land could have that deserved such a write-up. Two days before, they had eaten and drunk and gorged themselves with wonders, as if the gods themselves had spread the table for them; and, frankly, there seemed to be little prospect of seeing something to eclipse the Painted Desert or the mouth of the Mississippi. They made their way out the opposite end of the village, along a road surrounded by low dry-stone walls behind some of which could be heard the characteristic but uncharming sound of pigs; and rambled, as they had been told, past another coppice and some fields surrounded not by hedges but by drystone walls. After they had stopped for a few minutes to contemplate some beautiful and clearly untamed colts, they remembered what they were searching, and went on; and they found it.
It was a wide fallow field, sweeping down a whole hillside, defined by hedges to its left and to its right, and a coppice at the top. And the whole field, spread in front of them like a conquering army under the light of the sun, silent except for the calling of a few distant birds, was one tremendous mass of purple and yellow flowers blossoming against the grass and dancing in the wind.
Buffy thought she had never seen anything more beautiful. Hand in hand with the woman she loved, the sun and wind in their hair, she stood there and watched without saying anything. Long afterwards, across wastelands of grief and loneliness, she was to remember this as one of the happiest moments of her life.
