Off With His Head

But Dulcie paid little attention to this insult. Her gaze had wandered to one of the many clocks in her aunt’s drawing-room.

‘Sword Wednesday tomorrow,’ she said romantically, ‘and in twenty-four hours they’ll be doing the Dance of the Five Sons. Fancy!’

IV

Their final practice over, the eight dancers contemplated each other with the steady complacency of men who have worked together in a strenuous job. Dr Otterly sat on an upturned box, laid his fiddle down and began to fill his pipe.

‘Fair enough,’ said Old William. ‘Might be better, mind.’ He turned on his youngest son. ‘You, Ernie,’ he said, ‘you’m Whiffler as us all knows to our cost. But that don’t say you’m toppermost item. Altogether too much biostrosity in your whiffling. No need to lay about like a madman. Show me your sword.’

‘No, I won’t, then,’ Ernie said. ‘Thik’s mine.’

‘Have you been sharpening up again? Come on. Have you?’

‘Thik’s a sword, bean’t ’er?’

Ernie’s four brothers began to expostulate with him. They pointed out, angrily, that the function of the Whiffler was merely to go through a pantomime of making a clear space for the dance that was to follow. His activities were purest make-believe. Ralph and Dr Otterly joined in to point out that in other counties the whiffling was often done with a broom, and that Ernie, laying excitedly about him with a sword which, however innocuous at its point, had been made razor-sharp farther down, was a menace at once to his fellow-mummers and to his audience. All of them began shouting. Mrs Bünz at her lonely vigil outside the window, hugged herself in ecstasy. It was the ritual of purification that they shouted about. Immensely and thrillingly, their conversation was partly audible and entirely up her street. She died to proclaim her presence, to walk in, to join, blissfully, in the argument.

Ernie made no answer to any of them. He stared loweringly at his father and devotedly at Simon Begg, who merely looked bored and slightly worried. At last, Ernie, under pressure, submitted his sword for examination and there were further ejaculations. Mrs Bünz could see it, a steel blade, pierced at the tip. A scarlet ribbon was knotted through the hole.

‘If one of us ’uns misses the strings and catches hold be the blade,’ old Andersen shouted, ‘as a chap well might in the heat of his exertions, he’d be cut to the bloody bone. Wouldn’t he, Doctor?’

‘And I’m the chap to do it,’ Chris roared out. ‘I come next, Ern. I might get me fingers sliced off.’

‘Not to mention my yed,’ his father added.

‘Here,’ Dr Otterly said quietly, ‘let’s have a squint at it.’

He examined the sword and looked thoughtfully at its owner. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘did you make it so sharp, boy?’

Ernie wouldn’t answer. He held out his hand for the sword. Dr Otterly hesitated and then gave it to him. Ernie folded his arms over it and backed away cuddling it. He glowered at his father and muttered and snuffled.

‘You damned dunderhead,’ old William burst out, ‘hand over thik rapper. Come on. Us’ll take the edge off of it afore you gets loose on it again. Hand it over.’

‘I won’t, then.’

‘You will!’

‘Keep off of me.’

Simon Begg said: ‘Steady, Ern. Easy does it.’

‘Tell him not to touch me, then.’

‘Naow, naow, naow!’ chanted his brothers.

‘I think I’d leave it for the moment, Guiser,’ Dr Otterly said.

‘Leave it! Who’s boss hereabouts! I’ll not leave it, neither.’

He advanced upon his son. Mrs Bünz, peering and wiping away her breath, wondered momentarily if what followed could be yet another piece of histrionic folklore. The Guiser and his son were in the middle of her peepshow, the other Andersens out of sight. In the background only partly visible, their faces alternately hidden and revealed by the leading players, were Dr Otterly, Ralph and Simon Begg. She heard Simon shout: ‘Don’t be a fool!’ and saw rather than heard Ralph admonishing the Guiser. Then, with a kind of darting movement, the old man launched himself at his son. The picture was masked out for some seconds by the great bulk of Dan Andersen. Then arms and hand appeared, inexplicably busy. For a moment or two, all was confusion. She heard a voice and recognized it, high-pitched though it was, for Ernie Andersen’s.

‘Never blame me if you’re bloody-handed. Bloody-handed by nature you are: what shows, same as what’s hid. Bloody murderer, both ways, heart and hand.’

Then Mrs Bünz’s peepshow re-opened to reveal the Guiser, alone.

His head was sunk between his shoulders, his chest heaved as if it had a tormented life of its own. His right arm was extended in exposition. Across the upturned palm there was a dark gash. Blood slid round the edge of the hand and, as she stared at it, began to drip.

Mrs Bünz left her peepshow and returned faster than usual to her back stairs in the pub.

V

That night, Camilla slept uneasily. Her shallow dreams were beset with dead dogs that stood watchfully between herself and Ralph or horridly danced with bells strapped to their rigid legs. The Five Sons of the photograph behind the bar parlour door also appeared to her with Mrs Bünz mysteriously nodding and the hermaphrodite who slyly offered to pop his great skirt over Camilla and carry her off. Then ‘Crack’, the Hobby Horse, came hugely to the fore. His bird-like head enlarged itself and snapped at Camilla. He charged out of her dream, straight at her. She woke with a thumping heart.

The Mardian church clock was striking twelve. A blob of light danced on the window curtain. Down in the yard somebody must be walking about with a lanthorn. She heard the squeak of trampled snow accompanied by a drag and a shuffle. Camilla, now wide awake, listened uneasily. They kept early hours at the Green Man. Squeak, squelch, drag, shuffle and still the light dodged on the curtain. Cold as it was, she sat up in the bed, pulled aside the curtain and looked down.

The sound she made resembled the parched and noiseless scream of a sleeper. As well it might: for there below by the light of a hurricane lanthorn her dream repeated itself. ‘Crack’, the Hobby Horse, was abroad in the night.

CHAPTER 4

The Swords Are Out

On Sword Wednesday, early in the morning, there was another heavy fall of snow. But it stopped before noon and the sun appeared, thickly observable, like a live coal in the western sky.

There had been a row about the slasher. Nobody seemed to know quite what had happened. The gardener, McGlashan, had sent his boy down to the forge to demand it. The boy had returned with a message from Ernie Andersen to say the Guiser wasn’t working but the slasher would be ready in time and that, in any case, he and his brothers would come up and clear a place in the courtyard. The gardener, although he had objected bitterly and loudly to doing the job himself, instantly took offence at this announcement and retired to his noisomely stuffy cottage down in the village, where he began a long fetid sulk.

In the morning Nat and Chris arrived at Mardian Castle to clear the snow. McGlashan had locked his tool-shed, but, encouraged by Dame Alice, who had come down heavily on their side, they very quickly picked the lock and helped themselves to whatever they needed. Simon Begg arrived in his breakdown van with the other three Andersen brothers and a load of brushwood, which they built up into a bonfire outside the old battlemented wall. Here it would be partially seen through a broken-down archway and would provide an extra attraction for the village when the Dance of the Sons was over.

Torches, made at the forge from some ancient recipe involving pitch, resin and tow, were set up round the actual dancing area. Later in the morning the Andersens and Simon Begg were entertained in the servants’ hall with a generous foretaste of the celebrated Sword Wednesday Punch, served out by Dame Alice herself, assisted by Dulcie and the elderly maids.

In that company there was nobody of pronounced sensibility. Such an observer might have found something distressing in Simon Begg’s attempts to detach himself from his companions, to show an ease of manner that would compel an answering signal from their hostesses. It was such a hopeless business. To Dame Alice (who if she could be assigned to any genre derived from that of Surtees) class was unremarkable and existed in the way that continents and races exist. Its distinctions were not a matter of preference but of fact. To play at being of one class when you were actually of another was as pointless as it would be for a Chinese to try and pass himself off as a Zulu. Dame Alice possessed a certain animal shrewdness but she was fantastically insensitive and not given to thinking of abstract matters. She was ninety-four and thought as little as possible. She remembered that Simon Begg’s grandfather and father had supplied her with groceries for some fifty years and that he therefore was a local boy who went away to serve in the war and had, presumably, returned to do so in his father’s shop. So she said something vaguely seigniorial and unconsciously cruel to him and paid no attention to his answer except to notice that he called her Dame Alice instead of Madam.

To Dulcie, who was aware that he kept a garage and had held a commission in the Air Force, he spoke a language that was incomprehensible. She supposed vaguely that he preferred petrol to dry goods and knew she ought to feel grateful to him because of the Battle of Britain. She tried to think of remarks to make to him but was embarrassed by Ernie, who stood at his elbow and laughed very loudly at everything he said.

Simon gave Dulcie a meaning smile and patted Ernie’s arm. ‘We’re a bit above ourselves, Miss Mardian,’ he said. ‘We take ourselves very seriously over this little show tonight.’

Ernie laughed and Dulcie said: ‘Do you?’ not understanding Simon’s playful use of the first person plural. He lowered his voice and said: ‘Poor old Ernie! Ernie was my batman in the old days, Miss Mardian. Weren’t you, Corp? How about seeing if you can help these girls, Ernie.’

Ernie, proud of being the subject of his hero’s attention, threw one of his crashing salutes and backed away. ‘It’s pathetic really,’ Simon said. ‘He follows me round like a dog. God knows why. I do what I can for him.’

Dulcie repeated, ‘Do you?’ even more vaguely and drifted away. Dan called his brothers together, thanked Dame Alice and began to shepherd them out.

‘Here!’ Dame Alice shouted. ‘Wait a bit. I thought you were goin’ to clear away those brambles out there.’

‘So we are, ma’am,’ Dan said. ‘Ernie do be comin’ up along after dinner with your slasher.’

‘Mind he does. How’s your father?’

‘Not feeling too clever today, ma’am, but he reckons he’ll be right again for tonight.’

‘What’ll you do if he can’t dance?’

Ernie said instantly, ‘I can do Fool. I can do Fool’s act better nor him. If he’m not able, I am. Able and willing.’

His brothers broke into their habitual conciliatory chorus. They eased Ernie out of the room and into the courtyard. Simon made rather a thing of his goodbye to Dame Alice and thanked her elaborately. She distressed him by replying: ‘Not’t all, Begg. Shop doin’ well, I hope? Compliments to your father.’

He recovered sufficiently to look with tact at Dulcie, who said: ‘Old Mr Begg’s dead, Aunt Akky. Somebody else has got the shop.’

Dame Alice said: ‘Ah? I’d forgotten,’ nodded to Simon and toddled rapidly away.

She and Dulcie went to their luncheon. They saw Simon’s van surrounded by infuriated geese go past the window with all the Andersens on board.

The courtyard was now laid bare of snow. At its centre the Mardian Dolmen awaited the coming of the Five Sons. Many brambles and thistles were still uncut. By three o’clock Ernie had not returned with the slasher and the afternoon had begun to darken. It was half past four that Dulcie, fatigued by preparation and staring out of the drawing-room window, suddenly ejaculated: ‘Aunt Akky! Aunt Akky, they’ve left something on the stone.’

But Dame Alice had fallen into a doze and only muttered indistinguishably.

Dulcie peered and speculated and at last went into the hall and flung an old coat over her shoulders. She let herself out and ran across the courtyard to the stone. On its slightly tilted surface which, in the times before recorded history, may have been used for sacrifice, there was a dead goose, decapitated.

II

By eight o’clock almost all the village was assembled in the courtyard. On Sword Wednesday, Dame Alice always invited some of her neighbours in the county to Mardian, but this year, with the lanes deep in snow, they had all preferred to stay at home. They were unable to ring her up and apologize as there had been a major breakdown in the telephone lines. They told each other, rather nervously, that Dame Alice would ‘understand’. She not only understood but rejoiced.

So it was entirely a village affair attended by not more than fifty onlookers. Following an established custom, Dr Otterly had dined at the castle and so had Ralph and his father. The Honourable and Reverend Samuel Stayne was Dame Alice’s great-nephew-in-law. Twenty-eight years ago he had had the temerity to fall in love with Dulcie Mardian’s elder sister, then staying at the castle, and, subsequently, to marry her. He was a gentle, unworldy man who attempted to follow the teaching of the gospels literally and was despised by Dame Alice not because he couldn’t afford, but because he didn’t care, to ride to hounds.

After dinner, which was remarkable for its lamentable food and excellent wine, Ralph excused himself. He had to get ready for the Dance. The others sipped coffee essence and superb brandy in the drawing-room. The old parlourmaid came in at a quarter to nine to say that the dancers were almost ready.

‘I really think you’d better watch from the windows, you know,’ Dr Otterly said to his hostess. ‘It’s a devil of a cold night. Look, you’ll see to perfection. May I?’

He pulled back the curtains.

It was as if they were those of a theatre and had opened on the first act of some flamboyant play. Eight standing torches in the courtyard and the bonfire beyond the battlements, flared into the night. Flames danced on the snow and sparks exploded in the frosty air. The onlookers stood left and right of the cleared area and their shadows leapt and pranced confusedly up the walls beyond them. In the middle of this picture stood the Mardian dolmen, unencumbered now, glinting with frost as if, incongruously, it had been tinselled for the occasion.

‘That youth,’ said Dame Alice, ‘has not cleared away the thistles.’

‘And I fancy,’ Dr Otterly said, ‘that I know why. Now, how about it? You get a wonderful view from here. Why not stay indoors?’

‘No, thankee. Prefer out.’

‘It’s not wise, you know.’

‘Fiddle.’

‘All right! That’s the worst of you young things: you’re so damned headstrong.’

She chuckled. Dulcie had begun to carry in a quantity of coats and shawls.

‘Old William,’ Dr Otterly went on, ‘is just as bad. He oughtn’t to be out tonight with his heart what it is and he certainly oughtn’t to be playing the Fool – by the way, Rector, has it ever occurred to you that the phrase probably derives from one of these mumming plays? But, there you are: I ought to refuse to fiddle for the old goat. I would if I thought it’d stop him, but he’d fiddle and fool too, no doubt. If you’ll excuse me I must join my party. Here are your programmes, by the way. That’s not for me, I trust.’

The parlour-maid had come in with a piece of paper on her tray. ‘For Dr Otterly, madam,’ she said.

‘Now, who the hell can be ill?’ Dr Otterly groaned and unfolded the paper.

It was one of the old-fashioned printed bills that the Guiser sent out to his customers. Across it was written in shaky pencil characters: ‘Cant mannage it young Ern will have to. W. A.’

‘There now!’ Dr Otterly exclaimed. ‘He has conked out.’

‘The Guiser!’ cried the Rector.

‘The Guiser. I must see what’s to be done. Sorry, Dame Alice. We’ll manage, though. Don’t worry. Marvellous dinner. ’Bye.’

‘Dear me!’ the Rector said, ‘what will they do?’

‘Andy Andersen’s boy will come in as a Son,’ Dulcie said. ‘I know that’s what they planned if it happened.’

‘And I s’pose,’ Dame Alice added, ‘that idiot Ernie will dance the Fool. What a bore.’

‘Poor Ernie, yes. A catastrophe for them,’ the Rector murmured.

‘Did I tell you, Sam, he killed one of my geese?’

‘We don’t know it was Ernie, Aunt Akky.’

‘Nobody else dotty enough. I’ll tackle ’em later. Come on,’ Dame Alice said. ‘Get me bundled. We’d better go out.’

Dulcie put her into coat after coat and shawl after shawl. Her feet were thrust into fur-lined boots, her hands into mitts and her head into an ancient woollen cap with a pom-pom on the top. Dulcie and the Rector hastily provided for themselves and finally the three of them went out through the front door to the steps.

Here chairs had been placed with a brazier glowing in front of each. They sat down and were covered with rugs by the parlourmaid, who then retired to an upstairs room from which she could view the proceedings cosily.

Their breath rose up in three columns. The onlookers below them were wreathed in mist. From the bonfire on the other side of the battlements, smoke was blown into the courtyard and its lovely smell was mixed with the pungent odour of tar.

The Mardian Dolmen stood darkly against the snow. Flanking it the torches flared boldly upon a scene which – almost of itself, one might have thought – had now acquired an air of disturbing authenticity.

Dame Alice, with a wooden gesture of her muffled arm shouted: ‘Evenin’, everybody.’ From round the sides of the courtyard they all answered raggedly: ‘Evening. Evening, ma’am,’ dragging out the soft vowels.

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