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, unworldly 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
