Off With His Head. Ngaio Marsh

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       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 СКАЧАТЬ