Mr. Fox began to look really disturbed. He cleared his throat and said warmer and finer weather had been predicted.
“Good,” Alleyn cried and clapped him on the back. “Excellent. You’re in for a treat.”
“What sort of treat,” Mr. Fox said, “for Heaven’s sake?”
“A touch of the sword and fiddle, Br’er Fox. A bit of hey-nonny-no. A glimpse of Merrie England with bells on. Nine-men’s morris, mud and all. Repeat, nine.”
“Eh?”
“We’re in for a reconstruction, my boy, and I’ll tell you why. Now, listen.”
The mid-winter sun smiled faint as an invalid over South and East Mardian on the Friday after Sword Wednesday. It glinted on the breakfast tables of the Reverend Mr. Samuel Stayne and of his great-aunt, Dame Alice Mardian. It touched up the cruet-stand and the britannia metal in the little dining-room at the Green Man and an emaciated ray even found its way to the rows of bottles in the bar and to the anvil at Copse Forge. A feeble radiance it was, but there was something heartening about it, nevertheless. Up at Yowford, Dr. Otterly surveyed the scene with an uplifting of his spirit that he would have found hard to explain. Also at Yowford, Simon Begg, trundling out Dr. Otterly’s wheel with its mended puncture, remembered his winning bet, assured himself that he stood a fair chance now of mending his fortunes with an interest in a glittering petrol station at Copse Forge, reminded himself it wouldn’t, under the circumstances, look nice to be too obviously pleased about this and broke out, nevertheless, into a sweet and irresponsibly exultant whistling.
Trixie sang and the potboy whistled louder but less sweetly than Simon. Camilla brushed her short hair before her open window and repeated a voice-control exercise. “Bibby bobby bounced a ball against the wall.” She thought how deeply she was in love and, like Simon, told herself it wasn’t appropriate to be so obviously uplifted. Then the memory of her grandfather’s death suddenly flooded her thoughts and her heart was filled with a vast pity and love, not only for him but for all the world. Camilla was eighteen and a darling.
Dame Alice woke from a light doze and felt for a moment quite desperately old. She saw a robin on her windowsill. Sharp as a thorn were its bright eyes and quick as thought the turn of its sun-polished head. Down below, the geese were in full scream. Dulcie would be pottering about in the dining-room. The wave of depression receded. Dame Alice was aware of her release but not, for a moment, of its cause. Then she remembered her dinnerparty. Her visitor had enjoyed himself. It was, she thought, thirty years — more — since she had been listened to like that. He was a pretty fellow, too. By “pretty” Dame Alice meant “dashing.” And what was it he’d said when he left? That with her permission they would revive the Mardian Morris that afternoon. Dame Alice was not moved by the sort of emotions that the death of the Guiser had aroused in younger members of Wednesday’s audience. The knowledge that his decapitated body had been found in her courtyard did not fill her with horror. She was no longer susceptible to horror. She merely recognized in herself an unusual feeling of anticipation and connected it with her visitor of last night. She hadn’t felt so lively for ages.
“Breakfast,” she thought and jerked at the tapestry bell-pull by her bed.
Dulcie in the dining-room heard the bell jangling away in the servant’s hall. She roused herself, took the appropriate dishes off the hot plate and put them on the great silver tray. Porridge. Kedgeree. Toast. Marmalade. Coffee. The elderly parlour-maid came in and took the tray up to Dame Alice.
Dulcie was left to push crumbs about the tablecloth and hope that the police wouldn’t find the murderer too soon. Because, if they did, Mr. Alleyn, to whom she had shown herself as a woman of the world, would go somewhere else.
Ralph Stayne looked down the table at his father, who had, he noticed, eaten no breakfast.
“You’re looking a bit poorly, Pop,” he said. “Anything wrong?”
His father stared at him in pale bewilderment.
“My dear chap,” he said, “no. Not with me. But the — the events of the night before last—”
“Oh!” Ralph said, “that! Yes, of course. As long as it’s only that — I mean,” he went on hurriedly, answering the look in his father’s eye, “as long as it’s not anything actually wrong with you. Yes, I know it was ghastly about the poor Old Guiser. It was quite frightful.”
“I can’t get it out of my head. Forgive me, old boy, but I really don’t know how you contrive to be so — so resilient.”
“I? I expect this sounds revoltingly tough to you — but, you see, Pop, if one’s seen rather a lot of that particular kind of horror — well, it’s a hell of a sight different. I have. On the deck of a battleship, among other places. I’m damn’—blast, I keep swearing! — I couldn’t be sorrier about the Guiser, but the actual look of the thing wasn’t all that much of a horror to me.”
“I suppose not. I suppose not.”
“One’d go mad,” Ralph said, “if one didn’t get tough. When there’s a war on. Simmy-Dick Begg would agree. So would Ernie and Chris. Although it was their father. Any returned chap would agree.”
“I suppose so.”
Ralph got up. He squared his shoulders, looked steadily at his father and said, “Camilla’s the one who really did get an appalling shock.”
“I know. Poor child. I wondered if I should go and see her, Ralph.”
“Yes,” Ralph said. “I wish you would. I’m going now, and I’ll tell her. She’ll be awfully pleased.”
His father, looking extremely disturbed, said, “My dear old man, you’re not —?”
“Yes, Pop,” Ralph said, “I’m afraid I am. I’ve asked Camilla to marry me.”
His father got up and walked to the window. He looked out on the dissolving whiteness of his garden.
“I wish this hadn’t happened,” he said. “Something was suggested last night by Dulcie that seemed to hint at it. I — as a churchman, I hope I’m not influenced by — by — well, my dear boy, by any kind of snob’s argument. I’m sure I’m not. Camilla is a dear child and, other things being equal, I should be really delighted.” He rubbed up his thin hair and said ruefully, “It’ll worry Aunt Akky most awfully.”
“Aunt Akky’ll have to lump it, I’m afraid,” Ralph said and his voice hardened. “She evidently heard that I’ve been seeing a good deal of Camilla in London. She’s already tried to bulldoze me about it. But, honestly, Pop, what, after all, has it got to do with Aunt Akky? I know Aunt Akky’s marvellous. I adore her. But I refuse to accept her as a sort of animated tribal totem, though I admit she looks very much like one.”
“It’s not only that,” his father said miserably. “There’s — forgive me, Ralph, I really detest having to ask you this, but isn’t there — someone —”
Mr. Stayne stopped and looked helplessly at his son. “You see,” he said, “I’ve listened to gossip. I tried not to, but I listened.”
Ralph said, “You’re talking about Trixie Plowman, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Who gossiped? Please tell me.”
“It was old William Andersen.”
Ralph drew in his breath. “I was afraid of that,” he said.
“He was genuinely worried. He thought it his duty to talk to me. You know how adamant his views were. Apparently Ernie had seen you and Trixie Plowman together. Old William was the more troubled because, on last Sunday morning —”
“It appears to be my fate,” Ralph said furiously, “to be what the Restoration dramatists call ‘discovered’ by the Andersens. It’s no good trying to explain, Pop. It’d only hurt you. I know, you would look on this Trixie thing as — well —”