"And how may I be of service?" the vicar asked, gesturing towards the van. "It is not often that we, in our bucolic little backwater, are called upon to minister to such august theater folk."
She smiled gamely. "Our van's broken down — or as good as. Something to do with the carburetor. If it had been anything electrical, I'm sure Rupert could have mended it in a flash, but I'm afraid the fuel system is beyond him."
"Dear, dear!" the vicar said. "I'm sure Bert Archer, at the garage, can put it right for you. I'll ring him up, if you like."
"Oh, no," the woman said quickly — perhaps too quickly — "we wouldn't want you to go to any trouble. Rupert's gone down the high street. He's probably already found someone."
"If he had, he'd be back by now," the vicar said. "Let me ring Bert. He often slips home for a nap in the afternoon. He's not as young as he was, you know — nor are any of us, if it comes to that. Still, it is a favorite maxim of mine that, when dealing with motor mechanics — even tame ones — it never does one any harm to have the blessing of the Church."
"Oh, no. It's too much trouble. I'm sure we'll be just fine."
"Nonsense," the vicar said, already moving off among the forest of gravestones and making at full speed for the rectory. "No trouble at all. I'll be back in a jiffy."
"Vicar!" the woman called. "Please — "
He stopped in mid-stride and came reluctantly back towards us.
"It's just that ... you see, we ..."
"Aha! A question of money, then," the vicar said.
She nodded sadly, her head down, her red hair cascading over her face.
"I'm sure something can be arranged," the vicar said. "Ah! Here's your husband now."
A little man with an oversized head and a lopsided gait was stumping towards us across the churchyard, his right leg swinging out at each step in a wide, awkward semicircle. As he approached, I saw that his calf was caged in a heavy iron brace.
He must have been in his forties, but it was difficult to tell.
In spite of his diminutive size, his barrel chest and powerful upper arms seemed ready to burst out of the seersucker suit that confined them. By contrast, his right leg was pitifuclass="underline" By the way in which his trousers clung, and flapped uselessly round what lay beneath, I could see that it was little more than a matchstick. With his huge head, he looked to me like nothing so much as a giant octopus, stalking on uneven tentacles through the churchyard.
He lurched to a halt and deferentially lifted a flat, peaked motoring cap, revealing an unruly mop of pale blond hair that matched precisely his little Vandyke goatee.
"Rupert Porson, I presume?" the vicar said, giving the newcomer a jolly, hail-fellow-well-met handshake. "I'm Denwyn Richardson — and this is my young friend Flavia de Luce."
Porson nodded at me and shot an almost invisibly quick, dark glance at the woman before turning on the full beam of a searchlight smile.
"Spot of engine trouble, I understand," the vicar went on. "Quite maddening. Still, if it has brought the creator of The Magic Kingdom and Snoddy the Squirrel into our midst — well, it just proves the old adage, doesn't it?"
He didn't say which old adage he was referring to, nor did anyone care enough to ask.
"I was about to remark to your good wife," the vicar said, "that St. Tancred's would be honored indeed if you might see your way clear to presenting a little entertainment in the parish hall whilst your van is being repaired? I realize, of course, how much in demand you must be, but I should be negligent if I didn't at least make the attempt on behalf of the children — and yes, the grown-ups, too! — of Bishop's Lacey. It is good, now and then, to allow children to launch an attack upon their money boxes in a worthy cultural cause, don't you agree?"
"Well, Vicar," Porson said, in a honeyed voice — too big, too resonant, too mellifluous, I thought, for such a tiny man — "we do have rather a tight timetable. Our tour has been grueling, you see, and London calls...."
"I understand," said the vicar.
"But," Porson added, lifting a dramatic forefinger, "nothing would delight us more than being allowed to sing for our supper, as it were. Isn't that so, Nialla? It shall be quite like the old days."
The woman nodded, but said nothing. She was staring off at the hills beyond.
"Well, then," the vicar said, rubbing his hands together vigorously, as if he were making fire, "it's all arranged. Come along and I'll show you the hall. It's rather tatty, but it does boast a stage, and the acoustics are said to be quite remarkable."
With that, the two men disappeared round the back of the church.
For a moment there seemed nothing to say. And then the woman spoke: "You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette, would you? I'm dying for a smoke."
I gave my head a rather idiotic shake.
"Hmmm," she said. "You look like the kind of kid who might have."
For the first time in my life, I was speechless.
"I don't smoke," I managed.
"And why is that?" she asked. "Too young or too wise?"
"I was thinking of taking it up next week," I said lamely. "I just hadn't actually got round to it yet."
She threw her head back and laughed toothily, like a film star. "I like you, Flavia de Luce," she said. "But I have the advantage, don't I? You've told me your name, but I haven't told you mine."
"It's Nialla," I said. "Mr. Porson called you Nialla."
She stuck out her hand, her face grave. "That's right," she said, "he did. But you can call me Mother Goose."
* TWO *
MOTHER GOOSE!
I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult. It has been my experience that facetiousness in the mouth of someone old enough to know better is often no more than camouflage for something far, far worse.
And yet, in spite of that, I found myself swallowing the sharp — and deliciously nasty! — retort that was already on the tip of my tongue, and instead, managed a diluted smile.
"Mother Goose?" I repeated, dubiously.
She burst into tears again, and I was glad that I had held my tongue. I was about to be instantly rewarded by hearing something juicy.
Besides, I had already begun to detect a slight but invisible attraction between this woman and myself. Could it be pity? Or was it fear? I couldn't say: I knew only that some deep-seated chemical substance inside one of us was crying out to its long-lost complement — or was it its antidote? — in the other.
I put a hand gently on her shoulder and held out my handkerchief. She looked at it skeptically.
"It's all right," I said. "They're only grass stains."
That set her off into a remarkable contortion. She buried her face in the handkerchief, and her shoulders quaked so violently I thought for a moment she was going to fly to pieces. To allow her time to recover — and because I was rather embarrassed by her outburst — I wandered off a little distance to examine the inscription on a tall, weathered gravestone that marked the grave of one Lydia Green, who had "dyed" in 1638 at the age of "one hundred and thirty-five yeeres."
She once warr Grene but now she waxeth white, it said on the stone, lamented by a fewe frends.
Had Lydia lived, I reflected, she would now be four hundred and forty-seven years old, and probably a person well worth getting to know.
"Oh, I feel such a chump."
I turned to see the woman dabbing at her eyes and giving me a damp grin.
"I'm Nialla," she said, sticking out a hand. "Rupert's assistant."