Off With His Head. Ngaio Marsh
cannot be the same.’
‘He’s dead now. Warwickshire family, near Bapple.’
‘It is the same. As to his sanity I feel you must be misinformed. A great benefactor. He founded the Guild of Ancient Customs.’
‘That’s right. And left all his money to some too-extraordinary society.’
‘The Hobby Horses. I see, my dear Miss Mardian, that we have dissimilar interests. Yet,’ said Mrs Bünz, lifting her voluminous chins, ‘I shall plod on. So much at stake. So much.’
I’m afraid,’ said Miss Mardian vaguely, ‘that I can’t offer you tea. The boiler’s burst.’
‘I don’t take it. Pray, Miss Mardian, what are Dame Alice’s interests? Of course, at her wonderfully great age –’
‘Aunt Akky? Well, she likes going to sales. She picked up nearly all the furniture in this room at auctions. Lots of family things were lost when Mardian Place was burnt down. So she built this house out of bits of the old castle and furnished it from sales. She likes doing that, awfully.’
‘Then there is an antiquarian instinct. Ach!’ Mrs Bünz exclaimed excitedly, clapping her hands and losing control of her accent. ‘Ach, sank Gott!’
‘Oh crumbs!’ Miss Mardian cried, raising an admonitory finger. ‘Here is Aunt Akky.’
She got up self-consciously. Mrs Bünz gave a little gasp of anticipation and, settling her cloak portentously, also rose.
The drawing-room door opened to admit Dame Alice Mardian.
Perhaps the shortest way to describe Dame Alice is to say that she resembled Mrs Noah. She had a shapeless, wooden appearance and her face, if it was expressive of anything in particular, looked dimly jolly.
‘What’s all the row?’ she asked, advancing with the inelastic toddle of old age. ‘Hallo! Didn’t know you had friends, Dulcie.’
‘I haven’t,’ said Miss Mardian. She waved her hands. ‘This is Mrs – Mrs –’
‘Bünz,’ said that lady. ‘Mrs Anna Bünz. Dame Alice, I am so inexpressibly overjoyed –’
‘What about? How de do, I’m sure,’ said Dame Alice. She had loose-fitting false teeth which of their own accord chopped off the ends of her words and thickened her sibilants. ‘Don’t see strangers,’ she added. ‘Too old for it. Dulcie ought to’ve told yer.’
‘It seems to be about old Lord Rekkage, Aunt Akky.’
‘Lor’! Loony Rekkage. Hunted with the Quorn till he fell on his head. Like you, Dulcie. Went as straight as the best, but mad. Don’t you ’gree?’ she asked Mrs Bünz, looking at her for the first time.
Mrs Bünz began to speak with desperate rapidity. ‘When he died,’ she gabbled, shutting her eyes, ‘Lord Rekkage assigned to me, as vice-president of the Friends of British Folklore, the task of examining certain papers.’
‘Have you telephoned about the boilers, Dulcie?’
‘Aunt Akky, the lines are down.’
‘Well, order a hack and ride.’
‘Aunt Akky, we haven’t any horses now.’
‘I keep forgettin’.’
‘But allow me,’ cried Mrs Bünz, ‘allow me to take a message on my return. I shall be so delighted.’
‘Are you ridin’?’
‘I have a little car.’
‘Motorin’? Very civil of you, I must say. Just tell William Andersen at the Copse that our boiler’s burst, if you will. Much obliged. Me niece’ll see you out. Ask you to ’scuse me.’
She held out her short arm and Miss Mardian began to haul at it.
‘No, no! Ach, please. I implore you!’ shouted Mrs Bünz, wringing her hands. ‘Dame Alice! Before you go! I have driven for two days. If you will listen for one minute. On my knees –’
‘If you’re beggin’,’ said Dame Alice, ‘it’s no good. Nothin’ to give away these days. Dulcie.’
‘But, no, no, no! I am not begging. Or only,’ urged Mrs Bünz, ‘for a moment’s attention. Only for von liddle vord.’
‘Dulcie, I’m goin’.’
‘Yes, Aunt Akky.’
‘Guided as I have been –’
‘I don’t like fancy religions,’ said Dame Alice, who with the help of her niece had arrived at the door and opened it.
‘Does the Winter Solstice mean nothing to you? Does the Mardian Mawris Dance of the Five Sons mean nothing? Does –’ Something in the two faces that confronted her caused Mrs Bünz to come to a stop. Dame Alice’s upper denture noisily capsized on its opposite number. In the silence that followed this mishap there was an outbreak from the geese. A man’s voice shouted and a door slammed.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dame Alice with difficulty and passion, ‘I don’t know who yar or what chupter. But you’ll oblige me by takin’ yerself off.’ She turned on her great-niece. ‘You,’ she said, ‘are a blitherin’ idiot. I’m angry. I’m goin’.’
She turned and toddled rapidly into the hall.
‘Good evening, Aunt Akky. Good evening, Dulcie,’ said a man’s voice in the hall. ‘I wondered if I –’
‘I’m angry with you, too. I’m goin’ upshtairs. I don’t want to shee anyone. Bad for me to get fusshed. Get rid of that woman.’
‘Yes, Aunt Akky.’
‘And you behave yershelf, Ralph.’
‘Yes, Aunt Akky.’
‘Bring me a whishky and shoda to my room, girl.’
‘Yes, Aunt Akky.’
‘Damn theshe teeth.’
Mrs Bünz listened distractedly to the sound of two pairs of retreating feet. All by herself in that monstrous room she made a wide gesture of frustration and despair. A large young man came in.
‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. ‘Good evening. I’m afraid something’s happened. I’m afraid Aunt Akky’s in a rage.’
‘Alas! Alas!’
‘My name’s Ralph Stayne. I’m her nephew. She’s a bit tricky, is Aunt Akky. I suppose being ninety-four, she’s got a sort of right to it.’
‘Alas! Alas!’
‘I’m most frightfully sorry. If there’s anything one could do?’ offered the young man. ‘Only I might as well tell you I’m pretty heavily in the red myself.’
‘You are her nephew?’
‘Her great-great-nephew actually. I’m the local parson’s son. Dulcie’s my aunt.’
‘My poor young man,’ said Mrs Bünz, but she said it absentmindedly: there was speculation in her eye. ‘You could indeed help me,’ she said. ‘Indeed, indeed, you could. Listen. I will be brief. I have driven here from Bapple-under-Baccomb in Warwickshire. Owing partly to the weather, I must admit, it has taken me two days. I don’t grudge them, no, no, no. But I digress. Mr Stayne, I am a student of the folk dance, both central European and – particularly – English. My little monographs on the Abram Circle Bush and the symbolic tea-pawt have been praised. I am a student, I say, and a performer. I can still cut a pretty caper, Mr Stayne. Ach yes, godamercy.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Godamercy.