Death of a Fool Read Free

Use-and-Wont.”
    “Er — yes. But we have been rather careful not to sort of let it be known because everyone agrees it’d be too ghastly if the artsy-craftsy boys — I’m sure,” Ralph said turning scarlet, “I don’t mean to be offensive, but you know what can happen. Ye olde goings-on all over the village. Charabancs even. My family have all felt awfully strongly about it and so does the Old Guiser.”
    Mrs. Bünz pressed her gloved hands to her lips. “Did you,
did
you say ‘Old Guiser’?”
    “Sorry. It’s a sort of nickname. He’s William Andersen, really. The local smith. A perfectly marvellous old boy,” Ralph said and inexplicably again turned scarlet. “They’ve been at the Copse Smithy for centuries, the Andersens,” he added. “As long as we’ve been at Mardian, if it comes to that. He feels jolly strongly about it.”
    “The old man? The Guiser?” Mrs. Bünz murmured. “And he’s a smith? And his forefathers perhaps made the hobby-horse?” Ralph was uncomfortable.
    “Well —” he said and stopped.
    “Ach! Then there is a hobby!”
    “Look, Mrs. Burns, I–I do ask you as a great favour not to talk about this to anyone, or — or write about it. And for the love of Mike not to bring people here. I don’t mind telling you I’m in pretty bad odour with my aunt
and
old William and, really, if they thought — look, I think I can hear Dulcie coming. Look, may I really
beg
you —”
    “Do not trouble yourself. I am very discreet,” said Mrs. Bünz with a reassuring leer. “Tell me, there is a pub in the district, of course? You see I use the word pub. Not inn or tavern. I am not,” said Mrs. Bünz, drawing her hand-woven cloak about her, “what you describe as artsy-craftsy.”
    “There’s a pub about a mile away. Up the lane to Yowford. The Green Man.”
    “The Green Man. A-a-ach! Excellent.”
    “You’re
not
going to stay there!” Ralph ejaculated involuntarily.
    “You will agree that I cannot immediately drive to Bapple-under-Baccomb. It is three hundred miles away. I shall not even start. I shall put up at the pub.”
    Ralph, stammering a good deal, said, “It sounds the most awful cheek, I know, but I suppose you wouldn’t be terribly kind and — if you
are
going there — take a note from me to someone who’s staying there. I–I — my car’s broken down and I’m on foot.”
    “Give it to me.”
    “It’s most frightfully sweet of you.”
    “Or I can drive you.”
    “Thank you most terribly, but if you’d just take the note. I’ve got it on me. I was going to post it.” Still blushing he took an envelope from his breast-pocket and gave it to her. She stowed it away in a business-like manner.
    “And in return,” she said, “you shall tell me one more thing. What do you do in the Dance of the Five Sons? For you are a performer. I feel it.”
    “I’m the Betty,” he muttered.
    “A-a-a-ch! The fertility symbol, or in modern parlance —” she tapped the pocket where she had stowed the letter — “the love interest. Isn’t it?”
    Ralph continued to look exquisitely uncomfortable. “Here comes Dulcie,” he said. “If you don’t mind I really think it would be better —”
    “If I made away with myself. I agree. I thank you, Mr. Stayne. Good evening.”
    Ralph saw her to the door, drove off the geese, advised her to pay no attention to the bulls as only one of them ever cut rough, and watched her churn away through the snow. When he turned back to the house Miss Mardian was waiting for him.
    “You’re to go up,” she said. “What have you been doing? She’s furious.”
    Mrs. Bünz negotiated the gateway without further molestation from livestock and drove through what was left of the village. In all, it consisted only of a double row of nondescript cottages, a tiny shop, a church of little architectural distinction and a Victorian parsonage: Ralph Stayne’s home, no doubt. Even in its fancy-dress of snow it was not a picturesque village.