‘Mrs Bünz?’ the Rector said gently. ‘I don’t see her, Aunt Akky, but it’s rather difficult – She’s a terrific enthusiast and I’m sure –’
‘If I could have stopped her comin’, Sam, I would. She’s a pest.’
‘Oh, surely –’
‘Who’s this, I wonder?’ Dulcie intervened.
A car was labouring up the hill in bottom gear under a hard drive and hooting vigorously. They heard it pull up outside the gateway into the courtyard.
‘Funny!’ Dulcie said after a pause. ‘Nobody’s come in. Fancy!’
She was prevented from any further speculation by a general stir in the little crowd. Through the rear entrance came Dr Otterly with his fiddle. There was a round of applause. The hand-clapping sounded desultory and was lost in the night air.
Beyond the wall, men’s voices were raised suddenly and apparently in excitement. Dr Otterly stopped short, looked back, and returned through the archway.
‘Doctor’s too eager,’ said a voice in the crowd. There was a ripple of laughter, through which a single voice beyond the wall could be heard shouting something indistinguishable. A clock above the old stables very sweetly tolled nine. Then Dr Otterly returned and this time, after a few preliminary scrapes, struck up on his fiddle.
The air for the Five Sons had never been lost. It had jigged down through time from one Mardian fiddler to another, acquiring an ornament here, an improvisation there, but remaining essentially itself. Nobody had rediscovered it, nobody had put it in a collection. Like the dance itself, it had been protected by the commonplace character of the village and the determined reticence of generation after generation of performers. It was a good tune and well suited to its purpose. After a preliminary phrase or two it ushered in the Whiffler.
Through the archway came a blackamoor with a sword. He had bells on his legs and wore white trousers with a kind of kilt over them. His face was perfect black and a dark cap was on his head. He leapt and pranced and jingled, making complete turns as he did so and ‘whiffling’ his sword so that it sang in the cold air. He slashed at the thistles and brambles and they fell before him. Round and round the Mardian Stone he pranced and jingled while his blade whistled and glinted. He was the purifier, the acolyte, the precursor.
‘That’s why Ernie wouldn’t clear the thistles,’ Dame Alice muttered.
‘Oh, dear!’ Dulcie said, ‘aren’t they queer? Why not say so? I ask you.’ She stared dimly at the jigging blackamoor. ‘All the same,’ she said, ‘this can’t be Ernie. He’s the Fool, now. Who is it, Sam? The boy?’
‘Impossible to tell in that rig,’ said the Rector. ‘I would have thought from his exuberance that it was Ernie.’
‘Here come the rest of the Sons.’
There were four of them dressed exactly like the Whiffler. They ran out into the torchlight and joined him. They left their swords by Dr Otterly and with the Whiffler performed the Mardian Morris. Thump and jingle: down came their boots with a strike at the frozen earth. They danced without flourish but with the sort of concentration that amounts to style. When they finished there was a round of applause, sounding desultory in the open courtyard. They took off their pads of bells. The Whiffler threaded a scarlet cord through the tip of his sword. His brothers, whose swords were already adorned with these cords, took them up in their black hands. They waited in a strange rococo group against the snow. The fiddler’s tune changed. Now came ‘Crack’, the Hobby Horse and the Betty. Side by side they pranced. The Betty was a man-woman, black-faced, masculine to the waist and below the waist fantastically feminine. Its great hooped skirt hung from the armpits and spread like a bell-tent to the ground. On the head was a hat, half topper, half floral toque. There was a man’s glove on the right hand and a woman’s on the left, a boot on the left foot, a slipper on the right.
‘Really,’ the Rector said, ‘how Ralph can contrive to make such an appalling-looking object of himself, I do not know.’
‘Here comes “Crack”.’
‘You don’t need to tell us who’s comin’, Dulcie,’ Dame Alice said irritably. ‘We can see,’
‘I always like “Crack”,’ Dulcie said serenely.
The iron head, so much more resembling that of a fantastic bird than a horse, snapped its jaws. Beneath it the great canvas drum dipped and swayed. Its skirts left a trail of hot tar on the ground. The rat-like tail stuck up through the top of the drum and twitched busily.
‘Crack’ darted at the onlookers. The girls screamed unconvincingly and clutched each other. They ran into the arms of their boyfriends and out again. Some of the boys held their girls firm and let the swinging canvas daub them with tar. Some of the girls, affecting not to notice how close ‘Crack’ had come, allowed themselves to be tarred. They then put up a great show of indignation and astonishment. It was the age-old pantomime of courtship.
‘Oh, do look, Aunt Akky! He’s chasing the Campion girl and she’s really running,’ cried Dulcie.
Camilla was indeed running with a will. She saw the great barbaric head snap its iron beak at her and she smelt hot tar. Both the dream and the reality of the previous night were repeated. The crowd round her seemed to have drawn itself back into a barrier. The cylindrical body of the horse swung up. She saw trousered legs and a pair of black hands. It was unpleasant and, moreover, she had no mind to be daubed with tar. So she ran and ‘Crack’ ran after her. There was a roar of voices.
Camilla looked for some way of escape. Torchlight played over a solid wall of faces that were split with laughter.
‘No!’ shouted Camilla. ‘No!’
The thing came thundering after her. She ran blindly and as fast as she could across the courtyard and straight into the arms of Ralph Stayne in his preposterous disguise.
‘It’s all right, my darling,’ Ralph said. ‘Here I am.’
Camilla clung to him, panting and half-crying.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Dulcie Mardian, watching.
‘You don’t see anythin’ of the sort,’ snapped her great-aunt. ‘Does she, Sam?’
‘I hope not,’ said the Rector worriedly.
‘Here’s the Fool,’ said Dulcie, entirely unperturbed.
III
The Fool came out of the shadows at a slow jog-trot. On his appearance ‘Crack’ stopped his horseplay and moved up to the near exit. The Betty released a flustered Camilla.
‘Aunt Akky, do look! The German woman –’
‘Shut up, Dulcie. I’m watchin’ the Fool.’
The Fool, who is also the Father, jogged quietly round the courtyard. He wore wide pantaloons, tied in at the ankle, and a loose tunic. He wore also his cap fashioned from a flayed rabbit with the head above his own and the ears flopping. He carried a bladder on a stick. His mask was an old one, very roughly made from a painted bag that covered his head and was gathered and tied under his chin. It had holes cut for eyes and was painted with a great dolorous grin.
Dr Otterly had stopped fiddling. The Fool made his round in silence. He trotted in contracting circles, a course that brought him finally to the dolmen. This he struck three times with the bladder. All movements were quite undramatic and without any sense, as Camilla noted, of style. But they were not ineffectual. When he had completed his course, the Five Sons ran into the centre of the courtyard. ‘Crack’ reappeared through the back exit. The Fool waited beside the dolmen.
Then Dr Otterly, after a warning scrape, broke with a flourish into