The Weed That Strings the Hangmans Bag - Alan Bradley

Good old Daffy. There were times when I could almost forgive her for hating me.

Well, Rupert would be presenting his own version of Jack and the Beanstalk in just a few hours' time. I might even learn something from it.

After a while I got up, dressed, and crept outside.

I found Dogger sitting on a bench that overlooked the ornamental lake and the folly.

He was dressed as he had been the previous evening: dark suit, polished shoes, and a tie that probably spoke volumes to those in the know.

The full moon was rolling up the sky like a great silver cheese, and Dogger sat bolt upright, his face upturned, as if he were basking in its rays, holding a black umbrella open above his head.

I slid quietly onto the bench beside him. He did not look at me, nor I at him, and we sat, for a time, like a couple of grave ancient astronomers studying the moon.

After a while, I said, "It's not raining, Dogger."

Somewhere, during the war, Dogger had been exposed to torrential rains: rains without mercy; rains from which there could be no shelter and no escape. Or so Mrs. Mullet had told me.

"'E takes great comfort in 'is brolly, dear," she had said. "Even when the dogs is pantin' in the dust."

Slowly, like a clockwork figure, Dogger reached up and released the lock on the umbrella's handle, allowing the ribs and the waterproof cloth to fold down like bats' wings, until his upper hand was enveloped in black.

"Do you know anything about polio?" I asked at last.

Without removing his eyes from the moon, Dogger said: "Infantile paralysis. Heine-Medin disease. Morning paralysis. Complete bed rest.

"Or so I've been told," he added, looking at me for the first time.

"Anything else?"

"Agony," he said. "Absolute agony."

"Thank you, Dogger," I said. "The roses are beautiful this year. You've put a great deal of work into them."

"Thank you for saying so, miss," he said. "The roses are beautiful every year, Dogger or no Dogger."

"Good night," I said, as I got up from the bench.

"Good night, Miss Flavia."

Halfway across the lawn, I stoppeda and looked back. Dogger had raised the umbrella again, and was sitting beneath it, straight-backed as Mary Poppins, smiling at the summer moon.

* TEN *

"PLEASE DON'T GO WANDERING off today, Flavia," Father said after breakfast. I had encountered him rather unexpectedly on the stairs.

"Your aunt Felicity wants to go through some family papers, and she's particularly asked that you be with her to help lift down the boxes."

"Why can't Daffy do it?" I asked. "She's the expert on libraries and so forth."

This was not entirely true, since I had charge of a magnificent Victorian chemistry library, to say nothing of Uncle Tar's papers by the ton.

I was simply hoping I wouldn't have to mention the puppet show, which was now just hours away. But Duty trumped Entertainment.

"Daphne and Ophelia have gone to the village to post some letters. They're lunching there, and going on to Foster's to look at Sheila's pony."

The dogs! Those scheming wretches!

"But I've promised the vicar," I said. "He's counting on me. They're trying to raise money for something or other--oh, I don't know. If I'm not at the church by nine, Cynthia--Mrs. Richardson, I mean--will have to come for me in her Oxford."

As I expected it would, this rather low blow gave Father real pause.

I could see his eyebrows pucker as he weighed his options, which were few: Either concede gracefully or risk coming face-to-face with the Wreck of the Hesperus.

"You are unreliable, Flavia," he said. "Utterly unreliable."

Of course I was! It was one of the things I loved most about myself.

Eleven-year-olds are supposed to be unreliable. We're past the age of being poppets: the age where people bend over and poke us in the tum with their fingers and make idiotic noises that sound like "boof-boof"--just the thought of which is enough to make me bring up my Bovril. And yet we're still not at the age where anyone ever mistakes us for a grown-up. The fact is, we're invisible--except when we choose not to be.

At the moment, I was not. I was fixed in the beam of Father's fierce-eyed tiger stare. I batted my eyelids twice: just enough not to be disrespectful.

I knew the instant he relented. I could see it in his eyes.

"Oh, very well," he said, gracious even in his defeat. "Run along. And give my compliments to the vicar."

Paint me with polka dots! I was free! Just like that!

Gladys's tires hummed their loud song of contentment as we sped along the tarmac.

"Summer is icumen in," I warbled to the world. "Lhude sing cuccu!"

A Jersey cow looked up from her grazing, and I stood on the pedals and gave her a shaky curtsy in passing.

I pulled up outside the parish hall just as Nialla and Rupert were coming through the long grass at the back of the churchyard.

"Did you sleep well?" I called out to them, waving.

"Like the dead," Rupert replied.

Which described perfectly what Nialla looked like. Her hair hung in long, unwashed strings, and the black circles under her red eyes reminded me of something I'd rather not think about. Either she'd ridden with witches all night from steeple to steeple, or she and Rupert had had a filthy great row.

Her silence told me it was Rupert.

"Fresh bacon ... fresh eggs," Rupert went on, giving his chest a hearty pounding, like Tarzan, with his fists. "Sets a man up for the day."

Without so much as a glance at me, Nialla darted past and ducked into the parish hall--to the ladies' W.C., I expected.

Naturally, I followed.

Nialla was on her knees, shouting "Rope!" into the porcelain, crying and vomiting at the same time. I bolted the door.

"You're having a baby, aren't you?" I asked.

She looked up at me, her mouth gaping open, her face white. "How did you know?" she gasped.

I wanted to say "Elementary," but I knew this was no time for cheek.

"I did a lysozome test on the handkerchief you used."

Nialla scrambled to her feet and seized me by the shoulders. "Flavia, you mustn't breathe a word of this! Not a word! Nobody knows but you."

"Not even Rupert?" I asked. I could hardly believe it.

"Especially Rupert," she said. "He'd kill me if he knew. Promise me. Please, Flavia ... promise me!"

"On my honor," I said, holding up three fingers in the Girl Guide salute. Although I had been chucked from that organization for insubordination (among other things), I felt it was hardly necessary to share the gruesome details with Nialla.

"Bloody good job we're camped in the country. They must have heard us for miles around, the way the two of us went at one another's throats. It was about a woman, of course. It's always about a woman, isn't it?"

This was beyond my field of expertise, but still, I tried to look attentive.

"It never takes long for Rupert to zero in on the skirt. You saw it; we weren't in Jubilee Field for half a tick when he was off up the wood with that Land Girl, Sarah, or whatever her name is."

"Sally," I said.

Although it was an interesting idea, I knew that Rupert had, in actual fact, been smoking Indian hemp in Gibbet Wood with Gordon Ingleby. But I could hardly tell Nialla that. Sally Straw had been nowhere in sight.

"I thought you said he went to see about the van."

"Oh, Flavia, you're such a--" She bit off the word in the nick of time. "Of course I said that. I didn't want to air our dirty laundry in front of a stranger."

Did she mean me--or was she referring to Dieter?

"Rupert always smudges himself with smoke, trying to cover up the scent of his tarts. I smell it on him.

"But I went a bit too far," she added ruefully. "I opened up the van and threw the first thing at him that came to hand. I shouldn't have. It was his new Jack puppet: He's been working on it for weeks. The old one's getting tatty, you see, and it tends to come apart at the worst possible moment.

"Like me," she wailed, and threw up again.

I wished that I could make myself useful, but this was one of those situations in which a bystander can do nothing to help.

"Up all the night he was, trying to fix the thing."

By the fresh marks on her neck, I could see that Rupert had done more in the night than patch up a puppet.

"Oh, I wish I were dead," she moaned.

There was a banging at the door: a sharp, rapid volley of rat-a-tat-tat knocks.

"Who's in there?" a woman's voice demanded, and my heart cringed. It was Cynthia Richardson.

"There may be others wishing to use the facilities," she called. "Please try to be more considerate of other people's needs."

"Just coming, Mrs. Richardson," I called out. "It's me, Flavia."

Damn the woman! How could I quickly feign illness?

I grabbed the cotton hand towel from the ring beside the sink, and gave my face a rough scrubbing. I could feel the blood rising even as I worked. I messed up my hair, ran a bit of water from the tap and mopped it across my reddening brow, and let loose a thread of spit to dangle horribly from the corner of my mouth.

Then I flushed the toilet and unbolted the door.

As I waited for Cynthia to open it, as I knew she would, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: I was the very image of a malaria victim whose doctor had just stepped out to ring the undertaker.

As the knob turned and the door swung inwards, I took a couple of unsteady steps out into the hallway, puffing out my cheeks as if I were about to vomit. Cynthia shrank back against the wall.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Richardson," I said shakily. "I've just sicked up. It must have been something I ate. Nialla's been very kind ... but I think, with a bit of fresh air, I'll be all right."

And I tottered past her with Nialla in my wake; Cynthia didn't give her so much as a glance.

"You are terrifying," Nialla said. "You really are. Do you know that?"

We were sitting on a slab tomb in the churchyard as I waited for the sun to dry my feverish face. Nialla put away her lipstick and rummaged in her bag for a comb.

"Yes," I said, matter-of-factly. It was true--and there was no use denying it.

"Aha!" said a voice. "Here you are, then!"

A dapper little man in slacks and jacket with a yellow silk shirt was coming rapidly towards us. His neck was swathed in a mauve ascot, and an unlit pipe protruded from between his teeth. He stepped gingerly from side to side, trying not to tread directly on some of the more sunken graves.

"Oh, God!" Nialla groaned without moving her mouth, and then to him: "Hello, Mutt. Half-holiday at the monkey house, is it?"

"Where's Rupert?" he demanded. "Inside?"

"How lovely to see you, Nialla," Nialla said. "How perfectly lovely you're looking today, Nialla. Forgotten your manners, Mutt?"

Mutt--or whoever he was--turned on his heel in the grass and trod off towards the parish hall, still minding where he stepped.

"Mutt Wilmott," Nialla told me. "Rupert's producer at the BBC. They had a flaming row last week and Rupert walked out right in the middle of it. Left Mutt holding the bag with Auntie--the Corporation, I mean. But how on earth did he find us? Rupert thought we'd be quite safe here. 'Rusticating in the outback,' he called it."

"He got off the train at Doddingsley yesterday morning," I said, making a leap of deduction, but knowing I was right.

Nialla sighed. "I'd better go in. There's bound to be fireworks."

Even before we reached the door, I could hear Rupert's voice rising furiously inside the echoing hall.

"I don't care what Tony said. Tony can go sit on a paintbrush, and so can you, Mutt, come to think of it. You've shat on Rupert Porson for the last time--the lot of you."

As we entered, Rupert was halfway up the little staircase that led to the stage. Mutt stood in the middle of the hall with his hands on his hips. Neither seemed to notice we were there.

"Oh, come off it, Rupert. Tony has every right to tell you when you've overstepped the mark. And hearken unto me, Rupert, this time you have overstepped the mark, and by quite a long chalk at that. It's all very well for you to stir up a hornet's nest and then dodge the flak by taking your little show on the road. That's what you always do, don't you? But this time you at least owe him the courtesy of a hearing."

"I don't owe Tony a parson's whistle."

"That's where you're wrong, old boy. How many binds has he extracted you from?"

Rupert said nothing as Mutt ticked them off on his fingers.

"Well, let's see: There was the little incident with Marco. Then there was the one with Sandra Paisley--a nasty business, that. Then the thing with Sparkman and Blondel--cost the BBC a bundle, that one did. To say nothing of--"

"Shut your gob, Mutt!"

Mutt went on counting. "To say nothing of that girl in Beckenham ... what was her name ... Lulu? Lulu, for God's sake!"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Rupert was into a full-fledged tantrum. He came storming stiff-legged down the steps, his brace clattering dreadfully. I glanced over at Nialla, who had suddenly become as pale and as still as a painted Madonna. Her hand was at her mouth.

"Go get in your bloody Jaguar, little man, and drive it straight to hell!" Rupert snarled. "Leave me alone!"

Mutt was not intimidated. Even though they were now nose to nose, he didn't give an inch. Rather, he plucked an imaginary bit of lint from the sleeve of his jacket and pretended to watch it float to the floor.

"Didn't drive down, old boy. Came by British Rail. You know as well as I that the BBC's cutting back on expenses, what with the Festival of Britain next year, and all that."

Rupert's eyes widened as he spotted Nialla.

"Who told you we were here?" he shouted, pointing. "Her?"

"Hold on, hold on," Mutt said, his voice rising for the first time. "Don't go blaming Nialla. As a matter of fact it was a Mrs. Something right here in Bishop's Lacey. Her boy saw your van by the church and scooted off home to tell Mummy he'd hold his breath and pop if he couldn't have Porson's Puppets for his birthday party, but by the time he dragged her back, you were gone. She made a long-distance call to the BBC, and the switchboard put her through to Tony's secretary. Tony told me to come and fetch you straightaway. And here I am. End of story. So don't go blaming Nialla."

"All snug with Nialla, are you?" Rupert fumed. "Sneaking round on--"

Mutt placed the palm of his hand on Rupert's chest. "And while we're at it, Rupert, I might as well tell you that if you lay so much as a fingerprint on her again, I'll--"

Rupert shoved Mutt's hand away roughly. "Don't threaten me, you vile little snail. Not if you value living!"

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! What on earth? You must stop this at once."

It was the vicar. He stood in the open doorway, a dark figure against the daylight.

Nialla ducked past him and fled. I quickly followed.

"Dear lady," the vicar said, holding out an engraved brass collection plate. "Try a cucumber and lettuce sandwich. They're said to be remarkably soothing. I made them myself." Made them himself? Had domestic warfare been declared at the vicarage?