Alan Bradley - The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

"Of course he approves!" she said. "Haviland's never been one to hold a grudge, have you, Havvie?"

Like a man in a dream, Father looked round him and remarked, to no one in particular, "Interesting weather."

I took immediate advantage of his momentary confusion.

"Go on ahead without me," I said. "I just want to pop in and make sure Nialla's all right. I'll be home directly."

And no one lifted a finger to stop me.

Mrs. Mullet's cottage was nestled at the far end of Cobbler's Lane, a narrow, dusty track that ran south from the high street and ended at a stile. It was a cozy little place with hollyhocks and a ginger cat dozing in the sun. Her husband, Alf, was sitting on a bench in the yard, carving a willow whistle.

"Well, well," he said when he saw me at his gate, "to what do we owe this most prodigious great pleasure?"

"Good morning, Mr. Mullet," I said, falling effortlessly into my best prunes-and-prisms voice, "I hope you're keeping well?"

"Fair ... fair to troublesome digestion. Sometimes kicks like a kangaroo — elsewise, burns like Rome."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, meaning every word of it. We de Luces were not the only ones subjected to Mrs. Mullet's culinary concoctions.

"Here," Alf said, handing me the wooden whistle. "Give 'er a blow. See if you can fetch up an elf."

I took the slender piece of wood and raised it to my lips.

"Perhaps I'd better not," I said. "I don't want to wake Nialla."

"Ha!" he said. "No fear o' that. She's gone afore the sun."

"Gone?"

I was astonished. How could she be gone?

"Where?" I asked.

"God only knows." He shrugged. "Back to Culverhouse Farm, maybe — maybe not. That's all I know. Now give us a toot."

I blew into the whistle, producing a high, shrill, piercing wail.

"Wizard tone," I said, handing it back.

"Keep it," Alf said. "I made it for you. I thought you'd be round before long."

"Smashing!" I said, because I knew it was expected of me.

As I walked back to Buckshaw, I thought how similar my life was to the lives of those swarming clerics in Anthony Trollope who seemed to spend their days buzzing from cloister to vicarage and from village to the bishop's palace like black clockwork beetles scuttling to and fro in a green maze. I had dipped into The Warden during one of our compulsory Sunday afternoon reading periods, and followed it a few weeks later by skimming bits of Barchester Towers .

I must confess that, since there was no one of my own age group in his writings, I did not care much for Trollope. Most of his fossilized clergymen, for instance, quite frankly made me want to spew my sausages. The character with whom I most identified was Mrs. Proudie, the tyrant wife of the rabbity bishop, who knew what she wanted and, for the most part, knew how to get it. Had Mrs. Proudie been keen on poisons, she might have become my favorite character in all of literature.

Although Trollope had not specifically mentioned it, there was no doubt in my mind that Mrs. Proudie had been brought up in a home with two older sisters who treated her like dirt.

Why did Ophelia and Daphne despise me so? Was it because Harriet had hated me, as they claimed? Had she, while suffering from "the baby blues," stepped off into thin air from a mountain in Tibet?

In short, the question was this: Had I killed her?

Did Father hold me responsible for her death?

Somehow the sparkle had gone out of the day as I plodded glumly along the lanes. Even the thought of Rupert's murder and its messy aftermath did little to cheer me.

I gave a couple of toots on the willow whistle, but it sounded like a baby cuckoo, fallen from its nest, crying woefully for its mother. I shoved the thing into the bottom of my pocket and trudged on.

I needed some time alone — some time to think.

Seen from the Mulford Gates, Buckshaw always had about it a rather sad and abandoned air, as if some vital essence were missing. But now, as I walked along beneath the chestnuts, something was different. I spotted it at once. Several people were standing on the gravel sweep in the forecourt, and one of them was Father, who was pointing at the roof. I broke into a run, dashing across the lawn like a sprinter, chest out, fists going like pistons at my side.

I needn't have bothered. As I drew closer, I saw that it was only Aunt Felicity and Daffy, both standing on one side of Father, with Feely at the other.

At her right hand stood Dieter. I couldn't believe my eyes!

Feely's eyes were sparkling, her hair was shining in the summer sun, and her smile was dazzlingly perfect. In her gray skirt and canary yellow sweater set, with a single strand of Harriet's cultured pearls draped round her neck, she was more than vibrant ... she was beautiful — I could have throttled her.

"Ruskin found square drip moldings abominable," Father was saying, "but he was being facetious, of course. Even the best of our British sandstone is but a pale mockery of the fine-grained marble one finds in Greece."

"Quite true, sir," Dieter agreed. "Although, was it not your Charles Dickens who thought that the Greeks used marble only because of the way it took paint and color? Still, the style and the material mean nothing when the molding is placed under a portico. It is the architect's joke, isn't it?"

Father considered for a moment, rubbing his hands together behind his back as he stood staring at the front of the house.

"By Jove!" he said at last. "You may have hit on something."

"Ah, Flavia!" Aunt Felicity said as she spotted me. "Think of the Devil and she shall appear. I should like to paint presently and you shall be my assistant. I relish the brushwork but I simply can't bear the sticky tubes and the dirty rags."

Daffy rolled her eyes and edged slowly away from her mad old aunt, fearing, I think, that she was going to be put to work as well. I relented enough to ask her one question. There were times when curiosity trumped even pride.

"What's he doing here?" I whispered into her ear, giving a slight tip of my head towards Dieter.

Of course I already knew, but it was a rare opportunity to talk sister-to-sister without rancor.

"Aunt Felicity insisted. Said he should walk us home and stay to tea.

"I think she's got her eye on him," she added with a coarse snicker.

Although I'm quite accustomed to Daffy's excesses, I must admit that I was shocked.

"For Feely," she explained.

Of course! No wonder Father was exercising his rusty charm! One daughter fewer would mean a one-third reduction in the number of surplus mouths he had to feed. Not that Feely ate that much — she didn't — but coupled with a similar reduction in the dose of daily insolence he would need to put up with, palming her off on Dieter was well worth the effort.

Then, too, I thought, there would be an end to the vast outlays of cash for the constant re-silvering of Buckshaw's looking glasses. Feely was hell on mirrors.

"And your father ..." Father was saying to Dieter.

I knew it! He was already greasing the skids!

"... I believe you said something about books?"

"He's a publisher, sir," Dieter said. "He's the 'Schrantz' of Schrantz and Markel. You may not have heard of them but they publish in German, editions of — "

"Of course! The Luxus Ausgaben Schrantz und Markel . Their Pliny — the one with the Durer plates — is quite remarkable."

"Come along, Flavia," Aunt Felicity said. "You know how tiresome it is to paint brickwork once it's in shadow."

From a distance, I must have looked like a sinking galleon as, with Aunt Felicity's easel over my shoulder, a stretched canvas under each arm, and a wooden box of paints and brushes in each hand, I waded barefoot through the shallow waters of the ornamental lake, towards the island upon which the folly was situated. Aunt Felicity brought up the rear, carrying a three-legged stool. In her tweed suit, floppy hat, and smock, she reminded me of photos I had seen in Country Life of Winston Churchill dabbling with his paints at Chartwell. The only thing missing was the cigar.