Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Fool

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.

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 at 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 mask and the ears flopping. He carried a bladder on a stick. His head was masked. The 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 his 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” re-appeared through the back exit. The Fool waited beside the dolmen.

Then Dr. Otterly, after a warning scrape, broke with a flourish into the second dance: the Sword Dance of the Five Sons.

Against the snow and flames and sparks they made a fine picture, all black-faced and black-handed, down-beating with their feet as if the ground was a drum for their dancing. They made their ring of steel, each holding another’s sword by its red ribbon, and they wove their knot and held it up before the Fool, who peered at it as if it were a looking-glass. “Crack” edged closer. Then the Fool made his undramatic gesture and broke the knot.

“Ernie’s doing quite well,” said the Rector.

The dance and its sequel were twice repeated. On the first repetition, the Fool made as if he wrote something and then offered what he had written to his Sons. On the second repetition, “Crack” and the Betty came forward. They stood to left and right of the Fool, who, this time, was behind the Mardian dolmen. The Sons, in front of it, again held up their knot of locked swords. The Fool leant across the stone and put his head within the knot. The Hobby-Horse moved in behind him and stood motionless, looking, in that flickering light, like some monstrous idol. The fiddling stopped dead. The onlookers were very still. Beyond the wall the bonfire crackled.

Then the Sons drew their swords suddenly with a great crash. Horridly the rabbit’s head dropped on the stone. A girl in the crowd screamed. The Fool slithered down behind the stone and was hidden.

“Really,” Dulcie said, “it makes one feel quite odd, don’t you think, Aunt Akky?”

A kind of interlude followed. The Betty went round with an object like a ladle into which everybody dropped a coin.

“Where’s it goin’?” Dame Alice asked.

“The belfry roof, this year,” the Rector replied and such is the comfortable attitude of the Church towards the remnants of fertility ritual-dancing in England that neither he nor anybody else thought this at all remarkable.

Ralph, uplifted perhaps by his encounter with Camilla, completed his collection and began a spirited impromptu. He flirted his vast crinoline and made up to several yokels in his audience. He chucked one under the chin, tried to get another to dance with him and threw his crinoline over a third. He was a natural comedian and his antics raised a great roar of laughter. With an elaborate pantomime, laying his finger on his lips, he tiptoed up behind the Whiffler, who stood swinging his sword by its red ribbon. Suddenly Ralph snatched it away. The Hobby-Horse, who was behind the dolmen, gave a shrill squeak and went off. The Betty ran and the Whiffler gave chase. These two grotesques darted here and there, disappeared behind piles of stones and flickered uncertainly through the torchlight. Ralph gave a series of falsetto screams, dodged and feinted and finally hid behind a broken-down buttress near the rear entrance. The Whiffler plunged past him and out into the dark. One of the remaining Sons now came forward and danced a short formal solo with great exactness and spirit.

“That’ll be Dan,” said Dulcie Mardian.

“He cuts a very pretty caper,” said the Rector. From behind the battlemented wall at the back a great flare suddenly burst upwards with a roar and a crackle.

“They’re throwin’ turpentine on the fire,” Dame Alice said. “Or somethin’.”

“Very naughty,” said the Rector.

Ralph, who had slipped out by the back entrance, now returned through an archway near the house, having evidently run round behind the battlements. Presently, the Whiffler, again carrying his sword, re-appeared through the back entrance and joined his brothers. The solo completed, the Five Sons then performed their final dance. “Crack” and the Betty circled in the background, now approaching and now retreating from the Mardian dolmen.

“This,” said Dulcie, “is where the Old Man rises from the dead. Isn’t it, Sam?”

“Ah — yes. Yes. Very strange,” said the Rector, broad-mindedly.

“Exciting.”

“Well —” he said uneasily.

The Five Sons ended their dance with a decisive stamp. They stood with their backs to their audience pointing their swords at the Mardian dolmen. The audience clapped vociferously.

“He rises up from behind the stone, doesn’t he, Aunt Akky?”

But nobody rose up from behind the Mardian dolmen. Instead, there was an interminable pause. The swords wavered, the dancers shuffled awkwardly and at last lowered their weapons. The jigging tune had petered out.

“Look, Aunt Akky. Something’s gone wrong.”

“Dulcie, for God’s sake, hold your tongue.”

“My dear Aunt Akky.”

“Be quiet, Sam.”

One of the Sons, the soloist, moved away from his fellows. He walked alone to the Mardian dolmen and round it. He stood quite still and looked down. Then he jerked his head. His brothers moved in. They formed a semicircle and they too looked down: five glistening and contemplative blackamoors. At last their faces lifted and turned, their eyeballs showed white and they stared at Dr. Otterly.

His footfall was loud and solitary in the quietude that had come upon the courtyard.

The Sons made way for him. He stooped, knelt, and in so doing disappeared behind the stone. Thus, when he spoke, his voice seemed disembodied, like that of an echo.

“Get back! All of you. Stand away!”

The Five Sons shuffled back. The Hobby-Horse and the Betty, a monstrous couple, were motionless.

Dr. Otterly rose from behind the stone and walked forward. He looked at Dame Alice where she sat enthroned. He was like an actor coming out to bow to the Royal Box, but he trembled and his face was livid. When he had advanced almost to the steps he said loudly: “Everyone must go. At once. There has been an accident.” The crowd behind him stirred and murmured.

“What’s up?” Dame Alice demanded. “What accident? Where’s the Guiser?”

“Miss Mardian, will you take your aunt indoors? I’ll follow as soon as I can.”