Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“William!” said Jonathan sharply. “Stay where you are.”

“If anything happens to him, who do you suppose she’ll blame for it? For the rest of her life his damned dead sneer will tell her that but for me… He’s not going .”

“You can’t stop him, you know,” said Mandrake.

“ Can’t I! Jonathan, please stand aside.”

“Just a moment, William.” Jonathan’s voice had taken an unaccustomed edge. He stood, an unheroic but somehow rather menacing figure, with his plump fingers on the door-knob and his back against the door. “I cannot have you fighting with your brother up and down my house. He is determined to go and you can’t stop him. I am following him to the first drift in the drive. I am quite convinced that he will not get through it and I do not propose to let him come to any grief. I shall take a couple of men with me. If you can behave yourself you had better accompany us.” Jonathan touched his spectacles delicately with his left hand. “Depend upon it,” he said, “your brother will not leave Highfold to-night.”

Mandrake’s bedroom windows overlooked the last sweep of the drive as it passed the east wing of Highfold and turned into the wide sweep in front of the house. Through the white-leopard mottling on his window-pane he saw Nicholas Compline, head down, trudge heavily through the snow and out of sight. A few moments later, Jonathan and William appeared, followed at some distance by two men carrying long-handled shovels. “Nicholas must have delayed a little, after he left here,” Mandrake thought. “Why? To say good-bye to Madame Lisse? Or to Chloris?” And at the thought of a final interview between Nicholas and Chloris Wynne he experienced an unaccustomed and detestable sensation, as if his heart sank with horrid speed into some unfathomable limbo. He looked after the trudging figures until they passed beyond the range of his window, and then suddenly decided that he could no longer endure his own company but would go downstairs in search of Chloris Wynne.

“The difference,” Jonathan observed, “between a walk in an ordinary storm and a walk in a snow-storm is the difference between unpleasant noise and even more unpleasant silence. One can hear nothing but the squeak of snow under one’s feet. I’m glad you decided to come, William.”

“It’s not for love of dear little Nicholas, I promise you,” William muttered.

“Well, well, well,” said Jonathan equitably.

They plodded on, walking in Nicholas’ steps. Presently Highfold Wood enclosed them in a strange twilight where shadow was made negative by reflected whiteness and where the stems of trees seemed comfortless and forgotten in their naked blackness. Here there was less snow and they mended their pace, following the drive on its twisting course downhill. At first they passed between tall banks and heard the multiple voices of tiny runnels of water, then they came out into open spaces where the snow lay thick over Jonathan’s park. It stretched away before their eyes in curves of unbroken pallor and William muttered: “White, grey, and black. I don’t think I could paint it.” When they entered the lower wood, still going downhill, they saw Nicholas, not far ahead, and Jonathan called to him a shrill “Hello!”that set up an echo among the frozen trees. Nicholas turned and stood motionless, waiting for them to overtake him. With that air of self-consciousness inseparable from such approaches, they made their way towards him, the two farm-hands still some distance behind.

“My dear Nick,” Jonathan panted, “you should have waited a little. I told you I’d see you as far as the first obstacle. See here, I’ve brought two of the men. They know more about the state of affairs than I do. My head shepherd and his brother. You remember James and Thomas Bewling?”

“Yes, of course,” said Nicholas. “Sorry you’ve both been dragged out on my account.”

“If there is a way through Deep Bottom,” said Jonathan, “the Bewlmgs will find it for you. Eh, Thomas?”

The older of the two men touched his cap and moved nearer. “I do believe, sir,” he said, “that without us goes at it hammer and tongs with these yurr shovels for an hour or so, they bain’t no way over Deep Bottom.”

“There, you see, Nick, and in an hour or so it’ll be dark.”

“At least I can try,” said Nicholas stiffly.

Jonathan looked helplessly at William, who was watching his brother through half-closed eyes. “Well,” said Jonathan on a sudden spurt of temper, “it’s beginning to snow quite abominably hard. Shall we go on?”

“Look here,” William said, “you go back, Jonathan. I don’t see why you should be in this. Nor you two Bewlings. Give me your shovel, Thomas.”

“I’ve said I’ll go alone, and I’m perfectly ready to do so,” said Nicholas sulkily.

“Oh, damn!” said Jonathan. “Come on.”

As they moved off downhill, the snow began to fall even more heavily.

Deep Bottom was at the foot of a considerable slope beyond the wood and was really a miniature ravine, extending for some two miles inside Jonathan’s demesnes. It was crossed by the avenue which dipped and rose sharply to flatten out on the far side with a level stretch of some two hundred yards, ending at the entrance gates. As they approached it the north wind, from which they had hitherto been protected, drove full in their faces with a flurry of snow.

Thomas Bewling began a long roaring explanation: “She comes down yurr proper blustracious like, sir. What with being druv be the wind and what with being piled up be the natural forces of gravitation, like, she slips and she slides in this-yurr bottom till she’s so thick as you’d be surprised to see. Look thurr, sir. You’d tell me there was nothing but a little tiddly bit of a slant down’ill, but contrariwise. She’s deceptive. She’s a-laying out so smooth and sleek enough to trap you into trying ’er, but she’s deep enough and soft enough to smother the lot on us. You won’t get round her and you won’t make t’other side, Mr. Nicholas, as well you ought to know being bred to these parts.”

Nicholas looked from one to another of the four faces and without a word turned and walked on. Half a dozen strides brought him up to his knees in snow. He uttered a curious inarticulate cry and plunged forward. The next second he was floundering in a drift, spread-eagled and half-buried.

“And over he goes,” William observed, mildly. “Come on.”

He and the two Bewlings joined hands and by dint of extending the shovel handle brought Nicholas out of his predicament. He had fallen face first into the drift and presented a ridiculous figure. His fine moustache was clotted with snow, his cap was askew, and his nose was running.

“Quite the little snow-man,” said William. “Ups-a-daisy.”

Nicholas wiped his face with his gloved hands. It was blotched with cold. His lips seemed stiff and he rubbed them before he spoke.

“Very well,” Nicholas whispered at last. “I give up. I’ll come back. But, by God, I tell you both I’d have been safer crossing Cloudyfold in the dark than spending another night at Highfold.”

“Francis,” said Madame Lisse, “we may not be alone together again this evening. I cannot endure this ridiculous and uncomfortable state of affairs any longer. Why do Nicholas and William Compline and the Wynne girl all avoid you? Why, when I speak of Mr. Mandrake’s accident, do they look at their feet and mumble of other things? Where have they all gone? I have sat by this fire enduring the conversation of Mrs. Compline and the compliments of our host until I am ready to scream, but even that ordeal was preferable to suffering your extraordinary gloom. Where is Nicholas Compline?”