Читать книгу Off With His Head - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 8

Mrs Bünz negotiated the gateway without further molestation from livestock and drove through what was left of the village. In all, it consisted only of a double row of nondescript cottages, a tiny shop, a church of little architectural distinction and a Victorian parsonage: Ralph Stayne’s home, no doubt. Even in its fancy dress of snow it was not a picturesque village. It would, Mrs Bünz reflected, need a lot of pepping-up before it attracted the kind of people Ralph Stayne had talked about. She was glad of this because in her own way, she too was a purist.

At the far end of the village itself and a little removed from it she came upon a signpost for East Mardian and Yowford and a lane leading off in that direction.

But where, she asked herself distractedly, was the smithy? She was seething with the zeal of the explorer and with an itching curiosity that Ralph’s unwilling information had exacerbated rather than assuaged. She pulled up and looked about her. No sign of a smithy. She was certain she had not passed one on her way in. Though her interest was academic rather than romantic, she fastened on smithies with the fervour of a runaway bride. But no. All was twilight and desolation. A mixed group of evergreen and deciduous trees, the signpost, the hills and a great blankness of snow. Well, she would inquire at the pub. She was about to move on when she saw simultaneously a column of smoke rise above the trees and a short man, followed by a dismal dog, come round the lane from behind them.

She leaned out and in a cloud of her own breath shouted: ‘Good evening. Can you be so good as to direct me to the Corpse?’

The man stared at her. After a long pause he said: ‘Ar?’ The dog sat down and whimpered.

Mrs Bünz suddenly realized she was dead-tired. She thought: ‘This frustrating day! So! I must now embroil myself with the village natural.’ She repeated her question. ‘Vere,’ she said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, ‘is der corpse?’

‘Oo’s corpse?’

‘Mr William Andersen’s?’

‘Ee’s not a corpse. Not likely. Ee’s my dad.’ Weary though she was she noted the rich local dialect. Aloud, she said: ‘You misunderstand me. I asked you where is the smithy. His smithy. My pronunciation was at fault.’

‘Copse Smithy be my dad’s smithy.’

‘Precisely. Where is it?’

‘My dad don’t rightly fancy wummen.’

‘Is that where the smoke is coming from?’

‘Ar.’

‘Thank you.’

As she drove away she thought she heard him loudly repeat that his dad didn’t fancy women.

‘He’s going to fancy me if I die for it,’ thought Mrs Bünz.

The lane wound round the copse and there, on the far side, she found that classic, that almost archaic picture – a country blacksmith’s shop in the evening.

The bellows were in use. A red glow from the forge pulsed on the walls. A horse waited, half in shadow. Gusts of hot iron and seared horn and the sweetish reek of horse-sweat drifted out to mingle with the tang of frost. Somewhere in a dark corner beyond the forge a man with a lantern seemed to be bent over some task. Mrs Bünz’s interest in folklore, for all its odd manifestations, was perceptive and lively. Though now she was punctually visited by the, as it were, off-stage strains of the Harmonious Blacksmith, she also experienced a most welcome quietude of spirit. It was as if all her enthusiasms had become articulate. This was the thing itself, alive and luminous.

The smith and his mate moved into view. The horseshoe, lunar symbol, floated incandescent in the glowing jaws of the pincers. It was lowered and held on the anvil. Then the hammer swung, the sparks showered, and the harsh bell rang. Three most potent of all charms were at work – fire, iron and the horseshoe.

Mrs Bünz saw that while his assistant was a sort of vivid enlargement of the man she had met in the lane and so like him that they must be brothers, the smith himself was a surprisingly small man: small and old. This discovery heartened her. With renewed spirit she got out of her car and went to the door of the smithy. The third man, in the background, opened his lantern and blew out the flame. Then, with a quick movement he picked up some piece of old sacking and threw it over his work.

The smith’s mate glanced up but said nothing. The smith, apparently, did not see her. His branch-like arms, ugly and graphic, continued their thrifty gestures. He glittered with sweat and his hair stuck to his forehead in a white fringe. After perhaps half a dozen blows the young man held up his hand and the other stopped, his chest heaving. They exchanged rôles. The young giant struck easily and with a noble movement that enraptured Mrs Bünz.

She waited. The shoe was laid to the hoof and the smith in his classic pose crouched over the final task. The man in the background was motionless.

‘Dad, you’re wanted,’ the smith’s mate said. The smith glanced at her and made a movement of his head. ‘Yes, ma’am?’ asked the son.

‘I come with a message,’ Mrs Bünz began gaily. ‘From Dame Alice Mardian. The boiler at the castle has burst.’

They were silent. ‘Thank you, then, ma’am,’ the son said at last. He had come towards her but she felt that the movement was designed to keep her out of the smithy. It was as if he used his great torso as a screen for something behind it.

She beamed into his face. ‘May I come in?’ she asked. ‘What a wonderful smithy.’

‘Nobbut old scarecrow of a place. Nothing to see.’

‘Ach!’ she cried jocularly, ‘but that’s just what I like. Old things are by way of being my business, you see. You’d be’– she made a gesture that included the old smith and the motionless figure in the background –‘you’d all be surprised to hear how much I know about blackschmidts.’

‘Ar, yes, ma’am?’

‘For example,’ Mrs Bünz continued, growing quite desperately arch, ‘I know all about those spiral irons on your lovely old walls there. They’re fire charms, are they not? And, of course, there’s a horseshoe above your door. And I see by your beautifully printed little notice that you are Andersen, not Anderson, and that tells me so exactly just what I want to know. Everywhere, there are evidences for me to read. Inside, I dare say –’ She stood on tiptoe and coyly dodged her large head from side to side, peeping round him and making a mocking face as she did so. ‘I dare say there are all sorts of things –’

‘No, there bean’t then.’

The old smith had spoken. Out of his little body had issued a great roaring voice. His son half turned and Mrs Bünz, with a merry laugh, nipped past him into the shop.

‘It’s Mr Andersen, senior,’ she cried, ‘is it not? It is – dare I? – the Old Guiser himself? Now I know you don’t mean what you’ve just said. You are much too modest about your beautiful schmiddy. And so handsome a horse! Is he a hunter?’

‘Keep off. ’Er be a mortal savage kicker. See that naow,’ he shouted as the mare made a plunging movement with the near hind leg which he held cradled in his lap. ‘She’s fair moidered already. Keep off of it. Keep aout. There’s nobbut men’s business yur.’

‘And I had heard so much,’ Mrs Bünz said gently, ‘of the spirit of hospitality in this part of England. Zo! I was misinformed, it seems. I have driven over two hundred –’

‘Blow up, there, you, Chris. Blow up! Whole passel’s gone cold while she’ve been nattering. Blow up, boy.’

The man in the background applied himself to the bellows. A vivid glow pulsed up from the furnace and illuminated the forge. Farm implements, bits of harness, awards won at fairs flashed up. The man stepped a little aside and in doing so, he dislodged the piece of sacking he had thrown over his work. Mrs Bünz cried out in German. The smith swore vividly in English. Grinning out of the shadows was an iron face, half-bird, half-monster, brilliantly painted, sardonic, disturbing and, in that light, strangely alive.

Mrs Bünz gave a scream of ecstasy.

‘The Horse!’ she cried, clapping her hands like a mad woman. ‘The Old Hoss. The Hooden Horse. I have found it. Gott sie danke, what joy is mine!’

The third man had covered it again. She looked at their unsmiling faces.

‘Well, that was a treat,’ said Mrs Bünz in a deflated voice. She laughed uncertainly and returned quickly to her car.