Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Lousy,” said Denis. “I could do you a better story myself. Of course there won’t be any ghost.”

  “I know the story, of course, but why the coach, I wonder?” put in Hugh. “I should have thought a walking headless ghost would have been more natural. Old Fossder’s going to take up the challenge, by the way. You know—the anonymous letter from Reading.”

  “Query,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Is a headless ghost in a coach more or less horrible than a headless ghost not in a coach?”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Carey, “last Christmas I thought I’d have a shot at seeing the ghost for myself. But it was so wet that I gave up the idea, and went to bed instead. Perhaps old Fossder will be lucky. He gets two hundred pounds if he sees it, anyway.”

  “Really,” said Mrs. Bradley, “I should like to have an eye-witness’ account of the matter.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t have got it from Carey, anyway, would you?” observed Denis. “I mean that Carey would have been dead by now, if he’d seen it.”

  “Possibly not. The year isn’t up until tomorrow night,” said Hugh. He arranged some chestnuts on the bars of the grate. “Which reminds me; at what time of day did you say you’d call for those girls? I know it was after dinner, but when, exactly?” he asked.

  “I said about half-past ten, so that you need not hurry. It’s a nuisance they’ve got to come the night before, but we shouldn’t want to fetch them on Christmas morning, and Mr. Fossder doesn’t keep a car. Can’t think why not! The man’s got plenty of money. Will George expect to have his beauty-sleep broken?” he added suddenly, turning to Mrs. Bradley. “We must give him the word in the morning, I suppose.”

  “George won’t mind,” said Mrs. Bradley, “as long as the roads are good.”

  “They’re not bad. It’s all main road from Thornhill Farm, you know. Better go into the city through Headington and out again along the Iffley Road. That’s better than going across country in the dark.”

  “Aunt Bradley,” said Denis, breaking into the silence which had followed the conclusion of the arrangements, “would you like to hear me play the pipe and tabor?”

  “What?” said Mrs. Bradley. “But they told me it was the oboe!”

  “Well, what’s the difference?” said Carey, appealing to Hugh.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll bet you he tried them both, and decided upon the more hideous,” said Hugh, adroitly dodging the cushion that Denis threw.

  “The pipe and tabor,” said Denis, “is not one instrument, you fathead. It happens to be two. I’ll get them, shall I?” he asked, looking at Mrs. Bradley. “Of course, I’m not much good. I generally keep the tabor going, but I forget to play the pipe. Or, if the tune’s a bit twiddly, then I have to concentrate on the pipe and let the tabor go.”

  “All right. Get ’em out,” said Carey.

  “You’ll all have to look the other way, or shut your eyes or something, then,” said Denis. “I don’t want anyone to know where I keep them, you see, at present.”

  Something in his voice made Carey glance sharply at him.

  “A secret hiding place in my house?” he asked mockingly. Denis grinned.

  “I ought to show you, I suppose, but I found it myself,” he said. “Nobody told me about it. I didn’t even know there was one. I went over all the panelling one night when everybody was in bed. I was jolly well scared, I can tell you, being down here all alone at dead of night. It was jolly eerie, and no end weird and creepy. Funny noises—not rats—just noises that you couldn’t account for, and me with just a candle, and all the shadows everywhere, and a beastly wind in the chimney. But I found the right panel, and then I was jolly glad, but I didn’t explore behind it until the morning. It’s a priest’s hole, I expect. Look here! I’ll show you,” he concluded generously. “After all, it is your house.”

  It might possibly have been a priest’s hole. It was certainly a secret room. Even its air-vent was concealed from outside by a thick growth of ivy, they discovered.

  “I’ll have that cut away,” said Carey, pleased to find that the house had a secret hiding place. “I’m much obliged to you, Scab. In times of stress, I can hide from Mrs. Ditch and her motherly ways. Yes! Good for you. I call that a handsome hole, and quite up to the recognised standard for such places.”

  “I believe it ought to have another exit. I’ve been searching for one,” said Denis. He took up the pipe and tabor, and, after a few preliminary skirmishings, began to play a saucy little tune.

  “You’ll bring Ditch up,” said Carey. “He’ll offer to do a Morris dance. You’d better be nice about it,” he added to Mrs. Bradley. “Ditch is a Headington man, and knows all the dances backwards. They won’t have a six, because Tombley and Bob Ditch aren’t here to oblige, but he’s taught me a bit, and Hugh can walk it. Here he comes! I thought so.”

  But it was Mrs. Ditch who came into the room. She carried a very large milk jug filled with mulled ale.

  “A loven-cup, mam,” she said. Mrs. Bradley took the jug and drank, and it went the round. “And now, ef ee pleases, Detch’ll dance,” she said, “ef Mr. Denis well oblige ’em with the toon.”

  “I’ll bring my violin. I’m better on that,” said Denis. He went out with Mrs. Ditch, and as they reached the door Carey suddenly asked,

  “What is that tune that Denis was playing just now?”

  “Er? Er’s Constant Billy, Mr. Carey. ’Ull I seng et for ee? Though my sengen days be over, I do thenk.”

  “Do sing it,” said Mrs. Bradley. So Mrs. Ditch, her hand on Denis” shoulder, sang in a thin, untrained, but tuneful voice, the Headington words of the song:

  “O Constant Billy,

  Shall I go with ee?

  O when shall I see

  My Billy again?”

  “Beggar’s Opera,” said Hugh. “But different words, of course. I knew I’d heard it somewhere. Sing it again, Mrs. Ditch.”

  The Morris men were not in their Whitsun costume.

  “Our whites be all put away by mother ’ere,” said Ditch. They were wearing belts round their trousers, and cricket boots on their feet. On their legs, between knee and ankle, were fastened pads of bells. The pads were made of soft leather cut up and down to within an inch of the top and bottom of the pad, to give the bells more play. The men carried handkerchiefs and Morris sticks. Denis took up his position near the door. The men put down their handkerchiefs and sticks, and helped to clear the centre of the room. Carey and Hugh took the middle positions, opposite one another, and Young Walt whispered to Hugh,

  “You follow Dad. I’ll push ee through the hey. Never mind the steps. Ee can walk, so be ee doesn’t throw us all out. Tell ee what, our dad! Let us do Blue-Eyed Stranger,” he added, raising his voice. So they all caught up their large handkerchiefs, holding all the four corners in proper Headington fashion, and Denis played over the tune.

  “Ee shudn’t ’ear the beat o’ the feet, like, not really ee shudn’t,” whispered Mrs. Ditch to Mrs. Bradley. “Tes done on grass or the road, you see, at Whitsun; and always remember, mam, when ee sees the dancen, as ee don’t know who tes that does et! Onderstand, do ee, I wonder?”

  “I think so,” said Mrs. Bradley, who had seen ritual dances before.

  “Us onpacked the boar’s head, like ee told us, mam,” said Ditch, when the dance was over and the dancers were taking refreshment. “Very well er looked, too, didn’t er, young Our Walt?”

  “Ah, our dad, er ded,” said Walt, with a nod.

  “A case of carrying coals to Newcastle, all the same, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Bradley, remembering with a shudder the blackpuddings.

  Chapter Two

  FOOT UP AT OLD FARM

  “Are you keen on pigs, Aunt Adela?” Carey enquired next morning. “What I mean to say—you have told Hugh some revolting stories of your medical student days; listened to young Scab’s performances on various musical instruments; you have seen Ditch dance, and heard Mrs. Ditch sing. Where do I come in?�
��

  “Show her Sabrina,” said Hugh. “Sabrina is my favourite,” he added to Mrs. Bradley. “She is the only one of her race who has ever known me by sight after the second meeting. She gave a bellow of rage and nearly pushed the side of her sty out in her frantic efforts to savage me. I can’t think why she finds me offensive, but she does. The only other female who ever took a dislike to me was the late Countess of Serren. I was sick on her shoe at a school prize-giving. Sheer nervousness on my part, but not well received, none the less.”

  He accompanied Mrs. Bradley to the pig-houses. Carey stayed behind for a word with Ditch, who had come to ask for instructions.

  “Let’s do the fattening house first,” suggested Hugh, as they crossed the yard. “We can pretend we are at the Zoo, if that makes it any easier. I expect Carey will be wounded if you don’t make your inspection pretty thorough.”

  The fattening house, as Hugh had indicated, was not unlike the cattle sheds at the Zoological Gardens. It was warm inside, and consisted of a large centre passage or gangway between numbers of adjoining sties, in which white pigs, alert to the welcome sound of footsteps—for it was almost feeding time—came nosing, snuffling, and squealing up to the front boards.

  Behind the sties ran manure passages to facilitate the work of clearing out the house. There were plenty of windows in the two long walls. The lower half of each window was fixed, but the upper half opened on an elbow-shaped iron ventilating rod, so that air, without the danger of draught, was admitted.

  “You have to admire this fully,” said Hugh, conducting her slowly along the centre gangway, and waiting politely while she stopped to look at the pigs. “I had to, and I’m not going to let you off.”

  “But I do admire it,” Mrs. Bradley protested. “Carey enjoys keeping pigs, and there are too few people in this world who really enjoy what they’re doing.” She stopped and gazed with benign and earnest interest at several halfgrown porkers who thought she was going to feed them. Carey joined her, and Hugh slowly sauntered away, to make a bee-line back to the house as soon as he left the pig-house. Carey laughed.

  “Old Hugh does hate these pigs. He’s off to sweat at a book about tunny fishing. For a public librarian he’s got queer hobbies. He loves to kill things, you know. Come along here and have a look at Buttercup. She’s not my best gilt. She has only ten teats, confound her, but to look at she’s a rather pleasing specimen of the result of mating a pure bred Large White boar with an Essex sow. She forages well, and seems a good-tempered young woman. She ought to make a good mother, in spite of her shortcomings. If she has a big litter I expect I shall rear the runt and one or two others by hand. It’s fun feeding little pigs. They’re very much jollier than puppies. Greedy little devils, too, and full of fight. Simith, my neighbour, crossed a Large White with a Berkshire, and got quite good results. Have to be careful in your choice of breeding pigs. Black pigs ain’t popular for table. I’d like you to see Simith’s place. He runs it on the open-air system, but his nephew, a chap named Tombley, is always trying to get him to alter to a Scandinavian stunt like this one. They fight over it like fiends. You’d have to laugh.” He led the way out, and they strolled to the larger pig-house.

  “I’ve met them,” said Mrs. Bradley. She described her first evening’s adventure. “Do take me over again, child. I should love to see them again—and their pig-farm, too, of course,” she added hastily. Carey looked at her sideways.

  “Don’t bother to apologise,” he said. “Is Simith going to be one of your specimens, love?”

  “No, Tombley, I think,” said Mrs. Bradley, laughing.

  “Bit of an oaf, that fellow,” said Carey, frowning. “I don’t mind old Simith. He’s a countryman to the marrow, for all his money. But Tombley’s a bit of a mixture. Simith came from Bampton, you know, on the other side of the county, and hasn’t been here very long. The local people don’t like him. I think it’s only prejudice, although I have heard that the old chap likes to exercise a sort of Droit de Seigneur with the daughters of his tenants, and that don’t go down very well. We’re moral coves, you know, in Stanton St. John. I’ve often wondered what makes Mrs. Ditch let Linda go on working there, but, of course, she comes home when she likes, and Mrs. Ditch is a bit of a terror as a mother, although you might not think so. Got ’em all under her thumb, and held pretty tight, you know. Here’s Buttercup.” He leaned over and smacked the gilt. Mrs. Bradley stood by in what she hoped would pass for an admiring attitude. “And here’s my favourite, Clytie.” He stopped by a very large sow and called to her. She squealed with pleasure, lumbered up and planted her forefeet against the wood of her run. She opened her jaws and seemed to grin at him. Carey caressed her chops and tickled her snout. He pulled her large ears gently, and talked to her all the time.

  “But how can you bear to kill them?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Slavers of dripping saliva, the product of almost uncontrollable love, were coming from the jaws of the sow. It was pathetic and disgusting, fascinating and abhorrent, to see her attachment to Carey, and to hear her squeals of reproach when he went away.

  “I don’t kill my sows,” said Carey, “unless they are ill. They die in their pampered old age. Sentimentality, that is, and very bad for business. My bacon pigs and porkers I take care never to make friends with. Now come along and see Tom.”

  “I always thought boars and sows—in fact, pedigree animals in general, including dogs and cats—had resounding important names such as ‘Blue China Charles the Second of Bloomsbury,’ ” said Mrs. Bradley, following her nephew to the place where the boar was stied.

  “They do. But in private life we shorten ’em up a bit. This, for instance, is Christchurch Tom of Stanton, and the sow you’ve just seen in Brockenhurst Clytemnestra the Fourth.”

  “And is Tom savage?” asked Mrs. Bradley, looking down on the boar.

  “Oh, no, not a bit, except with strangers. Look.” He opened the gate and walked in. Tom backed away, stood with his back to the fencing, and scratched the ground with his feet. “Come on, you old stupid,” said Carey. Slowly the boar advanced, as delicately as though he were treading a minuet, but when he was less than four feet away from Carey he made a frenzied rush. Carey leapt aside like a Spanish bull-fighter, slapped the boar on the hams and faced him again. This happened three times, and then the boar turned quiet and walked away. Carey went after him, held his head, and showed Mrs. Bradley his tusks. Then he walked calmly out of the run, and fastened the door behind him, wiping his hands down his trousers.

  “I shouldn’t like to say he wasn’t savage,” was Mrs. Bradley’s comment.

  “He’s only playing. He likes it. But, of course, he’s a bit of a rough-neck. I always go into his sty for ten minutes’ exercise each day when I want to train for a fight. Gets your eye in, and makes you pretty nippy on your pins, both very encouraging attributes in the ring. But Hereward’s the one you want to see. He’s in a separate sty. We’ll pass him on our way to the house, and I’ll show him to you. He’s more like a dog than a boar. Anyone could handle him, I should think. He’s young, and I’ve brought him up myself, from babyhood. He’s a lovely chap. Only two years old.”

  “Come on, you two. It’s a quarter to one,” said Hugh, who had come to the pig-house to find them.

  So they went indoors without stopping at Hereward’s sty. Mrs. Ditch appeared with a joint of beef.

  “Great heavens, Mrs. Ditch! This is heresy!” Hugh observed, regarding the beef with rapturous surprise.

  “Ah, so et es, too and all,” said Mrs. Ditch. “Hearsay is right, though how ee knowed et es more than I can fathom. However, be ee enformed that Mester Dellock kelled for Chrestmas, and I says to Ditch to go over there with the dung cart and bring back a nice piece for dinner. And here er be. Though ’ow ee could ’ave knowed aught about et beats me, that et do.”

  “He’s also among the prophets, like Saul, Mrs. Ditch,” said Carey, handing the carving knife to Hugh. “Here you are. Professionals forward, please.” He addr
essed Mrs. Ditch again.

  “Where’s Scab, by the way? Fallen into the New College tenants’ well at last?”

  “Mr. Denis ’as got some notion of see-en old Napier’s ghost tomorrow night,” said Mrs. Ditch, a little anxiously. She looked at Mrs. Bradley. “I aren’t a one to be fanciful, mam, I’m sure, but I really don’t like the idea, and him so young a child. Ef I was mother to him, he wouldn’t be go-en to see no ghost at Sandford, and so I tell ee.” She sounded breathless, and looked defiant. “Two hundred is a lot of money, mam.”

  “You surely don’t believe in the Sandford legend, Mrs. Ditch?” said Hugh, surprised. Mrs. Ditch began twisting her apron between her fingers, and did not meet his eye.

  “I don’t believe nothen, Mr. Hugh,” she said, half-angrily. “But ef nobody else don’t keep that child at home, I’ll do it myself, be blowed to me ef I won’t! It isn’t safe, I tell ee, for anybody down that way to see that there old coach. I don’t believe nothen, but et isn’t for lettle children, as haven’t their mothers with ’em, to go to Sandford on Christmas Eve, tomorrow night as is.”