One evening at half past five, she came into the bar-parlour in order to complete a little piece she was writing for an American publication on “The Hermaphrodite in European Folklore.” She found Simon Begg already there, lost in gloomy contemplation of a small notebook and the racing page of an evening paper.
She had entered into negotiations with Begg about repairing her car. She had also, of course, had her secret glimpses of him in the character of “Crack.” She greeted him with her particularly Teutonic air of camaraderie. “So!” she said, “you are early this evening, Wing-Commander.”
He made a sort of token movement, shifting a little in his chair and eying Trixie. Mrs. Bünz ordered cider. “The snow,” she said cozily, “continues, does it not?”
“That’s right,” he said, and then seemed to pull himself together. “Too bad we still can’t get round to fixing that little bus of yours, Mrs. — er — er — Buns, but there you are! Unless we get a tow —”
“There is no hurry. I shall not attempt the return journey before the weather improves. My baby does not enjoy the snow.”
“You’d be better off, if you don’t mind my saying so, with something that packs a bit more punch.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He repeated his remark in less idiomatic English. The merits of a more powerful car were discussed: it seemed that Begg had a car of the very sort he had indicated which he was to sell for an old lady who scarcely used it. Mrs. Bünz was by no means poor. Perhaps she weighed up the cost of changing cars with the potential result in terms of inside information on ritual dancing. In any case, she encouraged Begg, who became nimble in sales talk.
“It is true,” Mrs. Bünz meditated presently, “that if I had a more robust motor-car I could travel with greater security. Perhaps, for example, I should be able to ascend in frost with ease to Mardian Castle —”
“Piece-of-cake,” Simon Begg interjected.
“I beg your pardon?”
“This job I was telling you about laughs at a little stretch like that. Laughs at it.”
“—I was going to say, to Mardian Castle on Wednesday evening. That is, if onlookers are permitted.”
“It’s open to the whole village,” Begg said uncomfortably. “Open house.”
“Unhappily — most unhappily — I have antagonized your Guiser. Also, alas, Dame Alice.”
“Not to worry,” he muttered and added hurriedly, “It’s only a bit of fun, anyway.”
“Fun? Yes. It is also,” Mrs. Bünz added, “an antiquarian jewel, a precious survival. For example, five swords instead of six have I never before seen. Unique! I am persuaded of this.”
“Really?” he said politely. “Now, Mrs. Buns, about this car—”
Each of them hoped to placate the other. Mrs. Bünz did not, therefore, correct his pronunciation.
“I am interested,” she said genially, “in your description of this auto.”
“I’ll run it up here to-morrow and you can look it over.”
They eyed each other speculatively.
“Tell me,” Mrs. Bünz pursued, “in this dance you are, I believe, the Hobby-Horse?”
“That’s right. It’s a wizard little number, you know, this job —”
“You are a scholar of folklore, perhaps?”
“Me? Not likely.”
“But you perform?” she wailed.
“Just one of those things. The Guiser’s as keen as mustard and so’s Dame Alice. Pity, in a way, I suppose, to let it fold up.”
“Indeed, indeed. It would be a tragedy. Ach! A sin! I am, I must tell you, Mr. Begg, an expert. I wish, so much to ask you —” Here, in spite of an obvious effort at self-control, Mrs. Bünz became slightly tremulous. She leant forward, her rather prominent blue eyes misted with anxiety, her voice unconvincingly casual. “Tell me,” she quavered, “at the moment of sacrifice, the moment when the Fool beseeches the Sons to spare him, something is spoken, is it not?”
“I say!” he ejaculated, staring at her, “you do know a lot about it, don’t you?”
She began in a terrific hurry to explain that all European mumming had a common origin: that it was only reasonable to expect a little dialogue.
“We’re not meant to talk out of school,” Simon muttered. “I think it’s all pretty corny, mind. Well, childish, really. After all, what the heck’s it matter?”
“I assure you, I beg you to rest assured of my discretion. There is dialogue, no?”
“The Guiser sort of natters at the others.”
Mrs. Bünz, clutching frantically at straws of intelligence on a high wind of slang, flung out her fat little hands at him.
“Ach, my good, kind young motor-salesman,” she pleaded, reminding him of her potential as a customer, “of your great generosity, tell me what are the words he natters to the ozzers?”
“Honest, Mrs. Buns,” he said with evident regret, “I don’t know. Honest! It’s what he’s always said. Seems all round the bend to me. I doubt if the boys themselves know. P’raps it’s foreign or something.”
Mrs. Bünz looked like a cover-picture for a magazine called Frustration. “If it is foreign I would understand. I speak six European languages. Gott in Himmel, Mr. Begg — What is it?”
His attention had wandered to the racing edition on the table before him. His face lit up and he jabbed at the paper with his finger.
“Look at this!” he said. “Here’s a turn-up! Could you beat it?”
“I have not on my glasses.”
“Running next Thursday,” he read aloud, “in the one-thirty. ‘Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution’! Laugh that off.”
“I do not understand you.”
“It’s a horse,” he explained. “A race horse. Talk about coincidence! Talk about omens!”
“An omen?” she asked, catching at a familiar word.
“Good enough for me anyway. You’re Teutonic, aren’t you, Mrs. Buns?”
“Yes,” she said patiently. “I am Teuton, yes.”
“And we’ve been talking about dancers, haven’t we? And I’ve suggested you substitute another car for the one you’ve got? And if you have the little job I’ve been telling you about, well, I’ll be sort of subsidized, won’t I? Look, it’s uncanny.”
Mrs. Bünz rummaged in her pockets and produced her spectacles.
“Ach, I understand. You will bet upon this horse?”
“You can say that again.”
“ ‘Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution,’ ” she read slowly and an odd look came over her face. “You are right, Mr. Begg, it is strange. It may, as you say, be an omen.”
On the Sunday before Sword Wednesday, Camilla went after church to call upon her grandfather at Copse Forge. As she trudged through the snow she sang until the cold in her throat made her cough and then whistled until the frost on her lips made them too stiff. All through the week she had worked steadily at a part she was to play in next term’s showing and had done all her exercises every day. She had seen Ralph in church. They had smiled at each other, after which the organist, who was also the village postman, might have been the progeny of Orpheus and Saint Cecilia, so heavenly sweet did his piping sound to Camilla. Ralph had kept his promise not to come near her, but she hurried away from church because she had the feeling that he might wait for her if he left before she did. And until she got her emotions properly sorted out, thought Camilla, that would never do.
The sun came out. She met a robin redbreast, two sparrows and a magpie. From somewhere beyond the woods came the distant unalarming plop of a shot-gun. As she plodded down the lane she saw the spiral of smoke that even on Sundays wavered up over the copse from the hidden forge.