I turned and saw someone flapping about in the open doorway. It was Mad Meg. She was pointing, jabbing her finger at the stage, but then she threw her hands up to cover her face. At that moment, the house lights came on.
The vicar was quickly at her side.
"No! No!" she shrieked. "Don't take old Meg! Leave her be!"
He somehow managed to get an arm around her shoulder, and led her gently but firmly off into the hall's kitchen where, for a minute or so, her poor cracked voice could be heard whimpering, "The Devil! The Devil! The Devil got poor Robin!"
A hush fell on the place. Parents began shepherding their children — all of them now subdued — towards the exits.
The women from the Ladies' Auxiliary did a bit of aimless tidying, then scurried away — probably to gossip, hands over mouths, I thought.
I found myself alone.
Nialla seemed to have vanished, although I had not seen her leave. Since I could hear the soft murmur of voices backstage, Rupert was presumably still up on the bridge of his puppet stage.
It was then that I thought of putting physics to work. As I have said, the hall's Victorian designers had made a perfect sound reflector of its interior. The vast expanses of the room's dark varnished paneling picked up the slightest sounds, and focused them wonderfully. By standing at the very center of the room, I found that, with my acute hearing, I could easily make out every word. One of the voices I had heard was Rupert's.
"Bloody hell!" he was saying, in a loud whisper. "Bloody hell, Nialla!"
Nialla said nothing, although I thought I heard a sob.
"Well, we shall have to put a stop to it. That's plain."
Put a stop to what? Had she told him she was pregnant? Or was he talking about his quarrel with Mutt Wilmott? Or with Gordon Ingleby?
Before I could overhear another word, the door to the kitchen opened, and the vicar came out into the hall with Mad Meg leaning on his arm, followed by Cynthia and two members of the Ladies' Auxiliary.
"It's out of the question," Cynthia was saying, "quite out of the question. The place is simply reeking with paint fumes. Furthermore, we don't have — "
"I'm afraid I must overrule you on this occasion, my dear. This poor woman needs somewhere to rest, and we can hardly send her packing back to — "
"A hovel in the woods?" Cynthia asked, a red flush rising in her cheeks.
"Flavia, dear girl," the vicar said as he spotted me. "Would you mind running ahead to the vicarage? The door is open. If you'll be kind enough to clear the books off the couch in my study ... it doesn't much matter where you put them. We shall be along directly."
Nialla appeared suddenly from behind the curtains. "Just a moment, Vicar," she said. "I'm coming with you."
I could see that she was holding herself together, but only just.
The vicarage study looked as if Charles Kingsley had just put down his pen and stepped out of the room. The bookcases, floor to ceiling, were jammed cheek-by-jowl with volumes which, to judge by their solemn bindings, could only have been of ecclesiastical interest. A cluttered, overflowing desk covered most of the room's single window, and a black horsehair sofa — an Everest of dusty books — leaned at a crazy angle on a threadbare Turkish carpet.
No sooner had I shifted the books to the floor than Nialla and the vicar arrived, leading Meg solicitously to the sofa. She seemed dazed, managing only a few vague mutters as Nialla helped her to recline and smoothed her filthy clothing.
A moment later, Dr. Darby's portly presence filled the doorway. Someone must have run up the high street to fetch him from his surgery.
"Um," he ventured, as he put down his black medical bag, opened the clasp, and had a good dig round inside. With a noisy rustle, he brought forth a paper bag and extracted a crystal mint, which he popped into his mouth.
With that detail out of the way, he bent over Meg for a closer look.
"Um," he said again, and reached into the bag for a syringe. He filled the thing from a little bottle of clear liquid, rolled up Meg's sleeve, and slid the needle into her arm.
Meg made not a sound, but looked up at him with eyes like a sledgehammered horse.
From a tall wardrobe in the corner — as if by magic — the vicar produced a pillow and a brightly colored afghan.
"Afternoon naps." He smiled, covering her gently, and Meg was snoring even before the last one of us had stepped softly from the room.
"Vicar," Nialla said abruptly, "I know you'll think it awful of me, but I have a very great favor to ask."
"Ask away," the vicar said, with a worried glance at Cynthia, who was hovering at the far end of the hall.
"I'd be eternally grateful if you could permit me a hot bath. I haven't had one for so long, I feel like something that lives under a stone."
"Of course, my dear," the vicar said. "It's upstairs at the end of the hall. Help yourself to soap and towels.
"And don't mind the little yacht," he added with a smile. "It's mine."
As Nialla climbed the stairs, a rubber heel squeaked on waxed floorboards, and Cynthia was gone.
"Cynthia has offered to run you over to Buckshaw," the vicar said, turning to me, and I knew instantly that he was fibbing. "I expect you'll be back this evening with your family?"
"Oh, of course," I said. "They're all jolly keen on Jack and the Beanstalk."
With Gladys strapped precariously to the roof, we crept slowly along the lane in the tired, dusty Oxford. Cynthia, like vicar's wives in general, had a tendency to over-control, steering from side to side in a series of pie crust scallops between the hedges.
Sitting beside her in the front seat, I had a good opportunity to examine her overbite, close-up and in profile. Even with her mouth shut, she showed a remarkable amount of tooth, and I found myself seriously rethinking my rebellion against braces.
"There's always something, isn't there?" she said suddenly, her face still on fire from her recent humiliation. "One is forever being rousted out of one's own house by someone more needy — not that I mind, of course. First, it was the Gypsies. Then, during the war, the evacuees. Then, last year, the Gypsies came again. Denwyn went to them in Gibbet Wood, and invited them personally, each and every one, to attend the Holy Eucharist. Not a single man jack of them ever showed up, of course. Gypsies are savages, essentially, or perhaps Roman Catholics. Not that they don't have souls — they do, naturally — but one always feels that theirs are so much shadier than one's own."
"I wonder how Nialla's getting on with her bath?" I remarked brightly, as we drove up the avenue of chestnuts to Buckshaw.
Cynthia stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel.
"Nonsense!" Aunt Felicity declared. "We shall go as a family."
We were in the drawing room, spread as widely apart as was humanly possible.
Father muttered something about stamp albums, and I could see that Daffy was already holding her breath in an attempt to feign a fever.
"You and your girls need to get out more, Haviland. You're all of you as pale as jellyfish. It will be my treat. I shall have Clarence bring round his car as soon as we've eaten."
"But — " Father managed.
"I shall brook no buts, Haviland."
Outside, Dogger was weeding at the edge of the terrace. Aunt Felicity rapped sharply on the windowpane to get his attention.
"Yes, miss?" he said, coming to the French doors, straw hat in hand.
"Ring up Clarence and tell him we shall require a taxi for seven at six-thirty."
"Six-thirty, miss?" Dogger asked, his brow furrowed.
"Of course," Aunt Felicity said. "He'll have to make two trips. I expect you and Mrs. Mullet would both have your noses out of joint if you were left behind. Puppet shows are not just for bluebloods, you know."
"Thank you, miss," Dogger said.