The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

For the first time in my life, I was speechless.

'I don't smoke,' I managed.

'And why is that?' she asked. 'Too young or too wise?'

'I was thinking of taking it up next week,' I said lamely. 'I just hadn't actually got round to it yet.'

She threw her head back and laughed toothily, like a film star. 'I like you, Flavia de Luce,' she said. 'But I have the advantage, don't I? You've told me your name, but I haven't told you mine.'

'It's Nialla,' I said. 'Mr. Porson called you Nialla.'

She stuck out her hand, her face grave. 'That's right,' she said, 'he did. But you can call me Mother Goose.'

* TWO *

MOTHER GOOSE!

I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult. It has been my experience that facetiousness in the mouth of someone old enough to know better is often no more than camouflage for something far, far worse.

And yet, in spite of that, I found myself swallowing the sharp--and deliciously nasty!--retort that was already on the tip of my tongue, and instead, managed a diluted smile.

'Mother Goose?' I repeated, dubiously.

She burst into tears again, and I was glad that I had held my tongue. I was about to be instantly rewarded by hearing something juicy.

Besides, I had already begun to detect a slight but invisible attraction between this woman and myself. Could it be pity? Or was it fear? I couldn't say: I knew only that some deep-seated chemical substance inside one of us was crying out to its long-lost complement--or was it its antidote?--in the other.

I put a hand gently on her shoulder and held out my handkerchief. She looked at it skeptically.

'It's all right,' I said. 'They're only grass stains.'

That set her off into a remarkable contortion. She buried her face in the handkerchief, and her shoulders quaked so violently I thought for a moment she was going to fly to pieces. To allow her time to recover--and because I was rather embarrassed by her outburst--I wandered off a little distance to examine the inscription on a tall, weathered gravestone that marked the grave of one Lydia Green, who had 'dyed' in 1638 at the age of 'one hundred and thirty-five yeeres.'

She once warr Grene but now she waxeth white, it said on the stone, lamented by a fewe frends.

Had Lydia lived, I reflected, she would now be four hundred and forty-seven years old, and probably a person well worth getting to know.

'Oh, I feel such a chump.'

I turned to see the woman dabbing at her eyes and giving me a damp grin.

'I'm Nialla,' she said, sticking out a hand. 'Rupert's assistant.'

I fought back my revulsion and gave her fingers a lightning-quick shake. As I had suspected, her hand was wet and sticky. As soon as I was decently able, I slid my own hand out of sight behind my back and wiped it on the back of my skirt.

'Assistant?' The word popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

'Oh, I know the vicar assumed that I'm Rupert's wife. But it's not like that. Honestly! It's not like that at all.'

I glanced over involuntarily at the Porson's Puppets van. She spotted it at once.

'Well, yes ... we do travel together. I suppose Rupert and I have what you might call ... a very great affection for one another. But husband and wife ... ?'

What kind of fool did she take me for? It was no more than a week since Daffy had been reading aloud to Feely and me from Oliver Twist, and I knew, as surely as I knew my own name, that this woman, Nialla, was Nancy to Rupert Porson's Bill Sikes. Didn't she realize that I'd spotted the filthy great bruise on her upper arm?

'Actually, it's such jolly fun rattling about England with Rupert. He's recognized everywhere we go, you know. Just the day before yesterday, for instance, we were playing at Market Selby when we were spotted in the post office by a fat lady in a flowerpot hat.

''Rupert Porson!' she shrieked. 'Rupert Porson uses the Royal Mail, just like everyone else!''

Nialla laughed. 'And then she begged him for his autograph. They always do, you know. Insisted he put 'Best wishes from Snoddy the Squirrel.' When he does it that way, he always draws a couple of little nuts. She claimed she wanted it for her nephew, but I knew better. When you're on the road a lot, you develop a certain sense for these things. You can always tell.'

She was prattling. If I kept quiet, it wouldn't be more than a minute before she would be confiding her size in knickers.

'Someone at the BBC told Rupert that twenty-three percent of his viewing audience is made up of childless housewives. Seems a lot, doesn't it? But there's something about The Magic Kingdom that satisfies one's innate desire for escape. That's the exact way they put it to Rupert: 'one's innate desire for escape.' Everyone needs to escape, don't they? In one way or another, I mean.'

'Everyone but Mother Goose,' I said.