The Death-Cap Dancers

Chapter 2: WOOD SAGE

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‘I’ll take it. I’d love to stay, so long as it’s all right with the others.’

‘You said Isobel mentioned it, and I’m sure Tamsin will agree, not that we take any notice of her as a general rule. If you want a shower, better have it now while the coast is clear before the others get up. I’ll give you your breakfast as soon as you’re through. I expect I’d better make some sort of rota. Four people to one shower-room need organising.’

‘Are you a born organiser?’

‘I’ve had organising thrust upon me from an early age. My mother died when I was eight and my father has not married again. Wonder whether there’s a chance of getting the Sunday papers? We shall all want to sit about a bit after breakfast.’

At ten there was a caller. A tall young man was at the door when Erica answered it. He gave her a brisk greeting and added, ‘I saw the boy cycling towards the shop with the papers. I’m going down for ours, so I wondered whether you’d like me to bring one for you. My name’s John Trent. My parents and I have the cabin opposite yours.’

Isobel and Tamsin had breakfasted and it was Isobel who answered: ‘Oh, thanks very much. Sunday Times and Sunday Express, if they’ve got them.’

‘They had them last week.’

‘You’ve been here a week, then?’

‘Yes. Let me warn you to expect one of the foresters this morning.’

‘Oh, Lord! What have we done?’

‘Oh, nothing. It’s simply that on the first Sunday morning a forester collects up the new arrivals and takes them on a conducted tour so that they know their way around. It’s quite easy to get lost in the forest, although I should think the literature they supply and their map of the forest walks would be sufficient guide to anyone of average intelligence.’

‘Ah, but not many people are of average intelligence,’ said Isobel, ‘as you would know if you had my job.’

‘Even with average intelligence, you’d need a compass as well as a map,’ said Tamsin from the settee. John Trent looked at the strapped-up ankle.

‘So you won’t be going on the pious pilgrimage,’ he said.

‘Not today, but it’s only a wrench. I shall go out for a drive this afternoon, I expect.’

The forester, with another group of holiday-makers, turned up soon after John returned with the papers. Erica volunteered to keep Tamsin company and to cook the Sunday lunch while Isobel and Hermione went off with the party for a nominal half-hour’s tour.

The suggested half-hour’s walk turned into a protracted hike which lasted until lunchtime, for the forester was an enthusiastic naturalist and spared neither their ears nor their legs as he took them round. The party was given the names of trees and shrubs, and was taken out of the forest itself to be shown two species of amphibians, the common and the great crested newt, which had chosen to breed in an abandoned sheep-trough. Back in the forest they saw fungi, including the scabrous-looking orange phlebia sprouting from the dead bough of a forest oak — ‘you can find it on birch, alder and gorse at any time of year’ — and were shown the ‘lawyer’s wig’, edible when young. ‘We use it as an ingredient of a ketchup made with vinegar, salt, peppercorns, coriander and a touch of ground cloves. When the fungi are old they turn to a black mess which can be used as ink. And here we have…’

He became almost tiresomely informative and in the middle of a pine-wood and a dissertation on the red milk-cap which was spreading itself freely on the ground under the odiferous, tall, straight pine-trees, Isobel touched Hermione’s arm and they sidled away and went back to the cabin.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ asked Tamsin.

‘We were shown a badger’s sett and a fox’s hole and were taken to a bank where there was a positive warren of rabbits, although we did not see the rabbits themselves, only their droppings — and these were much mixed up with those of sheep,’ said Isobel. ‘No doubt it was all very interesting for those who like that kind of thing, but all it reminded me of was the dreary nature walks we used to take under the guidance of our botany lecturer at college. Anyway, my feet are killing me. Chuck me the Sunday Express. I can usually do their general knowledge crossword if it doesn’t include the names of politicians or anything to do with electricity.’

‘You filled in ohm last Sunday,’ said Tamsin.

‘No. It filled itself in from the “down” columns, so that saw me through. I would scorn to know anything about a subject which all our sixth-form boys have at their fingertips.’

After lunch she announced her intention of spending the afternoon with the newspaper and with her feet up. Hermione, who had taken her long walk before breakfast as well as the later one with the forester, was also disinclined for further exertion.

At half-past two, just as the washing-up was finished, John Trent came over and offered to take Tamsin and Erica in his car to make, as far as possible, the same round as the other two had done that morning with the forester.

‘We had a reclining seat put in the car for my mother,’ he said, looking at Tamsin, ‘so I can put it back for you to keep your foot up. My parents always snooze on Sunday afternoons, so I’d be pleased to have something to do.’

Tamsin reported that her ankle was so much easier that she had no need to keep her foot up, but would be glad to go out in a car and follow the forest trails so far as this was possible.

‘I think I’ve walked most of them,’ said John. ‘Of course, walking is the only real way to get to know a countryside.’

‘A sage remark,’ said Isobel, ‘but Hermione and I defaulted this morning. We dodged the column at the second viewpoint after we’d seen a farm and some sheep. My legs were giving way beneath me and my mind was giving way under a mass of information. I spend my working life dishing out information to others, but I find it difficult to digest when it’s dished out to me.’

‘I shall try not to bore the passengers. If they prefer it, I will do nothing except answer questions.’

‘And will you stop the car if I ask you?’ said Tamsin.

‘Yes, of course. Do you get car-sick?’

‘Oh, heavens, no! I’m a painter and I shall be on the lookout for anything that seems to be in my line because this is a working holiday for me.’

‘I say! Have you had anything hung?’

‘Only a hare somebody sent her last year,’ said Isobel, ‘and after she’d hung it according to instructions, she liked the look of what was happening to it so little that she asked the man next door to bury it. He didn’t, of course. He ate it and said he enjoyed it very much.’

‘It nearly turned her into a vegetarian,’ said Erica, ‘or so she told me in a letter. This holiday is a get-together for the three of us. We’re all working-girls and don’t see a great deal of one another as a general rule.’

John picked up Tamsin, when he had brought his car round to the foot of the cabin steps, and installed her in the front seat, where there was more leg-room than Erica had at the back. They were out until five and Tamsin was lyrical when they returned and John had gone.

‘We’ve been out on to the moors as well as in the forest,’ she said, ‘and there are lots of bits I want to paint. We were able to leave the car on the edge of the woods and John wouldn’t let me do any real walking, but with his help—’

‘The strong man carried her,’ said Erica. ‘Why do I weigh ten and a half stone and look like a baby elephant, while she looks like a wistful wraith and is all pale and interesting with a wrenched ankle?’

‘There was something in the woods which he very much wanted us to see,’ said Tamsin.

‘One of these awful warnings,’ said Erica, ‘that we must point out to you two when we get the chance. Deadly poisonous, my dears, and easily mistaken by the uninitiated for a true, wholesome, delicious mushroom. It even grows in the same places as mushrooms. It’s called the Death-Cap and you don’t know you’ve been poisoned until twelve hours after you’ve eaten it and then it’s usually too late for any antidote to work.’

‘So the great thing,’ said Tamsin, ‘is to distinguish it from the harmless mushroom and avoid it. It grows in deciduous woods in the autumn and on all kinds of soil and its Latin name is Amanita phalloides. It can have a yellowish or greenish or brownish cap and it even has one of those sort of frills round its neck like a true mushroom. John says fatalities from eating it are more common on the Continent than over here because foreigners are more adventurous with their fungi than we are, but he thought he ought to warn us about the Death-Cap all the same.’

‘Rather like it and just as poisonous, he says, is the Destroying Angel, Amanita virosa, but fortunately it’s rare in this country and he couldn’t find a specimen to show us,’ said Erica. ‘What is it that seems so thrilling about poisons?’

‘We had all this information from our forester,’ said Isobel. ‘In answer to your question, I suppose it’s simply the possibility of causing death which provides the titillation. You can’t be bothered with a crime novel which doesn’t have at least one murder in it, can you? That’s why poisoning is interesting. It’s so often deliberate, you see, and so desperately wicked, at that — worse, I mean, than bashing somebody over the head or even strangling them — that it has the fascination which makes evil so much more interesting than goodness. Look at schools. It’s the rule-breakers, the pests, the sinners, who get all the attention and most of the limelight, not the decent, middle-of-the-road, non-teacher-baiting herd which, fortunately for us poor pedagogues, still forms the main body of the population.’

Erica returned to the original subject.

‘Anyway, I’m glad I know about Amanita phalloides,’ she said, ‘because it really does look so much like mushroom that you could easily mistake it if you hadn’t been warned.’

‘I don’t know why you two were bored this morning,’ said Tamsin, ‘It wasn’t only the fungi. We’ve had a wonderful time. John took us all over the place. Wherever the car could go, we went. There’s nothing he doesn’t know. We even had the good luck to see a fox.’

‘You live in the country, Hermione. Have you any views on fox-hunting?’ asked Erica.

‘Not really. I don’t think ours is hunting country. Bicester would be the nearest. I don’t care enough either way to get hot under the collar. I once walked a hound puppy and thought it was perfectly charming and a friend of mine brought up a fox-cub which she adored, so what’s the answer?’

‘That only man is vile,’ said Isobel, ‘but we knew that, anyway.’

‘Telephone! ’ said Laura Gavin, getting up from the table. ‘Must be a wrong number. Who would telephone us at this time of day?’

‘Finish your dinner,’ said Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. ‘I will answer it.’ She went out of the room and presently found herself in conversation with Hermione’s mother.

‘I’m a bit puzzled,’ said Mrs Jenny Lestrange. ‘You know that Hermione was going to spend a fortnight with my sister Sarah? Well, there is mumps in the house, so they can’t have her. Instead of coming straight home she seems to have fixed up to stay with some people with whom she spent last night. She picked them up on the moors. I suppose it’s all right? Young people do these casual things nowadays, don’t they?’

‘Picked them up on the moors?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘That sounds odd and intriguing. However, I think the fact that the pronoun in the accusative case is in the plural should reassure you. Had she said she had picked him up on the moors, you might have cause for speculation. I take it that you are slightly perturbed, or you would not have telephoned.’

‘She phoned me just a few minutes ago to say she has been invited to stay at this shack in the forest at a place called Wayland. She thought at first that it was only for one night, but now it seems just possible that she may put in a fortnight with these people at their express invitation.’

‘Well, Hermione is a sensible girl. I do not suppose there is anything to worry about.’

‘I’m not exactly worried. The thing is that I can’t get in touch with her over the telephone unless she rings me first. There is only a public call-box where she is. I have written to her to ask her to keep in contact with us, but no post goes out from here until tomorrow morning and goodness knows whether letters ever get to this wooden hut of hers, anyway.’

‘Wayland? A wooden hut? Oh, it will be on Forestry Commission property, and perfectly respectable. It is a holiday centre.’

‘What, at this time of year?’

‘Mellow autumn, “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.” Autumn is a worthy season for holidays and immortal verse.’

‘Keats was thinking about September, not October. He says the swallows were gathering; that means they hadn’t migrated. I wish the starlings would migrate instead of being joined by hordes of their relations who do migrate from further north, and sometimes I think the whole lot of them descend on this farm. They even chivvy the cats if I put food out, and one really doesn’t want the stable cats indoors. Look, Aunt dear, I’d go myself if Hermione didn’t get so resentful when she thinks I’m coming the old hen over her young life, but I really would like to know what’s going on in this holiday place.’

‘Very well. I’ll get Laura to call on her if that will ease your mind.’

‘Well, it all sounds so bizarre. Why should she pick these women up on the moor? It’s so Wuthering Heights of her! Will you really send Laura? I would be rather relieved. Hermione certainly won’t resent her, and I don’t want to seem to be making a fuss.’

‘The excursion will combine very nicely with another assignment which Laura has in prospect. She is going to spend a week with her brother in Scotland. She can call on Hermione, stay the night at the hotel in York which she has already booked — it means going back on her tracks a bit, but she won’t mind that — and from York she will telephone me and I will pass her report on to you.’

Laura, apprised of the commission, expressed pleasure. She and Dame Beatrice breakfasted early so that Laura could start in good time, and by half-past eight she was on her way northwards. Maps had located the village of Wayland and an enquiry at the post office there, when she reached it, took her to the two-mile drive which led to the reception centre and the warden’s office. Here she was directed to the cabin, for Hermione had mentioned Erica’s name in her telephone message to her mother and Jenny had passed it on to Dame Beatrice. When Laura found the cabin it was half-past five and all the occupants were at home, for Erica and Tamsin had returned from their excursion with John Trent while Hermione and Isobel, content with their morning walk under the guidance of the forester, had remained in the cabin as they had planned to do.

Erica answered Laura’s knock on the door, but as soon as she heard Laura’s voice Hermione flew out to the vestibule.

‘You’re in time for tea, ’ she said, when she had embraced her. ‘What on earth are you doing in these parts?’

‘Thank goodness for a cuppa. I am on my way to Scotland. Dame B. is at home. Your mother told us you were here, so, as it was more or less on my way, I thought I would look you up.’

Introductions were made, Laura had tea with the party and later from her hotel made her report over the telephone to Dame Beatrice.

‘I’ve had a good journey. Located the log hut. Very civilised and all mod con, tell Jenny. Hermione came to the rescue on the moors because one of the girls had sprained her ankle. There are three of them. One is a teacher, the sprained ankle is a painter of Christmas and birthday cards and pet animals, the oldest one is an accounts clerk to a builder who happens to be her father, and the whole set-up could not be more innocuous and respectable. All they are going to do is drive about the neighbourhood looking at the scenery and visiting places of interest and “unspoiled natural beauty”, as the conservationists put it. They propose also to breathe the fresh (and it is fresh!) moorland air and follow well-trodden tracks through the woods noting the fauna and flora.’

‘I wonder whether a fortnight of such idyllic existence will be too much for Hermione,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Will the others make interesting companions?’

‘I think so. Two of the women are in their thirties. One is sardonic and quite bracing, the other (the builder’s daughter) very motherly and kind, and the painter is about Hermione’s age and a bit of a sensitive plant, apart from her ankle, but they seem quite a good lot and very pleasant. So far there don’t seem to be any men involved, although the young one and the motherly one did go out in a neighbour’s car this afternoon to learn the local geography and (I gather) to be given a botany lesson on trees, plants and toadstools from a young fellow who seems knowledgeable in such matters. Anyway, Hermione is in good hands and the woods are glorious. I could wish I were staying in the cabin myself, except that we have the New Forest on our own doorstep. Reassure Jenny. There is nothing to worry about — and those are not famous last words. I hope not, anyway.’