Overture to Death

by Ngaio Marsh

  “You wait till you start learning your parts in this thing,” said Jocelyn cheerfully, “and you won’t know whether you’re on your heads or your heels. There’s an awful lot of us three, isn’t there?” he continued, turning the pages. “I suppose Eleanor will do the Duchess and Miss Campanula will be the other one—Mrs. Thing or whoever she is! Gertrude! That the idea?”

  “That was my idea,” said Mrs. Ross.

  “If I may be allowed to speak,” said Miss Campanula, “I should like to say that it is just within the bounds of possibility that it may not be ours.”

  “Perhaps, Jernigham,” said the rector, “you had better put your motion.”

  But of course the squire’s motion was carried. Miss Campanula and Miss Prentice did not open their lips. Their thoughts were alike in confusion and intensity. Both seethed under the insult done to Simple Susan, each longed to rise and, with a few well-chosen words, withdraw from the meeting. Each was checked by a sensible reluctance to cut off her nose to spite her face. It was obvious that Shop Windows would be performed whether they stayed in or flounced out. Unless all the others were barefaced liars, it seemed that there were two outstandingly good parts ready for them to snap up. They hung off and on, ruffled their plumage, and secretly examined each other’s face.

  Meanwhile with the enthusiasm that all Jernighams brought to a new project Jocelyn and his son began to cast the play. Almost a century ago there had been what Eleanor, when cornered, called an “incident” in the family history. The Mrs. Jernigham of that time was a plain silly woman and barren into the bargain. Her Jocelyn, the fourth of that name, had lived openly with a very beautiful and accomplished actress and had succeeded in getting the world to pretend that his son by her was his lawful scion, and had jockeyed his wife into bringing the boy up as her own. By this piece of effrontery he brought to Pen Cuckoo a dram of mummery, and ever since those days most of the Jernighams had had a passion for theatricals. It was as if the lovely actress had touched up the family portraits with a stick of rouge. Jocelyn and Henry had both played in the O.U.D.S. They both had the trick of moving about a stage as if they grew out of the boards, and they both instinctively bridged that colossal gap between the stage and the front row of the stalls. Jocelyn thought himself a better actor than he was, but Henry did not realise how good he might be. Even Miss Prentice, a Jernigham, as the squire had pointed out, on her mother’s side, had not escaped that dram of player’s blood. Although she knew nothing about theatre, mistrusted and disliked the very notion of the stage as a career for gentle people, and had no sort of judgment for the merit of a play, yet in amateur theatricals she was surprisingly composed and perfectly audible, and she loved acting. She knew now that Idris Campanula expected her to refuse to take part in Shop Windows, and more than half her inclination was so to refuse. “What,” she thought “To have my own play put aside for something chosen by that woman! To have to look on while they parcel out the parts!” But even as she pondered on the words with which she would offer her resignation, she pictured Lady Appleby of Moorton Grange accepting the part that Jocelyn said was so good. And what was more, the rector would think Eleanor herself uncharitable. That decided her. She waited for a pause in the chatter round Jocelyn, and then she turned to the rector.

  “May I say just one little word?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Mr. Copeland. “Please, everybody. Order!”

  “It’s only this,” said Miss Prentice, avoiding the eye of Miss Campanula. “I do hope nobody will think I am going to be disappointed or hurt about my little play. I expect it is rather out-of-date, and I am only too pleased to think that you have found one that is more suitable. If there is anything that I can do to help, I shall be only too glad. Of course.”

  She received, and revelled in, the rector’s beaming smile, and met Idris Campanula’s glare with a smile of her own. Then she saw Selia Ross watching her out of the corners of her eyes and suddenly she knew that Selia Ross understood her.

  “That’s perfectly splendid,” exclaimed Mr. Copeland. “I think it is no more than we expected of Miss Prentice’s generosity, but we are none the less grateful.” And he added confusedly, “A very graceful gesture.”

  Miss Prentice preened and Miss Campanula glowered. The others, vaguely aware that something was expected of them, made small appreciative noises.

  “Now, how about casting the play?” said Dr. Templett.

  There was no doubt that the play had been well chosen. With the exception of one character, it practically cast itself. The squire was to play the General; Miss Prentice, the Duchess; Miss Campanula, of whom everybody felt extremely frightened, was cast for Mrs. Arbuthnot, a good character part. Miss Campanula, when offered this part, replied ambiguously:

  “Who knows?” she asked darkly. “Obviously, it is not for me to say.”

  “But you will do it, Idris?” murmured Miss Prentice.

  “I have but one comment,” rejoined Miss Campanula. “Wait and see.” She laughed shortly, and the rector, in a hurry, wrote her name down opposite the part. Dinah and Henry were given the two young lovers, and Dr. Templett said he would undertake the French Ambassador. He began to read some of the lines in violently broken English. There remained the part of Hélène, a mysterious lady who had lost her memory, and who turned up in the middle of the first act at a country house-party.

  “Obviously, Selia,” said Dr. Templett, “you must be Hélène.”

  “No, no,” said Mrs. Ross, “that isn’t a bit what I meant. Now do be quiet, Billy, or they’ll all think I came here with an ulterior motive.’

  With the possible exception of the squire, that was precisely what they all did think, but not even Miss Campanula had the courage to say so. Having accepted Mrs. Ross’s play they could do nothing but offer her the part, which, as far as lines went, was not a long one. Perhaps only Dinah realised quite how good Hélène was. Mrs. Ross protested and demurred.

  “If you are quite sure you want me,” she said, and looked sideways at the squire. Jocelyn, who had glanced through the play and found that the General had a love-scene with Hélène, said heartily that they wanted her very much indeed. Henry and Dinah, conscious of their own love-scenes, agreed, and the rector formally asked Mrs. Ross if she would take the part. She accepted with the prettiest air in the world. Miss Prentice managed to maintain her gentle smile and Miss Campanula’s behaviour merely became a degree more darkly ominous. The rector put on his glasses and read his notes.

  “To sum up,” he said loudly. “We propose to do this play in the Parish Hall on Saturday 27th, three weeks from to-night. The proceeds are to be devoted to the piano-fund and the balance of the sum needed will be made up most generously by Mr. Jocelyn Jernigham. The committee and members of the Y.P.F.C. will organise the sale of tickets and will make themselves responsible for the—what is the correct expression, Dinah?”

  “The front of the house, Daddy.”

  “For the front of the house, yes. Do you think we can leave these affairs to your young folk, Miss Campanula? I know you can answer for them.”

  “My dear man,” said Miss Campanula, “I can’t answer for the behaviour of thirty village louts and maidens, but they usually do what I tell them to. Ha!”

  Everybody laughed sycophantly.

  “My friend,” added Miss Campanula, with a ghastly smile, “my friend Miss Prentice is president. No doubt, if they pay no attention to me, they will do anything in the world for her.”

  “Dear Idris!” murmured Miss Prentice.

  “Who’s going to produce the play?” asked Henry. “I think Dinah ought to. She’s a professional.”

  “Hear, hear!” said Dr. Templett, Selia Ross and the squire. Miss Prentice added rather a tepid little, “Of course, yes.” Miss Campanula said nothing. Dinah grinned shyly and looked into her lap. She was elected producer. Dinah had not passed the early stages of theatrical experience when the tyro lards his conversation with professional phrases. She accepte
d her honours with an air of great seriousness and called her first rehearsal for Tuesday night, November 9th.

  “I’ll get all your sides typed by then,” she explained. “I’m sure Gladys Wright will do them, because she’s learning and wants experience. I’ll give her a proper part so that she gets the cues right. We’ll have a reading and if there’s time I’ll set positions for the first act.”

  “Dear me,” said Miss Prentice, “this sounds very alarming. I’m afraid, Dinah dear, that you will find us all very amateurish.”

  “Oh, no!” cried Dinah gaily. “I know it’s going to be marvellous.” She looked uncertainly at her father and added, “I should like to say, thank you all very much for asking me to produce. I do hope I’ll manage it all right.”

  “Well, you know a dashed sight more about it than any of us,” said Selia Ross bluntly.

  But somehow Dinah didn’t quite want Mrs. Ross so frankly on her side. She was aware in herself of a strong antagonism to Mrs. Ross and this discovery surprised and confused her, because she believed herself to be a rebel. As a rebel, she should have applauded Selia Ross. To Dinah, Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula were the hated symbols of all that was mean, stupid, and antediluvian. Selia Ross had deliberately given battle to these two ladies and had won the first round. Why, then, could Dinah not welcome her as an ally after her own heart? She supposed it was because, in her own heart, she mistrusted and disliked Mrs. Ross. This feeling was entirely instinctive and it upset and bewildered her. It was as if some dictator in her blood refused an allegiance that she should have welcomed. She could not reply with the correct comradely smile. She felt her face turning pink with embarrassment and she said hurriedly:

  “What about music? We’ll want an overture and an entr’acte.”

  And with those words Dinah unconsciously rang up the curtain on a theme that was to engulf Pen Cuckoo and turn Shop Windows from polite comedy into outlandish shameless melodrama.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cue for Music

  AS SOON AS Dinah had spoken those fatal words everybody round the table in the study at Pen Cuckoo thought of Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C sharp Minor,” and with the exception of Miss Campanula, everybody’s heart sank into his or her boots. For the Prelude was Miss Campanula’s speciality. In Pen Cuckoo she had the sole rights in this composition. She played it at all church concerts, she played it on her own piano after her own dinner parties, and, unless her hostess was particularly courageous, she played it after other people’s dinner parties, too. Whenever there was any question of music sounding at Pen Cuckoo, Miss Campanula offered her services, and the three pretentious chords would boom out once again: “Pom, pom, POM.” And then down would go Miss Campanula’s foot on the left pedal and the next passage would follow in a series of woolly but determined jerks. She even played it as a voluntary when Mr. Withers, the organist, went on his holidays and Miss Campanula took his place. She had had her photograph taken, seated at the instrument, with the Prelude on the rack. Each of her friends had received a copy at Christmas. The rector’s was framed, and he had not known quite what to do with it. Until three years ago when Eleanor Prentice had come to live at Pen Cuckoo, Idris Campanula and her Prelude had had it all their own way. But Miss Prentice also belonged to a generation when girls learnt the pianoforte from their governesses, and she, too, liked to be expected to perform. Her pièce de resistance was Ethelbert Nevin’s Venetian Suite, which she rendered with muffled insecurity, the chords of the accompaniment never quite synchronising with the saccharine notes of the melody. Between the two ladies the battle had raged at parish entertainments, Sunday School services, and private parties. They only united in deploring the radio and in falsely pretending that music was a bond between them.

  So that when Dinah in her flurry asked, “What about music?” Miss Campanula and Miss Prentice both became alert.

  Miss Prentice said, “Yes, of course. Now, couldn’t we manage that amongst ourselves somehow? It’s so much pleasanter, isn’t it, if we keep to our own small circle?”

  “I am afraid my poor wits are rather confused,” began Miss Campanula. “Everything seems to have been decided out of hand. You must correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears that several of the characters in this delightful comedy—by the way, is it a comedy?”

  “Yes,” said Henry.

  “Thank you. It appears that some of the characters do not appear until somewhere in the second act. I don’t know which of the characters, naturally, as I have not yet looked between the covers.”

  With hasty mumbled apologies they handed the play to Miss Campanula. She said:

  “Oh, thank you. Don’t let me be selfish. I’m a patient body.”

  When Idris Campanula alluded to herself jocularly as a “body” it usually meant that she was in a temper. They all said, “No, no! Please have it.” She drew her pince-nez out from her bosom by a patent extension and slung them across her nose. She opened the play and amidst dead silence she began to inspect it. First she read the cast of characters. She checked each one with a large bony forefinger, and paused to look round the table until she found the person who had been cast for it. Her expression, which was forbidding, did not change. She then applied herself to the first page of the dialogue. Still everybody waited. The silence was broken only by the sound of Miss Campanula turning a page. Henry began to feel desperate. It seemed almost as if they would continue to sit dumbly round the table until Miss Campanula reached the end of the play. He gave Dinah a cigarette and lit one himself. Miss Campanula raised her eyes and watched them until the match was blown out, and then returned to her reading. She had reached the fourth page of the first act. Mrs. Ross looked up at Dr. Templett who bent his head and whispered. Again Miss Campanula raised her eyes and stared at the offenders. The squire cleared his throat and said:

  “Read the middle bit of Act II. Page forty-eight, it begins. Funniest thing I’ve come across for ages. It’ll make you laugh like anything.”

  Miss Campanula did not reply, but she turned to Act II. Dinah, Henry, Dr. Templett, and Jocelyn waited with anxious smiles for her to give some evidence of amusement, but her lips remained firmly pursed, her brows raised, and her eyes fishy. Presently she looked up.

  “I’ve reached the end of the scene,” she said. “Was that the funny one?”

  “Don’t you think it’s funny?” asked the squire.

  “My object was to find out if there was anybody free to play the entr’acte,” said Miss Campanula coldly. “I gather that there is. I gather that the Arbuthnot individual does not make her first appearance until halfway through the second act.”

  “Didn’t somebody say that Miss Arbuthnot and the Duchess appeared together?” asked Miss Prentice to the accompaniment, every one felt, of the Venetian Suite.

  “Possibly,” said Miss Campanula. “Do I understand that I am expected to take this Mrs. Arbuthnot upon myself?”

  “If you will,” rejoined the rector. “And we hope very much indeed that you will.”

  “I wanted to be quite clear. I dare say I’m making a great to-do about nothing but I’m a person that likes to know where she is. Now I gather, and you must correct me if I’m wrong, that if I do this part there is no just cause or impediment,” and here Miss Campanula threw a jocular glance at the rector, “why I should not take a little more upon myself and seat myself at the instrument. You may have other plans. You may wish to hire Mr. Joe Hopkins and his friends from Great Chipping, though on a Saturday night I gather they are rather more undependable and tipsy than usual. If you have other plans then no more need be said. If not, I place myself at the committee’s disposal.”

  “Well, that seems a most excellent offer,” the poor rector began. “If Miss Campanula—”

  “May I?” interrupted Miss Prentice sweetly. “May I say that I think it very kind of dear Idris to offer herself, but may I add that I do also think we are a little too inclined to take advantage of her generosity. She will have all the young folk t
o manage and she has a large part to learn. I do feel that we should be a little selfish if we also expected her to play for us on that dreadful old piano. Now, as the new instrument is to be in part, as my cousin says, a Pen Cuckoo affair, I think the very least I can do is to offer to relieve poor Idris of this unwelcome task. If you think my little efforts will pass muster I shall be very pleased to play the overture and entr’acte.”

  “Very thoughtful of you, Eleanor, but I am quite capable—”

  “Of course you are, Idris, but at the same time—”

  They both stopped short. The antagonism that had sprung up between them was so obvious and so disproportionate that the others were aghast. The rector abruptly brought his palm down on the table and then, as if ashamed of a gesture that betrayed his thoughts, clasped his hands together and looked straight before him.

  He said, “I think this matter can be decided later.” The two women glanced quickly at him and were silent.

  “That is all, I believe,” said Mr. Copeland. “Thank you, everybody.”

  The meeting broke up. Henry went to Dinah who had moved over to the fire.

  “Ructions!” he said under his breath.

  “Awful!” agreed Dinah. “You’d hardly believe it possible, would you?”

  They smiled secretly and when the others crowded about Dinah, asking if they could have their parts before Monday, what sort of clothes would be needed, and whether she thought they would be all right, neither she nor Henry minded very much. It did not matter to them that they were unable to speak to each other, for their thoughts went forward to the morning, and their hearts trembled with happiness. They were isolated by their youth, two scathless figures. It would have seemed impossible to them that their love for each other could hold any reflection, however faint, of the emotions that drew Dr. Templett to Selia Ross, or those two ageing women to the rector. They would not have believed that there was a reverse side to love, or that the twin-opposites of love lay dormant in their own hearts. Nor were they to guess that never again, as long as they lived, would they know the rapturous expectancy that now pressed them.