Death at the Opera

by Gladys Mitchell

  Hurstwood said suddenly, as they walked down the deserted street towards Miss Cliffordson’s home:

  “Do you think she’ll split?”

  Startled, she replied:

  “Whom do you mean?”

  “Ferris.”

  “Of course not.”

  “She split to the old man to-day about a kid in the Upper Third.”

  “Oh, but that was a staff row.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you be a staff row?”

  Miss Cliffordson laughed, but not very convincingly. Her uncle, she knew, was not a narrow-minded man, but she felt uncertain as to his reaction if he were informed by another member of the staff that one of the Sixth Form boys had kissed her. “The boy,” she imagined her uncle saying, “must have received some sort of encouragement, my dear Gretta, must he not?”

  She could not construct any reply which would at once fit the facts as reported by Miss Ferris, who, she reminded herself, was unfashionably conscientious and suffered from an over-developed sense of duty, exonerate Hurstwood—she had genuinely sporting qualities, and hated the idea of getting the boy into trouble—and cover herself. It was all very difficult and embarrassing.

  Arrived at the gate of her home, she took her attaché-case from Hurstwood with a hasty word of thanks, bade him good night, and almost ran up the garden path to the front door. Hurstwood stood there, school cap in hand, for about three minutes; then he turned, put on his cap and walked slowly homewards. It remained to get through supper and the family conversation, go up to bed as soon as possible, and recreate, with additional details, the crazy but wonderful evening.

  II

  Miss Ferris found herself again unable to sleep. She could think of nothing but Mr. Smith’s model, which she was certain she had ruined. If, by any chance, her mind did leave this wretchedly perturbing subject, it persisted in reminding her of the unpleasant time she would have for the rest of the term with Miss Camden, who would neither forgive nor forget the netball incident.

  True, there was no proof that the school team would have won with the assistance of the girl Cartnell, but the fact that it had lost without her would be sufficient justification, in Miss Camden’s opinion, to be as unfriendly as possible. Poor Miss Ferris, who was well-disposed towards everybody, and a lover of peace and concord if ever there was one, dreaded the thought that she had provoked the ill will of a young woman whom she knew to be narrow-mindedly unscrupulous. There was no petty annoyance which Miss Camden would not inflict upon her in order to be revenged for what she chose to consider a personal injury and affront.

  At the back of Miss Ferris’s mind there was also a third consideration. It nagged like an aching tooth. This was the remembrance of the—to her—extraordinary and shocking scene which she had been instrumental in interrupting and terminating. It seemed to her that she ought to inform the Headmaster. Miss Cliffordson obviously had no control over the boy and his emotions, and it appeared to Miss Ferris that she, as an older woman, ought to lay the facts of the case before Mr. Cliffordson, whom she knew to be a man of great kindness of heart and very wide experience, and leave him to deal with them as he saw fit. On the other hand, she wondered whether, in fairness to Miss Cliffordson, she ought not to have a word with her first. Hurstwood, she felt, had better be left alone. In any case, she seriously doubted her own fitness to talk to a boy about his first love affair.

  One after the other, this triumvirate of morbid, melancholy thoughts chased one another through her mind. She fell asleep at last, dreamed horribly, and woke unrefreshed, heavy-headed and heavy-hearted. One thing, and one thing only, she had settled to her satisfaction. She had made up her mind to go to Mr. Smith before school began, explain what she had done to his model, and accept humbly whatever blistering words of reproach he might choose to hurl at her. She only hoped he would not swear. She really did hope he would not swear at her.

  She arrived at the school gate at twenty-five minutes past eight, and went straight to the Art Room. Mr. Smith was not there, but a couple of boys were re-arranging the desks, so she sent one of them up to the masters’ common-room to find out whether Mr. Smith had arrived at school. In less than three minutes the boy returned with Mr. Smith.

  The Senior Art Master was a tall, dark-faced, melancholy-looking man whose whole expression altered when he smiled. It was easy enough, thought Calma Ferris, to imagine that most women would be greatly attracted by him. He looked inquiringly at Calma before ordering the boys out of the room, and then invited her to sit down. She was far too agitated to accept the offer. She said, plunging headlong into the subject and speaking much too fast and rather breathlessly:

  “Mr. Smith, I don’t know what you’ll say, and, really, I deserve anything for my clumsiness, but I came in here last night, and I knocked your clay modelling—the covered one there—off the stand, and I’ve damaged it. I really am most terribly sorry. I can’t think how I came to be so clumsy.” She thought wildly: “He’s so dreadfully immoral! I do hope he won’t actually swear at me.”

  Mr. Smith walked slowly over to the tall stand upon which his model was placed, pulled off the cloth and looked at the damaged figure. It was ruined irretrievably.

  “H’m!” he said. “That’s done for, I’m afraid.” He began to whistle.

  Miss Ferris began again to apologize, but he stopped her.

  “Please,” he said. “It really can’t be helped. I’d rather you didn’t distress yourself.”

  Then he suddenly threw the little model on the ground and solemnly stamped it flat and shapeless. Even when the figure was quite unrecognizable, he went on methodically stamping and stamping and stamping, getting clay on his shoes and clay all over that part of the floor.

  Miss Ferris stood aghast. She was stricken with grief and horror. Reproaches she could have borne. Even if he had turned and struck her in the face she would have taken the blow as a just reprisal for her carelessness and ungoverned curiosity. Even if he had sworn at her, she believed she would have borne it. But this steady stamping sound, without a word being said, and as though the artist himself had become oblivious of what he was doing, was too terrible to be contemplated.

  She turned and ran blindly to the mistresses’ common-room and clutched Alceste Boyle. She had immense faith in the Senior English Mistress, and thought her the best person to deal with the situation. Smith, she knew, was hopelessly in love with Alceste, who mothered him with humorous strictness.

  “Oh, come with me! Come quickly!” she said.

  Amazed, Alceste followed her.

  “In there!” Miss Ferris cried, turning when they got to the Art Room door. “It’s dreadful! I can’t bear it! I had no idea . . .”

  They went in. Mr. Smith had finished his work. He was scraping bits of clay off his shoes with a palette-knife. His fine hands were quite steady. He rose when they came in, dusted the knees of his trousers, smiled at them and said:

  “That’s that.”

  Alceste Boyle gave an exclamation of horror.

  “Oh, Donald! Not your Psyche, surely?” She turned to Calma Ferris. Calma was white.

  “I spoilt it. I knocked it down,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t have done it at school, you know, Donald,” said Alceste to Mr. Smith. Then she said to Calma Ferris: “I know you couldn’t help it. I know he’s careless. I don’t suppose for one single instant that you intended to ruin his work, but go away, now, before I do anything I shall be sorry for!”

  Later in the day she said to Calma:

  “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that. He shouldn’t have used school time. I told him no good would come of it. Don’t worry yourself, Miss Ferris. Accidents will happen.” She smiled kindly and sincerely at Calma Ferris. Calma answered:

  “I never ought to have touched the model. It is unforgivable to have ruined it.”

  To this Alceste Boyle made no reply, and after a pause Miss Ferris suddenly said:

  “I can’t understand all this. I thought it was Mr. Hampstea
d you were . . . you . . . I mean, I understood that you and Mr. Hampstead . . . I mean, it is Mr. Hampstead, and not Mr. Smith, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Boyle gave a little moan, and then said: “How do you know that?”

  Her voice was quiet, but it frightened Miss Ferris. She mumbled something and walked away.

  III

  The world of a school is so narrow that any disturbance, however unimportant, or any trouble, however transitory, assumes an air of portent out of all proportion to its true significance. The day upon which the dress-rehearsal had taken place was a Tuesday, and the following day was that on which Miss Ferris had the disturbing experience of watching Mr. Smith stamping on his ruined work. On the following day, the Thursday, the day before the performance of The Mikado, a last rehearsal was held.

  Miss Ferris found herself dreading this rehearsal. She dreaded coming into contact with Mr. Smith again; she dreaded having to encounter the hostile looks of Alceste Boyle, and she felt certain that Alceste would have told Mr. Hampstead that the secret of their attachment for one another was a secret no longer, so she dreaded meeting him too. The actual rehearsal would not have been so bad, but it had been arranged that the whole cast was to have tea in the Headmaster’s room, at his invitation, so there would be the terror of having to meet socially the people whom she felt she had wronged.

  Also, every time she set eyes either on the boy Hurstwood or the Headmaster’s niece, her conscience began to plague her again. Ought she to tell, or ought she to let events take their course? Surely she ought to allow Miss Cliffordson the right to manage her own affairs? And yet, if she was managing them so badly that she could not prevent one of the big boys mauling her about and kissing her—the whole expression was Miss Ferris’s own—ought not some older person to make it her business to interfere and get the situation under control? Surely it could not be good for the school tone—Miss Ferris and the Headmaster probably had different ideas as to what was likely to jeopardize the school tone—that boys should fall in love with the junior mistresses? Miss Cliffordson was notably feckless and irresponsible.

  Miss Ferris, who had never been either, was conscious—for she was a woman with a very nice and exact sense of justice—of a feeling of slight jealously. Fecklessness and irresponsibility were, in her mind, to be classed among life’s luxuries, and were not to be indulged in by persons who had their living to earn. The Headmaster’s niece might be able to afford them, but Miss Ferris, with not even a degree to lend weight to her teaching certificate, could not, and felt the poorer because she could not.

  The tea and the rehearsal both went off better than she could have hoped. Hurstwood sat as far from Miss Cliffordson as he could manage, and to Miss Ferris, unversed in the idiosyncrasies and shyness of love-lorn adolescence, this was a sign of grace. If Hurstwood was beginning to see the error of his ways, perhaps it would be unnecessary for her to inform the Headmaster of what she had seen. The last thing she wanted was to get anybody into trouble, especially Hurstwood, who was attractively tall and fair and slight, with a sensitive mouth, a classically-modelled nose, grey eyes and a rather charming smile. She had heard, too, that he was a very clever boy, and that his father was proud of him and had great ambitions for his future. It would be a thousand pities to interfere with a career so promising.

  Miss Cliffordson was talking animatedly to the Junior English Master, teasing him, and being saucy and provocative. She looked very pretty, Miss Ferris thought, and absurdly young. Perhaps—she glanced again at Hurstwood, who was eating cake in a furtive, reticent manner—perhaps, after all, it would not be necessary to say anything to Mr. Cliffordson. She must think about it again before deciding.

  Mr. Smith spoke to nobody. He was never very sociable at staff gatherings—he was an atheist with a slightly Epicurean bent and a keen appetite for good food; but Miss Ferris did not remember this. She felt certain that he was brooding over his ruined Psyche. She scarcely dared to look at him for fear that she should catch his eye and be compelled to meet the reproach in it.

  Alceste Boyle was pouring out the tea. She spoke when she had to, but otherwise preserved a motherly silence which was quite companionable. One of her gifts was to be with a crowd of people, not to say anything, and yet to appear sociable and friendly. Frederick Hampstead laughed and joked, chiefly with Moira Malley, who was nervous but amused, and with Miss Freely, who was just a jolly girl, not long enough out of college to have acquired the hall-marks of her profession; perhaps too simple-hearted and human ever to acquire them. She seemed to be the only person present—except for Mr. Poole, who ate an enormous tea, and recited, between-whiles, the most atrocious limericks—who was wholeheartedly enjoying the party.

  Even the Headmaster seemed distrait, and Mr. Kemball, the History Master, was downright morose, ate scarcely anything, refused a second cup of tea, and lighted his pipe, without asking permission and before anybody had finished eating. It was revealed later that his wife was expecting her third child. It was a joke among the men’s staff that Kemball regarded his children as visitations of the wrath of God, refused to accept any personal responsibility for their appearance in the world, grumbled continuously at the provision he had to make for them, but spoke of children in general with self-conscious sentimentality, chiefly to curry favour with the Head.

  The rehearsal, which was to be carried out in ordinary dress, and without make-up, began at half-past five. The Second Act was taken first, and, whether from nervous excitement or some other cause, Calma Ferris did exceptionally well. Her songs were good, and she spoke her lines better than she had ever done. Moira Malley, too, was successful that night, and when the Act was finished and Alceste Boyle suggested that the whole opera should be run through just once, if they all felt that there was time to do it, the company unanimously resolved to stay until eleven o’clock, if necessary. The whole thing went through without a hitch. Alceste Boyle affected to the Headmaster to be superstitiously inclined.

  “Too good by half,” she said, laughing, as the players collected properties and cleared the stage. “Something is sure to go wrong to-morrow night! Or so Madame Berotti would say! Have you ever seen her act? She’s old, of course, but what an artist!”

  Calma Ferris, so delighted with her own successful performance that she forgot, for the time, her little nagging difficulties of the past day or two, had not the slightest premonition of disaster. She sat down before she went to bed, late though it was when she reached her lodgings, and recorded in her diary her pious hope that she would do as well on the morrow in her part as she had done that evening. Having blotted the entry carefully, she went to bed, and rose early in the morning to commence her last day on earth.

  As a matter of historical accuracy, when dawned the Friday morning, the day of the performance, there were at least six people in school more perturbed than Calma Ferris. Hurstwood thought: “I wonder if she’ll split to-day? She keeps looking at me. I wonder whether she’s made up her mind yet? I wonder whether the Old Man will split to the governor if she splits to him? I wonder whether Gretta would care much if I got turfed out? Suppose the Old Man won’t let me sit for the Schol.? Wish I had the guts to tackle Ferris and see what she means to do! I won’t stick this much longer. Every time I look at Gretta now, or speak to her, I shall imagine that fool of a woman is sticking round, listening and snooping.”

  Miss Cliffordson thought: “Uncle will never stand it. Out I shall go, and I couldn’t stick teaching in any school but this. It’s only just bearable here, and I do it frightfully badly, anyway. I don’t believe any woman would have me on the staff for more than a fortnight. I wonder whether I’d better marry Tommy Browning and put myself out of pain? Besides, there’s poor little Harry? Oh, hell and blast! What did she want to come poking round for, anyway? I suppose she’s on the Vigilance Committee somewhere—or something!”

  Mr. Smith thought: “Six months’ work! Commissioned, too! How the devil am I going to pay Atkinson now? Serves me right for pinching scho
ol time, I suppose. If I’d done the stuff at home this couldn’t have happened. Blast the woman, all the same! I couldn’t have done it at home, anyway. The girl wouldn’t have come.”

  Miss Camden thought: “Just wait until I get the chance to pay you out, Ferris, my love! That’s all! And I’ve slaved over the school netball. Slaved over it.”

  Frederick Hampstead thought: “I suppose the Head will give me a testimonial before he sacks me. Or won’t he? Better ask for it now, before that condemned female blows the gaff, I think. I’ll see him during first lesson, when I haven’t a class. He can’t refuse if she hasn’t said anything yet. Perhaps she’ll keep her mouth shut, but I don’t think I can stay. It’ll be so difficult now.”

  Alceste Boyle thought: “Why worry? She doesn’t know anything, and, anyway, I think she’s a good sort. It will damage Fred, not me, in any case. Thank God for widow-hood! But I wish she didn’t know. It makes it in a way less wonderful, now someone knows.”

  CHAPTER III

  DEATH

  I

  BY half-past ten on the Friday morning Calma Ferris had something to think about other than school difficulties and problems. A telegram was handed in, which ran thus:

  “Beware helm widower suspicious circumstances asked school.”

  Several years of coping with arithmetical problems had sharpened Miss Ferris’s wits, and a message which, to less well-trained senses, might have suggested the babblings of lunacy, resolved itself for her into the following perturbing set of ideas:

  “Beware of the Mr. Helm from whose table you asked to be moved at the commencement of your summer holiday at your aunt’s boarding-house. He is undoubtedly an imitator, if not an actual reincarnation, of George Joseph Smith, who was charged in the year 1915 for drowning three brides in the bath, and he has asked for the address of your school.”

  The telegram bore her aunt’s surname. Miss Ferris, who had lived the narrowest, safest and most sheltered of lives, was seriously upset by the message. Advice she felt she must have, and therefore five pairs of interested and four pair of anxious eyes noted that at recess, instead of taking coffee and biscuits in the staff-room, according to the time-honoured and civilized custom of the staff, she repaired to the Headmaster’s study.