by Ngaio Marsh
“Then my looks,” Mandrake rejoined, “do scant justice to my feelings. I feel terrified.”
Jonathan uttered his little cackle of laughter. “Who can tell?” he said. “You may have good cause. You shall judge of that when I have finished. The first characters to make their unconscious entrances on our stage are a mother and two sons. Mrs. Sandra Compline, William Compline, and Nicholas Compline. The lady is a widow and lives at Penfelton, a charming house some four miles to the western side of Cloudyfold village. She is the grande dame of our cast. The Complines are an old Dorset family and have been neighbours of ours for many generations. Her husband was my own contemporary. A rackety handsome fellow, he was, more popular perhaps with women than with men, but he had his own set in London and a very fast set I fancy it was. I don’t know where he met his wife, but I’m afraid it was an ill-omened encounter for her, poor thing. She was a pretty creature and I suppose he fell in love with her looks. His attachment didn’t last as long as her beauty, and that faded pretty fast under the sort of treatment she had to put up with. When they’d been married about eight years and had these two sons, a ghastly thing happened to Sandra Compline. She went to stay abroad somewhere and, I suppose with the idea of winning him back, she had something done to her face. It was more than twenty years ago and I daresay these fellows weren’t as good at their job as they are nowadays. Lord knows what the chap she consulted did with Sandra Compline’s face. I’ve heard it said (you may imagine how people talked) that he bolstered it up with wax and that the wax slipped. Whatever happened, it was quite disastrous. Poor thing,” said Jonathan, shaking his head while the lamplight glinted on his glasses, “she was a most distressing sight. Quite lopsided, you know, and worst of all there was a sort of comical look. For a long time she wouldn’t go out or receive anyone. He began to ask his own friends to Penfelton, and a very dubious lot they were. We saw nothing of the Complines in those days, but local gossip was terrific. She used to hunt, wearing a thick veil and going so recklessly that people said she wanted to kill herself. Ironically, though, it was her husband who came a cropper. Fell with his horse and broke his neck. What d’you think of that?”
“Eh?” said Mandrake, rather startled by this sudden demand. “Why, my dear Jonathan, it’s quite marvelous. Devastatingly Edwardian. Gloriously county! Another instance of truth being much more theatrical than fiction, and a warning to all dramatists to avoid it.”
“Well, well,” said Jonathan. “I daresay. Let’s get on. Sandra was left with her two small sons, William and Nicholas. After a little she seemed to take heart of grace. She began to go about a bit; this house was the first she visited. The boys had their friends for the holidays, and all that, and life became more normal over at Penfelton. The elder boy, William, was a quiet sort of chap, rather plain on the whole, not a great deal to say for himself; grave, humdrum fellow. Well enough liked, but the type that— Well, you can never remember whether he was, or was not, at a party. That sort of fellow, do you know?”
“Poor William,” said Mandrake unexpectedly.
“What? Oh yes, yes, but I haven’t quite conveyed William to you. The truth is,” said Jonathan, rubbing his nose, “that William’s a bit of a teaser. He’s devoted to his mother. I think he remembers her as she was before the tragedy. He was seven when she came back and I’ve heard that although he was strangely self-possessed when he saw her, he was found by their old nurse in a sort of hysterical frenzy, remarkable in such a really rather commonplace small boy. He is quiet and humdrum, certainly, but for all that there’s something not quite—Well, he’s a little odd. He’s usually rather silent but when he does talk his statements are inclined to be unexpected. He seems to say more or less the first thing that comes into his head and that’s a sufficiently unusual trait, you’ll agree.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Odd. Nothing wrong, really, of course, and he’s done very well so far in this war. He’s a good lad. But sometimes I wonder…However, you shall judge of William for yourself. I want you to do that.”
“You don’t really like him, do you?” asked Mandrake suddenly.
Jonathan blinked. “What can have put that notion into your head?” he said mildly. He darted a glance at Mandrake. “You mustn’t become too subtle, Aubrey. William is merely rather difficult to describe. That is all. But Nicholas!” Jonathan continued, “Nicholas was his father over again. Damned good-looking young blade, with charm and gaiety and dash and all the rest of it. Complete egoist, bit of a showman, and born with an eye for a lovely lady. So they grew up, and so they are to-day. William’s thirty-two and Nick’s twenty-nine. William (I stress this point) is concentrated upon his mother, morbidly so, I think, but that’s by the way. Gives up his holidays for no better reason than that she’s going to be alone. Watches after her like an old Nanny. He’s on leave just now, and of course rushed home to her. Nick’s the opposite, plays her up for all she’s worth, never lets her know when he’s coming or what he’s up to. Uses Penfelton like a hotel and his mother like the proprietress. You can guess which of these boys is the mother’s favourite.”
“Nicholas,” said Mandrake. “Of course, Nicholas.”
“Of course,” said Jonathan, and if he felt any disappointment he did not show it. “She dotes on Nicholas and takes William for granted. She’s spoilt Nicholas quite hopelessly from the day he was born. William went off to prep-school and Eton; Nick, if you please, was pronounced delicate, and led a series of tutors a fine dance until his mother decided he was old enough for the Grand Tour and sent him off with a bear-leader like some young Regency lordling. If she could have cut William out of the entail I promise you she’d have done it. As it is she can do nothing. William comes in for the whole packet, and Nick, like the hero of Victorian romance, must fend for himself. This, I believe, his mother fiercely resents. When war came, she moved heaven and earth to find a safe job for Nicholas and took it in her stride when William’s regiment went to the front. Nick has got some departmental job in Great Chipping. Looks very smart in uniform, and his duties seem to take him up to London pretty often. William, at the moment, as I have told you, is spending his leave with his Mama. The brothers haven’t met for some time.”
“Do they get on well?”
“No. Remember the necessary element of antagonism, Aubrey. It appears, splendidly to the fore, in the Compline family. William is engaged to Nicholas’ ex-fiancée.”
“Really? Well done, William.”
“I need scarcely tell you that the lady is the next of my characters, the ingénue in fact. She will arrive with William and his Mama, who detests her.”
“Honestly, my dear Jonathan—”
“She is a Miss Chloris Wynne. One of the white-haired kind.”
“A platinum blonde?”
“The colour of a light Chablis, and done up in plaster-like sausages. She resembles the chorus of my youth. I’m told that nowadays the chorus looks like the county. I find her appearance startling and her conversation difficult, but I have watched her with interest and I have formed the opinion that she is a very neat example of the woman scorned.”
“Did Nicholas scorn her?”
“Nicholas wished to marry her, but being in the habit of eating his cake in enormous mouthfuls, and keeping it, he did not allow his engagement to Miss Chloris to cramp his style as an accomplished philanderer. He continued to philander with the fifth item in our cast of characters—Madam Lisse.”
“Oh God!”
“More in anger than in sorrow, if Sandra Compline is to be believed, Miss Chloris broke off her engagement to Nicholas. After an interval so short that one suspects she acted on the ricochet, she accepted William who had previously courted her and been cut out by his brother. My private opinion is that when William returns to the front, Nicholas is quite capable of recapturing the lady, and what’s more I think she and William both know it. Nicholas and William had quarrelled in the best tradition of rival brothers and, as I say, have not met since the sec
ond engagement. I need not tell you that Mrs. Compline and William and his betrothed do not know I have invited Nicholas, nor does Nicholas know I have invited them. He knows, however, that Madam Lisse will be here. That, of course, is why he has accepted.”
“Go on,” said Mandrake, driving his fingers through his hair.
“Madame Lisse, the ambiguous and alluring woman of our cast, is an Austrian beauty specialist. I don’t suppose Lisse is her real name. She was among the earliest of the refugees, obtained naturalization papers, and established a salon at Great Chipping. She had letters to the Jerninghams at Pen Cuckoo, and to one or two other people in the county. Dinah Copeland at the rectory rather took her up. So, as you have gathered, did Nicholas Compline. She is markedly a dasher. Dark auburn hair, magnolia complexion, and eyes—whew! Very quiet and composed, but undoubtedly a dasher. Everybody got rather excited about Madame Lisse—everybody, that is, with the exception of my distant cousin Lady Hersey Amblington, who will arrive for dinner tomorrow evening.”
The spectacles glinted in Mandrake’s direction but he merely waved his hands.
“Hersey,” said Jonathan, “as you may know, is also a beauty specialist. She took it up when her husband died and left her almost penniless. She did the thing thoroughly and, being a courageous and capable creature, made a success of it. The mysteries of what I believe is called ‘beauty culture’ are as a sealed book to me but I understand that all the best complexions and coiffures of Great Chipping and the surrounding districts were, until the arrival of Madame Lisse, Hersey’s particular property. Madame Lisse immediately began to knock spots out of Hersey. Not, as Hersey explained, that she now has fewer customers, but that they are not quite so smart. The smart clientele has, with the exception of a faithful few, gone over to the enemy. Hersey considers that Madame used unscrupulous methods and always alludes to her as ‘the Pirate.’ You haven’t met my distant cousin, Hersey?”
“No.”
“No. She has her own somewhat direct methods of warfare, and I understand that she called on Madame Lisse with the intention of giving her fits. I’m afraid Hersey came off rather the worse in this encounter. Hersey is an old friend of the Complines and, as you may imagine, was not at all delighted by Nicholas’ attentions to her rival. So you see she is linked up in an extremely satisfactory manner to both sides. I have really been extraordinarily fortunate,” said Jonathan, rubbing his hands. “Nothing could be neater. And Dr. Hart fills out the cast to perfection. The ‘heavy,’ I think, is the professional term for his part.”
“Dr.…?”
“Hart. The seventh and last character. He, too, is of foreign extraction, though he became a naturalized Briton sometime after the last war. I fancy he is a Viennese, though whether I deduce this conclusion subconsciously from his profession I cannot tell you.” Jonathan chuckled again and finished his sherry.
“What, in heaven’s name, is his profession?”
“My dear Aubrey,” said Jonathan, “he is a plastic surgeon. A beauty specialist par excellence. The male of the species.”
“It seems to me,” said Mandrake, “that you have invited stark murder to your house. Frankly, I can imagine nothing more terrifying than the prospect of this week-end. What do you propose to do with them?”
“Let them enact their drama.”
“It will more probably resemble some disastrous vaudeville show.”
“With myself as compère. Quite possibly.”
“My dear Jonathan, you will have no performance. The actors will either sulk in their dressing-rooms or leave the theatre.”
“That is where we come in.”
“We! I assure you—”
“It is where I come in, then. May I, without exhibiting too much complacency, claim that if I have a talent it lies in the direction of hospitality?”
“Certainly. You are a wonderful host.”
“Thank you,” said Jonathan, beaming at his guest. “It delights me to hear you say so. Now, in this party, I have set myself, I freely admit, a stiff task.”
“I’m glad you realize it,” said Mandrake. “The list of opposites is positively ghastly. I don’t know if I have altogether followed you, but it appears that you hope to reconcile a rejected lover both to his successor and to his late love; a business woman to her detested rival; a ruined beauty to an exponent of the profession that made an effigy of her face, and a mother to a prospective daughter-in-law who has rejected her favourite son for his brother.”
“There is another permutation that you have not yet heard. Local gossip rings with rumours of some secret understanding between Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse. It appears that Madame recommends Dr. Hart’s surgery to those of her clients who have passed the stage when Lisse creams and all the rest of it can improve their aging faces.”
“A business arrangement.”
“Something more than that if Hersey—a prejudiced witness, certainly—is to be believed. Hersey’s spies tell her that Dr. Hart has been observed leaving Madame Lisse’s flat at a most compromising hour; that he presented to an exciting degree the mien of a clandestine lover, his hat drawn over his brows, his cloak (he wears a cloak) pulled about his face. They say that he has been observed to scowl most formidably at the mention of Nicholas Compline.”
“Oh, no,” said Mandrake, “it’s really a little too much. I boggle at the cloak.”
“It’s a Tyrolean cloak with a hood, a most useful garment. Rain-proof. He has presented me with one. I wear it frequently. You shall see it to-morrow.”
“What’s he like, this face-lifter?”
“A smoothish fellow. I find him amusing. He plays very good bridge.”
“We are not going to play bridge?”
“No. No; that, I feel, would be asking for trouble. We are going to play a round game, however.”
“Oh God!”
“You will enjoy it. A stimulating game. I hope that it will go far towards burying our little armoury of hatchets. Imagine what fun, Aubrey, if on Monday morning they all go gaily away, full of the milk of human kindness.”
“You’re seeing yourself in the detestable role of uplifter. I’ve got it! This is not Pirandello, nor is it vaudeville. Far from it. But it is,” cried Mandrake with an air of intense disgust, “it is ‘The Passing of the Third Floor Back.’ ”
Jonathan rose and stood warming his hands at the fire. He was a small man, very upright, with a long trunk and short legs. Mandrake, staring at him, wondered if it was some trick of firelight that lent a faintly malicious tinge to Jonathan’s smile; if it was merely his thick-lensed glasses that gave him that air of uncanny blankness.
“Ah, well,” said Jonathan, “a peacemaker. Why not? You would like to see your room, Aubrey. The blue room, as usual, of course. It is no longer raining. I propose to take a look at the night before going up to change. Will you accompany me?”
“Very well.”
They went out, crossing a wide hall, to the entrance. The wind had fallen and, as Jonathan opened his great outer doors, the quiet of an upland county at dusk entered the house and the smell of earth, still only lightly covered with snow. They walked out on the wide platform in front of Highfold. Far beneath them Cloudyfold village showed dimly through treetops and beyond it the few scattered houses down in the Vale, four miles away. In the southern skies the stars were out, but northward above Cloudyfold Top there was a well of blackness. And as Jonathan and his guest turned towards the north they received the sensation of an icy hand laid on their faces.
“That’s a deathly cold air,” said Mandrake.
“It’s from the north,” said Jonathan, “and still smells of snow. Splendid! Let us go in.”
CHAPTER TWO
Assembly
ON THE FOLLOWING day Mandrake observed his host to be in a high state of excitement. In spite of his finicky mannerisms and his somewhat old-maidish pedantry, it would never have occurred to his worst enemy to call Jonathan effeminate. Nevertheless he had many small talents that are unusual in
a man. He took a passionate interest in the appointments of his house. He arranged flowers to perfection and on the arrival of three boxes from a florist in Great Chipping, darted at them like a delighted ant. Mandrake was sent to the Highfold glass-houses for tuberoses and gardenias. Jonathan, looking odd in one of his housekeeper’s aprons, buried himself in the flower-room. He intended he said, to reproduce bouquets from the French prints in the boudoir. Mandrake, whose floral tastes ran austerely to dead flowers, limped off to the library and thought about his new play, which was to represent twelve aspects of one character, all speaking together.
The morning was still and extremely cold. During the night there had been another light fall of snow. The sky was leaden and the countryside seemed to wait ominously for some portent from the north. Jonathan remarked several times, and with extraordinary glee, that they were in for a severe storm. Fires were lit in all the guest rooms and from the Highfold chimneys rose columns of smoke, lighter in tone than the clouds they seemed to support. Somewhere up on Cloudyfold a farmer was moving his sheep and the drowsy sound of their slow progress seemed uncannily near. So dark was the sky that the passage of the hours was seen only in a stealthy alteration of shadows. Jonathan and Mandrake lunched by lamplight. Mandrake said that he felt the house to be alive with anticipation, but whether of a storm without or within he was unable to decide. “It’s a grisly day,” said Mandrake.
“I shall telephone Sandra Compline and suggest that she bring her party for tea,” said Jonathan. “It will begin to snow again before six o’clock, I believe. What do you think of the house, Aubrey? How does it feel?”
“Expectant and luxurious.”
“Good. Excellent. You have finished? Let us make a little tour of the rooms, shall we? Dear me, it’s a long time since I looked forward so much to a party.”
They made their tour. In the great drawing-room, seldom used by Jonathan, cedar-wood fires blazed at each end. Mrs. Pouting and two maids put glazed French covers on the armchairs and the bergère sofas.