Читать книгу Overture to Death - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 16

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 résistance was Ethelbert Nevin’s ‘Venetian Suite’, which she rendered with muffled insecurity, the chords of the accompaniment never quite synchronizing 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’m 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 had 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 indeed 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 to 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.’