Читать книгу Light Thickens - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 9

He wouldn’t have taken much comfort from the lady in question if he could have seen her at that moment. Nina Gaythorne came into her minute flat in Westminster and began a sort of de-lousing ritual. Without even waiting to take off her gloves she scuffled in her hand—bag, produced a crucifix which she kissed, and laid on the table a clove of garlic and her prayer book. She opened the latter, put on her spectacles, crossed herself and read aloud the 91st Psalm.

‘Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High,’ read Nina in the well-trained, beautifully modulated tones of a professional actress. When she reached the end she kissed her prayer book, crossed herself again, laid her cyclostyled part on the table, the prayer book on top of it, the crucifix on the prayer book, and, after a slight hesitation, the clove of garlic at the foot of the crucifix.

‘That ought to settle their hash,’ she said, and took off her gloves.

Her belief in curses and things being lucky or unlucky was not based on any serious study but merely on the odds and ends of gossip and behaviour accumulated by four generations of theatre people. In that most hazardous profession where so many mischances can occur, when so much hangs in the precarious balance on opening night, when five weeks’ preparation may turn to ashes or blaze for years, there is a fertile soil indeed for superstition to take root and flourish.

Nina was forty years old, a good dependable actress, happy to strike a long run and play the same part for months on end, being very careful not to let it become an entirely mechanical exercise. The last part of this kind had come to an end six months ago and nothing followed it, so that this little plum, Lady Macduff, uncut for once, had been a relief. And the child might be a nice boy. Not the precocious little horror that could emerge from an indifferent school. And the house! The Dolphin! The enormous prestige attached to an engagement there. Its phenomenal run of good luck and, above all, its practice of using the same people, once they had gained an entry, whenever a suitable role occurred: a happy engagement. Touch wood!

So, really, she must not, really not, talk about ‘the Scots play’ to other people in the cast. It just kept slipping out. Peregrine Jay had noticed and didn’t like it. I’ll make a resolution, Nina thought. She shut her large faded eyes tight and said aloud:

‘I promise on my word of honour and upon this prayer book not to talk about you-know-what. Amen.’