Ngaio Marsh - Photo Finish

Having discharged his introductory duties, Mr. Reece retained his hold on Alleyn, supervised his drink, led him a little apart, and, as Troy could see by the sort of attentive shutter that came over her husband’s face, engaged him in serious conversation.

“You have had a very long day, Mrs. Alleyn,” said Signor Lattienzo, who spoke with a marked Italian accent. “Do you feel as if all your time signals had become”—he rotated plump hands rapidly round each other—“jumbled together?”

“Exactly like that,” said Troy. “Jet hangover, I think.”

“It will be nice to retire?”

“Gosh, yes!” she breathed, surprised into ardent agreement.

“Come and sit down,” he said and led her to a sofa removed from that occupied by Miss Dancy.

“You must not begin to paint before you are ready,” he said. “Do not permit them to bully you.”

“Oh, I’ll be ready, I hope, tomorrow.”

“I doubt it and I doubt even more if your subject will be available.”

“Why?” asked Troy quickly. “Is anything the matter? I mean—”

“The matter ? That depends on one’s attitude.” He looked fixedly at her. He had very bright eyes. “You have not heard evidently of the great event,” he said. “No? Ah. Then I must tell you that the night after next we are to be audience at the first performance on any stage of a brand-new one-act opera. A world premiere, in fact,” said Signor Lattienzo, and his tone was exceedingly dry. “What do you think about that?”

“I’m flabbergasted,” said Troy.

“You will be even more so when you have heard it. You do not know who I am, of course.”

“I’m afraid I only know that your name is Lattienzo.”

“Ah-ha.”

“I expect I ought to have exclaimed. ‘No! Not the Lattienzo?’”

“Not at all. I am that obscure creature, a vocal pedagogue. I take the voice and teach it to know itself.”

“And — did you—?”

“Yes. I took to pieces the most remarkable vocal instrument of these times and put it together again and gave it back to its owner. I worked her like a horse for three years and I am probably the only living person to whom she pays the slightest professional attention. I am commanded here because she wishes me to fall into a rapture over this opera.”

“Have you seen it? Or should one say ‘read it’?”

He cast up his eyes and made a gesture of despair.

“Oh dear,” said Troy.

“Alas, alas,” agreed Signor Lattienzo. Troy wondered if he was habitually so unguarded with complete strangers.

“You have, of course,” he said, “noticed the fair young man with the appearance of a quattrocento angel and the expression of a soul in torment?”

“I have indeed. It’s a remarkable head.”

“What devil, one asks oneself, inserted into it the notion that it could concoct an opera. And yet,” said Signor Lattienzo, looking thoughtfully at Rupert Bartholomew, “I fancy the first-night horrors the poor child undoubtedly suffers are not of the usual kind.”

“No?”

“No. I fancy he has discovered his mistake and feels deadly sick.”

“But this is dreadful,” Troy said. “It’s the worst that can happen.”

“Can it happen to painters, then?”

“I think painters know while they are still at it, if the thing they are doing is no good. I know I do,” said Troy. “There isn’t perhaps the time lag that authors and, from what you tell me, musicians can go through before they come to the awful moment of truth. Is the opera really so bad?”

“Yes. It is bad. Nevertheless, here and there, perhaps three times, one hears little signs that make one regret he is being spoilt. Nothing is to be spared him. He is to conduct.”

“Have you spoken to him? About it being wrong?”

“Not yet. First I shall let him hear it.”

“Oh,” Troy protested, “but why! Why let him go through with it? Why not tell him and advise him to cancel the performance?”

“First of all, because she would pay no attention.”

“But if he refused?”

“She has devoured him, poor dear. He would not refuse. She has made him her secretary-accompanist-composer, but beyond all that and most destructively, she has taken him for her lover and gobbled him up. It is very sad,” said Signor Lattienzo, and his eyes were bright as coal nuggets. “But you see,” he added, “what I mean when I say that La Sommita will be too much engagée to pose for you until all is over. And then she may be too furious to sit still for thirty seconds. The first dress rehearsal was yesterday. Tomorrow will be occupied in alternately resting and making scenes and attending a second dress rehearsal. And the next night — the performance! Shall I tell you of their first meeting and how it has all come about?”

“Please.”

“But first I must fortify you with a drink.”

He did tell her, making a good story of it. “Imagine! Their first encounter. All the ingredients of the soap opera. A strange young man, pale as death, beautiful as Adonis, with burning eyes and water pouring off the end of his nose, gazes hungrily at his goddess at one a.m. during a deluge. She summons him to the window of her car. She is kind and before long she is even kinder. And again, kinder. He shows her his opera — it is called The Alien Corn , it is dedicated to her, and since the role of Ruth is virtually the entire score and has scarcely finished ravishing the audience with one coloratura embellishment before another sets in, she is favorably impressed. You know, of course, of her celebrated A above high C.”

“I’m afraid not!”

“No? It’s second only to the achievement recorded in the Guinness Book of Records . This besotted young man has been careful to provide for it in her aria. I must tell you by the way that while she sings like the Queen of Heaven, musically speaking this splendid creature is as stupid as an owl.”

“Oh, come!”

“Believe me. It is the truth. You see before you the assembled company engaged at vast cost for this charade. The basso: a New Zealander and a worthy successor to Inia te Wiata. He is the Boaz and, believe me, finds himself knee-deep in corn for which ‘alien’ is all too inadequate a description. The dear Hilda Dancy on the sofa is the Naomi, who escapes with a duet, a handful of recitatives, and the contralto part in an enfeebled pastiche of ‘Bella figlia dell’ amore.’ There she is joined by a mezzo-soprano (the little Sylvia Parry, now talking to the composer). She is, so to speak, Signora Boaz. Next comes the romantic element, in the person of Roberto Rodolfo, who is the head gleaner and adores the Ruth at first sight. She, I need not tell you, dominates the quartet. You find me unsympathetic, perhaps?” said Signor Lattienzo.

“I find you very funny,” said Troy.

“But spiteful? Yes?”

“Well — ruthless, perhaps.”

“Would we were all.”

“What?”

“‘Ruth’-less, my dear.”

“Oh, really !” said Troy and burst out laughing.

“I am very hungry. She is twenty minutes late as usual and our good Monty consults his watch. Ah! We are to be given the full performance — the Delayed Entrance. Listen.”

A musical whooping could at that moment be heard rapidly increasing in volume.

“The celestial fire engine,” said Signor Lattienzo, “approaches.” He said this loudly to Alleyn, who had joined them.

The door into the hall was flung wide, Isabella Sommita stood on the threshold, and Troy thought: “This is it. O, praise the Lord all ye Lands, this is it.”

The first thing to be noticed about the Sommita was her eyes. They were enormous, black, and baleful and set slantwise in her magnolia face. They were topped by two jetty arcs, thin as a camel-hair brush, but one knew that if left to themselves they would bristle and meet angrily above her nose. Her underlip was full, her teeth slightly protuberant with the little gap at the front which is said to denote an amorous disposition.