Ngaio Marsh - Killer Dolphin

Mrs. Blewitt smiled and smiled at Peregrine with the deadly knowingness of the professional mum and Trevor linked his arm in hers and smiled, too. There are many extremely nice children in the professional theatre. They have been well brought up by excellent parents. But none of these had been available to play Hamnet Shakespeare and Trevor, it had to be faced, was talented to an unusual degree. He had made a great hit on cinema in a biblical epic as the Infant Samuel.

“Mrs. Blewitt,” said Peregrine.

“I was just hoping for a chance to say how much we appreciate the compliment,” said Mrs. Blewitt with an air of conspiracy. “It’s not a big role, of course, not like Trev’s accustomed to. Trev’s accustomed to leading child-juves, Mr. Jay. We was offered—”

It went on predictably for some time. Trevor, it appeared, had developed a heart condition. Nothing, Mrs. Blewitt hurriedly assured Peregrine, to worry about really because Trev would never let a show down, never, but the doctor under whom Trev was and under whom she herself was—a monstrous picture presented itself—had advised against another big, emotionally exhausting role—

“Why bring that up, Mummy?” Trevor piped with one of his atrocious winks at Peregrine. Peregrine excused himself, saying that they must all be getting along, mustn’t they, and he wanted to catch Miss Dunne before she left.

This was true. He had thought it would be pleasant to take Emily back to their studio for supper with him and Jeremy. Before he could get to her he was trapped by Gertrude Bracey.

She said: “Have you seen Harry anywhere?”

“I saw him a minute or two ago. I think perhaps he’s gone.”

“I think perhaps you’re right,” she said with such venom that Peregrine blinked. He saw that Gertrude’s mouth was unsteady. Her eyes were not quite in focus and were blurred with tears.

“Shall I see if I can find him?” he offered.

“God, no,” she said. “I know better than that, I hope, thank you very much.” She seemed to make a painful effort to present a more conventional front. “It doesn’t matter two hoots, darling,” she said. “It was nothing. Fabulous party. Can’t wait to begin work. I see great things in poor Ann, you know.”

She walked over to the balustrade and looked down into the lower foyer which was populous with departing guests. She was not entirely steady on her pins, he thought. The last pair of personages was going downstairs and of the company only Charles Random and Gertrude remained. She leaned over the balustrade, holding to it with both hands. If she was looking for Harry Grove, Peregrine thought, she hadn’t found him. With an uncoordinated swing she turned, flapped a long black glove at Peregrine and plunged downstairs. Almost certainly she had not said goodbye to her host and hostess but, on the whole, perhaps that was just as well. He wondered if he ought to put her in a taxi but heard Charles Random shout: “Hi, Gertie love. Give you a lift?”

Jeremy was waiting for him but Emily Dunne had gone. Almost everybody had gone. His spirits plummeted abysmally. Unpredictably, his heart was in his boots.

He went up to Mrs. Greenslade with extended hand.

“Wonderful,” he said. “How can we thank you.”

“ Who is this comes hopping up the lane ?”

“ Hopping? Where? Oh, I see. A lady dressed for riding. She’s lame, Master Will. She’s hurt. She can’t put her foot to the ground. ”

“ She makes a grace of her ungainliness. There’s a stain across her face. And in her bosom. A raven’s feather in a valley of snow. ”

“ Earth. Mire. On her habit, too. She must have fallen. ”

“ Often enough, I dare swear. ”

“ She’s coming in at the gate. ”

“ Will! Where ARE you. WILL!”

“We’ll have to stop again. I’m afraid,” Peregrine said. “Gertie! Ask her to come on, will you, Charles?”

Charles Random opened the door on the Prompt side. “Gertie! Oh, dear.”

Gertrude Bracey entered with her jaw set and the light of battle in her eyes. Peregrine walked down the centre aisle and put his hands on the rail of the orchestral well.

“Gertie, love,” he said, “it went back again, didn’t it? It was all honey and sweet reasonableness and it wouldn’t have risen one solitary hackle. She must grate. She must be bossy. He’s looking down the lane at that dark, pale creature who comes hopping into his life with such deadly seduction. And while he’s quivering, slap bang into this disturbance of—of his whole personality—comes your voice: scolding, demanding, possessive, always too loud. It must be like that, Gertie. Don’t you see ? You must hurt. You must jangle.”

He waited. She said nothing.

“I can’t have it any other way,” Peregrine said.

Nothing.

“Well, let’s build it again, shall we? Back to ‘ Who is this, ’ please, Marco. You’re off, please, Gertie.”

She walked off.

Marcus Knight cast up his eyes in elaborate resignation, raised his arms and let them flop.

“Very well, dear boy,” he said, “as often as you like, of course. One grows a little jaded but never mind.”

Marco was not the only one, Peregrine thought, to feel jaded: Gertie was enough to reduce an author-director to despair. She had after a short tour of the States become wedded to Method acting. This involved endless huddles with whoever would listen to her and a remorseless scavenging through her emotional past for fragments that could start her off on some astonishing association with her performance.

“It’s like a bargain basement,” Harry Grove said to Peregrine. The things Gertie digs up and tries on are really too rococo. We get a new look every day.”

It was a slow process and the unplotted pauses she took in which to bring the truth to light were utterly destructive to concerted playing. “If she goes on like this,” Peregrine thought, “she’ll tear herself to tatters and leave the audience merely wishing she wouldn’t.”

As for Marcus Knight, the danger signals for a major temperament had already been flown. There was a certain thunderous quietude which Peregrine thought it best to disregard.

Really, for him, Peregrine thought, Marco was behaving rather well, and he tried to ignore the little hammer that pounded away under Marco’s oval cheek.

“ Who is this —”

Again they built up to her line. When it came it was merely shouted offstage without meaning and apparently without intention.

“Great Christ in Heaven!” Marcus Knight suddenly bellowed. “How long must this endure! What, in the name of all the suffering clans of martyrdom, am I expected to do ? Am I coupled with a harridan or a bloody dove? My author, my producer, my art tell me that here is a great moment. I should be fed, by Heaven, fed: I should be led up to. I have my line to make. I must show what I am. My whole being should be lacerated. And so, God knows it is, but by what!” He strode to the door and flung it wide. Gertrude Bracey was exposed looking both terrified and determined. “By a drivelling, piping pea-hen!” he roared, straight into her face. “What sort of an actress are you, dear? Are you a woman, dear? Has anybody ever slighted you, trifled with you, deserted you? Have you no conception of the gnawing serpent that ravages a woman scorned?”

Somewhere in the front of the house Harry Grove laughed. Unmistakably, it was he. He had a light, mocking, derisive laugh, highly infectious to anybody who had not inspired it. Unhappily both Knight and Gertrude Bracey, for utterly opposed reasons, took it as a direct personal affront. Knight spun round on his heel, advanced to the edge of the stage and roared into the darkness of the auditorium. “Who is that! Who is it! I demand an answer.”