Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

He turned on his heel and walked towards his rooms.

“Good night,” said Dikon.

She had moved into the light. The look she turned upon him was radiant. “You’re terribly lucky, aren’t you?” said Barbara.

“Lucky?”

“Your job. To be with him.”

“Oh,” said Dikon, “that. Yes, of course.”

“Good night,” said Barbara, and ran indoors.

He looked after her, absently polishing his glasses with his handkerchief. v

Barbara lay in bed with her eyes wide-open to the dark. Until this moment she had denied the waves of bliss that lapped at the edge of her thoughts. Now she opened her heart to them.

She passed the sequence of those few minutes in the dusk through and through her mind, examining each moment, feeling again its lustre, wondering at her happiness. It is easy to smile at such fervours, but in her unreasoned ecstasy she reached a point of pure enchantment to which she would perhaps never again ascend. The experience may appear more touching but its reality is not impugned if it is recorded that Gaunt, at the same time, was preening himself a little.

“Do you know, Dikon,” he said, “that strange little devil quivered like a puppy out there in the dusk.” Dikon did not answer and after a moment Gaunt added: “After all it’s pleasant to know that one’s work can reach so far. The Bard and sulphuric phenomena! An amusing juxtaposition, isn’t it? One lights a little flame, you know. One carries the torch.”

The more blatant eccentricities of the first evening were not repeated during the following days, and the household at Wai-ata-tapu settled down to something like a normal routine. The Colonel fatigued himself to exhaustion with Home Guard exercises. His wife and daughter, overtaxed by the new standard they had set themselves, laboured incessantly in the house, Gaunt, following Dr. Ackrington’s instructions, sat at stated hours in the Springs, took short walks, and began to work steadily on his book. Dikon filed old letters and programmes which had to be winnowed for use in the autobiography. Gaunt dictated for two hours every morning and evening, and expected Dikon’s shorthand notes to be translated into typescript before they began work on the following day. Dr. Ackrington dealt austerely in his own room with the problems of comparative anatomy. On Wednesday he announced that he was going away for a week, and, when Mrs. Claire said gently that she hoped there was nothing the matter, replied that they would all be better if they were dead, and drove away. Colly, who had been a signaller in the 1914 war, recovered from the surprise of Simon’s first advance, and spent a good deal of time in the cabin helping him with his Morse. Simon’s attitude to Gaunt was one of morose suspicion. As far as possible he avoided encounters, but on the rare occasions when they met, his behaviour was remarkable. He was not content to remain altogether silent, but would suddenly roar out strange inquiries and statements. He asked Gaunt whether he reckoned the theatre did any good in the world, and, when Gaunt replied with some heat that he did, inquired the price of seats. On receiving this information he said instantly that a poor family could live for a week on the price of a stall and that there ought to be a flat charge all over the house. Gaunt’s book had gone badly that morning and his leg was painful. He became irritable and a ridiculous argument took place.

“It’s selfishness that’s at the bottom of it,” Simon shouted. “The actors ought to have smaller wages, see? What I reckon, the thing ought to be run for the good of everybody. Smaller wages all round.”

“Including the stage staff? The workmen?” asked Gaunt.

“They all ought to get the same.”

“Then I couldn’t afford to keep your friend Colly.”

“I reckon he’s wasting his time anyway,” said Simon, and Gaunt walked away in a rage.

Evidently Simon confided this conversation to Colly, who considered it necessary to apologize for his new friend.

“You don’t want to pay too much attention to him, sir,” Colly said, as he massaged his employer’s leg that evening. “He’s a nice young chap. Just a touch on the red side. He’s a bit funny. It’s Mr. Questing that’s upset his apple-cart, reely.”

“He’s an idiotic cub,” said Gaunt. “What’s Questing got to do with the price of stalls?”

“He’s been talking big business, sir. Young Simon thinks he’s lent a good bit to the Colonel on this show. He thinks the Colonel can’t pay up and Mr. Questing’s going to shut down on them and run the place on his pat. Young Simon’s that disgusted he’s taken a scunner on anything that looks like smart business.”

“Yes, but —”

“He’s funny. I had it out with him. He told me what he’d been saying to you, and I said he’d acted very silly. ‘I’ve been with my gentleman for ten years,’ I told him, ‘and there’s not much we don’t know about the show business. I seen him when he was a small-part actor playing a couple-of-coughs-and-a-spit in stock,’ I said, ‘and believe you me he’s worked for it. He may be a star now,’ I said, ‘and he may be getting the big money, but how long’ll it last?’ ”

“What the hell did you mean by that?”

“We’re not as young as we was, sir, are we? ‘You don’t want to talk silly,’ I said. ‘Questing’s one thing and my gentleman’s another.’ But no. ‘You’re no better than a flunkey,’ he says. ‘You’re demeaning yourself.’ I straightened him up about that. ‘There’s none of the blooming valley about me,’ I says, ‘I’m a dresser and make-up, and what I do on the side is done by me own choice. I’m in the game with my gentleman.’ ‘It’s greed for money,’ he howls, ‘that’s ruining the world. Big business started this war,’ he says, ‘and when we’ve won it us chaps that did the fighting are going to have a say in the way things are run. The Questings’ll be wiped right off the slate.’ That’s the way he talks, you see, sir. Mind, I feel sorry for him. He’s got the idea that his dad and ma are going to just about conk out over this business and to his way of thinking Questing’s as good as a murderer. He says Smith knows something about Questing and that’s why he had to jump for it when the train came. You’ve had fifteen minutes on them muscles and that’ll do you.”

“You’ve damned nearly flayed me alive.”

“Yes,” said Colly, flinging a blanket over his victim and going into the next room to wash his hands. “He’s morbid, is young Sim. And of course Mr. Questing’s little attempts at the funny business with Miss Barbara kind of put the pot on it.”

Dikon, who had been clattering his typewriter, paused.

“What’s that?” said Gaunt, suddenly alert.

“Had you missed the funny business, sir?” said Colly from the next room. “Oh, yes. Quite a bit of trouble she has with him, I understand.”

“What did I tell you, Dikon?”

“The way I look at it,” Colly went on, appearing in the doorway with a towel, “she’s capable. No getting away from it, and you can’t get domestic labour in this country without you pay the earth, so Questing thinks he’ll do better to keep her when the old people go.”

“But damn it,” Dikon said angrily, “this is insufferable. It’s revolting.”

“That’s right, Mr. Bell. That’s what young Sim thinks. He’s worked it out. Questing’ll try putting in the fine work, making out he’ll look after the old people if she sees it in the right light. Coo! It’s a touch of the old blood-and-thunder dope isn’t it, sir? Mortgage and all. The villain still pursued her. Only the juvenile to cast, and there, as we say in The Dream , sir, is a play fitted. I used to enjoy them old pieces.”