Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

“Of course I do,” said Barbara eagerly. “It was terrible but sort of noble.”

“He got it from a drunken dresser who flew into a rage with the star she looked after. She wrenched the heads off one of the bouquets. He never forgets things like that.”

“Oh.”

“You’re feeling a bit better now?”

“A bit. You’re very kind, aren’t you?” said Barbara rather as if she saw Dikon for the first time. “I mean, to take trouble over our frightfulness.”

“You must stop being apologetic,” Dikon said. “So far I’ve taken no trouble at all.”

“You listen nicely,” Barbara said.

“I’m almost ghoulishly discreet, if that’s any recommendation.”

“I do so wonder what Sim’s doing. Can you hear anything?”

“We’ve came rather far away from them to hear anything. Unless, of course, they begin to scream in each other’s faces. What would you expect to hear? Dull thuds?”

“I don’t know. Listen !”

“Well,” said Dikon after a pause, “that was a dull thud. Do you suppose that Mr. Questing has been felled to the ground for the second time in a fortnight?”

“I’m afraid Sim’s hit him.”

“I’m afraid so too,” Dikon agreed. “Look.”

From where they sat they could see the patch of manuka scrub. Mr. Questing appeared, nursing his face in his handkerchief. He came slowly along the main path and as he drew nearer they saw that his handkerchief was dappled red. “A dong on the nose, by gum,” said Dikon. When he arrived at the intersection, Mr. Questing paused.

“I’m going — He’ll see me. I can’t—” Barbara began, but she was too late. Mr. Questing had already seen them. He advanced a short way down the side path and, still holding his handkerchief to his nose, addressed them from some considerable distance.

“Look at this,” he shouted. “Is it a swell set-up, or is it? I like to do things in a refined way and here’s what I get for it. What’s the matter with the crowd around here? Ask a lady to marry you and somebody hauls off and half kills you. I’m going to clean this dump right up. Pardon me, Mr. Bell, for intruding personal affairs.”

“Not at all, Mr. Questing,” said Dikon politely.

Mr. Questing unguardedly removed his handkerchief and three large red blobs fell on his shirt front. “Blast!” he said violently and stanched his nose again. “Listen, Babs,” he continued through the handkerchief. “If you feel like changing your mind, I won’t say the offer’s closed, but if you want to do anything you’ll need to make it snappy. I’m going to pack them up, the whole crowd of them. I’ll give the Colonel till the end of the month and then out . And, by God, if I’d got a witness I’d charge your tough young brother with assault. By God, I would. I’m fed up. I’m in pain and I’m fed up.” He goggled at Dikon over the handkerchief. “Apologizing once again, old man,” said Mr. Questing, “and assuring you that you’ll very shortly see a big change for the better in the management of this bloody dump. So long, for now.”

Long after the events recorded in this tale were ended, Dikon, looking back at the first fortnight at Wai-ata-tapu, would reflect that they had suffered collectively from intermittent emotional hiccoughs. For long intervals the daily routine would be uninterrupted and then, when he wondered if they had settled down, they would be convulsed and embarrassed by yet another common spasm. Not that he ever believed, after Mr. Questing’s outburst, that there was much hope of the Claires settling back into their old way of life. It seemed to Dikon that Mr. Questing had been out for blood. A marked increase in Colonel Claire’s vagueness, together with an air of bewildered misery, suggested that he had been faced with an ultimatum. Dikon had come upon Mrs. Claire on her knees before an old trunk, shaking her head over Edwardian photographs and aimlessly arranging them in heaps. When she saw him she murmured something about clinging to one’s household gods wherever one went. Barbara, who had taken to confiding in Dikon, told him that she had sworn Simon to secrecy over the incident by the lake, but that Questing had been closeted with her father for half an hour, still wearing his blood-stained shirt, and had no doubt given the Colonel his own version of the affray. Dikon had described the scene by the lake to Gaunt, and half-way through the recital, wished he had left it alone. Gaunt was surprisingly interested. “It really is most intriguing ,” he said, rubbing his delicate hands together. “I was right about the girl, you see. She has got something. I’m never mistaken. She’s incredibly gauche , she talks like a madwoman, and she grimaces like a monkey. That’s simply because she’s raw, uncertain of herself. It’s the bone one should look at. Show me good bone, and a pair of eyes, give me a free hand, and I’ll create beauty. She’s roused the unspeakable Questing, you see.”

“But Questing has his eye on the place.”

“Nobody, my dear Dikon, for the sake of seven squalid mud puddles is going to marry a woman who doesn’t attract him. No, no, the girl’s got something. I’ve been talking to her. Studying her. I tell you I’m never mistaken. You remember that understudy child at the Unicorn? I saw there was something in her. I told the management. She’s never looked back. It’s a flair one has. I could…” Gaunt paused, and took his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “It would be rather fun to try,” he said.

With a sensation of panic, Dikon said: “To try what, sir?”

“Dikon, shall I make Barbara Claire a present? What was the name of the dress shop we noticed in Auckland? Near the hotel? Quite good? You must remember. A ridiculous name.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Sarah Snappe! Of course. Barbara shall have a new dress for this Maori concert on Saturday. Black, of course. It must be terribly simple. You can write at once. No, perhaps you should go to Harpoon and telephone, and they must put it on tomorrow’s train. There was a dress in the window, woollen with a dusting of steel stars. Really quite good. It would fit her. And ask them to be kind and find shoes and gloves for us. If possible, stockings. You can get the size somehow. And underclothes, for God’s sake. One can imagine what hers are like. I shall indulge myself in this, Dikon. And we must take her to a hairdresser and stand over him. I shall make her up. If Sarah Snappe doesn’t believe you’re my secretary you can ring up the hotel and do it through them.” Gaunt beamed at his secretary. “What a child I am, after all, Dikon, aren’t I? I mean this is going to give me such real pleasure.”

Dikon said in a voice of ice: “But it’s quite impossible, sir.”

“What the devil do you mean!”

“There’s no parity between Barbara Claire and an understudy at the Unicorn.”

“I should damn well say there wasn’t. The other little person had quite a lot to start with. She was merely incredibly vulgar.”

“Which Barbara Claire is not,” said Dikon. He looked at his employer, noted his air of peevish complacency and went on steadily. “Honestly, sir, the Claires would never understand. You know what they’re like. A comparative stranger to offer their daughter clothes!”

“Why the hell not?”

“It just isn’t done in their world.”

“You’ve become maddeningly class-conscious all of a sudden, my good Dikon. What is their world, pray?”

“Shall we say proudly poor, sir?”

“The suspicious-genteel, you mean. The incredibly, the insultingly stupid bourgeoisie who read offence in a kindly impulse. You wish me to understand that these people would try to snub me, don’t you?”