Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

Jocelyn was the type of amateur performer who learns his lines from the prompter. Unlike Miss Campanula, he did not hold his part in his hand. Indeed, he had lost it irrevocably immediately after the first rehearsal. He said that it did not matter, as he had already memorized his lines. This was a lie. He merely had a vague idea of their sense. His performance reminded Dinah of divine service, as he was obliged to repeat all his lines, like responses, after the rector. However, in spite of this defect, the squire had an instinctive sense of theatre. He did not fidget or gesticulate. With Dr. Templett tearing about the stage like a wasp, this was particularly refreshing.

Miss Prentice did not know her part either, but she was a cunning bluffer. She had a long scene in which she held a newspaper open in her hands. Dinah discovered that Miss Prentice had pinned several of her sides to the sheets of the Times . Others were left in handy places about the stage. When, in spite of these manœuvres, she dried up, Miss Prentice stared in a gently reproachful manner at the person who spoke after her, so that everybody thought it was her vis-à-vis who was at fault.

Mrs. Ross had learnt her part. Her clear, hard voice had plenty of edge. Once there, she worked, tried to follow Dinah’s suggestions, and was very good-humoured and obliging. If ever anything was wanted, Mrs. Ross would get it. She brought down to the Parish Hall her cushions, her cocktail glasses and her bridge table. Dinah found herself depending more and more on Mrs. Ross for “hand props” and odds and ends of furniture. But, for all that, she did not like Mrs. Ross, whose peals of laughter at all Dr. Templett’s regrettable antics were extremely irritating. The determined rudeness with which Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula met all Mrs. Ross’s advances forced Dinah into making friepdly gestures which she continually regretted. She saw, with something like horror, that her father had innocently succumbed to Mrs. Ross’s charm, and to her sudden interest in his church. This, more than anything else she did, inflamed Miss Campanula and Eleanor Prentice against Selia Ross. Dinah felt that her rehearsals were shot through and through with a mass of ugly suppressions. To complete her discomfort, the squire’s attitude towards Mrs. Ross, being ripe with Edwardian naughtiness, obviously irritated Henry and the two ladies almost to breaking point.

Henry had learnt his part and shaped well. He and Dinah were the only members of the cast who gave any evidence of team work. The others scarcely even so much as looked at each other, and treated their speeches as it they were a string of interrupted recitations.

ii

The battle of the music had raged for three weeks. Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula, together and alternately, had pretended to altruistic motives, accused each other of selfishness, sulked, denied all desire to perform on the piano, given up their parts, relented, and offered their services anew. In the end Dinah, with her father’s moral support behind her, seized upon a moment when Miss Campanula had said she’d no wish to play on an instrument with five dumb notes in the treble and six in the bass.

“All right, Miss Campanula,” said Dinah, “we’ll have it like that. Miss Prentice has kindly volunteered, and I shall appoint her as pianist. As you’ve got the additional responsibility of the Y.P.F.C. girls in the front of the house, it really does seem the best idea.”

After that Miss Campanula was barely civil to anybody but the rector and the squire.

Five days before the performance, Eleanor Prentice developed a condition which Miss Campanula called “a Place” on the index finger of the left hand. Everybody noticed it. Miss Campanula did not fail to point out that it would probably be much worse on the night of the performance.

“You’d better take care of that Place on your finger, Eleanor,” she said. “It’s gathering, and to me it looks very nasty. Your blood must be out of order.”

Miss Prentice denied this with an air of martyrdom, but there was no doubt that the Place grew increasingly ugly. Three days before the performance it was hidden by an obviously professional bandage, and everybody knew that she had consulted Dr. Templett. A rumour sprang up that Miss Campanula had begun to practise her Prelude every morning after breakfast.

Dinah had a private conversation with Dr. Templett.

“What about Miss Prentice’s finger? Will she be able to play the piano?”

“I’ve told her she’d better give up all idea of it,” he said. “There’s a good deal of inflammation, and it’s very painful. It’ll hurt like the devil if she attempts to use it, and it’s not at all advisable that she should.”

“What did she say?”

Dr. Templett grinned.

“She said she wouldn’t disappoint her audience, and that she could rearrange the fingering of her piece. It’s the ‘Venetian Suite,’ as usual, of course?”

“It is,” said Dinah grimly. “ ‘Dawn’ and ‘On the Canal’ for the overture, and the ‘Nocturne’ for the entr’acte. She’ll never give way.”

“Selia says she wouldn’t mind betting old Idris has put poison in her girl friend’s gloves like the Borgias,” said Dr. Templett, and added: “Good Lord, I oughtn’t to have repeated that! It’s the sort of thing that’s quoted against you in a place like this.”

“I won’t repeat it,” said Dinah.

She asked Miss Prentice if she would rather not appear at the piano.

“How thoughtful of you, Dinah, my dear,” rejoined Miss Prentice, with her holiest smile. “But I shall do my little best. You may depend upon me.”

“But, Miss Prentice, your finger!”

“Ever so much better,” said Eleanor in a voice that somehow suggested that there was something slightly improper in mentioning her finger.

“They are waiting to print the programmes. Your name — ”

“Please don’t worry, dear. My name may appear in safety. Shall we just not say any more about it, but consider it settled?”

“Very well,” said Dinah uneasily. “It’s very heroic of you.”

“Silly child!” said Eleanor playfully.

iii

And now, on Thursday, November the 25th, two nights before the performance, Dinah stood beside the paraffin heater in the aisle of the parish hall, and with dismay in her heart prepared to watch the opening scenes in which she herself did not appear. There was to be no music at the dress rehearsal.

“Just to give my silly old finger time to get quite well,” said Miss Prentice.

But Henry had told Dinah that both he and his father had seen Eleanor turn so white after knocking her finger against a chair that they thought she was going to faint.

“You won’t stop her,” said Henry. “If she has to play the bass with her feet, she’ll do it.”

Dinah gloomily agreed.

She had made them up for the dress rehearsal and had attempted to create a professional atmosphere in a building that reeked of parochial endeavour. Even now her father’s unmistakably clerical voice could be heard beyond the green serge curtain, crying obediently:

“Beginners, please.”

In front of Dinah, six privileged Friendly Young Girls, who were to sell programmes and act as ushers at the performance, sat in a giggling row to watch the dress rehearsal. Dr. Templett and Henry were their chief interest. Dr. Templett was aware of this and repeatedly looked round the curtain. He had insisted on making himself up, and looked as if he had pressed his face against a gridiron and then garnished his chin with the hearth-brush. Just as Dinah was about to ring up the curtain, his head again bobbed round the comer.

“Vy do you, ’ow you say, gargle so mooch?” he asked the helpers. A renewed paroxysm broke out.