Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

“My daughter, I am waiting,” said the rector, and was horrified when he was answered by a harsh, angry sobbing.

ii

In spite of her cold, Miss Campanula was happy. She was about to make her confession, and she felt at peace with the world and quite youthful and exalted. The terrible black mood that had come upon her when she woke up that morning had vanished completely She even felt fairly good-humoured when she thought of Eleanor playing her “Venetian Suite” at the performance to-morrow evening. With that Place on her finger, Eleanor was likely enough to make a hash of the music, and then everybody would think it was a pity that she, Idris Campanula, had not been chosen. That thought gave her a happy, warm feeling. Nowadays she was never sure what her mood would be. It changed in the most curious fashion from something like ecstasy to a dreadful irritation that came upon her with such violence and with so little provocation that it quite frightened her. It was as if, like the people in the New Testament, she had a devil in her, a beast that could send her thoughts black and make her tremble with anger. She had confessed these fits of rage to Father Copeland (she and Eleanor called him that when they spoke of him together), and he had been kind and had prayed for her. He had also, rather to her surprise, suggested that she should see a doctor. But there was nothing wrong with her health, she reflected, except lumbago and the natural processes attached to getting a little bit older. She pushed that thought away quickly, as it was inclined to make her depressed, and when she was depressed the beast took advantage of her.

Her chauffeur drove her to church, but she was a few minutes early, so she decided that she would look in at the parish hall and see if the committee of the Y.P.F.C. had begun to get it ready for to-morrow night. The decorating, of course, would all be done in the morning under her supervision; but there were floors to be swept, forms shifted and tables moved. Perhaps Eleanor would be there — or even Father Copeland on his way to church. Another wave of ecstasy swept over her. She knew why she was so happy. He would perhaps be at Pen Cuckoo for this ridiculous “run through for words” at five o’clock; but, better than that, it was Reading Circle night in the rectory dining-room, and her turn to preside. After it was over she would look in at the study, and Father Copeland would be there alone and would talk to her for a little.

Telling her chauffeur to wait, she marched up the gravelled path to the hall.

It was locked. This was irritating. She supposed those young people imagined they had done enough for one day. You might depend upon it, they had made off, leaving half the work for to-morrow. She was just going away again when dimly, from within, she heard the sound of strumming. Someone was playing chopsticks very badly, with the loud pedal on. Miss Campanula felt a sudden desire to know who had remained inside the hall to strum. She rattled the doors. The maddening noise stopped immediately.

“Who’s in there?” shouted Miss Campanula, in a cold-infected voice, and rattled again.

There was no answer.

“The back door!” she thought. “It may be open.” And she marched round the building. But the back door was shut, and although she pounded angrily on it, splitting her black kid gloves, nobody came to open it. Her face burned with exertion and rising fury. She started off again and completed the circuit of the hall. The frosted windows were all above the level of her eyes. The last one she came to was open at the bottom. Miss Campanula returned to the lane and saw that her chauffeur had followed her in the car from the church.

“Gibson!” she shouted. “Gibson, come here!”

He got out of the car and came towards her. He was a wooden-faced man with a fine physique; very smart in his dark maroon livery and shiny gaiters. He followed his mistress around the front of the hall to the far side.

“I want you to look inside that window,” said Miss Campanula. “There’s somebody in there who’s behaving suspiciously.”

“Very good, miss,” said Gibson.

He gripped the window sill. The muscles under his smart tunic swelled as he raised himself until his eyes were above the sill.

Miss Campanula sneezed violently, blew her nose on her enormous handkerchief drenched in eucalyptus, and said, “Cad you see annddythingk?”

“No, miss. There’s nobody there.”

“But there bust be,” insisted Miss Campanula.

“I can’t see any one, miss. The place is all tidied up, like, for to-morrow.”

“Where’s the piano?”

“Down on the floor, miss, in front of the stage.”

Gibson lowered himself.

“They bust have gone into one of the back rooms,” muttered Miss Campanula.

“Could whoever it was have come out at the front door, miss, while you were round at the back?”

“Did you see addybody?”

“Can’t say I did, miss. Not round the hall. But I was turning the car. They might have gone round the bend in the lane before I would notice.”

“I consider it bost peculiar and suspicious.”

“Yes, miss. There’s Miss Prentice just coming out of church, miss.”

“Is she?” Miss Campanula peered short sightedly down the lane. She could see the south porch of St. Giles and a figure in the doorway.

“I mustn’t be late,” she thought. “Eleanor has got in first, as usual.” And she ordered Gibson to wait for her outside the church. She crossed the lane, and strode down to the lych-gate. Eleanor was still in the porch. One did not stop to gossip when going to confession, but she gave Eleanor her usual nod and was astonished to see that she looked ghastly.

“There’s something wrong with her,” thought Miss Campanula, and somewhere, in the shifting hinterland between her conscious and unconscious thoughts, lay the warm hope that the rector had been displeased with Eleanor at confession.

Miss Campanula entered the church with joy in her heart.

iii

At the precise moment when Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula passed each other in the south porch, Henry, up at Pen Cuckoo, decided that he could remain indoors no longer. He was restless and impatient. He and Dinah had kept their pact, and since their morning on Cloudyfold had not met alone. Henry had announced their intention to his father at breakfast while Eleanor Prentice was in the room.

“It’s Dinah’s idea,” he had said. “She calls it an armistice. As our affairs seem to be so much in the public eye, and as her father has been upset by the conversation you had with him last night, Cousin Eleanor, Dinah thinks it would be a good thing if we promised him we would postpone what you have described as our clandestine meetings for three weeks. After that I shall speak to the rector myself.” He had looked directly at Miss Prentice and added: “I shall be very grateful if you would not discuss the matter with him in the meantime. After all, it is primarily our affair.”

“I shall do what I believe to be my duty, Henry,” Miss Prentice had said; and Henry had answered, “I’m afraid you will,” and walked out of the room.

He and Dinah had written to each other. Henry had found Miss Prentice eyeing Dinah’s first letter as it lay beside his plate at breakfast. He had put it in the breast pocket of his coat, rather shocked at the look he had surprised in her face. After that morning he had come down early to breakfast.

During the three weeks’ truce, Jocelyn never spoke to his son of Dinah, but Henry knew very well that Miss Prentice nagged at the squire whenever a chance presented itself. Several times Henry had walked into the study to find Eleanor closeted with Jocelyn. The silence that invariably followed his entrance, his father’s uncomfortable attempts to break it, and Miss Prentice’s tight smile as she glided away, left Henry in no doubt as to the subject of their conversation.