Ngaio Marsh: Overture to Death

“I’m sure she told you that.”

“She did and I agreed with her. I am most strongly opposed to this affair with Dinah, and I am most relieved to hear that so far it is, as you put it, purely tentative.”

“If Dinah loves me,” said Henry, setting the Jernigham jaw, “I shall marry her. And that’s flat. If Eleanor wasn’t here to jog at your pride, father, you would at least try to see my side. But Eleanor won’t let you. She dramatises herself as the first lady of the district. The squiress. The chatelaine of Pen Cuckoo. She sees Dinah as a sort of rival. What’s more, I believe she’s genuinely jealous of Dinah. It’s the jealousy of a woman of her age and disposition, a jealousy rooted in sex.”

“Disgusting balderdash!” said Jocelyn, angrily, but he looked uncomfortable.

“No!” cried Henry. “No, it’s not. I’m not talking highbrow pornography. You must have seen what Eleanor is. She’s an avid woman. She was in love with you until she found it was a hopeless proposition. Now she and her girl friend the Campanula are rivals for the rector. Dinah says all old maids always fall in love with her father. Everybody sees it. It’s a recognised phenomenon with women of Eleanor’s and Idris Campanula’s type. Have you heard her on the subject of Dr. Templett and Selia Ross? She’s nosed out a scandal there. The next thing that happens will be Eleanor feeling it her duty to warn poor Mrs. Templett that her husband is too fond of the widow. That is, if Idris Campanula doesn’t get in first. Women like Eleanor and Miss Campanula are pathological. Dinah says — ”

“Do you and Dinah discuss my cousin’s attachment, which I don’t admit, for the rector? If you do, I consider it shows an extraordinary lack of manners and taste.”

“Dinah and I,” said Henry, “discuss everything.”

“And this is modern love-making!”

“Don’t let’s start abusing each other’s generations, Father. We’ve never done that. You’ve been so extraordinarily understanding in so many ways. It’s Eleanor!” said Henry. “It’s Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor who is to blame for this!”

The door at the far end of the room was opened and against the lamplit hall beyond appeared a woman’s figure.

“Did I hear you call me, Henry?” asked a quiet voice.

ii

Miss Eleanor Prentice came into the room. She reached out a thin hand and switched on the lights.

“It’s past five o’clock,” said Miss Prentice. “Almost time for our little meeting. I asked them all for half-past five.”

She walked with small mimbling steps towards the cherrywood table which, Henry noticed, had been moved from the wall into the centre of the study. Miss Prentice began to place pencils and sheets of paper at intervals round the table. As she did this she produced, from between her thin closed lips, a dreary flat humming which irritated Henry almost beyond endurance. More to stop this noise than because he wanted to know the answer, Henry asked:

“What meeting, Cousin Eleanor?”

“Have you forgotten, dear? The entertainment committee. The rector and Dinah, Dr. Templett, Idris Campanula, and ourselves. We are counting on you. And on Dinah, of course.”

She uttered this last phrase with additional sweetness. Henry thought, “She knows we’ve been talking about Dinah.” As she fiddled with her pieces of paper Henry watched her with that peculiar intensity that people sometimes lavish on a particularly loathed individual.

Eleanor Prentice was a thin, colourless woman of perhaps forty-nine years. She disseminated the odour of sanctity to an extent that Henry found intolerable. Her perpetual half-smile suggested that she was of a gentle and sweet disposition. This faint smile caused many people to overlook the strength of her face, and that was a mistake, for its strength was considerable. Miss Prentice was indeed a Jernigham. Henry suddenly thought that it was rather hard on Jocelyn that both his cousin and his son should look so much more like the family portraits than he did. Henry and Eleanor had each got the nose and jaw proper to the family. The squire had inherited his mother’s round chin and indeterminate nose. Miss Prentice’s prominent grey eyes stared coldly upon the world through rimless pince-nez. The squire’s blue eyes, even when inspired by his frequent twists of ineffectual temper, looked vulnerable and slightly surprised. Henry, still watching her, thought it strange that he himself should resemble this women whom he disliked so cordially. Without a taste in common, with violently opposed views on almost all ethical issues, and with a profound mutual distrust, they yet shared a certain hard determination which each recognised in the other. In Henry this quality was tempered by courtesy and by a generous mind. She was merely polite and long-suffering. It was typical of her that although she had evidently overheard Henry’s angry reiteration of her name, she accepted his silence and did not ask again why he had called her. Probably, he thought, because she had stood outside the door listening. She now began to pull forward the chairs.

“I think we must give the rector your arm-chair, Jocelyn,” she said. “Henry, dear, would you mind? It’s rather heavy.”

Henry and Jocelyn helped her with the chair and, at her instruction, threw more logs of wood on the fire. These arrangements completed, Miss Prentice settled herself at the table.

“I think your study is almost my favourite corner of Pen Cuckoo, Jocelyn,” she said brightly.

The squire muttered something, and Henry said, “But you are very fond of every corner of the house, aren’t you, Cousin Eleanor?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Ever since my childhood days when I used to spend my holidays here (you remember, Jocelyn?) I’ve loved the dear old home.”

“Estate agents,” Henry said, “have cast a permanent opprobrium on the word ‘home.’ It has come to mean nothing. It is a pity that when I marry, Cousin Eleanor, I shall not be able to take my wife to Winton. I can’t afford to mend the roof, you know.”

Jocelyn cleared his throat, darted an angry glance at his son, and returned to the window.

“Winton is the dower-house, of course,” murmured Miss Prentice.

“As you already know,” Henry continued, “I have begun to pay my addresses to Dinah Copeland. From what you overheard at the rectory do you think it likely that she will accept me?”

He saw her eyes narrow but she smiled a little more widely, showing her prominent and unlovely teeth. “She’s like a French Caricature of an English spinster,” thought Henry.

“I’m quite sure, dear,” said Miss Prentice, “that you do not think I willingly overheard your little talk with Dinah. Far from it. I was very distressed when I caught the few words that — ”

“That you repeated to father? I’m sure you were.”

“I thought it my duty to speak to your father, Henry.”

“Why?”

“Because I think, dear, that you two young people are in need of a little wise guidance.”

“Do you like Dinah?” asked Henry abruptly.

“She has many excellent qualities, I am sure,” said Miss Prentice.

“I asked you if you liked her, Cousin Eleanor.”

“I like her for those qualities. I am afraid, dear, that I think it better not to go any further just at the moment.”

“I agree,” said Jocelyn from the window. “Henry, I won’t have any more of this. These people will be here in a moment. There’s the rectory car, now, coming round Cloudyfold bend. They’ll be here in five minutes. You’d better tell us what it’s all about, Eleanon”

Miss Prentice seated herself at the foot of the table.

“It’s the Y.P.F.C,” she said. “We badly want funds and the rector suggested that perhaps we might get up a little play. You remember, Jocelyn. It was the night we dined there.”