Ngaio Marsh - Colour Scheme

‘Mr Bell warned you, sir,’ Colly said. ‘I daresay it’s very comfortable.’

‘If anything,’ said Dikon, ‘it’s less comfortable than it looks. Those are the Springs.’

‘Those reeking puddles?’

‘Yes. And there, on the verandah, I see the Claires assembled. You are expected, sir,’ said Dikon. Out of the tail of his eyes he saw Gaunt’s gloved fingers go first to his tie and then to his hat. He thought suddenly: ‘He looks terribly like a famous actor.’

The car rocked down the last stretch of the drive and shot across the pumice sweep. Dikon pulled up at the verandah steps. He got out, and taking off his hat approached the expectant Claires. He felt nervous and absurd. The Claires were grouped after the manner of an Edwardian family portrait that had taken an eccentric turn. Mrs Claire and the Colonel were in deck chairs, Barbara sat on the steps grasping a reluctant dog. Dikon guessed that they wore their best clothes. Simon, obviously under duress, stood behind his mother’s chair looking murderous. All that was lacking, one felt, was the native equivalent of a gillie holding a couple of staghounds in leash. As Dikon approached, Dr Ackrington came out of his room.

‘Here we are, you see,’ Dikon called out with an effort at gaiety. The Claires had risen. Impelled by confusion, doubt and apology, Dikon shook hands blindly all round. Barbara looked nervously over his shoulder and he saw with a dismay which he afterwards recognised as prophetic that she had gone white to her unpainted lips.

He felt Gaunt’s hand on his arm and hurriedly introduced him.

Mrs Claire brought poise to the situation, Dikon realised, but it was the kind of poise with which Gaunt was quite unfamiliar. She might have been welcoming a bishop-suffragan to a slum parish, a bishop-suffragan in poor health.

‘Such a long journey,’ she said anxiously. ‘You must be so tired.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Gaunt, who had arrived at an age when actors affect a certain air of youthful hardihood.

‘But it’s such a dreadful road. And you look very tired,’ she persisted gently. Dikon saw Gaunt’s smile grow formal. He turned to Barbara. For some reason which he had not attempted to analyse, Dikon wanted Gaunt to like Barbara. It was with apprehension that he watched her give a galvanic jerk, open her eyes very wide, and put her head on one side like a chidden puppy. ‘Oh, hell,’ he thought, ‘she’s going to be funny.’

‘Welcome,’ Barbara said in her sepulchral voice, ‘to the humble abode.’ Gaunt dropped her hand rather quickly.

‘Find us very quiet, I’m afraid,’ Colonel Claire said, looking quickly at Gaunt and away again. ‘Not much in your line, this country, what?’

‘But we’ve just been remarking,’ Gaunt said lightly, ‘that your landscape reeks of theatre.’ He waved his stick at Rangi’s Peak. ‘One expects to hear the orchestra.’ Colonel Claire looked baffled and slightly offended.

‘My brother,’ Mrs Claire murmured. Dr Ackrington limped forward. Dikon’s attention was distracted from this last encounter by the behaviour of Simon Claire, who suddenly lurched out of cover, strode down the steps and seized the astounded Colly by the hand. Colly, who was about to unload the car, edged behind it.

‘How are you?’ Simon said loudly. ‘Give you a hand with that stuff.’

‘That’s all right, thank you, sir.’

‘Come on,’ Simon insisted and laid violent hands on a pigskin dressing case which he lugged from the car and dumped none too gently on the pumice. Colly gave a little cry of dismay.

‘Here, here, here!’ a loud voice expostulated. Mr Questing thundered out of the house and down the steps. ‘Cut that out, young fellow,’ he ordered and shouldered Simon away from the car.

‘Why?’ Simon demanded.

‘That’s no way to treat high-class stuff,’ bustled Mr Questing with an air of intolerable patronage. ‘You’ll have to learn better than that. Handle it carefully.’ He advanced upon Dikon. ‘We’re willing,’ he laughed, ‘but we’ve a lot to learn. Well, well, well, how’s the young gentleman?’

He removed his hat and placed himself before Gaunt. His change of manner was amazingly abrupt. He might have been a lightning impersonator or a marionette controlled by some pundit of second-rate etiquette. Suddenly, he oozed deference. ‘I don’t think,’ he said, ‘that I have had the honour –’

‘Mr Questing,’ said Dikon.

‘This is a great day for the Springs, sir,’ said Mr Questing. ‘A great day.’

‘Thank you,’ said Gaunt, glancing at him. ‘If I may I should like to see my rooms.’

He turned to Mrs Claire. ‘Dikon tells me you have taken an enormous amount of trouble on my behalf. It’s very kind indeed. Thank you so much.’ And Dikon saw that with this one speech, delivered with Gaunt’s famous air of gay sincerity, he had captivated Mrs Claire. She beamed at him. ‘I shall try not to be troublesome,’ Gaunt added. And to Mr Questing: ‘Right.’

They went in procession along the verandah. Mr Questing, still uncovered, led the way.

II

Barbara sat on the edge of her stretcher bed in her small hot room and looked at two dresses. Which should she wear for dinner on the first night? Neither of them was new. The red lace had been sent out two years ago by her youngest aunt who had worn it a good deal in India. Barbara had altered it to fit herself and something had gone wrong with the shoulders, so that it bulged where it should lie flat. To cover this defect she had attached a black flower to the neck. It was a long dress and she did not as a rule change for dinner. Simon might make some frightful comment if she wore the red lace. The alternative was a short floral affair, thick blue colour with a messy yellow design. She had furbished it up with a devilish shell ornament and a satin belt and even poor Barbara wondered if it was a success. Knowing that she should be in the kitchen with Huia, she pulled off her print, dragged the red lace over her head and looked at herself in the inadequate glass. No, it would never become her dress, it would always hark back to unknown Aunty Wynne who two years ago had written: ‘Am sending a box of odds and ends for Ba. Hope she can wear red.’ But could she? Could she plunge about in the full light of day in this ownerless waif of a garment with everybody knowing she had dressed herself up? She peered at her face, which was slightly distorted by the glass. Suddenly she hauled the dress over her head, fighting with the stuffy-smelling lace. ‘Barbara,’ her mother called. ‘Where are you? Ba!’ ‘Coming!’ Well, it would have to be the floral.

But when, hot and desperate, she had finally dressed, and covered the floral with a clean overall, she pressed her hands together. ‘Oh God,’ she thought, ‘make him like it here! Please dear God, make him like it.’

III

‘Can you possibly endure it?’ Dikon asked.

Gaunt was lying full length on the modern sofa. He raised his arms above his head. ‘All,’ he whispered, ‘I can endure all but Questing. Questing must be kept from me.’

‘But I told you –’

‘You amaze me with your shameless parrot cry of “I told you so”,’ said Gaunt mildly. ‘Let us have no more of it.’ He looked out of the corner of his eye at Dikon. ‘And don’t look so tragic, my good ass,’ he added. ‘I’ve been a small-part touring actor in my day. This place is strangely reminiscent of a one-night fit-up. No doubt I can endure it. I should be dossing down in an Anderson shelter, by God. I do well to complain. Only spare me Questing, and I shall endure the rest.’

‘At least we shall be spared his conversation this evening. He has a previous engagement. Lest he offer to put it off, I told him you would be desolated but had already arranged to dine in your rooms and go to bed at nine. So away he went.’