Death at the Opera (2 page)

“Hadn't we better settle what opera we are going to do?” inquired the Junior Music Mistress demurely. She was very young and very pretty, and happened to be the Headmaster's niece.

“Which opera? Oh, that's settled. We must do
The Mikado
, mustn't we?” said the Headmaster. “I've wanted to do it for years.”

There was applause.

“Yourself the ‘Pooh-Bah,' sir, of course,” said the Junior English Master.

“I think I should like to attempt it,” replied the Headmaster. He patted his waistcoat affectionately, imagining a Japanese silk sash.

“Miss Cliffordson will do ‘Yum-Yum,' I take it,” the Junior English Master continued. He was a self-assertive (and as yet unpublished) novelist, and habitually rushed in where angels feared to tread.

“I should think so. Oh, yes,” the Headmaster agreed, smiling at his niece. “And the funny little chap—the Lord High Executioner—what's-his-name? Oh, you know—”

“‘Ko-Ko,'” said the Junior English Master. He irritated the Headmaster, but was blissfully unconscious of the fact.

“My boy, you will have to produce this opera,” said the Headmaster, the more kindly since he felt that his irritation was not altogether justifiable. “‘Ko-Ko,' certainly. Mr. Poole's part, I think.”

The Mathematics Master, a spry, black-haired, good-humoured little man, laughed and began to hum under his breath.

“Who else is there?” asked the Headmaster.

“Well, there's the ‘Mikado' himself, sir,” said the Art Master. “You know—the name-part. The only part I ever remember in Gilbert and Sullivan, as a matter of fact. Sings a jolly good song or something, doesn't he?”

“Ah, your part, Smith. Your part, without a doubt,” said the Headmaster. The Art Master grinned. “And isn't there a redoubtable lady related to him? I seem to remember—Of course, it's years since I saw the thing done. . . .”

“‘Katisha,'” said several voices.

“Ah!” The Headmaster looked at the large semi-circle, and came to a sudden decision.

“Do you sing, Miss Ferris?” he inquired of the Arithmetic Mistress. The Arithmetic Mistress blushed and fumbled with her handkerchief. She had never been in the limelight since she had first come before the board of governors at her interview, when she was engaged to teach arithmetic to the lower forms. She had been longing for years to be offered a part in one of the school productions. Now that she was actually being offered one, her nerve failed her.

“It isn't a long part,” said the Junior Music Mistress, who, now that her own part was settled, was perfectly willing to help settle the other women's parts, and had some reasons of her own for wishing to spite the Physical Training Mistress, who was the obvious choice for the part of ‘Katisha.' “It doesn't really start until the Second Act.”

“‘Katisha' makes an important appearance, and a very effective entrance, towards the end of the First Act, Miss Cliffordson,” contradicted the Junior Science Master, who was in love with the Physical Training Mistress, although she was four years his senior and called him to his face a precocious little boy.

“Yes, but the bulk of the part is in Act Two,” the Junior Music Mistress insisted. “And I do think,” she continued, taking full advantage of her position as niece of the Headmaster, “that we owe Miss Ferris the refusal of the part. After all, if she is financing us . . .”

There was polite applause. Miss Ferris, astonished at herself, accepted the part. She glanced stealthily at the Physical Training Mistress. That lady, part of whose training had consisted in learning to smile most sweetly when she was most bitterly defeated, smiled sweetly and frankly at her. Miss Ferris, taking the smile at its face value, smiled in return.

“Then there are the other little Maids, sir,” said the Junior English Master abruptly. One of his most unlovable qualities, from the Headmaster's point of view, was his businesslike abruptness.

“Little Maids? Ah, yes. Well, what about Miss Freely for one?” said the Headmaster, smiling at the youngest member of the staff.

The Junior Geography Mistress was really as pretty as Miss Cliffordson, and was far more popular with the girls and with the women members of the staff. She said simply:

“Ah! Good. Bags I ‘Pitti-Sing,' please.”

Everybody laughed, and the Headmaster wrote it down. Miss Ferris, who happened to be sitting next to her, whispered: “Good! How nice!”

“What about the youngsters?” said the Senior History Master. He was the father of a family and felt it incumbent upon himself to pretend to a paternal sentimentality which in reality he was far from feeling.

“I do think we might have a boy for ‘Nanki-Poo,'” said Miss Cliffordson. “What about Hurstwood? He was in
The Gondoliers
, and did awfully well.”

“Hurstwood for ‘Nanki-Poo'? A very good idea,” said the Headmaster, writing it down. “And what about Moira Malley for the third little Maid?”

“You mean ‘Peep-Bo,' sir?” said the Junior English Master, with unnecessary helpfulness. The Headmaster restrained himself visibly.

“Certainly. ‘Peep-Bo,' yes. And now, does that settle it?” he said.

“Except for the rather small part of ‘Pish-Tush,'” said the Junior English Master, who wanted the part for himself and was about to say so when the Headmaster forestalled him with:

“Ah, yes. What about you, Mr. Kemball?”

The Senior History Master bowed.

“Charmed, Headmaster. And the youngsters, I presume, will form the chorus of Japanese nobles and girls?”

“Yes, oh, yes. They'll enjoy that. There's a lot of chorus work. Good for them, and not too much responsibility.”

“We must have Tony Sen Ho Wen for the headman's boy,” said Miss Cliffordson, referring to a little Chinese lad who had lately come to live in the district, and who was the pet of all the women.

“I doubt whether Wen would consent to take part in a Japanese play,” said the Senior English Mistress, smiling. “I think Peter Cecil would be better.”

“Talking of Cecil, did I tell you . . .” began the Junior Geography Mistress, her face alight with amusement.

“Shop!” bawled everybody, including the Headmaster. The Geography Mistress produced a shilling from her handbag and placed it meekly on a corner of the Headmaster's big desk. Discipline was almost non-existent for the children, but was strict for the staff.

II

Miss Ferris—Calma to her friends and intimates, if she had had any—spent the next day in checking arithmetic stock, reasoning gently with a form of twelve-yearp-olds, who considered that the last few days of the summer term offered almost unlimited opportunities for ragging and that it would be a sin to refrain from taking advantage of the fact, and in reconsidering her summer holiday plans, for it was with the money she had been saving towards the cost of a holiday that she proposed to finance the school production of
The Mikado
.

“Somewhere cheap,” her brain repeated over and over again. “Somewhere cheap.” It was not until she lay in bed in her lodgings that night, her blunt nose just above the turned-down edge of the sheet, her dull eyes fixed on the blind which covered the window, that she decided where to go. She had an aunt who kept a boarding-house in Bognor Regis. Bognor was a nice place; a healthy place; the sands were good; one could find pleasant walks; the buses went everywhere from Bognor; there were the Downs. . . . Sussex. . . . Sussex was so nice. Sussex was literary, too. One would be able to return to school, and explain, if one were asked, that one had been “doing” the Sheila Kaye Smith country, or the Belloc country, or the “Puck of Pook's Hill” country. Rather nice, that. She began imaginary conversations at school. She could see the whole staff, half-envious, half-admiring, as she cast new light on vexed questions of this, and cleared up disputed points in connection with that.

She fell asleep and dreamed that she climbed up a steep hill and stood looking down on Bognor Regis, and the Physical Training Mistress came behind and pushed her over the edge. Falling, she woke, and it took her some little time to get to sleep again.

On the following evening she wrote to her aunt, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope, but by the time the school closed for the long summer vacation of nearly nine weeks she had received no reply, so she arranged to remain at her lodgings. It was strange to be in the town and not to go to school.

The last day of term was Wednesday, and on the Thursday morning she breakfasted at the luxurious hour of nine-thirty, and then went to the library and changed her book. She sat in the park and read until lunch-time, and after lunch she decided to take the bus and spend an afternoon in the woods. It rained, however, and so, congratulating herself that she had managed to obtain fresh air and exercise in the morning, she remained indoors and finished her book. At four o'clock she asked to have her tea, and at a quarter to five she took the landlady's little girl to the cinema. They returned to the house at eight-fifteen, and she waited eagerly for the postman to call with the evening mail; but there was no letter for her, and at ten o'clock she went to bed.

The next day was sunny and hot, and she got the landlady to cut some sandwiches, and she and the child went by bus to the woods. She changed her library book in the town before they caught the bus, and bought the child a couple of comic papers and a ball, and they spent a pleasant but not an exciting day. The landlady, who liked her lodger and was grateful for pleasure given to the child, cooked an appetizing supper, and the three of them had it together. Miss Ferris went to bed at half-past nine, still without having heard from her aunt, and finished her book before she went to sleep.

III

Miss Ferris's aunt was showing Miss Ferris's letter to her second-in-command.

“Wants a cheap holiday, I suppose,” she said, with a snort. “Spent all her money on foreign tours, and now that it's too expensive, with the pound and everything going off gold, to go abroad, she wants to know what I can do for her. Best room at the cheapest rate, I suppose! That's relations all over. Never come to see you, and when they do come, expect the very best of everything! She can have Number Eight at the inclusive, less ten per cent for staying the full six weeks. I couldn't do more for a permanent.”

“I'm sure she wouldn't expect more,” said Miss Sooley who was plump, sentimental and inclined towards hysteria when she became excited. “But, Miss Lincallow, there's something else.”

“I won't have a child's cot put in Number Three as well as a double and a single bed, so you can write and say so,” said Miss Lincallow firmly. “They can put the two little girls in Number Nineteen for an extra half-guinea a week, but that's as far as I'll accommodate them! You'd think this was a common lodging-house, the things people expect you to do!”

“It isn't that. It's something much more serious,” said Miss Sooley. “It's that new maid, Susie Cozens.”

“Her with the London manners!” snorted Miss Lincallow. “Too free with the gentlemen! She'll have to go.”

“It's really Mr. Helm's fault. He encourages her. I found her in his room this morning going through his things.”

“Then she can just go through her own and take herself off,” said the head of the establishment decidedly. “Theft, as likely as not! She came here with no character never having been in a regular situation before. I wouldn't have taken her, even though it
is
the height of the season, only I was sorry for her mother—they are almost Bognor people, you know—so I took the girl. But out she goes if she's a rummager! I can't have a girl who can't control her curiosity. People would never put up with it. Give her her wages instead of notice, and send her off.”

“What about a character?”

“I'll write her a character. ‘Honest and industrious' ought to be enough. She can make up her own reason for leaving us. I'll write it now, at the same time as I write to my niece. Have you found out whether Number Four intends to stop the extra week? Because I've had an application for a sitting-room and three bedrooms which I'd like to take up with. But don't discourage Number Four. He comes here every year, and no complaints.”

On the following morning Miss Ferris received a cordially-worded letter from her aunt, offering her a bed-sitting-room with full board and attendance for six weeks at an inclusive charge for the whole period. The money was even more reasonable than Miss Ferris had anticipated, so she sent off a telegram advising her aunt to expect her on the following Monday afternoon, and went to the Public Library to look up a train.

Sunday passed uneventfully. She went to church three times, including early service, took a short walk between lunch and tea, and retired to bed at half-past nine. She felt contented, and although she had been prepared to feel no particular enthusiasm for her six weeks' holiday, she found herself now looking forward to a visit to the seaside, and she found also that the warm tone of her aunt's letter had given her a feeling of cheerfulness and well-being to which, on holidays, she had often been a stranger.

Her trunk was already packed. She went by taxi to the station, caught her train with a quarter of an hour to spare, and arrived at her aunt's boarding-house in time for afternoon tea. Her aunt received her very cordially, and showed her her room. It was at the back of the house, but as none of the windows overlooked the sea, for her aunt lived in a road which ran parallel with the esplanade, but was separated from it by a row of larger and more imposing private hotels and boarding-houses, a room at the back was as good, or better than one at the front.