Death at the Opera (5 page)

“What ho! Here's your ‘Katisha' come for you, my lad!” Miss Ferris managed to say:

“I thought I had left my fan in here just now. Were you rehearsing your bit?”

Hurstwood, with the usual defencelessness of youth, stood tongue-tied. Miss Cliffordson laughed, and then the two of them followed Miss Ferris into the wings, and no more was said. Hurstwood determinedly escorted Miss Cliffordson to her home when the rehearsal was over. He was so silent and gloomy that she rallied him, trying to appear more at ease with him than she actually was.

She was a shallow but not a cruel or heartless girl, and, so far as it was in her nature to be sorry for anyone, she was sorry for this boy. She told herself that it was calf-love, that he would get over it, that he would soon be leaving and would find new friends, new interests, and that the evening's episode, together with everything which it stood for and illuminated, would soon be forgotten by the boy; but in spite of these assurances she was conscious of having behaved very badly. She had known for nearly two years what this poor lad had been thinking and feeling, and at first she had encouraged him. Then, when, during the previous term, the thing looked like getting out of hand and becoming uncomfortable instead of pretty, she had tried to ignore him. This did not prove to be a solution. It merely put him off his work instead of causing him to work better (the first effect she had had on him), and it did nothing to quench his love.

She was in an exceedingly difficult and uncomfortable position, and was well aware of the fact. It was lucky, she reflected, that it was only the good-natured, obtuse and self-contained Miss Ferris who had found them. She went hot and cold by turns as she thought of all the other members of the staff, both male and female, who might just as easily have walked into the Art Room that evening.

Hurstwood said suddenly, as they walked down the deserted street towards Miss Cliffordson's home:

“Do you think she'll split?”

Startled, she replied:

“Whom do you mean?”

“Ferris.”

“Of course not.”

“She split to the old man to-day about a kid in the Upper Third.”

“Oh, but that was a staff row.”

“Well, wouldn't
you
be a staff row?”

Miss Cliffordson laughed, but not very convincingly. Her uncle, she knew, was not a narrow-minded man, but she felt uncertain as to his reaction if he were informed by another member of the staff that one of the Sixth Form boys had kissed her. “The boy,” she imagined her uncle saying, “must have received some sort of encouragement, my dear Gretta, must he not?”

She could not construct any reply which would at once fit the facts as reported by Miss Ferris, who, she reminded herself, was unfashionably conscientious and suffered from an over-developed sense of duty, exonerate Hurstwood—she had genuinely sporting qualities, and hated the idea of getting the boy into trouble—and cover herself. It was all very difficult and embarrassing.

Arrived at the gate of her home, she took her attaché-case from Hurstwood with a hasty word of thanks, bade him good night, and almost ran up the garden path to the front door. Hurstwood stood there, school cap in hand, for about three minutes; then he turned, put on his cap and walked slowly homewards. It remained to get through supper and the family conversation, go up to bed as soon as possible, and recreate, with additional details, the crazy but wonderful evening.

II

Miss Ferris found herself again unable to sleep. She could think of nothing but Mr. Smith's model, which she was certain she had ruined. If, by any chance, her mind did leave this wretchedly perturbing subject, it persisted in reminding her of the unpleasant time she would have for the rest of the term with Miss Camden, who would neither forgive nor forget the netball incident.

True, there was no proof that the school team would have won with the assistance of the girl Cartnell, but the fact that it had lost without her would be sufficient justification, in Miss Camden's opinion, to be as unfriendly as possible. Poor Miss Ferris, who was well-disposed towards everybody, and a lover of peace and concord if ever there was one, dreaded the thought that she had provoked the ill will of a young woman whom she knew to be narrow-mindedly unscrupulous. There was no petty annoyance which Miss Camden would not inflict upon her in order to be revenged for what she chose to consider a personal injury and affront.

At the back of Miss Ferris's mind there was also a third consideration. It nagged like an aching tooth. This was the remembrance of the—to her—extraordinary and shocking scene which she had been instrumental in interrupting and terminating. It seemed to her that she ought to inform the Headmaster. Miss Cliffordson obviously had no control over the boy and his emotions, and it appeared to Miss Ferris that she, as an older woman, ought to lay the facts of the case before Mr. Cliffordson, whom she knew to be a man of great kindness of heart and very wide experience, and leave him to deal with them as he saw fit. On the other hand, she wondered whether, in fairness to Miss Cliffordson, she ought not to have a word with her first. Hurstwood, she felt, had better be left alone. In any case, she seriously doubted her own fitness to talk to a boy about his first love affair.

One after the other, this triumvirate of morbid, melancholy thoughts chased one another through her mind. She fell asleep at last, dreamed horribly, and woke unrefreshed, heavy-headed and heavy-hearted. One thing, and one thing only, she had settled to her satisfaction. She had made up her mind to go to Mr. Smith before school began, explain what she had done to his model, and accept humbly whatever blistering words of reproach he might choose to hurl at her. She only hoped he would not swear. She really did hope he would not swear at her.

She arrived at the school gate at twenty-five minutes past eight, and went straight to the Art Room. Mr. Smith was not there, but a couple of boys were re-arranging the desks, so she sent one of them up to the masters' common-room to find out whether Mr. Smith had arrived at school. In less than three minutes the boy returned with Mr. Smith.

The Senior Art Master was a tall, dark-faced, melancholy-looking man whose whole expression altered when he smiled. It was easy enough, thought Calma Ferris, to imagine that most women would be greatly attracted by him. He looked inquiringly at Calma before ordering the boys out of the room, and then invited her to sit down. She was far too agitated to accept the offer. She said, plunging headlong into the subject and speaking much too fast and rather breathlessly:

“Mr. Smith, I don't know what you'll say, and, really, I deserve anything for my clumsiness, but I came in here last night, and I knocked your clay modelling—the covered one there—off the stand, and I've damaged it. I really am most terribly sorry. I can't think how I came to be so clumsy.” She thought wildly: “He's so dreadfully immoral! I do hope he won't actually swear at me.”

Mr. Smith walked slowly over to the tall stand upon which his model was placed, pulled off the cloth and looked at the damaged figure. It was ruined irretrievably.

“H'm!” he said. “That's done for, I'm afraid.” He began to whistle.

Miss Ferris began again to apologize, but he stopped her.

“Please,” he said. “It really can't be helped. I'd rather you didn't distress yourself.”

Then he suddenly threw the little model on the ground and solemnly stamped it flat and shapeless. Even when the figure was quite unrecognizable, he went on methodically stamping and stamping and stamping, getting clay on his shoes and clay all over that part of the floor.

Miss Ferris stood aghast. She was stricken with grief and horror. Reproaches she could have borne. Even if he had turned and struck her in the face she would have taken the blow as a just reprisal for her carelessness and ungoverned curiosity. Even if he
had
sworn at her, she believed she would have borne it. But this steady stamping sound, without a word being said, and as though the artist himself had become oblivious of what he was doing, was too terrible to be contemplated.

She turned and ran blindly to the mistresses' common-room and clutched Alceste Boyle. She had immense faith in the Senior English Mistress, and thought her the best person to deal with the situation. Smith, she knew, was hopelessly in love with Alceste, who mothered him with humorous strictness.

“Oh, come with me! Come quickly!” she said.

Amazed, Alceste followed her.

“In there!” Miss Ferris cried, turning when they got to the Art Room door. “It's dreadful! I can't bear it! I had no idea . . .”

They went in. Mr. Smith had finished his work. He was scraping bits of clay off his shoes with a palette-knife. His fine hands were quite steady. He rose when they came in, dusted the knees of his trousers, smiled at them and said:

“That's that.”

Alceste Boyle gave an exclamation of horror.

“Oh, Donald! Not your Psyche, surely?” She turned to Calma Ferris. Calma was white.

“I spoilt it. I knocked it down,” she said.

“You shouldn't have done it at school, you know, Donald,” said Alceste to Mr. Smith. Then she said to Calma Ferris: “I know you couldn't help it. I know he's careless. I don't suppose for one single instant that you intended to ruin his work, but go away,
now
, before I do anything I shall be sorry for!”

Later in the day she said to Calma:

“I'm sorry I spoke to you like that. He shouldn't have used school time. I told him no good would come of it. Don't worry yourself, Miss Ferris. Accidents will happen.” She smiled kindly and sincerely at Calma Ferris. Calma answered:

“I never ought to have touched the model. It is unforgivable to have ruined it.”

To this Alceste Boyle made no reply, and after a pause Miss Ferris suddenly said:

“I can't understand all this. I thought it was Mr. Hampstead you were . . . you . . . I mean, I understood that you and Mr. Hampstead . . . I mean, it
is
Mr. Hampstead, and not Mr. Smith, isn't it?”

Mrs. Boyle gave a little moan, and then said: “How do you know that?”

Her voice was quiet, but it frightened Miss Ferris. She mumbled something and walked away.

III

The world of a school is so narrow that any disturbance, however unimportant, or any trouble, however transitory, assumes an air of portent out of all proportion to its true significance. The day upon which the dress-rehearsal had taken place was a Tuesday, and the following day was that on which Miss Ferris had the disturbing experience of watching Mr. Smith stamping on his ruined work. On the following day, the Thursday, the day before the performance of
The Mikado
, a last rehearsal was held.

Miss Ferris found herself dreading this rehearsal. She dreaded coming into contact with Mr. Smith again; she dreaded having to encounter the hostile looks of Alceste Boyle, and she felt certain that Alceste would have told Mr. Hampstead that the secret of their attachment for one another was a secret no longer, so she dreaded meeting him too. The actual rehearsal would not have been so bad, but it had been arranged that the whole cast was to have tea in the Headmaster's room, at his invitation, so there would be the terror of having to meet socially the people whom she felt she had wronged.

Also, every time she set eyes either on the boy Hurstwood or the Headmaster's niece, her conscience began to plague her again. Ought she to tell, or ought she to let events take their course? Surely she ought to allow Miss Cliffordson the right to manage her own affairs? And yet, if she was managing them so badly that she could not prevent one of the big boys mauling her about and kissing her—the whole expression was Miss Ferris's own—ought not some older person to make it her business to interfere and get the situation under control? Surely it could not be good for the school tone—Miss Ferris and the Headmaster probably had different ideas as to what was likely to jeopardize the school tone—that boys should fall in love with the junior mistresses? Miss Cliffordson was notably feckless and irresponsible.

Miss Ferris, who had never been either, was conscious—for she was a woman with a very nice and exact sense of justice—of a feeling of slight jealously. Fecklessness and irresponsibility were, in her mind, to be classed among life's luxuries, and were not to be indulged in by persons who had their living to earn. The Headmaster's niece might be able to afford them, but Miss Ferris, with not even a degree to lend weight to her teaching certificate, could not, and felt the poorer because she could not.

The tea and the rehearsal both went off better than she could have hoped. Hurstwood sat as far from Miss Cliffordson as he could manage, and to Miss Ferris, unversed in the idiosyncrasies and shyness of love-lorn adolescence, this was a sign of grace. If Hurstwood was beginning to see the error of his ways, perhaps it would be unnecessary for her to inform the Headmaster of what she had seen. The last thing she wanted was to get anybody into trouble, especially Hurstwood, who was attractively tall and fair and slight, with a sensitive mouth, a classically-modelled nose, grey eyes and a rather charming smile. She had heard, too, that he was a very clever boy, and that his father was proud of him and had great ambitions for his future. It would be a thousand pities to interfere with a career so promising.

Miss Cliffordson was talking animatedly to the Junior English Master, teasing him, and being saucy and provocative. She looked very pretty, Miss Ferris thought, and absurdly young. Perhaps—she glanced again at Hurstwood, who was eating cake in a furtive, reticent manner—perhaps, after all, it would not be necessary to say anything to Mr. Cliffordson. She must think about it again before deciding.