Death at the Opera

“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 jealousy. 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.

Mr. Smith spoke to nobody. He was never very sociable at staff gatherings—he was an atheist with a slightly Epicurean bent and a keen appetite for good food; but Miss Ferris did not remember this. She felt certain that he was brooding over his ruined Psyche. She scarcely dared to look at him for fear that she should catch his eye and be compelled to meet the reproach in it.

Alceste Boyle was pouring out the tea. She spoke when she had to, but otherwise preserved a motherly silence which was quite companionable. One of her gifts was to be with a crowd of people, not to say anything, and yet to appear sociable and friendly. Frederick Hampstead laughed and joked, chiefly with Moira Malley, who was nervous but amused, and with Miss Freely, who was just a jolly girl, not long enough out of college to have acquired the hall-marks of her profession; perhaps too simple-hearted and human ever to acquire them. She seemed to be the only person present—except for Mr. Poole, who ate an enormous tea, and recited, between-whiles, the most atrocious limericks—who was wholeheartedly enjoying the party.

Even the Headmaster seemed distrait, and Mr. Kemball, the History Master, was downright morose, ate scarcely anything, refused a second cup of tea, and lighted his pipe, without asking permission and before anybody had finished eating. It was revealed later that his wife was expecting her third child. It was a joke among the men’s staff that Kemball regarded his children as visitations of the wrath of God, refused to accept any personal responsibility for their appearance in the world, grumbled continuously at the provision he had to make for them, but spoke of children in general with self-conscious sentimentality, chiefly to curry favour with the Head.

The rehearsal, which was to be carried out in ordinary dress, and without make-up, began at half-past five. The Second Act was taken first, and, whether from nervous excitement or some other cause, Calma Ferris did exceptionally well. Her songs were good, and she spoke her lines better than she had ever done. Moira Malley, too, was successful that night, and when the Act was finished and Alceste Boyle suggested that the whole opera should be run through just once, if they all felt that there was time to do it, the company unanimously resolved to stay until eleven o’clock, if necessary. The whole thing went through without a hitch. Alceste Boyle affected to the Headmaster to be superstitiously inclined.

“Too good by half,” she said, laughing, as the players collected properties and cleared the stage. “Something is sure to go wrong to-morrow night! Or so Madame Berotti would say! Have you ever seen her act? She’s old, of course, but what an artist!”

Calma Ferris, so delighted with her own successful performance that she forgot, for the time, her little nagging difficulties of the past day or two, had not the slightest premonition of disaster. She sat down before she went to bed, late though it was when she reached her lodgings, and recorded in her diary her pious hope that she would do as well on the morrow in her part as she had done that evening. Having blotted the entry carefully, she went to bed, and rose early in the morning to commence her last day on earth.