Knock, Murderer, Knock! Page 4

  “A splendid satire on modern times. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if it does come to that at the rate modern young people are going on.”

  “So dreadful of me, but I can’t help laughing. The book, you know. It really is funny.”

  “The idea of it. All the wrong way round.”

  “The clothes! If they ever came in as spring fashions!”

  “Those zip-fasteners, so convenient!”

  “And going into the bathroom like that – wearing only a hat and shoes and socks –”

  “Something like our bathing caps and aprons when we go into the baths for treatment –”

  “So much more indecent than wearing nothing at all!”

  “Oh!”

  They all gasped and looked guiltily at each other, as if ashamed of the thoughts they had exposed.

  The door opened.

  “Thank heavens!” exclaimed Winnie Marston. “Tea!”

  Chapter 4

  The following evening, Lady Warme dressed her buxom figure with unwonted care in a velvet evening gown of a colour only to be described as puce, added eight of her finest rings, one string of real pearls, one string of cultivated ones, and a diamond-and-sapphire brooch. She took out her diamond star and pondered whether to wear it in her hair or not. Poor John had bought it for her to wear at the Lord Mayor’s reception in Manchester soon after he had been knighted; he had said it looked so pretty in her hair.

  She sighed.

  Dear John! He had never to the day of his death noticed her growing stoutness, her unbecoming wrinkles, her greying hair. Lancashire men were hard in business, but very sentimental at heart.

  She lifted the star to the crimped waves of her dull, grey hair, but could not delude herself into thinking it becoming, and, sighing again, she fastened it to a narrow band of velvet ribbon which she wore to hide the sagging skin beneath her chin. She knew that the points of the star would prick her throat every time she swallowed, but felt that the occasion merited some display. For, as a typewritten correspondence card fastened to the green baize of the notice-board in the lounge had announced for the past week, there was to be a concert this evening in the drawing-room of the Hydro, to which all guests were bidden.

  The organization of concerts was always left to Lady Warme, partly because of her rank (“though whether you can really call her a lady, my dear... Of course, I know he was knighted, but they were flour, you know... Warme’s Patent Flour!...”) and partly because of the entirely fictitious reputation she possessed in the Hydro because she had once been present at the Scala in Milan for a performance of The Magic Flute, and had never ceased to talk about it.

  “I never want to hear another opera after that,” she would say, somewhat ambiguously, when describing that experience.

  She strengthened this reputation by exclaiming, on the few occasions when the wireless in the lounge had not been rendered dumb by some well-meaning attempt to make it work better, “Oh, do switch it off! I can’t bear British music after the Italian. Why don’t you get Milan?”

  And her companions would nod to each other and say: “Dear Lady Warme is so musical.”

  She went round the Hydro during the week preceding the concert looking like a flustered hen. If anyone stopped to speak to her she soon hurried away, saying: “You really must excuse me. I am so busy. This concert takes up so much of my time. Of course, I am very glad to be able to do it, but really I wish they had asked someone else to arrange it this time.” And everyone smiled sympathetically and was not deceived.

  “Poor Lady Warme,” remarked old Miss Brendon, after she had invited her to tea in order to hear the advance programme, “she used not to get so flustered when she served behind the counter of her father’s grocery store as plain Lizzie Parkes. And she was plain, Rogers. I remember seeing her when her father came out to my mother’s carriage to take her order. My mother was a different kind of lady.”

  “Indeed, and she was, miss,” agreed Rogers, who had been the Brendons’ scullery-maid in those days, and still thought apprehensively of Mrs. Brendon’s stern, “Ada! Come here!” when she had left an eye in a potato or cracked a cup.

  But on this particular occasion Lady Warme had reason to be flurried. She bustled into the lounge before dinner, wearing an ermine cape over her dress.

  “What am I to do?” In her agitation she addressed the first person she saw, who happened to be Miss Blake. “What am I to do? I have no accompanist for tonight. You know that we always have the woman who plays the organ in church...or perhaps you wouldn’t know. She plays dreadfully, of course, but I had to ask her, and now she has let me down at the very last minute. So tiresome of her.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” inquired Miss Blake.

  “A sick headache. She’s in bed. Yes, she really is sick. I went to see her... most unpleasant.” She screwed up her face in disgust.

  “Well, it’s hardly her fault. She didn’t let you down on purpose.”

  “No, poor thing, and of course I’m desperately sorry for her, but if she had only waited till after the concert.... I’m afraid it means postponing it. Of course, I used to play myself, but its many years since I touched the ivory keys, and I shouldn’t care to perform in front of my friends here. They all expect far too much from me. I’m afraid it will have to be postponed. Such a thing could never happen in Italy.”

  She did not explain why.

  “Oh, but you mustn’t put it off,” replied Miss Blake emphatically. “Not after all your trouble. Why, it’s taken you days to get it all fixed, and we’re all dressed up for the occasion.

  Lady Warme allowed a frosty smile to part her lips, and began to wonder whether she had not been a little too severe about Miss Blake. Perhaps all the scandal about her and Sir Humphrey was not true. She really sounded quite affable and polite now, and, yes, almost respectful towards Lady Warme’s rank.

  “So I see,” she replied, glancing at the lace bertha with which Miss Astill had decorated her black taffeta dress, and at the insignificant blue silk dresses worn by the Marston girls. ‘‘Even Miss Astill is in evening dress... at least, I suppose that is what it is meant to be. I can see her elbows and the salt-cellar in her neck. But we have all grown so much smarter since we have had a baronet staying among us, haven’t we?” She smiled more graciously. “But really, it’s no joking matter,” she went on, “I would put on the concert if I possibly could, but whom can I have for accompanist?”

  “Me,” replied Miss Blake unexpectedly.

  “You?” gasped Lady Warme.

  “Why not? I was taught well at school, and I suppose I went to as good a school as anyone here.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure you did,” returned Lady Warme hastily, as a vision of the fourth standard at St. Chad’s Elementary School rose before her eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of doubting your word, but I hardly like to trouble you.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” replied Miss Blake airily. “I shall enjoy it. I play quite well at sight, and I won’t let you down.”

  “Our organist was to have given us a pianoforte solo.” Lady Warme pronounced it “piarnoforty,” in accordance with the best B.B.C. standards, though in her young days she had known it more familiarly as “the pianner.”

  “I can manage that, too.”

  Lady Warme weakened visibly.

  “But you won’t play – er – jazz?”

  Miss Blake laughed.

  “I suppose you won’t believe me,” she said, “but really I prefer Mendelssohn.”

  Lady Warme bit her lip in a wave of indecision, then gave a little nod.

  “Very well, then,” she said. “Nine o’clock in the drawingroom, and – er – thank you.”

  Chapter 5

  In the daytime the drawing-room at the Hydro was as depressing as only a period room can be, but in the full glare of the electric lights set in the prismatic glass of the tiered chandelier, it took on an air of fusty dignity not unsuited to a formal function. It was decorated in t
he style which our grandmothers called the French, and which we call Victorian. The walls, which were enamelled white, and could have looked spacious and restful, were compressed and deformed by raised, gilded mouldings which contorted themselves into serpentinous whorls and curlicues. As if this were not adornment enough, they were hung with huge German engravings in ornate gilded frames. In these, Victoria, Queen of England, sat at her coronation, stood at her marriage, reclined with her children, opened the Great Exhibition and posed for The Secret of England’s Greatness with an open Bible in her hand.

  The effect had been slightly spoiled by some Edwardian who had introduced two cosy corner seats, and the period had been completely ruined by Dr. Williams, who had replaced most of the original furniture by a number of modern lounge arm-chairs and a low, deep settee, although he secretly felt that knick-knacks and what-nots made a more fitting background for Hydro chit-chat.

  This was the room into which the Hydro residents made their way after dinner in search of the promised concert. They found Miss Blake, wearing a pearl-grey evening gown, with long jade ear-rings and a carved lump of jade swinging on a slender platinum chain as her only ornaments, seated on the hard, round, plush-covered music-stool at the Steck grand piano.

  Lady Warme stepped up to the piano, the black tails of her ermine cape all a-quiver, and explained that “owing to the sudden regrettable indisposition of our valued and esteemed accompanist, Miss Blake has kindly undertaken the task at a moment’s notice,” although she knew such an announcement to be quite unnecessary since she had paused at every table in the dining-room during dinner to spread the news properly.

  Miss Blake was far too young and pretty to be popular with the womenfolk in the Hydro, and most of them hoped that they would at last have the opportunity of seeing her make a fool of herself. They were soon disillusioned. She was a pleasing pianist. She attempted nothing either too classic or too elaborate, but played, as solos, tuneful pieces which they all liked so much that they tapped out the rhythm audibly with their feet to show their appreciation. No doubt, they all agreed, she would not have shone in Chopin’s Polonaise in A Minor, which the organist always played as a solo with such verve and her foot well down on the loud pedal, but her solos were pleasing and her accompaniments were unobtrusively correct.

  “We might have known what to expect,” murmured Mrs. Dawson. “She has far too good an opinion of herself to undertake anything she is not sure of doing well.”

  Before the concert began Miss Blake had been handed a sheaf of well-thumbed songs patched with strips of transparent paper, and as Lady Warme had omitted to provide her with a programme she had amused herself while the audience were settling in their seats by guessing to whom the songs belonged. But, like those newspaper competitions which carry large money prizes, the solutions were not at all what one might have been led to expect.

  After she had accompanied Millie and Winnie Marston through the duet “Songs of Araby”, in which Millie took the baritone part and Winnie the tenor; after Mrs. Marston had sung “Drake’s Drum” in a tremulous contralto voice; after Miss Astill had sung “Rose in The Bud” in a perfectly trained soprano voice, which remained sweet for thirty bars, and by request as an encore, “that little French thing you sing so well,” the meaning of which was mercifully obscured from all the audience; after Colonel Simcox had recited “The quality of mercy is not strained” in a highly unnatural falsetto, and Mr. Marston, who had been known to trump his partner’s ace and to revoke twice within one game of whist, had given them a dolorous monologue in which he compared Life to a Game of Cards; after all this, Miss Blake felt that the evening could hold no more surprises for her.

  In this, however, she was mistaken.

  Just as the concert seemed to have straggled to an end, and she was wondering whether it was usual to play the National Anthem, and if so, what key would be most suitable for such a diverse range of voices, someone called out, “Let’s have the Admiral’s song,” and everyone took up the words clamorously with more enthusiasm than any had as yet shown.

  Admiral Urwin was hoisted to his feet to the accompaniment of many creaks and grunts, and hobbled towards the piano, chuckling with delight.

  “Can you play “The Keel Row”, and that little Gilbert and Sullivan thing that goes like this?” he asked, and in a deep bass voice, which suited him, he hummed:

  “Jimmy, jimmy, jimmy, jimmy, back to Spain,

  Never, never, never, never, cross the seas again.”

  He replied to her doubts with a wink and a chuckled: “Well, never mind. Vamp. You can do that all right, I know,” and without further ado he plunged into a song which possessed as many verses as a traditional Irish jig, and began something like this:

  “Oh, the Hy-dro, the Hy-dro, the Hy-dro, the Hy-hy-dro,

  Oh, when I’m at the Hy-dro, I’m happy as can be.

  We all live at the Hy-dro, the Hy-dro, the Hy-hy-dro,

  We all live at the Hy-dro like one big fam-i-ly.”

  “Change tunes!” yelled the Admiral, sounding very much like the Gryphon explaining the Lobster Quadrille to Alice in Wonderland, and continuing in the same breath:

  “And when you see a pretty nurse,”

  he leered at Nurse Hawkins, who was sitting at the very back of the room with Miss Lewis, the doctor’s secretary, and Ada Rogers:

  “You tell the doctor, you’re feeling worse;

  But never do you feel so ill,

  As when you read the doctor’s bill;

  It gives you such a terrible pain

  That you swear you’ll never come back again:

  You’ll never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never,

  Never come back to the Hydro again!”

  After everyone had sung these last two lines in chorus for the last time, the audience passed a vote of thanks to the performers, and the performers retaliated by passing a vote of thanks to the audience.

  Then they all sang “God Save the King” in the half-defiant, self-conscious manner in which English people do sing their national anthem, and began to move towards the lounge, where cakes and coffee were being served.

  Miss Blake remained at the piano, gathering the music together.

  “I should like to congratulate you,” said a voice behind her.

  She turned.

  “Why, Sir Humphrey, how nice of you. I didn’t see you amongst the audience.”

  Sir Humphrey smiled down at her.

  “I came in rather late,” he said. “Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to the concert, but when I heard that you were to play, I came straight in. It was well worth going without a drink for an hour and a half just to see your performance.”

  Miss Blake did not miss the significance of his use of the word “see” instead of “hear,” and looked pleased. Sir Humphrey, apparently encouraged, moved closer to her and began speaking earnestly in a low voice.

  The audience, who were dispersing slowly, wandering out in little chattering groups, cast many curious glances at them, and the women exchanged knowing looks and raised their eyebrows at each other. Lady Warme waited for ten minutes to attract Miss Blake’s attention, then stamped her foot in disgust and went out. The Colonel hovered about the room for a quarter of an hour, screwed his eye-glass in his eye with a vicious twist, and followed the others.

  Chapter 6

  The following morning the housekeeper walked into one of the large attic bedrooms, her heavy footsteps echoing on the uneven boards of the uncarpeted floor, and eyed with disgust the six motionless forms lying in their single black-enamelled beds.

  ‘‘Will you girls never learn to get out of bed in the mornings?” she shouted. “Six o’clock is the time for you to begin the day. It’s a quarter past now, and this is the second time I’ve called you this morning.”

  She moved across to the nearest bed and stripped the clothes on to the floor. Amy Ford, thus rudely awakened from a deep sleep, stared at the housekeeper with red-rimmed, baleful eyes. Her f
ace, seen under such conditions, had none of the prettiness which it assumed under her Tudor-patterned starched morning cap or her afternoon frill. She looked unhealthy and bad-tempered.

  “I wasn’t in bed till after one o’clock this morning, miss,” she said in a grudging attempt to excuse her laziness. “I had to put the lights out in the drawing-room.”

  “That’s nothing to do with it,” retorted the housekeeper sharply, “and it’s a waste of time to make excuses to me, as you ought to know well enough by now. I have the same trouble with you girls every morning. Now get out of bed, all of you, before I move out of this room.”

  The beds creaked with the unwilling movements of their occupants. The housekeeper moved towards the small flat windows.

  “Faugh!” she exclaimed with exaggerated emphasis. “Why will you always sleep with the windows fastened? I don’t wonder that you get spots on your faces.” She flung each window up to its fullest extent, letting the chilly autumn draught into the room, then she gazed around, and, satisfied that all the girls were at last out of bed, she walked out, slamming the ill-fitting door behind her.

  The girls gazed vindictively after her, and Amy put out a none-too-clean tongue at the closed door.

  “I could murder that woman!” she exclaimed. “She treats us like muck. For God’s sake, shut the blasted windows!”

  “Ah, hold your tongue now, Amy,” said Molly O’Shea, a little black-haired girl from County Cork. “Sure, ’tis bad luck to be saying that word and the blessed name of Almighty God in the same breath. And well you know that ’tis at six o’clock we should be rising, as she’s after saying.”

  Amy muttered coarser blasphemy under her breath, but it was too cold to stand there arguing in their cheap cotton nightgowns, and the girls were soon half washed and dressed and going about their several morning duties.