He said, ‘Oh, well-’ and left it at that.
Sybil Dryden passed smoothly to the arrangements for the wedding.
The party from the study came back, laden with records and all talking at once. Mabel Considine was really enjoying herself. She had a cult for John McCormack, and she had just found two records from one of the very few operas she had actually seen. She was talking about it as they all came back into the room.
‘It was before I was married-and that’s a very long time ago, isn’t it, George? Mother and I were travelling. We did Venice, and Naples, and Rome, and Florence, and Milan. Such a wonderful stained glass window in the cathedral there, on the left as you face the altar-all blue and green. I do hope it wasn’t hurt by the bombing. And at Venice we went to the opera twice, and saw La Favorita and Lucia di Lammermoor. Or does one say heard-I never quite know. But I always think of it as seeing, because you hear it on the wireless of course, but it isn’t the same thing, is it? I mean, when you’ve seen it you’ve got a sort of picture of it in your mind, and it does make a difference. The plots of operas are so very difficult and confused. And not knowing Italian-I’m sure I don’t know to this day what La Favorita was about, even though we did see it. But Lucia di Lammermoor was easier, because of Sir Walter Scott, and I do remember these two tenor solos, because the young man who sang them was very handsome, and he had a really good voice. It’s going to be such a treat for me, Sir Herbert.’
She sat down on the sofa beside Lila and Adrian, her cheeks flushed, her girlish manner accentuated.
‘You young people don’t read Sir Walter Scott nowadays, do you? The opera is taken from The Bride of Lammermoor, and I haven’t read it since I was fourteen, so I’ve got their names rather mixed up, but the girl was Lucy Ashton and her brother was Henry-at least I think he was. He made her break off her engagement to the young man she was in love with. I’m not sure about his name. There was someone called Edgar, and someone called Ravenswood, but I’m not sure whether they were the same person or not.’
She gazed inquiringly at Adrian Grey. He laughed a little.
‘I’m afraid I’m no use. Ivanhoe and The Talisman are as far as I ever got with Scott.’
She said, ‘I know. I read them all when I was fourteen, because I was in quarantine for three weeks in a house where there wasn’t anything else to read. That is why I have got them mixed. But I remember about poor Lucy because it was such a dreadful story. Her mother and her brother made her marry the other young man, and she stabbed him on their wedding night and went mad, poor thing, and died. And this record which Mr. Haile is just putting on is what her real lover sings over her grave.’
The two preliminary bars of the accompaniment put a stop to this stream of reminiscence. She leaned back with her eyes half closed, making little rhythmic movements with her hands as the air came floating out in John McCormack’s beautiful voice: ‘Bell’ alma inamorata-bell’ alma inamorata-ne congiunga il Nume in cielo’.
Lila sat looking down at the page which Adrian had turned, but she did not see it. She had never read the books she ought to have read. She had never read a novel of Sir Walter Scott’s right through, though Uncle John had had them all. But she had once taken The Bride of Lammermoor from its shelf, and it had opened upon the scream of terror and the Ashton family rushing in to find Lucy in her blood-dabbled night-dress staring with crazy eyes at the bridegroom she had stabbed. She had put the book back and dreamed a terrible dream about it in the night and then shut it away and never let herself think of it again. The picture came out of its shut-up place. It lay between her and Adrian ’s sketch-Lucy crouched upon the bed-the scream still sounding in the room-the blood-the dagger-the dreadful staring eyes. The dagger had an ivory handle with vine-leaves on it and a bunch of grapes. Where the blood had touched them the grapes were red-blood-red. John McCormack’s voice mourned over Lucy’s grave: ‘ Bell ’ alma inamorata -ne congiunga il Nume in cielo-bell’ alma inamorata-bell’ alma inamorata-’
The picture began to swim before her in a mist. Adrian ’s hand came down on hers, steady and warm.
‘Lila-what is it, my dear?’
She looked up at him, her eyes dilated.
‘It’s-a horrible-story-’
His voice was as kind as his hand.
‘Well, it happened a long time ago-if it ever happened at all. And by the time you get anything into Italian opera it doesn’t seem to matter how many people are stabbed. Most of the cast have to be got rid of one way or another, with the hero and heroine in the limelight singing higher and higher till their very last breath. I’m afraid it always makes me want to laugh.’
The picture dimmed and went away. The crazed eyes were the last to go-Lucy’s eyes and the ivory dagger.
Adrian was smiling.
‘The mourning lover is a gentleman of one idea. Have you counted how many times he said “Bell’ alma inamorata?” I always mean to, but then McCormack’s voice gets me and I really don’t care.’
Her colour was coming faintly back, the dilated pupils were normal again. She said,
‘It’s Italian, isn’t it? What does it mean?’
He went on smiling.
‘Something like, “Fair beloved soul-we shall be united in heaven”. I don’t know Italian-I’m just picking out the words everybody knows.’
The record came to an end. Mabel Considine sprang up, went over to the radiogram, and demanded the Sextet, which proved to be quite unbelievably scratchy, with four of the performers providing loud background music, Caruso manfully shouting his way to the front, and Galli-Curci, crystal clear, hovering above the din.
When it was over Herbert Whitall directed a faint frown and a definitely sarcastic voice at Eric Haile.
‘I really don’t think we need bring in exhibits out of the Chamber of Horrors. May I suggest that we now hear something that we can listen to without wrecking the nervous system? Amazing to think that one used to pay a guinea for that sort of thing!’
Mabel Considine was shocked.
‘Oh, but Sir Herbert, they were wonderful! On the old gramophones, I mean.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t agree. We just didn’t know any better- that was all.’
Eric Haile smiled and shook his head. The Professor rushed into noisy disagreement.
‘I never heard such nonsense in my life, and I’m sure one hears enough one way and another! The pre-electrical record was made for the pre-electrical gramophone. The effect was remarkably pleasing. Of course if you go and put the poor thing on to an electrical machine, the result is just a massacre. But I maintain, and I shall continue to maintain, that the old records were good enough on the old machines.’
Herbert Whitall quite definitely sneered.
‘Of course if you really want the violin to sound like a flute!’
‘I do nothing of the sort!’
‘My dear fellow! Why not just put the clock back altogether and prove how superior the stage-coach was to the Daimler or the Rolls Royce?’
The blood was mounting to the Professor’s crown.
‘It didn’t kill so many people!’
‘Well, there weren’t so many people to be killed, were there? Anyhow I notice that you condescend to an autocycle. To be entirely logical, you should still be wearing woad and living in a cave.’
He got a red malevolent glare.
‘And if I were, do you know what I should do? I should come round some dark night to your cave and hit you over the head with my neolithic axe-and then where would you be?’
‘Still in the twentieth century, I hope.“
Professor Richardson burst out laughing.
‘Think you’ve got the last word, Whitall? I wouldn’t be too sure if I were you!’