Read Online Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh - Free Book Online

I’m turning purple, and my top lip seems to be twitching.”
    “It’ll go off in a minute,” said Dinah. “Henry, what would you do if you suddenly knew you had dominion over all you survey? That sounds Biblical. I mean, suppose you could alter the minds — and that means the destinies — of all the people living down there — what would you do?”
    “Put it into Cousin Eleanor’s heart to be a missionary in Polynesia.”
    “Or into Miss Campanula’s to start a nudist circle in Chipping.”
    “Or my father might go surrealist.”
    “No, but honestly, what would you do?” Dinah insisted.
    “I don’t know. I suppose I would try and simplify them. People seem to me to be much too busy and complicated.”
    “Make them kinder?”
    “Well, that might do it, certainly.”
    “It would do it. If Miss Campanula and your Cousin Eleanor left off being jealous of each other, and if Dr. Templett was sorrier for his wife, and if Mrs. Ross minded more about upsetting other people’s applecarts, we wouldn’t have any more scenes like the one last night.”
    “Perhaps not,” Henry agreed. “But you wouldn’t stop them falling in love, if you can call whatever they feel for each other, falling in love. I’m in love with you, as I suppose you know. It makes me feel all noble minded and generous and kind; but, just the same, if I had a harem of invalid wives, they wouldn’t stop me telling you I loved you, Dinah. Dinah, I love you so desperately.”
    “Do you, Henry?”
    “You’d never believe how desperately. This is all wrong. I’d thought out the way I’d tell you. First we were to have a nice conversation and then, when we’d got to the right place, I was going to tell you.”
    “All elegant like?”
    “Yes. But it’s too much for me.”
    “It’s too much for me, too,” said Dinah.
    They faced each other, two solitary figures. All their lives they were to remember this moment, and yet they did not see each other’s face very clearly, for their sight was blurred by the agitation in their hearts.
    “Oh, Dinah,” said Henry. “Darling, darling Dinah, I do love you so much.”
    He reached out his hand blindly and touched her arm. It was a curious tentative gesture. Dinah cried out: “Henry, my dear.”
    She raised his hand to her cold cheek.
    “Oh, God!” said Henry, and pulled her into his arms.
    Jocelyn’s groom, hacking quietly along the road to Cloudyfold, looked up and saw two figures locked together against the wintry sky.
     
    ii
    “We must come back to earth,” said Dinah. “There’s the church clock. It must be eight.”
    “I’ll kiss you eight times to wind up the spell,” said Henry. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, the tips of her ears, and he kissed her twice on the mouth.
    “There!” he muttered. “The spell’s wound up.”
    “Don’t!” cried Dinah.
    “What, my darling?”
    “Don’t quote from Macbeth. It couldn’t be more unlucky!”
    “Who says so?”
    “In the theatre everybody says so.”
    “I cock a snook at them! We’re not in the theatre: we’re on top of the world.”
    “All the same, I’m crossing my thumbs.”
    “When shall we be married?”
    “Married?” Dinah caught her breath;, and Henry’s pure happiness was threaded with a sort of wonder when he saw that she was no longer lost in bliss.
    “What is it?” he said. “What has happened? Does it frighten you to think of our marriage?”
    “It’s only that we
have
come back to earth,” Dinah said sombrely. “I don’t know when we’ll be married. You see, something pretty difficult has happened.”
    “Good Lord, darling, what are you going to falter in my ear? Not a family curse, or dozens of blood relations stark ravers in lunatic asylums?”
    “Not quite. It’s your Cousin Eleanor.”
    “Eleanor!” cried Henry. “She scarcely exists.”
    “Wait till you hear. I’ve got to tell you now. I’ll tell you as we go down.”
    “Say first that you’re as happy as I am.”
    “I