The Ivory Dagger

CHAPTER XI

Considering all things, dinner might have been a great deal worse. Herbert Whitall could be an agreeable host when he chose. Tonight he laid himself out to play the part. Lady Dryden’s social tact was equal to any situation however strained. Eric Haile could be relied upon for the newest scandal and the latest bon mot. And Mabel Considine could and did produce an unfailing stream of village small talk. Lila, placed tactfully between Mr. Considine and Adrian Grey, had only to look lovely and contribute an occasional yes or no. There were long periods when she did not even have to do this, because Adrian and Mr. Considine had got into a long argument about the new surface cultivation versus deep trenching, and there really wasn’t anything she could find to say.

The table was an oval one, and since she was as far from Herbert Whitall as it was possible for her to be, she felt able to relax. On one side of her there was Adrian, the Professor, and Mrs. Considine. On the other George Considine, with Miss Whitaker on his left and Eric Haile between her and Lady Dryden.

Eric was finding it amusing to speculate as to Milly Whitaker’s reactions. Would she stay, or would she go? And if she stayed, what sort of a fist would Herbert make of running a three-in-hand? He wondered how much Lady Dryden knew, and decided she would certainly see to it that she did not know too much. All this whilst he told quite a new story about a Bishop, a Bright Young Thing, and a Raid on a Night-club. He didn’t expect anyone to believe it, but he hoped it might shock Mrs. Considine. She was, however, so deeply involved in telling Professor Richardson all about Jimmy Grove, who was his daily’s nephew and coming on so very nicely under George in the garden, that she merely looked round in amiable surprise at the general laughter.

Food and service were both excellent. By the time dinner was over there was certainly less tension and a more favourable atmosphere. Coffee was served in the drawing-room, and the men adjourned there after the briefest interval. The room was comfortably warm, and the scent of apple-wood hung pleasantly on the Mr. Conversation was light and desultory until Herbert Whitall put down his cup and got up.

‘Well, Richardson,’ he said with a flavour of malice in his tone, ‘you’ll be wanting to see the dagger.’

‘I don’t know why you should think I’m interested.’ The Professor’s voice was a growl.

‘Oh, but you must be. You’re going to prove it’s a fake, aren’t you? If you haven’t got a magnifying-glass, I can lend you one. It is going to be very interesting to watch the struggle between your obstinacy and your antiquarian conscience. Of course you may have knocked it on the head, but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. So come along!’

He crossed to the far end of the room and drew back a wide curtain. It screened a steel shutter cutting off the alcove in which he housed his ivories. The shutter slid back when a key had been inserted and turned, disclosing a deep semicircular recess, windowless and furnished with shelves covered in velvet of a very deep blue. On these shelves and against this background the ivory plaques, figures, and other triumphs of craftsmanship were displayed. In the place of honour there was the figure which Lila disliked so much. Of an archaic simplicity, the head perhaps a little bent, the hands holding some small round thing-a fruit perhaps, or possibly the age-old symbol of life. Even in the midst of a malicious desire to confute the Professor, Herbert Whitall would not deny his goddess her mead of praise.

‘Perfect, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘Cretan, of course.’

The Professor blew out his cheeks till they looked like twin balloons. Then he let all the breath go at once in a sound like ‘Pooh!’ or ‘Pah!’

‘Egypto-Greek!’

Herbert Whitall maintained a superior smile.

‘Plenty of Egyptian influence in Crete. The ivory figures at Hagia Triada-’

Professor Richardson said, ‘Nonsense!’ but the battle was suavely declined.

‘Perfect anyway, my dear fellow. And Lila might have stood for her. She doesn’t like me to say so, but you can’t help seeing the likeness. And we needn’t dispute about perfection.’

The Professor grunted.

‘Where’s this dagger you’re so cocksure about?’

Herbert Whitall held it out-a long, thin blade with an ivory handle delicately carved in a vine pattern-twisting stem, graceful leaf, and swelling grape, the whole exquisitely balanced, easy to hold, and small enough to be a woman’s ornament worn in the girdle or the hair.

‘The story is that Marco Polo brought it back from China.’

The Professor snorted.

‘That blade never came out of China!’

‘I agree. It’s of later date than the hilt of course. If Marco Polo really brought it home, the blade may have been broken, or he or someone who came after him may have thought they could better it. After all, Italy and Spain could claim to lead the world in the tempering of steel. This blade is undoubtedly of Italian workmanship. The dagger in its present form turns up in the dowry of Bianca Corner who married into the Falieri family in 1541. It is listed amongst her personal effects.’

‘An ivory dagger is listed amongst her effects. After which nobody knows anything about it until the middle of the eighteenth century, when Lord Abington picked it up in Venice with this ridiculous Marco Polo story pinned to it! From that point, of course, the pedigree is quite straightforward!’

Herbert Whitall raised his eyebrows.

‘Ridiculous?’

‘Absurd!’ said the Professor. ‘A fatuous fabrication! The sort of thing that could only impose on the ignorant and credulous!’

Mabel Considine put her hand on his arm and pressed it gently.

‘Very pretty, isn’t it? Those grapes! And do you see, there is a fly on one of them! But I’m afraid I don’t like daggers and things like that. I can’t help wondering whether they’ve ever killed anyone. And of course I suppose they must have done when they are as old as this one seems to be.’

The Professor would have liked to go on being rude to Herbert Whitall. He didn’t see why he should be interrupted. He blew out his cheeks again and said,

‘Ask Whitall, and he’ll tell you Marco Polo used it to stab Genghiz Khan-ha, ha!’

The pressure on his arm increased. Mabel Considine was smiling at her host.

‘What I was going to ask Sir Herbert was whether we couldn’t hear some of his beautiful records. Such a very great treat. Of course there is plenty of music on the wireless, but if you want to hear the great soloists you have to go to gramophone records. It’s really quite like a miracle to be able to say, “Now I’ll hear Kreisler, or Caruso, or Galli-Curci, or John McCormack.” And you have such a wonderful collection of those old records-quite out of the catalogue now.’

‘Shocking bad,’ said George Considine. ‘All scratch. Can’t listen to them myself.’

‘George, dear!’

‘Oh, have it your own way! You always do!’

She did at least on this occasion, Eric Haile coming up in support, and the whole party moved back into the room. The steel shutter was locked upon the precious ivories and the brocade curtain drawn across it again.

Eric Haile stepped naturally into the position of musical director.

‘Now what shall we have? You mentioned Kreisler-or are we only to call upon the glorious shades? Mrs. Considine? Lady Dryden?’

Sybil Dryden had not a note of music in her. She could not have cared less. The whole thing was a bore, but so were the ivories. And they had at least been preserved from the quarrel which Professor Richardson had seemed determined to provoke. She smiled, said something vague about their all being so charming, and thought how embarrassing Mabel’s girlish enthusiasms had become. To look sixty and behave as if you were sixteen was a social tragedy.

The Professor was joining in the choice of records now. He had, it appeared, a passion for tenor and soprano arias in the old-fashioned Italian style. George Considine liked something he knew, something of the kind you can pick up and whistle. The four of them trooped off to the study in search of records.

Lila was sitting on one of the sofas with Adrian Grey. He was showing her sketches of a house he had been asked to alter. A little comfort and peace flowed in on her as she looked at the pictures and listened to his quiet voice explaining them. Miss Whitaker had gone out of the room.

Herbert Whitall came to sit by Sybil Dryden. After a brief glance at Lila and Adrian he said under his breath,

‘Soothing syrup?’

‘Yes-you had better let them alone. By the way, young Waring is here.’

‘Here?’

‘He arrived at a quarter to seven and demanded to see Lila. I got rid of him. Herbert, he will ring up tomorrow. I think she will have to see him. He says he won’t take his dismissal from anyone else, and he is a very stubborn young man. It is a pity, because of course it will upset her. But perhaps not such a bad thing in the end. If he makes a scene-and he probably will-he will frighten Lila. She can’t bear anything like that. The more I think of it, the more I am inclined to believe that it may be quite a good thing. I shall be present of course.’

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!’

Eric Haile’s dark eyes went dancing from face to face. They saw George Considine on the edge of embarrassment, a record in his hand. His wife, her attention caught by the rasp in the Professor’s voice, her hand at a fluttering end of hair, the desire to be helpful plainly written upon her face. It gave her rather the look of an anxious hen. Lila and Adrian bending over those eternal sketches. Amiable fellow, Adrian, but a bit of a bore. Come to think of it, so was the lovely Lila. Probably just as well. Beauty and brains would be a formidable combination-too formidable for Herbert Whitall. Sybil Dryden had had both. Wasn’t there something about ‘the monstrous regiment of women’? He thought the cap would fit her pretty well. But she could meet her match in Herbert. A cold devil-a cold, calculating, sneering devil. If he went on baiting Richardson, there would probably be a brawl. Better black them out.

He put on a magnificent orchestral record of a Bach toccata and fugue and turned up the volume control. An ocean of sound surged out and filled the room.