Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online Page B

Alleyn said, “I noticed that.”
    An irresponsible tinkling on a xylophonic gong announced the first luncheon on board the
Cape Farewell,
outward bound.

CHAPTER 4
Hyacinths
    Having watched Alleyn mount the companionway, Brigid Carmichael returned to her desolate little verandah aft of the centrecastle and to her book.
    She had gone through the morning in a kind of trance, no longer inclined to cry or to think much of her broken engagement and the scenes that had attended it or even of her own unhappiness. It was as if the fact of departure had removed her to a spiritual distance quite out of scale with the night’s journey down the estuary and along the Channel. She had walked until she was tired, tasted salt on her lips, read a little, heard gulls making their B.B.C. atmospheric noises, and watched them fly mysteriously in and out of the fog. Now in the sunshine she fell into a half-doze.
    When she opened her eyes it was to find that Doctor Timothy Makepiece stood not far off, leaning over the rail with his back towards her. He had, it struck her, a pleasant nape to his neck; his brown hair grew tidily into it. He was whistling softly to himself. Brigid, still in a strange state of inertia, idly watched him. Perhaps he sensed this for he turned and smiled at her.
    “Are you all right?” he asked. “Not sea-sick or anything?”
    “Not at all. Only ridiculously sleepy.”
    “I expect that
is
the sea. They tell me it does have that effect on some people. Did you see the pilot go off and the arrival of the dark and handsome stranger?”
    “Yes, I did. Had he missed the ship last night, do you suppose?”
    “I’ve no idea. Are you going for drinks with Aubyn Dale before lunch?”
    “Not I.”
    “I hoped you were. Haven’t you met him yet?” He didn’t seem to expect an answer to this question but wandered over and looked sideways at Brigid’s book.
    “Elizabethan verse?” he said. “So you don’t despise anthologies. Which is your favourite — Bard apart?”
    “Well — Michael Drayton, perhaps, if he wrote ‘Since There’s No Help.’ ”
    “I’ll back the Bard for that little number every time.” He picked up the book, opened it at random and began to chuckle as he read aloud.
     
    “
O yes, O yes, if any maid
    Whom leering Cupid hath betrayed
…
     
    “Isn’t
that
a thing, now? Leering Cupid! They really were wonderful. Do you — but no,” Tim Makepiece said, interrupting himself, “I’m doing the thing I said to myself I wouldn’t do.”
    “What was that?” Brigid asked, not with any great show of interest.
    “Why, forcing my attentions on you, to be sure.”
    “What an Edwardian expression.”
    “None the worse for that.”
    “Shouldn’t you be going to your party?”
    “I expect so,” he agreed moodily. “I don’t really like alcohol in the middle of the day and am far from being one of Mr. Aubyn Dale’s fans.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’ve yet to meet a man who is.”
    “All jealous of him, I daresay,” Brigid said idly.
    “You may be right. And a very sound reason for disliking him. It’s the greatest mistake to think that jealousy is necessarily at fault. On the contrary, it may very well sharpen the perception.”
    “It didn’t sharpen Othello’s.”
    “But it did. It was his
interpretation
of what he saw that was at fault. He
saw,
with an immensely sharpened perception.”
    “I don’t agree.”
    “Because you don’t want to.”
    “Now, look here—” Brigid said, for the first time giving him her full attention.
    “He saw Cassio doing his sophisticated young Venetian act over Desdemona’s hand. He saw him at it again after he’d blotted his copy-book. He was pathologically aware of every gallantry that Cassio showed his wife.”
    “Well,” Brigid said, “if you’re pathologically aware of every attention Aubyn Dale shows his however-many-they-may-be female fans, I must say I’m sorry for you.”
    “All right, smartie,” Tim said amiably, “you