Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [106]
Her anguished hand held him there until those other two had passed up the lane and disappeared from sight. He heard himself speaking to her, saying foolish little things meant to be comforting, and ludicrously inadequate to the agony he had divined. She only spoke once.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t leave me.’
He found that oddly touching. He was, then, of use to someone. And he went on saying those things that meant nothing at all, but which were, somehow, better than silence. They went that way to the Roscheimers. Now and then her hand tightened on his shoulder, and he understood that she was glad of his company. She only took it away when they finally came to their destination. She stood very erect, her head held high.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘I shall dance! Do not be afraid for me, my friend. I shall dance.’
She left him abruptly. He was seized upon by Lady Roscheimer, much bediamonded and very full of lamentations. By her he was passed on to Claude Wickam.
‘Ruined! Completely ruined. The sort of thing that always happens to me. All these country bumpkins think they can dance. I was never even consulted–’ His voice went on–went on interminably. He had found a sympathetic listener, a man who knew. He gave himself up to an orgy of self-pity. It only ended when the first strains of music began.
Mr Satterthwaite came out of his dreams. He was alert, once more the critic. Wickam was an unutterable ass, but he could write music–delicate gossamer stuff, intangible as a fairy web–yet with nothing of the pretty pretty about it.
The scenery was good. Lady Roscheimer never spared expense when aiding her protégés. A glade of Arcady with lighting effects that gave it the proper atmosphere of unreality.
Two figures dancing as they had danced through time immemorial. A slender Harlequin flashing spangles in the moonlight with magic wand and masked face…A white Columbine pirouetting like some immortal dream…
Mr Satterthwaite sat up. He had lived through this before. Yes, surely…
Now his body was far away from Lady Roscheimer’s drawing-room. It was in a Berlin Museum at a statuette of an immortal Columbine.
Harlequin and Columbine danced on. The wide world was theirs to dance in…
Moonlight–and a human figure. Pierrot wandering through the wood, singing to the moon. Pierrot who has seen Columbine and knows no rest. The Immortal two vanish, but Columbine looks back. She has heard the song of a human heart.
Pierrot wandering on through the wood…darkness…his voice dies away in the distance…
The village green–dancing of village girls–pierrots and pierrettes. Molly as Pierrette. No dancer–Anna Denman was right there–but a fresh tuneful voice as she sings her song ‘Pierrette dancing on the Green’.
A good tune–Mr Satterthwaite nodded approval. Wickham wasn’t above writing a tune when there was a need for it. The majority of the village girls made him shudder, but he realized that Lady Roscheimer was determinedly philanthropical.
They press Pierrot to join the dance. He refuses. With white face he wanders on–the eternal lover seeking his ideal. Evening falls. Harlequin and Columbine, invisible, dance in and out of the unconscious throng. The place is deserted, only Pierrot, weary, falls asleep on a grassy bank. Harlequin and Columbine dance round him. He wakes and sees Columbine. He woos her in vain, pleads, beseeches…
She stands uncertain. Harlequin beckons to her to begone. But she sees him no longer. She is listening to Pierrot, to his song of love outpoured once more. She falls into his arms, and the curtain comes down.
The second Act is Pierrot’s cottage. Columbine sits on her hearth. She is pale, weary. She listens–for what? Pierrot sings to her–woos her back to thoughts of him once more. The evening darkens. Thunder is heard…Columbine puts aside her spinning wheel. She is eager, stirred…She listens no longer to Pierrot. It is her own music that is in the air, the music of Harlequin and Columbine…She is awake. She remembers.
A crash of thunder! Harlequin stands in the doorway. Pierrot cannot see him, but