Three-Cornered Halo

by Christianna Brand

  “El Exaltida, Juan Lorenzo, Hereditary Grand Duke of San Juan el Pirata—to be read in sight and hearing of the people of San Juan el Pirata: to His Serenity, the Most Reverend, Most Venerable, Most Excellent, Most Noble, the Archbishop of San Juan.… Whereas it pleased His Serenity to preach this day a sermon, in sight and hearing of the people of San Juan el Pirata, publicly questioning the decisions and actions of the Grand Duke himself: the Grand Duke decrees as follows—His Serenity the Archbishop demands first an heir to the Dukedom of San Juan, and secondly that application be made to Rome for beatification and canonisation of Juanita di Perli, called El Margherita; declaring that Juanita di Perli lived the life of a saint and in life and after death has shown miraculous powers. Let El Margherita, then, show her powers now; and let His Serenity the Archbishop rest his faith in this alone. On the feast of San Juan, in three days’ time from now, El Exaltida will go publicly to the cathedral and there with the Grand Duchess, pray for an heir. At that hour, let El Margherita give some sign, let her give some miraculous sign that the gift will be granted. Let her do this and the Grand Duke will apply forthwith to Rome for recognition of her sanctity. Let her fail and, for his presumption and as a warning to each and every person here who dares even in his heart to question the Grand Duke’s authority—the Archbishop dies. Within one hour of the Grand Duke’s leaving the Duomo, if Juanita fails to uphold the Archbishop’s faith in her, his body will be shown to the people, coffined as it has been shown just now: and the Grand Duke repeats that this time there will be no resurrection.” The secretary took a step backward, folded the paper neatly between nimble fingers and waited with bowed head. The Grand Duke stood in absolute silence for a moment; and then strode back to the pavilion and disappeared. The Archbishop presumably taking this as permission to give way to demands of nature only less pressing than those of the Grand Duke’s dignity, duly gave way and tumbled in a dead faint on the ground. Miss Cockrill, looking on from the safe circle of the touristi, thought of the old, grey wolf, Akela, on the council rock and of Shere Khan, the tiger; and watched where one jackal slunk off after its master—and another crept up to the fallen leader whose leadership was done. Tomaso di Goya, thrusting aside other offers of assistance, knelt down and gathered the old man into his merciless arms.

  To do Tomaso justice, it had never till this moment occurred to him to murder the Grand Duke Lorenzo. That his powers should be curbed—yes: some share in the lesser authority falling, naturally, in his, Tomaso’s, way. That his wealth should be broken up and distributed—yes: some of this also accruing to the distributor. But by political revolution, peaceful or otherwise, and by this alone; that Juan Lorenzo should die, let alone that Tomaso should reign in his place—in this Innocenta’s imagination had far outstripped Tomaso’s ambition. Now, however … Lorenna had hastily imparted her secret, before the ceremonies began, and for the first time a personal hate for the tyrant sprang up where only hatred for tyranny had been. His affection for Lorenna, always quite genuine, took on new attributes of tenderness, of jealousy, of a physical possessiveness: the fact that, though fearful of his reactions, she could not conceal an inward elation at promise of her coming promotion, did nothing to endear the Grand Duke to her lover’s heart. And now—now, through a coincidence almost miraculous in itself, at the very moment when his political hatred took on a personal tone, an instrument of vengeance was thrust into his hand. The Grand Duke demanded a sign from heaven; and he, Tomaso, had, locked away in the secrecy of his brain alone, a blueprint of a ‘sign from heaven,’ and planned for the selfsame day. A swinging thurible, a tiny trapdoor cunningly concealed—a cloud of rosy incense rising, sweet-scented, up to the glittering shadows of mosaic domes.… He could have laughed aloud at the innocence of that pretty conception that an hour ago had seemed daring in the extreme. It should be no perfumed pellet that lay concealed beneath the gold trapdoor. The Grand Duke had asked Juanita for a sign: Juanita should send him a sign indeed.

  Belly to the ground, the jackal crept up to the council rock; and gathered the fallen old wolf into the toils of a plan so new and so terrible that his own mind rocked at the thought of it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TO say that the touristi were having a lovely time would be to exaggerate. The Juanese, to whom such scenes were merely the highlights of everyday life, soon bounced back to jollity again, the eight hanged bodies were cut down, somewhat stiff from prolonged suspension in their harnesses; everyone fell to eating and drinking once more. For the Archbishop’s fate, little lasting concern was aroused. If he died, why, he was old and one had to die one day—people died for smaller crimes than flouting the Grand Duke’s authority. But anyway, he would not die.…

  For Juanita, of course, would give the sign: and what form the sign would take, whether the Grand Duchess would be granted her prayer, how soon Rome would arrange for the canonisation, and who among themselves might most delightfully benefit when all these wonders came about—these formed the only animating topics in a conversation that centred, naturally, on the events of the day. The limonado bottles disappeared, the bottles of arguadiente came out, upon the gallows-rock the band struck up a more lively tune and in the cool of the evening the real dancing began. Only the unsmiling touristi seemed heavy at heart; and the Juanese watched in astonishment as, still sick and shaken, in twos and threes they wandered about and tried to recapture the fiesta spirit of the day.

  Major Bull and Miss Cockrill walked westward through the olive groves. She moved as though she were weary and when they came to a rocky niche carpeted with dry leaves and looking out over the sea, was glad to sit down and be quiet for a little while in the comfort of familiar companionship. “You’re tired, old girl?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Cockrill, unwontedly subdued.

  “Fretting about that poor girl a bit, eh?”

  “After what we’ve just seen …”

  “By Jove, yes; and she’s sensitive, y’know, soulful, y’know, not like you and me, tough.”

  Miss Cockrill was on the whole reasonably tough; but she did not care to be reminded of it by her pretendu nor, indeed, to be bracketed in a comparision with him. Besides … “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dick. Who’s sensitive? I’m talking about the Grand Duchess.”

  Major Bull had been talking about Winsome Foley. Miss Cockrill had claimed him as, over the long years of his fidelity she had established a right to do, and he had perforce gallantly walked off with her; and poor Winne had wandered away, looking soulful, in the opposite direction. He could not help wondering … Last evening, as they had strolled through the town—by Jove, poor girl, how close she had stuck to him! And there had been a tremble, he swore, in the hand that lay on his coat-sleeve. A little taller than himself, and more bony than in the choosey days, he had cared for ’em: but a fine girl all the same, little income of her own—and half the age of poor Hat. He fell into a reverie. There had been a hen pheasant, long, long ago, when he was a boy, down on his father’s little bit of rough shootin’ in Suffolk: injured wing, reckernise the bird any day from her irregular flight. Taken a good few pot shots at her; missed her every time. She had survived three seasons, it had become a point of honour to bag her. And so he had at last, and his dear old cocker, Queenie, had retrieved her; and, in triumph, between them they had carried her home. He remembered to this day his pride as, judiciously hung, she had been borne in, done to a turn, with her breadcrumbs and watercress disposed all about her; and, by Jove, poor old girl, how tough she had turned out to be! It made a feller think. Could there be such a thing, after all, as caring too much about the old hen pheasant, while the gay young birds flew by? “Grand Duchess?” he said. “I was talking about poor Winnie.”

  “Winsome? What’s poor about her?”

  “Thought she looked a bit lonely, wandering off on her own.”

  “She’s with the others, I expect. They were going up to look at the gallows. Goya’s supposed to have done the painting on them; quite worn offno
w, of course …”

  “Goyer?”

  “My dear Dick—you must know that the painter, Goya, is supposed to have spent two years here, after he ran away from Spain?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said the Major rather sulkily. Hat was so damn sharp.

  “Well, you’d better then. Call yourself a courier! What about the paintings on the walls of the cathedral? They’re obviously Goya: and anyway, where was he, between the time he escaped from Madrid in 1765 and turned up in Italy in ’67 or ’8?”

  “Why ask me?” said the Major. “I don’t know.”

  “I know you don’t, and I’m telling you. He was here in San Juan. Just the person to get mixed up with pirates. It was probably he who inspired the original Juan to build the cathedral; in those days Goya was doing big murals of religious subjects—it wasn’t till he arrived in Rome that …”

  “All right, Hat, all right. I’ll mug it all up tomorrow in the guide book. Feller can’t be suckin’ in culture every hour of the day.” ’Nother thing about poor Winnie—she could pour out this kind of drivel by the hour, but she didn’t expect a feller to know it for himself. A lot of stuff about painters—very interesting, no doubt, but it wasn’t a man’s subject. If Hat had a fault, it was that she was a darn sight too critical. Old soldier, grown white in the service of his country and all that—couldn’t be expected to shine in academic circles as well. Royal Academy, Sandhurst—not Royal Academy, Burlington House, by Jove! Not unreasonably pleased by his own wit, he repeated this gem to Hat, suitably led up to, i.e. without reference to Winsome. Miss Cockrill paid it the tribute of only a very wintry smile.

  For Miss Cockrill was weary: weary and oppressed. The scene on the gallows rock had revolted her, she saw the world suddenly as ugly and cruel and life as infinitely sad. I am old, she thought; and weary and lonely and happiness has passed me by. A dreary girlhood, an aimless middle-age: and now … There was still much that she could have found to delight in; and yet here she was chained for the rest of her days to a companion apparently sent by heaven for no purpose but to rob her of all pleasure in these last things. Let her but enjoy a book, and Winsome poked her long nose into it too and said that it was clever, no doubt, but was it all, frankly, quite Worth While? Let them see a mackerel sky, and Winsome gave way to fancies about mummy angels tucking cherubs into pink feather beds, let them engage for a moment in conversation with a wit, a scholar, a sophisticate, a cross old village woman bringing round the milk—and Winsome thought that Underneath they were all just simple, lonely, heart-achey people like Ourselves, crying out to be Loved: let them but pass a damned cyclamen in a pot, thought Cousin Hat to herself, almost in tears, and it reminded Winsome of fairies dancing. Till I die! I have got her with me till I die! Her shaking fingers scrabbled up handfuls of the curling, pointed, sun-dry olive leaves from the ground and screwed them into dust, she shuddered and bit her lip in an effort to preserve her self-control. Beside her, the Major sat chewing on his white moustache, his prominent pale blue eyes gazing placidly out to sea. What bliss, what happiness, to sit for ever with a companion who could look at an expanse of salt water without calling it God’s Own, or thinking of it as Our Lady’s Sequined Mantle.…

  “Charming thing poor Winnie said t’other day ’bout the Mediterranean,” said the Major dreamily. “Said that from heaven it must look like a bowl of forget-me-nots. Bowl of forget-me-nots!” He mused over it. “Blue, y’know. Yellow bits in the middle—sun dancing on the water. Get it?”

  Miss Cockrill could not help laughing and the laughter did her good, it broke up the tension of her little crise de nerfs and left her only rather shaken at its intensity. “Oh, Dick,” she said, “don’t you go whimsical on me too!”

  The Major came-to with a start. “What? What?” He turned a little and glanced at her white face. “I say … Bit grey round the gills. Feeling all right, old girl?”

  “Yes, I’m all right. It’s only that … Sometimes, you know, Dick, one gets weary and a bit frightened; a woman all alone in life like me.”

  “You’re not alone, Hat,” said the Major; referring to Winsome.

  Miss Cockrill, however, took it differently. “I know, Dick. And if things had been different …” Dear old Dick! He was not the world’s brightest intelligence but one had grown used to him over the years; and in her mood of weakness she felt that it would be in itself a paradise, only to have someone to rely upon for the endless little difficulties and decisions, the mountain of trivial burden which now, alone, she carried for two. “But it’s no good. I won’t wish upon you a menage à trois, and Winsome won’t ever marry now.” She had taken off the straw hat and speared it with a hat-pin to the ground beside her and now she put her grey head against his shoulder. “You’ve been very faithful, Dick.”

  “By Jove, old girl, not like you t’give way like this,” said the Major, growing very red.

  She lifted her head and her hands played again with the dry leaves. “No, it isn’t, is it? But … Well, there it is. I can’t leave Winsome now, she couldn’t manage on the money she’s got, not in the way we manage by living together; and she couldn’t understand anything less, she’s a silly woman, really, for all her pretensions; she couldn’t cope with economy, not real, hard economy. No. I promised her mother and I must stick to my bargain. But we could have been very happy all these years, you and I.”

  “By Jove, yes, old girl, of course, of course.…”

  “Oh, dear, Dick!—to sit down just sometimes to a meal with someone who didn’t keep dashing to the window to Share with the Little Feathered Friends of St Francis (who flourished in a country where there isn’t a single bird left because they’ve killed and eaten them all). To be able to go out and just dig in the garden without Trusty-the-Spade, or set about the weeds without Twin brothers Hoe and Spud! Not to mention running over the gravel with Hogarth.…”

  “Hogarth?”

  “The Rake’s Progress,” said Cousin Hat, bleakly.

  “Poor-Winnie-sensitive-soul …”

  “She is not a sensitive soul,” said Hat. “If she were, she’d know that for years every word she has uttered has scraped on my nerves like a knife skidding over a plate.”

  Nerves all to bits, poor old girl. “Need a rest, Hat, ought to have a change.”

  “I am having a rest, you fool—and a change. And Winsome is all wide-eyed wonder because she can pick a bunch of grapes off a vine, and drools over a dirty old skeleton in a Streatham-High-Street dress. If only,” said Miss Cockrill desperately, “Juanita would give her wretched sign and get herself canonised and Winsome could sell thousands of copies of her translations and be rich and independent—and you and I could be free!”

  But perhaps poor Hat herself was not so very sensitive either; or she might have observed that, gallantly though he puffed and protested, such an outcome was no longer quite unreservedly the heart’s desire of her faithful Dick.

  The grouppa, in the meantime, bereft of their shepherd, had wandered off to inspect the Vaporetto de Muerte: missing him dreadfully, for most of the ladies were setting their (widows’) caps at him and Fuddyduddy was incensed at his relaxing attentions which, surely, had been bought and paid for in advance. A hoard of colourful urchins followed like gadflies in their wake, telling lies about the financial positions of their families, small brown hands thrust out. “Where is Bull? He ought to be here to shoo these creatures away.”

  “Shoo them away yourself,” said Gruff; poor Gruff, who, thanks to the tender care of Aunt Grim, would never have a pack of small boys of her own; or even a Fuddyduddy.

  But Fuddyduddy had his hands rammed down on the money in his pockets and could not take them out for fear of creating an impression that he might be about to distribute largesse. Fortunately, the lady novelist was ready to distribute instead and did so, right, left and centre, only careful to keep an account for the income tax people at home. “Research,” she explained briefly, listening with keen delight to family histories which would have as
tonished the devoted and deeply indulgent relatives concerned. Even the Back-Homes were mollified at hearing of the living conditions behind the facade of luxurious fiesta window-dressing; and, would the Juanese but have admitted the original of the Goya-decorated gallows to be in the U.S.A., would have instituted a Help-for-San-Juan Day, without delay.

  Mr Cecil was enraptured with the Vaporetto de Muerte. She lay at her moorings, dingily black and silver, tugging gently on a single tether like a large, richly caparisoned regimental goat. Bunches of ostrich plumes were fixed to every available post, between them hung wreaths, hideously ornate, of innumerable tiny coloured beads, strung on wire. The bulkheads were plastered with photographs, in the da-guerrotype manner, of loved ones who by this means had crossed the Styx from Barrequitas to the mainland—varying in age and beauty but unanimous in somewhat startling choice of background, for the single backcloth of the Barrequitas photographer, portrays an aged donkey peering over a bridge at a waterfall far below, apparently with suicidal intent. Beneath his melancholy nose, generations of bambinos roll on bamboo table-tops with every evidence of acute strangulated hernia; the brides simper, the old ladies glare from behind their abundant moustaches, the gentlemen strike attitudes of bashful grace: all with eyes glazed from two minutes’ unwinking attention to the Juanese birdie. Mr Cecil read out the tributes of the living to those thus petrified into immortality, with hoots of happy laughter; and, forgetful of their own annual contributions to the In Memorium columns at home, the widows tittered in sychophantic chorus. He left them and wandered off into the sable-hung bowels of the boat.