The Flower Beneath the Foot

by Ronald Firbank

  “‘It seemed as if Kairoulla had gone wild with joy. Led by the first Life-Guards and a corps of ladies of great fashion disguised as peasants, the cortège proceeded amid the whole-hearted plaudits of the people towards Constitutional Square, where, with the sweetest of smiles and thanks the princess received an exquisite sheaf of Deflas (they are the hybrids of slipper-orchids crossed with maidens-rue, and are all the mode at present), tendered her by little Paula Exelmans, the Lord Mayor’s tiny daughter. Driving on, amid showers of confetti, the procession passed up the Chausée, which presented a scene of rare animation; boys, and even quite elderly dames swarming up the trees to obtain a better view of their new Princess. But it was not until Lilianthal Street and the Cathedral Square were reached, that the climax reached its height! Here, a short standstill was called, and after an appropriate address from the Archbishop of Pisuerga, the stirring strains of the National Anthem, superbly rendered by Madame Marguerite Astorra of the State Theatre (she is in perfect voice this season), arose on the air. At that moment a black cat and its kitties rushed across the road, and I saw the Princess smile.’”

  “Thy scissors, O Sidi, in the Name of the Prophet!”

  “‘A touching incident,’” Sidi with equanimity pursued, “’was just before the English Tea Rooms, where the English Colony had mustered together in force…’”

  But alack for those interested. Owing to the clamour about him much of the recital was lost: “’Cheers and tears…,… Life’s benison… Honiton lace… If I live to be forty, it was a moment I shall never forget… Panic… congestion… Police.’”

  But it was scarcely needful to peruse the paper, when on the boulevards outside, the festivities were everywhere in full swing. The arrival of the princess for her wedding had brought to Kairoulla unprecedented crowds from all parts of the kingdom, as much eager to see the princess, as to catch a glimpse of the fine pack of beagles, that it was said had been brought over with her, and which had taken an half eerie hold of the public mind. Gilderoy, Beausire, Audrey, many of the dogs’ names were known pleasantly to the crowd already; and anecdotes of Audrey, picture-postcards of Audrey, were sold as rapidly almost as those even of the princess. Indeed mothers among the people had begun to threaten their disobedient offspring with Audrey, whose silky, thickset frame was supported, it appeared, daily on troublesome little boys and tiresome little girls…

  “Erri, erri, get on with thy bouquet, oh Lazari Demitraki!” Bachir exclaimed in plaintive tones, addressing a blonde boy with a skin of amber, who was “charming” an earwig with a reed of grass.

  “She dance the Boussadilla just like in the street of Halfaouine in Gardaïa my town any Ouled Nail!” he rapturously gurgled.

  “Get on with thy work, oh Lazari Demitraki,” Bachir besought him, “and leave the earwigs alone for the clients to find.”

  “What with the heat, the smell of the flowers, the noise of you boys, and with filthy earwigs Boussadillaing all over one, I feel I could swoon,” the voice, cracked yet cloying, was Peter Passer’s.

  He had come to Kairoulla for the “celebrations,” and also, perhaps, aspiring to advance his fortunes, in ways known best to himself. With Bachir, his connection dated from long ago, when as a Cathedral choir-boy it had been his habit to pin a shoulder, or bosom-blossom to his surplice, destroying it with coquettish, ring-laden fingers in the course of an anthem, and scattering the petals from the choir-loft, leaf by leaf, on to the grey heads of the monsignori below.

  “Itchiata wa?” Bachir grumbled, playing his eyes distractedly around the shop. And it might have been better for the numerous orders there were to attend to had he called fewer of his acquaintance to assist him. Sunk in torpor, a cigarette smouldering at his ear, a Levantine Greek known as “Effendi darling” was listening to a dark-cheeked Tunisian engaged at the Count of Tolga’s private Hammam Baths—a young man, who, as he spoke, would make mazy gestures of the hands as though his master’s ribs, or those of some illustrious guest, lay under him. But by no means all of those assembled in the little shop, bore the seal of Islam. An American who had grown too splendid for the copper “Ganymede” or Soda-fountain of a Café bar and had taken to teaching the hectic dance-steps of his native land in the night-halls where Bachir sold, was achieving wonders with some wires and Eucharist lilies, while discussing with a shy-mannered youth the many difficulties that beset the foreigner in Kairoulla.

  “Young chaps that come out here, don’t know what they’re coming to,” he sapiently remarked, using his incomparable teeth in place of scissors. “Gosh! Talk of advancement,” he growled.

  “There’s few can mix as I can, yet I don’t never get no rise!” the shy youth exclaimed, producing a card that was engraved: Harry Cummings, Salad-Dresser to the King: “I expect I’ve arrived,” he murmured, turning to hide a modest blush towards a pale young man who looked on life through heavy horn glasses.

  “Salad dressing? I’d sooner it was hair! You do get tips there anyway,” the Yankee reasoned.

  “I wish I were—arrived,” the young man with the glasses, by name Guy Thin, declared. He had come out but recently from England to establish a “British Grocery,” and was the owner of what is sometimes called an expensive voice, his sedulously clear articulation missing out no syllable or letter of anything he might happen to be saying, as though he were tasting each word, like the Pure tea, or the Pure marmalade, or any other of the so very Pure goods he proposed so exclusively to sell.

  “If Allah wish it then you arrive,” Lazari Demitraki assured him with a dazzling smile, catching his hand in order to construe the lines.

  “Finish thy bouquet, O Lazari Demitraki,” Bachir faintly moaned.

  “It finished—arranged: it with Abou!” he announced, pointing to an aged negro with haunted sin-sick eyes who appeared to be making strange grimaces at the wall. A straw hat of splendid dimensions was on his head, flaunting bravely the insignia of the Firm.

  But the old man seemed resolved to run no more errands:

  “Nsa, nsa,” he mumbled: “Me walk enough for one day! Me no go out any more. Old Abou too tired to take another single step! As soon would me cross the street again dis night as the Sahara!…”

  And it was only after the promise of a small gift of Opium that he consented to leave a débutante’s bouquet at the Théâtre Diana. [10]

  “In future,” Bachir rose remarking, “I only employ the women; I keep only girls,” he repeated, for the benefit of “Effendi darling” who appeared to be attaining Nirvana.

  “And next I suppose you keep a Harem?” “Effendi darling” somnolently returned.

  Most of the city shops had closed their shutters for the day, when Bachir shouldering a pannier bright with blooms, stepped with his companions forth into the street.

  Along the Boulevards thousands were pressing towards the Regina Gardens to view the Fireworks, all agog to witness the pack of beagles wrought in brilliant lights due to course a stag across the sky, and which would change, if newspaper reports might be believed, at the critical moment, into “‘something of the nature of a surprise.’”

  Pausing before a plate-glass window that adjoined the shop to adjust the flowing folds of his gandourah, and to hoist his flower tray to his small scornful head, Bachir allowed his auxiliaries to drift, mostly two by two, away among the crowd. Only the royal salad-dresser, Harry Cummings, expressed a demure inclination (when the pushing young grocer caressed his arm), to “be alone”; but Guy Thin, who had private designs upon him, was loath to hear of it! He wished to persuade him to buy a bottle of Vinegar from his Store, when he would print on his paper-bags As supplied to his Majesty the King.

  “Grant us, O Allah, each good Fortunes,” Bachir beseeched, looking up through his eyelashes towards the moon, that drooped like a silver amulet in the firmament above: in the blue nocturnal air he looked like a purple poppy. “A toute à l’heure mes amis!” he murmured as he moved away.

  And in the little closed shop behind the heavy
moucharabi, now that they all had gone, the exhalations of the flowers arose; pungent, concerted odours, expressive of natural antipathies and feuds, suave alliances, suffering, pride, and joy… Only the shining moon through the moucharabi, illumining here a lily, there a leaf, may have guessed what they were saying:

  “My wires are hurting me: my wires are hurting me.”

  “I have no water. I cannot reach the water.”

  “They have pushed me head down into the bottom of the bowl.”

  “I’m glad I’m in a Basket! No one will hurl me from a window to be bruised under foot by the callous crowd.”

  “It’s uncomfy, isn’t it, without one’s roots?”

  “You Weed you! You, you, you… buttercup! How dare you to an Orchid!”

  “I shouldn’t object to sharing the same water with him, dear… Ordinary as he is! If only he wouldn’t smell…”

  “She’s nothing but a piece of common grass and so I tell her!”

  When upon the tense pent atmosphere surged a breath of cooler air, and through the street-door slipped the Duchess of Varna.

  Overturning a jar of great heavy-headed Gladioli with a crash, she sailed, with a purposeful step, towards the till.

  Garbed in black and sleepy citrons, she seemed, indeed, to be equipped for a long, long Voyage, and was clutching, in her arms, a pet Poodle dog, and a levant-covered case, in which, doubtless, reposed her jewels.

  Since her rupture with Madame Wetme (both the King and Queen had refused to receive her), the money ennuis of the Duchess had become increasingly acute. Tormented by tradespeople, dunned and bullied by creditors, menaced, mortified, insulted—an offer to “star” in the rôle of A Society Thief for the cinematograph had particularly shocked her—the inevitable hour to quit the Court so long foreseen had come. And now with her departure definitely determined upon, the Duchess experienced an insouciance of heart unknown to her assuredly for many a year. Replenishing her reticule with quite a welcome sheaf of the elegant little bank-notes of Pisuerga, one thing only remained to do, and taking pen and paper, she addressed to the Editor of the Intelligence the supreme announcement:— “The Duchess of Varna has left for Dateland.”

  Eight light words! But enough to set tout Kairoulla in a rustle.

  “I only so regret I didn’t go sooner,” she murmured to herself aloud, breaking herself a rose to match her gown from an arrangement in the window.

  Many of the flowers had been newly christened, “Elsie,” “Audrey,” “London-Madonnas” (black Arums these), while the Roses from the “Land of Punt” had been renamed “Mrs Lloyd George”— and priced accordingly. A basket of Odontoglossums eked out with Gypsophila seemed to anticipate the end, when supplies from Punt must necessarily cease. However, bright boys, like Bachir, seldom lacked patrons, and the duchess recalled glimpsing him one evening from her private sitting-room at the Ritz Hotel, seated on a garden bench in the Regina Gardens beside the Prime Minister himself; both, to all seeming, on the most cordial terms, and to have reached a perfect understanding as regards the Eastern Question. Ah, the Eastern Question! It was said that, in the Land of Dates, one might study it well. In Djezira, the chief town, beneath the great golden sun, people, they said, might grow wise. In the simoon that scatters the silver sand, in the words of the nomads, in the fairy mornings beneath the palms, society with its foolish cliché… the duchess smiled.

  “But for that poisonous woman, I should have gone last year,” she told herself, interrupted in her cogitations by the appearance of her maid.

  “The train your Grace we shall miss it…”

  “Nonsense!” the duchess answered following, leaving the flowers alone again to their subtle exhalations.

  “I’m glad I’m in a Basket!”

  “I have no water. I cannot reach the water.”

  “Life’s bound to be uncertain when you haven’t got your roots!”

  XIV

  ON a long-chair with tired, closed eyes lay the Queen. Although spared from henceforth the anxiety of her son’s morganatic marriage, yet, now that his destiny was sealed, she could not help feeling perhaps he might have done better. The bride’s lineage was nothing to boast of—over her great-great-grandparents, indeed, in the year 17— it were gentler to draw a veil—while, for the rest, disingenuous, undistinguished, more at home in the stables than in a drawing-room, the Queen much feared that she and her future daughter-in-law would scarcely get on.

  Yes, the little princess was none too engaging, she reflected, and her poor sacrificed child if not actually trapped…

  The silken swish of a fan, breaking the silence, induced the Queen to look up.

  In waiting at present was the Countess Olivia d’Omptyda, a person of both excellent principles and birth, if lacking, somewhat, in social boldness. Whenever she entered the royal presence she would begin visibly to tremble, which considerably flattered the Queen. Her Father, Count “Freddie” d’Omptyda, an infantile and charming old man, appointed in a moment of unusual vagary Pisuergan Ambassador to the Court of St James’, had lately married a child wife scarcely turned thirteen, whose frivolity, and numerous pranks on the high dames of London, were already the scandal of the Corps Diplomatique.

  “Sssh! Noise is the last vulgarity,” the Queen commented, raising a cushion embroidered with raging lions and white uncanny unicorns higher behind her head.

  Unstrung from the numerous fetes, she had retired to a distant boudoir to relax, and, having partly disrobed, was feeling remotely Venus of Miloey with her arms half-hidden in a plain white cape.

  The Countess d’Omptyda furled her fan.

  “In this Age of push and shriek…” she said and sighed.

  “It seems that neither King Geo, nor Queen Glory, ever lie down of a day!” her Dreaminess declared.

  “Since his last appointment, neither does Papa.”

  “The affair of your step-mother and Lady Diana Duff Semour,” the Queen remarked, “appears to be assuming the proportions of an Incident!”

  The Countess dismally smiled. The subject of her step-mother, mistaken frequently for her grand-daughter, was a painful one: “I hear she’s like a colt broke loose!” she murmured, dropping her eyes fearfully to her costume.

  She was wearing an apron of Parma-violets, and the Order of the Holy Ghost.

  “It’s a little a pity she can’t be more sensible,” the Queen returned, fingering listlessly some papers at her side. Among them was the Archaeological Society’s initial report relating to the recent finds among the Ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. From Chedorlahomor came the good news that an amphora had been found, from which it seemed that men, in those days, rode sideways, and women straddle-legs, with their heads to the horses’ tails, while a dainty cup, ravished from a rock-tomb in the Vale of Akko, ornamented with naked boys and goblets of flowers, encouraged a yet more extensive research.

  “You may advance, Countess, with the Archaeologists’ report,” the Queen commanded. “Omitting (skipping, I say) the death of the son of Lord Intriguer.” [11]

  “‘It was in the Vale of Akko, about two miles from Sââda,” the Countess tremblingly began, “‘that we laid bare a superb tear-bottle, a unique specimen in grisaille severely adorned with a matron’s head. From the inscription, there can be no doubt whatever that we have here an authentic portrait of Lot’s disobedient, though unfortunate wife. Ample and statuesque (as the salten image she was afterwards to become), the shawl-draped, masklike features are by no means beautiful. It is a face that you may often see to-day, in down-town, ‘Dancings’ or in the bars of the dockyards, or wharfs, of our own modern cities, Tilbury, ’Frisco, Vera Cruz—a sodden, gin-soaked face, that helps to vindicate, if not, perhaps, excuse, the conduct of Lot… With this highly interesting example of the Potters’ Art, was found a novel object, of an unknown nature, likely to arouse, in scientific circles, considerable controversy…’”

  And just as the lectrice was growing hesitant, and embarrassed, the Countess of Tolga, who had
the entrée, unobtrusively entered the room.

  She was looking particularly well in one of the new standing-out skirts ruched with rosebuds, and was showing more of her stockings than she usually did.

  “You bring the sun with you!” the Queen graciously exclaimed.

  “Indeed,” the Countess answered, “I ought to apologise for the interruption, but the poor little thing is leaving now.”

  “What? has the Abbess come?”

  “She has sent Sister Irene of the Incarnation, instead…”

  “I had forgotten it was to-day.”

  With an innate aversion for all farewells, yet the Queen was accustomed to perform a score of irksome acts daily that she cordially disliked, and when, shortly afterwards, Mademoiselle de Nazianzi accompanied by a Sister from the Flaming-Hood were announced, they found her quite prepared.

  Touched, and reassured at the ex-maid’s appearance, the Queen judged, at last, it was safe to unbend. Already very remote and unworldly in her novice’s dress, she had ceased, indeed, to be a being there was need any more to cither circumvent, humour, or suppress; and now that the threatened danger was gone, her Majesty glanced, half-lachrymosely, about among her personal belongings for some slight token of “esteem” or souvenir. Skimming from cabinet to cabinet, in a sort of hectic dance, she began to fear, as she passed her bibelots in review, that beyond a Chinese Buddha that she believed to be ill-omened, and which for a nun seemed hardly suitable, she could spare nothing about her after all, and in some dilemma, she raised her eyes, as though for a crucifix, towards the wall.

  Above the long-chair a sombre study of a strangled negress in a ditch by Gauguin conjured up to-day with poignant force a vivid vision of the Tropics.

  “The poor Duchess!” she involuntarily sighed, going off into a train of speculation of her own.

  Too tongue-tied, or, perhaps, too discreet, to inform the Queen that anything she might select would immediately be confiscated by the Abbess, Sister Irene, while professing her rosary, appraised her surroundings with furtive eyes, crossing herself frequently with a speed, and facility due to practice whenever her glance chanced to alight on some nude shape in stone. Keen, meagre, and perhaps slightly malicious, hers was a curiously pinched face— like a cold violet.