The Flower Beneath the Foot

by Ronald Firbank

  “The Abbess is still in retreat; but sends her duty,” she ventured as the Queen approached a gueridon near which she was.standing.

  “Indeed? How I envy her,” the Queen wistfully said, selecting, as suited to the requirements of the occasion, a little volume of a mystic trend, the Cries of Love of Father Surin [12] bound in grey velvet, which she pressed upon the reluctant novice, with a brief, but cordial, kiss of farewell.

  “She looked quite pretty!” she exclaimed, sinking to the long-chair as soon as the nuns had gone.

  “So like the Cimabue in the long corridor…” the Countess of Tolga murmured chillily. It was her present policy that her adored ally, Olga Blumenghast, should benefit by Mademoiselle de Nazianzi’s retirement from Court, by becoming nearer to the Queen, when they would work all the wires between them.

  “I’d have willingly followed her,” the Queen weariedly declared, “at any rate, until after the wedding.”

  “It seems that I and Lord Derbyfield are to share the same closed carriage in the wake of the bridal coach,” the Countess of Tolga said, considering with a supercilious air her rose suède slipper on the dark carpet.

  “He’s like some great Bull. What do you suppose he talks about?”

  The Countess d’Omptyda repressed a giggle.

  “They tell me Don Juan was nothing nothing to him… He cannot see, he cannot be, oh every hour. It seems he can’t help it, and that he simply has to!”

  “Fortunately Lady Lavinia Lee-Strange will be in the landau as well!”

  The Queen laid her cheek to her hands.

  “I all but died, dear Violet,” she crooned, “listening to an account of her Ancestor, who fell, fighting Scotland, at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh.”

  “These well-bred, but detestably insular women, how they bore one.”

  “They are not to be appraised by any ordinary standards. Crossing the state saloon while coming here what should I see, ma’am, but Lady Canon of Noon on her hands and knees (all fours!) peeping below the loose-covers of the chairs in order to examine the Gobelins-tapestries beneath…”

  “Oh—”

  “‘Absolutely authentic’ I said! as I passed on, leaving her looking like a pick-pocket caught in the act.”

  “I suppose she was told to make a quiet survey…”

  “Like their beagles and deer-hounds, that their Landseer so loved to paint, I fear the British character is, at bottom, nothing if not rapacious!”

  “It’s said, I believe, to behold the Englishman at his best, one should watch him play at tip-and-run.”

  “You mean of course at cricket?”

  The Queen looked doubtful: She had retained of a cricket-match at Lord’s a memory of hatless giants waving wooden sticks.

  “I only wish it could have been a long engagement,” she abstrusely murmured, fastening her attention on the fountains whitely spurting in the gardens below.

  Valets in cotton-jackets and light blue aprons bearing baskets of crockery and, argenterie, were making ready beneath the tall Tuba trees, a supper buffet for the evening’s Ball.

  “Flap your wings, little bird

  O flap your wings”

  A lad’s fresh voice, sweet as a robin’s, came piping up.

  “These wretched workpeople!—There’s not a peaceful corner,” the Queen complained, as her husband’s shape appeared at the door. He was followed by his first secretary—a simple commoner, yet, with the air, and manner, peculiar to the husband of a Countess.

  “Yes, Willie? I’ve a hundred headaches. What is it?”

  “Both King Geo and Queen Glory, are wondering where you are.”

  “Oh, really, Willie?”

  “And dear Elsie’s asking after you too.”

  “Very likely,” the Queen returned with quiet complaisance, “but unfortunately, I have neither her energy, or,” she murmured with a slightly sardonic laugh, “her appetite!”

  The Countess of Tolga tittered.

  “She called for fried-eggs and butcher’s-meat, this morning, about the quarter before eight,” she averred.

  “An excellent augury for our dynasty,” the King declared, reposing the eyes of an adoring grandparent upon an alabaster head of a Boy attributed to Donatello.

  “She’s terribly foreign, Willie…! Imagine ham and eggs…” the Queen dropped her face to her hand.

  “So long as the Royal-House—” The King broke off, turning gallantly to raise the Countess d’Omptyda, who had sunk with a gesture of exquisite allegiance to the floor.

  “Sir… Sir!” she faltered in confusion, seeking with fervent lips her Sovereign’s hand.

  “What is she doing, Willie?”

  “Begging for Strawberry-leaves!” the Countess of Tolga brilliantly commented.;

  “Apropos of Honours… it appears King Geo has signified his intention of raising his present representative in Pisuerga to the peerage.”

  “After her recent Cause, Lady Something should be not a little consoled.”

  “She was at the début of the new diva, little Miss Hellvellyn (the foreign invasion has indeed begun!), at the Opera-House last night, so radiant…”

  “When she cranes forward out of her own box to smile at someone into the next, I can’t explain… but one feels she ought to hatch,” the Queen murmured, repairing capriciously from one couch to another.

  “We neglect our guests, my dear,” the King expostulatingly exclaimed, bending over his consort anxiously from behind.

  “Tell me, Willie,” she cooed, caressing the medals upon his breast, and drawing him gently down: “tell me? Didst thou enjoy thy cigar, dear, with King Geo?” I

  “I can recall in my time, Child, a suaver flavour…”

  “Thy little chat, though, dearest, was well enough?”

  “I would not call him crafty, but I should say he was a man of considerable subtlety…” the King evasively replied.

  “One does not need, my dearest nectarine, a prodigy of intelligence however to take him in!”

  “Before the proposed Loan, love, can be brought about, he may wish to question thee as to thy political opinions.”

  The Queen gave a little light laugh.

  “No one knows what my political opinions are; I don’t myself!”

  “And I’m quite confident of it: But, indeed, my dear, we neglect our functions.”

  “I only wish it could have been a long engagement, Willie…”

  XV

  IN the cloister eaves, the birds were just awakening, and all the spider scales, in the gargoyled gables, glanced fresh with dew. Above the Pietà, on the porter’s gate, slow-speeding clouds, like knots of pink roses, came blowing across the sky, sailing away in titanic bouquets towards the clear horizon. All virginal in the early sunrise what enchantment the world possessed! The rhythmic sway-sway of the trees, the exhalations of the flowers, the ethereal candour of this early hour,-these raised the heart up to their Creator.

  Kneeling at the casement of a postulant’s cell, Laura de Nazianzi recalled that scene, and just thus had she often planned must dawn her bridal day!

  Beyond the cruciform flower-beds, and the cloister wall, soared the Blue Jesus, the storied windows of its lofty galleries, aglow with light.

  “Most gracious Jesus. Help me to forget. For my heart aches. Uphold me now.”

  But to forget to-day, was well-nigh she knew impossible… Once it seemed she caught the sound of splendid music from the direction of the Park, but it was too early for music yet. Away in the palace, the Princess Elsie must be already astir… in her peignoir, perhaps? The bridal-garment unfolded upon the bed: But no; it was said the bed indeed was where usually her Royal-Highness’ dogs…

  With a long and very involuntary sigh, she began to sweep, and put in some order, her room.

  How forlorn her cornette looked upon her prie-Dieu! And, oh, how stern, and ‘old”!

  Would an impulse to bend it slightly out only so, so slightly, to an angle to suit her face, be attended, later,
by remorse?

  “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper vergini, beato Michaeli archangelo (et tibi Pater), quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere,” she entreated, reposing her chin in meditation, upon the handle of her broom.

  The bluish shadow of a cypress-tree, on the empty wall, fascinated her as few pictures had.

  “Grant my soul Eyes,” she prayed, cheerfully completing her task.

  In the corridor, being a general holiday, all was yet quite still. A sound, as of gentle snoring, came indeed from behind more than one closed door, and the new pensionnaire was preparing to beat a retreat, when she perceived, in the cloister, the dumpish form of Old Jane.

  Seated in the sun by the convent well, the Porteress was sharing a scrap of breakfast with the birds.

  “You’re soonish for Mass, love,” she broke out, her large archaic features surcharged with smiles.

  “It’s such a perfect morning, I felt I must come down.”

  “I’ve seen many a more promising sunrise before now, my dear, turn to storm and blast! An orange sky overhead, brings back to me the morning that I was received; ah, I shall never forget, as I was taking my Vows, a flash of forked lightning, and a clap of Thunder (Glory be to God!) followed by a water-spout (Mercy save us!) bursting all over my Frinch lace veil…”

  “What is your book, Old Jane?”

  “Something light, love, as it’s a holiday.”

  “Pascal…”

  “Though it’s mostly a Fête day I’ve extra to do!” the Porteress averred, dropping her eyes to the great, glistening spits, upon the Cloister flags. It was her boast she could distinguish Monsignor Potts’ round splash from Father Geordie Picpus’ more dapper fine one, and again the Abbess’ from Mother Martinez de la Rosa’s—although these indeed shared a certain opaque sameness.

  “Of course it’s a day for private visits.”

  “Since the affair of Sister Dorothea and Brother Bernard Soult, private visits are no longer allowed,” the Porteress returned, reproving modestly, with the cord of her discipline, a pert little lizard, that seemed to be proposing to penetrate between the nude toes of her sandalled foot.

  But on such a radiant morning it was preposterous to hint at “Rules.”

  Beneath the clement sun a thousand cicadas were insouciantly chirping, while birds, skimming about without thoughts of money, floated lightly from tree to tree.

  “Jesus—Mary—Joseph!” the Porteress purred, as a Nun, with her face all muffled up in wool, crossed the Cloister, glancing neither to right nor left, and sharply slammed a door: for, already, the Convent was beginning to give signs of animation. Deep in a book of Our Lady’s Hours, a biretta’d priest was slowly rounding a garden path, while repairing from a Grotto-sepulchre, to which was attached a handsome indulgence, Mother Martinez de la Rosa appeared, all heavily leaning on her stick.

  Simultaneously the matins bell rang out, calling all to prayer.

  The Convent Chapel founded by the tender enthusiasm of a wealthy widow, the Countess d’Acunha, to perpetuate her earthly comradeship with the beautiful Andalusian, the Dona Dolores Baatz, was still but thinly peopled some few minutes later, although the warning bell had stopped.

  Peering around, Laura was disappointed not to remark Sister Ursula in her habitual place, between the veiled fresco of the “Circumcision “and the stoup of holy-water by the door.

  Beyond an offer to “exchange whippings” there had been a certain coolness in the greeting with her friend, that had both surprised and pained her.

  “When those we rely on wound and betray us, to whom should we turn but Thee?” she breathed, addressing a crucifix, in ivory, contrived by love, that was a miracle of wonder.

  Finished Mass, there was a general rush for the Refectory!

  Preceded by Sister Clothilde, and followed, helter-skelter, by an exuberant bevy of nuns, even Mother Martinez, who being shortsighted would go feeling the ground with her cane, was propelled to the measure of a hop-and-skip.

  Passing beneath an archway, labelled “Silence” (the injunction to-day being undoubtedly ignored), the company was welcomed by the mingled odours of tea, consommé, and fruit. It was a custom of the Convent for one of the Sisters during meal-time to read aloud from some standard work of fideism, and these edifying recitations, interspersed by such whispered questions as: “Tea, or Consommé?” “A Banana, or a Pomegranate?” gave to those at all foolishly, or hysterically inclined, a painful desire to giggle. Mounting the pulpit-lectern, a nun with an aristocratic, though gourmand little face, was about to resume the arid life of the Byzantine monk, Basilius Saturninus, when Mother Martinez de la Rosa took it upon herself, in a few patriotic words, to relax all rules for that day.

  “We understand in the world now,” a little faded woman murmured to Laura upon her right: “that the latest craze among ladies is to gild their tongues; but I should be afraid,” she added diffidently, dipping her banana into her tea, “of poison, myself!”

  Unhappy at her friend’s absence from the Refectory, Laura, however, was in no mood to entertain the nuns with stories of the present pagan tendencies of society.

  Through the bare, blindless windows, framing a sky so bluely luminous came the swelling clamour of the assembling crowds, tingeing the languid air as with some sultry fever. From the Chausée, music of an extraordinary intention— heated music, crude music, played with passionate élan to perfect time, conjured up, with vivid, heartrending prosaicness, the seething Boulevards beyond the high old creeper-covered walls.

  “I forget now, Mother, which of the Queens it is that will wear a velvet train of a beautiful orchid shade: But one of them will!” Sister Irene of the Incarnation was holding forth.

  “I must confess,” Mother Martinez remarked, who was peeling herself a peach, with an air of far attention: “I must confess, I should have liked to have cast my eye upon the lingerie…”

  “I would rather have seen the ball wraps, Mother, or the shoes, and evening slippers!”

  “Yes, or the fabulous jewels…”

  “Of course Sister Laura saw the trousseau?”

  But Laura made feint not to hear.

  Discipline relaxed, a number of nuns had collected provisions and were picnicking in the window, where Sister Innez (an ex-Repertoire actress) was giving some spirited renderings of her chief successful parts— Jane de Simerose, Frou-Frou, Sappho, Cigarette…

  “My darling child! I always sleep all day and only revive when there’s a Man,” she was saying with an impudent look, sending the scandalised Sisters into delighted convulsions.

  Unable to endure it any longer, Laura crept away.

  A desire for air and solitude, led her towards the Recreation ground. After the hot refectory, sauntering in the silken shade of the old astounding cedars, was delightful quite. In the deserted alleys, the golden blossoms of the censia-trees, unable to resist the sun, littered in perfumed piles the ground, overcoming her before long with a sensation akin to vertige. Anxious to find her friend, Laura turned towards her cell.

  She found Sister Ursula leaning on her window-ledge all crouched up—like a Duchess on “a First Night.”

  “My dear, my dear, the crowds!”

  “Ursula?”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Perhaps I’ll go, since I’m in the way.”

  “Touchy Goose,” Sister Ursula murmured wheeling round with a glance of complex sweetness.

  “Ah, Ursula,” Laura sighed, smiling reproachfully at her friend.

  She had long almond eyes, one longer and larger than the other, that gave to her narrow, etiolated face, an exalted, mystic air. Her hair, wholly concealed by her full coif, would be inclined to rich copper or chestnut: Indeed, below the pinched and sensitive nostrils, a moustache (so slight as to be scarcely discernible) proved this beyond all controversy to be so. But perhaps the quality and beauty of her hands were her chief distinction.

  “Do you believe it would cause an earthquake, if we clim
bed out, dear little one, upon the leads?” she asked.

  “I had forgotten you overlooked the street by leaning out,” Laura answered, sinking fatigued to a little cane armchair.

  “Listen, Laura…!”

  “This cheering racks my heart…”

  “Ah, Astaroth! There went a very ‘swell’ carriage.”

  “Perhaps I’ll come back later: It’s less noisy in my cell.”

  “Now you’re here, I shall ask you, I think, to whip me.”

  “Oh, no…”

  “Bad dear Little-One. Dear meek soul,” Sister Ursula softly laughed.

  “This maddening cheering,” Laura breathed, rolling tormented eyes about her.

  A crucifix, a text: I would lay Pansies at Jesus’ Feet, two fresh eggs in a blue paper bag, some ends of string, a breviary, and a birch, were the chamber’s individual, if meagre, contents.

  “You used not to have that text, Ursula,” Laura observed, her attention arrested by the preparation of a Cinematograph Company on the parapet of the Cathedral.

  The Church had much need indeed of Reformation! The Times were incredibly low: A new crusade… she ruminated, revolted at the sight of an old man holding dizzily to a stone-winged angel, with a wine-flask at his lips.

  “Come, dear, won’t you assist me now to mortify my senses?” Sister Ursula cajoled.

  “No, really, no—!—!—!”

  “Quite lightly: For I was scourged, by Sister Agnes, but yesterday, with a heavy bunch of keys, head downwards, hanging from a bar.”

  “Oh…”

  “This morning she sent me those pullets’ eggs. I perfectly was touched by her.delicate sweet sympathy.”

  Laura gasped.

  “It must have hurt you?”

  “I assure you I felt nothing—my spirit had travelled so far,” Sister Ursula replied, turning to throw an interested glance at the street.

  It was close now upon the critical hour, and the plaudits of the crowd were becoming more and more uproarious, as “favourites” in Public life, and “celebrities” of all sorts, began to arrive in brisk succession at the allotted door of the Cathedral.