Aurelia raised her eyes.
‘Surely in such a sweet old house it would feel almost vulgar to be alive!’
‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Wookie replied. ‘I do not care for Mrs Cresswell. She repels me.’
‘In any case, if anything should happen, Mrs Henedge will be quite secure. That fair-haired pianist accompanied her. You remember him, don’t you, mamma?’
‘I remember him perfectly. Nobody in the world ever got over a stile like Mr Brookes.’
‘To see her continually with that perverse musician, or with that priest, is enough to make poor good Bishop Henedge burst his coffin.’
‘Alas, Ashringford isn’t what it used to be,’ Mrs Wookie complained. ‘The late Bishop was, in many matters, perhaps not a very prudent man … but he had authority. And a shapelier leg, my dears, never trod the earth. He obtained his preferment, one may say, solely on their account. He had such long, long legs. Such beautiful long, long legs.’
‘And,’ Miss Wookie murmured, flinging her flower, ‘a really reassuring way of blowing his nose!! To hear him do it was to realize immediately the exact meaning of conviction.’
‘But,’ Aurelia gulped an eyelash, ‘in the official portrait,’ she objected, ‘he appears such a little gasp of a man!’
Mrs Wookie became belligerent.
‘That topsy-turvy thing in the Town Hall! I was fond of my husband, but I’d scorn to be painted in evening-mourning pointing at his dead miniature. His portrait indeed! His widow’s rather, basking on a sofa, with a locket.’
‘Apparently Mrs Henedge admires the baroque.’
‘Well, her new church will be dedicated to it,’ Miss Wookie assured.
‘So ornate?’
‘Mr Thumbler has gone to Italy to make the drawings … The exterior is to be an absolute replica of St Thomas in Cremona, with stone saints in demonstrative poses on either side of the door.’
‘And the interior, no doubt, will be a dream.’
‘It is to be lit entirely by glass eighteenth-century chandeliers,’ Miss Wookie said, ‘and there will be a Pompeian frieze, and a good deal of art leather work from the hand of one of Lady Georgia’s young men, who did some of the panelling at St Anastasia’s once, although, of course, he was rather restricted.’
‘Art leather,’ Aurelia said, ‘sounds to me a mistake.’
‘If it’s half as delicate as at St Anastasia, it should be really rather lovely.’
‘Let us hope that it may—’
‘And there are to be some very nice pictures. In fact, the pictures will be a feast. Madame Gandarella, the wife of the Minister, has presented a St Cecilia Practising and a more than usually theatrical Greuze. And Baroness Lützenschläger is to give a Griego. Nobody knows quite what it represents – long, spiritual women grouped about a cot. The Chalfonts, also, are offering a Guardi for the baptistry. But as there was never any mention of one, they ran no very terrible risk. And last, though hardly least, Lord Brassknocker is sending to Paris, to be framed, a mysterious pastelle, entitled Tired Eyelids on Tired Eyes, which, as Mrs Pontypool says, is certainly the very last thing she looks.’
‘Kate hears everything,’ Mrs Wookie said; ‘thread me a needle, Kate.’
‘And when everything is complete, the Grand Duchess Ximina will stay at Stockingham to unveil the leather. And Cardinal Pringle will appear to sprinkle the pictures and to bless it all.’
‘If the Grand Duchess stays at Stockingham,’ Mrs Wookie said, ‘I suppose they will prepare the State bed.’
‘Poor woman,’ Aurelia murmured. ‘It’s as hard as a board.’
‘Elizabeth—’ Miss Wookie began, but Aurelia rose.
‘How pretty the garden looks,’ she said.
Miss Wookie smiled.
‘It’s only charming,’ she observed, checked in her little tale, ‘on account of the trees.’
‘Tut, Kate. I’m sure in the spring, when the laburnums are out, and lilacs in bloom, the garden’s hard to beat.’
‘It has been always summer,’ Aurelia said, as she took her leave, ‘when I’ve stayed here before.’
Down an alley and through an arch led her straight to Washing-tub Square.
Notwithstanding the eloquence prepared, it was with relief that she perceived her laundress docilely pinning some purple flowers against a fence, while close by, in the dust, Miss Valley was kneeling, with her arms about a child.
At her approach the biographer lifted loose blue eyes that did not seem quite firm in her head, and a literary face.
‘I shall have to commence my life all over again,’ she said. ‘Six weeks wasted! This child – employed in the laundry here –’ and she began to shake it – ‘this carrier of dirty linen … is Reggie … Cresswell – a descendant of the saint …’
And because Miss Valley seemed in such distress, and because, after all, she was a friend, Aurelia let fall her dish and, with a glance right and left, first, to make sure that ‘nothing was coming’ sank down upon the road by her side.
‘But can you not see,’ she murmured sympathetically, taking Miss Valley by the hand, ‘that an Apologia is just what everyone most enjoys?’ And then, drawing Reggie to her, she exclaimed: ‘Oh, you dear little boy!’
X
‘And your own tomb, dear Doctor Pantry, what is it going to be?’
‘My own tomb,’ the Bishop replied demurely, ‘will be composed entirely of encaustic tiles that come from Portugal – a very simple affair.’
Mrs Shamefoot sighed. ‘It sounds,’ she said, ‘almost agitating.’
‘Ah, these old cathedrals, my dear Mrs Shamefoot, how many marriages and funerals they’ve seen!’
‘I suppose—’
‘Ashringford may not have the brave appearance of Overcares, or the rhythm of Perch, or the etherealness of Carnage, or the supremacy of Sintrap; but it has a character, a conspicuousness of its own.’
‘It stands with such authority.’
‘To be sure. You’d hardly believe there was a debt upon it.’
‘No; indeed one would not.’
Lady Anne broke in: ‘There is often,’ she remarked, ‘a haze. Although I couldn’t bear the Cathedral without a few sticks and props, I should miss them frightfully, it’s curious the way the restorations hang fire, especially with the number of big houses there are about. Don’t you agree with me, Mrs Roggers?’
‘Decidedly,’ the Archdeacon’s wife exclaimed, beginning to docket them upon a glove. When revealing no small mishap, she quite omitted Stockingham from the list.
At this gust of tact Lady Anne appeared amazed.
‘If Mrs Shamefoot wishes to explore the Cathedral,’ the Bishop said, ‘it will be well to do so before the excursion train gets in from Perch.’
‘Then you had better take her across.’
‘But you’ll come with us.’
‘I must remain here for Lady Georgia. Should Mrs Henedge be out or telling her beads she’ll be back directly.’
‘Very well, we will not be long.’
‘And be careful,’ Lady Anne adjured her husband, with fine frankness, ‘not to commit yourself. No rash promises! The Cathedral’s all glass as it is. It will be like a conservatory before we’ve done.’
‘What are those wonderfully white roses?’ Mrs Shamefoot inquired of the Bishop, as she trailed with him away.
In a costume de cathedrale, at once massive and elusive, there was nostalgia in every line.
‘They bear the same name as the cathedral,’ the Bishop replied: ‘St Dorothy.’
Mrs Shamefoot touched the episcopal sleeve.
‘And that calm wee door?’ she asked.
‘It’s the side way in.’
‘Tell me, Doctor Pantry, is there a ray of hope?’
‘Without seeming uncharitable, or unsympathetic, or inhuman, what am I to say? With a little squeezing we might bury you in the precincts of the Cathedral.’
‘But I don’t want to be trodden on.’
‘You m
ight do a great deal worse than lay down a brass.’
‘With my head on a cushion and my feet upon flowers. Oh!’
‘Or a nice shroud one. Nothing looks better. And they are quite simple to keep clean.’
‘But a brass,’ she said, ‘would lead to rubbings. I know so well! Persons on all fours perpetually bending over me.’
‘I can see no objection in that.’
‘I don’t think my husband would like it.’
‘Naturally; if Mr Shamefoot would mind—’
‘Mind?’ She began to titter. ‘Poor Soco,’ she said; ‘poor dear man. But a window’s more respectable. Though I’d sooner I didn’t borrow an old one.’
And with an effort she manoeuvred her hat through the narrow monastic door.
Darkness, and an aroma of fresh lilies, welcomed her, as though with cool invisible hands.
Here, most likely, would she dwell until the last day surprised her. And, like twelve servants, the hours would bring her moods.
She sank impulsively to her knees. A window like a vast sapphire – a sumptuous sapphire, changing black – chilled her slightly.
Must colour change?
Here and there, the glass had become incoherent a little, and begun to mumble.
‘One could look for ever at the pretty windows!’ she murmured, rising.
The Bishop seemed touched.
‘We must try and find you a corner,’ he said, ‘somewhere.’
She turned towards him.
‘Oh, you make me happy.’
‘I said a corner,’ the Bishop replied. ‘Perhaps we can find you a lancet.’
‘A lancet! But I should be so congested, shouldn’t I? I shall need some space. A wee wheel-window, or something of the kind.’
The tones implied the colossal.
‘A lancet would be rather limited, of course, but does that matter?’
‘Wait till you see the designs …’
With a sensation of uneasiness Doctor Pantry began to pivot about the font.
‘In Cromwell’s time,’ he explained, ‘it was used as a simple washtub.’
‘Oh, what a shame!’
‘And from here,’ he said, ‘you get such a curious complication of arches.’
Around the pillars drooped stone garlands that had been coloured once. From them a few torn and marvellous flags, that looked more as if they had waved triumphant over some field of scandal than anywhere else, reposed reminiscent.
‘What shreds!’
‘Certainly, they are very much riddled.’
But she lingered apart a moment before the tomb of an Ashringford maiden, lying sleep-locked upon a pyre of roses, with supplicating angels at the head and feet.
‘Do I,’ she whispered, ‘detect romance?’
The Bishop bent his head.
‘Alas,’ he said, ‘the entire bibliothèque rose.’
‘And how sweet something smells.’
‘Many persons have noticed it. Even when there has been barely a dry leaf within doors.’
‘Why? What? …’
‘It emanates from the Coronna Chapel, where Mrs Cresswell is.’
‘Is it there always?’
‘It varies. On some days it’s as delicate as a single cowslip. On others it’s quite strong, more like syringa.’
Mrs Shamefoot scanned the shadows.
‘But Mrs Cresswell,’ she inquired, ‘who was she – exactly?’
‘Primarily,’ the Bishop replied, ‘she was a governess. And with some excellent people, too. Apart from which, no doubt, she would have been canonized, but for an unfortunate remark. It comes in The Red Rose of Martyrdom. “If we are all a part of God,” she says, “then God must indeed be horrible.” ’
‘Nerves are accountable for a lot. Possibly, her pupils were tiresome … Or it was upon a hot day. In her Autobiography she confesses, doesn’t she, to her sensibility to heat.’
Doctor Pantry smiled.
‘What a charming book!’
‘I love it too. It’s a book that I adore.’
‘I have the 1540 edition.’
‘Have you; how rare!’
‘Indeed, it’s a possession that I prize.’
‘I should say so. I can repeat, almost by heart, the chapter that commences: “What can be more melancholy than Stonehenge at sunset.” Her cry of astonishment on beholding it from the window of Lord Ismore’s coach is the earliest impressionary criticism that we have. She was asleep, wasn’t she, when a sudden jolt awoke her. “The stones,” she said to little Miss Ismore, whom she was piloting to Court, “the stones are like immense sarcophagi suspended in the air …” ’
‘Admirable!’ the Bishop exclaimed.
‘And Miss Ismore in her way was interesting too. Eventually she married Prince Schara, and retired to Russia with him. And kept a diary. Each night she would write down the commonplaces of the Czarina, with the intention of one day revealing them in a book; as if she hadn’t sufficient incidents without! Before her death in Moscow, where she was poisoned, one gathers that the influences of childhood, although most likely smothered, were not entirely put out. And she would wear her heavenly tiara at the opera as if it were a garland of thorns. Really, the Princess was one of the very first persons to get Russiaphobia.’
‘Russiaphobia; what is that?’
‘Wearing one’s rubies and emeralds at the same time,’ Mrs Shamefoot said, in a hushed voice.
The Bishop waved aside a hanging.
‘There is usually,’ he explained, ‘a slight charge asked for entrance to the Coronna Chapel. But to-day you’re with me!’
She stood awed.
‘How seductive she is; though, somehow, I should call her inclined to be too rotund for a saint! A saint should be slim and flexible as a bulrush …’
‘The effect, no doubt of her fine gaiety! Her exuberance was wonderful. She was as gay as a patch of poppies to the last.’
‘I suppose in her time, there were a few flower faces, but the majority of persons seem to have been quite appallingly coarse.’
‘It has often been remarked that she resembles Madame de Warens …’
Mrs Shamefoot became regretful.
‘If only Rembrandt might have painted Madame de Warens!’ she said.
‘You have not yet been to our small gallery in the town?’
‘I didn’t know there was one.’
‘Oh, but you must go—’
‘I will, but not before my own affair’s arranged! Wait; a lancet did you say? or a Wheel-window, or a Chancel-light – I’ll be confused.’
‘Before I can make any definite promises,’ the Bishop said, ‘an unworthy world is sure to demand a few credentials.’
‘Dear Doctor Pantry, were I to proclaim myself a saint you’d probably not believe it—’
‘Indeed, I assure you I’ve no misgivings.’
‘I cannot conceive, why, then, there should be any fuss.’
‘You have never yet come across our Parish Magazine?’
‘I dare say if I stayed here long enough I’d get horrid too.’
‘No; I think you never would.’
‘I might!’
‘I assure you every time it appears I find myself wishing I were lying in the sanctity of my own sarcophagus.’
‘Dear Doctor Pantry, don’t say such shocking things! I will not allow it. Besides, I could compose the notice myself.’
‘Indeed, I fear you’d have to.’
‘Behind a white mask and a dark cloak. Quite in the manner of Longhi. Thus: “A Dame, who, (for the next few weeks) prefers to remain unknown wishes to remove from St Dorothy one of those white windows (which resemble prose), and replace it by,” etc. etc. etc. Or, to slip away the west window altogether …’
‘But the west window, the war window …’
‘It’s a blot to the Cathedral. I cannot make out what is written beneath; but isn’t it to say, that in the end the King marries the kitchen-maid, and they lived happily ever after?�
��
‘To remove the war window,’ the Bishop said, ‘when everyone is alive that subscribed for it, I fear would be impossible.’
Mrs Shamefoot peered about her. Once only, long ago, in the Pyrenees, could she recall a similar absence of accommodation.
‘Perhaps,’ she said, half shyly, ‘I might share the Coronna.’
‘Share the Coronna!’
Doctor Pantry turned pale at the impiety.
‘Why not? Two triangles when they cut can make a star …’
‘I fear your Niccolo in Ashringford might be unapprehended.’
‘After all, what is the Dorothy window but a wonderful splash of colour?’
‘Have you tried the Abbey?’ Doctor Pantry asked.
‘What, Westminster?’
‘With a husband in the Cabinet …’
Mrs Shamefoot smiled sedately.
‘But I’m not a public person,’ she said. ‘An actress. Although, of course, I do sell flowers.’
‘With such an object in view, heaven forfend you should become one.’
Mrs Shamefoot closed her eyes.
‘To be an actress,’ she said; ‘to ruin one’s life before a room full of people … What fun!’
‘Every good preacher,’ Doctor Pantry observed, ‘has a dash of the comedian too.’
‘Do you go often to the play?’
‘The last time,’ his lordship confessed, ‘I went was to see Mrs Kendall, in The Elder Miss Blossom.’
‘Oh, she’s perfect.’
‘Although Lady Anne saw Yvette Guilbert only the other day.’
Mrs Shamefoot looked sympathetic.
‘I can imagine nothing more sinister,’ she said, ‘than Yvette Guilbert singing “Where-are-you-going-to-my-pretty-maid”. It will haunt me always.’ And she paused meditatively to admire a stone effigy of the first Lady Blueharnis, stretched out upon a pillow like a dead swan.
‘How entirely charming the memorials are.’
‘I’m so glad that you like them.’
‘Somehow, some people are so utterly of this world,’ she mused, ‘that one cannot conceive of them being grafted into any other.’
But a sound of unselfconscious respiration from behind the Blueharnis monument startled her.
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