‘I’m so glad, for, naturally, while the building’s in progress I have to be on the spot. And I do so hate to be alone … I cannot bear it. I like to have you with me!’
‘Still, you’ve got Monsignor Parr …’
‘Dear, charming, delightful Monsignor Parr!’
‘Are there any more new designs?’
‘No. But Mr Calvally is constructing some confessionals for us utterly unlike the usual cabins-de-bains … And apropos of them, I’ve something serious to say to you. I’m sorry to have to say it …; for I’d really much rather not!’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It’s about Andrew. Those Degas Danseuses he sends to you … on letter cards … I know, I know, I know! And, perhaps, if he didn’t scribble over them … But – how very often have I said it! – I never liked him. That violet muffler. And the no-collar …’
‘Why, what?’
‘Here is a card that came for you. When I saw it, I assure you it made me feel quite quaint and queer. I thought it was for me!’
‘Oh, but you couldn’t!’
‘ “My dear old Sin, do ask me not to write to you again. Or answer my letters properly.” ’
‘I wish Andrew wouldn’t correspond with you in that coarse way. Ever! At least not while you’re at the Closed House. What must the postman think?’
‘That’s nerves! You mustn’t begin to worry like Lady Brassknocker. Her apprehension of the servants is a disease.’
‘But a postman isn’t a simple servant. One doesn’t dismiss him. I like my letters. Here is one from Atossa Listless. She says Lady Castleyard and Mrs Shamefoot are going to Cannes. And there’s another difficulty apparently: whether the window shall open, or not.’
‘How capricious the Palace is.’
‘Mrs Shamefoot is ill with strain. Lady Listless says she speaks of nothing now but death. She says it’s almost shocking to hear her. Nothing else amuses her at all … And it gets so gloomy and monotonous.’
‘Probably the casino—’
‘That’s what they try to hope. At present she’s continually cabling to India about her pall. After the coffin she says she’ll have violins – four: Kubelik, Zimbalist, Kreisler, and Melsa … And no doubt Dina will send a splendid sheaf of something from the shop.’
Winsome tossed back his hair and half clouded his eyes. He glazed them.
‘Wait!’ he murmured, moving to the piano.
Mrs Henedge obeyed, expectant, upright, upon the tip of her chair. She knew the signs … Her finger-tips hovering at her heart caged an Enchantress Satin Rose.
‘Lillilly-là lillilly-là,
Là, là, là.
Lillilly, lillilly, lillilly-là,
Lillilly-là lillilly-là,
Lillilly, Lillilly, lillilly-là,
L-à-à-à …’
‘Well; really! …’
‘I couldn’t help it. It just broke from me. It’s The Song of the Embalmers …’
‘… I call it lovely! Poor Mrs Shamefoot. That lillilly, lillilly, lillilly. One feels they really are doing something to the corpse. It’s sitting up! And the long final l-à-à-à. It’s dreadful. Don’t they fling it down?’ And with finger rigid she pointed towards the floor.
‘It’s good of you to like it,’ Winsome said, with some emotion. ‘And here’s Goosey!’
‘Never lend your name, or your money, or your books, or your umbrella, or anything, to anybody – if you’re wise,’ Goosey Pontypool remarked over his shoulder to Winsome as he pressed Mrs Henedge’s hand.
‘But it isn’t raining!’
‘It doesn’t matter. Here, they pour down dust upon you as you go by.’
‘It’s a sign,’ Mrs Henedge said, ‘that the houses are tenanted. Thérèse will sometimes say to me that that melancholy Miss Wintermoon must have gone away at last when suddenly up flies her window and a hand shakes a duster into the street.’
‘In Ashringford there’s chatter enough indoors. You’d be surprised!’
‘Well, I never know what goes on, except when the sow gets into the Dean’s garden. And then I hear the screams.’
‘I hear everything.’
‘Whisper what you’ve heard.’
‘That Mr Pet is to marry Miss Wardle and Mr Barrow’s to be made a peer.’
‘Upon what grounds?’
‘For doctoring the Asz. You know it used always to ooze away; he’s just discovered where. While she was watering her rhododendrons he noticed … Anyway, he’s going to Egypt officially soon to do something to the Nile.’
‘How delightful for her!’
‘She’s advertising for a cottage at Bubastis, a bungalow, a villa …’
Mrs Henedge became staid.
‘I suppose she’ll get like Salabaccha now,’ she said. ‘Ah, well!’
‘Even so, it’s much more wonderful for Jane …’
‘I’m at a loss to conceive any one …’
‘I don’t know. Miss Wardle isn’t perhaps what you’d expect. When I called at Wormwood she said: “I was so sure we should find plenty in common. I could feel it through the window. I’ve often watched you pass.” ’
‘Those complicated curls of hers remind me of the codicils to my poor dear Leslie’s will.’
‘Who arranged the match?’
‘St Dorothy. She was expatiating on her escape … “I heard a noise,” she said, “a sound. But country servants are so rough. Aren’t they? Breaking, dropping, chipping things … I haven’t a dish that isn’t cracked … So, if I didn’t hurry immediately to look out, it was because … because … because … Because I was in the middle of my prayers.”
‘ “Had it fallen a leetle more your way,” he said, “there would have been an end of them.”
‘ “Oh, Mr Pet,” she said, “what difference could that have made to you?” ’
‘So simple!’
‘Well, if it’s true, it’s the best thing possible. Now, perhaps, we shall get rid of them both.’
‘I believe it’s not at all unlikely. Wormwood’s to be let: not noisily. But, at the land agent’s, nobody could mistake the exaggerated description of the conservatories and the kiosk by the lake.’
‘Mrs Shamefoot’s searching for a house hereabouts, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, Wormwood’s hardly what she wants. It isn’t rustic enough. It doesn’t thrill.’
‘Besides, she’s already made an offer for the Old Flagellites Club.’
‘It should suit her. That long flaying room would make an exquisite drawing-room. And there’s a sheltered pretty garden at the back.’
Winsome began twisting across his eyes a heavy, heliotrope veil.
‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ he murmured, ‘I’m merely going to peep at the bees.’
XX
Lady Barrow lolled languidly in her mouse-eaten library, a volume of mediaeval Tortures (with plates) propped up against her knee. In fancy, her husband was well pinned down and imploring for mercy at Figure 3.
How eagerly, now, he proffered her the moon! How he decked her out with the stars! How he overdressed her!
Coldly, she considered his case.
‘Release you? Certainly not! Why should I?’ she murmured comfortably, transferring him to the acuter pangs of 9.
And morally she could have started as her maid came in.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Sir S’torious is looking everywhere for your ladyship.’
The difficulty the servants seemed to find in saying ‘Sir Sartorious’, without a slovenly contraction, was frequently distressing.
Grigger, his man, would quite break down, while the housemaids tripped, and the chauffeur literally sneezed.
‘Say that I’m busy.’
Lady Barrow closed her book.
Something would have to be done.
‘Had it been a peerage, was elocution compulsory, there need have been none of this fuss,’ she exclaimed.
And with her finger-ends pressed to her eyes
she began to conjure up his latent baptismal names:
‘Sartorious, Hugh, Wilful, Anne, Barrow. S, H, W, A, B. Schwab!’ she murmured.
And loosening a pencil from her wrist, she put them sharply to the test.
‘Sir Sartorious regrets—’
‘Sir Hugh and Lady Barrow regret—’
‘Sir Wilful and Lady Barrow much regret—’ Or even ‘deeply—’
‘Sir Anne— San—’ She shuddered. Lady Barrow walked towards the door.
‘Wilful!’ she called, in what her maid later described as a light, silvery voice, ‘I’m here …’
But the silence oppressed her. ‘Presently,’ she reflected, ‘perhaps, will do. It’ll be something to discuss during dinner. Although, indeed, after what’s occurred, I hadn’t intended to say very much to him to-night.’
And apathetically she looked away across the cloud-shaded hills.
How well she knew the roads round Dawn! Here and there, a tree would lift itself above the rest …
The forlornness of it!
Up to the very house crept the churchyard yews, whose clipped wide windows never held a face.
And, somewhere, in the dark, dipping branches of a cedar, lurked the Raven …
‘I’m all romantic feelings,’ Lady Barrow murmured. ‘I always was. I always will be.’
And from a lavender cardboard box she slipped a smart sombrero piled up with wings and wings and wings.
‘What is the good?’ she murmured, dispirited, as she tried it on. Still, in every shadow, of every room, Lady Barrow would store a hat.
‘I never intend to lose sight of town clothes,’ was the explanation that she gave.
But to-day it was not essentially in vain. Scarcely had she poised it than she saw Lady Georgia’s car coming up the drive.
‘I’m perfectly ashamed,’ Lady Georgia began, ‘not to have been over before.’
‘Say nothing of it!’
‘And so, thanks to Sir Sartorious, one may curtail one’s domestic troubles. Like poor Mrs Frobisher—’
‘Who is Mrs Frobisher?’
‘She was our nearest neighbour with a soul.’
‘The Asz is in arrears. A short while ago even my cook went down. (Sartorious, if anything goes wrong …) And there were we! All of us upon our knees to her, flattering her, from the bank.’
‘And a Mrs Luther Gay – such a shocking thing – sprang quite suddenly off her lawn—’
‘And one of the Olneys, too, was driven home from the Dean’s dance, drenched. And with her heavy head, and her thin neck, and her poinsettia-pink arms—’
‘So long as it isn’t bathing.’
‘And then there was Captain Hoey.’
‘Cards!’
‘And Azeza Williams.’
‘Love!’
‘And little Miss Chimney.’
‘Despair!’
‘And Admiral Van Boome.’
‘I heard—’
‘It makes one long to get away. The responsibility is beginning to tell.’
‘And so you’re positively off?’
‘Yes. We’ve got rid of Dawn to such a very pretty widow – a Mrs Lily Cartaret Brown …’
‘Who, at all, is she?’
‘I couldn’t be sure. But after a career of dissipation she seems delighted to settle down.’
‘And where is the great man?’
‘Sartorious? He’s packing.’
‘Packing?’
‘All great men are prosaic at close quarters. Didn’t you know?’
‘Dear Violet—’
‘Not since we were married have we been away together once.’
‘It should rekindle happy memories.’
Lady Barrow shook the dancing, whispering things upon her hat.
‘When we were first married,’ she said, ‘I was very, very wretched. I would weep, weep, weep at night! And in the morning, often, my maid would have to put my pillow-case out upon the window-ledge to dry. Fortunately, it was in Sicily, so it never took long.’
‘And later, what are your plans?’
‘I had the project of Paris.’
‘Mrs Henedge goes there, too, in connection with the festas at St John’s.’
‘My dear, she’s always covered in embroideries; one never sees her in anything else.’
‘She was superintending her building just now very busily as I came through the town.’
‘How is it getting on?’
‘Fairly fast … It will have a very fine front. And, of course, nothing at all behind.’
‘I believe it’s only going to be very large—’
‘Exactly!’
‘When once they’re gone she’ll almost regret her workmen’s blue sleeves.’
‘It must be a little lonely for her sometimes.’
‘I can’t conceive when! She’s for ever dancing round her yclept geniuses … Making their death-masks, or measuring their hands. She never leaves them alone one minute.’
‘Of all her discoveries, Mr Brookes appears to be the best.’
‘The least anxiety, perhaps—’
‘That requiem he sent Biddy showed style.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘At Cannes. Lady Ismore caught sight of her in the casino the other day, in magnificence, brilliance, beauty …’
‘One either admires her extremely or not at all.’
‘Of course, she’s continually criticized.’
‘Sartorious thinks her colourless!’
‘How? …’
‘Pale. I don’t know. He believes she makes up with chalk.’
‘What an idea.’
‘I suppose we shall receive cards for her vitrification before very long.’
‘Not until the spring. She wants the sun.’
‘She used to hate it.’
‘Poor Mrs Frobisher’s girl was to have taken part in the cortège.’
‘Cortège!’
‘She’s to be supported. Children singing; scattering flowers.’
‘What does Dr Pantry say?’
‘For the moment he objects. The panther skins upset him …’
‘Lady Anne would never hear of it!’
‘On the contrary, she adores processions. They are quite her weakness.’
‘Depravity!’
‘Biddy will be charming. I shall persuade her, if I can, to wear a crinoline.’
Lady Barrow beamed.
‘Take her to Madame Marathon,’ she said.
‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘Of course, she’s rather expensive. You pay her ninety guineas for a flicker of a gown …’
Lady Georgia’s gesture was sublime. ‘Look, All that for a shilling!’ she murmured, as she rose.
XXI
‘Hail, hyacinth! Harbinger of spring …’
Miss Hospice hesitated.
Before being whirled away, before descending deeper, it would be well to decide in what situation it was to be.
Should it be growing or cut. Should it be lying severed. Besmirched. Should it be placed in some poor, weary hand, withering upon a quilt. Should it wave upon a hill-top, or break between the slabs of crumbling marble of the theatre tiers beneath the Acropolis; the soul of a spectator. Should it be well wired, writhing in a wreath. Or, should it be a Roman hyacinth, in which case, should she trace Christianity to its sources, musing on many a mummery by the way?
She raised a delicate witty face.
Or … should she seek another flower instead? Above her the branches of the chestnut-trees rocked rhythmically. A warm wind rippling round St Dorothy stirred the dark violet of the Bougainvillea along the wall.
‘What have you found?’ Lady Anne inquired.
She was seated before the Palace, a panther skin upon her knee.
‘Only—’
‘Then come and help me, do. To make it less schismatical, I believe I’m going to take off the tail.’
‘Oh, no. Give it a careless twist.’
&nbs
p; Lady Anne snapped her scissors.
‘It’s such an infamy!’ she declared.
‘Mrs Shamefoot will say you tried to slight her if you harm a hair.’
‘I begin to think we’ve made a mistake …’
‘Well, she’s in the saddle now. The window’s up.’
‘I fear it’ll cause a good deal of horror, scandal and surprise.’
‘I don’t see why it should.’
‘It must be altogether impossible or why aren’t we allowed to go near? Why must it be concealed behind a thousand towel-horses, and a million screens. Oh, Madge, you haven’t a conception what I shall endure when the curtains come away. My dear, I shall probably have to sit down. All my amusement in the procession’s gone.’
And Lady Anne buried her face in her panther skin because of the sun.
‘No doubt it’s better than we expect. Kitty Wookie got a glimpse from the organ loft.’
‘She’s such a cunning creature. What does she say?’
‘She says it’s a thing quite by itself. Apart.’
‘What does she mean by that?’
‘She says, of course, it’s entirely without reticence …’
‘For instance!’
‘Apparently, the features are most carefully modelled. The ennui of half the world is in her eyes – almost, as always. And she is perched upon a rather bewildering throne, in a short silver tunic, showing her ankles up to her knees.’
‘Aurelia always said it would jar.’
‘It depends. Miss Wookie’s easily scared. Very likely it’s exquisitely lovely.’
‘I wouldn’t willingly offend the Segry-Constables or the Nythisdenes or the Doneburning’ems or the Duke.’
‘I should tack a pocket to my libbard skin and let it make very little difference …’
‘Walter has told her she shall sleep a night in the Cathedral whenever she likes.’
‘He might have offered her the pink room here for the matter of that.’
‘It wouldn’t do. She wishes to watch the colour roll back into the glass again.’
‘What a curious caprice!’
‘I call it simply shallow.’
‘I’d die of terror. Mrs Cresswell – they say, constantly …’
‘Oh, nonsense! At most she’ll confront the dark.’
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