‘I dare say.’
‘There is a girl in the corner over there watching you who’d make a rare Lampito …’
‘She is an Australian, poor thing, seeking her parents.’
Miss O’Brookomore blinked.
‘Well, she needn’t start staring at me!’
‘In certain lights,’ Miss Collins murmured, ‘she has a look of Edith Jackson, who was sacked from York Hill.’
‘Why, what had she done?’
‘Oh, nothing very much.’
‘She must have done something.’
‘… She gave a dance in her bedroom – the houla-houla! But that wasn’t really all … Oh, good gracious!’
‘To-morrow we shall have one here I expect in the hotel.’
‘Mr Arbanel has composed a charming air expressly for it.’
‘My dear, how can one dance to his brain pictures?’
‘Oh, listen!’
‘When the wind breaks this way you can hear distinctly what they’re saying in the café.’
‘Ta-lirra-lirra-lo-la-la.
La-lirra-lirra-lo-la-la!
Ta-lirra-lirra-lirra,
La-lirra-lirra-lirra,
Ta-lirra-lirra-lo-la-la!’
‘It’s politics!’
‘It must be.’
‘Such optimism!’
‘One does hope that Mr Cowsend—’
Miss Collins drifted over to the Count.
‘Deer – have you forgotten? …’
‘Oh, the “little dear”!’
‘Mercy!’
‘Another verse.’
‘Not now; I mustn’t!’
‘When shall I see you again?’
‘To-morrow, I dare say, at the siesta hour – when Miss O’Brookomore goes to her room for a snooze …’
He bent his head above her fingers.
‘Good night, Miss Mabina. I kiss those charming hands.’
Miss Collins glanced at them.
‘Mine?’ she sighed.
VIII
Sardonic, she stirred the salad: tumbling, jostling, pricking, poking it, parting the trembling leaves. Pursuing a rosy radish, or …
‘Oh, Gerald, everyone is watching you! …’ unearthing the glaring eyes of eggs.
‘Why begin throwing it about?’
Orchestrating olives and tomatoes, breaking the violet beetroot …
‘Oh, Gerald!’
… tracking provoking peas – scattering paprinka, pouring tarragon, dashing huile.
‘Yoicks, dear!’
‘Athenaeus, you know, maintains a lettuce is calming to Love!’
‘Who ever mentioned love? I only said I liked him dreadfully.’
Miss O’Brookomore leaned her chin upon her hand: she rested.
‘Where is this Pastorelli?’ she asked. ‘I mean the town.’
‘It’s a little way outside of Orvieto. Not very far from Rome.’
‘Really? Rome …’
‘Avid thing! I believe you long to be there.’
‘I see no reason to complain.’
‘Think of the countless persons who’ve never come to Greece.’ Then finding Worcester Sauce –
‘It doesn’t seem fair!’
Miss Collins looked sage.
‘Such,’ she remarked, ‘is life!’
‘You haven’t told me, Mab, about Pastorelli yet … There’s a cathedral with frescoes there, you say. Scuola di – who? A campo-santo. And what else?’
‘There’s the house, of course, where he was born. It stands beside such a wicked-looking lake, and the gardens sowed with statues. He showed me a photograph of his family seated in it. Oh, my gracious!’
‘His family?’
‘Just the natural blood ones …’
‘After déjeuner you should really write to your—’
‘What’s the good? … Mum’s away in Edinburgh. She says she must try to content herself with Modern Athens as she doesn’t suppose she shall ever see the other. So papa – poor old gentleman – is left all alone to look after my kiddy sister Daisy, who can neither read nor write. Mum won’t let her be educated, she says, as it hasn’t answered at all with me. And frequently, for a f-f-friend, she is asked to display her ignorance.’
‘Her what?’
‘How you said it: What! I love Napier best, dear, always when he says, “What.” W-h-a-t! What! Oh, Gerald, I can’t explain … You’ll never know—’
‘I do know. It’s like the crack of a cart-whip. Exactly.’
Miss Collins began eating crumbs at random.
‘A whip? Oh, Gerald—’
‘You seem to have entirely forgotten Napier since you’ve become interested in the Count.’
‘After all, what is he but a Yorkshire pudding?’
‘Still, he’s your fiancé!’
‘Do look at the man exactly opposite. Doesn’t he give you the impression rather of something torn up by the roots?’
‘He obviously has a little money, and she is spending it!’
Miss Collins whisked her eyes over the room.
Midway along Mrs Arbanel appeared to be absorbed in a vivacious and seemingly vital conversation with the maitre d’hôtel.
‘I should love to seem so thoughtful!’
‘I don’t see Mrs Cowsend, do you?’
‘Breakfast was laid for four covers in her room.’
‘For four!’
‘Or perhaps it was only three.’
‘Greece via the Renaissance would knock up most of us.’
‘Why, even the Tartary tirade—’
‘Remember you owe me that.’
‘The library at Bovon, you know, is full of that sort of thing … Although mum detests all serious books. She likes them frothy. Whenever she goes into York she’s sure to come back with something smart.’
‘Hasn’t the eccentricity of living near York ever occurred to your mother?’
‘Oh, Gerald, it’s dreadful for us all, dear, but what can we do if nobody takes the house?’
‘There must be some way of getting rid of it.’
‘Mum’s in Edinburgh now to see what can be done. She thinks some person perhaps pining for the South—’
‘One never knows!’
‘I’ll read you her letter, shall I? There’s a message too for you.’
Miss O’Brookomore sipped listlessly her Château Décélée.
‘ “My adored angel,” she says, “my darling child Mab … If you knew how wretched I am without you!” Oh! … “Couldn’t you have got a quieter violet? …” She’s interested too in Miss Arne! “As Juliet,” she says, “she was astonishing! Though one can’t help feeling she has danced at the Empire. Crossing Princes Street I let fall the Ethiopian skin that I got from Mrs Mattocks.” And she asks me to be photographed in your … something … “hat and Zouave jacket and a bunch of violets on one shoulder.” (Then she says, as I told you:) “I must try to content myself with Modern Athens,” she says, “as I don’t suppose I shall ever see the Other … Who should I come across at the Caledonian but Sukey and Booboo. They were so glad to find me here, and on Sunday we all went together to hear Father Brown. He spoke to us so simply, so eloquently, so touchingly that I quite … Never forget, my pet, that …
‘ “He reminds me just a little of St Anthony of Padua … What is all this about an Italian? Oh, Girlie. If ever we let the Chase we must persuade papa to travel …
‘ “Listening lately to the Y.M.C.A. singing ‘There is a Green Hill’, I felt I wanted to take a taxi and drive straight to it. Mum’s picnic days are nearly over now … Soon it’s she who’ll be the ruin. Those that care enough for her will toil to her bedside, perhaps, with their baskets, as they would to some decayed, romantic tower – the Lermers, poor Nell Flint, dear Mrs Day – and they will sprawl upon her causeuse and trot out their ginger beer. Doctors will try to restore her, patch her up …
‘ “But mum won’t let them. She will just roll over on one side and show them …” ’
‘I’m coming.’
‘ “… and show them, as Dolce Naldi did, they arrive too late. The prospect of another damp winter—” ’
‘The message!’
‘ “Give my kind regards to Miss O’Brookomore.” ’
‘She writes curiously in the style of one of my unknown correspondents.’
‘She’s full of trivial sadness.’
‘Scotland should do her good.’
‘What would you do, Gerald, if you were to look round and there was somebody in a kilt?’
Miss O’Brookomore blinked.
‘I don’t suppose I should do anything,’ she said.
‘Oh wouldn’t you?’
‘I might …’
‘Try one … I don’t know what they are; at school we called them French Madonnas.’
‘They look fairly rich, anyway.’
‘Once I ate nineteen méringues …’
‘Pig!’
‘You’ve to eat a peck of dirt before you die, Gerald.’
‘Not if I know it.’
‘Give me a bit of the brown.’
‘What are your father’s initials, in case I should write to him?’
‘C. It’s for Charles! … Poor old gentleman.’
‘You should answer your mother yourself. Promise her a photograph.’
‘On the night they draw the lottery there’s to be a subscription ball at the opera.’
‘What has that to do with it?’
‘It’s to be in fancy dress.’
‘I understand.’
‘I thought we could be photographed in our dresses.’
‘I see.’
‘Oh, Gerald, you could be a silver-tasselled Portia almost with what you have, and I a Maid of Orleans.’
‘You!’
‘Don’t be tiresome, darling. It’s not as if we were going in boys’ clothes!’
‘Really, Mabel—’
‘Of course, it’s as you like!’
‘So that’s settled.’
‘Oh, Gerald, for my sake subscribe.’
‘I subscribe? I subscribe! I subscribe nothing.’
‘When the Shire-Hall at home was blown away I helped to collect for the restorations …’
Miss O’Brookomore pinned up her veil.
‘After the siesta what do you propose to do?’
‘I’m going out to do some shopping. I should like to buy a small piece of old pottery for Mrs Elk, of York. You know she collects jars. And then our head housemaid asked me to lay out a few shillings on “some very Greek-looking thing”, she said. And I mustn’t forget the footman …’
‘What did he want?’
‘A knife.’
‘You seem to have commissions for all the servants.’
‘At home, you see, dear, I nearly always use the back stairs … They’re so much more interesting than the front ones … Once Daisy saw a soldier on them … He was going up! And another time—’
Miss O’Brookomore yawned.
‘Mercy,’ she said, ‘the siesta-hour’s upon us!’
IX
‘No, there’s really no resisting him. I’m sure there isn’t. Who could? There’s no resisting him at all – none. No …’
Demurely she shed a shoe.
‘I shouldn’t care to be more in love than I am at present. No, indeed! Even if I could …’
She sank slowly into bed.
‘Oh, you silly creature!
‘Love! O Lord!
‘I shall never sleep. I don’t see how I can. The die is cast! There’s no telling, child, how it will end! …
‘… Via Tiber … Countess P-a-s-t-o-r-e-l-l-i. Via Tiber … “O Tiber, Father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray.” Impossible! … If they did, it was a perfect scandal.
‘And suppose he made me too? Oh, good gracious!’
By the bedside, mellowing among a number of vellum volumes, were the Nine Prayers of the Countess of Cochrane and Cray.
Who would do the burning?
That eighth one! What a clamour for a crown!
On the subject of jewels there wasn’t much she didn’t teach.
Two loose diamonds made a charming toc-toc sound.
At a dinner-party, now, who would work in first? She or Lady Cray? One would push past her probably, in any case – ‘the Italian woman!’ … ‘The Pasto Countess thing!’
She played her eyes and flung out a hand towards a sugar-crystal-rose.
No; one couldn’t exactly tell how it would end. ‘My dear, I shouldn’t care to say! …’
There were those Beer-Hall voices … ‘Fal de rol di do do, di do do! Fal de rol—’
Miss Collins turned her pillow.
‘I suppose I’ve to lie and listen! … Oh, good gracious!’
X
‘ “I am sure I always found her to be most industrious, clever, natty, and honest.” That was Mrs Vernigan’s. This is Miss Miser. And here is the Ex-Princess Thleeanouhee.’
‘Why bother Miss Palmer any more about it? I always say it’s a lottery wherever one goes.’
‘Once,’ Mrs Arbanel’s maid declared, ‘I took a situation with a literary lady – the Scottish-Sappho. She wrote Violet’s Virtue, or it might have been The Virtue of Violet.’
‘Anyway!’
‘Oh, for the wings of a dove.’
‘Come along, Miss Clint, now. It’s not so far.’
Before them the Acropolis, half hidden by thin clouds, showed like a broken toy.
‘Naturally, one sees it has its old associations …’
‘I dare say. But to my mind it doesn’t look half the age of the Abbey church at home. Now, that does look worn if you like.’
‘Worn, my dear, don’t speak of being worn!’
Clint sighed.
‘Whenever I’m lonely or depressed,’ she said, ‘or valeting anyone who’s just a little wee bit … Well! I know there’s only one thing for me to do. I take a taxi and go and sit in the church of St Bartholomew the Great. It has a je ne sais quoi about it somehow that comforts me.’
‘It would give some people the dismals, dear.’
‘Well, I always leave when I’m annoyed!’
‘ “Quick with her needle, an early riser, I am sure—” ’
‘Give them back to me.’
‘ “I am sure no hours are too long for her.” ’
‘It’s what I should call the portrait of a slave.’
‘Where is Elizabeth?’
‘I’m here.’
‘And Mademoiselle?’
‘Lagging along behind.’
Miss Clint made a gesture towards the Erechtheum.
‘Come along, girls!’ she called.
‘Oh! I never knew Lot had six wives …’
‘Can’t you see she’s always the same?’
‘Our previous butler was a widower. He seemed inconsolable.’
‘Sooner or later, we each of us bear our cross! … Where I lived last you might gather one of those downy-puffy things and, blowing, say: “First footman, second footman, third footman, fourth footman …” And if there was any down over “Pantry-boy, page …” ’
‘With the Jamjanets, of course, it was hotel-life half the time. Eating, drinking and dressing made up their day.’
‘In Arcady, if you go, you’ll find the food is vile.’
‘What I look forward to most is the Cyclops Castle at Tiryns. We’ve a dwarf in our family, you see.’
‘There’s nothing more lucky, is there?’
‘Oh well, my dear, perhaps it may come, some day.’
Clint turned.
‘Come along, girls!’
‘I shouldn’t care to go with them on a walking tour …’
‘Mam’zelle Croizette, chérie, where ever have you been?’
‘Looking for the Arbanel’s bracelet.’
‘I’d forgotten it! “The true-love-knot bangle he gave me when we became engaged.” ’
Clint stood
still.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I believe I smell a rat.’
‘Fresh from the East, one is used to indelicate scents.’
‘Of course it’s not for me to say …’
‘In a strange land, Miss Clint, we women should stand together.’
‘I noticed nothing until yesterday.’
‘And what did you notice then?’
‘There’s more than one trap set for Miss Collins.’
‘Lauk!’
‘My gentleman’s after her too.’
‘Oh, my poor strained nerves!’
‘I suppose the bride’s a bore.’
‘Of course she’s neurasthenic and excitable and highly tuned. This morning, for instance, she sat and stormed at me because her white tennis shoes weren’t white enough.’
‘Most young married women are ashamed of anything pale … The Honourable Hester Dish on her wedding tour wore black all the time.’
‘Well, were there twenty traps laid for Miss Mabel she has too much gumption ever to go in.’
‘You astonish me! I’d have said now she would be very easily épris.’
‘Oh, mind the step!’
They had reached the Belvedere.
‘I’d dearly like to carve my name on the leg of this seat.’
‘Without a fiancé’s entwined, Miss Palmer, it looks almost as if—’
‘My boy is in the Guards.’
‘Once I was engaged to a soldier.’
‘And you broke it off?’
‘How he did bore me with his battles!’
Croizette peered down.
‘Such a sunset,’ she remarked, ‘would have scared the ancients.’
Palmer cleared her throat.
‘I doubt it! …’ she said. ‘When I went out into the world my dear mother told me a little about them … There was the adventure of Titia Clarges … She was one of those smart girls like the Midianites in Paris. Believe me, senility takes some scaring.’
‘Chatterbox!’
‘What is the matter with Elizabeth?’
Elizabeth hid her face.
‘There’s a man,’ she said, ‘Miss Clint, carrying on in such a crazy way … I think he means to draw us!’
‘Let him ask permission.’
‘All this note-taking out of doors in my opinion really isn’t nice. I’d as soon start hair-dressing in the street.’
‘It’s on the cards you may. Professor Cowsend is to lecture in the Museum shortly from busts and coins and vases upon the Classic Coiffure. “I shall expect you to attend,” Miss O’Brookomore said to me. “It is never too l-l-late to learn! Campstools, flowers, unguents, pins and peignoirs provided. And we just sit down and do each other’s hair.” ’
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