B007TB5SP0 EBOK

by Firbank, Ronald

‘Either. Both come easy.’

  ‘You’ve no bent?’

  ‘So long as the part is good.’

  ‘ “Sarah”! Are you of Jewish stock? – Sarahs sometimes are!’

  ‘Oh dear no.’

  ‘Tell me something of the home circle. Have you brothers, sisters?’

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘Is your heart free?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘The Boards, I believe, are new to you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Kindly stand.’

  ‘I’m five full feet.’

  ‘Say, “Abyssinia”. ’

  ‘Abyssinia!’

  ‘As I guessed …’

  ‘I was never there.’

  ‘Now say “Joan”. ’

  ‘Joan!’

  ‘You’re Comedy, my dear. Distinctly! And now sit down.’

  Miss Sinquier gasped.

  ‘You know with us it’s Repertoire, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In parts such as one would cast Jane Jacks you should score.’

  ‘Is she giving up?’

  ‘Unfortunately she’s obliged. She’s just had another babelet, poor dear.’

  ‘What were her parts?’

  ‘In Bashful Miss Bardine the governess was one of them.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘And in Lara she was the orphan. That part should suit you well,’ Mrs Mary murmured, rising and taking from a cabinet a bundle of printed sheets.

  ‘Is it rags?’

  ‘Rags?’

  ‘May she … is she allowed Evening dress?’

  ‘Never mind about her dress. Let me hear how you’d deliver her lines,’ Mrs Mary tartly said, placing in Miss Sinquier’s hands a brochure of the play.

  ‘I should like to know my cue.’

  ‘A twitter of birds is all. You are now in Lord and Lady Lara’s garden – near Nice. Begin.’

  ‘How full the hedges are of roses!’

  ‘Speak up.’

  ‘How full the hedges are of roses! What perfume to be sure.’

  ‘And don’t do that.’

  ‘The directions are: “she stoops”. ’

  ‘Continue!’

  ‘What’s next?’

  ‘A start.’

  ‘Oh! Sir Harry!’

  ‘Proceed.’

  Miss Sinquier lodged a complaint.

  ‘How can I when I don’t know the plot?’

  ‘What does it matter – the plot?’

  ‘Besides, I feel up to something stronger.’

  Mrs Mary caressed the backs of her books.

  ‘Then take the slave in Arsinoe and I’ll read out the queen.’

  ‘These little legs, Mrs Mary, would look queerly in tights.’

  ‘Think less of your costume, dear, do; and learn to do what you’re told. Begin!’

  ‘Arsinoe opens.’

  ‘Arsi—? So she does. You should understand we’re in Egypt, in the halls of Ptolemy Philadelphus, on the banks of the River Nile. I will begin.

  ‘Cease … Cease your song. Arisba! Lotos! THANKS.

  And for thy pains accept this ivory pin …

  Shall it be said in many-gated Thebes

  That Arsinoe’s mean?

  The desert wind …

  Hark to’t!

  Methinks ’twill blow all night;

  Lashing the lebbek trees anent Great Cheops’ Pyre;

  Tracing sombre shadows o’er its stony walls.

  Within the wombats wail

  Tearing the scarabs from Prince Kamphé’s tomb.

  His end was sudden … strangely so;

  Osiris stalks our land. Kamphé and little Ti (his daughter – wife)

  Both dead within a week. Ah me, I fear

  Some priestly treachery; but see! What crouching shape is this? … Peace, fool!’

  ‘I did not speak … Oh, Queen.’

  ‘ENOUGH. Thou weariest me.’

  ‘I go!’

  ‘Yet stay! Where is thy Lord?’

  ‘Alas! I do not know.’

  ‘Then get ye gone – from hence!’

  ‘I shall obey.’

  ‘… Wail it!’ Mrs Mary rested.

  ‘Wail what, Mrs Mary?’

  ‘Let me hear that bey: O-bey. Sound your menace.’

  ‘I shall o-bey.’

  ‘O beating heart,’ Mrs Mary paced stormily the room, ‘Tumultuous throbbing breast. Alas! how art thou laden? …’

  She turned.

  ‘Slave!’

  ‘Me, Mrs Mary?’

  ‘Come on. Come on.’

  ‘Slave’s off.’

  ‘Pst, girl. Then take the Duke!’

  ‘Fairest—’

  ‘High Horus! … What! Back from Ethiopia and the Nubian Army! Is’t indeed Ismenias …?’

  ‘Listen.’

  ‘Hast deserted Ptolemy?’

  ‘Fairest—’

  ‘O Gods of Egypt—’

  ‘Some one wants you, Mrs Mary.’

  ‘Wants me?’

  ‘Your chauffeur, I think.’

  ‘The car, M’m,’ a servant announced.

  ‘Ah!’ she broke off. ‘An engagement, I fear. But come and see me again. Come one day to the theatre. Our stage-door is in Sloop Street, an impasse off the Strand.’ And Mrs Mary, gathering up her skirts, nodded and withdrew.

  IX

  ‘Black her great boots! Not I,’ Miss Sinquier said to herself as she turned her back on Mary Lodge to wend her way westward across the Park.

  She was to meet Mrs Sixsmith at a certain club on Hay Hill towards dusk to learn whether any tempting offer had been submitted Sir Oliver for her pearls.

  ‘If I chose I suppose I could keep them,’ she murmured incoherently to herself as she crossed the Row.

  It was an airless afternoon.

  Under the small formal trees sheltering the path she clapped her sunshade to, and slackened speed.

  The rhododendrons, in vivid clumps of new and subtle colours brushing the ground, were in their pride. Above, the sky showed purely blue. She walked on a little way towards Stanhope Gate, when, overcome by the odoriferous fragrance of heliotropes and xenias, she sank serenely to a bench.

  Far off by the Serpentine a woman was preaching from a tree to a small audience gathered beneath. How primeval she looked as her arms shot out in argument, a discarded cock’s-feather boa looped to an upper bough dangling like some dark python in the air above.

  Miss Sinquier sat on until the shadows fell.

  She found her friend on reaching Hay Hill in the midst of muffins and tea.

  ‘I gave you up. I thought you lost,’ Mrs Sixsmith exclaimed, hitching higher her veil with fingers super-manicured, covered in oxydized metal rings.

  ‘I was dozing in the Park.’

  ‘Dreamy kid.’

  ‘On my back neck I’ve such a freckle.’

  ‘Did you see Mammy Mary?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Nothing; she offered me Miss Jacks’ leavings.’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘What of Sir Oliver?’

  ‘I hardly know how to tell you.’

  ‘Has he—?’

  Mrs Sixsmith nodded.

  ‘He has had an offer of two thousand pounds,’ she triumphantly said, ‘for the pearls alone.’

  ‘Two thousand pounds!’

  ‘Call it three o’s.’

  ‘Okh!’

  ‘Consider what commercial credit that means …’

  ‘I shall play Juliet.’

  ‘Juliet?’

  ‘I shall have a season.’

  ‘Let me take the theatre for you.’

  ‘Is it a dream?’

  ‘I will find you actors – great artists.’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘And, moreover, I have hopes for the silver too. Sir Oliver is enchanted with the spoons – the Barnabas spoon especially. He said he had never seen a finer. Such a beautiful littl
e Barny, such a rapture of a little sinner as it is, in every way.’

  Miss Sinquier’s eyes shone.

  ‘I’ll have that boy.’

  ‘What – what boy?’

  ‘Harold Weathercock.’

  ‘You desire him?’

  ‘To be my Romeo, of course.’

  ‘It depends if the Dream will release him.’

  ‘It must! It shall!’

  ‘I’ll peep in on him and sound him, if you like.’

  ‘We’ll go together.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘In Foreign-Colony Street. He and a friend of his, Noel Nice, share a studio there. Not to paint in, alas! It’s to wash.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve made a little laundry of it. And when they’re not acting actually, they wash. Oh! sometimes when Mr Nice spits across his iron and says Pah! it makes one ill.’

  ‘Have they any connection?’

  Mrs Sixsmith bent her eyes to her dress.

  ‘Mr Sixsmith often sent them things … little things,’ she said. ‘His linen was his pride. You might annex him, perhaps. He’s played Mercutio before.’

  ‘Is he handsome?’

  ‘Paul? He’s more interesting than handsome. Unusual, if you know …’

  ‘What did you do to separate?’

  ‘I believe I bit him.’

  ‘You did!’

  ‘He ran at me with the fire-dogs first.’

  ‘I suppose you annoyed him?’

  ‘The cur!’

  ‘Something tells me you’re fond of him still.’

  From her reticule Mrs Sixsmith took a small notebook and made an entry therein.

  ‘… The divine Shakespeare!’ she sighed.

  ‘I mean to make a hit with him.’

  ‘Listen to me.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘My advice to you is, hire a playhouse – the Cobbler’s End, for example – for three round months at a reasonable rent, with a right, should you wish, to sub-let.’

  ‘It’s so far off.’

  ‘Define “far off”. ’

  ‘Blackfriars Bridge.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt by paying a fortune you could find a more central position if you care to wait. The Bolivar Theatre, possibly—; or the Cone … At the Cone there’s a joy-plank from the auditorium to the stage, so that, should you want to ever, you can come right out into the stalls.’

  ‘I want my season at once,’ Miss Sinquier said.

  Mrs Sixsmith toyed with her rings.

  ‘What do you say,’ she asked, ‘to making an informal début (before “royal” auspices!) at the Esmé Fisher “Farewell” coming off next week?’

  ‘Why not!’

  ‘Some of the stage’s brightest ornaments have consented to appear.’

  ‘I’d like particulars.’

  ‘I’ll send a note to the secretary, Miss Willinghorse, straight away,’ Mrs Sixsmith murmured, gathering up her constant Juno beneath her arm, and looking about her for some ink.

  ‘Send it later, from the Café Royal.’

  ‘I can’t go any more to the Café Royal,’ Mrs Sixsmith said. ‘I owe money there … To all the waiters.’

  ‘Wait till after we’ve seen the Washingtons.’

  ‘The Washingtons? Who are they?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Besides, I’ve a small headache,’ Mrs Sixsmith said, selecting herself a quill.

  ‘What can I do to relieve it?’ Miss Sinquier wondered, taking up a newspaper as her friend commenced to write.

  Heading the agony list some initials caught her eye.

  ‘S—h S—r. Come back. All shall be forgiven,’ she read.

  ‘I can’t epistolize while you make those unearthly noises,’ Mrs Sixsmith complained.

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Where are we going to dine?’

  ‘Where is there wonderful to go?’

  ‘How about a grill?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘The Piccadilly? We’re both about got up for it.’

  Miss Sinquier rolled her eyes.

  ‘The Grill-room at the Piccadilly isn’t going to cure a headache,’ she remarked.

  X

  To watch Diana rise blurred above a damp chemise from a fifth-floor laundry garden in Foreign-Colony Street, Soho, had brought all Chelsea (and part of Paris) to study illusive atmospherical effects from the dizzy drying-ground of those versatile young men Harold Weathercock and Noel Nice.

  Like a necropolis at the Resurrection, or some moody vision of Blake, would it appear under the evanescent rays of the moon.

  Nighties, as evening fell, would go off into proud Praxiteles-torsos of Nymphs or Muses: pants and ready-mades, at a hint of air, would pirouette and execute a phantom ballet from Don John.

  Beyond the clothes-lines was a Pagoda, set up in an extravagant mood, containing a gilded Buddha – a thorn and a symbol of unrighteousness to a convent of Ursulines whose recreation yard was underneath.

  Here, at a certain hour when the Mother Superior was wont to walk round and round her preserves, a young, bewhiskered man frequently would come bearing ceremonial offerings of rice or linen newly washed, and falling flat before the shrine would roll himself about and beat the ground as if in mortal anguish of his sins before her fascinated eye. Here, too, from time to time, festivities would take place-sauteries (to a piano-organ), or convivial petits soupers after the play.

  An iron ladder connected the roof with the work-rooms and living-rooms below.

  Ascending this by the light of the stars, Mrs Sixsmith and the New Juliet, gay from a certain grill, audaciously advanced, their playful screams rendered inaudible by the sounds of a tricksome waltz wafted down to them from the piano-organ above.

  Items of linen nestling close to a line overhead showed palely against the night like roosting doves.

  ‘Help … Oh! she’s falling,’ Mrs Sixsmith screamed. ‘Are you there, Mr Nice?’

  ‘Give me your hand,’ Miss Sinquier begged.

  ‘Should she rick her spine …’

  ‘Whew-ps!’ Miss Sinquier exclaimed, scrambling to the top.

  London, beyond the frail filigree cross on the Ursulines’ bleached wall, blazed with light. From the Old Boar and Castle over the way came a perfect flood of it. And all along the curved river-line from Westminster to St Paul’s glittered lamps, lamps, lamps.

  Folding an arm about her friend’s ‘wasp’ waist, Mrs Sixsmith whirled her deftly round to a wild street air:

  ‘I like your ways,

  I like your style,

  You are my darling—’

  she hummed as the organ stopped.

  ‘Come to finish the evening?’

  A small, thick-set, grizzled man with dark aesthetic eyes and a pinkish nose, the result maybe of continuously tinting it for music-hall purposes, addressed the breathless ladies in a broad, inquiring voice.

  ‘Is that you, Mr Smee?’ Mrs Sixsmith asked, surprised.

  ‘Call me “Shawn”. ’

  ‘We’ve only come on business.’

  ‘Don’t! You make me laf.’

  ‘Then – do it,’ Mrs Sixsmith serenely said, resting her left knee against an empty beer keg.

  ‘They’re not back from the theatre yet.’

  ‘Turn for us till they come.’

  Mr Smee dashed from a crimpled brow a wisp of drooping hair.

  ‘By your leave, ladies,’ he said, ‘I’ll just slip across to the Old Boar and Castle and sample a snack at the bar.’

  ‘Don’t run off, Mr Smee. You really mustn’t. On tiles, they say, one usually meets with cats.’

  ‘Oh, my word.’

  Mrs Sixsmith placed a hand to her hip in the style of an early John.

  ‘How long is it – say – since we met?’ she inquired. ‘Not since my wedding, I do believe.’

  ‘What’s become of those kiddy bridesmaids you had?’ Mr Smee w
arily asked.

  ‘Gerty Gale and Joy Patterson? – I’m sure I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, my word!’

  ‘Well, how goes the world with you, Mr Smee?’

  ‘So-so. I’ve been away on tour. Mildred Milson and Co. Oh! my Lord – it was. No sooner did we get to Buxton – down in Derbyshire – than Miss Milson fell sick and had to be left behind.’

  ‘What was wrong with her?’

  ‘Exposure … On Bank Holiday some of the company hired a three-horse char-à-banc and drove from Buxton over to Castleton Caves – my hat. What hills! – and from there we went to take a squint at Chatsworth, where Miss Milson came over queer.’

  ‘And how does Mrs Smee?’

  ‘So-so.’

  ‘One never sees her now.’

  ‘There she sits all day, reading Russian novels. Talk of gloom!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, it is!’

  ‘Well … I’m fond of thoughtful, theosophical reading, too, Mr Smee,’ Mrs Sixsmith said. ‘Madame Blavatsky and Mrs Annie Besant are both favourites with me.’

  Mr Smee jerked an eloquent thumb.

  ‘Who have you brought along?’

  ‘She’s a special pal of mine.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ Mrs Sixsmith doubtfully said. ‘Je crois que c’est une Pucelle.’

  ‘Never!’ Mr Smee, completely mystified, hazarded.

  ‘Fie donc. Comme c’est méchant.’

  ‘Wee, wee.’

  Mrs Sixsmith tittered.

  ‘She’s going into management very soon.’

  ‘Swank?’

  ‘We seek a Romeo, Mr Smee.’

  ‘Now, now! …’

  ‘Don’t look like that, Mr Smee – nobody’s asking you,’ Mrs Sixsmith murmured.

  Mr Smee scratched reflectively his head.

  ‘Who is it you’re after?’ he asked.

  ‘We fancied Mr Weathercock might suit.’

  ‘God has given him looks, but no brains,’ Mr Smee emphatically declared. ‘No more brains than a cow in a field.’

  ‘His is indeed a charming face,’ Mrs Sixsmith sighed. ‘And as to his brains, Mr Smee – why, come!’

  ‘Who’s to create the countess?’ he asked.

  ‘Lady Capulet? It’s not determined yet.’

  ‘Why not canvass the wife?’

  ‘Has she been in Shakespeare before?’

  ‘From the time she could toddle; in A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, when not quite two, she was the Bug with gilded wings.’

  ‘Pet!’

  ‘Sure …’

  Mrs Sixsmith clasped prayerfully her hands.