B007TB5SP0 EBOK (34 page)

‘I shouldn’t over care to be troubled by a conscience like that!’

The Biographer drew on a glove.

‘After all,’ she inquired, ‘isn’t heaven a sort of snobbism? A looking-up, a preference for the best hotel?’

‘It’s no good asking me, Gerald. It’s like that button-hook of yours …’

‘We won’t discuss that now.’

‘You don’t imagine, do you, dear, I’d take your button-hook? I suppose you think I’d steal it!’

‘Hush, Mabel!’

‘I’m glad it isn’t teaspoons. Although, of course, it’s equally unpleasant.’

Outside all was confusion, chatter, cracking of whips.

‘
!’ Miss Arne harangued the mob.

‘I don’t suppose I shall knock down much,’ the Australian girl declared. ‘And, frankly, I don’t much care. I’m one of those girls who wouldn’t harm a fly …’

‘Dear Miss Dawkins. You’d think she was an auctioneer!’

With a sword-stick Mrs Cowsend gave a sudden lunge into the air.

‘In case the birds fly near,’ she said, ‘I shall simply prod them—’

‘Mind the man.’

‘…
.’

‘What does he say?’

‘He says he has no money.’

‘Hasn’t he any?’

‘
!’

‘Apparently not …’

‘Oh, isn’t it dreadful, Gerald?’

‘Some of these heads are really rather fine.’

‘That looks like the English Consul!’

Miss Dawkins pressed her heart.

‘Every time I see anyone—’ she said.

‘Is your father tall?’

‘As we drive I shall give you all his measurements.’

Along a sympathetic, winding road skirting the Acropolis their carriages made their way.

‘All these open-air theatres amuse me,’ Miss Arne said. ‘It is like old
café-chantant
days.’

Seated between Mrs Arbanel and Dorinda, Lady Gaiheart, her personality struggled.

‘Thank you, I never touch tobacco,’ Lady Dorinda said. ‘A cigarette with me would create a thirst …’

‘Fortunately Miss Dawkins has a flask.’

‘At the Antiquarians in Priam Place just now they’ve some nice Phoenician bottles.’

Miss Collins nestled herself winningly against her neighbour.

‘They showed me the smartest set of tea-things,’ she said, ‘that I ever saw. It belonged to Iphigenia – in Tauris. Oh, such little tiny cups! Such little teeny spoons! Such a darling of a cream-jug … And such a sturdy little tea-pot! With the sweetest spout …
Pout
. And a little sugar-basin! And a little slop-bowl …’

‘I suppose all destined for America!’

Mrs Arbanel turned and threw a few kisses to someone in the brake behind.

‘Who’s the sun-helmet?’

‘It’s a Mrs Lily Gordon Lawson – she has that big new villa on the Olympian Road. You know.’

‘They say Olympia for Love!’

‘For love?’

‘If people should come together there – it’s all up with them.’

‘My dear, to see Greece, it’s what I came out for!’

‘Well, somewhere in me, far down,’ Miss Dawkins declared, ‘I don’t mind admitting, there’s a field with cows browsing.’

‘Have you been seeking them long?’

‘Almost always.’

‘Just wandering!’

‘Hotels, always hotels.
Yes!
And one does get so tired of tavern life!’

‘You must be very weary.’

‘After this I propose to do the I’s … India, Italy, Ireland, Iceland …’

‘When you’ve found them you’ll be so bored.’

Miss Dawkins raised to her lips her flask.

‘What ever is in it?’ Miss Collins asked.

Miss Dawkins fixed her.

‘It’s a digestive – cocktail,’ she said at last. ‘Or a
Blue Brazilian
, as some people prefer to call it … that is so.’

Mrs Arbanel gave a cry.

‘The
sea
.’

‘Have you never seen it?’

‘Mabel! …’

‘What emerald or sapphire!’ Miss Arne asked. ‘Aren’t you ravished?’

‘I mean to bathe,’ Miss Collins announced.

‘My dear, how can you?’

‘Oh, Gerald, just a dip!’

Dorinda, Lady Gaiheart, relaxed.

‘Colonel Sweetish and Captain Muckmaisie, both old and very dear friends of mine,’ her attitude seemed to say, ‘are somewhere across that light …’

‘How many guns are there?’

‘Not so many as there seem. Neither Mrs Cowsend nor
Lady Dorinda will be shots. They’re only going to pick up the birds.’

Mrs Cowsend chuckled.

‘Like good retrievers,’ she said.

Mrs Arbanel turned to throw an extra kiss.

‘There’s Mrs Erso-Ennis and Mrs Viviott,’ she said.

‘Those two!’

‘And little Mrs Lawson, who’s really
très
sport …’

‘She says she’s sure she shall shoot someone!’

‘Oh, she’s clever, she’s fascinating.’

Miss Collins scowled.

‘I should like her to start trying her tricks on me!’

‘And then there’re ourselves.’

‘I’ve no gun,’ Miss O’Brookomore said. ‘At most I could throw a book …’

‘What have you brought with you?’

‘I’ve my Wordsworth.’

‘Is he your poet?’

‘I’m told I should read
Le Charme d’Athènes
,’ Mrs Cowsend said. ‘But I always disliked that series.’

‘I fancy there’s a new one:
Notes on the Tedium of Places
– comprising almost everywhere.’

Miss Collins glanced at her guardian.

‘It’s extraordinary Gerald doesn’t go dotty,’ she observed, ‘writing as she does …’

‘Does the
Life
progress?’

‘It’s enough to say it assumes proportions.’

Lady Dorinda spread out her parasol.

‘The Kettler cult seems the only shade we have to speak of!’ she said. ‘Since … Eleusis.’

Mrs Cowsend freckled faintly.

‘Were I to have a baby girl here,’ she said at random, ‘O’Brien would insist on calling her Athene; and it would be Olympia. Or Delphine. Or, if on the way there, Helen! …’

‘I should have thought Violet, or
Violets
,’ Mrs Arbanel suggested as the carriage stopped.

Across a vivid, a perfectly pirate sea, Salamis showed shimmering in the sun.

Miss Arne held out arms towards it.

‘It’s like a happy ending!’ she breathed.

Boats were in readiness.

‘Where’s the wind?’ the Countess sniffed.

‘There’s almost an autumnal feel, isn’t there?’

The wild apple-trees along the shore stood tipped with gold.

‘Perhaps we shall see Pan!’

Mrs Arbanel shouldered her gun.

‘To avoid accidents,’ she said, ‘we should drift about in line.’

‘My dear, I always fire sideways!’

Mrs Viviott covered up her ears.

‘Don’t!’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘I never could bear the crack-of-a-gun business,’ she confessed.

‘Then what ever made you come?’ Miss Collins queried.

‘Mainly for Mrs Erso-Ennis – to look after her.’

‘ “And the sun went down and the stars came out far over the summer sea!” – eh, Gerald?’

Miss O’Brookomore looked blank.

‘I hope you know we’re sweeping straight south-west!’ she murmured presently … ‘I’ve an inkling there’s Megara.’

‘It was above Megara the Seymoures—’

Overhead the sky was purely blue.

Miss Arne scanned it.

‘What is that large bird?’ she inquired.

‘Where?’

Miss Dawkins picked up an imaginary guitar.

‘ “That which yonder flies,” ’ [she sang]

‘ “Wild goose is it? – Swan is it?

Wild goose if it be –

  Haréya tōtō,

  Haréya tōtō,

Wild goose if it be,

Its name I soon shall say …

Wild swan if it be – better still!

  Tōtō!” ’

‘Enchanting!’

‘I learnt it in Japan – that is so.’

Miss Collins drooped.

‘The water’s so clear you can see everything that’s going on.’

‘Couldn’t we moor ourselves somewhere and anchor?’

‘I could fancy I hear turtle doves,’ Lady Dorinda remarked.

‘Oh, they’re city!’

Miss Arne appeared to pray.

‘I love Finsbury Circus for its Doves,’ she said. ‘And I adore the Aspens in Cadogan Square …’

‘Does the sea upset you?’

‘Oh, Gerald! … She’s certainly going to be queer.’

‘I’m fond of that garden too, behind Farm Street, with those bow-windows staring out upon it. I could sit for ever huddled up in a black frock there exciting sympathy … listening to the priests’ voices in the Farm.’

Miss Collins jumped up.

‘Don’t, Mabel! You’ll capsize the boat.’

Mrs Cowsend shuddered.

‘I never could swim,’ she said.

‘I trust the gods would drop down strings – a sort of parachute affair – drawing us through the water.’

Mrs Viviott addressed her friend.

‘Were yours to give, Genevieve! …’ she said.

‘That’s just
you
, Iris!’

Miss O’Brookomore fluttered her eyelids.

‘Did you ever see such a rag of a sail?’

‘It’s black.’

‘O-h, there went a fish with wings!’

‘With—’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, my dear—!’

Mrs Arbanel turned her gun about and – fired.

‘I shall never forget the hideous moment!’

‘They’re driving her round the town.’

Lady Dorinda slowly wiped an eye.

‘To the departed,’ she said, ‘short cuts are disrespectful.’

‘I know Athens pretty well,’ Mrs Viviott declared. ‘And they’re going a statesman’s way!’

Miss Collins threw herself into an easy seat.

‘Oh, it’s awful, awful, awful!’ she said. ‘It doesn’t do to think …’

The Room of the Minerva in the National Museum lay steeped in light.

‘It’s as though one held a Memorial service to her somehow,’ Miss O’Brookomore commented, ‘amidst all these busts and urns and friezes …’

‘For the Lysistrata that Nymph in the corner was to have inspired her gown. “I shall play her in lavender and helio,” she said to me. And now, poor dear, where is she?’

‘Oh, it’s awful, it’s hideous!’ Miss Collins broke out … ‘To-day I feel turned forty! This has made an old woman of me. Oh, good gracious!’

In her silver hat crowned with black Scotch roses drawn down close across the eyes she might perhaps have been taken for more.

‘Mr Arbanel, poor man, seems almost to be broken. Vina’s vulgar violence, he said, disgusts me more than I can ever say – and when her maid went to her door she said, “Go away! I’m Proserpine.” ’

‘Oh … If anyone had
told
me, Gerald, that I’d become
acquainted with a bride-murderess … I should never have believed it.’

‘What do they intend to do?’

‘Decamp – if they’re wise.’

‘When I saw her in her black dress, Gerald!’

‘It was a pure accident – naturally, she said, when questioned.’

‘One tries to believe it was.’

‘She
would
wave her gun about so. I was in terrors all the time!’

‘I suppose there was an inquest?’ Miss Collins said.

‘I really couldn’t say …’

‘I should like to have been at it.’

‘One longs for the country now – to get away.’

‘We leave for Delphi directly,’ Miss O’Brookomore said.

‘Kettling?’

‘Well … more or less … Poor Kitty, she went to Delphi to consult the Oracle and found it had gone. You can imagine her bitterness.’