B007TB5SP0 EBOK (43 page)

‘Do you think he’d be bothered?’

‘That I’ll undertake.’

‘Does he live in town?’

‘In a sense: he has a large house in the Poultry.’

‘Of course I should be willing to show him my pearls.’

‘Sir Oliver is offering me a little dinner to-night. And I should be happy for you to join us.’

‘Oh? … I think I scarcely dare!’

‘Rubbish! One must be bolder than that if one means to get on!’

‘Tell me where you dine.’

‘At Angrezini’s. It’s a little restaurant … with a nigger band. And we sing between the courses.’

‘Will Mr Sixsmith be there?’

‘My dear, Mr Sixsmith and I don’t live together any more.’

‘Forgive me.’

‘That’s all right …’

Miss Sinquier’s eyes grew dim.

‘Used he to act?’ she asked.

‘
Act!
’

‘I seem to have heard of him.’

Mrs Sixsmith looked away.

‘Are you coming, Serephine?’ her neighbour asked.

‘Are you all off?’

The florid man nodded impressively.

‘Yes … we’re going now …’ he said.

‘What are Whipsina’s plans?’

Miss Peters leaned closely forward over several pairs of knees.

‘I shall stay where I am,’ she murmured, ‘and perhaps take a nap. There’s sure to be a tremendous exodus directly.’

Miss Sinquier rose. ‘I’ve some shopping,’ she said, ‘to do.’

‘Until this evening, then.’

‘At what o’clock?’

‘At eight.’

‘On arrival, am I to ask for you?’

‘Better ask for Sir Oliver – one never knows … And I might perhaps happen to be late.’

‘But you won’t be? You mustn’t …’

‘I will explain whatever’s needful by telephone to Sir Oliver now. And during dinner,’ Mrs Sixsmith bubbled, ‘while the old gentleman picks a quail, we will see what we can do!’

‘How can I express my thanks …?’

‘The question of commission,’ Mrs Sixsmith murmured with a slight smile, ‘we will discuss more fully later on.’

Subjective. On a rack in the loom. Powerless oneself to grasp the design. Operated on by others. At the mercy of chance fingers, unskilled fingers, tender fingers; nails of all sorts. Unable to progress alone. Finding fulfilment through friction and because of friction. Stung into sentiency gradually, bit by bit – a toe at a time.

After all there was a
zest
in it; and who should blame the raw material should an accident occur by the way …

Careless of an intriguing world about her, Miss Sinquier left her hotel, just so as to arrive at Angrezini’s last.

‘For Thou knowest well my safety is in
Thee
,’ she murmured to herself mazily as her taxi skirted the Park.

Having disposed of her Anne teapot for close on seventy pounds, she was looking more radiant than ever in a frail Byzantine tunic that had cost her fifty guineas.

‘Thy Sally’s safety,’ she repeated, absently scanning the Park.

Through the shadowy palings it slipped away, abundantly dotted with lovers. Some were plighting themselves on little chairs, others preferred the green ground: and beyond them, behind the whispering trees, the sky gleamed pale and luminous as church glass.

Glory to have a lover too, she reflected, and to stroll leisurely-united through the evening streets, between an avenue of sparkling lamps …

Her thoughts turned back to the young man in the Café Royal.

‘Of all the bonny loves!’ she breathed, as her taxi stopped.

‘Angrezini!’

A sturdy negro helped her out.

‘For Thou knowest very well—’ her lips moved faintly.

The swinging doors whirled her in.

She found herself directly in a small bemirrored room with a hatch on one side of it, in which an old woman in a voluminous cap was serenely knitting.

Behind her dangled furs and wraps that scintillated or made pools of heavy shade as they caught or missed the light.

Relinquishing her own strip of tulle, Miss Sinquier turned about her.

Through a glass door she could make out Mrs Sixsmith herself, seated in a cosy red-walled sitting-room beyond.

She was looking staid as a porcelain goddess in a garment of trailing white with a minute griffin-eared dog peeping out its sheeny paws and head wakefully from beneath her train.

At sight of her guest Mrs Sixsmith smiled and rose.

‘Sir Oliver hasn’t yet come!’ she said, imprinting on Miss Sinquier’s youthful cheek a salute of
hospitality
.

‘He hasn’t? And I made sure I should be last.’

Mrs Sixsmith consulted the time.

‘From the Bank to the Poultry, and from the Poultry on … just consider,’ she calculated, subsiding leisurely with Miss Sinquier upon a spindle-legged settee.

‘You telephoned?’

‘I told him all your story.’

‘Well?’

‘He has promised me to do his utmost.’

‘He will?’

‘You should have heard us. This Mrs Bromley, he pretends … Oh, well … one must not be too harsh on the dead.’

‘Poor little woman.’

‘Let me admire your frock.’

‘You like it?’

‘I never saw anything so waggish.’

‘No, no,
please
—!’

‘Tell me where they are!’

‘What?’

‘I’m looking for your pearls.’

‘They’re in my hair.’

‘Show me.’

‘I’ll miss them terribly.’

‘Incline!’

‘How?’

‘More.’

‘I can’t!’

‘They’re very nice. But bear in mind one thing—’

‘Yes?’

Mrs Sixsmith slipped an encircling arm about Miss Sinquier’s waist.

‘Always remember,’ she said, ‘to a City man, twelve hundred sounds less than a thousand. Just as a year, to you and me, sounds more than eighteen months!’

‘I’ll not forget.’

‘Here is Sir Oliver now.’

Through the swing doors an elderly man with a ruddy, rather apoplectic face, and close-set opaque eyes, precipitantly advanced.

‘Ladies!’

‘ “Ladies” indeed, Sir Oliver.’

‘As if—’

‘Monster.’

‘Excuse me, Serephine.’

‘Your pardon rests with Miss Sinquier,’ Mrs Sixsmith said with melodious inflections as she showed the way towards the restaurant. ‘Address your petitions to her.’

In the crescent-shaped, cedar-walled, cedar-beamed room, a table at a confidential angle had been reserved.

‘There’s a big gathering here to-night,’ Sir Oliver observed, glancing round him, a ‘board-room’ mask clinging to him still.

Miss Sinquier looked intellectual.

‘I find it hot!’ she said.

‘You do.’

‘I find London really very hot … It’s after the north, I suppose. In the north it’s always much cooler.’

‘Are you from the north?’

‘Yes, indeed she is,’ Mrs Sixsmith chimed in. ‘And so am
I
,’ she said. ‘Two north-country girls!’ she added gaily.

Sir Oliver spread sentimentally his feet.

‘The swans at Blenheim; the peacocks at Warwick!’ he sighed.

‘What do you mean, Sir Oliver?’

‘Intimate souvenirs …’

‘I should say so … Swans and peacocks! I wonder you’re prepared to admit it.’

‘Admit it?’

‘Outside of
Confessions
, Sir Oliver.’

Miss Sinquier raised a hurried hand to her glass.

‘No, no, no, no, no, no wine!’ she exclaimed. ‘Something milky …’

‘Fiddlesticks! Our first little dinner.’

‘Oh, Sir Oliver!’

‘And not, I trust, our last!’

‘I enjoy it so much – going out.’

Mrs Sixsmith slapped her little dog smartly upon the eyes with her fan.

‘Couch-toi,’ she admonished.

‘What can fret her?’

‘She fancies she sees Paul.’

‘Worthless fellow!’ Sir Oliver snapped.

‘I was his rib, Sir Oliver.’

‘Forget it.’

‘I can’t forget it.’

‘J-j-j—’

‘Only this afternoon I ran right into him – it was just outside the Café Royal …’

‘Scamp.’

‘He looked superb. Oh, so smart; spats, speckled trousers, the rest all deep indigo. Rather Russian.’

‘Who?’

‘My actor-husband, Paul. There. One has only to speak his name for Juno to jerk her tail.’

‘With whom is he at present?’

‘With Sydney Iphis.’

‘We went last night to see Mrs Starcross,’ Sir Oliver said.

‘She’s no draw.’

‘I long to see her,’ Miss Sinquier breathed.

‘I understand, my dear young lady, you’ve an itch for the footlights yourself.’

Miss Sinquier began eating crumbs at random.

‘God knows!’ she declared.

‘C’est une âme d’élite, Sir Oliver.’

‘You’ve no experience at all?’

‘None.’

Sir Oliver refused a dish.

‘We old ones …’ he lamented. ‘Once upon a time, I was in closer touch with the stage.’

‘Even so, Sir Oliver, you still retain your footing.’

‘Footing, f-f-f—; among the whole demned lot, who persists still but, perhaps, the Marys?’

‘Take the Marys. A word to them; just think what a boon!’

‘Nothing so easy.’

Miss Sinquier clasped her hands.

‘One has heard of them often, of course.’

‘Mr and Mrs Mary have won repute throughout the realm,’ Mrs Sixsmith impressively said, wondering (as middlewoman) what commission she should ask.

‘Mrs Mary, I dare say, is no longer what she was!’

‘Mrs Mary,
aujourd’hui
, is a trifle, perhaps, full-blown, but she’s most magnetic still. And a warmer, quicker heart never beat in any breast.’

‘In her heyday, Sir Oliver – but you wouldn’t have seen her, of course.’

The baronet’s eyes grew extinct.

‘In my younger days,’ he said, ‘she was comeliness itself … full of fun. I well recall her as the “wife” in
Macbeth
; I assure you she was positively roguish.’

‘Being fairly on now in years,’ Miss Sinquier reflected, ‘she naturally wouldn’t fill very juvenile parts – which would be a blessing.’

‘She too often does.’

‘She used to make Paul ill––’ Mrs Sixsmith began, but stopped discreetly. ‘Oh, listen,’ she murmured, glancing up towards the nigger band and insouciantly commencing to hum.

‘What is it …?’

‘It’s the
Belle of Benares
–

‘ “My other females all yellow, fair or black,

To thy charms shall prostrate fall,

As every kind of elephant does

To the white elephant Buitenack.

And thou alone shall have from me,

Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee,

The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee.” ’

‘Serephine, you’re eating nothing at all.’

‘I shall wait for the
pâtisserie
, Sir Oliver.’

‘Disgraceful.’

‘Father Francis forbids me meat; it’s a little novena he makes me do.

‘ “The great Jaw-waw that rules our land,

And pearly Indian sea,

Has not such
ab-solute
command

As thou hast over me,

With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy,

Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee.” ’

‘Apropos of pearls …’ Sir Oliver addressed Miss Sinquier, ‘I look forward to the privilege before long of inspecting your own.’

‘They’re on her head, Sir Oliver!’

Sir Oliver started as a plate was passed unexpectedly over him from behind.

‘Before approaching some City firm, it’s possible Lady Dawtry might welcome an opportunity of acquiring this poor child’s jewels for herself,’ Mrs Sixsmith said.

‘Lady Dawtry!’

‘Why not?’

‘Lady Dawtry seldom wears ornaments; often I wish she would.’

‘I wonder you don’t
insist
.’

Sir Oliver fetched a sigh.

‘Many’s the time,’ he said, ‘I’ve asked her to be a little more spectacular – but she won’t.’

‘How women do vary!’ Mrs Sixsmith covertly smiled.

‘To be sure.’

‘My poor old friend …?’

Sir Oliver turned away.

‘I notice Miss Peters here to-night,’ he said.

‘Whipsina?’

‘With two young men.’

‘
Un trio n’excite pas de soupçons
, they say.’

‘They do …’

‘Have you a programme for presently, Sir Oliver?’

‘I’ve a box at the Kehama.’

Miss Sinquier looked tragic.

‘It’ll have begun!’ she said.

‘At a variety, the later the better as a rule.’

‘I never like to miss
any
part.’

‘My dear, you’ll miss very little; besides it’s too close to linger over dinner long.’

‘Toc, toc; I don’t find it so,’ Sir Oliver demurred. Mrs Sixsmith plied her fan.

‘I feel very much like sitting,
à la
Chaste Suzanne, in the nearest ice-pail!’ she declared.

Mary Lodge, or Maryland, as it was more familiarly known, stood quite at the end of Gardingore Gate, facing the Park.

Half-way down the row, on the Knightsbridge side, you caught a glimpse of it set well back in its strip of garden with a curtain of rustling aspen-trees before the door.

Erected towards the close of the eighteenth century as a retreat for a fallen minister, it had, on his demise, become the residence of a minor member of the reigning Royal House, from whose executors, it had, in due course, passed into the hands of the first histrionic couple in the land.

A gravel sweep leading between a pair of grotesquely attenuated sphinxes conducted, via a fountain, to the plain, sober façade in the Grecian style.

Moving demurely up this approach some few minutes prior to the hour telegraphically specified by the mistress of the house, Miss Sinquier, clad in a light summer dress, with a bow like a great gold butterfly under her chin, pulled the bell of Mary Lodge.

Some day Others would be standing at her own front gate, their hearts a-hammer …

A trim manservant answered the door.

‘Is Mrs Mary …?’

‘Please to come this way.’

Miss Sinquier followed him in.

The entrance hall bare but for a porphyry sarcophagus containing visiting cards, and a few stiff chairs, clung obviously to royal tradition still.

To right and left of the broad stairway two colossal battle-pictures,
by Uccello, were narrowly divided by a pedestalled recess in which a frowning bust of Mrs Mary as Medusa was enshrined.