B007TB5SP0 EBOK (8 page)

‘I was thinking only of Monday.’

‘There will be eleven bridesmaids besides At’y!’

‘I don’t know, yet,’ Lady Georgia said, ‘what I shall wear. But I shall be very plain.’

‘He’s twenty-three … with lovely eyebrows,’ Mrs Henedge said, beginning to purr.

‘Do you know where the honeymoon’s to be spent?’

‘They begin, I believe, by Brussels—’

‘I can hardly imagine,’ Lady Georgia observed, ‘anyone setting out deliberately for Brussels.’

‘I suppose it does seem odd,’ Mrs Henedge murmured, looking mysteriously about her.

The room in which she found herself was a somewhat
difficult
room. The woodwork by Pajou had been painted a dull, lustreless grey, whilst the curtains and the upholstery of the chairs were of a soft canary-coloured silk striped with blue. Here and there, in magnificent defiance, were set tubs of deep crimson and of brilliant pink azaleas. Above the mantelpiece was suspended a charming portrait of Lady Georgia by Renoir. No one ever warmed their hands there, or before the summer wilderness of plants, without exclaiming: ‘How wonderful it is!’ In this portrait she was seen promenading slowly in an economical landscape, whilst a single meagre tree held above her head its stiff branches lightly, screening her from the sun, by its just sufficient leaves. On the opposite side of the room hung a second portrait of herself with her husband and her children – a lovely Holy Family, in the Venetian manner, and in between, all round the room, at varying heights, in blotches of rose and celestial blue, hung a sumptuous
Station of the Cross
, by Tiepolo. Upon the ceiling, if one cared to look so high, some last few vestiges of the embassy might be seen – quivers, torches,
roses, and all the paraphernalia of Love … But the eyes, travelling over these many obstacles, would invariably return to the Venetian portrait, spoken of, as a rule, somewhat breathlessly, as the
Madonna in the Osprey
.

Glancing from it to her hostess, Mrs Henedge had not observed the remotest resemblance yet. She was waiting … Except, she considered, for dear Sir Victor Blueharnis, a fine, dashing St Joseph, with blue, slightly bloodshot eyes, and the darling children, and the adorable Pekinese, it was decidedly a
Madeleine Lisant
. Striking, as it most unquestionably was, of Lady Georgia herself, it was not a satisfactory portrait. But how, it might pardonably be asked, was it likely to be? How was it possible for a painter to fix upon canvas anyone so elusive – he must interpret. He must paint her soul, taking care not to let her appear, as an inferior artist
might
, an overdressed capital-sin.

Lady Georgia’s face, indeed, was as sensitive as a calm sea to the passing clouds. She had variety. Often she managed to be really beautiful, and even in her plainest moments she was always interesting. Her nature, too, was as inconsistent as her face. At first sight, she was, perhaps, too individual to make any very definite impression … A single pink flower on her black frock, this afternoon, made her look, somehow, very far away.

Who can she be angling for, Mrs Henedge wondered, and for whom is At’y becoming too pronounced? Was it for poor Lord Susan, who was sick, so everyone said, of the world at three-and-twenty?

At this notion she caressed, with a finger of a creamy glove, a small bronze of a bird with a broken wing.

Mrs Henedge, the widow of that injudicious man, the Bishop of Ashringford, was considered, by those who knew her, to be Sympathy itself. His lordship, rumour reported, had fallen in love with her at first sight one morning while officiating at a friend’s cathedral when she had put him in mind of a startled deer. She was really only appropriating a hymn-book, as she had afterwards explained. Their marriage had been called a romance. Towards the end, however, the Bishop had become
too fe-fi-fo-fum-Jack-in-the-Beanstalk altogether. She had had a horrid time; but still, she was able to speak of him always as ‘
poor, dear Leslie
’, now that he was gone. To-day, perhaps, it might be said of her that she had deserted this century, for she had hardly settled which. Wrapped in what looked to be a piece of Beauvais tapestry, she suggested a rumble of chariots, a sacking of Troy. As Lady Georgia observed, quite perceptibly, she was on the brink of … Rome.

But reflections were put to flight, as some of the angels, from the famous
Madonna
, and several of the Pekinese, came whirling into the room.

‘It ran away in Berkeley Square.’

‘She had been having ices.’

‘On her head were two very tall green feathers.’

‘The policeman went away with her parasol.’

‘She was on her way to see us.’

The children were very much excited. ‘Hush, darlings!’ Lady Georgia exclaimed. ‘And when you’re calmer, explain who it was that ran away from Berkeley Square.’

‘Grandmamma did!’

‘Who would have thought,’ said Fräulein, appearing, ‘that a one-horse cab could do
so much mischief
!’

They were returning from the large heart of Bloomsbury, where the children were frequently taken to learn deportment from the Tanagras in the British Museum. After posing meaningly as a Corinthian, or practising sinking upon a camp-stool like an Athenian, they came home, as a rule, rampageous.

‘This afternoon they are uncontrollable!’ Fräulein murmured, attempting to hurry them away. But Mrs Henedge, with an arm about a child, was beginning to expand.

‘Her complexion,’ she observed, ‘is as lovely as ever; but she
begins to look older
!’

As a foreigner, Fräulein could fully savour the remark. She had succeeded, only lately, to Mademoiselle Saligny, who had been dismissed for calling Marie Antoinette a doll. Unfortunately, as Lady Georgia had since discovered, her Teutonic scepticism varied scarcely at all, from the Almighty to a can of hot water; but this was more pardonable, she considered, than
labelling Marie Antoinette a doll. Distinguished, or harmless doubts were these!

‘It’s really rather an escape!’ Lady Georgia murmured, as soon as they were gone; ‘my mother-in-law’s dictatorialness is becoming so impossible, and in this warm weather she’s sure to be out of sorts.’

She stretched out a hand listlessly, towards a red, colossal rose. So many talismans for happiness fettered her arms! She could hardly move but the jingling of some crystal ball, or the swaying of some malachite pig, reminded her of the fact that she was unhappy. ‘I can’t bear,’ she said, ‘James to arrange the flowers, he
packs
them down into the vases.’ She got up and loosened some. ‘And when Charles does them,’ she murmured, ‘they’re invariably swooning away! Come and see, though, all I’ve been doing; our lease, you know, doesn’t expire until two thousand and one. And so it’s quite worth while to make some little improvements!’

But Mrs Henedge seemed disinclined to stir. Seated upon a sofa entirely without springs, that had, most likely, once been Juliet’s bier, it appeared she had something to confide. Something was troubling her besides ‘
the poor Guards, in all this sun!
’

‘My dear Georgia,’ she said, ‘now that you’ve told me your news, I want to tell you of a most exquisite discovery.’

Lady Georgia opened wide-wide eyes. ‘Is it,’ she hazarded, ‘some new thing about Mrs Hanover?’

Mrs Henedge looked about her. ‘It’s rather a secret still,’ she continued, ‘and although, in many ways, I should have liked to have told Ada, she would probably immediately tell Robert, and he, in confidence, would, of course, tell Jack, and Jack would tell
everybody
, and so—’

‘Better say nothing to Ada!’

Mrs Henedge heaved a sigh.

‘Do you remember Professor Inglepin?’ she asked. ‘His mother was a Miss Chancellor … Fanny. Well, quite lately, whilst in Egypt, the Professor (he terrifies me! He’s so thin, he’s so fierce!) came upon an original fragment of Sappho. And I’m having a small party at my house, on Sunday, with his assistance, to make the line known.’

Lady Georgia became immediately animated. The Isabella d’Este in her awoke.

‘My dear, how heavenly!’ she exclaimed.

‘Exceptional people,’ Mrs Henedge hinted nervously, ‘are coming.’

‘Oh-h?’

‘Mrs Asp, Miss Compostella, the Calvallys!’

‘It will be delightful!’

‘Well, you won’t blame me, dear, will you, if you’re bored?’

Lady Georgia closed her eyes. ‘Sappho!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m wondering what I shall wear. My instinct would dress me, I believe, in a crinoline, with a yellow cashmere shawl, and a tiny turquoise bonnet.’

Mrs Henedge became alarmed. ‘I hope we shall be all as
Ingre
as possible,’ she said, ‘since there’s not much time to be Greek. And now that I’ve told you, I must fly! No, darling, I can’t even stay to look at the improvements; since the house is yours for so long, I shall see them, perhaps, again. I’m going this evening with the Fitzlittles to the Russian dancers.’ And she added melodiously from the stairs: ‘I do so
adore
Nijinsky in
Le Spectre de la Rose
.’

Mrs Henedge lived in a small house with killing stairs just off Chesham Place.

‘If I were to die here,’ she had often said, ‘they would never be able to twist the coffin outside my door; they would have to cremate me in my room.’ For such a cottage, the sitting-rooms, nevertheless, were astonishingly large. The drawing-room, for instance, was a complete surprise, notwithstanding its dimensions being ocularly curtailed by a somewhat trying brocade of drooping lilac orchids on a yellow ground.

But to-day, to make as much space as possible to receive her guests, all the household heirlooms – a faded photograph of the Pope, a bust of
poor dear Leslie
, some most Asiatic cushions, and a quantity of whimsies, had been carried away to the top of the house. Never before had she seen the room so bare, or so austere.

As her maid exclaimed: ‘It was like a church.’ If an entire Ode of Sappho’s had been discovered instead of a single line she could have done no more.

In the centre of the room, a number of fragile gilt chairs had been waiting patiently all day to be placed, heedless, happily, of the lamentations of Thérèse, who, while rolling her eyes, kept exclaiming: ‘Such wild herds of chairs; such herds of wild chairs!’

In her arrangements Mrs Henedge had disobeyed the Professor in everything.

Professor Inglepin had looked in during the week to ask that severity might be the key. ‘No flowers,’ he had begged, ‘or, at most, placed beside the fragment (which I shall bring), a handful, perhaps, of—’

‘Of course,’ Mrs Henedge had replied, ‘you can rely upon
me.’ And now the air was laden with the odour of white and dark mauve stocks.

A buffet, too, had arisen altar-like in her own particular sanctum, an apology to those whom she was unable to dine; nor, for intriguing curiosities, had she scoured a pagan cookery-book in vain …

Glancing over the dinner list whilst she dressed, it seemed to her that the names of her guests, in neat rotation, resembled the cast of a play. ‘A comedy, with possible dynamics!’ she murmured as she went downstairs.

With a tiara well over her nose, and dressed in oyster satin and pearls, she wished that Sappho could have seen her then … On entering the drawing-room she found her beautiful Mrs Shamefoot as well as her radiant Lady Castleyard (pronounced Castleyud), had already arrived, and were entertaining lazily her Monsignor Parr.

‘Cima’s Madonnas are dull, dull, dull,’ Mrs Shamefoot was saying, looking over the Monsignor’s shoulder at her own reflection in the glass.

Mrs Shamefoot, widely known as ‘Birdie’, and labelled as politics, almost compels a tear. Overshadowed by a clever husband, and by an exceedingly brilliant mother-in-law, all that was expected of her was to hold long branches of mimosa and eucalyptus leaves as though in a dream at meetings, and to be picturesque, and restful and mute. As might have been foreseen, she had developed into one of those decorative, self-entranced persons so valued by hostesses at dinner as an ideal full stop. Sufficiently self-centred, she could be relied upon to break up a line, or to divide, with grace, any awkward divergencies of thought. Her momentary caprice was to erect with Lady Castleyard, to whom she was devoted, a window in some cathedral to their memory, that should be a miracle of violet glass, after a design of Lanzini Niccolo.

It was therefore only natural that Lady Castleyard (whose hobby was watching sunlight through stained glass) should take the liveliest interest in the scheme – and through the mediation of Mrs Henedge was hoping to kindle a window somewhere very soon.

A pretty woman, with magnificently bold shoulders, and a tiny head, she was, as a rule, quite fearlessly made up. It was courageous of her, her hostess thought, to flaunt such carnationed cheeks. Only in Reynolds or in a Romney did one expect to see
such a dab
.

‘Tell me! Tell me!’ she exclaimed airily, taking hold of Mrs Henedge. ‘I feel I must hear the line before everyone else.’

Mrs Henedge, who did not know it, pressed to her lips her fan.

‘Patience!’ she murmured, with her subtlest smile.

Monsignor Parr gazed at her with heavy opaque eyes.

Something between a butterfly and a misanthrope, he was temperamental, when not otherwise … employed.

‘I must confess,’ he observed, ‘that Sappho’s love affairs fail to stir me.’

‘Ah, for shame!’ Mrs Henedge scolded, turning from him to welcome an elaborate young man, who, in some bewildering way of his own, seemed to find charming the fashions of 1860.

‘Drecoll?’ she inquired.

‘Vienna,’ he nodded.

‘This is Mr Harvester,’ she said. She had nearly said ‘Poor Mr Harvester’, for she could not endure his wife.

Claud Harvester was usually considered charming. He had gone about here and there, tinting his personality after the fashion of a Venetian glass. Certainly he had wandered … He had been into Arcadia, even, a place where artificial temperaments so seldom get – their nearest approach being, perhaps, a matinée of a
Winter’s Tale
. Many, indeed, thought him interesting. He had groped so … In the end he began to suspect that what he had been seeking for all along was the theatre. He had discovered the truth in writing plays. In style – he was often called obscure, although, in reality, he was as charming as the top of an apple-tree above a wall. As a novelist he was almost successful. His books were watched for … but without impatience.