The Bazaar and Other Stories (38 page)

 

Above, the arches, the vaulted roof of the church soared up into
dusk. Beyond the font, the perspective of aisles was lamplit: far off,
the chancel brasses shone. Now and then from swags of holly a
berry dropped. There was a smell of evergreens, ancient stone,
musty hassocks, woodwork polished for Christmas. Here and there
lamplight caught the head of a cherub, or a line of gilt lettering in
an old memorial; back on their tombs in the shadows crusaders
sternly slept. Day faded slowly out of the coloured windows. In the
foreground Angela saw, through a blur, what should have been
reassuring rows of faces – friends, bound for the party, had come to
the church, had packed themselves into the pews nearest the font,
and all stood looking towards the baby. She could but feel how
perplexed or marvelling eyes returned, again and again, to the Third
Godmother. Trembling a little, she slipped her arm through Tom’s.
The Vicar’s voice rose and fell, and she tried to pray.

 

Tom whispered: “Steady, darling.”

 

“I’m scared.”

 

“I know.
Who
is she – any idea?”

 

“She must be Boofie. The third name out of the hat.”
They were back at the house: the party was in full swing. Indeed,
the candles of the Christmas tree were by now beginning to burn
low – though a low-lit, amber effect of candle-light magically
persisted in all the rooms. In the same way, a sort of electrical,
hushed excitement seemed to flow through the nearly two hundred
guests. Something mysterious and disturbing was afoot this evening.
The current, whatever it might be, made a circuit through the
ground floor of the house; for, everywhere, wide folding-doors
stood open – guests could move where and as they chose. On the
whole, they were showing a tendency to cluster – in or around sofas,
in curtained window-embrasures or before the roaring fires. There
was a vibrant, almost tense, hum of talk; and, from group to group,
greetings, calls and laughter, all pitched just slightly out of the
normal key. Certainly the party was not flat; seldom had any party
had more “atmosphere.”
⁶

 

Nona Julia, princess of the occasion, had made a serene, swift
progress, in Nurse’s arms, throughout the company: she had now
been carried upstairs and was no longer on view. Since then, in
default of her presence they had all drunk her health. Yes, the
champagne had gone round, and came round again – yet, even while
raising their glasses to their lips, it might be noted that friends
exchanged glances, as though wondering whether these golden
bubbles might not be, also, under some spell?
⁷
And it indeed seemed
that the champagne, drunk in any amount, rather tuned down than
tuned up the noise of the party, by intensifying a sort of unearthly
intimacy between the guests. Talkers closed in; the centres of floors
cleared. Still, no one spoke directly of what was in the air – either
from fearing to be the first to do so, or from lacking words in which
to say what they felt – which was as peculiar as it was inexpressible.
Soon, each of the thronged rooms, linked by their open doors, held
no more than a sighing, shell-like murmur.

 

Nor did the murmur peter out: it broke off sharply. Within a split
second, there fell a complete hush.

 

The three godmothers came walking down the drawing-room.

 

Side by side, looking neither to left nor right, the three passed
straight down the centre of the long, shining floor, to disappear
through the archway giving upon the stairs.

 

This was the first, and last, time the three were seen together –
by the outside world.

 

Up to now, the first and second godmothers had been holding
stately, separate little courts, hovered over by one or the other
godfather. Lady Panderwaite, upon the return from church, had
taken up her position beside the Christmas tree, which she all but
outshone. In the blaze from the dozens of little candles, she had
enthroned herself on a golden Florentine chair – her jewellery
sparkled with every movement; her exotic gown shimmered like
green flame. Turning those eyes from face to face, she had dis
coursed brilliantly (if with the faintest air of preoccupation) on
almost every subject under the sun. She held, but did not drink, a
glass of champagne; which, while she talked, she at intervals held
aloft, into a fuller radiance from the tree. It was noted that the
champagne in her glass held more, and more lively, bubbles than
any other. She fascinated but faintly alarmed her listeners –
whenever these showed signs of melting away, either Gervase or
Andy, watchful, would round up others. Between Lady Panderwaite’s
circle and the rest of the party there had been, it must be admitted,
always a slight gulf. Several of those who refused to cross it
explained that the heat from the candles was overpowering.

 

Miss Hingham had, on the other hand, shown every wish to
remain obscure. She had made immediately for an upright chair at
the less frequented end of the diningroom, from which neither Tom
nor the godfathers could budge her. She had been brought what she
asked for, a cup of tea, and from time to time she nibbled a finger
biscuit, pausing to brush crumbs from her threadbare skirt. She
gazed with remote kindness upon the festive scene, enjoyed a chat
with the waiters in charge of the buffet, and smiled at such guests as
happened to come her way. She was not for long allowed to remain
alone; in fact, it began to be odd how the Claybees’ smart young
friends instinctively gravitated towards her. Yearning, somehow, to
tell all their troubles and ask her advice or help, they swarmed like
flies round the honey-pot of Miss Hingham; having soon to be
driven off by the godfathers rather than led up. This thin lady in the
old-fashioned hat had, decidedly, the air of belonging elsewhere.
What
could
she be carrying round with her in that crammed, worn
handbag – of such antique style that it more rightly should have
been called a “reticule”?

 

It was recollected, later, that away down there, at Miss Hingham’s
end of the diningroom, the electric tenseness hanging over the rest
of the party was not felt. It was replaced, in her ambience, by some -
thing
as
strange – but good. It was ironical that those who had hung
upon her words could not, by next day, remember a single one of
them. What did remain was an indefinable something which, from
then on, altered and sweetened life.

 

The person thought to be Boofie had held no court. Still in the
bad little thrust-down beret, she had sauntered, aggressively solitary,
from room to room. From wherever she came to a halt, people
moved away. Sometimes, arms folded, she leaned against the panel
ling, turning that intent, unseeing stare of hers this way, that way.
Steered clear of by the waiters, she made a dart at champagne left
standing in any glass; and, in the same way, mopped up the last
dishevelled eatables left on plates. On whichever room she entered,
she had the same effect – it was as though a window, letting in deadcold air, had been surreptitiously opened behind a curtain.

 

She had melted from view when the party moved from the
church: the Claybees had dared to hope that might be the last of
her. But alas, far from it: here again she was – this time, at large in
their home!
How
she had got in, how she’d made her way from the
church, no one seemed to know. Tom, Gervase and Andy had, at the
outset, gone into hasty conference: it would be better, they had
decided, to take with this so-called Boofie one or another definite
line – in short, either bid her welcome or run her out. But the
dementing thing was that, though there and everywhere, she was
never “here.” Perpetually to be sighted in the distance, she never was
to be cornered, face to face. In vain did Tom and Andy – working
in opposite directions, so that they met halfway – between them
fine-comb the crowded rooms.
⁸
Somehow, some way, she still
slipped through their fingers. Her smallness helped, of course. She
remained everywhere, nowhere. It
was
uncanny.

 

Andy shrugged and said: “I don’t see what more we can do.”

 

“All the same, something’s got to be done, old man. Angela’s
worrying herself sick.”

 

Angela, actually, had had the good idea of retreating to a sofa in
her sanctum, in company with a promising new best friend, who was
soothing her. Thanks to this, she began to feel better – till, through
the open door, they both heard that sudden, icelike fall of the hush.

 

“My heavens!” she said, “what’s
that
? Have they all dropped dead?”

 

The obliging new friend offered to go and see. Angela lay back
with her eyes shut.

 

The friend, coming back, reported: “That was the godmothers.
They have gone upstairs to say goodnight to the baby.”

 

“Who says?” cried Angela, starting up.

 

“Everyone says.”

 

“How many have gone up?”

 

“Three.”

How, where and when had the three godmothers made contact?
So far as anyone knew, they had hardly so much as spoken to one
another the whole day. At lunch, Lady Panderwaite and Miss
Hingham – who had not, one might say,

⁹
anyhow much in common

 

– had been placed at opposite sides of the table. They had gone
to the christening in different cars; throughout the party they had
stayed in different rooms. Also, neither of these two godmothers
had taken the slightest notice of the third – at least,
visibly
. Neither
had batted an eyelid when she appeared in church. Perhaps, now,
one came to think of it, that had not surprised them? Had these
three, who had never met till today (and, indeed, how should they:
they were so fantastically unalike) been acting in accord with some
pact or plan? If so, it was a pact outside mortal ken.

Not a sign or a glance had passed between them. Evidently, they
had communicated by other means – in a manner known to their
kind only. All through the party, they had been maintaining touch:
when once their moment arrived, they knew it. They rose and met.
They had foregathered, and been for the first time three. Possibly
nothing could happen until they

were
three. Strangest of all, no one
had seen them going to meet each other. Conspicuous Lady
Panderwaite had unnoticed been able to rise from her golden chair.
No one could tell how Miss Hingham had slipped past the crowded
buffet, or by what invisible route she had made her way to that
doorway at the distant end of the drawing-room. As for the hitherto
skulking little Third, with what forbidding grandeur she had
invested herself, as, with the others, she made the grand exit!

And, from what arose the impression that they had gone upstairs?
Everyone

said
they had done so: no actual witnesses to their ascent
of the staircase could be found. Had there, then, been nobody in the
hall when they swept through it? Yes, there must have been: guests
were all over the house. But the groups round the foot of the
staircase, now being interrogated by Angela, all explained, they had
not been there at the time. Other people had been in the hall then

 

– why not ask them? But those other people no longer seemed to
exist.

She made a start by herself up the empty stairs. This took
courage. She attempted to master those wild forebodings, those
throat-gripping terrors known to mother-love. Her one thought was,
Nona Julia. She must keep calm – she did.

Up here, the soft-carpeted corridors were empty, cryptic, silent.
She hurried in the direction of the nursery then, for a moment,
faltered outside the beloved, familiar door. What utterly

shut
, almost
sealed-up look it had! She fingered the door-handle – how if it
refused to turn? However, turn it did, and she crossed the threshold
. . . Nona Julia’s domain was in semi-darkness: a glow came from the
fire inside the high fender; from a table away in a corner a pygmy
lamp, shaded to imitate a toadstool, cast shadows up the walls, to
the ceiling. For an instant, it seemed that the shadows round Nona
Julia formed into the outline of three gigantic heads. But, no – that
was an illusion: no one stood round the cradle.

“

Nurse
– are you there?”

 

“Why, yes, madam,” Nurse replied – but not altogether promptly,
and in a drowsy voice. Of course she was there: in the dim red from
the fire, the starch of her apron gleamed. There she sat, on duty,
correctly stiff in her chair; but, nevertheless, nodding – before she
could speak again, she had to bite off a yawn. “To tell you the truth,”
she admitted, “I’ve been taking forty winks. Baby’s asleep so nicely,
and it’s been quite a day.”

 

“
Have
any people been in here?”

 

“Why, nobody comes in my nursery without permission,” said
Nurse, trying to bridle – but, drowsily.

 

“I daresay; but you’ve just told me you dropped off. Would you
have known if anyone
had
come in?”

 

Without awaiting the answer, Angela rushed to the cradle. Nona
Julia slept. On her silk quilted counterpane reposed three objects,
foreign-looking and queer. Angela, having swept these up, took
them over to the lamp in the corner
¹⁰
to examine them. One was a
diamond bracelet, wrought in the shape of a series of linked hearts:
to it was attached yet another, pink paper, heart, on which, in a
foreign script, were indited the words, “
In this life, there can never be too
many
.” The next was a small account book, in a black shiny cover,
with a silver pencil tied to it by a cord.
¹¹
Inside the cover was
written: “
Dear child, of all matters keep careful account. One day, you may be
asked what the total is. Work hard, think of others, and love truly
.”

 

The third was a letter, addressed to Nona Julia. Boofie’s hand
writing (Angela thought, as she read) had not changed much since
she was ten years old.