B007TB5SP0 EBOK (26 page)

‘I can scarcely credit it either.’

‘To Mr Pet?’

‘
Lippo Lippi
man! He’s too sweet to be true.’

‘I’m delighted. I’m glad you seem so happy.’

‘… He’s twenty-three … Five for elegance. Four for luck. Three for fate!’

‘Of course now, he’ll need a little change?’

‘A change! But Peter raves about Ashringford. He says there’s nowhere like it.’

‘No honeymoon?’

Mrs Pet opened a black parasol.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘A honeymoon must always end in a certain amount of curiosity. So we’ve decided not to have one, but just stop here.’

‘It’s really refreshing to find anyone nowadays who tries to avoid a fuss!’

‘Peter, you see, insisted that the wedding should be quite – quite – quiet. For although you mightn’t think it, he’s as sensitive, in his way, as anybody in the town. And so, I simply
walked from Wormwood to Violet Villas with a travelling clock and a bag.’

‘How dull. And surely a trifle dusty?’

‘It was my first small sacrifice,’ Mrs Pet said, sitting down. ‘As a girl I used always to say I would be married in my
point d’espagne
.’

‘You must make up for it at the unveiling. A dot of gold … against those old monks’ stalls …’

‘I’m very uncertain yet whether I shall go.’

‘Indeed, I don’t feel up to it myself.’

‘After all, one isn’t always inclined for church!’

Lady Anne fetched a sigh.

‘I’ve a tiny favour to ask,’ she said.

Mrs Pet twirled, quite slightly, her parasol.

‘If you wish to be really charming exert your influence! Keep your husband at home.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

‘During the little masque amuse your husband indoors.’

‘But I’ve no influence with him at all!’

‘Have you none … ?’

‘Hardly any.’

‘At any rate promise to do what you can.’

Mrs Pet stared, reflexive, across the
mors-in-vita
of the Cathedral green.

‘I realize my limitations,’ she said.

‘But you mustn’t!’

‘According to
The Ashringford Chronicle
there’ll be almost a procession.’

‘Oh, nothing half so formal …’

‘And one of the Olneys, it appears, as the curtains fall away, will break from behind a pillar with a basket of cattleya orchids, and say: “
Accept these poor flowers
.” ’

‘Not in the Cathedral: only in the porch.’

‘And those foolish, silly Scouts are to fire off minute-guns from the walls.’

‘I haven’t seen the
Chronicle
.’

‘Sometimes,’ Mrs Pet protested, ‘I have no loftier wish than to view the world with Kate Greenaway’s eyes!’

Lady Anne shivered.

‘I’m all nerves,’ she explained, ‘to-day, and here’s Hypolita and the Bishop!’

It was Hypolita’s turn.

Aurelia had gone away to a pale silver palace in Bath, where she was casting into purest English the
Poemetti
of Pascoli.

‘We looked in for a moment at the Four Fans,’ Dr Pantry said.

‘Well! …’

‘Mrs Shamefoot wasn’t quite up, but I spoke to her under the door.’

‘Anything new?’

‘She sent her love! … She will make her vigil on the eve of the day.’

‘Surely, if she spends a night in the Cathedral somebody should be within call?’

‘Things change so, don’t they,’ Hypolita said, ‘when the daylight goes? Frequently, even the shadow of a feather boa …’

‘Who would look after her?’

‘One of the students, perhaps—’

‘Ah, no flirtations!’

‘It should be an old, or
quite
an elderly man.’

‘What elderly person is there?’

‘In this neighbourhood there’re so many. There’s such a choice!’

The Bishop was affected.

‘I don’t mind being ninety.’

‘You, Walter? Certainly not.’

‘Mr Poyntz, perhaps …’

‘He’d need to raise a bed.’

‘Still, on Sunday he manages wonderfully well without.’

‘I’m down in the garden every morning by five …’

‘My dear, whatever for?’

‘Besides, she refuses! She desires to be alone.’

Lady Anne gazed at her sister-in-law in dismay.

How was it possible that one did nothing to such a terribly shiny nose?

She considered it etched against the effortless chain of hills,
designed, apparently, to explain that the world was once made in a week.

The morning was so clear the distances seemed to shrink away – one could even trace the race-course, to its frail pavilion, by the artificial fence.

‘It will be so nice when it’s all over,’ she exclaimed.

‘All over, Anne?’

‘The unveiling—’

‘Life was never meant to be quite easy!’

When Hypolita began upon
Life
, she simply never stopped.

Dr Pantry raised his wife’s wrist and examined the watch.

‘Are you coming, my dear, to—’

‘Oh, my dear, very likely!’

‘Then make haste: the bells will begin directly …’

But to-day she invented an entirely new excuse.

‘I must run indoors
first
to wave my white hairs,’ she said.

A smart, plain sky stretched starless above St Dorothy. The night was sultry, sweet and scented.

Miss Thumbler shrugged her pretty, crippled shoulders and pressed volcanically her hands.

‘Beautiful!’ she murmured. ‘But how walled in!’

‘Answer me!’ he said.

‘Oh, George … haven’t I enough already? Of course, I cannot recall all the trifling ins and outs. Although, I believe, he kissed me, once, in the Vermeer Room at the National Gallery!’

She turned away.

These continual jealous scenes …

Only a few hours back there had been an aria from
Tosca
, in St John’s.

There came a babel of voices.

On the lawn and in the lighted loggia the total town was waiting for Mrs Shamefoot to pass. And as usual everyone was turning on the hose.

‘Vanna! Mrs Nythisdene got a palm there … ages ago. She said … she could see her … plainly … in the little room behind the shop … tearing the white lilac out of a wreath … and wiring it up for …’

‘Her dull, white face seems to have no connection with her chestnut hair!’

‘… with
him
to Palestine last spring. Oh, dear me, I thought I should have died at Joppa!’

‘You mix them with olives and a drop of cognac.’

‘What could be more tiresome than a wife that bleats?’

‘His denunciation of the Government nearly brought the lustres down.’

‘I can’t get him to come with me. He doesn’t like the pendant lamps.’

‘… above-board, when one can!’

‘… Half the profits.’

‘Ce gros Monsignor Parr!’

‘… A day together.’

‘… Rabbits.’

‘… As tall as Iss’y.’

‘… Precedence!’

‘… A regular peruke.’

‘… An interesting trio!’

‘A tiara swamps her.’

‘She will become florid in time. Just like her mother.’

‘Don’t!’

‘For him a
tête-à-tête
would be a
viva voce
…’

‘… glare.’

‘… lonely!’

‘… no sympathy for—’

‘… Idolatry.’

‘… a top!’

‘I heard a noise. A sound. But country servants are so rough. Aren’t they? Breaking, dropping, chipping things. I’ve scarcely a dish that isn’t cracked …’

‘… escape!’

‘…
is
such a duck in his …’

‘The only genuine one was Jane.’

‘… poison.’

‘… fuss …’

‘My husband was always shy. He is shy of everybody. He even runs away from me!’

‘Let us sell the house, dear,’ she said, ‘but keep the car! We can drive round and round the park in it at night. And it looks so charming for the day.’

Lady Anne trailed slowly up and down. She seemed worn-out.

‘I’ll go on,’ Hypolita said. ‘Life’s too short to walk so slow.’

‘As you please. But there’s no escape from Eternity,’ Mr Pet’s voice came, unexpectedly booming out.

At which vision, of continual middle age, the younger Miss Flowerman fainted.

On a litter, in the garden, where the stairs streamed up towards the house Miss Spruce surveyed the scene with watchful wondering eyes. It was cruel to be an invalid with her energetic mind …

Still, a good deal came her way.

‘Come now, and meet him, and get it over!’ Mrs Henedge was exhorting Winsome Brookes.

It was her first appearance anywhere since the change.

Attended by George Calvally, Mira Thumbler, Winsome and Monsignor Parr, she would have responded willingly to an attack.

From beneath a black bandeau sparkling with brilliants and an aigrette breaking several ways she seemed to Miss Spruce like some radiant Queen of Night.

‘Anybody born in 1855 I’ve no desire to meet,’ Winsome declared.

‘Hush. Remember your
future
!’ the relentless woman murmured, dragging him towards Lord Brassknocker to be introduced.

‘… Belongs to the Junior Carlton, the Arts, and to several night
cabarets
.’

‘Sir Caper Frisk was explaining to me that cocktails …’

By the great gold gates that closed at dusk the choir was waiting to give three cheers.

‘Poor mites! I hear they’ve been told to give four,’ Mrs Wookie said.

‘What are we waiting for?’

‘I haven’t a notion.’

‘The moon—’

‘It must have been the year that Drowsy-Dreamy-Dora won the Derby …’

‘The old Duke begins to look a bit hipped.’

‘One tooth missing. And only half rouged. On one side only. I’d not call her pretty.’

‘Pan?’

‘… descended from a
waiter
.’

‘If anything takes him to town it’s the cattle-show.’

‘I loathe London.’

‘ “Sable, sable, indeed!” I said. There’s no depth to the skin. Nothing to fathom. It might be crocodiles.’

Monsignor Parr drew in his feet. He had been so very nearly asleep. All his life he had waited for something attractive to happen. Usually, now he would sit huddled up like a Canopic jar saying nothing at all.

‘… too tired to make converts …’

‘… totter from party to party …’

‘How do you do?’

‘… sorry.’

‘If my father marries again it will be to some sweet soul to stir the fire.’

‘… does enjoy a rubber!’

‘The lanes round Dawn are so narrow. And Sir Sirly and Lady James … Well, there’s hardly any room for us all …’

‘Only Miss Knowle and Mrs Lloyd!’

‘… sheet-lightning?’

‘Naturally, for the moment,’ Mrs Shamefoot was confessing, ‘it’s the least bit gorgeous, perhaps. But one has to look ahead. Posterity!’

‘Such a pity not to have gone halves. You and Lady Castleyard together. A Beaumont-and-Fletcher—’

‘So actually, you’ve come!’

‘What a wonderful wrap. My dear, what skins!’

‘In case you should feel faint at all in the night you’ll find a lobster mayonnaise and some champagne in the vestry!’

‘Dear Lady Anne, how could you dream of such a thing?’

‘In the grey of dawn, when a thousand grinning fiends peer down on you, you may be very glad of a little something …’

Above the toppling timber, and the long, low vineries, towered St Dorothy. Urging each quivering leaf, and every blade of grass, to strain higher,
higher
.

‘I hope you’ve a nice warm pair of stockings?’ Mrs Wookie wailed.

Mrs Shamefoot stretched wearily above her head some starry spangled stuff.

‘The mornings,’ she observed, ‘are still quite chilly!’

‘I’m looking everywhere for Kate. It’s like searching for a needle in a bundle of hay.’

‘It ought not to be!’

‘You’ll find Miss Wookie in the drawing-room, playing Siegfried’s Journey.’

‘I must make sure she’s ordered our fly.’

‘A representative of the
Chronicle
would so much like to know—’

‘Not now. Just when my spirit cries to be alone everything that’s earthly seems to pass between!’

‘He merely desires to ask you how you are.’

‘How I am?’

‘How you feel.’

‘I feel such a strange sadness. You might tell him.’

She moved away.

Miss Thumbler had apparently consented to dance.

Stiffening her fingers and thrusting out her chin, she began slightly to sway, as though pursuing an invisible ideal.

‘Sartorious always said she had a horrid mind!’

‘I’m delighted she’s so busy.’

‘Really—’

‘She’s been doing her utmost to
will
the tower down upon us this last half-hour.’

‘You mean—’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Could anyone be so rough?’

‘No, I haven’t yet finished,’ Miss Valley was saying. ‘Alas, a little fame! One buys it at such a price …’

Beneath the big blue Persia-tree, the Miss Chalfonts lay quite still. They had attained their calm.

‘It might be almost the Hesperides!’ Lady Georgia declared.

‘… foot’s on the wane!’

‘In a gloomy corner she is still quite pretty.’

Mrs Shamefoot held up her fan.

‘… the crops!’

‘Ah, here comes our dreadsome friend!’

‘Leave him to me,’ Miss Valley said. ‘I’ll undertake to tame him.’

‘Use some of your long writing words to him, my dear!’

‘Shall I? Would you like me to?’

‘Few people are worth untidying one’s hair for,’ Winsome Brookes observed.

‘Mrs Shamefoot!’

‘Yes, my angel.’

Master Guy Fox was staring at her with great goo-goo eyes like a morning in May.

‘Mr Pet says you’ve done something to be ashamed of.’

‘I? … Oh, good heavens!’ Mrs Shamefoot began to laugh.

‘We’ve such trouble,’ his mother said, ‘to get him to close his mouth. He gapes. But at Eton, probably, there are instructors who will attend to
that
.’

‘There are certain to be classes—’

‘Perhaps even oftener than any other!’

And the Dean smiled sheepishly and tried to look less like a wolf. It was a favourite expression of his when addressing youth.

‘What would you like to do eventually if you live to be a man?’