Three-Cornered Halo (22 page)

“And the secret?” said Cousin Hat, going quietly mad with curiosity.

“The Roman Catholic Church,” said the Grand Duke, “rests on the foundation of the Apostolic Succession. Christ ordained Peter His first bishop: and those whom Peter ordained, ordained others and so on, down through the generations in unbroken succession. In the Catholic church, no priest ordained out of this chain of succession, is a priest at all. His Mass is no Mass, he administers the Sacraments and they are meaningless forms—he may become in his time a bishop and ordain other priests, but he is not a bishop and they are not priests——”

“I see,” said Cousin Hat, slowly: beginning to see.

“And what sort of priests and bishops, Senorita, do you think have flourished on my island, since Juan the Pirate first took shelter here? What sort of link do you suppose was formed in that great chain of succession, by whatever old rogue first wore a mitre in San Juan? No link, of course: and therefore the bishops he made were no bishops and the priests they made, no priests: and the sad fact remains, Senorita,” said the Grand Duke, roaring with laughter, nevertheless, “that Catholic San Juan, island-child of Catholic Italy and Catholic Spain, is no more Catholic than you are; nor, for two hundred years has anyone here been christened or married or shriven or buried in the rites of our Mother Church. And
think
what would happen if anyone found that out!”

Cousin Hat thought of it, mulling it over in her mind, in her own straight, practical way. “It would be no fault of yours. You didn't begin it. The deception, I mean.”

“I continued it.”

“Under an oath of secrecy.”

“Dear lady—try telling that to the Juanese!”

“And anyway, what does it matter? These things are in the mind, in the intention.”

“Not in the Church of Rome. A Confirmation is not a Confirmation, let ten thousand people believe that they are seeing the real thing.”

“Well, no. And come to that,” acknowledged Miss Cockrill, “not only in Rome. A marriage illegally performed is no marriage anywhere; however much the people concerned may believe in it.”

“There has not been a legal marriage,” said the Grand Duke, laughing again, “in the island of San Juan for something like two hundred years.”

“But the civil ceremony …?”

“We have no civil ceremony; in San Juan, the state does not interfere.”

“Oh, dear,” said Cousin Hat.

“I should have to begin by explaining that the whole pious population was living in sin: that their fathers and mothers had lived in sin, that they themselves were bastards and their children were bastards too. You could not blame them,” said El Exaltida, “begging your pardon in advance for my language, if the people decided that their Grand Duke was the biggest bastard of all.”

“And the Patriarca?”

“El Patriarca, handles all business with Rome. The Archbishop and the Bishop confine themselves to home affairs. There is, of course, in fact no business with Rome. She has in the past made enquiries, but since we are really not part of the Church at all, she has no jurisdiction here. Any attempt at interference would be immediately put down, no missionaries of any sort are permitted on the island—you will have noted that our frontier arrangements are extremely exclusive. And the language difficulty is so enormous that nobody who did get here could do very much; nor are our people—for this very reason—encouraged to travel. Here again, the language difficulty helps; to the Italian and Spanish-speaking people, a grasp of Juanese is almost impossible and vice versa—much more so than with the French, German, English, etcetera, who learn it from scratch. So that the threat from Italy is not so great as would at first appear. Nevertheless,” said the Duke with another of his shrugs, “it must be admitted that we live on something of a volcano.”

“And juanita——?”

“May well promote the first rumble.”

“I do see that you can't very well in the circumstances apply to the Roman Church to canonise a saint who wasn't her saint at all. But …” She reflected. “The Patriarch must, if you don't mind my saying so, do a good deal of ‘business' with Rome, which Rome knows nothing about. Couldn't he, perhaps.…?”

“‘Arrange' the business of Juanita? It has been discussed. But it is too dangerous. The canonisation of a new saint is not a mere local affair: it is a matter of rejoicing through all the organisation of the Catholic Church and that is world-wide. Even my people would observe that there was a very odd hush regarding their own particular protégé—no visits from papal representatives, no gifts of blessings or ‘special indulgences' attaching to the shrine—though most of that, I suppose, the Patriarch could attend to. But above all, no world press. No. It is tempting and, as I say, it has been discussed—it was talked over in my father's day at the time she died—I, of course, was a schoolboy then—and it has been canvassed ever since. But the risk is too great. So there you are! You asked me a question and there is the answer: and if you were to betray me, Senorita, I think it would not be too much to say that the fate of my house, and the fate of this whole island people, would be in your hands. Why do I not apply to the Church of Rome for canonisation of our saint? Because for two hundred years our island has not been part of the Church of Rome at all!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

B
REAKFAST
on the island of San Juan is like breakfast almost anywhere else on the continent of Europe: something to recall in wistful retrospect through the long, bleak months between, but consisting in fact of gritty grey coffee, flaccid, white butter, rolls of very hard, sour bread and chipped saucers of extraordinarily nasty apricot jam. At the Bellomare, however, it is served on the terrace beneath the twisted grey bougainvillea boughs, looking out to sea; and here, on the morning after the fiesta di Boia, Miss Cockrill sat very complacently, caged into a square wooden garden chair and awaited her faithful Dick. He arrived at last, a trifle wan, and was immediately besieged by his flock. “Hey, waiter! Here, garsong!” cried the Major desperately, clutching at the coat-tails of the drifting waiters, “bring tea, this senora no want coffee, bring tea. And eggs. Eggsa. Eggsa and bacona. No want apricot jam.”

“Si, si, Senor,” said the waiters, strolling away to bring coffee and apricot jam.

“And be quick, hurry, despacio.…”

“My dear Dick,” said Miss Cockrill, “‘despacio' means to go slowly.”

“Oh, does it? Well there's no need,” acknowledged Dick gloomily, “to tell them to do that.”

For the Major this morning was not his usual self. Awakening, ill at ease in stomach and head, he had lain for a little while conscious also of a dull cloud over the heart, which as his mind grew clearer had sharpened into a stab of realisation which filled him with a very genuine horror. Engaged! He was an engaged man. Last night—last night, and he must face it, he had drunk too much and had behaved disgracefully; had made a fool of himself, had been tipsily insulting, and finally had offered his hand, irrecoverably pledged his troth—for the Major with all his faults was a thorough-going gentleman—and to, of all people, Winnie! But Hat! He covered his large pink face with his hands at the thought of the interview to come, the white hairs of his moustache sprouting through his fingers like a handful of etiolated mustard-and-cress on a saucer of red flannel. All these years of weary pursuit of one whom he knew in his own foolish, faithful, and very lonely heart to be the one woman in the world for him: and a sunny day and a moonlit night had undone his work in an hour. Nor could he ever explain, even to Hat, that he had not been sober when he took the fatal step. Honour forbade. He must stick to his promise; and live out the rest of his life without even the comfort of her friendship left to him.

There was a telephone at the bedside and he sat down at last, a saggy heap in candy-striped pyjamas, and reached for the receiver. “Winnie? I say—g'morning, old girl. Dick here.”

“Major Dick!” said Winsome, astonished, automatically adjusting her nightgown at the sound of the male voice so vibrant in her chaste boudoir.

“Not too early for you, old girl, eh? Fact is, Winnie, I behaved very badly last night. That business about Gloria Swanson.…”

Winsome, also, had lain awake for some time already, her long face alight with nourishing cream, her hair kept in wave beneath a sort of net bonnet tying under the chin, which gave her the look of a huge, gaunt, glistening baby, preternaturally wise. But she did not feel very wise. The Mediterranean sunshine streamed through the slats of her shutters and in its gay sanity she looked back with horror to the events of the evening before. She, Winsome Foley, a cheat and a fraud, and in a matter of godliness; afraid for her freedom, afraid for her very life—at the mercy of a blackmailer, committed to some unholy adventure in partnership with a sloe-eyed gipsy who, had he dared ever to lean over the garden gate at home with his basket of brushes or offers to mend kettles and pans, would have been chased off with the business end of Brother Hoe! I must get away, she thought. I must tell Cousin Hat what has happened, I must confess everything to her, and ask her to cut short our holiday and come away at once.

I must tell Cousin Hat. I must tell her that I agreed—I suggested—that a fraud should be perpetrated; that to this end I handed over the sacred book which was entrusted to my sole care; that I permitted that, in my presence, a forgery should be interpolated there. I must tell her that a great deal of this I did under the influence of drink: that I went alone with this man to his shop and allowed him to make me tipsy so that I should be brought to agree. I must tell her that from first to last, by flattery, he has made a fool of me; and that now he is blackmailing me into taking an active part.…

If it were indeed blackmail. Perhaps, after all … She remembered the laughing eyes, the protesting hands: one must put oneself into the minds of these people, minds utterly different, ideas and ideals utterly different from our own. ‘I mean only that if you had not intended to go on with the plan you would surely not have altered the book.' That was fair enough; and in case of discovery, he had been anxious for her protection, she must maintain steadily, he had said, that she had never touched the thurible; ‘whatever happened' she must stick to that and he and the Archbishop would support her. And he had taken her arm and smiled and teased and said that it was an adventure, it was fun … Of course I must not take the censer, she thought; but I don't really believe he was blackmailing me.

And besides …

Besides, if the adventure fell through—there was a great deal to lose.

It was not for me, she thought. It is for Juanita. But what benefited Juanita, indubitably also greatly benefited herself. She caught sight in a mirror of the great baby face in its blue net bonnet, and turned away her eyes to avoid their own uneasy stare. Two alternatives—both very simple, and both of them terrible. To confess, to go home at once with Cousin Hat, and to live in the chill shadow of her scorn for ever; or to grow rich and independent of Hat—by carrying out the plan. There is no other way, she thought; and which am I to do?

The telephone rang. It was Major Dick. Some gabble about Gloria Swanson. “Gloria
Swanson,
Major Dick?” Had the man gone mad?

“Behaved like a cad, old girl,” said the Major, almost weeping. “I was drunk. Bound to admit it. Disgraceful business. Ashamed of myself.” His sad blue eyes stared out of the window opposite his bed at the cloudless blue of the Mediterranean sky. He took a deep breath. “Regard myself as an engaged man, Winnie, old girl y'know. Hope you understand that?”

“Engaged?” said Winsome: absolutely incredulous.

“By Jove, yes,” said the Major, loyally. (Happiest man in the world, eckceckra, eckceckra.) “Only for God's sake don't—well, I mean, let's keep it a secret between ourselves for the moment, eh, what? I mean, on the whole, don't say anything yet to Hat.”

“No, all right,” said Winsome faintly. But the Major had rung off.

‘Engaged! To be married! All of a sudden to find it assumed that one was engaged to be married: all of a sudden to find oneself with a third alternative, after all. Weary and depressed, obsessed with her own anxieties, she had taken in very little of what he had said to her during the return from the pavilion the evening before; and remembered even less. But she recalled now that he had put his arm about her waist, had poked his moustache into her face as though to kiss her; and it was true that up at the pavilion he had seemed rather odd and excited, snatching drinks from the tray offered by the girl, Lorenna, and tossing them off in a sly sort of feverish way. Afraid of Cousin Hat; stoking up a little Dutch courage because he wanted to ask her to marry him, and was afraid of Cousin Hat. But she, no longer, need be afraid of Cousin Hat. After the long years of waiting, he had tired of Cousin Hat; and she, Winsome, had beaten Cousin Hat at her own game. Engaged. To be married. Independent of Cousin Hat. She would give the conspirators a chance, she would go up to the cathedral this morning and tell the Archbishop, quite coolly, that she refused to accept the censer or to have anything more to do with the plot; and if there was trouble, she would tell Cousin Hat, as coolly, that she thought it would be advisable if she went home sooner than intended. Meanwhile she would send down a message that she had a headache and would not get up.