B007TB5SP0 EBOK (14 page)

‘Besides, to tread the spiral path means usually a bother …’ Mrs Barrow observed. ‘There are the servants! And to get a girl to stay in Ashringford—’

Mrs Shamefoot fixed her gaze wistfully upon an advertisement board, exhorting the public to purge itself freely with Syros Syrop.

‘And is he very plain?’ she asked.

‘I should never say so. It’s a fine Neronian head.’

‘Lady Anne is charming, isn’t she?’

Mrs Barrow hesitated.

‘Sartorious,’ she replied, ‘thinks her wily.’

‘But she is charming?’

‘Oh, well,’ Mrs Barrow said evasively, ‘she doesn’t shine perhaps at the Palace like dear Mrs Henedge. I suppose we shall never replace
her
again! Fortunately, however, she’s devoted to Ashringford and comes there nearly every summer. Since
she’s taken the Closed House she’s thrown out fourteen bow-windows.’

Mrs Shamefoot snapped the lid of her basket.

‘Who are these condottieri?’ she inquired, as an imperious party drove up with considerable clatter.

Mrs Barrow turned.

‘Don’t look more than you can help, dear,’ she exclaimed, in a voice that would have piqued a stronger character than Mrs Lott, ‘it’s the Pontypools.’

‘Ashringford people?’

‘Theoretically.’

Mrs Shamefoot smiled.

‘Sartorious—’ Mrs Barrow began.

‘Thinks them?’

‘Totally dreadful. They’re probably reconnoitring. Mrs Pontypool is usually spinning a web for someone.’

‘The dowager’s very handsome,’ Mrs Shamefoot remarked, ‘in a reckless sort of way, but the girl’s a fairy!’

‘Oh, don’t swear! Don’t swear!’ Mrs Pontypool was adjuring a member of her family, with brio, stepping, as she spoke, right into Mrs Barrow’s arms.

‘Is it quite true,’ she asked shaking hands, ‘that the connection’s gone?’

‘Quite!’

Mrs Pontypool sat down. ‘It needs heroism in the country,’ she explained, ‘to keep sight of anybody.’

‘Certainly. Crusading and without a car—’

‘Crusading, dear Mrs Barrow! Yet how did one’s ancestors get along?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Barrow said. ‘It’s so rare, isn’t it, nowadays, to find anybody who had a grandmother.’

‘In the times I mean,’ Mrs Pontypool said, undismayed, ‘women went for miles in a sedan-chair, and crossed continents in their tilburies, and in their britschkas, and in their cabriolets!’

‘Heroic!’

‘Less heroic, surely, than those women one sometimes sees who fasten their bath-chairs to their lovers’ auto-bicycles.’

‘And where have you been – if it isn’t indiscreet …?’

‘We’ve been spending a few hours at Castle Barbarous.’

‘I heard Lord Brassknocker is going to open his pictures to the public,’ Mrs Shamefoot said. ‘He has, of course, a very fine Ruisdael, an attractive Sisley and a charming Crome, but really, the rest of the collection is only fit for the Sacristy scene in
Manon
.’

‘A Last Supper at
two tables
,’ Mrs Pontypool said confidentially, ‘struck one as – scarcely—’

‘Not if it was Veronese.’

‘It was Rubens.’

‘The busiest man who ever lived most certainly was Rubens!!’

‘Was it a party?’ Mrs Barrow asked, less from curiosity than because she would be glad to have something to say to Sartorious during dinner.

Oh, the trial of those dreary dinners at Dawn … What wonder was it that Mrs Barrow should sometimes become peevish or invent things that were untrue, or in her extremity, hear the Raven’s croak? Had she been neurasthenic she would have probably sometimes screamed at the sight of her Lord enjoying an artichoke, slowly, leaf by leaf.

‘Was it a party?’ Mrs Barrow asked again.

‘Only old Mr James and little Mrs Kilmurry,’ Mrs Pontypool replied. ‘Such a strange old man, who strolled once with the Tennisons in the Cascine in Florence.’

There was a pause – just long enough for an angel to pass, flying slowly.

‘Was Lord Susan there?’ Mrs Barrow inquired.

‘He very seldom is,’ Miss Pontypool said.

‘Unfortunate young man,’ Mrs Pontypool exclaimed, playing with the tails of her stole; ‘perpetually he’s on the verge of … and, although I’m told he’s gun-shy, in my opinion … and I would willingly have sent a wreath … only where’s the use in sending one the day afterwards?’

‘But you’ve heard nothing?’

‘No … Naturally the Brassknockers don’t care to talk of it before they’re quite obliged; but Lady Brassknocker did
strike me as being so unusually distrait. Didn’t you think so, Queenie?’

‘I really didn’t notice,’ Miss Pontypool said. ‘Where’s Goosey?’

‘To be sure! I thought if Lord Brassknocker could only see the boy he might take a fancy to him,’ Mrs Pontypool said.

‘Really, in what way?’ Mrs Barrow wondered.

‘Who can tell? Lord Brassknocker’s a very important man.’

‘He is a very rich one.’

‘Poor child! What is one to do with him? In any other age, of course, he could have ambled along in the retinue of some great lady.’

‘Oh, be thankful,’ Mrs Barrow began.

‘As it is, with a little influence, he’s hoping to get into some garage.’

‘Poor young man,’ Mrs Shamefoot said, with sympathy, ‘such a bending life!’

By the time the train reached Totterdown Mrs Barrow congratulated herself that she would be artichoke-proof now, positively, for nearly a week.

In the railway carriage, Mrs Shamefoot was sufficiently fortunate, too, to secure the seat opposite to herself for a magnificent image of the god Ptah.

The terrific immobility of Egyptian things enchanted her, especially on escapades of this sort.

Often the god had aroused her friendliest feelings by saving her from the strain of answering questions, or expressing hopes, or guessing whether the carriage would be there to meet them, or whether it would not, or from the alternative miseries of migraine brought on by feigning to read, for, as Mrs Shamefoot was aware, she might be called upon to remove a dressing-case, but how seldom did it occur to anyone to deplace a god.

But Mrs Pontypool was not to be suppressed.

‘I once met a Mrs Asp,’ she said, ‘who was writing the life of Hepshepset, wife and sister of Thothmes II, who, on becoming a widow, invented a hairwash and dressed as a man.’

The beautiful summer’s day had crumbled to dusk as the
twin towers of the Cathedral and the short spire (which was, perhaps, an infelicity), came into view.

How desolate it appeared across the fields of wan white clover, now that the sun had gone! Saint Apollinaris
in Classe
never looked more alone.

‘Ashringford is quite a healthy place, isn’t it?’ Mrs Shamefoot inquired anxiously, turning towards Mrs Barrow.

Mrs Barrow opened her eyes.

‘One wouldn’t care to say so,’ she replied, ‘there’s usually a good deal of sickness about;
of a kind
.’

‘I consider it a regular doctor’s town!’ Mrs Pontypool exclaimed; ‘the funeral horses are always on the go.’

Miss Pontypool looked humane.

‘Poor animals!’ she said.

‘You see the Ashringford houses are so old,’ Goosey explained, ‘and so stuffy, and the windows are so small. It’s as if the Ashringford people had made them themselves by poking a finger through the brick.’

‘Which makes us all delicate, of course, and the climate doubly treacherous,’ Mrs Pontypool said. ‘Although at one time I fancy it used not to be so bad. I date the change to Bishop Henedge. He was so High Church. His views were so extremely high! Quite unintentionally, perhaps, he attracted towards us the uncertain climate of Rome. I should advise anyone visiting Ashringford for the first time to do precisely as they would there.’

‘And what is that?’ Mrs Shamefoot demanded, doubtfully.

‘To wear an extra flannel petticoat.’

Much to Mrs Barrow’s disappointment, there was no Sartorious to meet the train; only a footman – Lady Georgia’s chauffeur attended to Mrs Shamefoot and her maid.

‘I wonder she keeps him,’ Mrs Barrow observed, as she climbed into her brougham. ‘From the marks on his cheek he looks as if he had been in more than one break up.’

‘My regards to Lady Georgia,’ Goosey called after Mrs Shamefoot to say.

‘My dear, at nineteen has one regards?’ Mrs Pontypool said. ‘Silly affected boy!’

Mrs Shamefoot was glad to be alone. How wonderful it was to breathe the evening air. As she sped towards Stockingham over a darkening plain, patched with clumps of heavy hyacinthine trees, almost she could catch the peculiar aroma of the Cathedral.

‘As indefinable as piety!’ she exclaimed, drawing on her glove.

Lady Anne Pantry was sitting in the china-cupboard, a room fitted with long glass shelves, on which her fabled Dresden figures, monkey musicians, and sphinx marquises, made perfect blots of colour against the gold woodwork of the walls.

Heedless of her sister-in-law, she was reading her morning letters whilst massaging her nose.

‘Such a dull post, Anne,’ that person exclaimed, lifting up an incomparable, tearful, spiritual and intellectual face from the perusal of a circular.

‘Mine is not,’ said Lady Anne.

‘Indeed?’

Lady Anne rustled her skirt.

‘… Mrs Henedge,’ she said, ‘it appears, has quite gone over to Rome.’

‘But is it settled?’

‘Since she’s to build in our midst a bijou church for Monsignor Parr … Such scenes, I expect, there’ll be.’

‘Certainly. If it’s to be another Gothic fake.’

‘And Lady Georgia asks if she may lunch here to-morrow and bring a Mrs Shamefoot. Mysteries with the Bishop. And there’s been
almost
a murder at the workhouse again.’

‘How very disgraceful.’

‘And the Twyfords are coming – at least some of them. Less tiresome, perhaps, than if they all came at once.’

‘I love her postscripts—’

‘To-day there isn’t one. And that brocade, you remember, I liked, is seventy shillings a yard.’

‘Too dear.’

‘And I said
a spot
, Aurelia; I did not say a
cart wheel
…’ Lady Anne murmured, getting up to display her wares.

Lady Anne had turned all her troubles to beauty, and at forty-five she had an interesting face. She was short and robust, with calm, strong features, and in the evening she sometimes suggested Phèdre. Her voice was charming, full of warmth and colour, and although she did not sing, it might be said of her that she was a mute soprano.

Aurelia Pantry extended a forlorn and ravishing hand.

‘Aren’t they fools?’ she exclaimed, spreading out the materials before her.

She spoke habitually rather absently, as though she were placing the last brick to some gorgeous castle in the air.

It was the custom at the Palace that the Bishop’s eleven sisters should spend a month in rotation there each year.

Aurelia, who was the most popular (being the least majestical, the least like Eleanor) corresponded, as a rule, to August and September.

Of the Bishop’s eleven sisters, indeed, she was the only one that Lady Anne could endure.

Eleanor, Ambrosia, Hypolita, Virginia, Prudence, Lettuice, Chrissy, Patsy, Gussy and Grace were all shocking, hopeless and dreadful, according to Lady Anne.

But Aurelia, who was just a little a mystic, added a finish, a distinction to the Palace; especially got up in muslin, when, like some sinuous spirit, she could appear so ethereal as to be almost a flame.

‘I think, of course, it’s perfect,’ Miss Pantry said, holding her head aslant
like smoke in the wind
, as she considered the stuff, ‘but the design limits it.’

‘I should call it hardly modest myself.’

‘There’s something always so inconsecutive, isn’t there, about a spot?’

‘But a spot, Aurelia; in theory, what
could
be quieter?’

‘Nothing, dear,’ Miss Pantry said.

‘And yet,’ Lady Anne murmured, ‘when one’s fastening one’s mind on one’s prayers, one requires a little something.’

‘I cannot see why it should be easier to sink into a brown study by staring at a splash.’

‘Often, I think it helps.’

‘Of course you may be right.’

‘Shall we take it down into the Cathedral, Anne, and try?’

‘This morning I’ve so many things to do. There’s always one’s small share of mischief going on.’

‘I would never take part in the parish broils if ever I could avoid it.’

‘I cannot be so impersonal, I’m afraid.’

‘But surely a little neutral sympathy—’

‘To be sympathetic without discrimination is so very debilitating.’

‘Do you never feel tired?’

‘Oh, yes, sometimes.’

‘I adore the country,’ Aurelia said, ‘but I should die of weariness if I stayed here long.’

‘No, really, I like Ashringford. I abuse it, of course, just as I do dear Walter, or anybody whom I see every day … but really I’m fond of the place.’

‘That’s quite reasonable.’

‘And if sometimes I’m a wreck,’ Lady Anne explained, ‘I look forward to my St Martin’s summer later on.’

‘But Canterbury’s so dreadful. It’s such a groove.’

‘The proximity of our English Channel would be a joy.’

‘It’s only seldom you’d get a whiff of the sea.’

Lady Anne’s eyes skimmed her lawn.

A conventional bird or two – a dull thrush, a glossy crow – cowering for worms; what else had she, or anyone else, the right to expect? Sun, wind and quivering leaves made a carpet of moving shadows.

‘It’s with Stockingham,’ she said, ‘at present, that I’ve a bone. I shall scold Lady Georgia when she comes. To tell a curate his profile is suggestive of Savonarola is so like her. But it’s really a mistake. It makes a man a firebrand, even when he’s not. He gets rude and makes pointed remarks, and offends everybody. And I have to sit at home to talk to him.’

Aurelia looked interested.

‘Probably a creature with a whole gruesome family?’ she indirectly inquired.

‘Unhappily he’s only just left Oxford.’

‘Ah, handsome then, I hope.’

‘On the contrary, he’s like one of those cherubs one sees on eighteenth-century fonts with their mouths stuffed with cake.’

‘Not really?’

‘
And he wears glasses.
’