B007TB5SP0 EBOK (40 page)

‘I was only wondering—’

Mrs Collins raised a hand.

‘Hark!’

‘O-o-o-o-o-o-h!’

‘It’s her ladyship’s cry.’

‘You’d think Great Pan was dead again – at least.’

‘Very likely it’s her husband’s handwriting that affects her,’ Daisy said. ‘Or it may be only a parcel! She’s expecting, on approval, I know, some fancy-work pyjamas.’

‘O-o-o-o-o-o-h!’

‘Breakfast!’ Mrs Collins carolled.

‘He’s coming. He’ll be here to-day,’ the Countess announced, elated. ‘Oio will!’

‘Positively?’

‘So he says. Oh … And in the night I was dreaming so vividly of a runaway hearse … As it galloped by me one of the mourners gave me
such
a look. I can see it now.’

‘Was it anybody, Mabsey?’

‘How anybody?’

‘Likely to suit me.’

‘A husband!’

‘Mabsey!’

‘It was a young woman … Poor soul!’ the Countess replied.

‘What does he say?’

‘I’ll read you out some of his letter. But it isn’t all for you.’

‘Is it in Italian, Mabel?’

‘It’s half and half.’

‘Well?’

‘ “My dear dearly,” he begins – he always calls me
dearly
! – “My own, own, little wife. My Mabina—” And then he simply says he’s coming. “
Spero di venire Sabato verso la sera
…” And he sends his filial love, with a kiss, to the English mother – à la mamma Inglese …’

‘Ah?’

‘Yes … And he intends to take her back with him to Italy, where he has prepared for her benefit a violet and rose salotto …’

‘Bless the boy!’

‘And then there’s a piece of scandal. Oh, good gracious! … He says poor Citta Zocchia isn’t to wait on the Queen any more! She’s done it
this
time … And Dona Formosa de Bergère is to be married in Naples –
Naples
! Oh! Mercy! – to a certain Signor Popi! …’

‘At what o’clock will he be here?’

‘
Verso la sera!
’

‘What time would that be?’

‘Towards night.’

‘How vague these husbands are.’

‘He’ll be here for dinner, I dare say,’ Daisy said.

‘We must try to consult his tastes.’

‘Simple, nourishing things,’ the Countess said, ‘he likes. He has a passion for curry.’

Mrs Collins concealed her anxiety.

‘In Rome, for example, Mab,’ she asked, ‘what do they have when they dine?’

‘It depends.’

‘Besides curry …’

‘Oh, well, perhaps some little round, pink, sweet potatoes they’ll have, and some plain stewed rice. Or, again, very likely it’ll be a piece of cold pickled pork. With olive oil and onions … Whatever’s seasonable they’ll have … And on Friday, of course, it’s
fish
.’

‘You’ll need to tell all this presently to Mrs Prixon,’ Mrs Collins said. ‘And don’t forget one thing … You’ve to replace that Mrs Occles.’

The Countess sighed.

‘If I can’t be suited with a Bovon girl or a York young thing I shall have an ayah and get the baby used to things …’

Daisy raised a finger.

‘There’s her little howl!’

‘Poor mite. She can’t bear to be left alone with a strange Scotch woman. When Bianca takes an aversion! … She’s a peculiar child in many ways.’

‘Let me dress her to-day, Mabsey, may I – just for once?’

‘What ever for?’

‘Leave her to me. I’ll turn her out what’s what!’

‘Goodness!’

‘I’ve my secrets …’

‘I dare say.’

‘I can build her quite a presence …’

‘Mercy!’

‘With a proper projection you wouldn’t know the child.’

‘I must fly to her.’

‘And do, dear, finish your toilet,’ Mrs Collins beseeched.

‘I trust her husband will confiscate all her trailing, bedraggled negligeys,’ Mr Collins said. ‘Slovenly, nasty things!’

Daisy rippled.

‘I wouldn’t build upon it,’ she replied. ‘Her husband often doesn’t get up himself in the morning at all.’

‘Not?’

‘He lies a-bed until all hours. He’s a regular sluggard. The shadows will be falling sometimes, she says, and daylight almost gone, and you’ll find him still between the sheets.’

‘Fortunately Madame La Chose will be routing us out of this before very long.’

‘Eh, Is-a-bel!’

Mrs Collins glowed.

‘And what heavenly happiness,’ she remarked ‘to have no housekeeping – ever any more!’

‘Let’s all dance to-night.’

‘My madcap fairy!’

‘Her husband dances quite wonderfully, she says.’

‘Who would there be to play?’

‘Victoria owns a concertina.’

‘That’s no good.’

‘And William has a banjo … According to him, the banjo is the king of instruments.’

‘Nonsense. I shouldn’t think it was.’

‘Oh! Mumsey! …’

‘We might perhaps call in the Bovon string quartet,’ Mrs Collins said. ‘Just for a serenade.’

‘Oh! what ever has happened to Niece?’

‘If she’s peevish, poor mite,’ the Countess said, returning, ‘it’s on account of the little mulligrubs …’

‘You can’t expect a child of her years to be reasonable,’ Mrs Collins commented. ‘It wouldn’t be natural.’

‘Let me have her,’ Daisy begged.

‘Don’t, Daisy!’

‘What the child likes best is a reel of cotton. She’ll play with that when she wouldn’t play with me …’

‘
Pucci! Pucci!
’ Mrs Collins ventured.

‘
Ecco la nonna! La buona cara nonna
… Ah,
santo Dio!
’

‘When I say
cui
to her, somehow she doesn’t seem to like it!’

Daisy wagged her tongue.

‘Lat-lat!’

‘How can you be so gross!’

‘Let me lull her. Shall I?’

‘She’s never quiet for you.’

‘Wait till she hears the story of Blowzalinda and the Fairy Bee.’

‘Oh, it’s beyond the child … She wouldn’t know. Buz-z-z!’

‘Isabel!’

‘Yes, dear?’

‘Cook requires her orders.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Behind the screen.’

‘Help me, Mabel,’ Mrs Collins said.

‘
Gigi! Ribu!
Oh, the clim pickle!’

‘Give her to me, Mabsey.’

‘Yum. Yum.’

‘Give her to me.’

‘She lifts her little hand up to her little nose and then she presses it.’

‘It’s one of her little sarcasms, I expect.’

‘She finds the world
so
weird.’

‘Still it’s good to know she has such an aunt. A good aunt, she says, is an untold blessing.’

‘Help me!’ Mrs Collins implored.

‘How?’

‘Curry – and then? …’

The Countess turned her head.

‘He can’t endure a rabbit,’ she remarked.

‘My dear, no one proposes it!’

‘Once the child and I were driving on the Via Appia Nuova when we saw a bunny peeping out of a tomb. Oh, such a darling! So I stopped the carriage and told Luigi, the footman, to run and dispatch it if he possibly could. He brought it back to me … And a few hours afterwards it was bubbling away into a fine chicken broth. Oio had it all … But hardly had it
passed his lips when he was seized with the most violent spasms. Whereupon he turned round and accused me of attempting to do what certain Renaissance wives are supposed to have sometimes done. Oh! He was so cross. He was as cross as cross … So don’t let’s have rabbit.’

‘Polpettino, perhaps?’

‘In olive oil; garnished “Mussolini-wise”.’

‘And then?’

‘Oh, then, what he really adores, what he simply can’t resist, is a fritter.’

‘Cheese?’

‘Any kind. And he loves a savoury! Zuccata, he likes. Zuccata, Zuccatini … And he’s fond of a soufflé too, so long as it isn’t
led
.’

‘Not to anticipate, my dear …’

‘Then—’

‘Olive oil!’

‘And then—’

‘Then,’ Mrs Collins’ voice rose as if inspired, ‘then Côtelettes – à la Milanaise …’

TO

STEPHEN HAMMERTON

.

–
Sappho
.

The clangour of bells grew insistent. In uncontrollable hilarity pealed S. Mary, contrasting clearly with the subdued carillon of S. Mark. From all sides, seldom in unison, resounded bells. S. Elizabeth and S. Sebastian, in Flower Street, seemed in loud dispute, while S. Ann ‘on the Hill’, all hollow, cracked, consumptive, fretful, did nothing but complain. Near by S. Nicaise, half paralysed and impotent, feebly shook. Then, triumphant, in a hurricane of sound, S. Irene hushed them all.

It was Sunday again.

Up and up, and still up, the winding ways of the city the straggling townsfolk toiled.

Now and again a pilgrim perhaps would pause in the narrow lane behind the Deanery to rest.

Opening a black lacquer fan and setting the window of her bedroom wide, Miss Sarah Sinquier peered out.

The lane, very frequently, would prove interesting of an afternoon.

Across it, the Cathedral rose up before her with wizardry against the evening sky.

Miss Sinquier raised her eyes towards the twin grey spires, threw up her arms, and yawned.

From a pinnacle a devil with limbs entwined about some struggling crowned-coiffed prey grimaced.

‘For I yearn for those kisses you gave me once

On the steps by Bakerloo!’

Miss Sinquier crooned caressingly, craning further out.

Under the little old lime trees by the Cathedral door lounged Lady Caroline Dempsey’s Catholic footman.

Miss Sinquier considered him.

In her mind’s eye she saw the impression her own conversion would make in the parochial world.

‘Canon Sinquier’s only daughter has gone over to Rome …’ Or, ‘Canon Sinquier’s daughter has taken the veil.’ Or, ‘Miss Sinquier, having suffered untold persecution at the hands of her family, has been received into the Convent of the Holy Dove.’

Her eyes strayed leisurely from the powdered head and weeping shoulder-knots of Lady Caroline Dempsey’s Catholic footman. The lack of movement was oppressive.

Why was not Miss Worrall in her customary collapse being borne senseless to her Gate in the Sacristan’s arms? And why to-night were they not chaunting the Psalms?

Darting out her tongue, Miss Sinquier withdrew her head and resumed her book.

‘Pouf!’

She shook her fan.

The room would soon be dark.

From the grey-toned walls, scriptural, a
Sasso Sassi
frowned.

‘In all these fruitful years,’ she read, ‘the only time he is recorded to have smiled was when a great rat ran in and out among some statues …
He
was the Ideal Hamlet. Morose of countenance, and cynical by nature, his outbursts, at times, would completely freeze the company.’

Miss Sinquier passed her finger-tips lightly across her hair.

‘Somehow it makes no difference,’ she murmured, turning towards a glass. To feign Ophelia – no matter what!

She pulled about her a lace Manilla shawl.

It was as though it were Andalusia whenever she wrapped it on.

‘
Doña Rosarda!
’

‘
Fernan Perez? What do you want?
’

‘
Ravishing Rosarda, I need you.
’

‘
I am the wife of Don José Cuchillo – the Moor
.’

‘
Doña Rosarda Castilda Cuchillo, I love you
.’

‘
Sh—! My husband will be back directly
.’

Stretched at ease before a pier-glass, Miss Sinquier grew enthralled.

An hour sped by.

The room was almost dark.

Don José would wish his revenge.

‘
Rosarda
.’

‘
Fernando?
’

‘
Ah-h!
’

Miss Sinquier got up.

She must compose herself for dinner – wash off the blood.

Poor Fernan!

She glanced about her, a trifle Spanish still.

From a clothes-peg something hanging seemed to implore.

‘To see me? Why, bless you. Yes!’

With an impetuous, pretty gesture she flung it upon a couch.

‘How do I like America?’

‘I adore it … You see … I’ve lost my heart here—! Tell them so – oh! especially to the men … Whereabouts was I born? In Westmorland; yes.
In England, Sir!
Inquisitive? Why not at all. I was born in the sleepy peaceful town of Applethorp (three p’s), in the inmost heart – right in the very middle,’ Miss Sinquier murmured, tucking a few wild flowers under her chin, ‘of the
Close
.’