B007TB5SP0 EBOK (30 page)

‘For my journey,’ Miss O’Brookomore said, with a glance of concern, ‘I shall take with me only what is most serviceable and neat, and absolutely austere.’

‘My dear, you will allow me, I hope, to know as much about travelling as you do. I expect I have been abroad as many times as you have.’

‘Rumours, no doubt, have reached you of my present choice?’

Mrs Asp became faintly asthmatic.

‘How hugely, purely, curiously and
entirely
reckless one’s disciples are …’

‘Naturally, I shall suggest poor Kitty’s cynicisms with fairy lightness … in fact—’

‘To me,’ Mrs Asp said, ‘Mrs Kettler has always made her appeal … And when you’re in Athens you should go to Tanagra – not that there’s very much there to see.’

Miss O’Brookomore held up an arm.

‘If I’m late at all,’ she observed, ‘I shall miss Miss Collins … or keep her waiting, perhaps, about the street. One can hardly credit it, but she has never been away from home before!’

‘Well, even when I was still seventeen I would take my skipping-rope into the Park …’

‘I should like to have seen you.’

‘We have a wee box in the third tier at the opera for to-night if you would care to come!’

‘This evening we are going to the Dream Theatre, and can’t … Besides, I’ve an aversion for Covent Garden, I fear. One sits in a blaze of light, looking eighty, or ninety, or a hundred – as the case may be.’

Mrs Asp nodded.

‘I shall expect to hear from you,’ she said, ‘at any rate, quite soon. An Athenian husband for you both … a villa each in Thrace … I could wish for nothing more! And now, as the
Oratory is so near, I feel tempted almost to run in. Although, as a rule, I never care to go to Confession in anything that’s
tight
.’

And there, in front of Harrods, teasing a leashed dog with a requirements-list, stood Miss Collins.

‘Let us make haste,’ Miss O’Brookomore said, saluting her somewhat nervously, ‘to do our shopping. And afterwards, just to break the ice, I intend to take you to an Oriental restaurant in Soho …’

‘It’s funny,’ Miss Collins said, ‘but even the most trivial things amuse me now I’m away from home!’

‘Your strong
joie de vivre
,’ Miss O’Brookomore informed her, ‘your youthfulness, already have done me good.’

‘Tell me whom you see.’

‘Hardly one’s ideal. On the couch, half asleep, are Guarini and Ozinda. Pirouetting round them, making their survey, is Lord Horn and the Misses Cornhill, and on the dais there’s January, Duchess of Dublin, and her Doxy.’

‘Which is Doxy?’

‘In tears. At galleries she’s quite dreadful. She will begin to weep almost for the Spinario’s “poor foot”.’

‘Once while beagling, accidentally—’

There came a murmur of voices.

‘… terrifying nightmare women.’

‘… One of his wild oats.’

‘… fascinating, fiendish colours.’

‘It’s unmistakably
his
.’

‘Pish!’

‘Take me away!’

‘And behind us,’ Miss O’Brookomore chimed in, ‘Lady Betty Benson is being escorted by a tenth son and a real murderer, and in ambush by the door, chatting to Miss Neffal’s fiancé, is Mrs Elstree, the actress.’

‘O-o-o-o-h!’

‘You have the catalogue.’

‘What should you say it was?’

‘Dear old Mr Winthrop! He’s so vague always – “Sunrise
India”. And I know for a fact it was painted in his street. Those trees are in Portman Square.’

‘Is not that Miss O’Brookomore? We heard that you had gone.’

Miss O’Brookomore turned slightly.

‘We are in Ospovat’s hands,’ she murmured, ‘still.’

‘Have you chosen yet your route?’

‘We go from Marseilles to the Piraeus, and from there we take the tram.’

‘O-o-o-o-h!’

‘You have the catalogue.’

‘… know Mr Hicky?’ Mrs Elstree was beginning to scream. ‘Why, when I was playing in the
Widow of Wells
I died in his arms every night for over a year.’

‘Hugh, where’s Viola?’

‘I’m afraid I must decline to tell you.’

‘Indeed! …’

‘I left her burning
Zampironi
before a Guardi and invoking Venice.’

‘Anything later than the eighteenth century I know how she dislikes.’

Mrs Elstree addressed the Historian.

‘Daring one,’ she murmured, ‘I admire you more than you’re aware of! You’re simply never trite.’

‘You mean my Mrs Kitty? …’

‘And even should you not discover much, failure makes one subtler!’

‘All I hope to get’s a little glamour.’

‘Once – did I ever tell you? – I rented a house in Lower Thames Street, where the Oyster Merchants are.’

Miss O’Brookomore closed her eyes.

‘When I was quite a child,’ she said, ‘I did not care for sweets … but I liked Oysters. Bring me Oysters, I would say. I want Oysters.’

‘Poet.’

Miss Collins folded herself together as though for a game of hide-and-seek.

‘Really, Mabel! Noting you with dismay is Mrs Felicity Carrot of
Style
.’

‘A reporter!’

‘One should be the spectator of oneself always, dear, a little.’

‘Don’t move – I am not sure but I see my aunt!’

‘Your aunt?’

‘Mrs Hamilton-of-Hole.’

‘… My husband’s horizons are solely political ones,’ Mrs Hamilton was explaining as she elbowed by.

‘And there is Mr Winthrop, whose landscape—’

Mrs Elstree moved away.

‘Ozinda has fallen sound asleep in Guarini’s arms! …’

There came a confusion of voices.

‘Babes-in-the-Wood.’

‘We think of crossing over to witness the autumn at Versailles.’

‘… goes to auctions.’

‘The slim, crouching figure of the Magdalen is me.’

‘Those break-neck brilliant purples.’

‘Pish!’

‘A scarlet song.’

‘ “Order what you please from Tanguay,” he said – “a tiara, what you please.” ’

‘—You’d think they’d been set by Boehmer!’

‘O-o-o-h!’

‘You have the catalogue.’

‘Mrs Elstree took it with her.’

‘Let us all cling together!’

Miss O’Brookomore blinked her eyes.

‘Is it a station?’

‘To-morrow,’ Miss Collins announced from behind her chronicle, ignoring the sleep-murmurings of the Historian’s maid, ‘six Cornish girls are to dance at the Lune Grise. What a pity to have missed them. Although I believe I mind more about Mona. When she discovers I’ve been in Paris without even trying to find her—’

‘Who is that, dear?’

‘Napier’s sister – Mr Fairmile’s. Oh, Gerald!’

‘What is it?’

‘Mr Fairmile and I once … Yes, dear! We’re engaged … And when he said good-bye he didn’t kiss me. He just crushed me to his heart …’

‘Crushed you?’

‘My frock a little. One of Miss Johnson’s jokes.’

‘That white one?’

‘Of course Mona I’ve known always. She’s just a dear. Tall, with a tiny head. And such beautiful mystic hands … She and I were at school together.’

‘I didn’t know you had ever been at school.’

‘… a Term. She was quite my bosom-chum at York Hill. Once we exchanged a few drops of each other’s blood. Oh, Gerald!’

‘Really!’

‘It was on a certain Sunday in June.’

Miss O’Brookomore dropped the fireproof curtain across her eyes. She glazed them.

‘I think I shall tuck up my feet,’ she said, ‘and lie down.’

‘Just as there’s a sunset coming on?’

‘I’m tired. My head aches. My mind has been going incessantly all day …’

Miss Collins showed her sympathy.

‘Reading in the train would upset anyone,’ she observed. ‘I’m sure it would me.’

‘I was renewing my acquaintance with the classics.’

‘Before I came away mum made me get by heart a passage from
The Queen of Tartary
to recite to you the instant we landed, as a surprise. You know the great tirade! The Queen has taken the poison and leaves the Marquee on her confidante’s arm. Inside, the banquet is in full swing. Now and again you can hear their hearty laughter … Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha! And the Queen turns to Melissa – and mum declares she shall never forget the impression Madam Dolce Naldi made as the Queen, although Miss Faucet, as Melissa, was exquisite in her fragility as a foil – and says: “My hands are cold. It’s as if my eyelids had weights upon them … I hear a singing in my ears. I feel,” etc. And so on through the greater part of the medical dictionary.’

‘It’s curious your mother did not select the triumphal speech. Act II, Scene 3: “Everybody crowded round me, …” ’ Miss O’Brookomore remarked.

‘I don’t know. The only books I care for are those about Farms.’

‘My dear, when one speaks of Farms one forgets the animals. Little piggy-wiggs …’

‘I don’t think that
that
would matter.’

‘Perhaps some day, when you marry a country squire, you will have a farm of your own.’

‘It isn’t likely. Before leaving town I consulted a clairvoyant. There are indications, she said, that something
very disgraceful
will come about between January and July.’

‘Oh, Mabel!’

Miss Collins reached towards a bag of sweets.

‘In the crystal she could see mum reading my letters … she could see her, she said, on all fours hunting about …’

‘Your poor mother.’

‘What’s the good of grieving?’

‘Mab dear, you’re always nibbling!’

‘To beguile the time.’

‘But so bad for you.’

‘Beware of a dazzlingly fair man, the woman said. Beware of him. And in the end, after many petty obstructions, which you will overcome, she said, you’ll marry a raven!’

Miss O’Brookomore became attentive to the scenery.

To watch the trees slip past in the dusk was entrancing quite. In a meadow a shepherdess with one white wether stood up and waved her crook.

‘Poor Palmer seems completely worn out.’

The maid stirred slightly at her name.

‘When Greek meets Greek, miss,’ she asked informingly, ‘can you tell me what they’re supposed to do?’

‘Since we’re all English,’ Miss O’Brookomore replied, ‘I don’t think it matters …’

Miss Collins covered her face with a soiled
suède
glove.

‘Another tunnel!’

‘You should really rest, Mab. You’ll arrive so tired.’

‘I’m that already. But I won’t lean back – for fear of contracting something … infectious.’

‘Some day, dear, I may arrange your sayings in a wreath …’

‘Our coachman once—’

‘No, please – I’m altogether incurious.’

‘Although, even bolt upright, dear, I can sleep as easily as a
prima donna
upon a dais! Nothing wakes me.’

Palmer raised an eye towards the waning moon.

‘The evenings,’ she remarked, ‘turn quite bleak. Had I known, I’d not have come away without my bit of fur.’

‘And then we almost ran. Anybody would have said our husbands were behind … And perhaps they pitied us. But Miss O’Brookomore’s so unpunctual always; it’s a marvel we ever catch a train.’

He waved a hand.

‘Those talents! That gift! Her mind!’

‘At Marseilles we even missed the boat. Otherwise, very likely, we would have never met.’

‘M-a-b-e-l,’ Miss O’Brookomore called.

Miss Collins turned.

‘Do you need me, dear?’

‘Who is your handsome friend?’

‘He’s … Oh, Gerald!’

‘Where did you pick him up?’

‘He began by speaking of the tedium of water for a sailor, and then—’

‘I see!’

‘Oh, Gerald, it’s Count Pastorelli …’

Miss O’Brookomore leaned back a little in her deck-chair.

‘Take my word for it,’ she said, ‘he’s not so pastoral as he sounds.’

‘And there’s another!’

‘You mean—?’

‘A porpoise!’

Miss O’Brookomore crossed herself.

‘I always do,’ she said, ‘when anyone points.’

‘Shall we take a little prowl?’

‘Voluntarily.’

‘There’s a person on board, someone perhaps should speak to her, who sits all day staring at the sea beneath a very vivid violet veil. And when the waves break over her she never even moves …’

The Biographer watched sagaciously the sun touch the dark water into slow diamonds.

‘One should blur,’ she observed, ‘the agony.’

Miss Collins became evidently intellectual.

‘Which would you prefer,’ she inquired, ‘a wedding or a funeral out at sea?’

‘I’d prefer there was no unpacking.’

‘For the one emergency I’ve enough, of course, of white … and for the other, I dare say I could lean from the ship-side in a silver hat crowned with black Scotch roses.’

‘Were it mine, I’d give that hat to Palmer.’

‘Poor thing, every time the ship rolls she seems to hear something say:
The captain – his telescope
.’

‘She will see the land very soon now with her naked eye.’

Miss Collins slipped an arm about her friend.

‘I look forward first to eleven o’clock,’ she said, ‘when the ship-boy goes round with bananas.’

‘Tell me, at Bovonorsip does every one speak so loud?’

Miss Collins clicked her tongue.

‘Shall we go down upon the lower-deck, Gerald, and look through the cabin windows? There’s the Negress you called a
Gaugin
… All alone in her cabin it would be interesting to see what she does …’

‘Somehow I’d sooner save that poor veiled thing from getting wet.’

But that ‘poor veiled thing’ was enjoying herself, it appeared.

‘… I don’t object to it, really,’ she said. ‘I rather like the sea! … I’m Miss Arne. Mary Arne – the actress. Some people call me their Mary Ann, others think of me as Marianne.’

‘The tragedienne.’

‘Comedy is my province. I often say I’m the only Lady Teazle!’

‘Then of course you’ve met Lizzie Elstree?’

‘… I can recall her running about the green-room of the Garden Theatre in I should be afraid to say quite what …’

‘Well, I always hate to hustle.’

Miss Collins nodded.

‘There’s the Count,’ she exclaimed. ‘He will keep bumping into me.’

‘I wonder who he can be.’

‘I believe he’s a briefless barrister.’